On boundaries

So… Julie Pagano blogged about boundaries and consent. You should read it.

…go on, I’ll still be here when you get back. :)

Anyways, it’s a good post, but I felt like the first point (Entitlement) could be elaborated on. It’s something I misunderstood at a fundamental level for a long time. I honestly thought the rule was “you can have boundaries, if you have a good reason for them.” Somehow I grew up thinking it was ok for other people to demand a reason for my “no” (in any situation other than sex) and judge whether it was a valid reason. And, of course, that I could expect justification from other people.

I like making people happy. I hate upsetting people. So I was totally happy to give people what they wanted… after I understood why they wanted it. After all, being confused really sucks. I hate feeling confused, I hate uncertainty. I hate wondering whether I did something wrong or if the other person was just having a bad day or whatever. And being an aspie, I’m confused a lot. :)

I think I did have a bit of a sense that I wasn’t handling things quite right. But having no idea what the Right Way was, I didn’t know what else to do. Lots of people have conflicting opinions on social norms, and some of them have their own agenda colouring their advice too, so I don’t know who to trust. So, I just keep listening, until someday something clicks and another bit of social behaviour makes sense, and feels right. (It helps that I’m following some prominent feminists on twitter lately. They’ve had to think about and experience this shit a lot, so their opinions tend to be quite sensible.)

I’m not even sure when I figured this one out. It was probably a gradual thing. But I do remember how good it felt to realize that I didn’t have to justify my boundaries. That I was allowed to just say no, or ask someone to stop doing something, or block someone, and I didn’t have to figure out a bullet-proof justification first. That was a huge weight off my shoulders, and suddenly I felt more confident and.. I dunno… adult.

It still feels bad when someone has boundaries where I’d prefer they didn’t, but, instead of trying to understand what’s going on on their side, I have a sort of deeper understanding: I understand that they’re allowed to do that, and that it’s important to their sanity and freedom as an adult to have that right. And that’s more important than my discomfort, even if the discomfort does suck. Accepting the discomfort makes it much less likely to turn into a panic attack, too ;)

I’m kinda scared to hit the publish button now. This is such a murky confusing subject, and I might still have said something incredibly stupid. I might still be wrong about a lot of this stuff. Or someone might try to tell me I’m wrong when I’m right. Either way they might be mean about it. The internet is a scary place. But, I hope this post has given some people food for thought. This stuff is worth thinking about, over and over again, until we do get it right.