Figleaf's Real Adult Sex

In comments to my post about the no-sex class and consent SnowdropExplodes of A Femanist View raised some wonderful, perfectly legitimate concerns about my argument that for equality of power in relationships we need to move even further past a principle “enthusiastic consent” to the (in my view) even more critical principle of “the decision.”

In particular he was concerned when I said “...the implication is that sex is something one person wants and the other person has to agree to.**”

So here’s how he sees the situation

It seems to me that it is possible to decide “I will say yes if X asks me to have sex”, and also, “I will ask X for sex”, but to decide “I will have sex with X” seems to put X’s willingness or otherwise to have sex (with me) as irrelevant. This, needless to say, is troubling to me.

...

Consider two people, X and Y, who might want to have sex with each other. There are for each person, three possible states: a) Active desire for sex with the other person; b) willingness to have sex with the other person; c) desire not to have sex with the other person. If XcYc then obviously there is no need for anything to happen. Similarly, if XbYc or XbYb then there is no need for any communication of decision or consent, because neither side actively wants sex so sex isn’t going to happen (NB XbYc and XcYb are equivalent by symmetry). That leaves the situations (assuming symmetry again) where XaYc, XaYb and XaYa. Obviously, if XaYc then any sex between X and Y is rape by X. If X asks Y for sex, then Y will say no. If XaYb then X can decide to ask Y for sex, can decide not to ask Y for sex, or can not-decide (and thereby not ask). If XaYa then both X and Y each have these options.

If XaYb and X decides to ask Y for sex, then Y (being willing but not desiring sex) will make a decision “yes, I will have sex with X” (which equates to consent) or “no, I will not have sex with X”.

If XaYa then either X asks Y for sex or Y asks X for sex or neither asks for sex (which means that both go disappointed!) If X asks Y for sex, then Y will almost certainly decide to have sex (since Y is also eager for sex with X)but this still qualifies as “consent”. If Y asks X for sex, then X makes the decision to have sex (because X also is eager for sex with Y).

In no case can the decision to have sex be made without reference to the other person, because it is impossible to know whether the other person has also decided to have sex – and in fact, the other person may never have considered the possibility but be perfectly willing (in a pleasure-taking way) to do so. The decisions are “Do I want sex? (and if so, with whom?)” “Will I ask for sex? (and if so, whom shall I ask?)” “If asked by person X, will I say yes to sex?” “I have been asked – so do I want to have sex with the person asking?” The decision is never “will I have sex?” until someone else indicates their willingness to have sex with me.

While it is possible to make a decision about one’s own desire for sex, and how one relates to that (i.e. whether one will ask or not-ask, and how one will answer if asked) it is not possible to make a decision about sex itself without reference to someone else’s consent.

It seems to me that what is being argued for is a form of language that we might call seeking a concordance for having sex as opposed to consent to having sex, but I think the OP seems to skate over how that concord could be achieved. Someone always has to raise the possibility of sex, and the other person then has to agree or not. The sex may then be negotiated so that both/all partners know what exactly is being agreed to, and that is much more of a mutual decision together, but it still requires an initial “will you…?” answered by “yes”. That, to my mind, is summed up by the word “consent”.

He said it here.

Everything he says about consent being the result of individual and mutual decision-making is true. In fact it’s absolutely, wonderfully true. And well thought out with many or most of the bases covered. But because it’s true I think it supports my point.

All that consideration… all those different cases with subscripted X’s and Y’s… demonstrate that the decision leading up to the result we call “consent” (in common, non-legal terms) is, um, non-trivial. And in a gender-mad society that assumes enthusiastic male initiation and reluctant female response, boiling it all down to a simple “will you” answered by “yes” or “no” de-emphasises the process. And the respondent!

Which is why I think it’s so important to shift attention away from the end result and on to the process for deciding it. Because saying “consent” is sort of like saying “apples come from the store.” True enough if you’re in court answering the simple question “where did you get the apples.” But not the same thing at all as saying “where they came from!”

[** In this context “has to” means “has to reply,” not has to agree to. Fortunately that doesn’t bear on SnowdropExplodes’ argument. —fl]