Consent, Trust, and Sexual Ethics

ABSTRACT

No one describes a passionate night using the language of consent. Partners in long‐term relationships rarely think of intimacy in terms of permission. If consent is absent precisely when things go well, why does it dominate sexual ethics? Critics have pressed this challenge but have failed to explain why consent is irrelevant rather than merely unspoken. I argue that consent is a tool whose authority rests on three conditions: opacity of wills, risk of wrongful invasion, and the value of sovereignty. When relationships are marked by trust, these conditions are substantially altered. The operative norm shifts from consent‐sensitivity to dissent‐sensitivity—from “do not act without permission” to “you may act unless there is dissent.” The moral work performed by trust is not consent in disguise: consent authorizes particular acts, while trust can make such authorization unnecessary. Consent is a problem‐solving device that presupposes a problem. In the ideal case, there is no problem to solve.