Today, the particulars of sexual activity is not of concern to the law — with some exceptions, such as sexual activity involving a child. Rather, the law concerns itself with consent to activity as the critical element in distinguishing the difference between sex and sexual violence.

Today, ‘vanilla sex’, the dismissive term used for your ordinary garden-variety types of sexual activity, is largely unremarkable and nobody else’s business. It can be covered comprehensively and inclusively in sex education in school and by parents with relatively little discomfort. 

Programmes to support skill levels in self-awareness, boundary setting and assertiveness can serve people well in safely navigating fulfilling sexual activity — all things being equal. 

And explicit institutional responsibility is common within structures of HR, big business, and higher education.

As far as second-wave feminism's most central task goes, a task that has taken 50 years of activism — job done!

History tells us feminist wins tend to come with a sting in the tail. One hundred years ago, we demanded women’s equal place in public life, and we were left double jobbing, with both paid and domestic work. 

The only option left to women who could afford it was to outsource the second job to poorer women and those who could not faced many difficulties in involving themselves in economic activity outside the home. 

Today, we are still fighting for equal pay, for pensions and for the recognition of and equality in care responsibilities. 

When we demanded sexual liberation, we were told that included our freedom to compete for some of the profits from the exploitation and objectification of our sex. It turned out it was not our liberation from exploitation we won but our liberty to exploit our own exploitation — if that sounds like a con, it is because it is.

Feminist responses to the sleight of hand, appropriation and reversal of our gains has a track record of stubborn optimism, pragmatism, and failure. 

Self-defence

For example, there was much interest in the development of feminist self-defence in recent decades which focused on boundary setting and de-escalation strategies in real-life situations such as sexual and street harassment rather than the less likely scenario of being attacked by a stranger in the street and the even less likely possibility that, when surprised, you might successfully execute the defensive strike you have been taught. ‘Success’ is measured by degrees of deflection rather than prevention.

Another example is feminist pornography, which sought to create a subversive space within pornography rather than the seemingly hopeless task of ending pornography. 

Today, ‘feminist porn’ has become primarily concerned with working conditions in pornography and broadening representation and inclusion rather than presenting any sort of alternative to the misogynistic commercialisation of sex. One of the problems feminist porn faced is that it is not very profitable — misogyny is still the thing that sells.

Lately, feminism’s third wave have demanded the end to moralistic interference in our bodily autonomy, the freedom to choose. But these ‘freedoms’ to choose remain within the context of misogyny and inequality. 

The conundrum for each generation of feminists and activists against sexual violence is how to empower the targets of inequality and sexual violence without giving them responsibility and therefore blame.

One UK charity, We Can’t Consent To This, has begun to try to identify the women who have been killed by sexual partners whose defence was that the women consented to the violent activity that killed them. They have documented 60 cases in the UK alone. Many of the men involved have been successful in avoiding murder charges, with charges dropped to manslaughter. Now that we can consent, we are responsible, to blame even, up to and including for our own deaths.

The lesson history has repeatedly taught women is that every win, every tool, every strategy will be appropriated and potentially turned against us. Focusing on the symptoms without seeking to understand the cause risks us becoming complicit and increasing cover for exploitation and the flourishing of inequality. 

Consent is the latest tool. If we act as if this can fix misogyny, we are mistaken. Today, for many, the ‘sexual’ choices presented to us involve degrees of violence, degradation and pain in circumstances of continued inequality. The trick now is, given consent, we have only ourselves to blame.

• Clíona Saidléar is executive director of Rape Crisis Network Ireland