PC: No Concept of Sexual Consent?

Zachariah

Banned
It's only a week into 2018, and already we have the worst thread of the year.
Hey, this was a plausibility check thread. Just looking into Stirling's Dominion of Draka, and wondering if it could be possible to plausibly have an even more dystopian, anti-libertarian and more sexually depraved world than that of the Domination in any ATL. And since this was one of the only things I could think of which could potentially be bad enough to do so, decided to ask people if there'd be any potential divergences which might lead to this.
 
In order for the POD to exist, women can have no say about their bodies. It is, by its proposal, a misogynistic ideal reducing women to chattel again.
 
Hey, this was a plausibility check thread. Just looking into Stirling's Dominion of Draka, and wondering if it could be possible to plausibly have an even more dystopian, anti-libertarian and more sexually depraved world than that of the Domination in any ATL. And since this was one of the only things I could think of which could potentially be bad enough to do so, decided to ask people if there'd be any potential divergences which might lead to this.
Some questions don't need to be asked.
 
Ok like, even in the bible and apochrya, you have stories about sexual consent(Joseph, Susannah and the Elders with a side discussion of the issue of retaliation and sexual pressure) and biblical laws that specifically address the possibility of coercion. And in the middle ages legal and religious literature, while it doesn't necessarily discuss sex per se as much, makes it very, very clear that the unforced consent of both parties is necessary in marriage and in fact there are certain topics discussed where it is explicitly stated in Latin canon law that consent is required from both parties and is the sole element of marriage-even that consensual sex was sufficient to constitute marriage!(https://www3.nd.edu/~undpress/excerpts/P03140-ex.pdf for comments on this). Jewish authorities also explicitly state that a woman's consent to marriage is legally essential and further that sex cannot be coerced. I suspect the same is true of Islamic law to at least some degree but I will defer to any expert in the subject of medieval Islamic law and legal theory who posts here.
 

CalBear

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In order for the POD to exist, women can have no say about their bodies. It is, by its proposal, a misogynistic ideal reducing women to chattel again.
Depends on how you define the "consent" aspect. As I noted earlier, the idea of a woman having 100% right to deny consent is only 26 years old in the UK (House of Lords ruling on Marital Rape was in 1991) and only 24 years old in the U.S. (when the last U.S. state changed the law) and even today South Carolina has a much higher bar for Marital Rape (including the victim only having 30 days to file a complaint) than other categories.

In addition the POD doesn't need to happen. 52 COUNTRIES have no law against Marital Rape and some of those same states have arranged marriage. Now it might be a marriage if a 48 year old business owner marries at 15 year old girl who has never laid eyes on him, but if she has no option to refuse the marital bed...

Again, the truth is UGLY.
 

CalBear

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Oh, BTW - For all the Americans shaking their heads at the benighted folks in the Third World -

AZ, CA, CO, DE, ID, KY, LA MA, ME, MI, MS, MO, NV, NJ, NM, OH, OK, PA, RI, TN, WA, WV, WY have NO minimum marriage age as long a judge and the parents consent (yep 23 states) This in ANY Circumstances. Massachusetts actually Judge only in some circumstances. New Hampshire is 13 (F)/14(M). Florida has no minimum if the female is pregnant. AK, NC, ND are 14. More than half the states in the Union have marriage ages 14 years old OR BELOW.

Truth is a right bastard ain't it?
 
As you sensibly point put rape with physical damage already comes under assault so there's not even a need to change the law if you remove consent. Just like people don't have to consent to a hug but if you crush their ribs it's illegal I suppose. Regardless it definitely does not stand to reason that psychological damage is biological, people do things they don't want to do a lot, it doesn't cause psychological damage. Forcing a child to eat something they don't want isn't going to scar them for life like rape often does in our world.
Wait, what? If you have serious research indicating that a society can educate its members under the premise that they should have sexual intercourse wether they like it or not without negative mental consequences, you're free to share it, but that's not going to happen. There is a world of difference between rape, unwanted hugs and forcing a child to eat something he'd rather not - that goes without saying.

Yet again you have decided that it's impossible to stop women from being in some way broken by rape. There are plenty of women who survive rape without becoming incapable of functioning in society and to be honest it's ridiculously insulting to women to say that they shouldn't be raped because they'll become super worse at their jobs when the reality is women who are raped often have no outlet and struggle along without anyone aware in complete silence.

Regardless since we know that it is possible for some people to handle rape as it is possible for some people to handle assault or fighting then it is reasonable to presume that such a state of affairs can be encouraged. Were all women historically broken as you seem to suggest, since even the concept of martial rape didn't exist until recently (and by that virtue consent of the woman was irrelevant for the vast majority of existence) or because of the social norms they were not broken by it?

I don't understand why you think that how society react to rape and victims doesn't change the psychological impact of it. Telling women that they are damaged goods like you do only encourages the fermentation of negative behaviour
It seems that you're misunderstanding me. Yes, there are people who are so resilient that they can shrug off rape. There are also people who pretend they are shrugging it off but they aren't. Are you trying to argue that rape isn't a big deal?

A "concept" is intersubjective stuff, as in, it exists as an abstraction the members of a given society acknowledge. A law is the same thing, plus it gives a human organization called "the State" the opportunity to exert socially accepted violence against the members of the society who act against the law. Concepts and laws don't exist in the physical world as anything else than electric impulses in the brains of a given group of homo sapiens. There are no molecules of law or concepts. They exist only if a society believes in them. PTSD isn't "a concept". It doesn't rely on society to believe in it in order to exist. It's a biological condition resulting from stressful situations which exists whether a society acknowledge it's existence or not. People suffer from rape whether the law says something it's rape or not and people suffer PTSD whether medical science had a concept of it or not.

"Damaged goods" often refers to women who can no longer be sold in the marriage market. That is, clearly, not what I was talking about. A highly productive economy (you can have a low salary, low productivity economy) requires an educated, healthy workforce. So you can not have widespread rape in society and keep a productive economy because a significant chunk of the workforce would be showing up to work under mental distress. So on top of the political arguments to dis-encourage rape, there are also economic incentives.
Edit : Anyway regardless my suggestion is that sex becomes equivalent to any other human interaction, this won't make rape legal, in that clearly if you refuse a hug and someone keeps going for it it's illegal but it won't make rape illegal specifically it will be covered under the normal laws for this thing. In this kind of society I imagine people grabbing genitals as common as slapping on the back or shaking hand or something. I'm not sure how you'd get such a society to exist as long as diseases do though, perhaps some sort of system with communal parenting.

So sexual consent is just part of normal physical boundaries consent.
I'm under the impression that you believe people to be a tabula rasa of sorts, which can be educated into any sort of culture. That is not so, human behavior has a significant genetic and hormonal component.
 
I hate be that Guy, but we aren´t speaking of the Man right to give sexual consent, to the point there is no even a hint in the discussion, We as society then to assume that, as historically most recipient of power were Male, for ever an ever every male have power over every woman, and that most men were in a position of Master and Comander of "chattel women" with even consider that men could, and were, Obligated to enter in Marriages and Sexual relations against his Will. there is a interesting stories about how the practices of child marriage affect the men and the woman (here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-sad-hidden-plight-of-child-grooms)
Basically identified that as most men in child marriages are used as basically Slave labor and workforce for the Man´s or Woman´s Family, apart of the horror that the girls suffer.

As you think, men always are eager, I give you the Case of Louis XV of France, Married at the Age 15 To Marie Leczinska a 7 years his senior (21), with little choice or hearsay by either,, and the later life behavior of the King is a text case of a sexual abused male(read here, here,here and here but the last is more general) But as is was a Male and King, even if his life was well documented, it´s rare that someone rise the Possibility.

The point we never bother to ask ourselves if a man ever was obligated to have sex against his Will, historically this must be a pretty common practices, by most studies around male homosexuality say that around 2% to 10% of the men identify themselves as homosexual, and around 1%-5% of the woman identify themselves as homosexuals, woman bisexuals are far more common (5-8-% male 10%-15% female). But in epoch that women don´t have option in respect to marriage and Sex, was the time most men also don´t have option about the same, I concede most Noble males have more options than Women and non-noble men in general.

But if we limited ourselves as a problem of only Half the population(women) We ignore the problems that could have the other half of the population.AS paint them as always abusers and predators.

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Ok like, even in the bible and apochrya, you have stories about sexual consent(Joseph, Susannah and the Elders with a side discussion of the issue of retaliation and sexual pressure) and biblical laws that specifically address the possibility of coercion. And in the middle ages legal and religious literature, while it doesn't necessarily discuss sex per se as much, makes it very, very clear that the unforced consent of both parties is necessary in marriage and in fact there are certain topics discussed where it is explicitly stated in Latin canon law that consent is required from both parties and is the sole element of marriage-even that consensual sex was sufficient to constitute marriage!(https://www3.nd.edu/~undpress/excerpts/P03140-ex.pdf for comments on this). Jewish authorities also explicitly state that a woman's consent to marriage is legally essential and further that sex cannot be coerced. I suspect the same is true of Islamic law to at least some degree but I will defer to any expert in the subject of medieval Islamic law and legal theory who posts here.

That's my point exactly, there were always such 'sexual rules' transvested in different concepts in each civilization and religion: it can be called taboo, mores, habitus, Customary Law, Canon Law, etc. As far as I'm aware every society has a concept of consent, for obvious reasons.

OTOH socioeconomic conditions certainly determine how enforceable these customary rules actually were (are?).

EDIT: There's also the issue of the difference between private and public life and how rules are applied to each aspect of life throughout history. Quite an interesting topic.
 
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The concept of sexual consent is a disturbingly recent one. Of course, the concept of rape is far older; but historically, rape was seen less as a crime against a particular girl or woman than it was a crime against the head of the household, or against chastity. As a consequence, the rape of a virgin was often a more serious crime than of a non-virgin; and the rape of a prostitute or other unchaste woman was, in some laws, not a crime because her chastity could not be harmed. Furthermore, the woman's consent was under many legal systems not a defense. Even fairly recently in the Western World, in seventeenth-century France, marriage without parental consent was classified as rape.

The penalty for rape was often a fine, payable to the father or the husband, as they were in charge of household economy. In some laws the woman might marry the rapist instead of his receiving the legal penalty. This was especially prevalent in laws where the concept of sexual consent either didn't exist or was viewed as irrelevant, thus dividing the crime in the current meaning of rape, and a means for a couple to force their families to permit marriage. Modern doctrines today have different views on the type of crime that rape is. It may be seen as constituting an act of violence; as a moral injury; as an act of violation of autonomy; as an act of invasion of integrity; and/or as an act of patriarchal oppression and subordination. And the concept of sexual consent isn't a prerequisite for either of the first two definitions of rape as a crime, or of the historical view of rape as a crime of theft or property damage.

So then, how plausible might it be for an ATL to exist, in which the concept of sexual consent either never comes into being, or remains a strictly fringe and radical concept, and as a result is never acknowledged by any nations' legal systems, even by the time we reached the present day? When would be the latest plausible POD for this to feasibly happen? And it goes without saying that such a world would be dystopian, but just how dystopian would it be, in your opinion?

EDIT: BTW, I'll leave it up to the mods- do you think people will be able to handle this thread being discussed here, in this forum? Or should this thread be moved to the Political Chat forum instead?

Interesting post. One would have to go back at least to the pre-Islamic era to find a point of divergence that would avoid the concept of rape existing. The classical Islamic view on rape is that it is a very serious offence, deserving of a severe punishment. The offence is specifically defined by the absence of consent.

The punishment for rape in Islam is for the rapist to be stoned to death (if he is married) or be whipped with 100 lashes and deported (if he is not). In addition, rape is recognised as a crime against a woman personally. Therefore, after the offender has been punished, the victim must receive financial compensation, which is usually equivalent to the value of her dowry.

Your point of divergence would need to be some point before the year 622.
 
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One odd little footnote here is the Marquis de Sade (yes, that one).

De Sade argued that it was wrong to deny nature - and since sexual desire is natural, it is wrong to refuse consent. De Sade believed this applied to men as well as women, however - basically, anyone could have sex with anyone, without this consent business, and certainly without marriage. He also argued for abortion rights too.

I'm not endorsing de Sade, BTW, just pointing out that a hypothetical society without a concept of sexual consent is not necessarily a patriarchal one.
 

Zachariah

Banned
Interesting post. One would have to go back at least to the pre-Islamic era to find a point of divergence that would avoid the concept of rape existing. The classical Islamic view on rape is that it is a very serious offence, deserving of a severe punishment. The offence is specifically defined by the absence of consent.

The punishment for rape in Islam is for the rapist to be stoned to death (if he is married) or be whipped with 100 lashes and deported (if he is not). In addition, rape is recognised as a crime against a woman personally. Therefore, after the offender has been punished, the victim must receive financial compensation, which is usually equivalent to the value of her dowry.

Your point of divergence would need to be some point before the year 622.

Thing is, like I said, the first two definitions of rape as a criminal offence don't require a concept of sexual consent to exist. So the concept of rape could still exist without a concept of sexual consent.
 

Zachariah

Banned
One odd little footnote here is the Marquis de Sade (yes, that one).

De Sade argued that it was wrong to deny nature - and since sexual desire is natural, it is wrong to refuse consent. De Sade believed this applied to men as well as women, however - basically, anyone could have sex with anyone, without this consent business, and certainly without marriage. He also argued for abortion rights too.

I'm not endorsing de Sade, BTW, just pointing out that a hypothetical society without a concept of sexual consent is not necessarily a patriarchal one.
Ah, that guy. Well, that certainly is a very interesting, unconventional and controversial devils' advocate argument. And any society which advocated and implemented such a philosophy would be fascinatingly dystopian and grimdark; whilst still paradoxically presenting itself as being libertarian and progressive at the same time. Nightmare fuel indeed...
 
I didn't get what you meant. (Sorry if it's a stupid question). If sexual consent didn't exist then instead of the specific crime of zina bi al ikra the crime would just be zina, but in that case there would be no distinction between the perpetrator and the victim, leading both to be punished. This would be a miscarriage of justice.

I didn't get how your last sentence makes sense.
 
I will point out that, even today, we have the issue of "honor killings". In many cases, even when this "violation" has happened as a result of honest to goodness rape, the woman/property has been so sullied...
 
Cult of domesticity and stuff. I remember reading that before the Victorian era, women used to work more often since people were to poor to just have all their income come from the man. So, the whole family would have to work in order to make a living with jobs like cooking dishes, nursing children, washing clothes, cooking, etc being actual professions. But, that changed in the Victorian era, and also the 50s in America, since the idea of women being nice house wives grew in vogue.
I don't know why people talking abut victorian period seem to forget than not all people were aristocrats, bankers, factory or plantation owners, or at least gentry. Great majority of people were farmers, workers, servants, artisans, merchants etc, who could not afford for their wives - or children - to remain idle.
 
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