Lecture on Sexual Agency and Consent

Abstract: On a version of consent theory that tempts many, predatory sexual relations with significant power imbalances (e.g. professors and students, adults and teenagers, employers and employees) are wrong because they violate consent-centric norms. In particular, the wronged party is often said to have been incapable of consenting to the predation, and the sexual wrong lies in the encounter’s nonconsensuality. Although we agree that these are sexual wrongs, we resist the further claim that they are always nonconsensual. We argue instead that it is possible for students, teenagers, employees, etc. to fully consent to sexually predatory encounters; denying as much leaves survivors of predation vulnerable to compounding harms. Survivors face a dilemma: give up either their understanding of their experience as wrong, or their self-conception as an agent capable of consenting. We call the latter phenomenon agential demotion.

The event is also accessible virtually: https://lafayette.zoom.us/j/96515137900