1.24.17 | Madhulika Agarwal
Consent can be crudely understood as permission to do something. Sexual consent has been mainly restricted to ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ However, it needs to be understood that consent and especially, the sexual consent of a woman is something which is ridden with stereotypical understandings of gender roles and sexuality.
The legal understanding of sexual offences depends majorly on consent (at least, in the written word). Be it rape, sexual harassment or molestation, the absence of consent of the woman conclusively establishes that a sexual offence has been committed. The question is why so much focus on mutuality? What makes consent to a sexual act so essential?
Consent has been associated with autonomy of an individual over oneself. When discussed specifically in the context of sexual activities, it usually determines the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of other’s sexual advances to oneself. Therefore, consent can be understood as a line that an individual draws while exercising the right to sexual autonomy.
There is an alternative perspective to understanding consent which questions the idea of it being solely an act of individual volition. It brings to light that by ignoring the material conditions which make the choices of an individual meaningful, the individualised understanding of consent assumes that the mind is the single determining factor. Autonomy is a power which can be expressed only when there are social relations that support its expression; and are also dependent on an individual developing an internal sense of feeling autonomous. That is why, a sense of sexual autonomy can be developed with the help of social conditions which respect bodily autonomy.