In Defence of Ritual Erotics without Consent: Pagan Sex Ethics and the Costs of Knowing What is Coming

The “affirmative consent model” for sexual acts requires that participants give explicit, unambiguous, informed, and enthusiastic consent. This model is a valuable harm reduction practice but, as a pre-requisite for erotic action, it is sometimes over-applied. As a result, people can feel unduly constrained and forgo valuable activities. I introduce a case study, the Pagan fertility festival of Beltane, which customarily includes a representation of sexual congress, such as dancing, gyrating, or thrusting. I argue that to permissibly perform these erotic ritual acts, the protagonists—in this case, the May Queen and Oak King—do not need explicit affirmative consent from everyone gathered in the magic circle or temple. Indeed employing the widespread operative model of affirmative consent can be disadvantageous because it would require participants to know the ritual’s details beforehand. In making this case, I highlight the costs of predictability, choreography, and prior communication in erotic rituals. And I argue that, owing to distinctive features of community-orientated and religious erotics, theorists shouldn’t simply extend interpersonal sexual ethics to explain these contexts. Instead, to countenance Paganism as an important social form, theorists must look to the ethics of institutions. Like churches and educational establishments, erotic ritual is social infrastructure.