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Dans cet article l'auteure assure que la rhétorique du consentement utilisée dans l'activisme anti-viol actuel est obnubilée par la présence de la coercition sexuelle dans les relations hétérosexuelles La sexualité des hommes a été définie comme active et celle des femmes comme en manque de désir. Cette coercition est intégrée ce qui donne des pratiques sexuelles non-désirées et consensuelles. Pour enrayer cette culture du viol il faut une ré-figuration radicale de l'hétérosexualité et de la place du sexe dans les relations personnelles.
Current feminist anti-rape activism centres around a rhetoric of consent versus non-consent. With slogans like "No Means No" and "Only Yes Means Yes!," anti-rape activists emphasize the importance of consent and foster awareness of sexual assault in the public consciousness. While the focus on consent is useful in that it establishes a clear definition of sexual assault, the language of consent is also premised on the assumption that sexually coercive behaviour is clearly distinguishable from "normal" heterosexual sex.1 The prevalence of sexual coercion within heterosexual relationships, however, suggests that the rigid boundary between sexual assault and sex enforced by anti-rape activism may be an artificial construction. In this essay, I will argue that feminist theorists need to engage in thorough analysis of the intersections between normative heterosexuality and sexual assault. In particular, feminist rape theory might benefit from studying the phenomena of consensual, unwanted sex. While discussing the continuities between sex and sexual assault might be an unpleasant, difficult, and even dangerous task, it is nevertheless needed in order to challenge both the emerging backlash discourses of "gray rape" and ultimately the very existence of sexual assault and rape culture.
Inner now classic essay "Sexuality," Catharine A. MacKinnon brought forward the radical claim that "sexuality equals heterosexuality equals the sexuality of (male) dominance and (female) submission" (478) . This argument was a strong criticism of the construction of rape as violence, and inherently distinct from sex. MacKinnon argued instead that violence is inherent to sexuality because sexuality is constructed from the viewpoint of male supremacy (480). While this has often been (mis)interpreted as an "anti-sex" argument, MacKinnon's argument is in reality far more complex. Consent, according to MacKinnon, is not an impossibility. It is, however, contentious because it occurs in a context...