ABSTRACT
Up to now in this book I have been avoiding discussion of the effect of patriarchy on sexual power relations or sexual negotiation. The implicit model has been one in which men and women negotiate their sexual relations as equals, on a level playing field Obviously one or other of them may threaten violence, or use emotional blackmail, or use economic coercion, but there has been no systematic analysis of whether men are typically able to use these threats more easily and effectively than women, because of a background of social inequality.1 The idea that sexual consent under patriarchy is suspect because of unequal power relations was mentioned by reference in the last chapter to the Dworkin/MacKinnon thesis, but not discussed. This chapter will be devoted to this issue I shall start by briefly juxtaposing the Dworkin/MacKinnon radical feminist thesis that sexual violence and pornography are central to patriarchal power to Walby’s more rounded account of patriarchy in which it is seen as a combination of male power in a number of main areas which certainly influence each other but which lack one central cause. Of course, a full discussion of theories of patriarchy requires something much more extensive than part of a chapter. My sketch should be seen more as a statement of a (hopefully defensible) position than as an attempt to persuade those who disagree with it.
