excalibelle:

nonbinarypastels:

consent doesn’t only apply to sexual touching.

you’re allowed to tell people not to hug you, not to hold your hand, not to kiss your cheek, not to play with your hair, not to put their hands on you in any way without your permission. you’re allowed to be uncomfortable with these kinds of touching, to tell people that, and to have those boundaries respected. just because a touch isn’t sexual doesn’t mean that you’re not allowed to have a problem with it.

you’re allowed to create boundaries about what happens with your body and what other people do with it, regardless of those people’s motivations or their relationship to you. it isn’t only sexual touching people need your consent for and it isn’t only sexual touching that you’re allowed to revoke your consent for. people should not be touching you when you don’t want them to no matter what kind of touching it is.

on a similar thread, this is also what people mean when we talk about teaching children about consent. We dont mean teaching children too young to know about or understand sex, about sexual consent and the nuances of it. We mean teaching them these same things above.

They can refuse hugs. They can refuse any touching they dont want from anyone, and so can other people. This, as well as teaching them to tell adults about touches they dont like, and to never keep secrets about their bodies (such as someone touching them inappropriately but telling them they have to keep it secret) from grown ups they trust, helps protect them from sexual abuse and plants the seeds of recognizing and respecting boundaries, and demanding their own boundaries be respected, early on.