Consent Incident: An event or occurrence, involving consent, where something has gone wrong. There is no initial assumption of guilt or fault, just as there is no initial assumption of victim or perpetrator. It is an event that happened which needs consideration, review, and outside support.
Consent Violation: An event or occurrence where someone believes their consent was broken, a set boundary was crossed, or harm was caused during the consent incident. Only a person who experienced harm within the event gets to decide if their consent was violated.
Intent: The sum of our thoughts, feelings, desires, and beliefs that go into a decision to engage in a behavior. Can be either conscious or subconscious. Intent happens prior to action and may take minutes or moments to form. Intent is not behavior; it is the driving force that causes behavior.
Impact: The effect that behavior has. When we witness or experience someone else’s behavior, we perceive it, and then have thoughts or feelings in response. That is the impact. It is not the action or behavior itself, but rather how it lands and affects us.
Harm: The negative impact experienced as the result of someone’s actions or inaction. Harm creates responsibilities.
Person Who Experienced Harm: The person harmed during an incident. While normally people use the word 'victim' here, we believe it is important to 1) not identify people without their consent and 2) avoid bias that might cause additional harm.
Person Responsible for Harm: The person who created the harm during an incident. This may or may not be the person who was directly interacting. While normally people use the word 'perpetrator' here, we avoid it for the same reason we don’t use the word 'victim'.
Accountability: How we own our responsibilities (the duties we have in response to our positions, actions, and roles in the world), especially those related to harm.
Consent Violation: An event or occurrence where someone believes their consent was broken, a set boundary was crossed, or harm was caused during the consent incident. Only a person who experienced harm within the event gets to decide if their consent was violated.
Intent: The sum of our thoughts, feelings, desires, and beliefs that go into a decision to engage in a behavior. Can be either conscious or subconscious. Intent happens prior to action and may take minutes or moments to form. Intent is not behavior; it is the driving force that causes behavior.
Impact: The effect that behavior has. When we witness or experience someone else’s behavior, we perceive it, and then have thoughts or feelings in response. That is the impact. It is not the action or behavior itself, but rather how it lands and affects us.
Harm: The negative impact experienced as the result of someone’s actions or inaction. Harm creates responsibilities.
Person Who Experienced Harm: The person harmed during an incident. While normally people use the word 'victim' here, we believe it is important to 1) not identify people without their consent and 2) avoid bias that might cause additional harm.
Person Responsible for Harm: The person who created the harm during an incident. This may or may not be the person who was directly interacting. While normally people use the word 'perpetrator' here, we avoid it for the same reason we don’t use the word 'victim'.
Accountability: How we own our responsibilities (the duties we have in response to our positions, actions, and roles in the world), especially those related to harm.
- Personal accountability: Taking responsibility for your own thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and actions that impact you primarily, or impact others. Must be intrinsically motivated.
- Interpersonal accountability: Taking responsibility for your own actions that impact others.
The Consent Academy helps with consent incidents in a variety of ways:
- We continuously learn more about the influences and impacts involved to update our learning, models, and curriculum.
- We teach and write about how to navigate them.
- We offer consultation for organizations that are trying to deal with one or prevent them from happening.
- We offer resources for individuals involved in one to help give support and knowledge on how to best navigate it.
- We train Consent Advocates to support those involved in consent incidents.