Condoms and Consent

Those who argue for increased abstinence education will claim not only that sexual activity among teenagers may lead to pregnancy or infection, but that there is also something morally impermissible about teenagers (or perhaps non-married couples in general) having sex. The second category consists of those who see teenage sexual activity as a moral evil, but argue that increased availability of protection is the only realistic solution, though it is not at all ideal. The third, general, category is the one that might be logically incoherent. These individuals consider teen sex morally permissible, which informs their opinions on the role of education on protection in the public sphere.

For the sake of lubricating my argument, I will call those in this last category “consensualists.” Also, although the introduction to this column uses the word “teenage”, my focus will be on those who are legally considered “minors” (i.e, not 18, and not 19-year-olds). Almost all of us at Princeton are no longer minors, but this does not allow us to simply jettison these sorts of conversation. Rightly, discussions over the role of sex and sexual protection in our lives as Princeton students are never far away from the public forum on campus. In short, though many of us are no longer teenagers, we must still care about the attitudes toward sex which are propagated among them.

For consensualists, the common characteristic that determines the moral validity of a sexual act lies in a slightly elusive term — “consent.” Consent seems to mean something very specific; however, this specific thing is not something one might be able to immediately discern given how loosely it is often bandied about. Granted, in the case of two adults it is reasonably simple — we claim that both individuals must engage in the act with an a priori agreement — implicit or explicit — to what shall be carried out.

It’s important to note here that the qualification of consent seems to be the sole important standard by which consensualists determine the permissibility of a sexual act. That is, the thing which makes rape wrong is the fact that a party is not consenting. Even if it were possible for a rape victim to not be physically harmed in the act; even if there were no irreparable psychological scarring; even if the victim were not ostracized by his or her community, the very fact that the person has been forced to have sex makes the act wrong. However, consent also seems to justify, alone, a sexual act. If two individuals, both of whom are capable of informed consent, engage in sex, it seems to be understood by consensualists that the act cannot be justly called impermissible. And so we see that while other moral characteristics help frame the discussion, to the consensualist, the presence or absence of consent is ultimately what determines whether a sexual act is permissible.

The case of statutory rape, however, is much more confusing. It is often said that statutory rape is impermissible because a minor “can’t consent.” As such, any sexual act between a minor and an adult is non-consensual, and therefore immoral, and should be protected against legally. It is not unreasonable to extend that claim and conclude that if a minor can’t consent to sex, then the sexual act between two minors must be a sexual act to which neither party can consent. If a sexual act in which a party is not consenting is not permissible, then a sexual act when neither party is consenting must be at least as impermissible as the case in which only one party doesn’t consent.

From this, there are three intelligible solutions that consensualists have. The first is to reject the premise that consent is what makes the sexual act a morally permissible one. Here, they might have to come up with a new sort of condition that will justify the types of acts that they wish to justify and condemn those who they wish to condemn. Second, they might say that minors actually can consent to sex, and hereby reject the idea that the thing which we call “statutory rape” should be considered uniquely morally impermissible at all (cue Whoopi Goldberg defending Roman Polanski). Third, they might declare sex between minors an evil at or above the level of statutory rape and join the fight for education abstinence for all minors. Otherwise, they maintain a philosophically incoherent ideology.

I eagerly await their choice.

Toni Alimi is a chemical engineering major from Houston, TX. He is also the secretary of the Anscombe Society. He can be reached at oalimi@princeton.edu.