“My wish [is] to screw—tinker, tighten, and pressure, rather than altogether dispense with—consent.” —Joseph J. Fischel, author of Screw Consent: A Better Politics of Sexual Justice
Joseph. J. Fischel discusses the consent paradigm and how, while necessary for effective sexual assault law, it diminishes and perverts our ideas about desire, pleasure, and injury. In addition to the criticisms against consent leveled by feminist theorists of earlier generations, Fischel elevates three more: consent is insufficient, inapposite, and riddled with scope contradictions for regulating and imagining sex. Fischel proposes instead that sexual justice turns more productively on concepts of sexual autonomy and access. Clever, witty, and adeptly researched, Fischel’s Screw Consent promises to change how we understand consent, sexuality, and law in the United States today.
Meet Joseph at one of the following events:
Thursday, March 7th, 6:00pm at Labyrinth Books- Friday, March 15th at the University of Chicago as a plenary speaker for Intimate Provocations: Theorizing Consent in the Age of #MeToo
- May 30th – June 2nd, date and time TBD: Law and Society Association
And read more from Joseph on Aeon, where he discusses what do we consent to when we consent to having sex?
