It is worth reminding ourselves that there are all sorts of things we do not permit people to consent to. We do not allow people to consent to sell themselves into slavery. We do not permit people to get other people to consent to kill them. We do not permit two drivers to consent to a high-speed road chase. We do not allow a cabal of consenting students to cheat on an examination.
Consent is a narrow legal term that confers a certain sort of standing.
It is a concept that a rights-based liberal society cannot do without. But it is also a concept that such a society can do altogether too much with. When we make consent do all the work for us, our political and ethical vocabulary languishes. To say, then, that a sexual relationship was presumably consensual ought to be the beginning, not the end, of the discussion if the issue is the wisdom, decency, discretion, fairness, maturity, and judgment of a president or a colleague or the next-door neighbor. Consent can do many things.