Connecting Consent and Sexuality
In his piece for Political Concepts: A Critical Lexicon, titled "Consent", James Miller considers consent as it functions in multiple areas, including contract law, political theories, and medical regimes. He briefly discusses consent as it functions in “sexual regimes organized around various definitions of explicit consent”. Essentially, Miller defines consent, in a sexual context, as an imposed understanding of the ways in which we clearly grant permission to others. He correctly identifies the “various definitions” of consent. Even within the educational institution, we are offered mixed and sometimes contradictory definitions of consent.
Simplified understandings of consent, like the chant of “no means no”, are reflective of legal standards of consent, which generally only consider sexual acts non-consensual when one or more involved parties resist the action. Of course, there are many reasons why a person who is not consenting to a sexual activity may not openly and verbally resist, including intoxication or fear of personal safety. In an effort to acknowledge the limitations of this understanding of consent, many schools have adopted a more comprehensive definition of consent. OSU’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Access lists that, “according to OSU Policy 576-015-0010(6), "Consent" is knowing, voluntary, and clear permission by word or action, to engage in mutually agreed upon sexual activity. To be effective, consent must be informed and reciprocal, freely and actively given, and mutually understandable” (“Consent” 1). Despite the heightened level of specificity in our institution’s definition, there are still situations in which consent is a vague and confusing concept. For example, if all parties are intoxicated, is it possible for consent to be given? Especially on a college campus like ours, sexually-charged situations are often mixed with drugs or alcohol. A declaration that intoxication negates consent is logical, but seems impractical and unhelpful to those parties who will engage under the influence regardless.
Consent, like sexuality, resists definition. If we agree that sexual preferences and interest, at least in some circumstances, are in flux, how does consent function? Is clear, verbal consent an undebatable preface to sexuality? If we take each statement we believe to its logical extreme, where does informed consent begin and end? Miller briefly discusses the passage into adulthood and the “so-called age of consent”, at which point a person is given the responsibility to make their own decisions. This conversation intersects with a more complicated branch of sexuality: sexual interests, preferences, behaviors, and actions between generations, especially between legally defined adults and minors. I briefly scanned academic articles related to “consent” and “sexuality” and found a significant amount of research being done on these relationships. One article, “Complications, Consent, and Cognitions in Sex Between Children and Adults”, offered four criteria to define a child’s consent to sexual activity, including “(1) whether the child understands that to which he is consenting, (2) whether the child is aware of community sexual standards, (3) whether the child appreciates the possible consequences of the decision, and (4) whether coercion influences the child's decision” (Abel 1). Given these criteria, although technically a child could give consent, it is unlikely any child would entirely satisfy all aspects of the above criteria. Children are rarely cognitively able to understand the long-term ramifications of their decisions. These analyses can be uncomfortable and controversial, which only further supports the need for the intersection of consent and sexuality to be carefully researched and discussed in academic spaces like WGSS 476.
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