Mike Domitrz defines consent as giving someone a clear choice and respecting their answer. He breaks down the core elements: enthusiastic mutual agreement, no pressure or coercion, legal age, and mental clarity. The key mistake people make is assuming someone's desire without asking.
So what is this word consent that we're hearing all about nowadays? Good news is it's not complicated. It's very simple. I'm going to ask you 2 questions right now. I'd like you to answer both of these questions super loud, super loud, okay? So the answer to the first one is going to be yes or no, nice and easy. But I want you to answer them literally out loud so everybody in the room is going to hear each other answer this question. Question number 1, does every human being deserve a choice Before you ever do anything with their body sexually or intimately? Yes or no? Now, everybody probably yelled yes, or just about everybody yelled yes, and if you didn't yell it, you thought it. You're like, well, of course, of course somebody deserves a choice before you ever touch them sexually or intimately. Of course, no-brainer. That's question number 1. Question number 2, how do you normally give someone a choice? You simply ask them a— Question. That's consent. Consent is about giving another person a choice and respecting their answer at all times. That's consent. To make it even easier, I bet you never want an adult to try to do something with your body you don't want done to your body, right? You could just say, well, of course I don't want somebody trying to do something to my body I don't want done, Mike. That's common sense. Yes. Yes. So let's make sure we always treat others exactly the same, and that we treat ourselves the same way, knowing that we always have the right to have our boundaries respected just like others do. And you do that by making sure somebody's able to enthusiastically agree and want this to occur, that it's mutual, that both people want this to occur, no one's pressuring someone, nobody's trying to change someone's answer, and that everybody's of legal age to do this. Now this is super important because the age of everybody in this room, you need to find out what age you're actually able to legally give agreement for anybody to do anything with you sexually or intimately, because that's a law, and you can't do that till you are that age. Super important to know. You also need to be of sound mind. All people do, which means alcohol or drugs are not being used to try to get somebody to do something they wouldn't want to do when they were sober, where they knew what they were doing. Consent's not complicated. What's horrible is that some people aren't giving people the choice of consent. They're saying, well, I know what they want, so I'm just going to do it to them. Not okay. Look, if you knew what they wanted, why didn't you ask and let them say yes? Were you afraid they were going to say no? Or were you afraid they're not comfortable with what's happening? And if either of those are true, then it shouldn't be happening. If you can't talk about it, or they can't talk about it, It shouldn't be happening, and that's okay to know. I'm not in a rush. I'm not in a hurry, right, to honor each person's boundaries and timelines. That's today's discussion on consent.
