ABSTRACT
The sheer diversity of the feminist engagement with consent is testament not only to the fruitfulness and inventiveness of feminist scholarship, but perhaps most importantly to the protean nature of the concept itself. Consent moves beyond disciplinary boundaries and through diverse territories within each discipline, attaching itself both to conceptual apparatuses and their practical applications. Privileged in accounts of the legitimacy of government and in normative ones concerning political obligation and citizenship, it has been posited as a fundamental principle of democratic ideology and social organisation, whilst as a qualifying element for the legality of specific acts it has proven itself foundational to areas of both private and criminal law.
