Consent with regard to kisses, cuddles and other sensual activities
I am kind of really weirded out by the fact that it is not common to ask permission first before kissing other people. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who explicitly obtains permission beforehand, whether by verbally asking or by otherwise making my intentions obvious enough so as to elicit a “yes” or “no” response.
I’m not sure if this is related to my being asexual and somewhat repulsed—since sex is not a thing in my primary relationship, sensual things like kisses get much more focus with regard to asking for consent. I also make statements like “You can do X if you want” where X is something I know the other person enjoys doing with my body.
So when I’m reading a fanfiction where a character suddenly and without-permission kisses another character, it makes me really uncomfortable. Because I would experience that as interrupting my thought process at best (I will completely forget about what I was thinking about and I won’t be able to recall it) and extremely threatening at worst.
Does this make any sense to anyone else, or am I just weird?
This makes perfect sense. Not asking seems a bit strange to me, to be honest. I know there’s talk of ‘The Look’ that’s supposed to signal that you want someone to kiss you, but it seems so open to misunderstandings.
