May I?
On Consent and the Gentleman Who Had Never Been Asked
You have spent your life asking for permission.
In boardrooms, you pitched ideas to skeptical partners, your palms sweating against a sleek laptop, your voice steady despite the pounding in your chest. You learned to read a room before you spoke, to gauge who was leaning in and who was already planning their exit. You rallied teams around visions they could not yet see, sold yourself and your company and your dreams to people who held the keys to the capital you needed. You learned, early and often, that permission is the currency of progress. You ask. You wait. You adjust. You ask again.
But no one ever taught you that consent works both ways.
We met in Austin, you and I. You, the tech founder who had sold more companies than most people will ever start. Me, the graduate student who had chosen a different path, though we began with similar majors and a shared love for understanding how things work. We talked for what felt like an eternity. Your college dropout story versus my academic slog. The I-35 construction, that never-ending ribbon of orange cones and existential dread, a trauma bond every Austinite knows by heart. You laughed. I laughed. The hours dissolved.
And there it was. A spark. The twinkle in your hazel eyes when you spoke about something that mattered to you. The way you pushed those curls back from your face, a nervous habit you probably did not know you had. Your body leaning in, just slightly, toward mine.
I could read you. It is both a gift and a curse, this ability to see what people are not saying. The slight tension in your jaw. The way your hand hovered, then retreated. You wanted something. You were waiting for permission you did not know how to ask for.
So I asked for you.
“May I?”
Two little words. A question so simple, so obvious, and yet you froze. Not from fear. From genuine, utter surprise. Your eyes widened. Your mouth opened, then closed. You were flustered in a way that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with the novelty of being asked.
I waited. Because consent is not a checkpoint… not a box to tick before moving on to the main event. Consent is an enthusiastic yes, a full-bodied, un-coerced, delighted yes. And I have learned, through years of navigating rooms full of powerful men, that nothing less than that will do.
You did not say yes that moment. So we continued our evening. Dinner. More conversation. A spontaneous detour to the movies because you had seen a poster for “You, Me & Tuscany” and remembered I was planning my Italian summer. We caught the last thirty minutes, tucked into our seats, shoulders brushing. Afterward, we walked to the parking lot hand in hand, your palm warm against mine.
Before you opened my car door, you paused.
“That thing you did,” you said. “Asking if you could kiss me. I have never had anyone do that before.”
You explained it to me then, the shape of your past. Consent, for you, had always been one-sided. A thing you were expected to initiate, to assume, to somehow know without being told. The women you had been with had given you permission implicitly, through proximity, through silence, through the absence of a no. But you had never considered that consent might be a conversation. That it might be offered to you, not just extracted from someone else.
You had never felt seen in that way.
I told you that consent goes both ways. I have walked away from dates where I felt disrespected, where my boundaries were crossed, where the word “no” was treated like an invitation to negotiate. I have learned that my body is not a democracy. It is a dictatorship, and I am the only one who gets a vote.
And I would expect the same of you.
The night extended after that. Unexpected. Welcomed. And the kiss? It happened. More than once. In more ways than one. Consensually, of course.
Here is what I want you to understand, the you reading this now, the you I have not yet met.
Consent is not a chore. It is not a legal hoop to jump through before the fun begins. Consent is the fun. Rather, it is the thrill of being asked, of being seen, of knowing that your comfort matters as much as anyone else’s. It is the quiet confidence of a partner who checks in, who reads your body, who listens when you speak and when you do not. It is the foundation upon which every good touch, every whispered word, every shared laugh is built.
When I ask “May I?” I am not performing politeness. I am offering you a gift: the freedom to say yes without pressure, to say no without guilt, to be an active participant in your own pleasure rather than a passive recipient of someone else’s agenda. And when you answer, when you give me that enthusiastic yes, the one that comes from your chest and your gut and every cell of your body... that is when the real magic begins.
So consider this your invitation to a collaboration, not to a transaction. To an evening where your boundaries are honored, your desires are explored, and your comfort is never in question. Where consent is not a hurdle but a hymn.
May I?
I am here, waiting for your yes.