A couple years ago I was getting a deep tissue massage, and the therapist was really pressing deep into some leg muscles. I was in agony, and was using all my willpower and all my "mindfulness" skills to force the muscles to relax rather than tense up to protect me from the pain. And then a little twitch got past my mental defenses, and my therapist realized she'd been working too deep and "reminded" me that I could always let her know to adjust the pressure!

I was face down at this point, and it was early COVID days so I was masked, and I started silently sobbing into my mask. Every massage therapist I've ever seen has always said I could let them know to go deeper or lighter in pressure, so clearly some part of me was aware that this was an option. But the grief I was feeling was for how it still never occurred to me to say anything. Pain was just something to be endured, and "good girls" endure it without even making a peep (much less asking for something to be different).

My mind flashed back to a string of early dental encounters. My teeth have always been very crowded, and as a kid we went to the local dental school at the University for low-cost dental care. I have so many memories of being in those chairs with my mouth wide open, being repeatedly and explicitly praised for "holding still" and "not complaining". My little self lapped up that explicit praise as a lighthouse in a world I found (and still find) confusing and illogical. But this--I knew exactly what they wanted and I could do it!

Back in my massage, my mind had no idea how to keep my body safe, and I was overwhelmed at how many years this had been true, and that even in this completely voluntary situation where I was there specifically to help with chronic pain, I still didn't feel like I could ask for anything. I felt like I had to "consent" to everything, which is not what consent means.

Consent means I could say "ouch". I could ask her to stop, or work with a lighter touch. I could say "no". These were new concepts to me. It wasn't that I just wasn't choosing to consent or not--it was that it never crossed my mind that I could say no. I lived in a state of all-encompassing lack of autonomy.

This experience was a very powerful turning point for me, when I started to be able to conceptualize consent in a really practical way.