Consent is one of the most argued about concepts recently in modern culture. Somehow, it’s become harder to define even though we talk about it more openly now. We live in a time where a peck on the cheek can be interpreted as inappropriate, where a hug can be questioned, where a moment of awkwardness can be reframed years later as misconduct. At the same time, we are dealing with cases that are genuinely complex — situations involving power, grooming, manipulation, and blurred boundaries.
Think of Hugh Hefner and the decades of conflicting stories about life inside the Playboy mansion. Think of Virginia Giuffre, whose experience — along with her heartbreaking accounts and the shocking interviews that followed on Australian 60 Minutes, international media, and other major current‑affairs programs — exposed the profound trauma she carried and the despair that shaped her story, culminating in her tragic death by suicide. The "Me -Too" movement, propelled by Rose McGowan’s pioneering advocacy and strengthened by many other vocal individuals who refused to stay silent, forced the world to confront these realities. These stories show how trauma, grooming, and power can shape consent in ways most people don’t understand. They are not simple. They are not black‑and‑white. They reveal that consent isn’t just about saying “yes” or “no” — it’s about context, vulnerability, pressure, age, power, and the ability to make a free choice.
Yet, at the same time, consent has become so over‑policed and over‑interpreted that people are scared to touch each other at all. We have reached a point where normal human interaction is treated like a legal negotiation. Where people reinterpret past experiences through today’s lens. Where the meaning of consent shifts depending on who is telling the story, how much time has passed, and what cultural moment we are in. It’s messy. It’s inconsistent. Furthermore, it is often bloody unfair — both to survivors and to people who are accused.
This essay is not about defending anyone or condemning anyone. It’s about acknowledging that consent is complicated, that power distorts it, and that harm must never be tolerated — even in a world where the rules keep changing. Sex is one of the most natural acts in the world, yet somehow it has become one of the most complicated. We treat it as sacred, shameful, empowering, dangerous, transactional, traumatic, and liberating all at once. It is so strange when you think about it. Sex is as fundamental as breathing. No human being would exist without it.
The moment sex intersects with power, everything becomes distorted. People get hurt. People get manipulated. People get silenced. People get confused about what they wanted, what they agreed to, and into what they felt were pressured into. I have spent years thinking about this, not from a theoretical standpoint, but from lived experience. I have been coerced, violated and manipulated, and more importantly I think most of us have in varying degrees at some point in our lives. I have survived it. That survival shaped how I see the world, how I analyse human behaviour, and how I understand the messy intersection between sex, power, and accountability.
When I was in my twenties, not long after I moved to Melbourne, I had what most people would call the perfect setup. I had my own place in inner city beach suburb of St Kilda, I was independent, social, and finding my feet in a new city. One night at the Prince of Wales on Fitzroy Street, I met a guy. We exchanged numbers and he walked me home. It was casual, normal, the kind of thing that happens when you’re young and out in the world. A week or so later, he showed up at my place with a carton of Crown Lager and an invitation to come back to his place. I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t know he had a plan. I didn’t know he was deliberately getting me drunk to the point where I couldn’t consent. I didn’t know I was being manoeuvred into a situation where my ability to make decisions would be stripped away.
But that’s exactly what happened. I woke up the next morning beside him, disoriented, with torn briefs on the floor next to me — a new Calvin Klein pair, which annoyed me as much as the violation itself. I left, got on with my day, and was furious at myself for being so stupid. I felt violated. A boundary had been crossed. But I also did what I had learned to do: I put it on the list of things that happen in life, processed it, and moved forward. It wasn’t the first time something like that had happened, and it wouldn’t be the last. The lesson I took from it was simple: alcohol and predatory middle-aged men don’t mix.
That experience didn’t define me, but it shaped me. It taught me that coercion doesn’t always look like force. It taught me that manipulation can be subtle, disguised as friendliness, hospitality, or interest. It taught me that people can cross boundaries without ever raising their voice or laying a hand in anger. It taught me that harm can happen quietly, in the space between trust and vulnerability. It also taught me that the world does not care about fairness. It cares about power. That’s the part most people don’t understand. They think coercion is dramatic, violent, obvious. They think coercion comes with threats or physical force. But most coercion arrives disguised as opportunity, attention, validation, or desire. It comes from someone who seems charming, someone who seems safe, someone who appears to be offering you something. Most importantly whether you’re young, middle‑aged, or older — still figuring out who you are or navigating unfamiliar environments — you don’t always see the danger until it’s too late.
I have always been someone who analyses and processes things quickly. I don’t collapse into victimhood. I don’t rewrite history. I don’t pretend I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t deny my own agency. I have made choices — some good, some bad and some bat shit crazy of epic proportions— and I own them. But owning your choices does not mean denying harm. It doesn’t mean pretending coercion didn’t happen. It doesn’t mean excusing manipulation. It means acknowledging reality without letting it define you. That’s my wiring. It’s not everyone’s. Some people freeze. Some people dissociate. Some people internalise shame. Some people take years to understand what happened to them. Some people speak out decades later because they finally feel safe. Their timeline doesn’t invalidate their trauma. But my timeline doesn’t invalidate my strength either.
What frustrates me is how society talks about sex as if it’s inherently dangerous. Sex isn’t dangerous. Sex is natural. What’s dangerous is the power people attach to sex. The manipulation. The dependency. The grooming. The pressure. The silence. The shame. Those are the real weapons. Those are the things that destroy people. Those are the things that turn a natural act into a battlefield. Those are the things we need to confront, not sex itself.
People often say, “Why they did not speak up at the time?” Because trauma doesn’t follow a schedule. People speak up when they feel safe, when they understand what happened, when they are no longer dependent on the person who harmed them, when they have processed the shame, when they’ve found their voice. Some people never speak up. Some speak up only after others do. Some speak up when the person who harmed them is dead and can’t retaliate. None of these timelines invalidate the harm. None of them make the experience less real. None of them make the violation less significant.
But there’s another side to this conversation that people don’t like to acknowledge. Some people make choices that weren’t ideal, but they made them consciously. Some people sleep with someone for opportunity. Some people use sex strategically.
Some people enter environments where sex and power are intertwined because they want something — a career, a platform, a connection, a chance. That doesn’t mean they deserve harm. That doesn’t mean they weren’t manipulated. That doesn’t mean they weren’t pressured. But it does mean the situation is complex. It means agency and coercion can coexist. It means ambition and vulnerability can overlap. It means consent can be compromised without being erased. It also means we need to talk about these realities honestly, without pretending every uncomfortable choice is abuse and without pretending every abuse was a choice.
I have always had empathy — deep empathy — for people who have been harmed. Sexual harm, emotional harm, physical harm, mental harm. I understand and have experienced trauma. I understand fear. I understand shame. I understand how people get trapped in situations they never expected. But empathy doesn’t mean naivety. I can recognise trauma without glorifying victimhood. I can call out abuse without pretending every regret is coercion.
I can acknowledge complexity without losing sight of accountability. I can understand why someone stayed, why someone complied, why someone didn’t speak up, without pretending the harm didn’t happen. I can also understand why someone moved on, why someone owned their choices, why someone refused to collapse, without pretending they weren’t hurt.
The world is messy. People are flawed. Systems are broken. Sex is natural. Harm is not. And the world would be a better place if people stopped confusing the two. We need to stop treating sex as inherently dangerous and start treating power as inherently risky. We need to stop pretending coercion is always violent and start recognising how subtle it can be. We need to stop shaming survivors for how they responded and start supporting them for surviving. We need to stop romanticising victimhood and start empowering resilience. We need to stop silencing people who speak out late and start listening to why they couldn’t speak earlier. We need to stop pretending that strength and trauma can’t coexist.
I have grown a lot since my twenties. I have made mistakes. I have learned lessons. I have toughened up. I have developed boundaries. I’ve become someone who refuses to be manipulated, someone who refuses to be a pushover, someone who refuses to let harm define me. I have a lot of love to give. I have a lot of empathy. But I also have clarity. I see the world for what it is, not what people pretend it is. I see sex for what it is — natural, simple, human. I see power for what it is — dangerous, corrupting, easily abused. I see coercion for what it is — subtle, psychological, often invisible. But I also see survival for what it is — strength, resilience, self‑ownership.
If there’s one thing I have learned, it’s this: harm must never be tolerated. Not in the name of sex. Not in the name of opportunity. Not in the name of desire. Not in the name of power. Not ever. We can talk about sex without shame. We can talk about power without denial. We can talk about trauma without collapsing into it. We can talk about coercion without pretending it’s rare. We can talk about survival without pretending it’s easy. Most importantly we can talk about accountability without pretending it’s simple.
Sex is natural. Harm is not. And the world becomes clearer when you stop confusing the two.
