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Originally posted at New Matilda

We all had to get out of the house recently because we had no floor in the kitchen. The builder overheard me asking my daughter who else would be at the sleepover she was going to attend to escape the renos. “Have you told her all boys are animals yet? Animals. All of them. Believe me, I know. They’ll say anything to get the desired result. You need to tell her.” But what to tell her? That men are animals? What could I say then? Never indicate interest unless you’re prepared to mate?

We are not seasonally sexual animals, and No means No whenever we say it and for whatever reason. Any other interpretation of consent makes room for condoned assault. Still, I wonder whether somewhere in the rush to define consent in the area of sex, have we lost touch with our humanity?

We use language drawn from the animal world particularly to describe those incidents of sexual assault that involve groups of men and a single woman. Women who are assaulted or have consensual sex with footballers are “strays” while the men are described as “packing up”. We like to maintain the fiction that we can protect ourselves, our friends and our children by not doing what the “strays” do.

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