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ABSTRACT
This article explores the ambivalence of consent presented by Vanessa Springora’s recent memoir, Consent (2020). It argues that current notions of affirmative consent are inadequate for understanding the role of autonomy in scenarios characterised by inequality or injustice. Building on the insights of Quill R. Kukla, Emily Owens, and Carole Pateman, the article demonstrates that current concepts of consent are insufficient to address situations of deep structural inequalities, such as those foundational to Springora’s relationship with the writer Gabriel Matzneff. It argues that Matzneff's exploitation of Springora challenges two commonplace beliefs about consent that are nonetheless in tension with one another: the first, about the efficacy and desirability of a standard of affirmative consent, and the second, the belief that adolescents cannot act agentically and do not possess sexual autonomy. Reading these two claims with and against each other points toward the need for a new framework for consent grounded in the concept of relational autonomy. Ultimately, drawing on recent feminist theory, as well as the relational autonomy literature, I suggest that relational autonomy establishes the conditions of possibility under which consent can be established, debated, and refused.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Robcis explains that ‘up until that point, French law relied on the notion of “sexual majority” (also set at 15), but legislators never agreed on a particular age at which individuals were regarded as cognitively or emotionally capable of giving informed consent to sex. Thus, even though sexual relations between adults and minors were illegal, they were not automatically considered—or prosecuted—as rape, if they were deemed consensual’ (Citation2021).
2 I thus agree with Joseph Fischel’s argument that ‘sexual autonomy need not get mired in problems connected to high liberal theories of the person’, but argue that it nonetheless has done so (Citation2010, 297). Indeed what follows is an attempt ‘to theorize acceptable and unacceptable forms of interference in the realm of sexual decision-making’ (297).
3 Though it is beyond the scope of this article to adequately explore the subject, it is necessary to recall that Matzneff was not the only the French artist or intellectual to defend sexual relationships between children and adults. Indeed, Matzneff authored a statement published in Le Monde on January 26, Citation1977, arguing that children as young as thirteen had the capacity to consent to sexual relationships with adults and implicitly calling for the decriminalization of such relationships. Signatories included Roland Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Jean-François Lyotard, and Jean-Paul Sartre. For a recent discussion, see Bourg (Citation2017, especially 204–218).
4 Though the statute of limitations had passed by the time Consent was published, Matzneff was dropped by his publishers. More recently, a different publisher expressed interest in publishing Matzneff’s new work but was later forced to rescind that offer after receiving death threats (Agence France-Presse Citation2022; Fitzpatrick Citation2022).
5 The skit, along with some news coverage of the Antioch College policy, is available here: https://vimeo.com/57162303.
6 Specifically, searching for ‘affirmative consent’ and ‘school’ produces 536,000 results.
7 This is not to suggest that critiques of affirmative consent are specific or limited to American cases. Australia’s 2021 National Student Safety Survey (Citation2022) revealed that 4.5% of undergraduates had been assaulted during their time at university. That report is available here: https://www.nsss.edu.au/results.
8 This is not to say that the notion of consent only emerged with liberalism or the social contract tradition, only that the liberal model dominates contemporary discourse.
9 This interpretation runs contrary to Alcoff’s argument that ‘the feminist effort to switch to a focus on consent was a liberal reform that would recognize women’s interest in sexual autonomy, and not simply in fair, economic transactions for the use of their body’ (Citation2018, 126).
10 MacKinnon would likely dispute this description of her politics, particularly the degree to which dominance/radical feminism relies on, rather than engages with, the patriarchal state. MacKinnon would instead emphasize the agency of feminists in their engagements with the state, rather than depict them as helpless pawns.
11 Without denying powerful critiques of the carceral state (Terwiel Citation2020, for instance), imagine if all remedies for social injustices were denied access to the law on the grounds that they might be implicated in its maintenance but before the implementation of a genuinely reparative system. Why sexual assault victims in particular should be denied this resource is never made clear by Halley.
12 My position contrasts with that of Douglas Morrey, author of one of the few extant studies of Springora’s memoir, who argues that ‘the clear implication of Springora’s narrative is that, although at fourteen she consented to her sexual relationship with Matzneff, in retrospect she understands that she did not have the emotional or psychological maturity to give informed consent and it was the responsibility of adult society– largely neglected in her experience– to protect her from a sexual predator’ (Citation2022, 245).
13 I realize the irony of attempting to move away from liberal individualism by a relying on a source that intends to ‘reconstruct’ it but, as I endeavor to show, the agency that Krause describes is not limited to liberalism precisely because of its emphasis on contingency and incompleteness. To that end, it meets the challenge raised by Jennifer Nedelsky, who declared that ‘feminist theory must retain the value [of autonomy], while rejecting its liberal incarnation’ (Citation1989, 7).
14 Matzneff himself is never so deluded as to be unaware that their relationship is, in a word, inappropriate. Yet he repeatedly harangues Springora about the nature of illicit love. For her part, Springora knew that ‘ours was a forbidden love. Reviled by all decent people. I knew this, because he told me so repeatedly. It meant I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. I had to be careful. But why? Why, if I loved him and he loved me?’ (46).
15 Though Krause does not refer to relational autonomy as such, her theory of non-sovereign agency can, somewhat paradoxically, be read as an extended contribution to the literature.
16 For an extended analysis of all three of Mackenzie’s dimensions of relational autonomy, see Gallagher Citationn.d.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Megan Gallagher
Megan Gallagher is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Gender and Race Studies at the University of Alabama. Her areas of research include sex and gender in the history of political thought, feminist political theory, and politics and literature. She is currently working on a project about consent, of which this article is a key piece.