Consent: Without it, sex is a crime.

What is consent?

Consent is an agreement between two people that they want to have sex. Consent should be addressed with clear, open, and honest communication.

Under Florida law, “Consent means intelligent, knowing, and voluntary consent and does not include coerced submission. “Consent” shall not be deemed or construed to mean the failure by the alleged victim to offer physical resistance to the offender.” — Florida Statute Title XLVI 794.011

Consent is enthusiastic, clear, and given in a safe environment.

Consent Must Be:
Given In a State of Awareness
  • Both partners need to be fully conscious and aware. If someone is drunk, passed out, or sick, he/she cannot consent.
  • Consent cannot be given if someone has been drugged, is asleep, or unconscious.
Free from Coercion
  • Both partners must be equally free to act. The decision to be sexually intimate must be without coercion, meaning one partner cannot “make” or force the other partner say yes. Both partners must have the option to choose to be intimate or not. Use of body size, weapons, or threats is coercion.
  • Threats, intimidation, and physical violence cannot be used to obtain consent. If someone says “yes” to sex after being threatened, this is not consent.
Revocable at any Time
  • Both partners should be free to change “yes” to “no” at any time. When a partner says stop, you have to stop.
  • Just because someone consents to oral sex doesn’t mean he or she consents to other kinds of sex.
Verbally Affirmative
  • Consent is not the absence of the word “no.” Consent is given affirmatively by saying “yes.”
  • An individual does not have to “fight back” in order to refuse consent.
Getting consent should not be difficult when two people truly wish to have sex.
If you are uncertain about whether consent has been given, it probably has not.
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