Consent and Cautionary Tales
Consent and Cautionary Tales
Puritan colonial discourse liberally interchanges sodomy, unclean lusty acts, and rape. The concept of consent in sexual interaction appears vague and not at all relevant except in the final clause of Massachusetts Colony’s Laws on Sexual Offenses, where the offender may possibly punished with death for “ravishing” a woman by force. The women included here are single and over the age of ten, and this may or may not imply that forceful fornication with a married woman, a man, or a woman under the age of ten, or an animal for that matter, will just fall under the general heading of sodomy or uncleanliness, where both offenders are punishable by sure death, and not just the possibility thereof.
In Godbeer’s discussion on sodomy in colonial New England, he opens his case study with the wishy-washy conviction of a man for sodomy, where the witnesses claim that he propositioned them to commit unclean acts, at times using force and exercising his position of power to subject them. His conviction remained uncertain because there was not a sufficient witness to the actual act of sodomy. The discrepancy here between Sension’s alleged conduct in a legal context and his actual conduct in real life is the concept of consent. The men who came to the stand to speak against him were obviously not interested in entertaining his desires. However, a lifetime of homosexual desire implies at least the occasional success story. So of the men whom Sension propositioned, despite his faulty gaydar, some of them were sure to have consented to a roll in the hay. The distinction between consensual and forceful sex is one that surfaced way after colonial times, while the distinction between clean and unclean sexual acts was clearly established both by rule of law and by religious maxims.
The connection between carnal sin and personal feelings of guilt in The Scarlet Letter are a good illustration of this concept. Hester Prynne and even her daughter Pearl are walking talking symbols of the consequence of sin and adultery, living themselves as cautionary tales and continuing on in the town for this very purpose. Pearl, a delightful and intelligent child, is seen as the demon-child in the town because she is the product of an adulterous relationship. While Hester clearly accepts her punishment and bears the scarlet letter everywhere she goes, she does not necessarily consent for her child to be involved in this great social service of telling people who to have sex with.
Tags: colonial new england, consent, discourse, family, homosexuality, power, rape
