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A lot of the talk around consent makes it seem simple, easy, or straightforward. Here I talk about some reasons why it can actually be more complicated.
I talk about situations where people say "yes" but mean "no", and explain how many factors feed into this happening, including socialization and conditioning in the educational system and society at large, that teaches people to be obedient and have a hard time saying no, and in many cases, that makes it hard for people to even be in touch with what they actually want.
In the moment, the reading of cues, including both verbal and nonverbal communication, can be affected by neurodiversity (including autism, anxiety disorders, and other conditions that affect how people communicate) and cultural differences.
Direct, unambiguous communication is always the gold standard of consent, and I think it's still important to seek this out.
But I think that focusing on this alone is inadequate to address all the problems when it comes to consent in sexual situations: as a society, we also need to focus on teaching people how to say no, and that it's okay to say no to begin with. We also need to help people to get in touch with what they want, and teach them to express or assert boundaries. And lastly, we need to raise awareness about diversities in communication so that people don't end up making false assumptions that everyone communicates (or reads people) the same way we do.