We can say today 'it wasn't a problem,' and we can say tomorrow 'actually it was a problem and now I want to deal with it,' and that is alright too. We all have to find our individual ways of healing, and as a society we've got to provide that. And at the moment, we're doing the opposite. The narrative is that you're raped and then broken afterwards, that you'll be traumatized for the rest of your life - and that is really black magic.

Cultural critic Mithu Sanyal deconstructs the often retrograde values at the center of contemporary discourse around sexual assault and sexual boundaries, and calls for a new way of understanding sex, ourselves and others built on self-knowledge, empathy and communication.

Mithu is author of the book Rape: From Lucretia to #MeToo from Verso.