What are the pitfalls of the consent discourse? Are leftists ignoring a way to end the abortion wars? Did George Floyd protesters create any lasting change?
Consent sounds ethical, but it's actually a substitute for ethics. If someone can obtain consent to harm another person, their behaviour is legitimised under what Leslie Elliott Boyce has called 'the consent and pleasure based morality'.
This is why sadomasochism is fundamental to queer theory, and why the French postmodern left campaigned to reduce the age of consent as a stepping stone to eliminate the concept completely, on the basis that childhood was considered by them to be a social construct.
It's only very recently that France has improved its legislation on this topic, following revelations about the behaviour of the country's intellectual class.
I think what’s alarming about the current consent over-correction is that it fundamentally misses the nature of sex. Sex will always be risky, vulnerable, and ambiguous, period. We can do what we can to make sure it is ethical and respectful, but we can never change the fact that it is just fundamentally a wilderness.
This creates a mismatch between ideal and reality that is untenable to live with. No wonder it fucks a lot of people up.
Yes! Childbirth is a great example of this. Us humans can’t domesticate everything- we’re still part of nature and nature is scary and beautiful and all that.
More thoughts: the current expectations around sex feels like expecting to never get hurt in a boxing match. Sex is complicated, and by having sex we are likely to experience some conflicting emotions.
Consent sounds ethical, but it's actually a substitute for ethics. If someone can obtain consent to harm another person, their behaviour is legitimised under what Leslie Elliott Boyce has called 'the consent and pleasure based morality'.
This is why sadomasochism is fundamental to queer theory, and why the French postmodern left campaigned to reduce the age of consent as a stepping stone to eliminate the concept completely, on the basis that childhood was considered by them to be a social construct.
It's only very recently that France has improved its legislation on this topic, following revelations about the behaviour of the country's intellectual class.
I think what’s alarming about the current consent over-correction is that it fundamentally misses the nature of sex. Sex will always be risky, vulnerable, and ambiguous, period. We can do what we can to make sure it is ethical and respectful, but we can never change the fact that it is just fundamentally a wilderness.
This creates a mismatch between ideal and reality that is untenable to live with. No wonder it fucks a lot of people up.
I couldn't agree more.
Yes! Childbirth is a great example of this. Us humans can’t domesticate everything- we’re still part of nature and nature is scary and beautiful and all that.
Exactly. Sexuality is feral and it always will be.
More thoughts: the current expectations around sex feels like expecting to never get hurt in a boxing match. Sex is complicated, and by having sex we are likely to experience some conflicting emotions.