Robin Thicke’s 2013 single “Blurred Lines” revitalized the dialogue on rape and consent in America.
The song and accompanying video propelled such a discussion to the forefront of American minds for at least as long as the song’s fifteen minutes of fame lasted. But the fact that the discussion sparked up at all begs a few questions, the most glaring of which—what is vague about consent?
Oliver Rocha, an LSU ethics professor who has taught classes on sex law and “hooking up ethics,” said there is a disjunction between actual consent and what is presented as consent in society.
According to Rocha, “there are three fairly uncontested conditions for consent.” For an agreement to be consensual, it must be freely made, adequately informed, and the parties must be competent. He described consent as a “type of agreement that morally and, or legally transforms the relations between individuals.”
What led to the Thicke conundrum is that the “sexiness” of the song relies on a stretching of the boundaries of this definition.
Rocha conceded there is, both legally and philosophically, “room for debate about certain conditions and the various ways in which these conditions are met.”
But what is clear is “Blurred Lines” focuses on ambiguity as a coercive tactic which hides under the façade of playful sexiness.
Despite the severe backlash and career downfall Thicke faced due to the song, Rocha said ambiguity is still deemed socially acceptable when it comes to consent and sobriety.
“Though alcohol is thought to inhibit our competence and make consent much harder to come by in most other contexts, it is often assumed that individuals can consent to sex with near strangers while very intoxicated,” Rocha said.
And it doesn’t help, he added, that the law is relatively ambiguous as well.
Louisiana Revised Statute 14:43 states that “simple rape is a rape committed…when the victim is incapable of resisting or of understanding the nature of the act by reason of a stupor or abnormal condition of the mind produced by an intoxicating agent.”
“There is a good deal of difference across various jurisdictions over whether alcohol is consistent with sexual consent,” Rocha added.
Yet, as Rocha noted, it is still a social norm to have sex after drinking or being otherwise intoxicated. This is technically illegal and non-consensual, and yet it remains a daily occurrence.
“Though there are positive trends, media representations of sexual culture today continue to perpetuate problematic misconceptions,” Rocha said. “We continue to see largely positive depictions of characters, such as How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson, who use deceit and trickery to obtain sexual agreements. Yet, these deceived and manipulated agreements should not count as consensual, and these positive depictions tend to promote the frightening notions that honesty and openness are not necessary in sexual contexts.”
Rocha said, as strange as it seems in the modern cultural context, many philosophers assert sexual consent should be treated the same way other forms of consent (e.g., medical consent) are treated. Citing an instance where popular TV show host John Oliver said a drunk person “might” not be able to consent to sex, Rocha noted how, in other contexts, the use of the word “might” seems ridiculous and dangerous.
“If someone who is pretty drunk walks into a real estate office, we do not think they simply ‘might’ not be able to give consent to sell their house. If someone is pretty drunk and tells a doctor they are happy to have their kidney removed, we do not think they simply ‘might’ not be able to give consent. If someone is pretty drunk, they are not fully competent and cannot give consent.”
The question that ultimately emerges from this disparity between society and legality is how society can ride the line between safe, legal, and consensual and sexy, playful, and flirtatious.
“The problem with current social views of consent is that holding sexual consent to a lower standard can lead to quite grave harms,” said Rocha. “It is quite possible that a significant lie or sufficient inebriation will turn what you think is sexual consent into what is really a serious sexual transgression—possibly rape. When the potential problems are as serious as sexual aggression and rape, then it is of the utmost importance that we hold ourselves to the highest moral standards possible.”