Consent In John Donne's The Flea

To force someone to do something or change their views point with arguments or reason is to persuade someone. The ideas of autonomy and consent are muddied by the use of persuasion as it cannot be clear where manipulation stops, and acceptance begins. If someone is persuaded to do something they did not want to do, but they consent anyway, is that consent valid? With regard to different techniques of manipulation, power dynamics and introspection on consent theory, we will observe the role persuasion plays in garnering sexual consent. Using the work of Shakespeare and Donne, we can examine the gray area surrounding persuaded consent.
Simmons’, using ideas from John Rawls, crafts and interesting paradox to simple consent. He states that “Extorted

This simplification is riddled throughout Donne’s “The Flea” the simplification of sexual acts is shown by the insignificance of the flea. The flea has come and taken blood from both the speaker and his love. Though the flea has taken from her, the speakers suggest “And in this flea our two bloods mingled be, Thou know’st this cannot be said / A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead” (lines 4-6). This is to suggest that things take from her, without her permission all of the time, such is nature. She is not ashamed for having been used by the flea, therefore she should not be ashamed in sleeping with the speaker. Interestingly, in the second stanza, Donne also uses dramatization to heighten the flea’s status. He proclaims the flea carries their combined lives, within whom they “…more than, married are” (11) and is the site of their “marriage bed and marriage temple” (13), reiterating marriage, doubling down on the frivolous symbolism. He carries on, suggesting that to kill the flea would be “self-murder” (17) noting the “…sacrilege, three sins in killing three” (18). Suddenly, however, the speaker’s great concern and admiration for the flea’s symbolic meaning dies along with it. He suggests that, since her killing the flea was not met with immediate and eternal damnation, yielding to him would not

In 1.1, the conversation between Helena and Parolles describes how virginity must be dealt with in a timely matter in a society in which men make every decision. Parolles describes a woman’s decision to keep her virginity as “peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited sin in the canon” (52). It is strange to consider a society both obsessed with chaste virgins while being equally obsessed with taking virginities. Parolles insists that Helena lose her virginity as quickly as possible as, “…your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats dryly” (53). Like fruits, the human body weathers, to put it impolitely, until it is no longer useful in its death. Virginity is to be plucked and devoured while it is fresh. Ignoring the vivid imagery, this idea is used by Parolles to manipulee Helena into losing her virginity, even though she persists that she is not interested in doing so. This sort of pressure is what leads her to take such rash actions in securing the partner that she wants to lose her virginity to with such insensitive speed. The thoughts of her lover not choosing her, with the loud ticking of her biological clock could be what drives Helena into a maddening desperation for a man with little to no redeeming qualities. Interestingly, by shifting these societal power dynamics, Diana and Helena are able to manipulate Bertram