Thelma Consent

Consent is when an individual makes an informed, rational and voluntary decision to engage in sexual activities with another consenting person/s. Making an ‘informed’ decision means that the individual has been made aware of anything that might affect the partner long-term, such as the other person's potential STDs, relationship status (i.e., spouse, partner, etc.) or being lied to about pregnancy potential (i.e., being on birth control, using expired condom, etc.). My definition does not include lies that are used to seduce the other individual because it is not practical to have the other person know your full life history that may or may not turn them off to having sex with you. Being able to make a ‘rational’ decision means that information …show more content…
As far as the movie discloses, JD does not have any significant other to whom he would have had to disclose he had a relationship with, nor does he have an STD. Furthermore, they are both adults and know about pregnancy potential and as far as the movie leads on, neither lie about it and therefore we are led to believe Thelma could make an informed decision. It could be argued that Thelma is being affected long-term, however, if you think that JD had the intention of stealing the money the whole time. But, I personally do not think that JD came to Thelma’s apartment with the intention of stealing the money, as he did not even know that it would be there. He was admittedly a thief and when presented with an opportunity to steal money, he took it. I don’t believe that undermines what he experienced with Thelma the night before and perhaps he still would have stole the money even if they did not have sex that night because she did let him into the apartment under the pretense of spending the night. Thelma also is able to make a rational decision because she knows exactly what is going to happen as JD continually hints that he is going to try and sleep with her (i.e. taking her wedding ring off) and when he does make the move to kiss her, she does not attempt to stop him. Finally, the decision appears to have been voluntary because there are no obvious ulterior motives and she is …show more content…
A Descartes’ view believes that you only can know something if you have indefeasible evidence to back up your claim. Indefeasible evidence is evidence for some claim that is not consistent with the falsity of that claim, which means it is evidence that cannot be refuted as false, and is definitely a true thing (Appiah, 44). If we were to apply the notion of indefeasible evidence using my definition of consent on the case with Thelma and JD, we cannot be sure that Thelma was able to consent to sex with JD because we do not have enough information.When considering whether Thelma made an informed decision, we have a lack of evidence that the audience takes to mean there was not information that needed to be shared to meet the informed decision criterion, but that is not sufficient for indefeasible evidence as any piece of information coul dhave been added in later to change the audience’s mind. Further, although it seems they are both behaving relatively normal, we cannot be sure that Thelma is not overly inebriated and merely looking like she is not, so we cannot definitely say they could make a rational decision. And finally, we cannot know if there is someone offstage holding a gun that is forcing her to act in a way to make it look consensual and therefore are unsure whether it is voluntary. Using this definition of consent there is no