“Consent is sexy” is, in fact, the grossest.
I have a very core problem with this sentence, to wit, I don’t think we should have to lead people around by the boner to get them to treat other human beings with basic respect. I mean, imagine if we applied this strategy to everything else. “If you don’t punch dudes in the face, they’re more likely to suck your cock!” ”Tip your waitress, she might ride your face in the back room.” ”I hear if you don’t sing along when you’re watching Les Miz in theaters a naked oiled Hugh Jackman appears.”
“People doing sexythings they like is sexier than people doing sexythings they don’t like, and if you don’t rape people they will be more likely to do sexythings they like with you!” is the exact. Same. Fucking. Thing.
Sometimes, indeed, consent is sexy. There is not much sexier than having sex with someone who genuinely wants to have sex with you. But the issue is not ”should I have sex with people that want to have sex with me and that I want to have sex with?” Except for a few busybodies, everyone is pretty much down with that! (And even the busybodies are mostly concerned with why you shouldn’t want sex that they don’t like.)
But in most of the situations where consent culture matters, consent is very clearly not sexy. If you get rid of the social pressure for college students to have casual sex, fewer college students will have casual sex. If you stop making asexuals feel broken because they don’t want sex, fewer asexuals will have sex. If you stop slapping female submissives on the ass without asking them, you don’t get to slap as many female submissives on the ass. If you refuse to have sex with people who don’t want sex with you, your pool of potential sexual partners shrinks.
How many times do you have to have sex for sheer abundance to outweigh the fact that it’s less hot when your partner doesn’t want it? Fifty times? A hundred? A thousand?
(Not to mention that if you do it right you can convince them to grit their teeth and fake enjoying it, for you, because anything’s better than another tantrum…)
Some people, a few of whom have the nerve to call themselves part of the sex-positive movement, seem to have a primary goal of maximizing The Sexy. Consent is all well and good, they think, because rape is certainly not sexy. But it is very clearly a means to an end here. When abandoning consent culture leads to an increase in The Sexy, they will gladly abandon consent culture. And I think “consent is sexy” plays into the same damn mindset.
To me, consent culture is not a means to sexiness; sexiness is a means to consent culture. If you let people do what they want with their own bodies, some of the things they do will be sexy things, and that’s awesome! The expectation that the things they do should be sexy things? Not awesome! Seriously, when your anti-rape slogan reinforces rape culture, you have made a wrong turn somewhere.
Firstly, I don’t think all people and mostly males are brought up in a way that they are sensitive to their partner’s needs or that they feel pleasure when the other part feels and consents. There are many individuals who either consciously or not they feel and consider sexy when they show “decisiveness” which is interpreted as being powerful/forceful. I even know female friends who think a male should act so (“he should grab me and kiss me and know I wanted it without me telling him”).
Secondly, though it’s now commonly known that sex is healthy and a way to lose calories, I haven’t noticed any research reporting rise on sexual activity levels of most countries… The average in UK is 2 times a week (not much I’d say). Thus, I don’t think that the motto itself can have dramatic impact.
Thirdly, I don’t believe that the motto has any such meaning. In my opinion, it pursuits to educate in a positive way. If you say rape is unsexy, many won’t consider what they do rape -just taking what they consider it’s their right- , others will say just “duh, and the earth spins”, plus it’s negative. Consent is easier defined and well it’s easier to make someone do sth by giving him/her/zir a positive motivation, than lecturing about the negatives. Take for example, people who smoke. They won’t stop smoking just because there’s a high probability they’ll get lung cancer. But they might stop, if they want to save money to buy something for themselves or a loved one.
Finally, if we analyze this gramatically, we have ‘sexy’ defining ‘consent’ and not ‘consent’ defining ‘sexy’; in other words sexiness /is/ a means to consent culture. As I see it at least.
I’d say there is an additional problem: ‘Consent is sexy’ sounds a LOT like the old lies they teach young people such as ‘math is fun’. It is potentially easy to ridicule among those who are smart and cynical enough to realize that questioning it does not necessarily mean liking rape.
Foxy Lady, what you are saying is accurate and terrible. Men do not have the capability to tell when somebody wants to be kissed or whatever and this idea gives plausible deniability to rapists. Perhaps in the future, when human psyches are made less fragile, we can tolerate more risk. Not now.
However I don’t think that saying that consent is sexy is necessarily bad. THe catchphrase might be, and some culture forms of it might be, while others (such as ‘consent negotiation through mutual seduction can be really hot’) may be better.
Perhaps we should change the slogan to “sex is better when it’s consensual?”
Or does that have the same problems?
I have always used “consent is sexy” to mean things like “mutually negotiated consent is MUCH hotter than the alternative!” and “non-consent is gross and totally kills any pants feelings.”
Having coerced, non-consensual sex is NEVER sexy for the person feeling coerced into sexual activity. In fact, I’d say that coerced sex is kind of the anti-boner. While ignoring positive consent may lead to a greater VOLUME of sexual activity, the activity that ensues will be nothing but bleak for the person who is coerced, which will lead to even more painful, awkward, shame-feelings around sexual activity.
I think the point of “consent is sexy” is that we can only get to a place where ALL sexual activity is hot for everyone involved through active consent.
I think I have always heard and/or interpreted it as “[asking for] consent is sexy”, specifically as a counter to people who argue, “but asking about consent ruins the mood!” I can see what you mean though about its literal interpretation if it’s turned into “consent is sexy” – then it becomes about the wrong side of the consent question entirely, which is one of the standard flaws in how sex positivity is practiced.
To me it seems that while it’s not ideal, ‘consent is sexy’ is the next baby step in the right direction. Frankly, most people outside of feminist and BDSM circles don’t think about consent very often. Anything that gets the mainstream population to examine their actions around sex and reduce rape even a little bit is progress in the right direction. Incremental progress makes additional progress possible.
M Dubz: Please don’t say that coerced sex is an anti-boner.
It’s a pretty terrible catchphrase. I agree w/ this post and it sums up so much of what is problematic about discussion of consent in the wider culture and sexyland culture alike. Speaking about consent as if it is a morally good but optional add on to your sex, like power windows on your car.
Consent is not power windows. Consent is the loan application, the gasoline, the engine. Consent is the whole fucking car.
There’s a number of responses that seem to be like “well the intent of the phrase is XYZ.” But — even sporting the people propagating this good intentions — what they’re saying is pretty terrible. Let’s look at a better way to express the same viewpoint.
Personally I like “Yes means yes” as a framing.
Ozy, correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like a large chunk of what your issue is with the phrasing is that people should practice good consent because it’s a bare minimum requirement for being a decent human being, not because it gives boners.
And I totally, completely agree with you. Most of us who read your blog agree with you, I’d imagine, as well as any feminist worthy of the name.
The problem is marketing. We want EVERYONE to practice good consent, not just people who have enough interest enough to read about it or talk about it online. We want to reach the dudebros and the parties and such. And this is where marketing comes in: ”Consent is Sexy” is a short, repeatable catchphrase to stick in the brains of those with short attention spans, with a carrot on a stock to get people to adopt it: boners.
Is this an underhanded tactic that exploits the base impulses of humanity instead of engaging with people on the higher levels of intelligence and decency? You betcha! But it’s also the way that will effect the most people, and if someone dissent coerce their partner just because of their boner means one less coerced partner, and I care WAY more about that than idealogical purity. It’s a question of using the means to stop the most amount of people from coercing their partners. It’s mercenary, but I don’t care why people act right, only that they do. And of course there’s room for nuance in more specific situations, like personal conversations and classes.
@benlehman
“Yes means yes” carries the problem of literally minded people that cares more about getting a spoken “yes” from their partner than about what they really want. All simple phrases will have that problem.
Being unsure of whther my partner really wants something or just agrees to make me happy turns me off; suspecting that my partner doesn’t care what I want as long as s/he can get away with is also a moodkiller. Consent is sexy for me, because anything else is un-sexy.
Yeah, I agree with Jadey. It’s a specific response to the people for whom talking about sex is somehow deeply unsexy (including the kind of people who think if you give a potential partner a chance to say no, they always will, showing just how much they think of themselves…). But I have a couple of other problems with the slogan: (a) it’s not self-explanatory, (b) it sounds as if it means “saying yes is sexy,” and (c) it’s totally irrelevant in the huge number of situations in which consent is very important because the people in them shouldn’t be having sex at all, such as teacher-student relationships.
I definitely agree with this. Consent might or might not be sexy (preferences vary…), but whether or not it is, that is NOT the reason why you shouldn’t have nonconsensual sex.
I think, though, that consent culture would and does create more sexytimes some of the time. Yes, it keeps people from having sex when they don’t want to, but it also frees people to have the kind of sexytimes they want without fear. Women would flirt more, because flirting would not be interpreted as an invitation to sex, necessarily. Someone could take another person home and roll around, maybe have outercourse, and not be afraid of being pressured into intercourse when they don’t want it. In general, people could freely participate in sexy activities A, B and C without fear of being coerced, forced or pressured into sex acts D, E and F. In rape culture (or the more rape-y a culture is; this issue is, of course, not either/or), I think many people, especially women, withdraw from sex activities they would actually want because of rape culture and its ugly cousin, slut-shaming.
@benlehman: I totally agree with you. Consent is definitely the whole car.
And though we may interpret “Consent Is Sexy!” as X, Y, or Z… the fact that we can’t all agree on what that interpretation is means the slogan isn’t getting its message across clearly enough.
And @Engineer Krause: I wholeheartedly disagree with the comment “Men do not have the capability to tell when somebody wants to be kissed or whatever…” and so does science: http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/mythcommunication-its-not-that-they-dont-understand-they-just-dont-like-the-answer/
I find the number of people who respond to a post about how it doesn’t matter whether consent is sexy with “but I find consent sexy!” to be somewhat amusing.
This is the post I would’ve written if you hadn’t beaten me to it. (And still might, if I can find things to say besides “yes. what zie said.”)
The problem is that there are people who find ambiguous consent sexy. It turns them on and you can’t convince a person not to be turned on by a thing.
But I think ambiguous-consent fetishes just need to go in the same category as fetishes for underage or comatose people–people with that fetish can explore it through fantasy and fiction and roleplay, but it’s just not something you can do in reality.
Cliff, I think it might be a bit of a stretch to lump individuals who enjoy “ambiguous consent” or “con-non-con” in with individuals who have fetishes for underage and/or comatose. If anything, I’d consider that it is far more akin (in so many ways) with individuals who engage in BDSM-play without a safeword. It isn’t inherently bad and it doesn’t mean that bad things will happen, just that there exists a different dynamic and/or standard of the relationship(s).
” If anything, I’d consider that it is far more akin (in so many ways) with individuals who engage in BDSM-play without a safeword. It isn’t inherently bad and it doesn’t mean that bad things will happen, just that there exists a different dynamic and/or standard of the relationship(s).” – To me, as an outsider who doesn’t participate in BDSM circles, it looks like a really gross idea to engage in this kind of activity without a safeword. How is this not putting trust on your partner’s ability to read your mind (which is abusive) to be able to tell when zir needs to stop? You consider driving a car without really knowing where and how to press the breaks for it to stop in time a normal activity? I actually can IMAGINE two or more careless people who would do that even intentionally out of their mutual fetish for fucking on the unclear line between sex and rape and not really knowing if their partners feels like having sex or experiencing rape. And that’s why I’d prefer to leave it to imagination as Cliff suggested. autonomousdesire, can you please assure me that your attitude is based upon something more reasonable than being acquiting to some careless members of your community? What does make it a legitimate standard of the relationship(s) to participate in BDSM activities without safeword, considering that all parties agreed to it?
Agree with this 100%, Ozy. Not great that we have to invite people to think that consent is a good idea…
I disagree with your interpretation of the slogan. “Consent is sexy” does NOT mean you should consent to sex in order to be/feel more sexy, nor is it about encouraging people to care about consent only because it is sexy. Rather, “consent is sexy” is about eradicating the assumption that giving and getting consent has to be an awkward, cold, or mood-killing process. It’s about feeling empowered to say things like “I want you inside me” when that is in fact the case.
“Rather, “consent is sexy” is about eradicating the assumption that giving and getting consent has to be an awkward, cold, or mood-killing process. It’s about feeling empowered to say things like “I want you inside me” when that is in fact the case.” – awkward, cold, mood-killing or whatever consent is still basic ethics. It might be sexy to ask in some cases, in other cases it might not but it is not sexiness that matter when we talk about consent. It is basic and thus unconditional respect for the autonomy of your partner. Absence of consent makes sexual intercourse a rape. I see how “asking for consent can be sexy” is legit but not how “consent is sexy” is.