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!

Sorry that happened to you Matilda. Unfortunately I think that type of coercion is not uncommon.

I feel the same way about seduction. The idea that a man should seduce a woman to have PIV, has strong elements of coercion in it.

Matilda that's rape.

But the law may not frame it as such, because men made the law and for some reason, when they made it they accepted rapist's definition of rape, rather than victim's definition of rape.

I did a blog post about consent quite some time ago, I hope no-one minds if I post it here, it discusses some of what we are discussing here.

herbsandhags.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/whats-wrong-with-consent.html

On the subject of what is rape - I cannot imagine having sex with my husband if he does not want it, even if I am climbing the walls. What kind of sex would that be? Brrrrrr. It just feels deeply wrong. Forcing somebody into an act that should fundamentally be about mutual pleasure. It pollutes the whole thing. And yes, it's rape.

If the consent is obtained coercively, that is rape.

There'll be a spectrum of behaviours that legally don't meet the definition of coercion but are on the way there and blackmail - if you don't have sex with me there will be an unpleasant consequence for you - has got to be pretty close.

Basil

The first problem with consent, is that it focuses on the actions and behaviour of the victim. Did she consent? Not: what did he do? How did he do it? Why did he do it? What steps did he take to ensure that she wanted him to? But: did she consent? So it continues the long tradition that rape has had, of ensuring that the starting point for any investigation, is not the behaviour and actions of the alleged perpetrator, but that of the victim. So far, so bad.

Are we to take it that you have never sat through a criminal trial of rape, possibly any trial ? You appear not to know that the initial focus is always on the defendant, his actions, his behaviour and the trial process questions his defence. Now, his defence may not be on the issue of 'consent'. But if 'consent' is raised, then that issue is explored.

Have you only thought about this from an armchair perspective ?? Criminal trials are open to the public - go and out and learn for yourself.

Beatrix, I confess that I never sat through a criminal trial, but I do think that Basil has a very good point. Take the Julian Assange case. When that discussion about him having sex with a sleeping woman who objected to it afterwards was going on, most of it focused on whether her having consensual sex with him previously constituted consent. Very few people asked "Mr Assange, how did you know she wanted it before you did it?"

Many women who do not report rape, myself included, do so because they feel that in some way it was their fault, that they had actually consented, created an appearance of consent, even if they did not want it.

Basil - you are herbsandhags! I have been reading your blog for some time.

I had a whole bunch of situations in my head when I used the example of a partner threatening to leave.

For example a very young woman in a first relationship who doesn't feel ready for PIV and who is worried about getting pregnant but who thinks she is with the love of her life and doesn't want to loose him - he knows this and knows that by suggesting he will dump her she will probably accept to have PIV. (It is not uncommon in this scenario for the man to dump her anyway, after the PIV.)

Or I dunno, a woman who has children with someone and he doesn't think he's getting enough sex. He implies to her that he will go elsewhere. She and the children are financially dependent on him (and as rosabud said very perceptively earlier women are taught very early in life that marriage is safety from the wider violence of men).

I would say that the consent in these situations is coerced.

I don't know if that means I would call the above rape, I think that would be up to the individual women to decide whether she felt violated or not.

Certainly they are situations which to my mind show what a thin concept consent is and how it is open to abuse.

I know the MacKinnon paper was in part talking about the legal status but I'm more discussing this in a wider socio-cultural frame.

In the above situations the man is thinking of sex as something he has a right to and something she should let him have. He feels entitled and he isn't thinking about her wants other than how to get around the obstacle they may present to his wants.

Autumn

What happens in reality and what is news-worthy are often two separate things. Assenge's trail has not taken place yet. I do not recall which country the alleged offence took place, but it would be a very strange process if the initial issues were not what did he do? How did he do it? Why did he do it? What steps did he take to ensure that she wanted him to?.

Most rapes don't make it to trial - many of them are weeded out for a whole load of reasons, including what Basil says about consent in her blog piece.

And many will also be weeded out due to 'implied consent' were the woman doesn't actually consent to PIV but her consent is considered to be implied because;

she had already had sex with him on a previous occasion
she had been on a date with him and had kissed him in view of other people (this one is all the worse if she had been drinking)
she lives with him
she engaged in other sexual practices with him
she was sleeping next to him
she dressed a certain way and acted flirty
etc, etc...

Beatrix, so why is then a woman's "sexual history" such an important part of the trial? I accept that the accused man will most likely be asked these questions, but what happens in the trial as a whole and not just at the start?

Overwhelming majority of rape cases also do not get to trial. Overwhelming majority are not in fact reported at all. Many of them because of this notion of "consent" whether you define it strictly legally or as it is used in popular discourse. So privileging what happens during the trial over the broader social attitudes limits our perspective. And in talking about the Assange case, I did not mean the trial, but whatever the public was talking about in official and unofficial forums.

All of which focus on what she did, not what he did.

Beatrix

What's the minimum legal standard and what's the reasonable social standard are probably not the same thing.

Autumn AFAIA they aren't allowed to invoke a woman's past sexual history any more (although this is relatively recent).

However simply by knowing the woman's relationship to the man is invoking her sexual history.

Oh good, Beachcomber, there is some progress.

Beatrix I think you're being a little bit disingenuous here. We are discussing the concept of consent. The concept of consent, concentrates on the behaviour of the victim not that of the perpetrator - it asks whether she consented, it deals with her feelings, her behaviour, her as the focus of the event (or him for that matter), not with that of the perpetrator. I don't see how you can honestly argue otherwise tbh. That's what consent implies. "S/he consented" is the get out of jail free card - if you can establish consent, it means we don't need to look past that to examine the behaviour of the perpetrator.

Not sure if I can be arsed to engage with your extremely patronising questions, but no, I haven't just dealt with rape and trials from an armchair perspective.

The concept of consent (in all its forms, including implied consent) presents a significant barrier to women seeking acknowledgement that they were raped (often even their own acknowledgement - which IMO takes us into the realms of gaslighting).

I tried to keep BBE ID and H&H ID separate at first, but just can't be arsed.

Another thing - the mere questioning of the man about his actions does not guarantee a critical examination of these actions. Metaphorical Assange's answer to the question "What steps did you take to ensure that she wanted you to?" could very plausibly be "We had PIV sex several hours before and she was sleeping naked next to me." And then we are back to the jury deciding whether or not "Mr Assange" was reasonable to take that for consent. And in many cases the answer turns out to be "yes."

But perhaps I am wrong and there has been some earth-shattering progress on this issue in courts and in the broader society. In which case, I would be delighted to know.

Also 85-90% of rape incidents don't see the perpetrator questioned on their actions in the first place, because their rapes are never reported.

Beatrix we are not talking about court cases we are talking about women's actual lived experiences. The fact a man wouldn't be convicted of rape doesn't automatically mean it isn't rape.

So the question of consent could be reframed as

how did you get her to not say No

Society lays half the groundwork here - Men have needs and a good girlfriend's first duty is to satisfy them.

Personal circumstances make up the rest
As the sad example given above - he wouldn't let me go to my meeting without it
He's my husband
He had a gun to my head

the channelling towards acquiescence is very obvious sometimes, but quite subtle and largely unexamined as well

Yes, that's a good summary ReviewsOffers.

Thanks again to you and others who have shared personal experiences (something I find very difficult to do and admire in others). Big hugs to you. Women really talking and sharing this stuff is very powerful.

[Massive round of applause to all on this thread]

On a fb thread today someone (a man btw but a very pro-fem one) attacking Sinead O'Connor's "open letter" (what a terrible format) to Miley Cyrus said something like: whatever damage current commodified sexuality does to young women is nothing compared to the damage caused by the sexual oppression of the traditional past.

I usually think this chap hits the nail on the head but this bothers me. It seems to me that there is at least formally a position of safety in traditional sexual mores. You can withdraw, be a nun or a celibate or a virgin maiden aunt. It is not the case that you become immune to actual sexual assault, but it is understood that if you do become a victim of it he was breaking the rules. You limit your options by doing so, you are materially impoverished and personally stunted (perhaps, if you have a sexuality, you may be naturally asexual). But you have a position of caution to which to retreat.
Today you cannot, you are simply not allowed, to not take part. There is no position of safety, no metaphorical burka, to which to retreat. O'Connor got it wrong in a million ways (including advising Cyrus to retreat to a safe place that no longer exists) but her sorrow at seeing someone who, in her eyes, is "playing the game" - for Them - is something I kind of identify with, maybe, a bit...?

then again, full disclosure, I come from a fucked up Irish Catholic background so maybe we are both warped in the same way

Anyway in that culture at least there is a tradition of a. no sex outside marriage and b. marriage is something that is arranged and doesn't happen for everyone. so you can be a sort of asexual person, you aren't up for grabs, literally, all the time like secular english culture. I was very confused the first time I didn't want to kiss a boy and was insulted as a "fridge" to discover that not to be up for sex was considered an insult.

Of course the vile horrific underside is that to be up for sex is to put yourself beyond the pale of human protection

this did tenuously relate to the issue of consent when I started writing it but I have forgotten how. Sorry