Have you ever felt pressured to have sex with someone who offered you dinner / a service? Here is what we call the "sexual debt". We take stock with the Consentis association.
by Mathilde Wattecamps
Have you ever felt sexually indebted to another person for being nice, paying you drinks or a cab, or dancing the night away with them? This impression, or more exactly, this bias, is the notion of sexual debt, "which gives a feeling of obligation when the desire is not there", as summarized by the Consentis association.
Founded in 2017 by Domitille Raveau and Mathilde Neuville, it promotes the culture of consent and fights against sexual violence in party places (nightclubs, festivals, bars, etc.). Defending consent also means knowing all the mechanisms that can alter it, in particular this famous feeling of sexual debt. That it is all the more important to know that it does not necessarily occur only in the evening, but in many other social circumstances, as the association explains in our video at the top of the article. Expressing consent is not easy, so let's learn to unravel the mechanisms that prevent us from doing so!
What is the origin of this feeling of having sex? As Domitille Raveau, psychosociologist at Consentis explains, "We are influenced by scripts and social codes and we have learned that we have to do something after we have been done a service". In a context of seduction, we therefore think that we owe a sexual relationship. However, a sexual relationship should not be based on a notion of accountability, but rather be analyzed through the prism of consent between partners. When we enter into a pattern of sexual debt, we forget the different points of consent. It must be free, enlightened, enthusiastic and reversible: so from any moment we can say that we do not really want, or not really want to continue. It's hard to wonder about your own scripts in a relationship. Be aware, however, that exerting any form of pressure to obtain sex can be legally wrong. To take stock of your relationship, Domitille Raveau suggests two associations: the chat of the association En Avant Tous, commentonsaime.fr to discuss your emotional and sexual relationships with trained professionals. It is also possible to contact the number of Viols Femmes Informations, if you feel that you have been caught in this mechanism of sexual debt at 0 800 05 95 95. It is important to know this mechanism in order to be able to build real fulfilling relationships. and egalitarian between two partners, whether they are for a night or for a lifetime.