Consentement sexuel-A Concept in Les Choses humaines | Readify Wiki: A Better Way to Explore Books

Sexual consent is the contested hinge linking the assault allegation against Alexandre Farel, Mila Wizman’s testimony, and the arguments made in the courtroom. The novel sets the question of whether consent was given against the question of how refusal can be expressed when a person is frightened, overwhelmed, or unable to speak. It also shows how competing accounts turn that question into a struggle over credibility, social advantage, and the meaning of silence.

Consent and the burden of interpretation

An unnamed lawyer’s account of rape proceedings begins by distinguishing the legal act from the penalty that may follow, then turns to the social judgments that shape a case. The lawyer warns that an opposing party may scrutinize a complainant’s drinking, dinner, dancing, or online meeting with the accused, and use those details to suggest that she was responsible for what happened. Consent, in this account, does not remain an abstract legal question: it becomes entangled with assumptions about class, race, immigration status, and how a complainant’s life will be judged.

That frame is dramatized in the questioning of Mila. Asked whether she agreed and whether she was passive or active, she answers that she did not agree; the questioning then presses her on whether she communicated that refusal through words or a gesture. At another point, she explains that fear left her unable to speak and that she felt detached from her own body. Her testimony makes the courtroom’s demand for an explicit sign of refusal collide with an account in which fear itself had disabled speech. The distinction is central: an absence of spoken refusal is not, in Mila’s account, evidence of agreement.

Competing accounts at the trial

The defense presents a different interpretation of the encounter. Jean Farel argues that Alexandre believed Mila wanted sex and emphasizes that she did not say the word “No.” He situates his son’s understanding within a social climate he describes as overheated by public accusations and online denunciation, and portrays Alexandre as a decent young man whose education and prospects have been ruined. His defense thus links the interpretation of consent to a broader claim about fairness: that public sympathy for a complainant can overwhelm the accused’s right to be judged on the evidence.

The speech provokes an immediate reaction. Adam Wizman attacks Jean, saying that his daughter is the person whose life has been devastated; Mila runs from the courtroom, while Claire Farel covers her face. Jean remains impassive as the guards intervene. The clash exposes the personal consequences of treating the case as an abstract disagreement over signals: the accused’s family speaks of a son’s ruined future, while Mila’s family insists that this language erases the harm she describes.

The dispute then moves beyond the courtroom. Journalists circulate Jean’s words online, and the next morning a manifesto signed by about thirty intellectuals rejects his description of the assault as “twenty minutes of action,” arguing that a rape can destroy a life. Mila publishes a blog post addressed directly to Alexandre. She rejects his claim that she consented and describes the fear that prevented her from speaking, the police questioning and hospital examinations that followed, and her distress after leaving the hospital. She also objects to the way Alexandre and his father focus on his damaged future while dismissing her suffering. Her account makes the aftermath part of the argument about consent: she presents her complaint and subsequent conduct as inconsistent with the claim that the encounter was welcome.

The defense lawyer, Maître Célérier, responds that public presentation of Mila’s pain risks influencing the jury and opinion, and insists that the proceeding concerns the accused rather than the complainant. In his closing argument, he focuses on the legal definition of rape and on whether the evidence establishes violence, threat, surprise, or constraint. He argues that the facts cited by the prosecution—including Alexandre placing his body on Mila, the location of the encounter, and the absence of a reported knife threat—do not by themselves prove legal constraint. He also stresses that an acquittal would not establish that Mila consented, distinguishing a criminal judgment from a definitive account of what she experienced.

Fear, silence, and the account of the prosecution

The prosecution’s closing argument offers a sharply different reading of the same circumstances. It describes Mila as vulnerable and seeking safety when she followed Alexandre to a secluded place, and argues that he exploited that vulnerability. In this account, her silence and lack of resistance are responses to fear rather than signs of willingness: she believed that struggling could make the danger worse and focused on getting through the encounter and escaping. The prosecutor invokes the possibility of a freeze response to explain why a person may be unable to reason or express refusal in the expected way.

This argument challenges the idea that consent can be inferred from a person’s decision to accompany someone, from earlier social exchanges, or from failure to shout or fight. It also contrasts the parties’ unequal ability to shape the story: the prosecution describes Alexandre as articulate and socially assured, and Mila as less equipped with the same verbal resources. The case therefore turns not only on what each says happened, but on how listeners evaluate speech, silence, fear, and the circumstances surrounding them.

Consent made explicit—and withdrawn

A later episode gives the concept a different form. In New York, Alexandre uses an application designed to obtain and record a partner’s agreement to sexual activity. The users set preferences in advance, and the application allows either person to change their mind at any time. One prospective partner declines Alexandre’s preference for explicit language, so he abandons that match and sends a request to another woman, who accepts terms that include such language and other practices.

When the woman arrives, Alexandre initiates a kiss that she does not want; she explains that the application had not established whether kissing with the tongue was acceptable. As they talk, he goes to the kitchen to prepare refreshments. While he is away, she cancels her consent through the application. She then tells him that she is tired and wants to leave. Alexandre accepts her decision, but the reversal leaves him upset: after she departs, he deletes her contact and retreats into a carefully staged display of success on Instagram.

The encounter does not resolve the earlier case, but it makes one principle concrete: prior agreement to specified acts does not remove the ability to refuse a different act or to withdraw consent altogether. The woman’s withdrawal is recorded digitally and conveyed through the application, while her wish to leave is stated directly. Set beside the trial’s disputed inferences, the episode underscores the difference between consent as an ongoing, changeable decision and consent imagined from circumstance, silence, or another person’s expectations.

Legal standards and the limits of a verdict

The dispute over consent is also a dispute about what a criminal court can establish. In his closing argument, Maître Célérier invokes Article 222-23 of the French Penal Code, which defines rape through penetration committed by violence, surprise, threat, or constraint. He argues that the prosecution has not shown those elements: he disputes that the circumstances cited in court establish constraint, notes that no knife was used against Mila, and maintains that an encounter in an unusual or sordid place does not by itself prove rape. His argument separates the question of whether Mila agreed from the narrower question of whether the prosecution has proved the offense to the legal standard.

Célérier makes that distinction explicit by citing the principle that acquittal on a rape charge does not imply that the complainant consented. A verdict, in his account, could rest on doubt or on the conclusion that Alexandre misread the situation; it would not settle every subjective truth about the encounter. He frames this as a limit on what the court should decide, not as a declaration that Mila’s experience was consensual. The distinction leaves a difficult gap between legal judgment and the parties’ incompatible accounts.

Consent beyond the courtroom

A later New York scene shifts the question from disputed recollection to an explicit, changeable process. Alexandre uses an application that records partners’ preferences and agreement to sexual activity, with a mechanism allowing either person to withdraw consent at any time. When one prospective partner does not share his preference for explicit language, he does not proceed with that match; another accepts terms that include explicit language and additional practices. The arrangement appears to make consent legible in advance, but the encounter immediately tests the limits of what such prior agreement can cover.

The woman objects when Alexandre kisses her with his tongue, a form of contact the application had not specified. While he is in the kitchen, she cancels her consent through the app. She then says she is tired and wants to go home, and Alexandre accepts her decision. After she leaves, however, he deletes her contact and turns to an Instagram post presenting himself as successful and happy. The episode does not settle the earlier allegation, but it makes a distinction the trial repeatedly struggles to hold: agreement to specified terms is not permission for every unmentioned act, and consent remains withdrawable after it has been given.

Consent beyond the courtroom

A later New York scene shifts the question from disputed recollection to an explicit, changeable process. Alexandre Farel uses an application that records partners’ preferences and agreement to sexual activity, with a mechanism allowing either person to withdraw consent at any time. When one prospective partner does not share his preference for explicit language, he abandons that match; another accepts terms that include explicit language and additional practices. The arrangement appears to make consent legible in advance, but the encounter tests the limits of what prior agreement can cover.