Public comments about consent by Joanna and James Howe deserve scrutiny against the history of marital rape reform and newer laws addressing coercive control. A commitment to marriage cannot remove either partner’s right to decide what happens to their body.
Editorial note: This article is for mature audiences only and challenges the Howes’ public messaging about consent. It is not an for or argument or against Joanna Howe’s opposition to abortion, her religion or her right to express those beliefs. It makes no allegation of sexual offending or abuse within their relationship.
Joanna Howe’s comments on consent deserve a clear answer. A wedding is not an agreement to every sexual encounter that follows it. People do not promise to want sex every time their spouse does, or surrender the right to change their mind. Whatever a couple believes about marriage, both people remain entitled to decide whether they want sexual contact. That distinction matters because someone may be trying to understand an unwanted experience with their partner. Being married does not make the experience acceptable. Nor should anyone have to defend the quality of their marriage before their refusal counts.
What Joanna and James Howe said about consent
The discussion appeared in the 9 September episode of The Dr Jo Show, titled The RADICAL Feminist Behind Albanese’s Social Media Crackdown. Its published description identifies consent education, marriage and Chanel Contos’s involvement in debate over digital regulation as subjects of the episode. Original episode listing.
According to news.com.au’s report, James Howe said, “Like, I just don’t do consent,” and dismissed the need for consent in his marriage. News.com.au reporting.
The Advertiser also reported Joanna Howe arguing that marriage to a carefully chosen partner meant “then you don’t need to talk about consent”. Later, in a statement to that newspaper, she described their objection as philosophical and claimed the contemporary consent framework increases sexual assault. The Advertiser’s report and Howe’s response.
Those remarks warrant questions about Joanna Howe’s own argument. A woman should not be held responsible for everything her husband says, but her contribution to a public discussion can be examined on its merits. There is also a distinction that the Howes should clarify. Are they objecting to a particular way of teaching consent, or suggesting that marriage makes ongoing consent unnecessary? Curriculum choices, for example, can be debated through evidence. Even so, a spouse’s continuing right to refuse sexual contact must remain clear throughout that debate.
Consent in marriage: the history behind the concern
The idea that marriage creates continuing sexual permission has a disturbing legal history.
The Australian Law Reform Commission explains that the historical marital rape immunity rested on ideas of women becoming their husbands’ property and consenting to sex on an ongoing basis through marriage. Women’s advocacy helped challenge the assumptions that shaped sexual assault laws and their enforcement. ALRC history of sexual assault law reform.
South Australia’s 1976 reforms, for example, were an early legislative attempt to address rape within marriage. They were contested and initially provided only partial protection, as historians Lisa Featherstone and Alexander George Winn document. Research on the 1976 reforms.
Later, in R v L in 1991, the High Court rejected the proposition that irrevocable consent through marriage remained part of Australian common law. The history cannot be reduced to a single national repeal date: in PGA v The Queen in 2012, the majority held that any such exemption had ceased to apply by 1935 in the South Australian legal setting before it. High Court summary of PGA v The Queen.
These developments concerned the rights of people whose marriages did not protect them. The central question was whether the law would recognise a wife’s refusal when her husband ignored it.
Public arguments about consent should therefore reckon with that history. The language risks reviving an assumption that reformers worked to dismantle: that entering a relationship settles the question of sexual permission for the future.
The right to withdraw consent
South Australian law now defines consent as free and voluntary agreement. The Legal Services Commission explains, for example, that force or specified threats rule out free agreement. The same applies when someone is asleep, unconscious or too intoxicated to agree freely. Rape can also include continuing intercourse after consent has been withdrawn, where the required knowledge or reckless indifference is established. South Australian consent law.
In other words, consenting to a relationship and consenting to a particular sexual act are different decisions. A public discussion should make that clear before debating competing philosophies of sex.
Marriage cannot guarantee safety
The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2021–22 Personal Safety Survey asked women aged 18 and over about their most recent sexual assault by a male within the previous ten years. An intimate partner was the perpetrator in 53% of those incidents. That category includes current and former cohabiting partners, boyfriends and dates; it is broader than husbands. ABS sexual violence findings.
These figures describe the circumstances of those assaults. They do not, however, mean that 53% of marriages or relationships are abusive. They do show why advice about sexual safety must address people we already know and trust.
In the same survey analysis, only around 20% of women perceived the incident as a crime when it happened. For that reason, public commentators should avoid language that could obscure someone’s ability to recognise a violation. The finding does not, however, establish that any particular commentator caused harm. ABS findings on recognition.
Choosing a partner carefully cannot guarantee safety because nobody can know every future action of the person they marry. A person’s rights do not depend on how well others think they chose. Even someone who ignored warnings, stayed after previous mistreatment or returned to a relationship retains the same right to refuse sex. Responsibility for respecting a refusal therefore remains with the person initiating sexual contact.
Consent in marriage still needs to be checked
Couples can know each other well. They may communicate affection and desire easily, without a formal discussion at every moment. Recognising that does not require abandoning consent. The NSW Government’s guidance explains that consent can be communicated through words or actions, must be voluntary, and can be withdrawn. It also warns against treating silence as agreement. Familiarity alone is therefore no substitute for checking that the other person wants what is happening. NSW consent guidance.
In practice, that means paying attention, asking when unsure and stopping when a partner withdraws consent. Someone who wanted sex yesterday, for example, may not want it today. A person can welcome one kind of touch without agreeing to another. The useful question is whether each person can freely choose. A relationship’s length, legal status or religious significance cannot answer that question on their behalf.
A loving relationship should also involve care, commitment and responsibility. Consent is a minimum requirement within those relationships. We should expect more from a loving partner than merely avoiding criminal conduct, while still insisting that the minimum applies. These protections belong to everyone, including men and people in same-sex relationships. Nobody owes sex because of their gender or marital status. Each person’s willingness matters, however a couple describes the roles within their relationship.
Why coercive control belongs in this discussion
Consent also requires attention to the conditions inside a relationship. A person may appear to agree while living with intimidation, isolation or threats that constrain their choices. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare describes coercive control as an ongoing pattern through which someone deprives another person of autonomy. Understanding the pattern matters because examining isolated incidents can miss the harm. AIHW explanation of coercive control.
Consider, for example, a hypothetical relationship in which one partner controls access to money, cuts the other off from friends and uses threats to secure obedience. A request for sex therefore takes place within that wider pattern. The absence of a struggle cannot tell us whether the person felt free to refuse. NSW’s explanation of its offence recognises repeated physical and non-physical abuse used to intimidate or control a partner. NSW coercive-control guidance.
We should also ask what happens after someone says no. Can they refuse without intimidation or punishment? Does their partner accept a boundary, or treat it as disobedience? Those questions help explain why a marriage’s public appearance tells us little about the freedom available within it.
Recent coercive-control reforms
Recent reforms reflect growing recognition of that problem. NSW’s standalone coercive-control offence commenced on 1 July 2024, covering specified patterns of abuse against a current or former intimate partner. Queensland’s offence commenced on 26 May 2025. Their scope and legal requirements differ. NSW Government, Queensland Government.
South Australia has passed its own legislation. At the time of this draft, the Attorney-General’s Department still describes consultation before commencement. Its explanation specifically includes controlling conduct that restricts a person’s decisions about their body. South Australian Attorney-General’s Department.
Even so, these laws do not turn an objectionable podcast statement into proof of coercive control. Establishing an offence requires evidence of the conduct and other elements specified in the relevant law. The laws matter here because they recognise how a relationship can restrict someone’s freedom. Public discussion should help people recognise those restrictions. Suggesting that marriage resolves the question of consent risks making them harder to name.
Joanna Howe’s consent comments and Adelaide University
Adelaide University lists Joanna Howe as a professor in its School of Law. Her academic role gives the public a reason to expect care when she discusses consent, a subject with significant legal consequences. Joanna Howe’s university profile. The university’s own guidance says: “Consent matters, each and every time.” It also explains that consent is necessary in long-term relationships, must be freely given and can be withdrawn. Adelaide University’s sex and consent guidance.
The university should therefore explain how it addresses public statements by an academic that appear to conflict with this guidance. Students deserve confidence that the principles they are taught apply consistently, including when a prominent staff member challenges them publicly. Because academic freedom protects unpopular arguments, any assessment of conduct should consider the full recording, the applicable rules and Howe’s explanation. A disciplinary outcome should follow evidence and a fair process.
The university can also reaffirm its consent guidance without waiting for an employment dispute. Doing so would give students a clear statement of the standard they can expect on campus.
For example, a useful response could distinguish personal advocacy from institutional endorsement and explain relevant staff guidance. It could also identify how students can raise concerns or seek support. None of that requires releasing confidential employment information.
For Howe, the immediate question is straightforward: does she affirm that a married person must freely agree to sexual activity and can withdraw that agreement at any time?
Consent education deserves a serious debate
Consent education should be age appropriate, accurate and open to scrutiny. But claims that it causes more sexual assault need evidence: which programme, what outcomes and compared with what? An increase in reports alone cannot establish an increase in violence. It could also reflect more people recognising abuse or feeling able to report it.
There is another reason for Howe to take this seriously, given her opposition to abortion: respecting consent and contraceptive choices can help prevent unintended pregnancies. That matters in marriages and established relationships as much as it does when young adults begin dating.
Consent includes respecting someone’s decision not to have sex, to wait, or to have sex only with contraception. Agreement to sex with a condom is not permission to remove it. Wanting a baby does not entitle anyone to pressure a partner into pregnancy or interfere with their birth control. Medical guidance identifies pregnancy pressure and contraceptive sabotage as forms of reproductive coercion. The practical connection is straightforward: knowing how contraception works is of limited help if a partner refuses to respect its use. Preventing unintended pregnancy requires access to contraception, the ability to decline sex if not wanted, accurate information and the freedom to act on that information. Teaching young people to respect these decisions makes consent relevant to the choices they face in their relationships.
The strongest evidence concerns comprehensive sexuality education, which brings consent and respectful relationships together with information about contraception. The World Health Organization reports that well-designed, properly delivered programmes can increase contraceptive use and are associated with lower rates of unintended pregnancy. It also finds that this education does not encourage earlier sexual activity. These findings support teaching the topics together; they do not establish that consent lessons alone reduce pregnancy or abortion rates.
For someone who wants fewer abortions, this offers a practical reason to support comprehensive sexuality education. Helping people avoid pregnancies they do not want could reduce some of the circumstances in which they seek an abortion. Opposition to abortion should make education about contraception and respect for sexual boundaries more relevant to Howe’s concerns. That argument has limits. Contraception can fail, and an unintended pregnancy is not evidence that someone misunderstood consent or acted irresponsibly. Nor can education make a person responsible for preventing their own abuse. Responsibility for ignoring a boundary lies with the person who ignores it. Parents can teach their beliefs about sex, marriage and family while making one expectation clear: your partner’s choices matter as much as your own. Respecting those choices belongs at the centre of any serious conversation about preventing unintended pregnancy.
Related reading: Boys Aren’t Being Feminised. They’re Being Monetised.
A standard people with different beliefs can share
People who believe sex belongs within marriage can still insist that both spouses must want it. Christians can defend marriage through mutual care and responsibility while supporting a person’s right to refuse sexual contact. Neither position requires agreement with every aspect of contemporary sexual culture.
For that reason, churches and other communities that place a high value on marriage should be explicit about the responsibilities that commitment brings. Advice about reconciliation or staying together should never make someone feel obliged to accept unwanted sexual contact. A community can support a marriage while taking a person’s account of harm seriously and helping them find support.
Joanna and James Howe should therefore clarify their position in terms that leave no doubt about that right. If they accept the continuing need for freely given consent within marriage, their public messaging should say so plainly.
Everyone who marries remains a person with a body, preferences and limits of their own. Marriage creates a relationship in which those limits should be respected. It does not make them disappear.
Support is available through 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 for people affected by sexual, domestic or family violence.
References
Web sources accessed 16 September 2026.
Reporting
- The Dr Jo Show (9 September 2026). The RADICAL Feminist Behind Albanese’s Social Media Crackdown. Original episode listing. The quoted remarks in this article are attributed to the reporting below.
- news.com.au (15 September 2026). ‘Don’t give a f***’: Controversial couple’s consent claims spark fury. Reporting on James and Joanna Howe’s comments.
- The Advertiser (14 September 2026). Joanna and James Howe: ‘I just don’t do consent, we’re married’. Reporting on the discussion and Joanna Howe’s response. Subscription access may be required.
Legal history and consent law
- Australian Law Reform Commission (10 November 2010). History of activism and legal change. Family Violence — A National Legal Response, ALRC Report 114, chapter 24. Historical assumptions about marriage and sexual assault law.
- Featherstone, Lisa, and Alexander George Winn (2019; first published online 28 August 2018). Marital Rape and the Marital Rapist: The 1976 South Australian Rape Law Reforms. Feminist Legal Studies, 27, 57–78. DOI: 10.1007/s10691-018-9382-3. The publisher’s abstract supports the discussion of partial criminalisation; full-text access may require a subscription.
- High Court of Australia (30 May 2012). PGA v The Queen [2012] HCA 21 — judgment summary. Explains the decision and the earlier holding in R v L (1991).
- Legal Services Commission of South Australia. Rape. Law Handbook. Explains free and voluntary agreement, withdrawal of consent and the relevant mental elements of the offence.
Statistics, coercive control and university guidance
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (23 August 2023). Sexual violence, 2021–22. Personal Safety Survey findings on women’s most recent sexual assault by a male, including relationship to the perpetrator and recognition of the incident as a crime.
- NSW Government. Make no doubt. Public guidance on voluntary, communicated, ongoing and specific consent.
- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Coercive control. Explains patterns of behaviour that restrict another person’s autonomy.
- NSW Government. Coercive control and the law. Scope of the NSW offence and its commencement on 1 July 2024.
- Queensland Government. Coercive control laws. Explains the offence that commenced on 26 May 2025.
- South Australian Attorney-General’s Department. Coercive control in South Australia. Describes the legislation and consultation before the laws come into effect.
- Adelaide University. Prof Joanna Howe — researcher profile. Confirms her academic role.
- Adelaide University. Sex and consent. The university’s published guidance for students.
Sexual-health evidence and support
- World Health Organization (11 March 2026). Comprehensive sexuality education. Evidence on contraceptive use and unintended pregnancy; the article does not claim that consent lessons alone reduce abortion rates.
- 1800RESPECT. National domestic, family and sexual violence counselling, information and support service. Support information for readers.
