In Washington, D.C, thousands of protesters continue to gather outside Capitol Hill to denounce Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for Supreme Court Justice of the United States. Five times named world’s best soccer player, Cristiano Ronaldo, has publicly denied recent rape accusations made against him by Kathryn Mayorga. Memories of Anita Hill’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 are brought back in parallel to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s decision to come forward with allegations against Kavanaugh, all while the academic world remains painfully divided on NYU’s self-proclaimed feminist and philosophy professor Avital Ronell being suspended over sexual harassment allegations.

The media’s recent focus on consent and sexual respect raises a painful question: why does it feel like nothing ever changes?

If issues of sexual misconduct are more present now in mainstream media than at any other point in history, when it seems that the world is shifting toward a collective consciousness about sexual respect, why does it feel like nothing ever changes?

It only takes one look at the headlines to find out.

Everywhere from day-to-day conversations to major media outlet headlines such as those of the Washington Post and the New York Times, discussions are plagued by terms such as “burden of proof,” “findings,” “legal outcome,” “investigation,” “perjury,” “complainant” and “defendant.” Stories of trauma and pain are constantly being told with jarring detachment, and yet the public continues to consume them.

Are we dehumanizing consent?

Somewhere along the line, numbness took over in the form of legalistic terms, and the world seems to have forgotten that behind sexual assault investigations exist living, breathing human beings. By focusing so much of our conversations on consequences, policy violations and punishment, our culture of consent has become increasingly about self-protection and less about genuine concern for the victim.

Three months ago sitting alone in my bed in a new city, confused, I felt the burden of this same question. With the sound of the door closing and my date leaving to never return, I wondered, how was it possible for an encounter to be consensual, and yet feel so wrong? He asked every single time. My “yes” was clear and enthusiastic, every single time. But there was something about the way he asked that made me uneasy. It seemed legalistic and self-protective, out of fear of reprisal rather than from a true sense of caretaking.

Perhaps I never had the chance to get to know him well. Perhaps it was the conversation we had hours before about how scary it is to be falsely accused of sexual assault and how “men’s futures get jeopardized so frequently.” Whatever it was, I still wondered if I was asking for too much. Who cares where consent comes from, as long as the interactions are safe? Who cares if it comes from a fear of the courtroom, as long as no one gets hurt?

But it matters.

The way we choose to talk about consent matters. If consent culture is solely punitive, in the postgraduate life that is not governed by Title IX policies and without the guarantee of reliable investigations and fair consequences — in the world of Christine Blasey Ford, Anita Hill and the thousands that came before them, in the world of #MeToo and #IDidntReport — what are we left with?

All that is left is people asking for consent merely for the fear of facing consequences if they don’t — and very frequently, they don’t.

In the Kavanaugh case, legality could have not been separated from what was at stake. Everything from access to healthcare and reproductive rights to the future of Roe v. Wade hangs on the thin thread of the outcome of his confirmation for Supreme Court Justice. Removing the punitive aspect of consent and eliminating the legal jargon from our discourse around sexual misconduct is idealistic and counterproductive. Having a system that holds perpetrators accountable is essential to the attainment of justice, but today the system has failed not just Dr. Christine Blasey Ford but also 160 million U.S. American women.

Consent culture should be just as focused on understanding relevant policies as it is about honoring the humanity in the other person. Our efforts to raise awareness about sexual misconduct should be rooted in empathy and a genuine desire to treat intimacy with respect and compassion. We should be equipping people with the skills and the language to care, to ask and to give.

Current events should serve as a wake up call to how painfully low the bar has been set. Adequate consent has become so much of a rarity that it has strayed away from what it is at its core: basic human decency.