Bad Romance? Consent as a cultural artefact in the sex game gone wrong

• In Event: Gender, Crime and Justice Working Group Panel 5: Sexual violence

Abstract

Contemporary sexual practice is in crisis. In this session I explore how this crisis emerges, in part through on ongoing tension within the English and Welsh criminal justice system's relationship with consensual sexual violence, risk, and criminality. By analysing a series of criminal cases from the past ten years, the paper will explore the approach that the courts take to policing non-normative, or deviant, sexualities alongside the imperative to act against gendered and sexualised violence. The cases concern incidents where women have been injured or killed during a sexual encounter with a man, and where that sexual encounter is held to be consensual. Consent is held as key in these debates and yet the very conceptualisation of consent itself can cause trouble in this crisis. In this paper, I argue that consent should be thought as a cultural artefact – a product of a socio-cultural present – that reflects contemporary sexual ethics. I examine how consent is operationalised and iterated in these crown court cases and how this interacts with contemporary sexual cultures, rape myths, and minoritised sexuality rights. By analysing consent in this way, we open the door to better understanding what consent can do, the limits of consent, and how thinking critically about consent can help us to navigate sex crises.

Author

• Alexandra Fanghanel, Greenwich University