Consent and Assent: Are We Missing a Concept?
If we want to get to the bottom of what consent is, it can be helpful to examine what it is not. Something I have not seen so far, and admittedly I am new to this field so it might already exist, is a comparison between consent and assent. I want to make an attempt at this here.
The distinction between consent and assent is quite developed in biomedical ethics and, for this reason, I’ll be drawing on these biomedical structures. In doing so, I’m following the lead of others, like Rebecca Kukla (2018). Something to keep in the back of our minds during this post, then, is the question of whether the structures of consent in biomedical ethics can map onto sexual consent. I won't address this here.
Assent is the affirmative agreement of an individual to take part in some activity where they do not have the ability or competence to give full consent (De Lourdes Levy et al. 2003; Yeong Cheah & Parker 2014; Hein et al. 2015). This is typically employed when children are involved in research or medical procedures, as children aren’t considered to be capable of giving informed consent in medicine. At first pass, informed consent seems to go further than sexual consent in legal and practical application, so I won’t go into the differences here (or, at least not in this post).
The significant difference between consent and assent doesn’t appear to lie within the performative aspects of these acts – in both, an individual has indicated that they agree to some activity. The difference here seems to be in the ‘inability to give full consent’ that is a criterion for cases of assent. I think this is an interesting aspect that might help explain why some cases of 'apparent' sexual consent aren’t consensual.
For example, Alcoff (2018) discusses the “growing literature written by survivors of childhood abuse and assault [that] recounts many cases where consent was produced…” (81, emphasis mine). One way of reading such statements is that consent has occurred, and that this is reason to believe that consent is not sufficient for ethical sex. While I do think that consent is not sufficient, I also want to say that these cases are not consensual.
Instead, maybe 'consent' between children and adults is better captured by assent.
I don’t think this would be limited to child-adult cases, either. I think defining a concept of sexual assent might help explain parts of what’s going on in cases of coercion, predatory grooming, etc. This could help by allowing conceptual space for affirmative performances without actual consent occurring. Maybe, too, this demonstrates a problem with the performative view of consent (but let's hope not, I think it captures elements the mental view misses!).
The distinction between consent and assent is quite developed in biomedical ethics and, for this reason, I’ll be drawing on these biomedical structures. In doing so, I’m following the lead of others, like Rebecca Kukla (2018). Something to keep in the back of our minds during this post, then, is the question of whether the structures of consent in biomedical ethics can map onto sexual consent. I won't address this here.
Assent is the affirmative agreement of an individual to take part in some activity where they do not have the ability or competence to give full consent (De Lourdes Levy et al. 2003; Yeong Cheah & Parker 2014; Hein et al. 2015). This is typically employed when children are involved in research or medical procedures, as children aren’t considered to be capable of giving informed consent in medicine. At first pass, informed consent seems to go further than sexual consent in legal and practical application, so I won’t go into the differences here (or, at least not in this post).
The significant difference between consent and assent doesn’t appear to lie within the performative aspects of these acts – in both, an individual has indicated that they agree to some activity. The difference here seems to be in the ‘inability to give full consent’ that is a criterion for cases of assent. I think this is an interesting aspect that might help explain why some cases of 'apparent' sexual consent aren’t consensual.
For example, Alcoff (2018) discusses the “growing literature written by survivors of childhood abuse and assault [that] recounts many cases where consent was produced…” (81, emphasis mine). One way of reading such statements is that consent has occurred, and that this is reason to believe that consent is not sufficient for ethical sex. While I do think that consent is not sufficient, I also want to say that these cases are not consensual.
Instead, maybe 'consent' between children and adults is better captured by assent.
I don’t think this would be limited to child-adult cases, either. I think defining a concept of sexual assent might help explain parts of what’s going on in cases of coercion, predatory grooming, etc. This could help by allowing conceptual space for affirmative performances without actual consent occurring. Maybe, too, this demonstrates a problem with the performative view of consent (but let's hope not, I think it captures elements the mental view misses!).
It's important to take a moment to say that just because someone has assented to some action does not make that action ethical. This is why, in medical cases, children who assent to some procedure must be accompanied by an adult who can consent by proxy. The child in these cases can assent (or dissent) to a procedure, but there is still at least one individual who is looking out for their best interests who can provide informed consent that (usually) aligns with the child's desires. What's important here is that the guardian who can consent by proxy is able to fill the conceptual gap left behind after the child assents (or dissents).
So, to develop a concept of sexual assent we would need to get clear on what it means to be 'unable to give full consent'. This is tricky, and I don't pretend to have an answer here. I do want to gesture toward some possibilities, however.
Perhaps we want to take a broad route and say that assent occurs whenever an individual is otherwise unable to consent. This would include cases where a child is approached by an adult as well as cases where an individual is under the influence of drugs or alcohol. But maybe this is too broad.
Alternatively we could take a narrow route and say that assent occurs only when an individual doesn't meet criteria A, B, and C. But determining what those criteria are might be too difficult for to reasonably apply outside of thought experiments, and they may exclude cases we intuitively want to include.
All this to say: we might benefit from a concept of sexual assent as a counterpart for sexual consent. What this concept might look like, however, I haven't decided. So, I guess I'm leaving you with a question you may not have considered before.
And no answer.
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