Absence of consent in sexual relations is on a par with coercion. This is the unequivocal message that France has sent to the world while rewriting the moral architecture of its rape law. Last week, French lawmakers redefined rape as any sexual act without consent — a decisive break from centuries of legal reasoning rooted in the language of force wherein the victim had to prove that he or she resisted the act of violation. The new legislation places France among other nations that redefined rape in the wake of the ‘MeToo’ movement. Since 2016, over a dozen countries, including Spain, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland and, most recently, the Czech Republic and Poland have rewritten their rape laws, putting consent at the centre. Some follow the ‘yes-means-yes’ model, where consent must be explicit and communicative. Others, like France, use the ‘no-means-no’ model where the lack of consent itself constitutes a crime. The underlying principle remains constant: consent for sexual relations must be inalienable and explicit, and it can be withdrawn at any time. Yet, many countries — India is among them — continue to judge rape by the parameters of the use of force or threat and of resistance from victims. In 2020, the Karnataka High Court granted bail to a rape accused because the woman had fallen asleep after her assault and the judge claimed that this was not the way an Indian woman would react after being assaulted. This ignores the scientific evidence that many victims experience what psychologists call ‘tonic immobility’ — a physiological response that leaves them unable to resist or speak.

In India, consent is thwarted in the institution of marriage. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita continues to exempt husbands from being prosecuted for raping their wives, except in cases of legal separation. The exemption is based on the regressive belief that consent for sex is implicit in a marital arrangement and that a wife cannot retract it later. The purported reasoning is medieval: upon marriage, a woman is expected to cede the autonomy of her body. India’s legal resistance to recognising marital rape reflects a broader discomfort with the idea of sexual autonomy for women. France’s reform underlines, once again, how archaic and unequal India’s legal stance is. It is time India and the world acknowledged, as France has done, that consent in any sexual relationship must be mandatory, explicit, and revocable.