To consent or not to consent: On informed consent in the arts

At first glance, the artistic sector seems like a pretty safe place: people are able to be themselves and interact with each other in a thoughtful manner. But if you dig a bit deeper, this quickly turns out to be an illusion. 

Choreographer and dancer Jan Martens came to the same conclusion: “From the outside, [the cultural sector] is shouting ‘safe place’ very loudly’: progressive, forward-thinking, not conservative… That’s nice, because we work at the margins, so pushing boundaries is integral to this. But that’s exactly why it’s so disappointing when you feel: in fact some very dictatorial things are happening here. So much manipulation, abuse of power, belittling of people… And money also plays an important role, like a gigantic pillar in the middle of your studio space.”

Ilse Ghekiere – dancer, art scholar and driving force behind the Flemish #metoo movement – identifies the source of this problem as: “the firmly entrenched idea of the ‘genius artist’”. 

She describes that genius artist as someone who behaves as if untouchable, someone with whom you cannot communicate, who pushes players to the limit and in which you must place unconditional trust. They’re a figure surrounded by much mystery, someone who operates based on a clear hierarchy. Ghekiere even makes a comparison with figures such as Trump or Putin. Not because their actions are of the same order, but because their success is based on the same formula: a self-confident, aggressive man who is impossible to reason with and who always has to come out on top.

The testimonies of Martens and Ghekiere are all too recognisable to me. Before I enrolled at KASK & the Conservatory in Ghent, I had an idealistic view of our sector and our art education system. An image that was so idealistic that – admittedly – it could never really be fulfilled. However, that does not alter the fact that many of the things I encountered, both in arts education and in the broader cultural sector, are deeply problematic and exhibit systemic errors. And systemic errors require systemic solutions.

Consent – an unnatural act

Beyond our nature

When we talk about inappropriate behaviour, we are often told that people are actually ‘animals’ and that (mainly) men are simply bound by their nature. “Boys will be boys”. Yes, humans are animals. But humans have the ability to rise above their nature. About this, bell hooks said in the lecture This Ain’t No Pussy Shit at The New School (The New School, 2015, 1:14:28):

“People tell me it’s ‘natural’ for men to be violent, it’s ‘natural’ for men to be predators. And I don’t want to get stuck arguing about ‘natural’, because there is a lot that is natural. It’s of course natural to have to relieve ourselves, but toilets are a wonderful invention and no one says: ‘Don’t use toilets! Because it’s natural to just go where you are!’. So it’s always interesting to look at the areas where people validate change and progress, and the areas where people invoke this notion of ‘naturalness’.”

The evidence is all around us: in the cultural sector, 50% of women appear to have experienced verbal sexually inappropriate behaviour, 25% physical sexually inappropriate behaviour and 4% indicate that they have been blackmailed into having sex (Maerevoet, 2018).

Our natural actions must therefore be filtered, because they are permeated by mechanisms that denigrate others and do not offer fair opportunities. The problem silently reproduces itself. Unreasoned action helps it grow. Or as Ilse Ghekiere puts it: “What is sexually inappropriate behaviour? A symptom of a sexist society, of a patriarchal world.” 

Ghekiere, who conducted her own research into sexism in the dance world, also experienced first-hand how systemic the problems are: “What surprised me when I talked to people about inappropriate behaviour was that I often heard things that made me think: ‘Huh? I’ve experienced that too!’ Things that I thought were very personal, that I was actually even ashamed of. Suddenly it became clear to me that the problem was structural. That almost felt like a relief. If you’ve held a certain position in that sector, it quickly becomes clear that it’s not about a few bad apples, but that there are recurring patterns.”

So when we simply do what is ‘normal’, that which is usual, we are not helping anyone. We have to think, we have to build frameworks, we have to make agreements. ‘Consent’ is a concept that can help us with this. It requires us to pause and talk to each other.

The benefits of consent

‘Consent’ is a widespread concept used in many contexts, in a broad and diverse way. Many people know the word mainly from debates about sexuality and in the context of preventing sexually inappropriate behaviour, but it’s also used in the medical sector, within the judiciary, in politics, in philosophy …

Consent has been the subject of much reflection and writing. For example, I get my inspiration for this text from the work The Nature of Consent, included in the leading reference work The Ethics of Consent by John Kleinig, supplemented with insights from other philosophers, thinkers, activists and people I have spoken with. 

In the literature, there is often talk of the ‘moral transformation’ that consent brings about. That is also why you cannot simply translate the word ‘consent’: it’s a specific form of giving permission for which there is no Dutch equivalent. However, we can identify some benefits and characteristics of consent.

Autonomy and safety

Central to the concept of ‘consent’ are always the autonomy and safety of all parties involved. It is not a theory to cover for ourselves or to shift responsibility, but rather offers us tools and insights to take and assign responsibility.

Consent helps us to not continue to reproduce the mechanisms of oppression that exist in society. It’s a way of ‘acting unnaturally’, which in this context is actually positive. Consent, as a theoretical concept, provides us with a number of tools to reflect on our actions. When we really work on consent, by talking to each other in an informed way, we arrive at shared and supported agreements, at a framework. Such a framework provides, on the one hand, something concrete for people to fall back on and, on the other hand, something to renegotiate.

Enhancing agency

A second benefit is that consent works as an agency-enhancing mechanism: it provides for self-determination, where people indicate their boundaries more quickly and dare to speak freely more easily. 

On top of that, there is also a direct link between agency and well-being: in Deciding for Others, Allen Buchanan and Dan Brock state that having space for your own goals and desires is a pillar of well-being. Lindo Bacon also points out the importance of agency in the book Radical Belonging (Bacon & Oluo, 2020):

“The biggest challenge to your stress system comes from situations where you feel like you have no control over your life. The more control you have, the better you can limit the damage of a stress response. That’s largely why, contrary to popular belief, executives have fewer heart attacks than janitors.”

Communication

The third benefit of consent is that it forces us to have a conversation, to talk things out. By making an agreement, creating a framework, we give people something to refer to. If an agreement has been made, we can also refer back to it. If we’ve already negotiated, we can (more) easily renegotiate. As a supervisor, signalling that you think it’s important to speak up breaks a taboo.

Something is wrong with the communication in many artistic ensembles and collectives. Players and makers, dancers and choreographers, creators and performers often seem to live in different realities. By introducing consent into the working environment, we can break through those walls.

We no longer rely on the implicit, the wordless or body language. Consent demands that we be clear, that we be open and try to live in the same world. Because procedures can be clear to one person and incomprehensible to another. They exist, but they’re not explicit or tangible. By engaging in a conversation about how power is distributed, everyone is on the same wavelength.

Redistribution of power

The fourth benefit of working with consent is that it requires us to make power explicit and visible, thus creating the possibility to redistribute it.

Power is not inherently bad or dangerous, but when we don’t talk about how power is distributed, when no dialogue is present, things can go wrong. We can misjudge where power lies and act wrongly, or power can grow exponentially and become too unbalanced. 

Jesse Segers, the leadership professor who is featured in the Pano report Macht Misbruikt [Power Abused], says: “We know that power does things to people. But as an organisation you can influence this through the policy you implement, the culture, the structures you put in place. These can have a facilitating or dampening effect.” (Seynhaeve & Van Boxstael, 2022, 31:50)

Nixie Van Laere, a queer performer and maker from Ghent, says: “If you’re the boss, your employee may feel that they have to do something to keep a job. Because what does money mean? Housing, stability, livelihood, maintaining a household… That’s not trivial at all, it’s about survival. And when people feel like they have to do something to survive, a lot of boundaries can be crossed.”

Jan Martens, choreographer and dancer, shared in a conversation: “The most important thing is to realise that there is a power relationship in a rehearsal process. If we don’t assume that, then I think we’re going about it in the wrong way.”

Consent – a dynamic process

Relationships and relations in our society are changing rapidly, in all directions. People have started to look differently at their desires and interests. In addition, there is also a growing awareness of stress disorders, trauma and the reproduction of systemic violence in art, culture and media.

People are more aware of the media they consume because they are more aware of what that media does to them and how decisive that media can be for our social relations.

I believe that consent can inspire and guide the arts sector in its search for a well-considered relationship with the audience. What this new audience relationship might look like is still a big question mark. But it’s clear to me that there is something wrong with the way we are doing things now. There’s a need for experimentation, for the courage to do things differently. 

It’s important that we have a clear understanding of what consent exactly entails. Because in order to speak of ‘valid consent’, and thus of a valid moral transformation, certain conditions must be met. Both person A and person B must do, or refrain from doing, certain things for the moral transformation to succeed. Consent is a way of taking responsibility, not something to hide behind.

In short: A must be a ‘competent’ person who is ‘informed’ about what they are asking. Of course, B must also be a ‘competent’ person, who is also ‘informed’ about what is being asked. B must also be ‘free from pressure’ and ‘in a position’ to give consent. Moreover, consent is a ‘conventional, communicative act’ that is ‘context-bound’ and ‘revocable’.

Competent (A en B)

Competence in the context of consent primarily means that you are mentally developed enough to conceptualise the situation and its possible consequences. Laws that prevent young people from having sexual relations with people much older than them have the same purpose. There is a competence imbalance: one person can assess the situation much better than the other, which creates a perverse undertone.

In the performing arts, this element prompts us to critical and uncomfortable reflections on the social positioning of makers, and the lived experiences and knowledge they (do not) have. 

Are the ‘genius’ makers we see as important really competent enough to represent what they want to represent, or do they still lack the relevant knowledge and expertise to do so in a meaningful way? And is the recipient – often a homogeneous audience of white, middle-class, elderly people – competent to handle that information?

Informed (A)

For A, being informed in this context means that they’ve made a reasonable attempt to seek out information. If someone asks another person a question, but does not really know what they’re asking, we can hardly speak of a moral transformation.

The ‘informed’ element requires performing artists to have an idea of what they’re presenting or producing, and for the audience to know in advance what they’re getting into.

To think that you can catapult someone who is homophobic to the other side of the spectrum by having them watch two men kiss seems like a fantasy to me. Or thinking that a rape scene in a contemporary dance performance tempers rape culture. All the more so because the abundance of rape images in dance performances is a symptom of that culture.

One question we don’t ask ourselves enough is whether what we do actually works. Is an ill-considered representation, made by someone who never experienced the thing being represented up close, a productive thing to do? Could we not do more to combat rape culture by no longer featuring Lolita images, by reflecting on how female bodies are represented in dance, theatre, the visual arts and pop culture? And are we even being honest about our motivations when we make activist arguments? For how many artists is that an honest reflection of their motivations? And if their motivations are really so activist, why do they shy away from discussing how best to address these issues?

And how do makers research and evaluate the impact of their “shocking” productions? Do they or anyone who has experienced sexual violence want to see that violence represented on stage? Does anyone want to see racism represented when they come to a performance with their class? Do the makers wonder afterwards whether the racism or homophobia they staged stopped the violence or whether it actually led to more violence, numbing, normalisation? How do you deal with the man in the audience who gets turned on by the rape scene? What do you say to the person with an eating disorder who has to look at a cliché image of anorexia? What do you say to the autistic person who has to watch someone portray autism in a really bad way? 

Informed (B)

In the case of B, being informed means, on the one hand, that A does not withhold any information and that B is given the opportunity to ask questions. Only when B understands the information well, feels well enough informed to make a choice and A does not withhold any information, is this element met.

Take this example: A and B meet at a club. A would like B to come home with them, because A would like to have sex with B. A and B are smoking a cigarette together outside when A asks if B would like to go home with them for tea and a movie.

The sub-element that B must be provided with information has not been met here. A has a responsibility to share what their true intentions and desires are, to be open. Even if B agrees to go home with A, we cannot speak of valid consent taking place.

If we plan to represent sensitive topics like eating disorders, sexual violence, or systemic oppression on stage, it might make sense to announce this. A moral transformation takes place with our audience in this way: we know they’re willing to see what we’re presenting them. People who precisely want to escape these themes are not confronted with them again. The ease with which artists discuss these experiences betrays their own normative view. The people the production is actually about are forgotten and pushed aside in favour of another target group.

So it doesn’t mean that certain art can no longer be made, but it does mean that we must communicate about what we’ve made. Whenever suicide is discussed in a film or series, it’s common to show a message before/after/sometimes even during the film with information about where you can go with any questions. Why would this not be possible for the performing arts or visual arts, for example? And why do we only do this in the case of suicide?

Free from pressure

What it means to be “free from pressure” is a lot harder to assess. The question can quickly be reduced to the question of what exactly freedom is and what autonomy entails. This sub-element requires performing arts practitioners to acknowledge that there is tremendous pressure on an audience sitting in the theatre after the lights go out. Consent must therefore take place before that moment, and we must think about ways to lower the threshold if someone changes their mind after that moment.

In sex education about consent, the concept of ‘enthusiastic’ or ‘convinced’ is often associated with this. It’s a possible externalisation of freedom, a visible parameter, but difficult to define or determine with certainty.

A final form of ‘pressure’ to consider – especially in a capitalist society where many people struggle to make ends meet – is money. The cultural sector is an additional danger zone in this regard. The study Loont Passie? [Does Passion Pay] from 2022 gives us insight into the economic situation of artists. Many among them don’t have a large reserve, which makes money an additional stumbling block for them when indicating their limits. Also remember Jan Martens’ quote about how money stands like a gigantic pillar in the middle of your studio space, even when you don’t want it to.

To be in the position

Of course, in order to speak of a valid moral transformation, the person from whom you ask consent must be in a position to give consent. An example makes this all too clear: A wants to borrow B’s car and asks person C for permission, without B’s knowledge. Person C is not in a position to give consent. 

Conventional and communicative act

Consent is a communicative act, not a state of mind. So there’s no moral transformation when there has been no communication. 

What we understand by ‘conventional’ depends largely on the context. In a meeting, a conventional and communicative act may be to remain silent to give consent, for example when the chair asks if there are any comments and – if there is no response – considers the agenda item as adopted. When clear agreements are made about how consent is communicated, this can also be a communicative act.

In the cultural sector we can largely tick off this element: if the other factors are met, purchasing a ticket can be seen as the communicative act by which the spectator signals consent. It goes without saying that this consent is only valid for that for which a ticket has been purchased and is therefore context-bound.

Context-bound

Consent is context-bound. Just because someone wants to kiss you while you’re out doesn’t mean you can do it in front of friends and family. Consent always exists in a specific context that we must make explicit. There is therefore no such thing as a ‘carte-blanche’ form of consent.

A characteristic of consent is that it can be renegotiated at any time, and we must check whether old agreements still apply. Jonas Deweer is active in the Brussels queer and BDSM (bondage and sadomasochism) scene and sometimes also works in a sex shop. Within BDSM, Jonas is usually active as the ‘dominant’ party. The ‘sub’ is submissive, and someone who describes themselves as a ‘switch’ is someone who likes to alternate between the two. Jonas says the following.

“Of course, I always discuss in advance hard limits (things that are absolutely not allowed to happen) and what is actually desired. About what a ‘no’ can mean, because in BDSM a ‘no’ is not always a ‘no’, there are sometimes other mechanisms for that. I also regularly ask during the game whether everything is still really okay.”

We will briefly discuss this under the heading ‘conventional and communicative action’: it’s important to articulate exactly what we mean by the words we use. Because what constitutes a conventional and communicative act also differs from context to context.

Revocable

Another characteristic of valid consent is that it is, to the extent possible, revocable. It means that consent is never perpetual and that people have the right to change their mind and withdraw their consent. When consent is revoked, it’s up to the other party to respond appropriately.

In the performing arts we have to ask ourselves whether people have the ability to stop attending the performance. With digital media, that threshold is low: closing a laptop or clicking away from a video gets the job done. In a gallery or museum, you can look at other works of art or leave without disturbing anyone. However, in a classical theatre this is more difficult: the lights are off and you’re stuck in the middle of a row of seats. But even then, we can socially install the idea that leaving during a performance is not abnormal and does not have to be seen as a signal about quality. Many artists react angrily to these ideas, but the experiments are already all around us. The relaxed performance, where the room is not completely dimmed and it’s acceptable to go outside for a while, is on the rise in the English-speaking world. 

The way we presently relate to our audience and each other is violent and not inclusive. The call for a different approach cannot be ignored indefinitely.

Failure and punishment

Yet everyone I spoke to in the context of my research agreed on one thing: no matter how hard you try to make good and clear agreements, no matter how much effort you put into applying consent as well as possible – we do not live in a perfect world and sometimes things still go wrong. There is noise in every system, and reality is always immensely complex and difficult to grasp. The fact that things sometimes go wrong does not have to be a problem if we make clear agreements about where the emergency brake is located and if everyone experiences enough agency to dare to pull it.

When someone pulls the emergency brake, we need to have a clear conversation about why that was needed and make agreements to avoid recurrence as much as possible. When that’s not sufficient for one or more parties, we need to think about how to restore the situation and the relationships.

Transformative justice is one such possible emergency brake. It’s an alternative way to set things right. Of course, it’s impossible to undo or erase the wrong that’s been done, but we can think of alternatives to the punitive system that presently usually applies.

Transformative justice is described by Adrienne Maree Brown as follows: “The work of addressing harm at the root, outside the mechanisms of the state, so that we can grow into right relationship with each other.” (Brown, 2020). The concept has its origins in the ‘Alternatives to Violence Project.’

One advantage of transformative justice is that it lowers the threshold for people to speak out about what happened to them. Even when people feel hurt or when their boundaries are crossed, they often do not want the other party to be punished harshly or mercilessly. If you have to fear that if you speak, someone will lose their job, you will be less likely to speak out. Also as the person who engaged in the behaviour, you’ll be more likely to dare and be able to speak about what happened in order to find a solution together.

Transformative justice differs from restorative justice by explicitly incorporating the political situation into the process. When someone steals an apple, restorative justice demands that the wrong be righted. Transformative justice will also reflect on why this behaviour occurred, for example poverty due to structural exclusion, and also attempts to name and transform systemic injustice. So we think about systemic solutions to systemic problems. The situation will not repeat itself once the breeding ground is addressed through a community-wide approach. Not only people are transformed, but also systems, and therefore power.

So we seek justice through transformation. Punishment is not central to the solution, but collective progress is. If someone behaves inappropriately, no one benefits from that person being banned from the institution for five months and then having to return to their duties, pay a fine or perform community service. Even firing someone doesn’t solve much – it creates more pain, more violence, more frustration, more unhappiness, and the person simply goes back to work somewhere else, and nothing changes. The situation of the person who experienced the violence has not improved either. When we remove someone from society and isolate them in a prison, we have to ask ourselves how that solves anything, changes anything.

The four core principles of transformative justice, as outlined by the Alternatives to Violence Project, are described in An Overview of the History and Theory of Transformative Justice (Nocella, 2011) as follows:

1. Everyone has an inner goodness. People’s actions and words are sometimes wrong, incorrect or violent. People themselves are good. So make a distinction between the person and their behaviour. There is goodness within. Look for it. Find it. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions all teach this.
2. We can start by realising that a violent response is just one way to react in a conflict. Somewhere in every conflict situation there is the possibility for a non-violent resolution. (…)
3. To positively change situations, we must start with ourselves, our attitude, beliefs, manner of speech, tone and behaviour. (…)
4. Non-violent conflict resolution is a skill. (…) There can be a win-win outcome – no one is the loser.

Within the BDSM community, situations where something goes wrong are dealt with in an inspiring way. First, a session is prepared in a well-considered manner and agreements are made about the emergency brake, the so-called safeword. When something goes wrong for someone, they say the safeword and the game is stopped immediately. Clear agreements are also made in advance about what should happen if the safeword is used. Some people need to be held, others want to be left alone, want to talk at length, just want to have a nice cup of tea and a shower, or need the other person to explicitly acknowledge what went wrong. Everything happens at the pace of the person putting on the brakes.

But even when things don’t go wrong, care is still needed afterwards. What happens during a BDSM session is a lot to process. People – both the sub and the dom – experience intense and exceptional emotions. Afterwards there is concern in both directions to bring everything to a nice conclusion and return to a different, more horizontal relationship. What that looks like is different for each person, but everyone knows what they need for themselves. We can also learn lessons from this to shape our artistic communities.

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