For most of us in our lives, it's not aboutn whether or not an act of sex is rape.
It's about how much attunement, care, and consideration entered the frame, how much sex was a collaborative experience, and how much accountability is present (ie a feedback loop of mutual understanding of impact) when things aren't perfect or ideal.
And as much as we would like sex to be a relational experience, there's always a transactional piece.
Zero care and consideration about the other person in the engagement makes it all about what matters to you. This is what being inconsiderate and selfish looks like.
Full care and consideration about the other person in the engagement (without considering what matters to you) is what being selfless to a fault looks like.
Care and consideration for both people, done together, is what collaboration looks like.
The following are inquiries that will show you how much care and consideration you—hence how much collaboration—you bring to the table:
• was it as good for me as it was for you?
• did I bond with you more than you bonded with me, making this a lopsided emotional connection?
• was there a power dynamic (teacher/student, practitioner/client, etc) making this an even more lopsided relationship?
• did we both get bonded faster than is healthy for each of us individually, making this a volatile relationship?
• did our attachment styles begin to activate, making this a volatile relationship?
• did you give me an STI or did your lack of hygiene give me an infection?
• did one of us say yes while another part of us was saying no — a fawn, a freeze, a quiet people-pleasing that neither of us caught in the moment?
• were we both sober and present enough to actually be informed, or did the substances do some of the deciding for us?
• did one of us perform pleasure rather than feel it — and did the other one notice, or care to?
• were there unspoken expectations riding along (a follow-up, exclusivity, a relationship) that only one of us knew about?
• were we honest about our other partners, our agreements, and our safer-sex practices — or did someone else end up carrying the cost of what we didn't say?
• did the risk of pregnancy, and the burden of preventing it, land evenly — or mostly on one body?
• did one of us use the other to regulate our nervous system, rather than to meet them?
• did the encounter touch an old wound, and was there anyone there to hold what got stirred up?
• did the aftercare match the depth of what we opened, or did one of us walk out carrying it alone?
• did the silence the next day land harder than anything that happened the night before?
• did one of us tell the story in our shared community in a way the other never agreed to?
• did I walk away feeling great and empowered (works for teachers, practitioners, works for regular people too) or less than I was before?
None of these questions make anyone a villain. They make us accountable — which is a different thing entirely.
So when the encounter is over, who is willing to stay in the feedback loop of accountability long enough to find out what actually happened so you can take responsibility for not showing up accurately to the other person?
And if you don't practice this regularly, how do you expect to get better at attunement, care, consideration, collaboration, and accountability in the context of sex?
I've been given the great gift of trust by my sexual partners so I could learn and discover what these things look like over the last decades.
Are you doing the same? Do you care?
If you don't, don't be surprised when someone acts like you don't.
If you do care, show it by taking the time asking questions before you have sex:
https://exquisite.love/blog/2025/5/7/rdbsmatdp-a-responsible-safer-intimacy-conversation
If you do care, show it by taking the time to ask questions and learn from the experience:
https://exquisite.love/blog/2025/5/7/about-debriefs-aftercare-learning-and-repair
Your sex life, your dating life, your relational life can only get better from here.
#exquisitelove
