Hi, I’m Mia. I’m a philosopher, author, multi-media artist and musician, and an intimacy coordinator for TV, film, and theater. It’s my mission to make consent education as digestible and widely available as possible so you can identify your desires, needs, and boundalries and authentically express them to others in your own unique voice. Relationships are my life’s work.
My book, Unsolicited Advice: A Consent Educator's (Canceled) Memoir, starts here.
What would you like to ask a consent educator? Submit your questions here and I’ll answer them on this Substack.
Live Classes • Recorded Classes • Workbooks • 1:1’s • Consulting • Merch! • Share the Load Podcast • You’re Doing It Wrong Podcast • Intimacy Coordination for TV, Film, + Theater
CW: In this piece, I talk about some icky sex stuff. The concrete examples I use teeter on yuck, while any mention of rape is purely hypothetical.
Parents, this one isn’t for you, please skip xoxo.
Anyone who’s been in a longterm relationship knows that sometimes the sex is amazeballs, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s just fine, and sometimes—hopefully rarely, but sometimes—it’s a little bit “ugh I didn’t really like that” or “I could’ve done without that.” It might even be sorta “why did that happen and how do we make sure it doesn’t happen again?”
Last year, I wrote about a time that my partner and I got too high and had sex anyway. It was weird, to say the least. We had both eaten weed gummies, smoked weed before the edibles kicked in, and then, as they were peaking, we were already fooling around in the shower. It made for some very strange sex that we both looked back on with one eyebrow raised, like, “That was weird.” But instead of blaming each other, freaking out, severing our connection, trying to label it as something like “nonconsensual” (or worse, as many people might: a lot of people stuck in binary thought would say that any sex had under the influence, or under the influence enough such that consent wasn’t really possible, was assault or rape. I disagree with this), we talked about it and took steps to make sure it didn’t happen again.
Undo black and white thinking and move into the grey
It’s an unsavory fact that a lot of people find tough to swallow: we are all capable of causing harm. As relational beings, we have, do, and will hurt people. We have all made someone uncomfortable and they haven’t told us. We have pushed a boundary because it wasn’t clear to us or because we were focused on our own needs. To zoom out of our interpersonal relationships, you can’t eat a meal without participating in a chain where someone or something is harmed, be it the farmer, the laborer, an animal, an unwitting bee or gnat, the environment, the land, and so on.
Perhaps it’s easy to reckon with the fact that every time you leave your house you probably kill a bug under your shoe, but less easy and maybe even excruciating to reckon with the fact that you may have inadvertently pressured someone into doing something with you sexually without knowing it. But when we stratify ourselves into good and evil, perpetrator and victim, guilty and innocent, we decide that “those people over there” are the bad ones and we are good so long as we just follow the rules, follow the formula, check the boxes.
This is not how life works. It’s not how consent works.
I’ve had a few significant romantic relationships in my life, and a few more significant sexual ones. I know that not all sex is created equal, nor are all lovers, nor are all connections. Within each of my sexual relationships (that gave me enough data, that is to say, that were ongoing), there has been great sex, good sex, fine sex, and occasionally sex that left me feeling weird, icky feelings.
Here’s a pretty bad one: I remember once with a longterm partner, we decided to take Ambien and watch porn together. At one point when he was inside me, I didn’t like what was on the screen and tried to turn it off. He stopped me and said, “What’s the worst that can happen?” I tried to get off him and he physically held me down. The next morning, I asked if we were okay because of what had happened the night before. He said, “What happened last night?” He had no recollection. I told him, hesitantly, and he said, “That sounds a little rape-y.” It was. I didn’t argue with him. He was horrified with himself. We talked about it, decided not to have sex on Ambien anymore, and we repaired the rupture. That relationship was doomed for many reasons, but we continued to date for several years and continued to have wonderful, loving, creative sex.
I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber to keep this work going and to help spread the word. I think our models in the media for relationships are largely horrible, and then we do a terrible job of (not) teaching media literacy, consent, sex education, and communication. On top of that we then punish people for mimicking what they see on television and in movies or what they had modeled for them by family and authority figures in their lives. But I need your help to keep the ball moving. If you’d like to request to expense this newsletter, use this template.
Talk about it. With words.
This is all to say, you don’t have to break up (if you don’t want to; you have to talk about it). Secure attachment doesn’t come from a lack of conflict, it comes from rupture and repair. You get a lot of information when you see how a partner handles repair. Can they take feedback? Can they put steps in place to make sure that thing doesn’t happen again? Can they listen to you without making it all about themselves? Can you? Because you are capable of this too. So am I.
~ Just want access to this article? Venmo a donation to @sharetheload with your email address and the name of the article you want in the comment and I’ll send it to you ~
Recommending this newsletter in your recommendations list is the best way to help spread the word! xx
Live Classes • Recorded Classes • Workbooks • 1:1’s • Consulting • Merch! • Share the Load Podcast • You’re Doing It Wrong Podcast • Intimacy Coordination for TV, Film, + Theater
You can book me to speak at your company, organization, or university by emailing hello@sharetheloadinc.com.
There’s a 10% off discount code to classes below the paywall…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Unsolicited Advice from Mia Schachter to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.