Ask

Building Consent Culture

Kitty Stryker, Carol Queen, Laurie Penny

• Publisher: Thorntree Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781944934262
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Feminismus & feministische Theorie

Have you ever heard the phrase "It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission?" Violating consent isn't limited to sexual relationships, and our discussions around consent shouldn't be, either. To resist rape culture, we need a consent culture—and one that is more than just reactionary. Left confined to intimate spaces, consent will atrophy as theory that is never put into practice. The multi-layered power disparities of today's world require a response sensitive to a wide range of lived experiences. In Ask, Kitty Stryker assembles a retinue of writers, journalists, and activists to examine how a cultural politic centered on consent can empower us outside the bedroom, whether it's at the doctor's office, interacting with law enforcement, or calling out financial abuse within radical communities. More than a collection of essays, Ask is a testimony and guide on the role that negated consent plays in our lives, examining how we can take those first steps to reclaim it from institutionalized power.

In The Community

Games, Role-Playing, and Consent

Kate Fractal

I peer at the red-bordered name tag of the suited stranger with the top hat. The name is familiar from the sheet of paper I was just reading, I exclaim, “My dear old friend!” The stranger looks at my red-bordered name tag, checks his sheet of paper, and returns my greeting. He gives me a brief, warm hug and asks what brings me to this airship. I begin to tell him about my quest to find the lost amulet of steam, and wonder about the hug. Did this sign of affection indicate that my dear old friend was still pining for the one romantic summer I had read about on my sheet? Was the hug because he was attracted to me rather than the character I am playing? I am generally happy for hugs, but did he know that? Certainly, my character trusts his, but do I trust him?

This scene, while odd, is not unusual in the world of theater-style live-action role-playing (LARP) games. I’ve been involved in this community for about ten years, playing, organizing, and writing games. I’m not going to give a formal definition of what LARP is, a topic still argued about in the LARP community. Instead, I’ll share my experience and stories from the strange and compelling worlds that I play in. These stories are a mix of true stories and invented details to better demonstrate the ideas.

You can imagine LARP as an extended improv theater sketch with no audience but the players. Or you can imagine a murder mystery dinner party where there isn’t any murder, but there are a half-dozen mysteries. Or you might imagine a model UN meeting for the imaginary star league. You can imagine LARP as people dressed up as orcs hitting each other with foam swords, although that is a different style of LARP from the one I will be talking about. You can imagine anything you want, and if you act it out with other people and a few rules, building a shared imagination, I would call that LARP.

In LARP, people don’t describe what their characters do; they just do it. Part of the fun is staying in character and being immersed in the simulated environment. This can complicate issues of consent and touch, as the opening example shows. Characters may be longtime lovers, but with players who have just met each other. A player who is a good friend might be the supervillain I am trying to defeat. Characters may be stalkers, murderers, or even just people who quickly resort to violence when threatened.

We all understand that we aren’t actually going to hit each other (except possibly with foam swords) when our characters would, but should we hug when our characters would? How about kissing? Is it okay to back someone up against a wall when trying to intimidate their character? To stare intently into their eyes?

The consent issues in LARP go beyond just how and when we touch each other. A graphic description of violence done to a character you are inhabiting can be deeply hurtful. The potential for hurt feelings can bleed out from the games, especially for games that deal with serious real-world issues like discrimination or abuse. Being asked to take on certain roles can be triggering by itself. Ideally, we get to choose which interactions and experiences we want and which we don’t.

As a theater LARPer, I play LARPs for the experience. I enjoy the intense emotions of triumph, connection, and surprise that can occur in LARP. In the context of a game where there aren’t real-world consequences, I can also enjoy feelings of failure, guilt, and sorrow. I love the stories that come out of games, and the humor and drama that come up during game play. I deeply appreciate the chance to try things I can’t do in real life, whether it’s casting a magic spell, running a multinational corporation, or actually having a date in high school.

The game is set at a party of high school friends, years after graduation, and I am crying in the arms of my long-lost first love, who left me to pursue her career. The relief that she still wants me, despite the fact that in my youth and hurt I never returned her letters, is overwhelming. That relief and the sorrow for our lost time together are enough that tears form in my eyes. I am crying real tears for all that the scenario is fictional.

In fact, the person whom I am hugging is a good friend, whom I am not romantically interested in. Is some of my emotion because I haven’t seen this friend in months since she moved and had a baby, when we used to live down the street and see each other several times a week? Does the story give me permission to grieve for that lost closeness that otherwise might be deemed insignificant? Could I have had these cathartic tears without the hug? Without the uncertainty of knowing if this character wanted me?

Certainly, in order for me to have this experience, I needed a certain level of trust, not just of my fellow player, but also of the organizer and the space. I couldn’t have experienced and processed this scene with blaring loud music in the background, nor with other people interrupting. The safer an environment feels, the greater the ability to enjoy the surprises of how the story unfolds. In this story, the surprise was that my high school sweetheart forgave me. Other times, I’ve been surprised to realize that another character was an android, or that the person I trusted had kidnapped my children. My most memorable surprise in a game was realizing, as we talked about the game afterward, that my character was actually undead.

As an organizer, I have a responsibility to provide a safe play space for my players. I set the stage and cast the players into roles based on information from the players about what they want. During the game, organizers will move through the game space and help players get what they want from the game, whether that is fun, striving to achieve goals, acting dramatically, or processing intense emotions. Often organizers help by clarifying game rules, but they may also identify a player who seems disengaged, bored, or distressed, and calmly ask if they want help.

The person running a game has typically written or read every character sheet that will be given to players and knows better than anyone else what can potentially happen in the game. For example, an organizer who knows that there might be physical violence in a game will explain the rules for how combat is resolved, possibly by rock–paper–scissors or comparing combat scores from the character sheets.

However, the organizer doesn’t know exactly how a game is going to play out. I’ve run exactly the same game for different groups of players and had radically different experiences. New Voices in Art is a game where each player is a modern artist at the opening night of a gallery, with a piece of art and a single-sentence character sheet. With one group, the game was a deep introspection and sweet acknowledgment of the difficulties of being young and lacking confidence, with enough meaning and spoken internal monologues to fill two hours. Another group got bored of poking fun at the pretentiousness of modern art after only forty-five minutes. The game writing was the same, and the art pieces were similar. The big difference in the experience of the game was the group of players and what they brought to the game and wanted to get from it.

Given the magnitude of difference between individual runs of a game, my ability as an organizer to give players enough information for informed consent prior to the game is limited. I can make a reasonable guess as to what topics will come up, and how serious the game is, but I can never know for sure what will happen. Indeed, my adaption of a classic saying is “No game survives contact with the players.”

The game is supposed to be a light spy comedy. If you don’t have a weapon, you can restrain but not kill another character. Two members of the People’s Republic of Atlantis have re...