Consent theory as hermeneutical injustice

Abstract I describe respects in which an overemphasis on the role of consent in sexual ethics gives rise to hermeneutical injustices. Although consent is widely invoked with feminist motivations to combat rape culture, the role to which it is often put, I argue, is often antithetical to its laudable feminist aims. Various influential stereotypes about consent and sex influence the public imagination, interacting to produce and reinforce harmful ‘inference tickets’ that impede public and individual understanding of important positive and negative kinds of sexual interactions. Rather than trying to replace inadequate conceptions of consent with more inflationary ones, I suggest that feminists should use different language and frameworks to express their critiques and motivate positive cultural change.