{"id":27755,"date":"2025-02-18T12:01:46","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T06:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/?p=27755"},"modified":"2025-03-17T12:20:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T06:50:16","slug":"theatrics-of-consent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/theatrics-of-consent\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatrics of Consent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the act of staging a performance, the actor is liberated by the virtue of performing agency, yet inescapably tethered to the script of performance. Similarly, women (not men), while performing consent, appear emancipated by the illusion of choice, yet remain trapped within the confines of the covertly extant, patriarchal underpinnings that shape and constrain their autonomy. Consent, then, is not merely an exercise of free will but a performance <\/em>of the self \u2013 a moment where the self becomes both performer and audience, watching and engaging in the negotiation between its unchained, non-performative essence and its constructed, socially gendered identity.
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Conventionally, consent has been framed within the binary of \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cno\u201d \u2013 either given or withheld. Under this framework, consent has been unequivocally defined as the mere absence of a \u201cno.\u201d This dichotomous approach triggers critical reflections: What is the standard time<\/em> for thinking or deciding? Who determines that? Particularly in the context of consent, how quickly should \u2013 or rather, must \u2013 the consenter arrive at a decision? And why does failing to decide or express a decision often result in an assumed \u201cyes\u201d from the consenter\u2019s side? Tracing these questions, the conventional framework of consent can be found grounded on two main presuppositions: (i) The roles of the giver and recipient of consent remain unexchanged. Which is to say the onus to consent or not is entirely on women, while men, positioned as recipients, are assumed to be exempt from this burden. As Carole Pateman (1980), in her essay \u201cWomen and Consent<\/em>,\u201d analysing the gendered dimension of traditional consent theories, argues, \u201cConsent must always be given to something; in the relationship between two sexes, it is always women who are held to consent to men. The \u201cnaturally\u201d superior, active, and sexually aggressive male makes an initiative, or offers a contract, to which a \u201cnaturally\u201d subordinate, passive woman \u201cconsents.\u2019\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, it is evident that the nature of conventional theories of consent is inherently non-gender-neutral, born out of and reinforcing the ingrained societal divisions of roles predicated on the basis of gender. Meaning thereby, that women are, much like with other societal expectations such as household chores, child-rearing, and upholding the family\u2019s fragile honour (responsibilities that remain \u201cuntouchable\u201d for men), disproportionately burdened with the responsibility of performing consent. This additional layering of responsibility, ironically in the guise of autonomy, exposes how women are oppressed by the very practice of liberation. Undoubtedly, women have been, and continue to be, subjected to far greater violations of consent compared to men. However, it is crucial to recognise that women were not granted a right<\/em> to give or deny consent to men, but that consent was instead ascribed to them<\/em> as an indelible facet of their supposed nature, like a \u2018natural\u2019 trait they inherently possess. As a result, the authority to interpret the consent of \u2018naturally\u2019 subordinate women \u2013 whose refusal or non-consent was perceived as a mere expression of their \u2018modest nature\u2019 \u2013 was vested to \u2018naturally\u2019 superior men as a sacrosanct right. (ii) Secondly, the act of consent has been surmised as a singular, momentary event \u2013 a transactional exchange, framed as an unequivocal agreement. To put it radically, if a woman says \u201cyes,\u201d her body is lent, unconditionally, to a man until he <\/em>decides to un-lend it. The sheer ignorance of the intricacies of consent, or its performance, serves only to strengthen the enduring patriarchal framework that holds sway in a society where the bodies, desires, and even voices of women have been, and, tragically, continue to be, defined and controlled by men. Consequently, a \u201cyes\u201d \u2013whether verbal or gestural \u2013 cannot be shallowly inferred as an authentic, unambiguous, and static agreement to a \u201ccontract\u201d proposed by men.
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Women, historically relegated as chattel under the dominion of the paterfamilias, are, perhaps surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, presumed to possess an essential bodily agency within the theatre of consent<\/em>. The social, structural and material conditions in which the act of consent is performed have often been side-lined, divorced from the idealised assumptions of autonomy that ground it. Take, for example, unwelcome sexual advances are recognised as sexual harassment, but what if a woman does not resist such advances from her workplace senior because she fears severe repercussions, such as losing her job? Or consider a girlfriend who says \u201cyes\u201d to a sexual act she is unwilling to engage in, simply because she anticipates that refusing might ruin her boyfriend\u2019s mood and strain their relationship. These examples, where \u201cwill\u201d and \u201cconsent\u201d are contested, reveal how illusory it is to believe that women\u2019s consent is truly theirs<\/em>. Therefore, consideration of the manifold aspects and factors preordaining the script of consent results in a confrontation with the utter insensitivity of defining and idealising a normative notion of consent \u2013 a construct that is, in reality, for those it promises, or more aptly, claims to empower, fundamentally non-consensual.
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The word consent<\/em> has its roots in the Latin word consentire<\/em>, which is formed through the assimilation of com <\/em>(\u201cwith, together\u201d) and sentire <\/em>(\u201cto feel\u201d), thus literally translating to \u201cto feel together.\u201d To feel. Together. On the contrary, the way in which consent is defined, understood, and practised has led to the consequences where it has lost its meaning, its essence. To understand the ever-changing nature of consent, it is crucial to trace how its meaning and practice varies across social, cultural, and temporal contexts, and how it evolves within different forms of relationships and encounters or interactions. For instance, in places or cultures where hugging is not an everyday gesture, one might ask before hugging on a first date. Though, as the relationship grows, gestures like hugging or kissing may no longer require explicit consent, while further sexual intimacy might still demand it. Therefore, when someone kisses their partner who does not resist, can consent be presumed? How can one discern whether their partner did not desire <\/em>to consent but felt unable to express it? In a country like India, marital rape is still legal because outlawing it is deemed \u201cexcessively harsh\u201d<\/a> by the current government. To what extent is the presupposed \u201cconsent\u201d of women, authorised within a \u201cmarriage contract,\u201d different from the \u201cconsent\u201d of sex workers, which is shaped by various societal factors and cannot always be presumed to reflect their true will or desire? As a result, consent, as performed within a fundamentally patriarchal society, cannot guarantee the expression of an uncompromised desire of the consenter \u2013 a woman, who has never been considered a desiring subject <\/em>but instead remains a mere object of desire<\/em>. Altogether, it clearly is evident that consent is often performed within a world of delusions, created between the performative and non-performative<\/em> selves <\/em>of women \u2013 a space where the latter, amidst the performance, turns with a glimmer of hope to spot and reclaim the former, but gets blinded by the glaring light of deceptive authority.
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During a performance, both the performer and the audience are effortlessly aware that the dramatised expressions on display are not real. All the same, as Sudipta Kaviraj (2021) observes, a skilled actor is one who is able to produce a \u201creal illusion of similarity\u201d between themselves and the character they portray. This illusion blurs the line between imitation and authenticity, captivating the audience with the performance as if it were real. In the \u201ctheatre of consent,\u201d a similar performance is staged \u2013 an intimate pageant<\/em> where a constructed version of the self is presented as real, complying with the gendered script of consent. Noticeably, here, men are not the audience but the directors \u2013 setting the rules, judging the performance, and reaping its rewards. One might wonder how men can judge a performance in which they are not the audience. The answer lies in the very construction of the gendered performative self. A woman, like a character, is not an autonomous being but a creation \u2013 designed, constructed, and controlled by man, the director; her performance is shaped by the expectations, desires, and judgments of her male creator, who becomes part of her identity, judging her from within the veil of her \u201cown\u201d shadow. There is always a \u201cman\u201d within a \u201cwoman,\u201d who remains loyal to its creator, its father \u2013 a man \u2013 to whom a woman remains tethered, eternally.
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Unshrouding the obsolete conventional understanding of consent \u2013 whose roots lie deeply entrenched in the soil of patriarchy \u2013 reveals that consent, in contrast to how it has been universally advocated, is not a mere \u201cnod,\u201d but instead a performative act. It brings to light how patriarchy has systematically reduced the profound essence of human will to a hollow, calculated, and serviceable transaction that it labels as \u201cconsent\u201d. This shatters the illusion of women\u2019s autonomy, often superficially assumed in their consent, and opens up a space where consent cannot be understood as an unequivocal, timeless contract. Instead, it is a living dialogue that can be renegotiated or repealed at any moment. But, is it possible? The cold truth that, ultimately, men hold the sole power to interpret consent forces us to confront the urgency to search for an alternative that is more just, egalitarian, and gender-neutral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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References:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n