The central argument of this chapter is that prostitution must be addressed in any revision of the framework of sexual assault laws, with consent addressed in that context. This proposal necessarily involves understanding the prostitution system within a human rights prism, as a form of sex inequality, of violence and coercion against women in particular, and of sexual exploitation. Any more narrowly constrained examinations of consent leave behind those women who are most at risk of systemic sexual assault, and most in danger of their wrong and injuries being ignored or mocked. A comprehensive and systematic rethinking of sexual assault legislation in terms of human rights principles, particularly those of autonomy, dignity and of anti-discrimination, must address questions of consent and coercion in prostitution. While we are in broad agreement with principles of mutual affirmative consent in addressing sexual assault, we argue that understanding and recognition of free consent should be not only a matter of actions and words (speech acts) between individuals. The “background conditions” within which sexual power and preferences are formed must be acknowledged. In particular, the way in which women as a class are marked as vulnerable and as at risk is crucial, as is the fact that some women are culturally and socially designated with the status of being legitimately accessible to male sexual entitlement, that is, women in prostitution. Survivors of prostitution draw attention to the fictive character of the “consent” often invoked as underlying prostitution. Agreement on payment for sex cannot be considered as free consent: it does not displace the coercive context of the prostitution system in which individual transactions take place. In prostitution, money (or other forms of payment) underpins the initial and framing element of coercion. Our analysis of consent in prostitution provides the backdrop upon which our practical proposals for sexual assault legal and cultural reform are drawn.