The crux of Christine Emba’s argument is that “enthusiastic consent” is the floor and not the ceiling of sexual ethics. Moreover, all the progress we have made regarding consent is too simplistic.
When two people mutually consent to have sex with each other, there are often very different outcomes. Maybe one orgasms but the other doesn’t, or one experiences pleasure, but the other doesn’t. Maybe one party was more responsible for contraceptives and education around pregnancy and STIs than the other party. Maybe one person wants a long-term relationship, and the other person just wants to orgasm. Simply put, two people are not consenting to sex on the same terms, they are consenting to different terms. Christine argues that we must acknowledge the various different terms, so that we can increase communication, and hopefully improve our own sexual ethics in Western societies (this book being predominantly American).
Chapter four is titled “Men and Women Are Not the Same.” In this chapter, Christine talks about male and female biology (mostly heterosexual cisgender talk, but none-the-less, critical). She raises the topic of the “biological clock” for women; she talks about women being more inclined toward long-term relationships and how feminism, while allowing women more sexual freedom, might have disadvantaged women in terms of the long-term commitment they seek. I found statistics about women and men’s pleasure super interesting: 30% of women report experiencing pain during vaginal intercourse; 72% during anal sex (much lower numbers for men). Violence is another consideration for women, more-so than men:
The majority of men could likely kill a woman with their bare hands. Hence the mental calculus that women face whenever they want to reject a man’s sexual advances: Will he hurt me?”
Christine delved into rape laws and feminism in the early chapters of the book, pointing out how far we have come in a lot of European cultures, while also stating clearly that we haven’t come far enough. In chapter five she describes the long-term ramifications of sexual trauma and uses this to help paint a picture that “sex is spiritual.” Sex has meaning. She contrasts the idea that “sex means nothing” with the idea that “sex means everything” and argues for a more nuanced approach.
By chapter seven, Christine is arguing that: “Sex is not amoral. Some desires are worse than others.” She asks the reader to consider whether some sexual acts are degrading, dehumanizing, objectifying, and whether they make us better or worse versions of ourselves, or [better/worse versions] of human society as a whole.
It’s difficult to draw a line that works for the whole of society. But it would be good, and is in fact necessary to ask questions about what we accept, in order to find some norm that allows most people to fell that their dignity is respected when they have sex.”
Christine doesn’t shy away from critiquing anal sex and choking, arguing that by as society normalizes these acts, there is more pressure to perform these acts, and a greater propensity for a partner to be “surprise-choked during a sexual encounter.” She then critiques pornography:
The categories through which videos are inevitably sorted—oral, anal, ebony, blond, MILF, gangbang—mold preferences and shape desire. And porn has mainstreamed certain acts—choking, anal sex—that used to be significantly rarer.”
While not arguing that porn can or should be banned “it’s too late for that,” she has some other important things to say about pornography:
If porn is a form of pedagogy for so many—and it clearly is—we should question whether what it teaches is true or false, whether the preferences it champions are positive or negative, and whether what it presents is what we as a society want to be learning or not. It is difficult to make the argument that the worldview it espouses has no impact on its watchers.”
I think she is asking for porn content to improve to reflect what we actually want in sexual relationships, and I agree with this sentiment.
The final two chapters of Christine’s book are about rethinking our sexual ethic. Christine argues for empathy. We must put ourselves in our partners’ shoes in order to make healthier decisions about whether or not to have sex with someone. Is it mutually beneficial and pleasurable to have sex?
What if the answer was to have less casual sex? For that matter, what if the answer was to have sex under the standard of love?”
She champions the idea of pausing, of having less casual sex and allowing sex to mean more, to weigh more, to have more of an impact on our psyche.
In every other situation common to the human experience—eating, drinking, exercising, even email—we have realized that restraint produces healthier results. Why not here, too? Having lots of sex hasn’t led to better sex or better relationships. In many cases, it has inspired numbness, callousness, hurting others and being hurt. And rather than being titillating, sexual overload is boring. Boundaries can make things more exciting, more beautiful, paradoxically more open to the possibility of something better as yet unimagined.”
This book was very well written, and asks critical questions about sexual ethics and consent that we, as a society, need to consider. Thank you, Christine Emba, for this “provocation”!