Sunday mornings, long hours of sleep and waking up to no to-do lists. Getting my hands on the Sunday edition of Hindustan Times and comfortably tucking myself into a chair with a piping hot cup of chai. This is my Sunday morning ritual.

Along the lines of Ramchandra Guha’s and Karan Thapar’s weekly opinion columns, I’d get my hands on HT’s weekly magazine, Brunch. Seema Goswami’s fortnightly column Spectator has always been an integral part of my weekend ritual. Until Sunday, when her ramblings on sexual consent following the news of the Aziz Ansari case left me infuriated and, more so, disappointed.

Goswami’s article is headlined “Does just saying ‘no’ work?”, and that “For a man to hear ‘no’, a woman has to actually say it”. The headline in itself indicates a problematic narrative, putting the onus on the women to convey their unwillingness to a man.

In this post, I break down the over-simplistic understanding of sexual consent, courtesy Seema Goswami, who thinks the best way to not get sexually assaulted is to just sniff out the bad men from the good, and that refusal for sexual activity is as easy as splitting the bill and taking a cab home.

In the light of the allegations against Ansari, actor-comedian and apparently “woke bae”, we saw the emergence of a discussion around revising how we view sexual violence and what can be defined as assault. The case most importantly triggered a discussion to understand the more complex realities of sexual interactions. It tapped into a grey realm of sexual misconduct that could not legally qualify for assault or violence, but something that left the affected partner involved feeling grossed out and violated.

Goswami in her piece completely dismisses this conversation by stating that Ansari’s sexual moves did not amount to sexual abuse or assault. True, they perhaps didn’t but Goswami misses the larger point about looking at such sexual encounters as murky territory where sex can be violative and not necessarily criminal.

Goswami proudly asserts that she finds herself on the other side of the generational divide where casual hook-ups on Tinder are the rule rather than exception, and in such a scenario it is women who need to learn how to negotiate through what she calls a “sexual minefield”.

In stating this, she casually dismisses the encounter of the woman with Ansari as a date gone wrong. Rather than addressing the discussion on renegotiation of harmful sexual scripts loaded with the cult of toxic masculinity, Goswami chooses to warn the “woke millennials” about expecting their partners to be mind-readers.

Understanding consent isn’t too hard, definitely not as complex as reading someone’s mind. Equating the complexity of sexual interactions with mind-reading conveniently ignores the magnitude of the problem.

In a 1999 paper by Celia Kitzinger and Hannah Frith, the authors concluded that “both men and women have a sophisticated ability to convey and to comprehend refusals, including refusals which do not include the word ‘no’”, positing that when men claim to not understand these types of refusals, they may actually be employing “self-interested justifications for coercive behaviour”. Goswami’s writing further reinforces these justifications.

Acknowledging that her piece may come across as something that effectively blames the woman in question, she goes on to argue that she does not see women as disenfranchised victims who cannot speak up for themselves.

Unfortunately for us, woke women challenging sexual interactions aren’t a clear case of yes or no; situational factors such as fear, embarrassment and most importantly not feeling empowered because of the power bargain in the sexual interaction, are some factors that may make the most educated and empowered among us to succumb to pressure.

Goswami does not emphasise this complex reality, instead she makes refusal look as easy as “splitting the bill” and “calling a cab home”.

Throughout her article she consistently reiterates that it is the onus of the woman to convey her discomfort. This limited understanding of Goswami does not for once mention harmful sexual scripts both women and men grow up to internalise, where women are socialised to cater to the comfort of those around them whilst men are taught that they are entitled to a woman’s time, affection and physical attention.

When Goswami uses metaphors such as “sniffing the good men from the bad”, she reinforces this harmful sexual script where in women should know better and maintain a degree of caution while choosing their partners. Well, Ms Goswami, we aren’t dogs to be sniffing out people’s intentions.

In her piece where she was perhaps hoping for a balanced narrative, she ends up sounding like our average neighbourhood aunty – warning us about the dangers of the big, bad world for women, where we must constantly keep our noses ready.

Goswami’s column is rightly titled Spectator, someone watching from a distance, not involved themselves. Her piece is a perfect example of where we are going wrong in initiating conversations around sex and consent. We are often dismissive, singularly focused and ignorant of complex layers. Beginning these conversations will be admittedly hard, but it will take more than a few think-pieces with bold headlines to bring about that change.