Deacon Sharpe Should Not Kiss Sheila Without Her Consent

We get it. Things on The Bold and the Beautiful are strange for Deacon Sharpe, with his former lover Sheila Carter suddenly being in a relationship with Bill Spencer. It seemed like Deacon couldn’t believe it even though Sheila confirmed it…firmly.

Deacon Sharpe No Means No Even On B&B

In today’s era of openness about the importance of enthusiastic consent, we found it disturbing to see Deacon (Sean Kanan) kiss Sheila (Kimberlin Brown) without her permission. In fact, she’d just gotten finished telling him that she was in love with Bill (Don Diamont). Sure, we know she was appreciative of the relations she and Deacon had when they romped around his apartment, but nothing she said or did sounded like a “yes.”

Consent is so important, and watching one B&B character violate another character’s lack of consent felt jarring. We know that Deacon is no model citizen, and neither is Sheila, for that matter. Even so, every person has the right to his, her, or their body despite what they’ve done in the past.

Bold And Beautiful Nope

With Deacon on his supposed redemption path, it seems like a strange choice to have him kiss Sheila when she was quite clear about loving Bill. Yes, she quickly pushed him away, and Deacon didn’t try again, but it was pretty obvious before he even kissed her that she wasn’t open to it. We appreciate that part of the scene, but we can’t understand why, at this point in time, we saw a moment that was essentially “stealing a kiss.”

In the same vein, Sheila shouldn’t have slept with Deacon the first time when he wasn’t even aware of who she was. She wore a disguise, and she misrepresented herself, which is another form of violation. Ultimately, these are difficult situations, and we realize that soap operas deal with everyday issues. However, we could’ve done without the whole thing. It needs to be very clear to everyone that enthusiastic consent is necessary for sexual situations. Our hope for the future is that we don’t see more of this but if we do, that it isn’t just shrugged off as a romantic gesture.

The Bold and the Beautiful airs weekdays on CBS. For an in-depth look at the show’s history, click here.

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