Can women really consent to sex in a patriarchal society?
I tackle this reader question--which was one of the most hotly contested questions in 1980s radical feminism.
I recently received this question from a reader:
“I am interested in your thoughts about whether consent to sex in a patriarchal society really means true consent. I'm thinking about this because of a recent Guardian article on Chanel Contos, a young Aussie feminist, who bases some of her work on Dworkin. I think it would be interesting to hear your view.
"Dworkin also believed, controversially, that a woman under patriarchy couldn’t consent meaningfully to sex. On stage, when the interviewer Hannah Ferguson brings this up, towards the end of the night, a hush falls across the room. It’s not that Contos agrees literally with this view."
Why is it controversial, why is there a hush, and why does Contos not agree literally with this view? It seems blindingly obvious to me that still today sexual consent is often given under the duress of patriarchal expectations (for women AND men).”
I get a lot of really interesting questions from readers that aren’t really advice questions, but that are too broad in scope for a quick AMA or response. I may do more questions like this if my readers like this feature. So please vote in the poll at the end of this post!
I have a degree in philosophy. One of the most frustrating aspects of my academic life was how much time I had to listen to philosophy bros debating things that were completely irrelevant to daily life:
Is morality natural or learned?
What is the natural state of humanity?
Is the state of nature a state of violence?
Yawn. There are a whole lot of thought errors baked into these questions. But more importantly, these are unanswerable questions that get us no closer to solving the problems of the world—which was, of course, the original intent of philosophy. I was much more interested in talking about what it means to live a good life, learning how to think through challenging questions, and considering what it is we owe one another.
What does this have to do with whether sex is consensual under patriarchy? Plenty.
It’s a theoretical question. We can all have an opinion on it (and I’ll get to mine in a minute). But ultimately, answering it accomplishes nothing. It gets us no closer to solving patriarchy, to living better lives, to anything of value. It is a distraction. And it’s a distraction that inspires big emotions and that fractures feminist communities. Which makes it an especially wasteful question.
Asking whether a woman can truly consent to sex necessarily puts the burden of sexism on women, and needlessly pits women against each other. If you tell me I cannot actually consent to sex with my husband, you’re tacitly telling me what to do. You’re judging the way I live. You’re behaving as if you are the expert on my life. And you’re positioning yourself as more feminist, more knowledgeable, more authoritative than me.
These are not feminist behaviors, and they’re certainly not conducive to building a meaningful feminist movement. This question is a harmful waste of time that offers no insight into where feminism should go next, but which fractures the movement.
It’s not an accident that the right spends so much time talking about this specific insight of Dworkin’s, even though it was only a small portion of her feminist philosophy. They know that her views on sex and consent are her most divisive, and they play into their caricature of feminists as silly, as focusing on things that don’t really matter, and as the fun police.
But you didn’t ask for this rant about whether the question is worth exploring. You asked what I thought. Here is what I think:
We live in a highly coercive society. Numerous forces act on our behavior, many without our knowledge. Most of us, for example, feel pressure to be physically attractive as our culture defines it. This can color our behavior, and cause us to unthinkingly do things like believe that it’s important for girls to think they are pretty rather than questioning whether pretty is something we should think about at all.
Capitalism demands that we work or starve. Is working a choice then? What about my specific job?
Racism forces BIPOC individuals to conform to white social norms or risk death. Are BIPOC individuals’ relationships with white people really a choice?
Our world is complex and full of oppressive hierarchies. Very little of what we do is freely and fully a choice. That doesn’t mean we should stop making choices, or allow ourselves to become paralyzed by it all. Sex is no different. And it is not my right to judge whether a person who thinks they are having consensual sex is actually having consensual sex.
Sex with men is very often not a choice, as evidenced by rape and abuse rates. Even when rape is not overt, coercive sex is the norm in patriarchy. Just look at all the advice on men’s forums to threaten divorce if sex is not forthcoming. And all the women who bad sex with their husbands to avoid a manbaby tantrum.
If pushed, I would estimate that a majority of sex acts between men and women are not fully consensual. The woman does not enthusiastically want or enjoy sex, and has sex with the man for reasons other than desire. In this regard, I agree with Dworkin. My philosophy, though, leaves room for plenty of freely consensual sexual interactions.
Dworkin’s does not, because her philosophy goes further. Dworkin believed that the system of patriarchy itself is an independent force coercing women into sex with men. I agree with this to an extent, but sex is also a human instinct and many women would feel attracted to men even absent a patriarchy. And what are we to do with the insight that sex may not be consensual anyway? Ban sex and relationships with men? Prohibit heterosexual women from participating in the feminist project?
I’d rather see women collectively decide that low value men are permanently and totally unfuckable.
Women are free agents who can make their own choices, and we should be working toward a world that widens those choices. Moreover, we must trust women to know what is best for themselves. Sometimes the best option is for a woman to have sex she doesn’t really want to, because it gets her shitbag husband to leave her alone for a while. We should not waste time condemning this woman, nor trying to convince women in healthy heterosexual relationships (like me!) that they are deluded about their own lives.
Patriarchy tells women they can’t think for themselves. I will not cosign a feminist philosophy that gives them the same message.
A reminder that I’m conducting a poll of parenting practices, and will be closing it in two weeks. Please take it, and share it so I can get a broad sample. Here’s the link.
Important Administrative Announcement
About 5% of my subscribers are men. Men are always welcome here, because the work of undoing patriarchy should fall to men, not women. Unfortunately, though, my male subscribers take up a disproportionate share of my time. They send me long messages (the last one was 14,000 words) and get angry and aggressive when they don’t like my answers. They try to get into the support group to spy on their partners. And they generally seem not to heed the lessons I am trying to teach.
Going forward, men who want to become subscribers should contact me about also purchasing a subscription for someone who cannot afford one. This is on the honor system, but I expect men who want to do better to behave honorably.
If you’re a man interested in a subscription, and you are willing to may the “male rate” by paying for another person’s subscription, please email zawn.liberatingmotherhood@gmail.com
As usual well thought out and written, Zawn. There is never anything wrong in the analyzation of patriarchy and how that affects the female human condition, but we cannot use that as an excuse to degrade or rag on other women for the choices they have to make in a very oppressive world. I once was that sort of feminist. I think the jarring reality of such thoughts give rise to women really questioning their own beliefs and ideologies on this planet, but at the same time can be very divisive, detrimental and erroneous for the much greater good and cause for all women.
I remember vividly a woman sneering at me that because I had a sexual assault history and had been raped yet again by a boyfriend, I should not be "allowed" to have sex because I would just dissociate and "ruin" my partner's life by claiming assault just for "not liking it."
Dworkin's stance feels a lot like that to me.