Consent: Fearful Asymmetry

Especially after the #MeToo storm, ‘consent’ has been the rallying point of our debates. Nilofer Kaul looks at the idea of consent with all its assumptions of equality, rationality and language, and argues that this papers over the inherent asymmetry in gender relations. Harping on the centrality of consent, she argues, invisibilizes the violence of this asymmetric arrangement. The problem, as most women know, is not just that they are oppressed but that they apparently acquiesce to their indignities. It is in this heart of darkness that psychoanalysis is summoned to look at the inequitable distribution of power. Masculinity inherited power and this must be constantly proved and asserted, and constant violence is displayed to prove a delusional sense of power. This fictive potency demands the expunging of all traces of vulnerability, of the entire apparatus of thinking and feeling, and these unwanted attributes are then placed in femininity. However, Kaul argues, not all asymmetry is violent. BDSM partners ‘consent’ to violence, even seek it. How do we then think about consent in a world that is insistently and fearfully asymmetric?

NILOFER KAUL taught English Literature and now works as a training and supervising analyst in Delhi.  She won the Frances Tustin Prize for her paper on parasitism in 2018 and the Roszika Parker Prize for her paper on casual violence in 2021. Her book Plato’s Ghost on liminality and minus links in psychoanalysis was published in 2021.  She is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies.