Something about the word consent in feminist and liberal lingo has always bothered me. 'Enthusiastic consent' 'Consent is key' 'consent is sexyy' 'Don't post nudes of women on the internet without her consent' 'never put your hands on a woman without her consent', or conversations around the importance of consent in surrogacy, sex work, bdsm, everything. Then it kind of clicked, because consenting to things in these scenarios is a relatively passive action. It is soo one sided. Consent implies that there is one who proposes and one who accepts. Consent is defined as something that 'occurs when one person voluntarily agrees to the proposal or desires of another.'
She can consent, even enthusiastically, say yes or no, like a binary code, but she did not design, propose, initiate or orchestrate it, nor can she fully control the outcome in the society she lives in. And this is true on a mass scale. When have you ever heard of sex being described as men consenting to a woman's sexual advances? Or discussions that you shouldn't upload men's explicit pictures without their consent?
Male consent is not considered an important factor because their desires are assumed inevitable, like a force of nature, a neutral, unquestioned starting point, and women can only exist relative to that, to either accept or deny. They can't have active desires of their own. Men are considered actors fundamentally and women are the ones acted upon.
Of course consent is important and essential, but would consent in these scenarios be all that much better than non consent given the coercive society we live in? Consent is a poor ethical framework if taken alone. Consent itself in these scenarios can never be ethical because the premise itself is unequal, as are social interpretations and outcomes, and no amount of agreement will change that.
turnnoffyourmind
stormborns
baratheonpilled
dededos
yousharknotpass
