Erin Hutton reflects the importance of talking about and practicing consent in how we respect ourselves, each other, and our boundaries.
Picture this: it’s 2020, and I’ve adopted a COVID cat. I’d never owned, or, probably more accurately, been owned, by a cat before. I didn’t know the first thing about cats. How much do they eat? Why do they make that weird ekekek sound at birds? But I think the first lesson I learnt from my cat was consent.
I am definitely not alone in thinking that cats teach consent. My cat, Cake, communicates with her body language, and meowed “hello”, when she would like to receive pets. This must be on her terms.
If I pick her up without her permission, she will make it (loudly!) clear that she does not consent to being bandied about like a sack of potatoes. If I do not acquiesce to her mewling request to stop enacting Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, I will be at the mercy of her murder mittens. However, if I ask her if she wants to be “space Cake”, suddenly she’s Señor Chang: “I’ll allow it.”
Now, here is where my cat-consent example falls down... Cake doesn’t give a flying-space-cat about whether or not I consent. To anything. Ever. And that’s not going to fly, because consent cannot be one-sided. Consent is a conversation. And, I think, the best way to understand consent is to talk about it, and to practice it every day.
Can I borrow your pen? Would you like some help with that? Is it OK if I eat the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast? Consent is about respecting ourselves, each other, and our boundaries. Sexual consent is about respecting ourselves, each other, and our boundaries.
The Australian Government has helpfully explained sexual consent as: “a free, voluntary and informed agreement between people to participate in a sexual act. This agreement is only present when these people mutually and genuinely feel they want to engage in that sexual act and actively make sure their partner does too.”
Consent doesn’t have to be awkward, taboo, or clinical. If you can’t find a way to make consent sexy, then you are, quite literally, doing it wrong.
When I had the audacity to cease petting Cake to write this reflection, she parkoured her way into our bedroom (where she is not allowed), pounced onto our bed (absolutely not allowed), and then (loudly!) demanded that my husband pet her. He did not. (Heartless! Cruel! How could he?!) Because he understands consent and boundaries.
Not breaching a physical boundary (i.e. not breaking and entering through my bedroom window like a cat burglar) is a pretty obvious example of not crossing a (literal) boundary. But what about emotional, spiritual, sexual or other boundaries? How do we set and maintain, and recognise and respect, healthy boundaries?
Again, communication is key. Boundaries are as easy (and as hard!) as working out what it is you need, or what your limit is, and then clearly communicating it. “I can only stay for an hour.” “I respect your viewpoint, but I disagree. Understand that we see things differently.” “Please ask before you eat the plums in the icebox. I was saving them for breakfast.”
Do cats eat plums?
If you’d like to continue the conversation about sexual consent, the Australian government is running a new campaign you might have seen. And you can learn more here.
If you’d like to read up on boundaries, Cloud and Townsend is a classic text. But if you’re short on time, HelpGuide.org has a pretty good write up on healthy boundaries in relationships.
Dr Erin Martine Hutton is an award-winning poet and scholar, and the Moderation & Inclusion Manager at the Australian University of Theology. She lives on Dharug and Kuringai land with her historian husband and their two semi-feral small humans. Erin bends time and space to make trees from old books.
About this series
Healthy Relationships is Common Grace's daily blog series during 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence, 25 November to 10 December 2025. Encourage your friends, family and faith community to sign up here.
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Learn more about Domestic and Family Violence from Common Grace's SAFER Resource
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