Whilst not a therapist/client relationship, I was raped by my doctor over a number of years. Due to my poor mental health and my experience of childhood sexual abuse, I had very little understanding of my boundaries and rights. Once in therapy, I found it clarifying and empowering to consider the absolute legal and professional ethic lines regarding a patient's inability to consent. I did not consider this infantalising, it bolstered my confidence. Protecting an individual's rights by law (and by the Medical Council in my case) even when an individual can't recognise them is the basis of safe society.

This is not about whether individual clients can sometimes consent. This is an issue of classification. You might feel able to consent to sex with a therapist, but we need to protect the most vulnerable women and understand women as a class not as a series of individuals. "I don't mind burglars stealing my stuff" doesn't mean we sometimes make burglary legal.