Jessie Williams: Consent F*cking Matters

Picture retrieved from: https://www.pride.com/theater/2022/5/12/jesse-williams-nude-leak-leads-new-security-measures-theater

Black folk have always had an interesting relationship with the word consent. I say interesting when really I mean to speak of a history of violation that has happened, usually at the hands of white people who believed they could own, and in some ways continue to think they do own, the bodies of others and their autonomy. 

Think about how colorism plays into who is allowed to consent and when. For dark skinned women, they are told to feel “lucky” that anyone would view them as an object of sexual desire. For light skinned women, they have already be saddled with the trope of the Jezebel, insatiable sexual appetite that makes rape nearly impossible, and consent a given. But what about Black men? Men are seen as the “Black Buck” ready for mounting at a moments notice. What about if you add that into how light skinned men are made to be less masculine, but still strapped to the idea of the Black buck? Sometimes the tropes make it so that light skinned Black men need to prove their manliness through sexual exploits and in-your-face sexual appetite. And there are some who would prove it for them by putting their bodies on display for others to see much like what happened to Jessie Williams.

But allow me to hit you with the head line:

the picture and video-taking of Jessie Wiliiams’ body was a violation of his right to choose. A sexual violation of his consent. 

When there is “sex,” however, we define it, we understand the violation (in many circumstances), but somehow that understanding becomes diminished or forgotten when we are talking about the image of someones body, especially if that someone is famous/a celebrity, especially if that person is Black, and usually, but not in this case, when that person is a woman. 

Power is always at play when there is a violation of someone's consent. The violator is in some way saying that what I want is more important than what you want, even if it costs you your mental health and wellbeing. 

Even if the person who took the picture is a woman of color (and I don’t know), this would still be a display of white supremacist partiarchy at play. How? Because we have internalized it so much that even Black women can be agents of white supremacists patriarchy. We have learned its rules and how they apply to us. While many of us like to see ourselves as the people who gnash their teeth and fight the power and the system, many of us are happy to be complicit, while still others aren't even aware of how they uphold the system they so hate. We expect men and white people, in some ways, to violate the rights of others, doing what makes them happy, comfortable, and content even at the expense of the peace of mind and needs of others–because the history of power has supported their right to choose for others for themselves. If a white woman took that photo, she acted in white supremacy which doesn't believe that Black people own their own bodies. And we know this has continued to be true as personal space violations abound with white folk reaching out to touch someone else. If the person was a white man, same shit. If they were a Black man, they were an agent. Simple, right?

Maybe that seems too much like B.S. to you to believe that it can all be blamed on white supremacist cis-het patriarchal capitalism, but that is what I blame most things on because just about everything can be (and likely should be) viewed through the lens that created the United States as it stands today.

The Point is…

Jesse Williams body does not belong to the public at large. If we want to see his body, it should not be shared all over Twitter, like a pack of gum between friends. We are meant to either go see the show in person or not see it (his body) at all. I feel the need to say this because I think that we got lost in all of our ooohing and ahhhing about the beauty of his body that we forgot that for him this is a sexual violation. His celebrity status doesn't mean that he stops being a person who gets to make determinations about what happens to his body and its image. And nor does his being a light skinned Black man. If a  theater says that no pictures or video should be taken, then it is up to us to actually follow those rules. Because otherwise what we're doing violates the consent of the very living people who are on the stage who are in front of us performing. 

And psst…NO. It doesn’t matter if YOU would be okay with it. It’s not about treating others the way YOU want to be treated, it's about treating them the way THEY want to be treated.

And he said no.