ABSTRACT
The ‘problem’ of sexual consent - and more specifically the prevalence and incidence of forced sex and rape - is acutely political for women. Studies of the legal and judicial process of prosecuting sex without consent demonstrate persistent and profound inequalities in the treatment of women who are raped or forced to have sex in comparison with the men who rape/force them (Lees, 1997, Cook, 2002). At the same time, the historical study of sexual conduct and social inequality in society has demonstrated the extent to which women’s consent has been constructed referentially to male sexuality. That is to say, women have historically understood and measured their capacity to consent to sex by male referents of who has power, who actively initiates and who passively responds, and what is constituted as the ‘normal’ parameters of sexual pleasure. All of these are contextualised within the masculine and feminine gendered constructs of hetero patriarchy (Jeffreys, 1990).
