 Both social and legal understandings of rape are typically based at least partly on the notion of consent. (Many laws also include a force requirement, about which more below.) To consent to something is to reverse a prima facie supposition about what may and may not be done. In most contexts, there is a standing presumption that one does not have access to and may not make use of another’s body, property, personal information, or other elements of his or her personal domain. This presumption is reversed, however, when (and for as long as) the other consents to such access. Consent thus alters the structure of rights and obligations between two or more parties.