Consent - is it a meaningful concept?

[Beachcomber]

On the recent ‘Invisible Men’ thread, the concept of consent came up and was discussed. I posted referring to the following quote from Catharine MacKinnon in which she questions whether consent in male female sexual relations, within the context of a patriarchal society which is founded on dominance /submission is a meaningful concept; and she concludes that it is not. Which is quite a statement.

Quite a few posters expressed an interest in having a thread on the subject of consent and MacKinnon’s analysis of it. I have been meaning to start the thread for a while, so here it is.

Here is the quote from MacKinnon. It is from her book “Toward a Feminist Theory of the State”, specifically from the chapter ‘Rape: On Coercion and Consent’ which you can read Rape: On Coercion and Consent here (It does help to read the whole chapter which is a searing piece of feminist analysis from an utterly brilliant woman. )

"The deeper problem is that women are socialized to passive receptivity; may have or perceive no alternative to acquiescence; may prefer it to the escalated risk of injury and the humiliation of a lost fight; submit to survive. Also, force and desire are not mutually exclusive under male supremacy. So long as dominance is eroticized, they never will be. Some women eroticize dominance and submission; it beats feeling forced. Sexual intercourse may be deeply unwanted, the women would never have initiated it, yet no force may be present. So much force may have been used that the woman never risked saying no. Force may be used, yet the woman prefer the sex - to avoid more force or because she, too, eroticizes dominance. Women and men know this. Considering rape as violence not sex evades, at the moment it most seems to confront, the issue of who controls women's sexuality and the dominance/submission dynamic that has defined it. When sex is violent, women may have lost control over what is done to them, but absence of force does not ensure the presence of that control. Nor, under conditions of male dominance, does the presence of force make an interaction nonsexual. If sex is normally something men do to women, the issue is less whether there was force than whether consent is a meaningful concept."

Another text which was brought up in the discussion was the section on sexual intelligence by Andrea Dworkin in the chapter “The Politics of Intelligence” from her book “Right-Wing Women”.

Here is a link to a pdf of the book, I’m afraid the quality isn’t great. The relevant section starts on page 50 of the pdf (page 54 of the book).

www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Andrea-DWORKIN-Right-Wing-Women-The-Politics-of-Domesticated-Females-19831.pdf

I can’t select the text due to the format so have typed up a section from my copy of the book – please forgive any mistakes! The entire chapter and book is brilliant feminist analysis so I urge women to read it – it is one lightbulb moment after another and wonderfully written, Dworkin’s pace is incredible and her clarity of thought exceptional. (I have added some paragraphs in order to make it easier to read.)

“Sexual intelligence asserts itself through sexual integrity, a dimension of values and actions forbidden to women. Sexual intelligence would have to be rooted first and foremost in the honest possession of one’s own body, and women exist to be possessed by others, namely men. The possession of one’s own body would have to be absolute and entirely realised for the intelligence to thrive in the world of action. Sexual intelligence, like moral intelligence would have to confront the great issues of cruelty and tenderness; but where moral intelligence must tangle with questions of right and wrong, sexual intelligence would have to tangle with questions of dominance and submission.

One preordained to be fucked has no need to exercise sexual intelligence, no opportunity to exercise it, no argument that justifies exercising it. To keep the woman sexually acquiescent, the capacity for sexual intelligence must be prohibited to her; and it is. Her clitoris is denied; her capacity for pleasure is distorted and defamed; her erotic values are slandered and insulted; her desire to value her body as her own is paralyzed and maimed. She is turned into an occasion for male pleasure, an object of male desire, a thing to be used; and any wilful expression of her sexuality in the world unmediated by men or male values is punished. She is used as a slut or a lady; but sexual intelligence cannot manifest in a human being whose predestined purpose is to be exploited through sex.

Sexual intelligence constructs its own use: it begins with the whole body, not one that has already been cut into parts and fetishized; it begins with a self-respecting body, not one that is characterized by class as dirty, wanton and slavish; it acts in the world, a world it enters on its own, with freedom as well as with passion. Sexual intelligence cannot live behind locked doors, any more than any other kind of intelligence can. Sexual intelligence cannot exist defensively, keeping out rape. Sexual intelligence cannot be decorative or pretty or coy or timid, nor can it live on a diet of contempt and abuse and hatred of its human form. Sexual intelligence is not animal, it is human; it has values; it sets limits that are meaningful to the whole person and personality, which must live in history and in the world.

Women have found the development and exercise of sexual intelligence more difficult than any other kind: women have learned to read; women have acquired intellect; women have had so much creative intelligence that even despisal and isolation and punishment have not been able to squeeze it out of them; women have struggled for a moral intelligence that by its very existence repudiates moralism; but sexual intelligence is cut off at its roots, because the women’s body is not her own.

Okay. The OP is pretty huge so I will leave it at that and post my own thoughts in subsequent posts. This one is just meant to provide the material for discussion. I suppose this thread should really be in the feminist theory section of MN but I don’t really agree with the existence of that section so here it is in the regular feminist hang out!

I agree that without the end of capitalism, we can't get rid of patriarchy. And this is what radical feminists mostly believe too. I disagree we should concentrate on the class revolution until then. Firstly we can make short term improvements under capitalism. And secondly there is no guarantee that whatever replaces capitalism will liberate women.

Okay Mini, a couple of things.

If we use the Marxist analysis of base and superstructure, radical feminism would argue that the base is patriarchy, not capitalism and that capitalism is an element of the superstructure.

But marriage came about because of private property relations and the need for men to be assured of their progeny. This happened because of evolutionary/technological advancements in the base structure. Various cultural changes happen around this time, such as the overthrow of mother right being reinforced through religion.

I agree with elements of this but I think there is a piece missing. Marriage came about in order for men to control and dominate women so that they could dominate private property relations and have control over the issue of progeny.

Your explanation makes it sound as though male supremacy is an inevitability that happened to men rather than it being something they instigated.

This class inequality between women prevents women as a class from acting as a class.

I don't entirely agree. Yes, economic class plays a divisive role as does racial class, but IMO the biggest obstacles to women acting as a class are internalized sexism and male violence.

Your explanation makes it sound as though male supremacy is an inevitability that happened to men rather than it being something they instigated

Yes, that is what I think. I don't believe that that man's subjectivity is shaped by original thinking cut off from all social/physical reality. If we accept social conditioning as the reason for the maintenance of gender relations and stereotypes, it should follow that men only perceive/think/act in ways that are shaped by their relation to the reality in which they live.

Can a deaf dumb blind infant living in a cave with all senses deprived develop thinking? I would argue not. In order to think in any complex way and to develop the skills necessary for forward planning we need language. Once we have language we can convey meaning to each other, we can start to co-operate and in doing so create consensus around values and shared goals. It has been necessary for humans to co-operate in order to survive, that unfortunately also includes women co-operating with men and sharing in their conception of the world, even if that means assimilating sexist thinking into their own, because that is what we have. We see the evidence of this throughout history and we see it with our own eyes and experience it by speaking to other women.

Feminists are challenging this because we are more conscious of these social relations. However until we have changes to the base structure that drives a massive cultural shift away from the domination of the capitalist/patriarchal world view then we will never have equality.

I would argue that all forms of social science are located in the super structure and that includes patriarchy theory. that doesn't in any way invalidate patriarchy. Marxism will be there too sitting beside feminism and all your other isms.

I don't believe that patriarchy is a thing, a club, but an evolving changing set of social relations. Our understanding of it will change as time changes how these relations develop and our consciousness gives rise to different subjectivity, the same with class relations in general.

From what little I know about Communism it seems to create a visible organised patriarchy where one group of men take on the role of parents to a whole society, deciding what is best for them , what they want and need while satisfying their own (not so worthy) wants behind the scenes. I don't think communism suits the human psyche - everyone seems to lose out except those in power.

CailinDana, I don't want to take the thread off topic but I would refute this. All we know from exp is the communist exp of russia, many mistakes were made and the Bolsheviks have a lot to answer for incl a lot of quite flawed ideology. I will get round to starting a thread when I can about Feminism & Marxism rather than take over the thread. I can bore for england on the topic!

Going back to Dworkin. I can't remember where I read it but basically the author proposed that the liberal men of the era started making pornography and to start with women were on board with this. It was small time, it wasn't about making money or the exploitation of women for financial gain. What came out of it though was the realisation that women could be exploited for male economic gain, which is a guess where you get the Heffner et al popping up.

Agree about not derailing into politics.

I would be interested in a thread about Marxism and feminism though.

Me too.

Mini I recall there was a thread that got deleted a little while ago but you had just made a brief comment about the feminisation of labour and the rise of m r a's, I would like if you could expand on that sometime.

(It wasn't your fault that other thread got deleted, btw )

ooh, yes. Let's talk about feminism & Marxism. And Engels. For Engels is Good. And thus it will all fit together beautifully until we ARISE as a mighty army and DESTROY it all with truly Righteous Anger.

But yes; without arsing around - I do believe this is the argument.

Mini - then we disagree on what patriarchy is.

I very much do think it is a thing. Which is why I often refer to it as male supremacy - a term which is much more descriptive and concrete than patriarchy.

We understand what white supremacist society is; male supremacist society is its sex equivalent.

Your argument makes me very uncomfortable because it appears to be placing oppressor and oppressed within the same bracket and invisibilizing what I would describe as a war on women. And it sounds like an argument that absolves the oppressing class of responsibility for their actions.

I agree with you that the base structure needs to change; men as a class need to stop oppressing women as a class. Men need to stop their violence against women. Men need to stop constructing institutions and systems of control over women. Men need to stop exploiting women. Men need to stop awarding themselves higher status than they award women and then using that self awarded status as a justification for all the privilege they also award themselves and all the damage they do to women.

Men need to stop imposing their perspective on women, and listen to women, and let us in to our fair and equal share of running things. You don't get a humane society when you leave half the population out of important decisions and bury their creativity and divert their energy. Half the population being awarded lower status than the other half is not right. And it is a waste.

I don't think Marxism (which is a male perspective) is the answer for women's issues and I think it is presumptuous and overbearing of men to think that it is. (And has the potential to be enormously divisive for women.)

Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agenda for Theory. Catharine A. MacKinnon

"Representation of the world," de Beauvoir writes, "like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth." The parallel between representation and construction should be sustained: men create the world from their own point of view, which then becomes the truth to be described. This is a closed system, not anyone's confusion. Power to create the world from one's point of view is power in its male form.54 The male epistemological stance, which corresponds to the world it creates, is objectivity: the ostensibly noninvolved stance, the view from a distance and from no particular perspective, apparently transparent to its reality. It does not comprehend its own perspectivity, does not recognize what it sees as subject like itself, or that the way it apprehends its world is a form of its subjugation and presupposes it. The objectively knowable is object. Woman through male eyes is sex object, that by which man knows himself at once as man and as subject.55 What is objectively known corresponds to the world and can be verified by pointing to it (as science does) because the world itself is controlled from the same point of view.

Feminist observations of women's situation in socialist countries, although not conclusive on the contribution of marxist theory to understanding women's situation, have supported the theoretical critique. In the feminist view, these countries have solved many social problems, women's subordination not included. The criticism is not that socialism has not automatically liberated women in the process of transforming production (assuming that this transformation is occurring). Nor is it to diminish the significance of such changes for women: "There is a difference between a society in which sexism is expressed in the form of female infanticide and a society in which sexism takes the form of unequal representation on the Central Committee. And the difference is worth dying for."12 The criticism is rather that these countries do not make a priority of working for women that distinguishes them from nonsocialist societies. Capitalist countries value women in terms of their "merit" by male standards; in socialist countries women are invisible except in their capacity as "workers," a term that seldom includes women's distinctive work: housework, sexual service, childbearing. The concern of revolutionary leadership for ending women's confinement to traditional roles too often seems limited to making their labor available to the regime, leading feminists to wonder whose interests are served by this version of liberation. Women become as free as men to work outside the home while men remain free from work within it. This also occurs under capitalism. When woman's labor or militancy suits the needs of emergency, she is suddenly man's equal, only to regress when the urgency recedes.13 Feminists do not argue that it means the same to women to be on the bottom in a feudal regime, a capitalist regime, and a socialist regime; the commonality argued is that, despite real changes, bottom is bottom.

Another purpose of marriage, as well as ensuring property rights/control for men over reproduction etc, was that it gave men a guarantee of regular, "safe" PIV. It also, generally, provided them with someone to do all their domestic chores. In theory, the "payoff" of this for women was a husband who would provide security - usually in the form of somewhere to live, food to eat and protection from (other) male violence. Another result of the fact that the sexual revolution made women more available to men for PIV whilst pretending to liberate women (by selling the sexual revolution to women as their "liberation" from old morals to be able to "enjoy" more PIV with men), was the understanding that women were also being liberated from their need to rely on men for all the above security - they could now be treated equally and, thus, go out and earn all that security for themselves. However, it seems that what this has actually translated into is that women can provide lots of PIV sex whilst being offered a lot less security for children which result from the PIV sex. I've always thought of this as an ironic own goal for feminsim but, reading Dworkin, I think it is just further evidence that the sexual liberation of women was actually in the hands of partriachy all along.

You could also argue that this "security-free" PIV also extends to emotional security (picking up on what we were discussing upthread) so that now we are in a situation where patriarchal attitudes or stereotypes of men not wanting love and security themselves, just lots of casual sex, can be perpetuated. Alongside this, of course, is the implication, again, that women who feel a need to hold out for emotional security should be the gatekeepers of sex. which kind of comes full circle in that women are still the sex responsible for dealing with emotions - so, we are then back to: we can't possilby expect men to pick up on the emotions of women who are reluctant to have sex - she "consented" is all that counts; men can't be expected to notice that she may have looked miserable and uncomfortable all the way through, they just need to hear "yes."

Your argument makes me very uncomfortable because it appears to be placing oppressor and oppressed within the same bracket and invisibilizing what I would describe as a war on women. And it sounds like an argument that absolves the oppressing class of responsibility for their actions

No, not at all. However there is but one world, the one we live in, we share it with men and we share many experiences in common. If women have been subject to cultural and social conditioning then so have men. I would extend this argument to class as well, I don't hate David Cameron and he doesn't consciously with original thought set out to oppress the poor but he is socialised to act and think in certain ways. He attended a very different educational establishment where he assimilated the thinking of the elite, he wasn't born to rule, for his mother could have given him to an orphanage should she have wished. Instead he has been indoctrinated, educated and socialised to rule, just as men are socialised to uphold patriarchal gender relations. Analysing and theorising about the nature of oppression and its origin isn't the same as letting men off the hook.

Its a strange thing, I'm certain there is much we agree on but I don't subscribe to the primacy of patriarchy as a theory and neither do I believe that it explains the material or exists in the base structure. Marxism, like all other social theories exists in the superstructure as a theory not a thing. Like patriarchy its not tangible like a rock or an apple it's simply a means of understanding society. Where lots of people McKinnon incl get caught up is in thinking that because Marx didn't directly address sex as a class that the tools he gave us can't be used to analyse it. I could take the view that Marx didn't talk about patriarchy and deny its existence. But then equally I could say Marx didn't foresee the great depression so it didn't happen, obv v.silly!

Can we talk about consent again? I should have glossed over Dworkin on left wing men

Sure Mini. It's okay for a thread to wander a bit though. I think Marx underestimated the amount of unpaid unrecognised labour women do. But mainly I do think he was a good 'un.

Rosabud, I very much agree with what you say. And with regards to what you say here; she "consented" is all that counts; men can't be expected to notice that she may have looked miserable and uncomfortable all the way through, they just need to hear "yes."

It is incredible really isn't it. It is one I have never been able to get my head around, the dreadful callousness and violence of a person who is prepared to have sex on another human being who doesn't want it. But that nasty little word 'consent' relieves them of all responsibility. Consent is basically a rape myth.

The way it seems to me is that the man's wants and needs are paramount and if he wants sex naturally he should get it. If the woman is going to be uppity and deny him his right then she'd better put up a good fight, the presumptuous creature.

The attitude around the idea of "consent" does make it seem like a myth bc. Sadly.

Grimbletart wrote: “Don't mean to derail but all this brings me back to the point I made early on. How is it some women don't internalise a self destructive attitude?”

Because women who best understand the nature and capacity of their own sexualities have the greatest possibility to act as intelligent consumers of sex rather than just providers or the naive- who either short change themselves with mediocre sex because they don’t know any better or barter sexual services as a means of obtaining something other than their own sexual satisfaction (while hoping that does not eat at their soul over time).

I watched a 'round-table' show once where a female host was interviewing teenagers about their sexuality and sex practices. An older girl started talking about her experiences of providing oral sex to guys. She seemed very proud of herself and her sexuality. The interviewer said that while all that was well and good for the guys it seemed a bit unfair to her. She asked if she received oral sex in return. I watched that poor girl transition in a split second from a blow-job queen who exuded sexual confidence to a rabbit frozen in headlights mumbling something about such a thing being too personal for her.

Grimbletart wrote: “how misogynistic men manage to exclude themselves from the good/bad concept i.e. they divide women into the girls you fuck and the girls you marry yet don't seem to be able to divide themselves into the boys you fuck and the boys you marry. The classic double standard.”

People exclude themselves from the good/bad concept as first principal, the bad sleep well. But are women any more inclined to divide themselves into 'girls you fuck' and 'girls you marry' or does your wording allude to something else? I have met men who would indeed separate women into 'those you fuck' and 'those you marry' but fortunately they seemed few and far between.

Don’t most men these days (in the western world at least) want to specifically avoid marrying a virgin not because they want to 'sample the goods in advance' but because of the implications that a woman 'withholding herself' till marriage speaks more to her conflicted sexuality or a 'sex for security' exchange?

P.S how does one italicise text on this board?

Italics - italics without the spaces.

What are your thoughts on the concept of consent dwh, given what we've said so far? Do you agree it's a meaningless concept?

The discussion about Marx et al is fascinating. Thanks everyone! One of the base questions seems to be (forgive me if I am wrong) "what is at the base - capitalism or patriarchy?" What is the structure and what is the superstructure. Or are they one and the same? I have a doubtful feeling, however, that social order is about a hierarchy of ideologies, propped up at the base by materiality. Materiality seems important as I do not think it is a coincidence that the civil rights movement emerged in the post-war economic prosperity. But do we have to choose between cutting the social cake into classes or into genders? Can we have both? Intersecting, flowing in and out of each other, clashing and cooperating in different places? Perhaps social order is more of a social disorder.

To me, the disorder makes it possible for us to think the unthinkable. If patriarchy or capitalism were so totalising in their power to condition subjectivity, I do not think we would be able to sit here and write the things we write. So somewhere, somehow, there must be rips in the fabric through which different ideas slither in. Perhaps in some perverse way it is the contradiction between capitalism and patriarchy that contributes to the development of feminism as women eventually start wondering what the fuck they are doing on the tractor and in the kitchen at the same time. This is not to say that both capitalism and patriarchy at the same time do not benefit from women being on the tractor and in the kitchen.

Sorry for the rambling, but this brings me back to consent. While we are wondering about consent, I feel that we are wondering about the nature of sex. What is sex? What are we consenting or not consenting to? Obviously, we are not consenting to child molestation or rape in all its forms, but I am truly starting to think "does this feel patriarchal?" when I am having it with my husband.

I listened to that amazing speech by Catherine MacKinnon linked at the start of the thread. It definitely drives it home that prostitution is not like any other work. But why is that? What is it about sex and its connection to women that produces such a poisonous concoction in our society? Is it possible for us to break out of the submission-domination order?

CailinDana, yes, I agree that hormonal contraception is just shit for many women. There are multiple threads about it on MN. It is a double-edged sword. I am sure it helps many women to resolve health issues and has no negative effects on others, but experience shows that the establishment does not want to listen if you have problems with it. And I am sure that it has everything to do with capitalism (money) and patriarchy (PIV availability). I also spent years on the pill to make my man happy. It made me feel like a log.

DadWasHere, I would be equally suspicious of the men who specifically want to marry a virgin and men who specifically what to marry a non-virgin (right word anyone? "woman"?). Both are attempting to make a woman's sexual experience her essence and both are attempting to control it.

I was a biology geek as a teenager and learning about the pill horrified me. When I heard it later being lauded as freeing women I could see the truth in that but it seemed to ignore the price paid for the freedom. Plus seeing as women's hormonal systems are so much more complex than men's, messing with women rather than men seemed not to make much sense to me.
Fwiw I've never been on hormonal contraception. One boyfriend raped me because he didn't want to wear a condom. Luckily dh agrees with my view on the pill.

What are your thoughts on the concept of consent dwh, given what we've said so far? Do you agree it's a meaningless concept?

Its meaningless, I said it a long way back in the thread, I also said that even genuine enthusiasm for sex can be meaningless (eg, too young, judgement impaired, etc).

Sorry have read the thread but it's a long one!

Ahhh... it works... thanks CailinDana