Consensual Violence

Weinberg

"In this novel approach to understanding consent, Jill D. Weinberg features two case studies where groups engage in seemingly violent acts: competitive mixed martial arts and sexual sadomasochism. These activities are similar in that consenting to injury is central to the activity, and participants of both activities have to engage in a form of social decriminalization, leveraging the legal authority imbued in the language of consent as a way to render their activities legally and socially tolerable. Yet, these activities are treated differently under criminal battery law. Using interviews with participants and ethnographic observation, Weinberg argues that where law authorizes a person's consent to an activity, consent is not meaningfully regulated or constructed by the participants themselves. In contrast, where law prohibits a person's consent to an activity, participants actively...