Consensus

Very hard not to write an entry that belongs more in Speedy Rants than this. The word "consensus" is becoming a bit of a pejorative word since it has become a way of representing horrible ideas and abandoning principle on the basis of doing what everyone wants. This seems to result in doing things that no one wants but no one quite knows who to blame anymore.

Once you've got the word "consensus" into your head as a rather grim one that involves people grudgingly accepting compromise rather than gleefully participating its use in relation to sex suddenly becomes oddly depressing. "Consenting Adults" goes from a phrase representing mutual trust leading to the abandonment of physical inhibitions and the pursuit of ecstasy, to "oh all right, suck it if you must but hurry up, Nick Clegg's on Question Time in a minute."