Consent: is it enough?

One cannot overstate the importance of consent. Consent is what differentiates r*pe and a mutually enjoyable sexual experience. It’s what separates sexual harassment and playful teasing. It is, after all, what separates abuse from BDSM (which is why practitioners of BDSM rightly place a lot of emphasis on it).

But is consent everything? Certainly, this turn of phrase is not uncommon when talking about BDSM and sexual submission in general.

Think about it: just because you like being touched a certain way during sex does not mean that you want people to touch you that way when you’re on the bus, or making dinner, or reading, or doing whatever else. This can’t be repeated enough — consent is the key. — The Link newspaper, “Feminism and Sexual Submission Aren’t Mutually Exclusive”, emphasis mine.

I don’t disagree that consent is key, insofar as we determine which social interactions merit intervention. No one disputes that a person’s right to their body is paramount: if they are being harassed, acted violently upon, or otherwise suffer at the hands of a person who mistreats them, they are rightly entitled to protection — social and legal. Which is why we prosecute r*pists and people who sexually harass others.

But once consent is there, does further examination of an act cease? It would seem that it does not. There is a multitude of consensual acts that feminists would find inappropriate and/or problematic. Sexual objectification, which does not necessarily always manifest itself in violent ways (sometimes, it is an issue completely confined to how a person views and interacts with the world: it may lead to horrible acts, but ipso facto the belief itself is what we take issue with) is one example. Problematic cultural phenomena which we witness daily is another: an actress may consent to be filmed in a movie which objectifies her or promotes a misogynistic view of women, and no one is acted violently upon per se — but I would argue that this type of media is still problematic and something which should be critically examined. I think few people would disagree with me. There are those who would, though: I would call this attitude cultural libertarianism (note that this does not have much in common with what’s come to be recognized in the United States as political libertarianism, and many political libertarians, ironically, would not be cultural libertarians by any means due to their attitude of cultural conservatism).

Cultural libertarianism can be further distinguished as vulgar cultural libertarianism and intellectual cultural libertarianism.

If we put forward a definition of vulgar cultural libertarianism, it would be the maxim “as long as a practice is consensual and is a free choice of some person, it is allowable and good”. It is hard to overstate the importance this simple maxim has played for many marginalized groups: just because I call it vulgar does not mean that it is a bad thing in itself. I believe that this plays a big role in acceptance, and is how many people first come to empathize with others and accept their points of view, however different.

Intellectual cultural libertarianism, on the other hand, is just a more sophisticated version of the undistinguishing vulgar cultural libertarianism: rather than giving a sound endorsement to consensual practices, it seeks to examine them with a more critical eye. This isn’t usually a point of contention: as I wrote above, some prima facie consensual acts turn out to be suspect when examined closely.

My personal experience with a partner who desired to be dominated by me has led me precisely to such an examination.