"I see consent as ultimately a great force for bringing people together."

(This was originally posted on Facebook by Stephen Burrows. It's reprinted here with permission, emphasis added.)

It's always strange to me to hear people say that discussions of consent culture in dance feel alienating – that consent is somehow going to make us all terrified of crossing boundaries – that the issue is, by its nature, divisive.

This is strange to me because I see consent as ultimately a great force for bringing people together, for unifying them, for making everyone feel more comfortable and sure in themselves and their relationships.

The discomfort that people associate with consent culture is not actually related to consent culture. It's primarily related to the transition.

Right now, we're in a place where some people have started shining lights in the dark corners of the dance world where nobody wanted to look before. And it's making some other people extremely uncomfortable. With good reason! There's some bad stuff that goes on there.

But that's *not* a problem with consent culture. That's a problem with our *current* culture. It's just one that's been tucked out of sight.

There are three ways we can go. On the one hand, we can turn off the lights and stop looking. We can say that there's been enough discussion – that everyone gets it now – that it's just feels too bad to keep looking.

On the other hand, we can keep the lights on and keep shining them in the corners and just spin our wheels doing nothing to fix what we see.

Or on the other hand, we can move forward towards creating a consent culture. We can actively work towards a place where we have enough trust and understanding in each other to ask and tell each other what our boundaries are.

I absolutely agree that we can't just keep talking about this. But I think the solution, rather than stopping discussion, is starting action. If a consent culture is something you'd like to see, start using consent in your own life and your own dancing. Seeing what a consent culture would look like will probably do more to convince people than any number of discussions.

(Also, it feels so damn good to know that your partner wants to be in close embrace!)