With Pleasure: A Feminist Contractarian Supplement to the Nonideal Theory of Consent

This article offers a feminist contractarian supplement to Quill R. Kukla's nonideal theory of consent by focusing on mutual dispositions towards pleasure for the evaluation of the justice of a sexual encounter. Considering Kukla's advocacy in favour of sexual communication for increased sexual agency under nonideal conditions, the absence of mutual positive dispositions towards pleasure in the scaffolding of consent is a considerable gap. The supplement I am proposing favours an equitable distribution of sexual costs and benefits and ensures positive expressions of agency that go beyond safety, trust, and epistemic capability. First, I argue that collaborative accounts of sexual agency must acknowledge the differences in the breadth of space allowed for women's and nonbinary people's pleasure versus men's in the broader social context where sexual communication occurs. Then, adapting Jean Hampton's feminist contractarianism to the sexual domain, I offer a supplement to Kukla's scaffolding. I further argue that each partner's positive dispositions towards their own and their partner's pleasure help promote the expression of the positive agential powers of oppressed groups in sexual settings. Lastly, I respond to objections from cases of asexuality and sex work.