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Even if you’re in a long term relationship with someone you’re madly in love with, it doesn’t imply that they necessarily consent to your every whim or desire.

Relationships are mostly about compromise, accommodating of one another. It’s not a space in which one demands and the other complies. Rather, it’s a place where each listens to and is mindful of the needs of the other.

The primitive understandings of consent amongst defenders of those accused of serious transgressions are perturbing therefore. A person being in a relationship with someone is no guarantee that their behaviour is consensual. Much less so if threats or blackmail are involved.

Can spouses not be hurt even by those they love? Ask survivors of domestic violence. So can the same not also apply to the one-night-stand, girlfriend, lover, affair? People may change their mind, have second thoughts, decide not now, agree to one thing but not another.

These are not complicated ideas to understand. All encapsulated in that most foundational notion, “Live with them in kindness.”