Consent and Its Discontents

Sexual Consent in Criminal Law and Ethics

In April 2026, Germany’s Green Party submitted a draft bill that would criminalise sexual acts carried out without affirmative consent. This shift in German criminal law from negative to affirmative consent aligns with the long-standing feminist demand of “only yes means yes”. However, as consent moves to the centre of legal regulation, another question arises: can it also serve as the central concept of sexual ethics.

In my current research in the philosophy of law, I examine feminist critiques of consent. Since the 1980s, these critiques have argued that consent fails to account for power imbalances between men and women, reinforces gender stereotypes, promotes an impoverished form of sexual communication, excludes people with intellectual disabilities or impairments from sexuality and establishes overly narrow boundaries of what constitutes morally sound sexuality.

My research pursues the thesis that different models of sexuality give rise to different sexual ethics. I take a psychoanalytically informed concept of sexuality as my starting point – one that recognises not only the desire for intimacy and affection, but also aggression and objectification as integral components of sexuality. On this basis, I ask what consent can and cannot achieve, and which ethical concepts are needed to complement or replace it.