Education around consent and healthy relationships has expanded in the past few years, with books, government initiatives and public discourse attempting to normalise conversations on the subject. Most recently, a poem performed by a British spoken artist and actor has made the rounds online and we think everyone should hear it.
Caitlin O’Ryan is perhaps most widely known for her role as Lizzie Wemyss in the popular historical drama television series, Outlander, where she features in Seasons 4 to 8. But O’Ryan has also been performing as a spoken word artist for years, regularly headlining shows in London with her original poems focusing on the female experience.
Last month, O’Ryan appeared at Spit Nights, a weekly open mic night featuring slam poetry and music held in London, where she performed a searing poem about consent.
“It’s more than a yes or a no… It’s a feeling that tingles through bones that signals a tone for how the evening might go,” she begins, describing the bodily sensations of a sexual encounter on the verge of occurring before explicitly addressing the complexities of a verbal consent.
“I can say yes, but my stance might say no, I can say yes, but might really want you to go. I know it’s confusing and fuck it’s frustrating. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ended up hating myself for making myself go along with situations I am not entirely comfortable with because I worry how no might be received.”
The poem goes on to explore the expectations on women to please others, and the frightening consequences of refusing to succumb to such requirements asked of us by the patriarchy — “It’s so much easier for me to people please, appeasing comes easily to me. It’s my safe space, because I have seen the alternative. I have had to alter my behaviour due to ulterior learning. I’ve had to educate myself in your unspoken yearning.”
“If I can read the unwritten, why aren’t you observing the subtleties I’m trying to suggest? That no, my body screams as you start to undress? I know, I should just say no, but sometimes there’s nowhere for that no to go. I know how that no might quickly unfold.”
The poem, which lasts for over two minutes, concludes with a powerful message; “No, will always mean no, but yes is complex. I know, you’re confused, because you think that by asking you’re letting me choose, but I know what might happen if I was to refuse. So if I can’t say no, then what’s left, if I can’t say no, is that a yes?”
O’Ryan, who wore a shirt that read “Women don’t owe you shit” while performing the poem on stage, has garnered a strong following for her original work on social media. Another of her poems about the volatility of women’s safety and the impossible standards placed on women to be ‘perfect’ has more than a million likes on TikTok.
“I bet you Uber’s kept afloat out of women’s pockets, makes its profits as the cons of walking home alone and far outweighs the pros,” O’Ryan recites.
“Does she know that she’ll pay for a taxi to avoid getting murdered by a stranger that spent the entire journey aware of the danger that this might be the stranger who will finally murdered her?”
The line likely refers to the murder of Sian O’Callaghan, who was killed by Christopher Halliwell after stepping into his taxi in Swindon one evening in March 2011.
O’Ryan then meanders into various challenges of being a woman — from the appalling beauty standards that force us to “invest in lotions and motions,” to the burden expected of us to take contraceptives: “If we’re lucky enough to get the pill for free the bill will be floated by our bloated bodies, and it could cost us anything from mood swings and low sex drives to blood clots and higher rates of suicidal thoughts and depression.”
The video has thousands of comments of support, with women applauding the frank and flawless delivery of the serious subject matter.
“This should be recited at the official opening of parliament,” one user commented.
“Wow, that was better than the Barbie monologue by America Ferrera!” another posited.
We think it’s a powerful ode to the experience of womanhood, and something everyone ought to listen to. Since May 2023, O’Ryan has also been the host of the podcast Have You Got Your Sh*t Together? where she interviews artists about their creative and emotional process.