FORCES OF CONSENT

Abstract

Under Anglo-American law, the consent of the masochist furnishes no defense to a charge of assault arising from sadomasochistic sexual practices. Our unwillingness to recognize consent in this context suggests disquiet with the ways in which S/M reflects the operations of law. Although the case law casts the masochist as a victim, other accounts represent masochism as a forceful enactment of submission. Masochism also challenges certain ideals of masculinity central to legal reason. Misgivings about the legitimacy of consent to S/M find a useful analogy in critiques of psychoanalytic treatment that understand consent in that context as irreducibly fraught.

Citation

Schmeiser, S.R. (2004), "FORCES OF CONSENT", Studies in Law, Politics and Society (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 32), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 3-38. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1059-4337(03)32001-0