As feminists we can all agree that consent is mandatory in any sexual interaction.
However, liberal feminists often use consent as justification for a number of practices that we know are actually quite harmful to women and patriarchal in nature.
Radical feminists are relentlessly chastised for our critique of male sexuality, the sexual exploitation industries and various sexual practices that might fall under the “kink” umbrella. We are told that we are not true feminists, for we are denying women sexual agency. We’re told “she likes it!”, “she asks for it!’ “it’s none of your business!”, “She consented!”. While these statements sound strikingly similar to those a rapist might use to exculpate himself from his crime, liberal feminists also spout them when they witness a woman have the audacity to think critically about sex under patriarchy. In their minds, anything that a woman consents to is automatically empowering.
This is why they make consent the centre of their discourse and activism surrounding sexual assault. This misunderstanding of consent as not just a necessity but an all powerful entity that negates all harm or ill intention leads to liberal feminists developing a number of blindspots in their analysis.
Women often fail to recognise abuse. There is a reason why consciousness raising was so central to the second-wave women’s movement. It has to be acknowledged that under patriarchy, women are conditioned to be blind to the various forms of abuse we are subjected to by men. We are led to believe that a man “not being able to control himself” is an expression of desire rather than sexual abuse. Stalking or relentless pursuit is an expression of dedication rather than entitlement. Strangulation, spitting and being called a whore is sexy rather than violent and degrading. When 50 Shades of Grey (a book about a man who rapes, stalks, beats and belittles the female protagonist) was released, women did not reject it as the playbook of abuse that it is. Instead, millions of women revered it as a wonderful, passionate love story. Andrea Dworkin recognised the ways in which women’s oppression brainwashes women into becoming active participants in our own subjugation. She called this “the best system of colonization on earth”
This colonisation of the mind starts at a very young age. A recent study found that girls as young as 5 are exposed to up 80,000 sexualised images of women a year in kid’s shows alone. The study also found that despite considering traits like intelligence, athleticism and kindness to be superior to traits like sexiness, they still felt sex appeal to be the most important trait in a woman.
Is it any wonder why many women choose to embrace rather than run from that which they perceive as inescapable?
Trauma also plays a major role in the development of sexual compulsions. A common trauma response is the compulsion to recreate the abuse suffered on one’s own terms. Studies have found that a disproportionate number of people who engage in sadomasochism have a history of childhood abuse and trauma. A narrative surrounding this phenomenon has formed, asserting that retraumatization through BDSM is a means of healing from trauma. However, various studies show the opposite to be true.
Prostitution is another institution supported by liberal feminists where trauma plays a huge role in determining whether a woman will enter it or not. Other factors that lead women into prostitution are poverty and marginalisation. 89% of prostituted people wish to exit the industry which contradicts the liberal feminist pro-prostitution narrative that most women involved in the sex industry are there of their own volition. In an interview for Radicailín, prostitution survivor Andrea Heinz answered the question “Do you think prostitution can be consensual?” as follows:
No. Two of the key components to legally giving sexual consent are 1) that it is freely given without coercion and 2) that no one party is in a position of power or authority over another. For the thousands of men who paid me for sex, I never once consented with a single one of them – I only offered compliance in exchange for their money. In order to endure the barrage of off-putting sexual intrusions, I had to do what many women do and that is dissociate, separating my mind and my body from one another. Money does not equal consent. I have seen women smile to a buyer while they service them sexually and then break down sobbing the moment he leaves. I have seen this multiple times, many women turning to drugs, self-harm and other self-soothing techniques to try to mitigate the flood of negative feelings. Unwanted sex is unwanted sex whether we are compensated for it or not.
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It’s quite baffling that “sex-positive” feminists, who are so hyper focused on consent, fail to see this.
In instances where the victim is not prostituted, liberal feminists do recognise consent given due to pressure and coercion as illegitimate. However, they fail to acknowledge the power of societal pressure in compelling young women to engage in certain sexual practices. Much of this social pressure comes from liberal feminists themselves.
Gail Dines, anti-pornograpgy scholar and activist, speaking on the impact of the pornification of society on young girls and women said:
“Women are told in our society that they have two choices. They are either fuckable or invisible. To be fuckable means to conform to the porn culture, to look hot, be submissive and do what the man wants. That’s the only way you get visibility”
Due to pornography proliferating almost every facet of our society, women have this message drilled into them almost everywhere they go, in everything they do. Social media, advertising, music videos, TV, cinema and fashion all promote the necessity of fuckability to us. The worst example of pornography’s cultural capture is undoubtedly its capture of feminism. We are at the point were so-called feminists are promoting prostitution to girls as a means of empowerment and even eagerly defending men’s cannibalistic fetishes. So now what is recognised as feminism is actually promoting messages that are totally antithetical to feminism but perfectly in line with the values of patriarchy. Of course, liberal feminists rationalise their defence of misogynistic sexual practices by emphasising consent. However, the message being put across tends to go like this:
“Never do anything you don’t feel comfortable with!!! But also if you don’t want to do it then you’re a disempowered, undesirable, kink-shaming, anti-feminst puritan!!!”
Where can women find respite when the one movement that is supposed to be for them has been so bastardised that it is now shaming and pressuring them in the exact same way sexually entitled men do?
Girls are bombarded with the message that a lack of desire to participate in hook-up culture, BDSM and pornography indiactes that they are frigid and boring. This is the opposite of what the culture deems “fuckable” and therefore is a condemnation of the girl as invisible. In recent years we have seen a growing unruly sexual entitlement and depravity exhibited by young men and teen boys as a result of excessive porn use. This has been accompanied by a profound lack of shame. Online, we see young men share their pronified desires publicly, often in a way that belittles those who rather not participate.
Girls, in the hopes of impressing these boys and thus gaining a semblance of social status, clamour at the opportunity to profess an affinity for the violation of their own bodies and humanity.
It should not come as a surprise to us when girls acquiesce to the only other option to invisibility that is presented to them nor should this acquiescence prevent us from examining the external factors influencing and impacting them.
Why is hyper focusing on consent a mistake?
Mainstream liberal feminist disussion surrounding sexual matters tends to focus on women’s choices as opposed to men’s actions. If a prostituted woman or “little girl submissive” claims to have consented to the sexual interaction, we’re told that this is the end of the discussion. There is no room for questioning why exactly it is that men want to have sex with women who they know are not attracted to them. Or why a man would be aroused by the role play of being the controlling and abusive “daddy” of a girl child. We are disallowed from questioning the ethics of such a man. Is it really okay for a man to want to role play sexual fantasies of paedophilic domination? Are we really not allowed to question why so many men are interested in such a thing?
Centering the conversation on consent merely serves to transfer the onus from the perpetrator onto the victim. That which is being presented to us as the key to ending sexual violence and victim blaming is actually facilitating them. The We Can’t Consent To This campaign documented how this narrative plays out in the worst possible way in reality.
Consent is used by liberal feminists, most likely unwittingly, not as a means of keeping women safe and protecting our bodily integrity, but rather as a means of excusing any and every sexual practice as ethical, sexy and fun regardless of how violent, degrading, misogynist or paedophilic it actually is.
So what does ‘consent’ mean?
In an article CK Egbert wrote for Feminist Current, she describes the liberal feminist understanding of consent as “the magical fairy dust which turns rape into sex; trafficking into free speech; and sexualized abuse, torture, and subjugation into sexual liberation”
In reality, the definition of consent is “permission for something to happen or agreement to do something.” That is it. That is all it means. Consent is not a synonym for ethical or harmless or feminist. Pretending that it is will not eliminate sexual violence from society. The issue is not that men are so dense that they do not understand consent. The issue is that coupled with an extreme sexual entitlement, they have dehumanised us to such an extent that they simply do not care about how they hurt us.
Our goal as feminists should be to eradicate all that is harmful to women and girls, not to try and fail miserably at finding ways to pimp these inherently harmful practices in our favour. That is simply impossible. Futile efforts to achieve this impossibility backfire as it simply leads to us condoning and protecting the very attitudes, systems and practices that were created to disadvantage us specifically.
This is why we must shift the focus in the discourse and fight against sexual abuse. Instead of fixating on whether a woman consented or not we need to direct our focus towards men. We need to be honest and rational. Giving men the right to objectify, dominate or inflict violence against a woman under any circumstance is so clearly inimical to the goal of women’s liberation.
Student, 25, Radical Feminist. If you enjoyed her work, donate to this writer.