MindFuck Party

Consent is required to engage in kink with others, and that is not negotiable. However, communication styles differ across communities, and even across individuals. Explicit verbal negotiated consent is one communication style, but it’s not the only one; some communities, particularly communities of sexually active gay men, tend to prefer a different style that is more implicit, based on body language. This style is often known as “cruising for sex”, or simply “cruising”.

History

Homosexuality has existed since ancient times, but in (Western) society it was considered taboo until recently. Certain groups of homosexuals, particularly gay men who were unable to repress their sexual desires, developed (or discovered) subtle methods of communication to find each other and have sex while minimizing the risk of being “outed” as gay to others. Due to the risk of being overheard, cruising is typically done non-verbally. While these subtle communication styles started out as a defence mechanism, they have evolved into their own form of cultural expression that is still practiced by many gay men today — particularly in parts of the world where homosexuality is still considered to be taboo.

What is Cruising?

Fundamentally, cruising is the recognition of mutual sexual interest with another person, through non-verbal communication. Exactly how that is achieved can differ depending on the situation, but it always involves two (or more) individuals paying close attention to each other, so they can read subtle signals and cues from each other. Cruising generally involves sending subtle signals and escalating levels of physical involvement and intimacy; consent is communicated by accepting and/or escalating that involvement, while refusal/non-consent involves rejecting or de-escalating that involvement.

How to Cruise

Cruising is a multi-step process; essentially, you are (non-verbally) asking for consent at every step before moving on to the next step. Every step can be rejected, accepted, or escalated; it’s OK to accept a certain step, but not want to escalate! The specific nature of these steps are somewhat flexible, depending on the circumstances, but they always take the following general forms:

Step 1: Attention

If cruising is about mutual sexual interest, then naturally the first step is expressing that interest: that is, paying attention to the person that interests you. When you see someone that you are attracted to, you are drawn to that person; the first step of cruising is to make sure they can recognize your interest. There are many different ways of doing so, and some of them involve physical movement:

• Look at the person until they look back at you; then hold their gaze, rather than turning away. Maybe give them a smile or a wink. Read their facial expression: are they interested, as well?
• If you are walking past that person, slow down. If you pass them, look back over your shoulder; do they look back at you, as well? Alternatively, make an excuse to stop walking close to them; this counts as an approach.
• Approach the person, and see how they react. Do they move towards you, welcoming your presence? Or do they turn away, rejecting your advance?

It’s important to note that all of these forms of attention are polite: you don’t want to make others uncomfortable. (In a world where being gay is taboo, making the wrong person uncomfortable based on your sexual interest could cause disaster!) If you are trying to cruise someone, and they do not respond favorably to your attention, you should move on and find someone else.

Step 2: Friendly Touch

Once you have focused your attention on someone, and they have focused their attention on you in return (in a positive way), the next step is to escalate with physical contact. The first level of escalation is usually a soft touch that could be seen as a friendly gesture, rather than anything sexual. Generally, this touch is stationary: your body is lightly resting on theirs, without movement (rubbing). For example:

• Touching the shoulder or upper arm
• Touching the middle of the back
• If seated at a table across from each other: your foot “accidentally” touches their foot under the table, and stays there
• If seated next to each other: your knee “accidentally” touches their knee, and stays there
• Fleeting, “accidental” touches in slightly more intimate areas, like the hands or the thighs

Once again, the key is being polite, giving them an opportunity to reject or refuse the touch. If they move their body away from your touch, that is a clear signal that they are not interested in doing anything physical with you; the correct response is to move on and find someone else.

If you are being touched, you have three options: refuse the touch, accept it, or escalate it. If you refuse, you can simply move your body away from the touch; or if the person trying to touch you is really bad at reading your body language, you can use your hands to physically remove their hand from your body. If you want to accept the touch without escalating, you simply allow the touch to happen; however, be aware that if you accept without escalating for more than a minute or so, they may attempt to escalate anyway. (If they do, you can always reject the escalation if you want.)

If you want to escalate, you can either respond with a friendly touch of your own, or you can move directly to the next step: intimate touch.

Step 3: More Intimate Touch

Once you’ve established that friendly touch is acceptable, you may escalate to a more intimate touch. This is very similar, but involves more intimate parts of the body and often involves more moving touch (rubbing) as well. For example:

• Caressing the shoulder and neck
• Rubbing the lower back
• If seated next to each other: caressing the upper leg or thigh
• Holding the cheek or chin
• Holding hands
• Nuzzling cheek to cheek
• Letting your hand wander down the thigh to the butt
• Fleeting, “accidental” touches to extremely sexual areas, such as the crotch or the nipples

Just as before, the person being touched may refuse the touch, accept it, or escalate it. It’s also OK to give some guidance to the person touching you: either physically guiding their touch with your hands/body, or verbally telling them what feels good. (While cruising is typically done without words, there’s no rule against speaking! Whispering can feel very intimate, as well.)

Once again, if you want to escalate, you can either respond with an intimate touch of your own, or you can move directly to the final step: sexual touch.

Step 4: Sexual Touch

This is the point that you feel confident enough in the other person’s interest to initiate something sexual. However, this is still a negotiation, and the other person still has the freedom to reject your touch! (This is the case with all sexual contact, all the time.)

Of course, human beings have a wide range of sexual interests, so it’s hard to say exactly what counts as a “sexual touch”. But some examples are:

• Going in for a kiss
• Reaching under clothing for more direct body contact
• Removing their clothing, or guiding them to remove yours
• Groping the genitals, or squeezing intimate areas such as the butt or nipples
• Guiding someone’s head down to your genitals for oral sex
• Guiding someone’s head to your nipple, armpit, or other intimate area

If you are engaging in sexual touch with someone, and they attempt to do something to you that you don’t like (or direct you to do something that you don’t like), you can always redirect into something else, instead. Rather than stopping the touch to have a prolonged verbal negotiation, the negotiation can happen during the touch! For example, if someone grabs a part of your body that you don’t want them to grab, you can use your hand to move their hand to a different part of your body; or simply use your hands to push their hands away, but then immediately follow up with a different sexual touch on their body.

Negotiating can be done in the moment, without words, by being attentive to the reactions of the person you are playing with. Of course, sometimes non-verbal communication breaks down; if you are trying to convey a concept that your play-partner doesn’t seem to understand, then it can be a good idea to pause the scene and have a verbal discussion. But most of the time, simple concepts like “yes, I like that” or “no, don’t do that” can be conveyed very clearly and easily with body language instead of words.

Responding to Rejection

While cruising, it’s inevitable that sometimes your approaches will get rejected. That’s fine! When it happens, simply stop what you are doing to that person. You can apologize to them if you feel you have made them uncomfortable; if you do so, keep it short. (Just saying the word “Sorry” is usually enough.)

If you received a rejection at step 3 or 4 (intimate or sexual touch), you can try backing up to step 2 or step 1; if you are rejected again, that is a clear sign that the other person is no longer interested, and you should direct your attention elsewhere. It’s usually a good idea to also physically step away from that person and give them some space. Verbal interaction is not required; it’s never necessary to explain a lack of consent, whether you are using a verbal or non-verbal consent style.

Depending on the circumstances, you may have an opportunity to try cruising the same person again in the future. Sometimes, a cruising attempt is rejected because the person is giving their attention to some other person; in that case, it’s perfectly reasonable to wait until they are no longer busy, and try again. (Be sure to give that person at least a few minutes in between attempts, so they don’t feel harassed!) However, if you receive multiple rejections in a row, or one particularly emphatic rejection, that is a clear sign that this person is not interested in playing with you. Move on, and find other people to play with instead.

What About Consent Violations?

Consent can be violated in a sexual encounter, whether the negotiation was done verbally or non-verbally. In either scenario, the relevant questions are: was the violation accidental, or intentional? And once someone is told they have violated consent, how do they react and respond?

A non-verbal consent negotiation is typically less clear than a verbal negotiation, both to onlookers and to the people involved. This presents more opportunities for accidental consent violations, because the people involved have not taken the time to have a thorough conversation about this before engaging with each other. In a sense, non-verbal consent negotiation is a form of RACK (risk-aware consensual kink): you are aware that lack of clear communication presents heightened risks of misunderstanding, and of accidental consent violation as a result. However, the nature of non-verbal consent negotiation is one of ramping up intensity rather than jumping straight to a high-intensity activity; as a result, an accidental consent violation should be mild in nature.

For example, let’s say two people have started playing with each other with non-verbal consent. Person A wants to spank person B, and doesn’t know yet that person B does not want to be spanked. In a healthy dynamic, person A might start by moving his hand to person B’s butt, and checking the reaction. If there is no negative reaction, person A might try squeezing the butt, or giving it a light swat. At this point, person B might recognize A’s intent, and push his hand away from the butt, indicating a lack of consent. However, person B might not recognize the intent, and may not give a negative reaction; which might lead to person A starting to spank person B. At this point, person B would definitely have a negative reaction, telling person A to stop.

How does person A respond? Do they continue spanking, in spite of negative reactions from person B? That clearly indicates an intentional consent violation, which is not OK. On the other hand, if they stop as soon as person B reacts negatively, that indicates an accidental consent violation; a known risk of this kind of play. As long as person A responds to person B’s negative reaction as soon as they see it, play between the two of them can continue — as long as it does not involve spanking, and only if they both want to continue playing.

Why Choose Cruising?

Some people reading this may wonder why people choose cruising, when verbal negotiation is available. After all, not everyone can read body language well; autistic people in particular may find it difficult to do so. If we can use our words, shouldn’t we do so all the time? Especially in spaces that are explicitly sexual in nature, there’s no reason to hide your intentions, and the historical reasons behind the origin of cruising no longer apply. Why shouldn’t we be as clear as possible?

There are at least two reasons to intentionally choose cruising over verbal negotiation — and probably more, depending on the person and the circumstances! But the two that we will discuss here are fluid sexual interactions, and difficulties of verbal communication.

Fluid Sexual Interaction

To be clear, we’re not talking about bodily fluids in this context! We are talking about how one experience can flow into another, easily and without friction.

Sometimes two people meet and experience an immediate and obvious sexual attraction for each other. The question is, how do they proceed? The “verbal consent only” model requires that they start a conversation, asking if it’s OK to touch, OK to kiss, and so on. This can be perceived as annoying, when it’s already clear to both parties that consent isvery much given, considering how aroused they both are. It’s not a big problem, but it is an element of friction — one more task to complete before they can play with each other.

By contrast, the cruising model of consent says that these two people have already completed step 1: mutual attention. They can immediately proceed to friendly touch; and if these two people are excited to touch each other, it will only take seconds to proceed to intimate touch and sexual touch. Each step flows into the next, fluidly allowing these people to connect (and then to exchange bodily fluids, if they wish).

Sometimes words can connect people, but sometimes words can get in the way. Cruising is an acknowledgement that words aren’t always necessary when body language is clear. On the other hand, some people may be scared or intimidated by the idea of sexual intimacy building so quickly between strangers; those people should probably stick with verbal consent only.

Difficulties with Verbal Communication

What happens when two people can’t communicate with each other verbally? For example, what if two people don’t speak the same language, but want to play with each other sexually? What if they do speak the same language, but with heavy accents that impede understanding? What if someone is non-verbal, finding it difficult or impossible to communicate using language?

Explicit verbal negotiation would either require that these people do not play with each other at all, or would demand that they find ways to communicate verbally, despite the language barrier between them; bringing in a language interpreter, for example, which is awkward and humiliating for everyone involved. By contrast, non-verbal consent practices, such as cruising, allow people with language barriers to explore intimacy with each other, without this barrier coming into play.

Conclusion

Negotiating consent is important, but explicit verbal negotiation is not the only option for doing so. Some people prefer non-verbal consent negotiation, such as cruising — and in certain circumstances, there are clear benefits to doing so. Different people may prefer different consent styles, and it’s OK if you decide that cruising is not for you. But it’s important to realize that just because two people don’t verbally discuss consent in a sexual encounter, it doesn’t mean that they are ignoring it!

Cruising is one of the two different consent negotiation styles allowed at MindFuck, along with explicit verbal negotiation. Attendees can choose which style they prefer using colored wristbands, and can change their decision (and their wristband) at any point during the event. This allows people to clearly communicate their expectations regarding consent negotiation, while allowing people with different preferences to play in the ways that they prefer. Whether you prefer to establish consent verbally or with body language, we hope to see you at MindFuck!