Sex Beyond “Yes”: Pleasure and Agency for Everyone

Kukla (City Living), a philosophy professor at Georgetown University, provides an astute reassessment of what empowered sex means in an imperfect world. They acknowledge that because life is inherently messy, people end up having sex under less-than-optimal conditions, whether they’re tipsy or subject to a power imbalance (which are inherent, Kukla notes, in every heterosexual sexual encounter in a patriarchal society). For that reason, public messaging about sex that “relies on a myth of an ideal autonomous self” is misguided; instead, people can rely on social, cultural, or interpersonal “scaffoldings” to support their agency in sexual encounters. Individually, that can mean negotiating safe words at the outset or having a ride home from a party, while social scaffoldings include good sex education, medical institutions that offer contraception, and policies that facilitate effective reporting of sexual violence. Elsewhere, Kukla pays particular attention to the language used to negotiate sexual encounters, suggesting that instead of simply requesting consent, partners can “invite one another to do things, suggest sexy ideas, warn our partner about our triggers, ask about a partner’s preferences.” Such points link to the author’s perceptive critiques of a binary consent culture in which good sex is made to be more about avoiding harm than experiencing pleasure. Well-reasoned and complex, it’s a vital addition to an important cultural conversation. (Sept.)