• Ennui Elucidator
    494
    The paper had provocatively named article today: "Straight People Need Better Rules for Sex". Much of the article is good and the thesis is something that deserves attention, but I want to focus for a moment on where it begins in the context of where it sort of ends:

    . . .

    “I don’t think older generations realize how TERRIFYING dating is for the current generation,” fumed one young Twitter user, to the tune of 18,000 likes. “Absolutely chaotic out here.” When I interviewed dozens of people for my book on sex and relationships, I found that women, in particular, discussed their sexual experiences in visceral terms: encounters that end in unexpected and alarming acts — a choking, say, or other porn-inspired violence — that they go along with out of surprise or resignation. After all, if consent is given (and it often is), there are no grounds left for protest.

    . . .

    That enjoyment of dinner parties rests on a clear set of social standards: broadly shared, community-regulated understandings of what we hope a gathering will look like and how attendees should behave. For sexual encounters, setting these standards will require heated debate, and our vision for what sex means in our society must be corrected together. ...
    — Emba

    These ideas strike me as things that sort of work together - consent and norms. From a legal perspective, call it something like "volenti non fit injuria" (“to a willing person, it is not a wrong.”) and assumption of the risk prior to the development of comparative liability or, if you prefer, inalienable rights in contract law (like you can't sell yourself as a slave despite the general policy of enforcing voluntary contracts of consenting parties). Broadly speaking, these ideas represent that society has come to understand that even when we consent, that doesn't mean all is fair.

    A sexual encounter is sort of tautologically the most intimate of encounters and performed in private, i.e. in a context generally outside of social view subject only to the desires/willingness of the participants. Two people (more perhaps) engage in a social behavior that requires negotiating interests, and society has simultaneously retreated from governing that space (who you can have sex with, the types of sex you can have, etc.) while at the same time elevating a notion of consent to serve as the gatekeeper between what is right and what is wrong.

    Without a history lesson on sex and how we got here, suffice it to say that somehow things like explicit, affirmative, enthusiastic consent became the way in which we protect unwilling/unconsenting/etc. people from the desires/acts of their partners. The only check on behavior became the lowest common denominator of "Yes please!"

    But is that what consent really does? Was the lack of a "yes please!" in a social context full of mores (don't have anal sex) a solvable problem whereas the presence of a "yest please!" in a context of no holds bard comes to represent the same sort of repression we hoped to alleviate? What role does consent play in the interaction where we have already acknowledge there are disparate interests/powers that result in unhappiness for at least one of the participants?

    Recognizing in advance that this sounds horrible, if the line in the sand in prior years was evidence of violent rebuke to demonstrate a lack of consent (after all, she put herself in that position), why is it that moving the symbolic action of "consent" from refraining from punching someone in the nose to saying "Yes please!" addresses the dynamic at issue? If someone is feeling pressured to do something they don't want to do and they are interested in maintaining a relationship with the person applying the pressure, how does "performing" the consenting symbol suddenly make the price of continued maintenance of the relationship justifiable?

    The suggestion here is that the "price" of relationship management has changed. That once upon a time the most an aggressor could hope for was lifting a skirt and getting a relatively chaste quicky because society made it abundantly clear that anything more was beyond the pail (perversion if you will), but now an aggressor is free to demand anything because society says "if he/she/they consent, then it is fine by us." It feels strongly like we mistook the symbol (consent) in one context and keep using it in another context as if it solves the same problem.

    Paternalism/authoritarianism/etc. are problematic, but the cost of a relationship shouldn't be getting choked. Maybe what we should have been advocating was proper sexual behavior, that sex is not a commodity for relationship maintenance, and that we cannot punish people for saying "no" (or not saying "Yes please!"). If the reason that we pushed consent (however performed) is to solve the problem of coerced sexual behavior, it seems to have failed miserably.
  • Hanover
    12k
    If parents have abdicated their responsibility of setting sexual behavior norms to their children, you can't expect those same people to vote to make sexual norms a matter for law enforcement.

    I just learned what a W.A.P. is. Apparently an acronym for a number one song by Cardi B that Wiki described as:

    "WAP received widespread critical acclaim for its sex-positive message, while some social conservative commentators criticized its explicit nature."

    Here are the first lyrics to whet your palate for more:

    "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
    Yeah, you fucking with some wet ass pussy
    Bring a bucket and a mop for this wet ass pussy
    Give me everything you got for this wet ass pussy
    Beat it up, nigga, catch a charge
    Extra large and extra hard
    Put this pussy right in yo' face
    Swipe your nose like a credit card
    Hop on top, I want a ride
    I do a kegel while it's inside
    Spit in my mouth, look at my eyes
    This pussy is wet, come take a dive."

    What's a guy supposed to think women want, an ice cream cone and have her back by 10? Why do you suspect the men (barely men at that) are driving this train and not the women?

    Surely you say she wouldn't want to be choked, and it's the man who must be overstepping to think that, right? She must be the victim in that case. Well, read on:

    "He got some money, then that's where I'm headed
    Pussy A-1, just like his credit
    He got a beard, well, I'm tryna wet it
    I let him taste it, and now he diabetic
    I don't wanna spit, I wanna gulp
    I wanna gag, I wanna choke
    I want you to touch that lil' dangly thing that swing in the back of my throat"

    Who do we arrest, him or her? She just got herself a wet ass pussy that needs tending to, that's all. Sex positive. That's what this is. Stop being a fuddy duddy.
  • Ennui Elucidator
    494
    Who do we arrest, him or her? She just got herself a wet ass pussy that needs tending to, that's all. Sex positive. That's what this is. Stop being a fuddy duddy.Hanover

    Fortunately this is an ethics post and not a law enforcement one. So do we arrest a kid that has had his sexual expectations set by culture in the abject silence of his parents because his girlfriend consented to be choked during sex since she was afraid that he'd break up with her if she didn't? Probably not a strong argument to get that past the legislature, but I leave it to more convincing people than me.

    The fault is social and so the question is social. The article itself is addressed not to the kids doing things that make them unhappy, but to the society that is raising them. It is about what we should teach people about sex, what sexual behavior we should encourage, and whether we should be advocating for unrestrained freedom between consenting partners or something more restrictive. It is certainly within a context of elders to youngers, but it is the youngers that are complaining, not the elders judging. No one really cares what you do in the bedroom, but that attitude may be contributing more to misery than sexual/relationship health. When, if ever, does society become responsible for creating an environment in which children are taught to be better than their parents?

    Individuals act independently of society, to be sure, but show me what social mechanisms have been employed to address the issue. Show me the systems that have been collectively employed/directed that are meant to help provide standards.
  • jgill
    3.5k
    Apparently many critics of WAP are conservative Republicans rather than liberal Democrats. This pushes me out of the centrist lane and toward the right. Is it porn satire or just garbage?
  • Hanover
    12k
    Is it porn satire or just garbage?jgill

    It's celebrated as sex positive because it discusses female sexuality without judgment.
  • BC
    13.1k
    Straight people and their tedious sex problems! All this bitching and carping about consent, satisfactory, and unsatisfactory sex. I'm surprised the birthrate of first world countries hasn't totally collapsed.

    If straight people are unsuccessful in having reasonably good sex in private, then they will have to start having it in front of an audience which can provide real time guidance.

    Spit in my mouthHanover

    When did spitting in somebody's mouth become a thing? It's started appearing in gay porn fairly recently? Saliva -- whether traded in kissing or spitting -- is the same, but how do people interpret the act? intimacy? Love? Contempt? What?
  • Hanover
    12k
    Show me the systems that have been collectively employed/directed that are meant to help provide standards.Ennui Elucidator

    The standards have been set by celebrity culture. Your question is what has been done to counterbalance it.

    How do we organize this pushback without having to rely upon the help of the book burners and pro-lifers? MAGA!
  • baker
    5.6k
    Individuals act independently of society, to be sure, but show me what social mechanisms have been employed to address the issue. Show me the systems that have been collectively employed/directed that are meant to help provide standards.Ennui Elucidator

    We have democracy! We must be tolerant! We must respect those different than ourselves!!!

    Besides, there is no society and everyone is reponsible solely for themselves!!!
  • baker
    5.6k
    When did spitting in somebody's mouth become a thing? It's started appearing in gay porn fairly recently? Saliva -- whether traded in kissing or spitting -- is the same, but how do people interpret the act? intimacy? Love? Contempt? What?Bitter Crank

    People have been used as toilets for a long time. It's perfectly normal. When a man ejaculates into a woman he's basically using her as a sex toilet. In order to relieve himself of urine and feces, he uses a toilet, and in order to relieve himself of semen, he uses a vagina. The mentality is the same. So why not spit into people.



    Humans are the pinnacle of evolution, they are the best. They don't need to try harder.
  • baker
    5.6k
    The standards have been set by celebrity culture.Hanover

    The question is how come those standards caught on. There must be something in people that makes them think such standards are not only acceptable, but worth aspiring to.

    Your question is what has been done to counterbalance it.Hanover

    Democracy makes such counterbalancing impossible.
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