CALLISTHENICS: STORIES OF SUPPORT, AVERSION AND LOVE, PERFORMANCE BY BOUHANA, DORR AND HOEGEN, CERC2025 CONFERENCE, JAN 2025
PRESUPPOSITION AND CONSENT, JONATHAN JENKINS ICHIKAWA, 2020, FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY
A NONIDEAL THEORY OF SEXUAL CONSENT, QUILL R KUKLA, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, 2021
LEGAL NOW, ON DOM/SUB CONTRACTS
A PHENOMOLOGICAL APPROACH TO SEXUAL CONSENT & THE ETHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF BEING AN EROTIC OBJECT, ELLIE ANDERSON
AN APPARTMENT ON URANUS, PAUL B. PRECIADO
METHOD, METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH DESIGN, FALK HÜBNER
THINKING THROUGH THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE, MAAIKE BLEEKER, ADRIAN KEAT A.O.
HUMAN CAPITAL: A HISTORY OF PUTTING REFUGEES TO WORK, LAURA ROBSON
Perfrroming Working questions, amongst other things, why only waged work is valued and recognised as work, it problematizes the championing of that waged work above all other activities, and its status as a condition for citizenship and social participation. It looks at the social exclusion that this causes for different people, and tries to make divers forms of hidden work explicit, exploring the value of that work and the dynamics of the invisiblisation of those doing it. A starting point for this exploration is illness, seeking to understand and make apparent what the work of living with illness is – one’s own or that of someone one is caring for – in all its many facets, including the fraught relationship between illness and the labour market. Second area of exploration is homelessness.
Drawing a parallel between sexual consent discourses and consent in participation:
Sexual consent theory discusses how consent is constructed and the sense and nonsense of consent as the criterion for ethical sexual encounters or ‘good sex’. There is a lot under discussion here, such as the fact that consent implies that one person is always acting at the behest of another person (may I do this to you, will you do this to me?), and that it implies that there is one active person doing and desiring and one passive one who’s saying yes or no. (Instead of, as one might hope, a situation of mutual desires being exchanged.) The criticism from feminism on this consent principal is that it’s framing women as defensive, passive and without desires of their own. In queer discourses current consent theories are often found to be very heteronormative. Another problem that’s discussed is the fact that in itself consent isn’t a guarantee that there is any kind of equality between the actor and the acted upon.
This critical scrutiny of sexual consent is helpful when we’re trying to understand what happens with consent as the criterion of ethical participation or ‘good’ participative practices between researchers and participants in a research. Obviously we see some parallels such as binary of the researcher as the actor-subject and the participant as the object of research, framed as a a passive party who is merely setting boundaries, without any interest, stake or ambition of their own with the research. Quite often, the people in this role are, to add insult to injury, then also framed as ‘vulnerable’, impling that their ability to have and to express desires themselves is suspect.
Basically the scenes that are conjured in this discussion on sexual consent are scenes of very bad sex, that you wouldn’t want to have any part of, and the same can be said when that discussion is transposed to research and participation. What you hope for, what feels like 'good participation', is a situation where all parties involved are excited by what they're doing, not merely guarding their boundaries.
However, this doesn’t mean we can do without consent. It plays a crucial role exactly in cases where things are even more dire such as cases of coercion and violence, or cases that are more tricky such as in asymmetrical power relations etc. In fact you could argue that in researcher/participant relationships there is always at least a potential for problems around asymmetrical positions as well as peer pressure. So how to recharge the notion of consent and it’s traditional expression in research, the consent form, is such a way that it’s helpful instead of being stigmatising, blunt and damaging when fostering fruitful and joyful relations and collaborations in research?
A quote:
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"Consent and Safety: … A contract helps prevent misunderstandings and establishes clear boundaries, ensuring that all activities are consensual.
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Communication: It encourages partners to communicate openly about their desires, limits, and expectations. This process can be therapeutic and strengthen the relationship.
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Clarity and Assurance: Having everything in writing provides clarity and assurance to both parties, knowing there's a mutual understanding of the relationship's structure and boundaries.
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Parties Involved: Clearly identify the … [the roles].
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Term of Agreement: Specify the duration of the contract and conditions for renewal or termination.
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Safewords and Signals: Designate safewords and signals to communicate discomfort or the need to stop.
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Limits and Boundaries: Detail hard and soft limits to protect the well-being of all parties.
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Roles and Responsibilities: Define the expectations, roles, and responsibilities of each partner.
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Privacy and Discretion: Agree on how to handle the disclosure of the relationship and activities to others."
This text is copied from the website Legal Now, the page on contracts between doms and subs in BDSM relationships. For me, this articulates really well what a consent document, (lets call it that, or an agreement rather than a 'form') could be or do. It articulates perfectly how such a document can help safegaurd things but how it's also generative, part of a process of learning things about each other, and, crucially, – this is the key for me – it explicitly introduces the notion of desire: what do I want, what do you want with this project, and how can we support each others desires.
So this is kind of how I'm beginning to articulate some kind of position on this subject.
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References:
PRESUPPOSITION AND CONSENT, JONATHAN JENKINS ICHIKAWA, 2020, FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY
A NONIDEAL THEORY OF SEXUAL CONSENT, QUILL R KUKLA, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS, 2021
LEGAL NOW, ON DOM/SUB CONTRACTS
A PHENOMOLOGICAL APPROACH TO SEXUAL CONSENT & THE ETHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF BEING AN EROTIC OBJECT, ELLIE ANDERSON
