Volume 37, 2021
Respect, Social Action, and #MeToo
Susan J. Brison
Pages 9-21
What’s Consent Got to Do with It?
What are we doing when we see rape as nonconsensual sex? What does this prevent us from seeing—and doing? On my account, the harm of rape—to the victim and to others—is not adequately captured by calling it “sex without consent.” If we want, first, to understand how rape harms its direct and its indirect victims and, second, to eradicate rape, or at least change the culture so that rape is less prevalent, the question “Did she consent to his doing this to her on that occasion?” may not be the most important question, or even a very helpful question, to ask, and focusing on it exclusively may be counterproductive. Defining rape as «sex without consent» or «nonconsensual sex» is, I argue, not only politically ineffective as an anti-rape strategy. It also constitutes an epistemic injustice against rape survivors who attempt to bear witness to the politically significant incessant and ubiquitous occurrence of male gender-based violence against women, which is something much larger than any one thing that was done to any one of them without their consent.