CEVI-WP 09-05

Consent and Sexual Emancipation
Tom Claes

Abstract

A Sexual Ethics of Consent does not give us the fullest substantially developed view on what constitutes ‘good’ sex, but it does give us some crucial - be they minimal - conditions of morally acceptable sex. When these are met, whatever sexual project one favours, one cannot deny that these sexual relations are in an important way better than those that do not meet these conditions. The preconditions of valid consent, coupled with its rationale, are evaluationally relevant and will figure in whatever emancipatory ideal of sexuality we could rationally and intelligibly defend. Perhaps, then, a SEC is a marker of in stead of a hindrance to an emancipatory sexual ethics? 

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