While we were first conducting research for this chapter, a story hit the headlines which highlighted many of the themes that we wanted to address. It captured the entwined topics of sex communication and sexual consent, as well as the changing nature of both sex communication and the advice that is given about it. The story goes like this: Over the summer of 2014 a husband kept a spreadsheet for a month of his wife's responses to his requests for sex. The spreadsheet notes each date, whether sex occurred, and – if not – what his wife's ‘excuse’ was. According to the spreadsheet sex happened on three occasions out of the thirty days. The ‘excuses’ included: feeling tired or sick, having to get up early the next day, having eaten too much, feeling ‘gross’ and needing a shower (with a bracketed note that she didn't end up having a shower till the following morning), watching a show or movie (with bracketed notes that these were re-runs, or that she fell asleep 15 minutes in), and ‘non-verbal’. The husband gave the spreadsheet to his wife just as she was heading off on a ten-day business trip. She proceeded to post it to a relationships forum on the social networking site Reddit. The post elicited hundreds of comments, many from men empathizing with the husband's predicament. The story went viral and a Google search for ‘Reddit sex spreadsheet’ now yields over 150,000 hits, mostly relating to this particular story. Major newspapers and websites invited ‘sexperts’ to use the story as a jumping-off point to discuss the so-called ‘orgasm gap’ between men and women and the best ways to communicate about sex across such gulfs (e.g. Benedictus & Raeside, 2014; Kolodny, 2014). At the same time, discussions occurring on blogs and social networking sites often linked the story to wider current debates about feminism and rape culture, focusing more on issues of consent than on communication (e.g. Mollie Writes, 2014; Moore, 2014).
This story certainly raises the issue of the best way to communicate about sex (not on a spreadsheet or by posting private messages on a public forum seemed to be a consensus among the commentators!). However, it also brings up questions of why sex communication might be necessary, what aspects of sex require communication, why sex communication might be difficult (leading to such extreme responses), and – perhaps – how certain relational dynamics play out in sex communication, and how these are embedded within wider cultural assumptions and scripts.
Questions of consent are also woven through this story. Both the participants, and the commentators upon the story, have assumptions about sex in relationships which conform to the normative cultural assumptions covered in chapter 4. These raise questions about how possible it is to say either ‘no’ or ‘yes’ to sex under such cultural conditions. There are implicit assumptions about the ‘normal’ frequency of sex in relationships (most, including the wife in the story, agreeing that three times in a month was too little); about the necessity of sex in relationships and for men in particular; about what counts as a legitimate reason for not having sex; and – of course – about the ways in which it is and is not acceptable to get our sexual desires met. All these assumptions seem likely to influence how freely able a person is to request, accept or decline sex. It also becomes clear that sexual contact in this relationship was entirely one way (the man initiating and the women either agreeing or declining): a seemingly unequal gendered dynamic which would also likely interfere with potential for freely given consent.
Turning from the message to the medium, this story – and the fact that it went viral – raises issues about the ways in which people communicate about sex in relationships, and the manner in which sexual advice occurs. Clearly computer technology and the Internet have opened up the possibility for people to communicate with partners in new ways (over text or email, and via spreadsheets, for example). Additionally, they have opened up the possibility for people to readily access support and feedback on their sexual relationships from friends and/or strangers. Finally, the story illustrates the ways in which sex advice is currently changing. While we still have newspapers and websites using the story as the starting point for conventional, static, sex advice from ‘experts’, we also see a good deal of discussion happening between people who are talking from experience rather than from any publicly recognized kind of expertise. This illuminates a shift which is still in process from the primary source of advice being static, expert content, to being peer-offered, dynamic discussion. It is notable that the wife initially posted to Reddit, for example, rather than shopping for a sex advice book, writing to an agony aunt, or googling ‘what to do when your partner is unhappy with your sex life’ or similar.
For this chapter we analysed the ways in which sex communication and sexual consent were covered across a range of sex advice media. This included the more conventional sex advice books and problem pages (see chapter 4 for details of this data set). However, we also drew upon the kind of web-based advice which comes up in response to Google questions about how to talk about sex or how to introduce new sexual activities. Finally we looked at social media based blogs and discussions about these kinds of topics which tend to provide dynamic explorations, contestations to commonly held views, and a plurality of possibilities rather than one set of guidance or advice.
Of course, as in previous chapters, it is important to highlight the polysemic, contradictory, nature of much of the advice (Tasker, 1991). It is notable that many of the books, articles and websites discussed communication and consent in more than one of the ways that we have delineated here. For example, some included both advocations that people should talk about sex and suggestions that such talk should be unnecessary. Others included both notions that consent conversations should not be necessary, and suggestions for how to negotiate consent for certain sexual practices. Of course this very contradictoriness often serves to support rather coherent ideologies, particularly that of individual responsibility for addressing any sexual discrepancy or difficulty (see chapter 4).
It is also worth noting the ways in which different forms of sex advice, and other media, influence each other. For example, we see people who have gained a good peer reputation over social media publishing their own sex advice books, or becoming agony aunts/uncles (e.g. Harrington & Williams, 2012; Hancock, 2013). In the Fifty shades of grey phenomenon we also see the way in which Internet fan fiction can become a published novel which, in turn, sparks a range of online and offline sex advice that draws upon the practices in the novels (e.g. 50shadestoBDSM.com, 2014; Bennet, 2012).
This chapter takes each of the two topics – communication and consent – in turn, exploring the main ways in which they are dealt with through sex advice texts. The two topics are covered separately here primarily because most texts consider them as separate topics rather than regarding, for example, conditions of consent as necessary for sex communication and/or consent as perhaps the most important topic of sex communication. We return to this issue of the separateness, or connectedness, of these concepts throughout.
For each of these topics the chapter begins by exploring times when it is entirely absent, working through some of the more problematic or limited ways of covering the topic, and finishing with examples of more explicitly sex-critical explorations (Downing, 2012). These include, for example, materials which recognize the involvement of relational power dynamics and cultural embeddedness in sex communication and the negotiation of consent.
For this part of the chapter we focused our analysis on the same books and newspaper problem pages that we analysed for chapter 4 in order to gain a general sense of the ways in which sex communication was, or was not, dealt with in offline sex advice. We also analysed the top ten Google hits for the question: ‘How to talk about sex in a relationship?’ The question ‘How to talk about sex?’ was the main Google query that came up when searching on the topic of sex communication, and Google automatically filled it in with possible endings (e.g. ‘… to your son’, ‘… problems with your boyfriend’). We felt that ‘… in a relationship’ gave the broadest range of hits relevant to our purposes.
The first striking thing about the offline sex advice that we analysed was the extent to which communication was not mentioned at all. Several of the mainstream sex advice books had no index term for ‘communication’ or similar words, and only an average of 6 per cent of the content of the books were devoted to some aspect of communication about sex.
As mentioned in chapter 4, the mainstream books focused far more on physical ways of addressing sexual problems, or improving people's sex lives, with an emphasis on sexual positions and techniques for ‘spicing up’ reader's sex lives. Presumably communication would be necessary in order to determine which positions or ‘spicy’ activities to try, but much like the sex advice in Sex Box discussed in chapter 6, many books gave little to no advice about how this might be conducted, beyond perhaps using the book as a starting point for such communication (e.g. Comfort & Quilliam, 2012; Berman, 2011).
Of course communication does not have to be verbal and it could be argued that the kinds of sex being advocated constitute a form of communication in themselves. However, it seems likely that some other means of communicating with oneself, and with the other people involved, would be necessary prior to engaging in these activities. There is an absence of any real consideration of what that communication would be, or advice about how to go about engaging in it. This seems to support common – and problematic – myths about the ease and naturalness of sex; for example, the idea that couples in ‘healthy relationships’ should telepathically know how to have good sex, or that instinctive sexual ability – that would universally work on any woman – is a natural feature of masculinity (Potts, 2002).
Such myths are also perpetuated in the occasional places where books, and other forms of sex advice, suggest that communication may actually be problematic. For example, Anderson and Berman (2008) advise their straight female readers not to ‘discuss things like periods, rashes, yeast infections, bikini waxing or other things that can make a straight man squeamish’ (p. 6) and, like Gray (2003), advise against talking during sex. Kingsley (2011) likewise advises straight men to ‘use your actions more than words or explanations’ in order to retain the ‘subtle air of alpha male’ (p. 49). There is a sense through these books that open communication about sex may be unsexy and unromantic, and not something that people would want to do. Regarding blow jobs, Kingsley (2011) tells the male reader that ‘she [female partner] doesn't want to talk about it for hours, because that will kill the mood once you eventually do try it in the bedroom’ (p. 29), and Bennet (2012) suggests that people should just do a new sexual activity (like spanking) and see how their partner responds rather than having ‘The Talk’ (p. 34). We return to such examples when we consider consent in the latter half of this chapter.
Turning to newspaper problem pages, most of the time some form of communication is suggested for problems which involve another person. However, there are some examples where this is not the case. For example, while she advocates communication in other answers, Stephenson Connolly's (2014c) response to a man who cannot orgasm during penetration focuses entirely on figuring out if anything is wrong with him and how he can maximize his chance of orgasm using particular techniques. There are also some situations in which open communication is actively advised against. For example, both Frostrup (2006b) and Nolan (2014b) advise people who do not feel highly attracted to their partners ‘don't be honest about it’ and ‘you don't have to tell him’, and Stephenson Connolly (2014a) tells somebody with low sexual confidence that ‘unfortunately, discussions about a person's prior sexual experience often cause trouble.’
Perhaps the lack of coverage of communication – particularly in some of the mainstream sex advice books – is explicable. Such books are generally sold on the basis of providing expertise in order to help people to improve their sex lives and to fix any problems. Communication about sex could be regarded as a risky thing to sell in this way, because it relates to how people engage with sex rather than what they do (see chapter 4). It could be seen as a set of skills that, once learnt, would be applicable to future situations, thus not requiring the purchase of further advice. Techniques and products, on the other hand, can always be altered and added to, necessitating the purchase of further advice, as well as being mystified as an area that ‘experts’ know about. Perhaps bodily related practices are easier to fit into the commercial model (as with dieting, gyms, and fashion, for example) than psychological/relational ones (see chapter 4).
One key exception to this is the kinds of communication which can be sold as a set of techniques to enhance sexual performance or the likelihood of getting sex, which can constantly be amended and added to. This is what the next section focuses on.
There is a clear difference between the ways in which sex communication is dealt with in sex advice aimed at women readers and that aimed at men. For women the emphasis, as we will see in the next section, is generally on finding ways to communicate what they like sexually to male partners, often having communicated with themselves first in order to figure it out. For men, the emphasis is on communication in the form of seduction. Indeed, most of the sex advice books aimed at men only considered communication in this context.
Clear examples of this are Bevan's (2013) Drive Her Wild and Zopol's (2009) Sex Instruction Manual. The latter of these, while ostensibly aimed at men and women, is clearly designed to appeal to male readers with the computer instruction manual format. It often reveals its intended audience, for example in the ‘home preparation’ section (pp. 20–1) which recommends ‘be sure to establish a staging area for seduction before attempting to engage in sexual interface’ and describes a bachelor pad. Both of these books are constructed much like many sex advice books (Barker, Gill & Harvey, 2017) with sections on foreplay, then sex positions, and then ‘advanced’ or ‘hot’ sex. However, unlike other books, both begin with a chapter primarily devoted to seduction as the first stage of sex. Topics such as ‘listening’ – which are covered in other books in the context of enhancing intimacy – are covered here as a form of seduction, in order to make the other person ‘feel that you value their opinions’ and to learn ‘what is likely to activate him or her’ (Zopol, 2009, p. 36). Bevan (2013) likewise suggests a number of non-verbal communication strategies as seduction skills to ‘put the person … at their ease’, such as mirroring body language.
In these ways current sex advice aimed at men is often highly reminiscent of the materials offered by the Pick Up Artist (PUA) or Seduction Communities (O'Neill, 2014) and lads mags, which often focus on rating women and trying to ‘get them’ to do something they don't want to do (Gill, 2003b). Indeed Strauss's (2005; 2007) books based on these communities are some of the most popular sex advice books for men, and are entirely devoted to seduction techniques, rather than what to do during sex, for example. The techniques include persuasion suggestions to enhance the likelihood of a woman sleeping with the reader, such as doing something for them to create a sense of obligation, demonstrating popularity, speaking with authority, and pretending not to be interested. We see similar themes sneaking into more mainstream sex advice aimed at men. For example, Zopol's (2009) recommendation of ‘tabooing’ suggests: ‘if the other person is reluctant to continue with sexual interface for moral reasons, try engaging in a mostly innocuous yet still morally questionable activity … [This] may help your partner loosen up or become excited, opening the door to sexual interface’ (pp. 36–7).
As with the Reddit story with which we began this chapter, such coverage of communication as seduction reveals the common cultural assumption that it is always men's role to seduce and to initiate sex and that women's role is entirely restricted to either agreeing to, or refusing, such advances. In addition to perpetuating heteronormativity, this reproduces the myth that only men are sexually desiring and denies women any degree of active sexual agency (Gavey, 2005). We consider the implications of this dynamic, and of the seduction approach to communication, for consent in the latter half of this chapter.
Interestingly, one of the books that we analysed which was aimed at gay men (Rebel, 2013) only considered communication in the context of seduction (‘how to get any guy’, p. 15) while the other (Muller, 2014) focused much more on communication to make sex more satisfying, with specific examples of how to communicate desires verbally and non-verbally.
In addition to seduction, the other way in which communication was presented as a technique for performing sexually, akin to sexual positions, was ‘talking dirty’ (e.g. Comfort & Quilliam, 2012). While, as we saw above, some authors advise against this, many books include a brief section on the topic. They suggest, for example, practising key phrases while alone, focusing on phrases which signal how desirable the partner is (e.g. Berman, 2011), and even providing exact wording for people to use, e.g. ‘put it in me, right now, I need it in me hard’ (Corn, 2013, p. 29). However, in other examples of sex advice, this kind of sex talk is considered within the wider context of communicating with partners about sexual desires, rather than in isolation as a technique for turning somebody on. We will return to this over the remaining parts of this section.
Probably the most common way in which communication is presented in mainstream forms of sex advice is in the context of communicating about sexual desires with partners. This is constructed as a necessary part of the ‘work’ that people need to do in order to maintain a relationship (see chapter 5/6).
There were two overlapping versions of the communication-as-necessary narrative in the books, articles, and websites that we analysed. Much like the approach to communication in Sex Box that we examined in chapter 6, the first presents communication as a relatively simple matter of saying what we want, while acknowledging that people find it difficult, and suggests that it is only necessary when people have specific issues to address. The other position's communication is more fundamental and includes more exploration of the complexities around communicating, foregrounding communication with oneself before communication with others. We will cover the more simple version first here before moving on to the more foundational version.
The simple version of the communication-as-necessary narrative generally presents communication in the context of resolving a specific problem and/or maintaining a relationship after the ‘honeymoon period’.
Many of the online articles which came up in response to the Google search: ‘How to talk about sex in a relationship’ shared a structure which is revealing of the ways in which sex communication is commonly understood. This structure consisted of the following elements:
Several of these online articles focused more on demonstrating the importance of sex communication than they did on advising readers how to go about communicating in practice. For example, Shpancer (2014) simply summarizes research about the lack of sex communication, and the impact of this, ending ‘perhaps it's time we start talking about it’. Often a detailed consideration about how to overcome the acknowledged obstacles is rejected in favour of simply reiterating why it is so important, providing encouragement that ‘you can do it’ (e.g. NHS, 2014), or even ‘expert’ statements such as: ‘if you feel uncomfortable having sexual conversations … then you shouldn't be having sex with them’ (in Penn, 2012).
When it is provided, the advice for how to go about communicating about sex is strikingly consistent across the online sex advice, echoing the kind of advice given in those books and problem pages that address this topic. Clearly there is a fairly coherent set of ‘expertise’ on this topic. The commonly repeated advice is as follows:
Some advice provides example lines that people might use in order to open up communication. Oddly these often begin with the word ‘honey’, for example ‘honey, I learned some new things about my body that I never really knew before and I want to show you’ (Oprah.com, 2009) and ‘honey, I think this would really turn me on …’ (Campbell, 2014): perhaps this is another way of sweetening the potentially bitter pill of communicating directly about sex.
In terms of the topics that people are expected to communicate about, most advice exclusively focused on the physical aspects of sex, notably on people communicating how they would like their partners to touch them. There was also some consideration of communication in the context of safer sex practices (see chapter 6). Again the message was that, despite being awkward, this was an important conversation to have and needed to be stuck to: ‘don't get so caught up in passion that you forget about it’ (SOGC, 2012), rather than any specific information being given about how to go about communicating. The dualistic separation of communication (a rational activity) and sex itself (a bodily/emotional activity) on display here can also be seen in the much repeated advice not to communicate about sex in the bedroom, or in a sexual context.
Advice about sex communication frequently reproduces normative notions of the ‘opposite sexes’ (see chapter 4). Much sex communication advice is framed as experts helping people to communicate across a gender gulf which requires translation (Potts, 2002). For example, SOGC (2012) states that ‘men and women still seem to speak different languages when it comes to sex’: men focusing on the physical and women on the emotional. The lack of communication advice for men (other than that relating to seduction) also makes it apparent that communicating about sex is generally regarded as women's work. This is partly – it seems – because women are regarded as having a much greater need to inform their partners about how their bodies work than men. We will see in the next section how this is still a rather limited approach.
Around half of the books aimed at couples or women, and a number of the newspaper problem pages, position communication more centrally in their sex advice. Rather than being ‘unromantic’, or something that is only required if there is a problem, communication is positioned as central to satisfying sexual encounters, particularly in the context of maintaining sex in long-term relationships. Couples books that take this approach are often those which take a more explicitly therapeutic stance, such as Ford's (2005) Overcoming Sexual Problems, or Litvinoff's (2008) sex advice book produced by the relationship therapy charity, Relate. It is telling that sex advice that positions communication as foundational often also advises therapy as an answer to ongoing difficulties.
Much of the material that tackles communication in this way positions communication with oneself as necessary prior to communication with sexual partners. The idea is that the reader will probably be unfamiliar with what turns them on, and that they need to educate themselves first, and then their sexual partner. The emphasis here is generally on the body, but sometimes also includes fantasies and the context in which people feel comfortable having sex.
It is here that the gendered aspect becomes particularly apparent. This narrative is most common in materials aimed at women and rarely present in those aimed at men. Almost all the books aimed at heterosexual women that we analysed took this communication-as-foundational approach (e.g. Foley, Kope & Sugrue, 2011; Mintz, 2009; Keesling, 2011), as did both of the books aimed at lesbians (Newman, 2004; Caster, 2008). The idea seems to be that women are particularly uninformed about their bodies, and that part of their work of maintaining sex in relationships is to become informed and then to gently communicate this information to their partner.
This narrative is well-exemplified in the oprah.com (2009) article which was the number one Google hit for ‘how to talk about sex in a relationship’. In this article, sex therapist Laura Berman appears, from the pronouns used, to be purely addressing female readers. She begins with a gendered version of recognizing that it is difficult to talk about sex: ‘we have this image that nice girls aren't entitled to their sexual response’. But she goes on to tell readers ‘don't be afraid to be vulnerable and talk with your partner about sex’, assuring them that both intimacy and their sex lives will improve if they do so. Berman goes on to advocate communication with oneself as the first step: ‘before you talk to your partner, understand your body and learn about your sexual responses’. She recommends readers ask themselves whether their sexual anatomy is ‘in the right place’, how it feels when touched manually or with a vibrator, how they like to be touched, and in what context they want sex to happen (assuming the reader will need certain things to ‘get into a sexual frame of mind’). Thus a very individualistic – rather than relational – approach to sex is taken, implying that women's desires are fixed rather than varying according to the relationship.
Once this self-exploration is complete, readers are advised to talk to their partner, beginning statements with ‘honey’ of course! They are recommended to show the partner how their body works on a chart or in a mirror, and to ‘guide your man and show him your response findings in a positive, proactive way … For guys, it's really important to give them positive feedback, what you like, and what you want more of, and not what they're doing wrong.’ Finally, Berman (2011) addresses three possible reasons why sex might remain difficult after such communication has taken place: (1) ‘you're too inhibited to let him know the specific way you need to be touched’, (2) ‘you're too shy and embarrassed to let yourself go with your partner’, (3) ‘your partner isn't really listening’.
It is striking here – and across most of the sex advice we analysed – that women's bodies are regarded as mysterious entities which they are required to communicate with in order that they may offer up their secrets. Conversely men's bodies are presented as relatively simple, certainly well understood by the man who inhabits them (Farvid & Braun, 2006). They are often explicable to women readers in a few pages, with generalities about how to touch a man's body which are assumed to apply to all men universally (see also chapter 4).
It is also made clear that, as with safer sex conversations (see chapter 6), it is women who are responsible for initiating sex communication, however difficult they may find it. There is additional emotional work involved here because it must also be done in such a way that will be unthreatening to the men concerned. Berman's three possible reasons, above, demonstrate that any problems remaining after communication are assumed to be the woman's fault for remaining too inhibited or shy. The only possible blame that lies with the male partner is if he is not ‘really listening’. Therefore it is women's responsibility to do all the active and emotionally difficult work, while men's role is entirely passive: they just have to listen.
A further responsibility on the (female) reader here is to navigate a difficult tightrope between work and fun. While it is often repeated that communication is a vital part of the work which is necessary for a ‘good sexual relationship’ (e.g. SOGC, 2012), there are also constant reminders that sex should be fun and that it is vital to demonstrate that you ‘are really enjoying it’ (SOGC, 2012) in order to turn your partner on (see chapter 5 for a longer discussion of this element of sexual subjectification, Gill, 2003a; 2007a).
The communication-as-foundational approach is an improvement over the previous approaches covered because it generally gives more consideration to why communication might be difficult, often including awareness of gendered social norms about sex, for example (e.g. Foley, Kope & Sugrue, 2011; Litvinoff, 2008). Also it recognizes that communicating with partners about sex may well be impossible if a person is not tuned in to their own sexuality. Specific suggestions and activities are often given to help people to communicate with both themselves and others. However, this approach still often reinforces – rather than challenges – the sexual imperative (see chapter 4) by suggesting that people owe it to themselves and to their relationships to do the communication work that is required. The advice is also almost entirely individualistic: difficulties are located with the individual (e.g. shyness, inhibitions or not listening), even if there is awareness that wider culture might have played a part in putting them there. Individual communication skills and/or seeking expert help are constructed as the only possible solutions. Finally, as we have seen, communication is constructed as women's work – both because women are seen as the ones with the problems and because communication is viewed as a naturally feminine ability. This sets up a very unequal starting point both for sex and for communication about sex.
In the final section on communication we turn briefly to examples of more relational and cultural approaches to sex communication.
In chapter 4 we saw that more explicitly sex-critical forms of sex advice tend to present a diversity of sexual practices, levels of desire, and so on, rather than reproducing the sexual imperative or drawing distinctions between normal and abnormal types of sex. They also consider sex within wider cultural contexts rather than presenting it as simply an act between individuals.
Similar features can be found in more sex-critical approaches to sex communication. There is an understanding that communication too is diverse and that there is likely no one-size-fits-all model for communicating about sex. There is a sense that sex communication occurs within certain cultural contexts regarding both sex and communication, which may close down and open up various possibilities. And, within this, attention is also paid to the relational dynamics which constrain and enable certain communicative opportunities, and to the tensions and paradoxes inherent in these which mean that it is not a simple matter to communicate about sex.
One feature of the other narratives in this section has been an idea that there is one clear set of ‘correct’ skills that can be learnt, whether that is about seduction, dirty talk, saying what you want, or learning your body and teaching somebody else how it works. This idea is challenged by materials which take a more meta-communicative approach (see Barker, 2012). Such materials maintain that, like sex itself, there are multiple different ways of communicating, which may be preferred by different people, at different times, and for different issues. Therefore the sex communication process should probably begin not with ‘honey I want to talk about sex’, but rather with ‘honey I want to talk about talking’: The focus is on process before content.
Such a conversation could usefully involve exploring how each person prefers to communicate (including time and place), their past experience of communication (in general, and in relation to sex), and also what the aims of the communication are, and what topics will be included or excluded. Such an approach is a long way from the ‘guidelines’ approach of much sex advice (that people must always talk outside the bedroom, with the aim of improving sex in particular ways, for example).
Boynton's sex advice column in The Telegraph frequently takes this kind of approach to sex communication. Communication is usually presented early on in Boynton's columns, with a paragraph about the different kinds of communication that the person could consider in their situation. For example, in relation to a reader who wants more sex, Boynton (2013b) suggests:
Could you try to discuss things in a different setting or way than you have already used? Are there alternative ways to communicate you've not already attempted – for example writing him a letter or email setting out your worries, or asking him to reply in a way that suits him? It might help if you make it clear you've both got space to reflect rather than having to give an instant response, particularly if either of you have felt pressured in previous conversations.
Friedman's (2011) book for young women, What you really really want, similarly begins the chapter on sex talk by encouraging readers to explore their communication styles.
Such approaches also often draw much less clear distinctions between communication and sex itself, recognizing sex as a form of communication, and communication as something that happens between people all the time in explicit and implicit, verbal and non-verbal, ways. There is recognition that mutual masturbation, sensation play, sexting, and sharing fantasies, for example, can be useful forms of communication as well as being forms of sex in their own right. Communication is regarded as an ongoing process rather than a one-time thing that a person does with themselves (to uncover inner truths about what turns them on) and then communicates to another. Bodies and desires are regarded as things that change over time.
Such a meta-communicative approach also recognizes the culture in which sex communication occurs. Rather than positioning one kind of communication as the right kind, for example, there is a recognition of the wide variety of gendered, cultural, and classed norms around verbal and non-verbal communication, and the impact of neurodiversity and different bodies and languages, for example. Participants are invited into a communication about where they are situated within these intersections, and to negotiate about how to proceed given this position.
Of course much of the popular advice about sex communication comments upon the gulf between the ‘omnipresence’ of sex talk in ‘our culture’ (e.g. Bernstein, 2012) and the difficulty that people generally experience having sex talk with people they're having sex with (e.g. Shpancer, 2014). However, few go further into any form of cultural exploration.
Byers' research on sex communication (e.g. Miller & Byers, 2004; Byers, 2005) found that heterosexual couples who had been together for a decade knew an average of 60 per cent of each other's sexual likes, and only 20 per cent of each other's sexual dislikes, suggesting that there must indeed be a strong reluctance to communicating about sex, and a great difficulty in picking up on a partner's sexual desires. Mainstream sex advice generally emphasizes individual vulnerability as the disincentive for open communication, whereas books like Friedman's (2011) and Hancock's (2013) explicitly address the cultural pressures around sex being a ‘natural act’ (Tiefer, 1995) that should come easily. They also address ways in which this is gendered; for example the influence of the sexual double-standard on women when communicating about what they want sexually while not wanting to be seen as a prude or a slut (Friedman, 2011), or the influence of notions of hard masculinity on men's capacity to communicate about sexual difficulties (Hancock, 2013).
Such an approach enables a more sophisticated understanding of gender dynamics within relationships. This recognizes the ways in which gender does impact on communication, while also allowing for gender to be experienced differently across relationships, given that it intersects with so many other aspects of a person (age, race, class, disability, etc.). Thus possibilities are opened up for all bodies to work in different ways that may benefit from self-exploration and education of the partner (e.g. Kaufman, Silverberg & Odette, 2003), rather than just female ones. The approach also opens up the possibility of aiming at mutual responsibility for communication, within an awareness of wider unequal dynamics which are in play and which constrain people.
As we saw in chapter 4, books such as Perel (2007) and de Botton (2012) also draw attention to the fact that increased intimacy and better sex certainly do not simply go hand in hand (as many of the articles on sex communication insist). Rather there are likely unresolvable tensions in play between emotional closeness and passion which require acknowledgement rather than avoidance. Such approaches recognize the very real potential dangers that people are facing with ‘open communication’ about sex which cannot be removed by simply insisting on honesty and admonishing people for ‘faking it’.
We will return to these themes of relational dynamics and their cultural situatedness in more depth towards the end of the next section. For now it is worth emphasizing that one key aspect of a more sex-critical approach to sex communication is that consent is often woven through it, rather than being excluded or separated out, as it is in much mainstream sex advice. Thus the issue with the Reddit story, which we explored early, would not be with the mode of communication (spreadsheets, emails, or Internet discussions) but rather with the non-consensual elements of monitoring somebody without their knowledge or publicly disclosing private conversations.
In sex-critical approaches, consent, and the avoidance of non-consensual sex, are regarded as key reasons to engage in sex communication whereas mainstream approaches only tend to put forward relationship maintenance, and occasionally avoidance of STIs, as reasons to communicate about sex.
For this part of the chapter we extended our analysis out from the sex advice books, newspaper problem pages, and websites analysed above to also include the following online elements: First, we analysed the ways in which consent was and was not dealt with on forty general sex advice websites (twenty of the most popular mainstream websites and forums for discussion of sex advice, and twenty more explicitly sex-critical sex advice websites). Secondly, given that consent was often only dealt with in the context of people wanting to bring BDSM (Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission and Sadomasochism) into their sex lives, we analysed the ways in which consent was dealt with on fifteen mainstream websites and forums which dealt with this issue in particular. Finally, we drew on a previous analysis (Barker, 2013a) of blog discussions of consent emerging specifically from within BDSM communities.
This section charts the different kinds of coverage of consent that we found across this media, from total absence of considerations of consent, or it only being deemed necessary for particular activities, through ‘no-means-no’ and ‘yes-means-yes’ versions of consent, to the more recent ‘consent culture’ movement which offers a more sex-critical understanding.
The most striking thing about consent within mainstream sex advice is its absence. Consent is hardly ever listed as an index term in mainstream sex advice books and the average proportion of the books devoted to the topic is close to zero percent.
As mentioned above, there is something deeply concerning about the fact that sex advice is so invested in justifying its existence but so seldom regards the alarming commonality of non-consensual sex as one of the reasons that sex advice and education might be necessary. Arguments cohere around relationship maintenance (chapter 4), pleasure (chapter 7), and health (chapter 6), but hardly ever the avoidance of being either a victim or a perpetrator of coercive sex/rape.
Relatedly there appears to be a disconnect between one of the staples of mainstream sex advice and the exclusion of matters of consent. We've seen throughout the book how much sex advice constructs gender differences in sex drive as a key reason for its existence, assuming that there is a natural gulf between men and women in sexual desire. For example, the Relate website (2013) states that ‘men and women are different… Generally speaking men have higher sex drives and enjoy more variety’. We are sceptical about this, but would note that if it were the case such an inequality in desire would mean that consent would be of vital importance to consider: How to ensure that any sex that did occur under those conditions was engaged with consensually for all concerned?
As mentioned above, sex advice aimed at men sometimes explicitly suggests coercive rather than consensual practices as a normative part of sex. This is particularly true for materials which draw on the Pick Up Artist (PUA), or seduction, communities. For example, both the ‘sex god method’ and Men's Health magazine websites promote ways of coercing people into sex. Men's Health (2014) draws on research which suggests that women will be more ‘compliant’ if men convey urgency in their requests and make it difficult for a woman to give ‘a genuine reason why she's resisting’. The Sex God Method blog suggests that men who have not picked up a women wait for the last call when ‘the drunker, lonelier, and hornier … women will be around’ (Lifeguard, 2006; see also O'Neill, 2014), suggesting that it is useful to explicitly seek out those who will struggle most to provide informed consent.
As mentioned in chapter 4, the only place where much mainstream sex advice mentions consent is in relation to ‘spicy sex’, usually kink or BDSM. Thus it is frequently left till very near the end of sex advice books, and only mentioned in problem-page answers relating to kinky practices. It is telling, for example, that the words ‘consent’ or ‘consensual’ was only found four times in the fifty newspaper problem pages we analysed. Three of those related to BDSM. Similarly, many of the mentions of consent that occurred in mainstream sex advice books happened in relation to BDSM. Thus consent becomes another way to delineate ‘normal’ from ‘abnormal’ sex. ‘Abnormal’ sex is positioned as potentially dangerous and thus requiring of consent practices in a way that other forms of sex are not. This reinforces the assumption that BDSM is more likely to be dangerous or abusive than other forms of sex, despite research evidence that this is not the case (see Langdridge & Barker, 2007). It also serves to further emphasize that considerations of consent and the possibility of coercion or abuse are unnecessary for other forms of sex because such considerations are relegated to practices in the ‘outer limits’ (Rubin, 1984). As Beres (2007) argues, this is the notion of ‘spontaneous consent’ where consent is used to distinguish different kinds of sex (good from bad, morally problematic from unproblematic, etc.).
When consent is dealt with in this kink context, within mainstream sex advice, it is also often covered very briefly, frequently only in terms of having a safeword to stop sex if necessary. This ‘no means no’ version of consent is what we explore next.
While much sex advice does not explicitly cover consent, there is a general sense that it signs up to the ‘no means no’ version of consent: in other words it is certainly not acceptable to force somebody to have sex against their will, and if somebody says ‘no’ to sex, or to a specific activity, this must be respected. For example, Gray (2003) insists that women must ‘feel safe to say no to sex’ (p. 125) and Godson (2002) emphasizes the importance of ‘feeling comfortable with what you have done and who you have done it with’ (p. 66).
However, the clarity of such requirements that everyone feels comfortable and is able to say ‘no’ is undermined by other messages; for example Gray's suggestion that women need to accept ‘occasional guilt-free quickies’ lying there ‘like a dead log’ in order to ensure their man's ‘lasting attraction and passion’ (pp. 80–1), or Godson's statement that women often suffer from something called ‘responsive desire … She doesn't actually become mentally aroused, or think that she wants to have sex, until her genitals are fully stimulated’ (p. 210).
Indeed, much mainstream sex advice goes as far as explicitly arguing that people (generally women) should engage in sex that they don't want to have. A number of popular sex advice books and websites promote a ‘just do it’ approach to sex whereby people (generally women) are encouraged to engage in sex when they aren't feeling sexual, when they don't really enjoy the activity, or even when they actively hate it. Perplexingly such advice does not see itself as promoting non-consensual activities.
For example, Mintz (2009) actively advises that her ‘tired woman’ readers have sex in order to increase their sexual desire and to bring an end to tensions in the relationship about the lack of sex. She suggests that scheduling sex once a week will decrease the sense of guilt for the rest of the week, whether or not people actually want sex at that time. Cox suggests that women should only refuse a sexual request if they ‘really object to it’, but under those circumstances they should ‘suggest something else you would be prepared to try rather than just say[ing] no’ (Cox, 2008). The Redbook online magazine goes further in response to a woman who ‘hates giving oral sex’. The response states: ‘to most men it is important … So if you care for your partner, I believe the question should not be whether you want to provide him with oral pleasure but, rather, how often!’ (Hutcherson, 2011). Such advice seems counter to the earlier consensus in sex communication guidance that people should never fake enjoyment or be dishonest. However, such contradictory advice supports the coherent ideology that people, particularly women, must both be sexual and demonstrate pleasure in it (see chapters 5 and 7).
In relation to those who want to initiate sex, or to bring in a new form of sexual activity, sex advice frequently strays into what sex blogger Maxine (2012) terms ‘Schrödinger-sex’. This is sex which operates under the assumption that anything is fine so long as the other person involved ends up enjoying it (see also Beres, 2007), or doesn't actively complain when the other person ‘just does’ something. As Maxine puts it, ‘you don't know until you open the box whether it contains an orgasm or a jail sentence’.
For example, both Kingsley (2011) and Corn (2013) reproduce the idea that every woman wants a man who ‘just takes her’ (Corn, 2013, p. 20), with Corn's suggested scenarios explicitly advising that they should be a surprise rather than involving any kind of prior consent. Kingsley (2011) suggests that the thirty seconds before the man's orgasm can be a good time for him to try out something new (hair pulling, ass smacking, breast grabbing, etc.) because ‘we [women] know you kind of lose it during that time’ and ‘she's going to let you do it in that moment if she has an ounce of love for you in her heart’ (pp. 42–3). As with Gray (2003) and Godson (2002) there are clear statements elsewhere in the book that men should not try to coerce partners into sex. Thus the reader may struggle to recognize that, in these examples, non-consensual practices are actively being encouraged (Potts, 2002).
While pressuring somebody into sex is generally advised against, this is frequently presented in terms of the problems it will cause for the initiator, rather than for the person who is pressured. For example, Stephenson Connolly (2014c) and Nolan (2014c) both emphasize that pressuring somebody into having sex may well result in them wanting to have sex with you even less, rather than acknowledging that such pressure is a non-consensual act or simply wrong.
In the light of this it is perhaps understandable why mainstream sex advice has picked up on safewords, and only safewords, as the element of BDSM consent to cover. Many of the books and articles which do mention BDSM do so briefly, just mentioning that doing it requires having a safeword which will indicate that somebody wants to stop (e.g. Page & Stanway, 2011; Berman, 2011; Keesling, 2011). Safewords fit into the ‘no means no’ understanding of consent, basically offering another means of saying ‘no’, and there seems to be a sense that having them in place will ensure that all sex that then occurs will be consensual. The sofeminine website exemplifies this in its advice about readers bringing BDSM play into their sex life: ‘If you're the one that fancies dominating, arranging yourself physically on top is a good start, followed by a “my turn to take the lead” remark or similar. A protestation at this stage means a discussion is necessary before you venture further’ (Sofeminine, 2014).
It is perhaps unsurprising that many of the materials following the Fifty shades of grey series of books take this form, given that the approach taken in these novels is ‘no means no’. Christian Grey only avoids practices that Ana(stasia) Steele has deemed ‘hard limits’ and will only stop what he is doing if she gives her safeword (James, 2012; see Barker, 2013a).
The ‘no means no’ approach to consent has been criticized by many sex advisors outside the mainstream. They point out that it relies on a problematic assumption that consent is present until somebody takes it away, as well as potentially resulting in rather mediocre sex on the basis of it being anything that people do not actively refuse, rather than things that they actually want to do. As Scarleteen (2014) put it: ‘The absence of a “no” doesn't mean “yes” ’ and ‘both people should be involved in the decision to have sex’.
Academic scholarship in this area has also criticized the ‘no means no’ approach to sexual consent, pointing out that people rarely use the word ‘no’ in everyday negotiations (for example, when refusing an invitation to a social event) or in sexual negotiations, rather they make other responses in order to sound less rejecting in adherence to cultural conversational conventions (e.g. ‘I'm afraid I'm busy tonight’, or ‘I'm having second thoughts’). However, people do generally clearly understand that responses other than the word ‘no’ do constitute a person refusing the invitation. For example Kitzinger & Frith (1999) and O'Byrne, Rapley & Hansen (2006) conducted conversational analytic studies on focus group discussions with young women, and young men, respectively, and found that both groups demonstrated implicit understandings of the normative interactional structure of refusal, without requiring the word ‘no’ to be used. Beres's (2010) research concurred, finding that people did clearly understand the everyday acceptance or rejection of sexual invitations, despite claims that ‘miscommunication’ occurs leading people (generally men) to have sex with people (generally women) who had attempted to refuse the invitation.
We can see a similar approach in feminist activist projects such as theclotheslineproject (2014), which provide lists of what phrases and situations can also mean ‘no’ (and should be taken as such):
‘NO’ means NO.
‘Not now’ means NO.
‘Maybe later’ means NO.
‘I have a boy/girlfriend’ means NO.
‘No thanks’ means NO.
‘You're not my type’ means NO.
‘*#∧+ off!’ means NO.
‘I'd rather be alone right now’ means NO.
‘Don't touch me’ means NO.
‘I really like you but …’ means NO.
‘Let's just go to sleep’ means NO.
‘I'm not sure’ means NO.
‘You've/I've been drinking’ means NO.
SILENCE means NO.
‘__________’ means NO.
It is also interesting, in relation to these ideas, to reflect back on the Reddit story where none of the ‘refusals’ on the spreadsheet actually involve saying ‘no’ but all of them were clearly understood as refusals by both protagonists and their wider audience.
‘Yes means yes’, ‘enthusiastic consent’ presents an alternative whereby all partners are responsible for ensuring that the other is ‘actively enjoying what's going down between the two (or more) of you’ (Friedman, 2011, p. 202). This sometimes goes further than ‘consent as agreement’ (Beres, 2007) where ‘any yes’ counts as consent (p. 97). As thedirtynormal (Beres, 2007) puts it ‘It's not just an active “Yes” – which is bare minimum consent – it's a “HOLY MOSES YES NOW PLEASE DO IT OH MY GOD THAT YEEEEEEEES!” ’.
Most discussion of enthusiastic consent recognizes that people often feel under pressure to have sex, and therefore it may not be easy for them to simply say ‘no’ if they don't want to. This is why the emphasis moves to prior negotiation, and ensuring an enthusiastic ‘yes’ as the ‘bare minimum’. For example, Brook's website (2014) for people under twenty-five lists reasons why people often feel like they ought to have sex when they don't really want to, including pressure from friends, drink and drugs, and fear of losing a girl/boyfriend. The BBC websites for young people (2017) adds the pressure that they might feel if they've had sex once, to have it again, and the desire not to appear a prude or juvenile for not wanting it.
It is interesting that the main group of websites, besides explicitly feminist and/or ‘alternative’ websites, to cover enthusiastic consent and the pressures which make this important are those aimed at young people. Perhaps due to the huge cultural anxieties around young people and sex (Riggs, 2010), there is far more awareness of the potential pressures on this age group, and the possibility that sex might be coercive.
However, when it comes to mainstream sex advice aimed at adults it becomes impossible to address consent in this kind of way because that would involve admitting the pressures which sex advice itself is implicated in: the imperative to have sex to retain a relationship, the male sexual drive discourse that men ‘need’ sex, and the requirement on people to ‘spice up’ their sex life (see chapter 4). Thus adults have to be regarded as completely rational and free individuals who, if they are having sex, would obviously be choosing to do so. It is as if people go through a sudden switch, at the age of 16 or 18, from being subject to all kinds of pressures which make it very hard for them to make decisions, to being almost completely free of any such constraints.
BDSM and Kink community writing has, perhaps, been at the forefront of providing specific suggestions for ways in which people might go about establishing enthusiastic consent. While the safewords, mentioned above, have generally been a staple of good practice within these communities, advice about these is often more sophisticated than the mainstream sex advice might suggest, and many additional practices are also suggested. So, for example, the common traffic light system of safewords (red means stop, amber means slow down, green means go) is often advised to be employed in an ongoing way throughout play rather than just as a means of ending the encounter (e.g. Taormino, 2012). Players are often advised to check in regularly where each other are at on the traffic lights, or a ten point scale, for example (e.g. Easton & Hardy, 2001; 2003). Thus, consent is regarded as a continual process rather than a one-off event.
In addition, much advice revolves around how to establish what people actively want to try prior to play, as well as where their limits lie. ‘Yes, no, maybe’ lists are lists of activities which players can share before an encounter, listing the activities they enthusiastically consent to, those that are off-limits, and anything in between. Negotiation is regarded as a vital part of all play, as is aftercare: the debriefing, reassurance, and communication that happens after a scene (e.g. Harrington & Williams, 2012). There is also acceptance that people will have different communicative needs in this respect. Thus there is more of a ‘communicative sexuality’ model of consent in play (Beres, 2007), whereby consent is an ongoing process rather than a one-off event, which operates on verbal and non-verbal levels.
Thus, an enthusiastic consent model generally regards a ‘yes’ as the minimum basis for sex to occur, it advocates awareness of the pressures people might feel around sex, and it sees consent as an ongoing negotiation or conversation. However, many – particularly in the online BDSM communities – have begun to argue that this is not enough, and that an ideal of enthusiastic consent may even function – in some cases – to obscure non-consensual and abusive practices. It is to this material that we now turn.
The consent culture movement emerged out of a series of blog posts, published in 2011, which called attention to the fact that, despite the models of consent mentioned above, abusive behaviour did occur within BDSM communities (Stryker, 2011a; Williams, 2011). In fact, the insistence that BDSM was always consensual and never abusive, within these communities, was part of what kept such abuse hidden when it happened. People were shouted down if they spoke out about abuse by other community members who did not want to see the common stereotypes of BDSM as abusive and dangerous being perpetuated (MacAulay Millar, 2012a, b and c). Such an approach often led to people simply leaving communities due to the level of victim-blame that they received, and to community members operating around people who were known to behave non-consensually such that those people become a ‘missing stair’ which everyone learns to navigate around rather than addressing (Pervocracy, 2012a).
The consent culture movement is a sex-critical approach which regards consent as operating within wider cultures rather than in isolation between freely choosing individuals (Barker, 2013a). Bloggers raise questions such as whether consent is possible in sex if people are engaging in non-consensual practices within the rest of their relationships, and how wider cultures can be cultivated which make consent more possible. Thus consent needs to be considered at both a micro and a macro level.
On a micro level, some bloggers point out the ways in which consent considerations, when they occur at all, tend to be restricted to the arena of sex. Just as sex advice books should be covering consent across all kinds of sex, rather than just in the ‘spicy sex’ section at the end, it could be argued that consent should be covered in relation to all aspects of the relationship and not just the sexual aspects. This is an issue that many commentators raised with the Fifty shades trilogy: that while it could be argued that the sex the characters had was relatively consensual, the rest of the relationship certainly was not. Christian did not respect Ana's requests for him not to buy her things, to come on holiday with her, or to interfere with her job (Barker, 2013a). Often mainstream sex advice mentions the issue of people (particularly women) being disinterested in sex when domestic chores have not been completed (e.g. Mintz, 2009). Perhaps this dynamic could be understood in terms of non-consensual relational practices outside of sex (taken-for-granted unequal division of labour), making it difficult to engage in consensual practices in a sexual context. Clearly this also relates to the findings of Kitzinger & Frith (1999) and O'Byrne, Rapley & Hansen (2006), mentioned above, who found that people tended to engage in sexual negotiations according to a similar set of implicit normative rules to those which govern everyday social negotiations.
Many BDSM bloggers point out the normalizing that occurs around forms of force, control, pressure, persuasion and manipulation in other aspects of relationships, for example Pervocracy (2012b) writes:
I think part of the reason we have trouble drawing the line ‘it's not okay to force someone into sexual activity’ is that in many ways, forcing people to do things is part of our culture in general. Cut that shit out of your life. If someone doesn't want to go to a party, try a new food, get up and dance, make small talk at the lunch table – that's their right. Stop the ‘aww c'mon’ and ‘just this once’ and the games where you playfully force someone to play along. Accept that no means no – all the time.
In addition to the question of whether people can behave consensually towards their partners when non-consensual everyday practices are so normalized, this also raises questions of how easy it is for somebody to engage in sex consensually when they are not used to treating themselves consensually. In a culture where people are encouraged to regard themselves critically, to compare themselves against others, and to force themselves to be ‘productive’ and to demonstrate ‘success’ (Chancer, 1992; Barker, 2013a), how possible might it be to leave such things at the bedroom door? We cannot step outside of culture (Barker & Gill, 2012).
Such considerations raise problems with the notion of enthusiastic consent which, like the ‘no means no’ versions, still relies on people knowing exactly what they desire and being able to openly communicate that to a partner or partners. Millbank (2012) points out that this is by no means straightforward in a culture where women, in particular, are encouraged to respond enthusiastically in all kinds of contexts when they might not really feel it. The onus on women throughout much sex advice is not only to have sex in order to maintain the relationship, but also to be the ones who are particularly responsible for gatekeeping around sex (see chapter 6), for maintaining sexual intimacy (see chapter 4) and for demonstrating that they are finding it pleasurable (see chapter 7). This means that they are not in a good position to be able to say either ‘no’ or ‘yes’ to themselves or to another person.
These bloggers put forward a Foucauldian understanding of freedom in which people have options to act within a field of power, but the extent of their possibilities is constrained. Consent is possible, but neoliberal understandings of consent are called into question (Bauer, 2014). As Millbank (2012) describes it this is: ‘a non-binary way of thinking about consent … which takes into account the ubiquitous nature of pressure on consent, but which explicitly acknowledges that women are intelligent, sensible actors who make decisions in their own interest’.
Moving beyond the individual, suggestions are made for how more consensual cultures might be cultivated, at both a micro and macro level. Examples include everyday micro-consent practices such as always asking somebody before touching them in any way, and recognizing the cultural, aged, gendered and raced entitlements that often go with the touching somebody without permission (Bauer, 2014). Some suggest producing erotica and pornography which include consent negotiation in an ongoing way (Pervocracy, 2012a & b). People are encouraged to actively and constructively call out non-consensual behaviour when they see it in others, to educate others about wider rape culture (victim blame, sexual double standards, the treatment of women's bodies, and the like), and to reflect – openly – on the times when they themselves have behaved non-consensually (Stryker, 2012).
In sexual situations between individuals, Millbank (2012) proposes that there is always an awareness of the intersecting power dynamics which are in play, and their potential impact:
we must consider how much freedom a sex partner has to execute on the responsibilities we've assigned them, and consider our own responsibilities to offset the pressure we are able to place on consent through the systems of domination in which we participate in a dominant position over our sex partner. If we want to create a situation where a ‘yes’ is most likely to mean ‘yes’, we must work, first to understand and then to defuse, the potential consequences of a ‘no’.
There is also recognition that consent can easily become increasingly constrained in the context of relationships where people feel uncomfortable saying ‘no’ to something they've said ‘yes’ to in the past, or when they feel pressure to keep having sex, or to keep introducing new sexual activities, as recommended by much sex advice.
Another of the concerns raised about the relationship depicted in Fifty shades of grey is the fact that Christian makes Ana sign a contract to keep all aspects of their sexual life secret. It is often assumed that love relationships should be private and that sex lives, in particular, should not be spoken about outside the relationship. However, there is an argument that more openness and transparency, rather than treating sexual relationships as special in this way, could aid ongoing consent. This is an interesting point to reflect upon in relation to the Reddit story which began this chapter, where private sexual communication was made public, but in a non-consensual manner. What might consensual openness about relationships with others look like?
Throughout the chapter we have highlighted the fact that communication and consent are generally treated separately in sex advice. There is much sex advice which fails to include either topic, but even that which does cover sex communication rarely cites consent as an important reason for engaging in sex communication, nor does it suggest that consent might be one of the main topics to communicate about. Certainly, apart from the case of a small amount of feminist, queer, and kink community online materials, there is a distinct lack of recognition of the necessity of conditions of consent in order that the kind of open communication about sex which many sex advisors advocate can occur.
As we have seen throughout, the current cultural conditions mean that sex communication is often occurring under situations of pressure and unequal power dynamics. Sex advice has a major role in perpetuating and reproducing, rather than ameliorating, this with the common idea that (regular) sex (of specific kinds) is essential in relationships and should occur even when people are not feeling sexual. The idea that sex communication is just a matter of saying what you want, or even of tuning into your body and then saying what you want, fails to take account of the wider cultural and relational dynamics in which sex and other forms of verbal and non-verbal interaction take place.
Returning to the Reddit story, the issue of discrepancies in sexual desire is a very real one for many people. However sex advice, with its frequent assumption that such discrepancies are abnormal or dysfunctional, and the strict limitations it places around how people might approach such discrepancies (see chapter 4), may often be regarded as counterproductive. In the same way that we suggested, in chapter 4, that diversity could be a useful foundation and touchstone for sex-critical sex advice, here we would see consent as another such foundation/touchstone, which we would like to see woven through all sex advice, rather than being excluded or added on as an afterthought. Consent and communication should both be regarded as ongoing, relational negotiation in which the conditions under which people can be open, and can invite, accept and refuse sex, are co-created by all concerned. Attendance to communication and consent in the wider relationship, as well as in sex, should be encouraged, as it is important for people to consider how they communicate, and how they ensure consent in daily life, in order for these matters to be brought to bear on sexual situations. It is important also to recognize the intersecting social power dynamics under which all relationships operate as well as the wider non-consensual cultures in which people function, in order that people can maximize the possibility of open communication and consensual sex and relationships.
It is notable, through our analysis in this chapter, that shifting technologies have influenced the kinds of conversations which are possible about sex communication and sexual consent. We have certainly seen a shift from most sex advice taking the form of an expert and/or celebrity writing a book or presenting a television programme, towards a much more peer-to-peer based form of advice, which takes the form of an ongoing conversation rather than a one-off static product. This was the form of advice that the wife in the Reddit story elicited on online forums, it is also the context in which the consent cultures community developed, and in which their understandings of consent have proliferated within, and beyond, online kink communities.
It is not the case that one technology, or mode of advice, has replaced another, but rather that many different modes now exist simultaneously, and feed into one another. So, for example, we see young sex advisors like Laci Green (2014) producing extremely popular vlogs, but also becoming perceived as a sexpert and celebrity in her own right. However, as they are active on twitter, tumblr, and other online forums they may be more likely than others to respond to criticisms of their work in an ongoing manner (see Trimmier, 2012). As Muise (2011) points out, blogs also provide opportunities for individuals and groups to challenge dominant understandings of sexual desire, and to provide alternative forms of sex advice, perhaps in parallel, or in direct response to, mainstream sex advice. This can be seen, for example, in blogs and bog posts which deliberately post the sex tips from women's magazines in order to ridicule them (e.g. Reininga, 2012; cosmosextips, 2014) or in blogs where authors offer readers critical take-downs of books like Fifty shades of grey (Pervocracy, 2013) as a way of providing entertainment and sex advice, notably around consent. In addition to blogs, forums seem to open up the potential for a much more collaborative kind of resistance, for example to rape myths and to some of the dominant narratives of sex advice. Even a relatively conservative forum, like mumsnet (2014), shows instances of collaborative resistance to non-consensual sex, and certainly forums like everyday sexism (2014) and vaginapagina (2014) allow different (sub)cultural norms around consent and communication to develop and filter out more widely.
We will explore, in more detail, the sex-critical possibilities of different media, in the concluding chapter to this book, as well as turning to what the sex advisors themselves have to say about the opportunities and limitations that they face when developing more sex-critical forms of advice.