[2587] "I know what boys like!"

[rhiu]

I'm surprised I haven't seen this take yet because when I read the page I immediately thought that the reason Loup was intervening was because he was "protecting" (BIG quotes) the elves, not her.

He has a huge amount of disdain for the court, its inhabitants, and it seems especially NP (at least the vibes I've gotten). Plus, given he's from the forest and part Coyote, I don't think he'd be bothered by overt sexuality or even borderline-nonconsensual sexuality. Loup is also part Ys, and Ys has expressed extreme dislike of the forest being "contaminated" by the court.

I think it's more likely that he views the *elves* as his property and wasn't going to stand by and let them associate with NP in that way, and is punishing them for stepping out of line.

[aline]

Feb 18, 2022 15:15:27 GMT rhiu said:

I'm surprised I haven't seen this take yet because when I read the page I immediately thought that the reason Loup was intervening was because he was "protecting" (BIG quotes) the elves, not her.

He has a huge amount of disdain for the court, its inhabitants, and it seems especially NP (at least the vibes I've gotten). Plus, given he's from the forest and part Coyote, I don't think he'd be bothered by overt sexuality or even borderline-nonconsensual sexuality. Loup is also part Ys, and Ys has expressed extreme dislike of the forest being "contaminated" by the court.

I think it's more likely that he views the *elves* as his property and wasn't going to stand by and let them associate with NP in that way, and is punishing them for stepping out of line.

He ejected them from the Forest and gave them to the Court without a second thought because Annie said she needed some help moving wood. I doubt he gives a crap who they associate with.

[rhiu]

Feb 18, 2022 15:35:23 GMT aline said:

Feb 18, 2022 15:15:27 GMT rhiu said:

He ejected them from the Forest and gave them to the Court without a second thought because Annie said she needed some help moving wood. I doubt he gives a crap who they associate with.

I don't think that matters too much. Loup considers everything in the forest to be his property, effectively, to do with what he wishes. Someone with that mindset can simultaneously toss the elves out AND want them to continue to act "appropriately". I think he absolutely would care if the elves started fraternizing with the court - he WANTED them to be out of place and alone in order to punish Annie (it came right after he vowed to "show her bitter", and it was an intentional misinterpretation of her words - she asked for the help of SOME tree elves for a specific task, and he BANISHED the tree elves from the forest after throwing a temper tantrum about Coyote).

Loup isn't reasonable, Loup isn't stable, and Loup absolutely thinks that everyone around him is a piece on a playing board he can move around or break at will. He didn't suddenly stop thinking the elves were "his" just because he used them to inconvenience Annie.

[faiiry]

Nobody cares, but this is officially where I give up on Gunnerkrigg. I stayed reading every update through countless story ideas I didn’t love or found questionable. Here I draw the line. We have a minor character of whom suggestive art is being repeatedly drawn both here and on Twitter, we have comments being manually approved that call these scenes “lewd” and “leading to a gangbang,” and finally we have the implication that a rape would have occurred on a naive character who didn’t understand what was happening if it had not been stopped by an outside party. This is far beyond the pale of what I ever would have expected from the webcomic and I find myself *extremely* surprised and uncomfortable. There were odd moments such as this early in the history of the comic (Coyote and Annie for one), but I was able to ignore them as they were drawn a decade plus ago and I assumed the comic had changed. I guess not, and it’s beyond my ability to be okay with.

Thanks for the memories, both from fellow commenters and from the comic itself. For a long time GKC was very important to me, and that’ll never change. Time to move on now.

[davidm]

IMO the elves have not been "rapey" yet because she hasn't in any way said "no". If a girl grabbed my arm when I started flirting with her it would be absurd for me to accuse her of rape, even if I was surrounded by other girls and they could overpower me if they wanted. The deciding factor would be how they react if she did say or by actions indicate no.

If Paz (while with her gang of friends) grabbed Kat's arm without getting permission first in same way as elves but not being told "no" either after Kat flirted a bit, would Paz be rapey?

Or how about if shadow flirted with robot a bit, and robot had 2 of his buddies around him and robot grabbed shadows arm, while both smiled at each other like this new girl and elf are smiling at each other?

[fia]

I think one thing we need to remember as readers is that as Annie and Kat age up, the plot-lines around them might do so a bit too. This is not an uncommon teenage experience (of flirting with the opposite sex or of being harassed with/without being aware of it), and not uncommon coming-of-age writing (anyone ever read the Alanna books?) and I think that perhaps while Tom is new to this kind of writing I'm not as shocked by it as some.

On my own end, I doubt very much the elf boys would have done much beyond bother Lana suggestively, but that's because I've been harassed in this way by boys from much more misogynistic cultures (including in dangerous situations) and the chances are that any one harassment will turn into a rape scene are very low, outside of pornographer's imaginations. Definitely stuff that is shitty to experience, though, can come before any sexual touching, like verbal abuse or unwanted touching or shoving, online bullying, et cetera, none of which I hope has to be experienced by characters in GC. ((And let's be clear, ALL HARASSMENT IS NOT OKAY AND I HATED LIVING THROUGH THIS AS A TEEN.)) All I'm saying is that I don't think we were any close to witnessing the worst end of the moral line here, I'm not sure GC will ever go there. But never ever seeing interactions between teenagers veer toward the suggestive? That would be really shocking. I mean, have you met teenagers?

I'm glad Loup intervened mostly because that arm-touch was already getting too familiar and those elf boys are being major idiots.

[davidm]

Feb 18, 2022 17:00:02 GMT fia said:

that's because I've been harassed in this way by boys from much more misogynistic cultures

I've seen endless numbers of girls grab boys arms, etc when boy flirts like Lana did... are those girls harassing boys?

If only men doing an action is "harassment", isn't that Misandry? (Misandry is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men. It is the asymmetrical counterpart of misogyny, prejudice against women)

I personally don't go grabbing girls like that, but I do get grabbed at times by both females and males of different cultures where physical contact is more the norm and I don't consider myself being harrassed. (for example when I was similar age as those in this story, one girl a year older than me at a party did friendly smile and lock arms at elbows with me to lead me to dance or something without asking permission... is that harrassment... I would have been too shy and scared to do same with her, and I probably wasn't big smile on face because of shyness, but I did like the girl)

IMO Lana needs to send some sort of signal "no" to call it harrassment, a flirt (a bit of intentional strip tease) and a big smile after being touched is not a no. Otherwise lots of female characters in this story could be claimed to harass.

[If Lana with a facial expression or words indicated no, but the elf boy kept touching her after, that I would agree was harassment... there are times when girls who are chasing boys do this sort of thing too, often much stronger than boys would dare because they are not afraid of being called sex harrassment. Like with boys, girls get more physical touching after drinking at parties]

[csj]

Feb 18, 2022 12:30:52 GMT csj said:

i can already hear the mras

'is this reverse sexism'

misandry

wow it only took less than a page

[csj]

Feb 18, 2022 16:43:26 GMT faiiry said:

Nobody cares, but this is officially where I give up on Gunnerkrigg

You are a good poster, some will always care.

It is OK to step back where necessary and remember at the end of the day this is still just a comic by some dude. I'm reserving Woke Judgement(tm) until chapter end but hmm... an odd choice for a comic being written for one's daughters.

[davidm]

Example of how "sexual harassment" outrage disappears if it is a female rather than a male doing the touching.... Republic of doyle s02e12 www.youtube.com/watch?v=bscSNGGUCOo starting at 19 minute mark, girl does all sorts of very sexually suggestive touching of a guy and worse even AFTER guy signals no (and he never hints yes). If sexs were reversed, would be outrage, but when girl does the touching it becomes big part of the episode promo and is "comedy".

[ohthatone]

So, kinda off topic, I like how jerreks's ears get pointy in the last panel. I wonder if it's metaphorical like the eyes (I'm assuming) or if everyone can see it.

[Gemminie]

So after a page of practicing her best anime poses and trying the zipper thing on these tree elf teen boys, Lana thinks she's probably got them positively disposed towards her, but I suspect she doesn't really know what's going to happen next. She states "I know what boys like," but in reality she may only know what boys in books she's read like. I think she's talking about what boys like to look at, while the boys think she's talking about what boys like to do, which is an entirely different thing.

The third panel highlights this, with one of the teens reaching out to touch or grab her arm, while Lana seems confused, with a question mark above her head. This could clearly go very wrong.

And then Loup/Jerrek steps in and easily grabs one of his fingers. It looks like he's got it in some kind of painful finger lock; it doesn't look in that last frame that he's got it in an unnatural position as if it's broken.

I have questions. First, are all the New People this strong, or is this just Loup exerting some extra force because he's Loup? If all New People are stronger than humans, then Loup/Jerrek wouldn't have needed to do this; Lana would have easily been able to defend herself.

Second, why is Loup doing this? Is it part of keeping up his disguise as "Jerrek?" Or is he simply irritated at these teens' presumptuous behavior? Or is he actually developing feelings of friendship or protectiveness toward Lana?

My other questions are all about what's going to happen next, but those can usually be answered by waiting.

[imaginaryfriend]

Like I said before, I would have been fine with Gunnerkrigg Court if the main characters had never aged, if they'd just stayed kids and kept having adventures...

...but that isn't the sort of comic Gunnerkrigg Court is. There have been weighty issues involved since day one and though that's clearer now that there's a lot more of it, it never was anything other than that. Sometimes it's been quite dark. As fia pointed out, as the characters grew up the "youthful misunderstandings" they faced grew up as well, and that includes sex and dating and consent etc. and all the problems that come along with it. In this case Lana not being "real" adds an easy dimension of un-personing that I find disquieting, but sometimes people do that to "real" people as well...

...well, let's face it, it happens a lot, doesn't it?

However in this particular case Lana not being "real" might have led the elf trio to take things farther than they might have otherwise. Things they might have really regretted may have happened. Lana might have willingly gone along with things she might have really regretted too, or she might have decided to put a stop to everything by lashing out physically; depending on how strong she is she might have hurt or killed one of them, or perhaps she might have ended up "dead" (broken beyond repair)...

...but I think it is a virtue of this comic that it didn't go there and in general doesn't go there except in the backstory. It doesn't really need to, to get the point across, and that's a mark of good writing.

[pinegreenjellybean]

Huh. I definitely see the way that the situation is going can be read as "creepy", and indeed, it does come across that way-- that said, it's clearly intended to be "creepy." If Lana being harassed by a bunch of dumb teenage elf kids was romanticized or sexualized in the context of the comic, I'd feel differently, but the fact that the green elf kid ended up with a broken finger (albeit from a villainous character) tells me that what he's doing isn't meant to be copied. I agree that as Annie and Kat get older, the plotlines will probably also mature significantly. I mean, we've already seen Idra and Eglamore post-lovemaking, essentially. Jeanne and her elf boy were definitely intimate. There's the witty scene between Parley and Smitty where everyone gets transported to her bed when he gives her flowers, and a later implication by Coyote that their relationship has in fact been consummated. I can think of a handful of other instances of implied or referenced sexuality, largely in a fairly healthy context. (Too busy to scout out the panels atm). But it doesn't seem like a stretch that Tom would acknowledge how sexuality can be misunderstood and used abusively, especially if all parties are teenagers.

As of now, the main characters are sixteen-- a prime age to get sexually harassed by fellow kids while everyone is figuring out sexuality. This panel seems like a cautionary tale (don't sexually harass naive young women unless you want a finger broken!) Not a romanticization of harassment, but an acknowledgment that it exists and it's a danger for young women.

davidm , I'm assuming that given your username, you have never been a teenage girl. If that's a mistaken assumption, my apologies. Given my own experience as a teenage girl not too long ago, and the experiences of other young women past and present, the elf kids making a suggestive comment and grabbing Lana's arm, hair, shirt etc without her consent definitely raises our alert systems. No, it's not necessarily going to escalate into something non-consensual, but the experience of being a young woman surrounded by young men who are making lewd and suggestive comments while grabbing at you-- even if you were flirting as well-- is going to come across as disturbing to people who know how those situations can (not necessarily will) end up... And I think that there is a difference between partners and friends who have established a sense of trust playfully flirting with each other (as in the case of Paz/Kat and Shadow/Robot) and a gaggle of strangers. There is also a difference between a group of (statistically stronger) guys grabbing a girl vs a girl grabbing a guy (which may still come across as creepy, even if it's less threatening). Ofc, no one knows how strong the NP are, but from a standpoint where female readers will identify with Lana in the situation, it definitely seems uncomfortable. Again, I think it's intended to be read that way.

I've seen endless numbers of girls grab boys arms, etc when boy flirts like Lana did... are those girls harassing boys?

Again-- yes, it is, and it's not okay no matter who is doing it. That said, I think there is an added fear that women have of the very real risk of a young man overpowering them that is less likely to be present if the genders are reversed (though not necessarily).

[manabi]

Feb 18, 2022 9:23:46 GMT blahzor said:

Feb 18, 2022 8:41:39 GMT flowsthead said:

Is anyone else surprised by the rapey vibes of the scene?

I wouldn't watch the show "the sex lives of college girls" by Mindy Kaling. Her self insert character is like 100x more sex positive than Lana is doing now

I think what makes this so uncomfortable is that Lana comes across as naive and innocent, so she doesn't fully understand what she's doing. It's like seeing a pre-teen girl doing the same, neither realizing the danger she's leading herself into until it's too late to stop it.

Kaling is old enough to definitely know and understand what she's doing, so it might be cringe to a lot of people, but not have rapey vibes.

[flowsthead]

Feb 18, 2022 17:00:02 GMT fia said:

I think one thing we need to remember as readers is that as Annie and Kat age up, the plot-lines around them might do so a bit too. This is not an uncommon teenage experience (of flirting with the opposite sex or of being harassed with/without being aware of it), and not uncommon coming-of-age writing (anyone ever read the Alanna books?) and I think that perhaps while Tom is new to this kind of writing I'm not as shocked by it as some.

This is a bit off topic, but I've never been a fan of that kind of writing. Harry Potter does this with its romance and it feels poorly written. One year all they're doing is playing quidditch and wizard chess and the next year everyone is thinking about snogging? It's absurd. Maybe that's true to some people's realities, and maybe it was true for JK Rowling, but the divide being by years like that isn't true to my experience at all.

In any case, that wasn't my impression of Gunnerkrigg. I thought that there are adult things happening around Annie and Kat and they weren't aware of them, but those things are still happening. There are scenes in the very early chapters that feel adult, especially because Annie is precocious about many things (although clearly not romance). This page might be the earliest implicitly sexual thing in the comic www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=227 and I don't think it reflects Annie's age.

This isn't the first time something potentially abusive has been shown in the comic, but the other times it was physical or emotional abuse. This felt jarring because I don't think sexual abuse or harassment has ever really been implied. Maybe I should say before Loup, although from Loup it still feels somewhat normalized by him being an insane god, whereas coming from normal people...I guess I wasn't mentally prepared for something like that happening. 

[drmemory]

I wonder what will happen next?  Will Loup drop his disguise or what?

It would be really nice if he explained what he was thinking there, but that wouldn't be in keeping with his personality.  How would Loup even know what was going on to guess at what might happen next?  Do the forest elves have problems with this sort of thing?  It hasn't been shown but that means little.

We don't really know how far the elf kid would have taken things once he found out how naive Lana was, but obviously Loup didn't like what he was seeing.  Still, I'm a bit surprised he reacted so quickly and violently.  Well, maybe not the quickly part, Loup is nothing if not impulsive...  but I'm more worried about what is going to happen next.  Even if he doesn't reveal himself, there are now three elf kids that know something is wrong and that the new people are not harmless, and Lana just saw Jerek do something wildly out of character compared to any robot or new person we've seen to date.  So... what next?

The look on Jerek's face in the last panel is downright scary.  More Terminator than New Person or Forest God.

[warrl]

Up until the third panel of this page, I think the elf boys were trying to harass Lana, but failing.

They might have started succeeding in the third panel.

However, with the 5th panel being what it is, I'm not certain.

[mochakimono]

"Okay that is quite enough thank you"

[blahzor]

Feb 18, 2022 19:54:07 GMT manabi said:

Feb 18, 2022 9:23:46 GMT blahzor said:

I wouldn't watch the show "the sex lives of college girls" by Mindy Kaling. Her self insert character is like 100x more sex positive than Lana is doing now

I think what makes this so uncomfortable is that Lana comes across as naive and innocent, so she doesn't fully understand what she's doing. It's like seeing a pre-teen girl doing the same, neither realizing the danger she's leading herself into until it's too late to stop it.

Kaling is old enough to definitely know and understand what she's doing, so it might be cringe to a lot of people, but not have rapey vibes.

the character is in the show is 18 first day of college and had a lot of stuff she wanted to do all the time before arriving so the second she was out of her parents sight in college she did a bunch of stuff she been dreaming about. If i didn't see the show and how similar they are but in different worlds of course i'd might be where some of you are it's college guys vs wood elfs

[Per]

If the robots were still in robotish bodies and the scene played out the same, would people still riot?

[flowsthead]

Feb 19, 2022 0:51:57 GMT Per said:

If the robots were still in robotish bodies and the scene played out the same, would people still riot?

What is the purpose of this question?

[madjack]

Someone on twitter reached out to Tom about the creepy stuff appearing in the comments section:

[lurkerbot]

Add me to those who don't understand why Loup/Jerrek intervened on Lana's behalf. It occurs to me that at least some of his motivation might be to continue to use Lana for access to Antimony. But then again, he's already established a connection with Antimony, so I'm just generally confused by his behavior here.

On a slightly different note, I do believe this the first time we've seen him display independent decisive action in the presence of others since he adopted his Jerrek persona.

[gergle]

Feb 19, 2022 2:13:59 GMT lurkerbot said:

Add me to those who don't understand why Loup/Jerrek intervened on Lana's behalf. It occurs to me that at least some of his motivation might be to continue to use Lana for access to Antimony. But then again, he's already established a connection with Antimony, so I'm just generally confused by his behavior here.

On a slightly different note, I do believe this the first time we've seen him display independent decisive action in the presence of others since he adopted his Jerrek persona.

Coyote became other things, to such an extent that even he forgot he was Coyote. I suspect Loup is becoming Jerrek in much the same way.

[imaginaryfriend]

Minor point: I sort of addressed this before but the way "Jerrik" grabs that finger in panel 4 is surprisingly sophisticated. He's applying a joint lock that causes pain and control but does not require a lot of strength to use and doesn't necessarily cause injury. As Gemminie points out, in the last panel the finger in question seems to be clearly depicted as not broken. It's being gripped tight and "Jerrik" can increase/decrease the pain inflicted by increasing/decreasing pressure on it, and he can continue to maneuver the elf kid in question around with it, but no real injury has been done (yet).

Feb 18, 2022 21:46:17 GMT drmemory said:

The look on Jerek's face in the last panel is downright scary. More Terminator than New Person or Forest God.

With the ears and eyes like that I was thinking "big bad wolf."

[puntino]

I like the overall "Bonk! Go to horny jail" vibes coming from Loup in this page.

But I don't like anything else. It's very uncomfortable.

[hannibalbarca]

hi there, first time poster and long time lurker. i would say ive been following the comic for 7 years or so, not that it adds any medals to my etherical profile since everyone here has been an even longer time fan it seems.

this page convinced me to make an account because quite frankly, it shocked me. it's not the worst thing ive ever seen, but definitely something i wasnt expecting from gunnerkrigg court. call me naive, but i read books and comics thinking "okay, this one will pribably have an uncomfortable sexual assault scene at some point", or likewise "i dont think this one will ever approach that subject, i should be safe". because for people like me, it is, partially, a question of safety. i never put down a book based on vibes alone, but i have put down books because of these scenes multiple times. i believe in authors ability to write whatever they want, it's their book, it's their baby, and even if i have to leave the journey the author takes me on because of scenes like these, it's not on the author, but on me.

multiple people have pointed it out. the scene feels rapey. i agree with other posters on this one. there is nothing wholesome about a new person showing off their body to a group of teenagers who might have the same physical age or approaching, but are way more experienced and outnumbering them, and have been given expectations that will not be met. yes, the fact it's one girl and multiple men does matter, and its not sexist to point out, as it is something a lot of people have real life experience with. it would be just as messed up if it was a group of girls sexually solliciting an inexperienced male new person, touching and surrounding him, and making a move after they misinterpreted his words for sexual sollicitation, after it's been hammered into us how innocent and naive that new person really is. it would be awful. the examples shown by posters above (girls grabbing boys arms while flirting) don't seem to understand the issue here. the problem isn't really the grabbing, although it doesn't help. the problem is that this is a group of boys being led to believe they will get something they won't get, and a girl who has no idea what she just "agreed" to. (as an addendum i want to make clear it's not lana's fault in any way.)

the problem also lies in how we see scenes like these in media. they happen in real life and don't always end in tragedy, although they're always pretty traumatizing, but try and remember what happens when a scene like this pops up in media ? bad things, in general. the inappropriate comments that have been approved by tom reflect this in a way. it's either sex, or something terrible about it. i know the plotlines grow up with the heroes, and i know coyote sexually assaulted 12 year old annie back in the early days, but i thought these days were over, frankly. at least lana is not 12, i guess. but somehow it feels worse. annie never reacted to these moments much and they seemed to go over her head, but lana will probably learn something from this. i hope this chapter will spend at least a little bit telling her it's not her fault. possibly with lana going to kat, because i imagine loup will not be very helpful in the psychological department.

which brings me to something i noticed : almost every grown-up thing (read here sexual) in the comic is brought from the forest. coyote's kinda creepy jokes about annie, loup habing similar comments about annie staying forever and him being whateber she wants him to be ? my memories blur on that one. the elf boy in annie and the forest, indra and eglamore, now the elf boys. i guess you could also count coyotes comments about parley ans smitty. the court characters on their own almost never mention it, so what's up with that ? it's almost a theme.

[Nnelg]

Feb 18, 2022 16:43:26 GMT faiiry said:

Nobody cares, but this is officially where I give up on Gunnerkrigg. I stayed reading every update through countless story ideas I didn’t love or found questionable. Here I draw the line. We have a minor character of whom suggestive art is being repeatedly drawn both here and on Twitter, we have comments being manually approved that call these scenes “lewd” and “leading to a gangbang,” and finally we have the implication that a rape would have occurred on a naive character who didn’t understand what was happening if it had not been stopped by an outside party. This is far beyond the pale of what I ever would have expected from the webcomic and I find myself *extremely* surprised and uncomfortable. There were odd moments such as this early in the history of the comic (Coyote and Annie for one), but I was able to ignore them as they were drawn a decade plus ago and I assumed the comic had changed. I guess not, and it’s beyond my ability to be okay with.

Thanks for the memories, both from fellow commenters and from the comic itself. For a long time GKC was very important to me, and that’ll never change. Time to move on now.

Hm, well idk if you're still here, but could you explain what you believe has/hasn't changed about the comic that makes you not want to read it anymore?

From my point of view, there was a 0% chance of this turning into a pornographic scenario even before the fingersnap. In fact, the comic itself didn't even go close: only the comments amd discussion did.

In the comic, all we see is a teenage boy that's being aggressively flirted at by an (apparently) teenage girl start aggressively flirting back, not knowing that she probably isn't aware of how "serious" she looks.

Was the physical contact over the line? Maybe, but maybe not. The comic format doesn't distinguish well between a quick, harsh motion, and a cautious, gentle one. And Lana had previously shown no discomfort at having her hair touched and even grabbed.

So, the scenario here might have been leading to a case of sexual assault, but there's no guarantee of that. As far as we know, none of these boys would ever even dream of doing something to a woman that she didn't want, because from their point of view they're just reciprocating her aggressive flirtation.

If Loup hadn't intervened, this could have ended in a single page of Lana expressing confusion and the boys realizing she doesn't really know what she's doing. With Tom as the author, that's a heck of a lot more likely than some pornographic scenario playing out on-page.

[marveloustk]

Feb 18, 2022 16:52:26 GMT davidm said:

IMO the elves have not been "rapey" yet because she hasn't in any way said "no". If a girl grabbed my arm when I started flirting with her it would be absurd for me to accuse her of rape, even if I was surrounded by other girls and they could overpower me if they wanted. The deciding factor would be how they react if she did say or by actions indicate no.

If Paz (while with her gang of friends) grabbed Kat's arm without getting permission first in same way as elves but not being told "no" either after Kat flirted a bit, would Paz be rapey?

Or how about if shadow flirted with robot a bit, and robot had 2 of his buddies around him and robot grabbed shadows arm, while both smiled at each other like this new girl and elf are smiling at each other?

Hooooohkay, breaking lurking after years because holy hell I cannot let this pass without comment.

Consent isn't 'not saying no'.

Consent isn't 'not saying no'.

CONSENT ISN'T 'NOT SAYING NO'.

Flirting is not consent. 'I know what boys like' isn't consent. Showing off her body isn't consent. Consent is saying yes, enthusiastically and in full understanding. There is no wiggle room. Consent is active, willful, and intentional. There is no passive consent, there is no implied consent. There is either explicit agreement, or there is nothing. That it the only 'deciding factor'.