Consent Was Never Enough

A generation of Americans have tried a new form of sexual morality and haven’t just found it wanting—they’ve found it profoundly harmful.

Last month The Washington Post ran one of the most powerful and important essays I’ve read in a long time. Christine Emba wrote a blistering critique of modern sexual morality built almost entirely around consent—the idea that all things are permissible so long as consenting adults enthusiastically participate.

The essay begins with the story of “Rachel,” a young woman whom Emba spoke to over a cup of coffee in D.C.:

Rachel (a pseudonym) reeled off a list of unhappy encounters with would-be romantic partners: sex consented to out of a misguided sense of politeness, extreme acts requested and occasionally allowed, degrading insults as things unfolded—and regrets later. “It’s not like I was being forced into anything or that I feel unsafe, but it’s not … good. And I don’t like how I feel afterwards.”

Emba continued:

Young Americans are engaging in sexual encounters they don’t really want for reasons they don’t fully agree with. It’s a depressing state of affairs—turbocharged by pornography, which has mainstreamed ever more extreme sexual acts, and the proliferation of dating apps, which can make it seem as though new options are around every corner.

As I read Emba’s essay, I immediately remembered a previous piece by Michelle Goldberg, in The New York Times. She described how “sex-positive feminism is falling out of fashion,” and she began like this:

In her new book, “The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century,” the philosopher Amia Srinivasan, who is quickly becoming one of the most high-profile feminist thinkers in the English-speaking world, describes teaching Oxford students about second-wave anti-porn activism. She assumes her students, for whom porn is ubiquitous, will “find the anti-porn position prudish and passé.” They do not. Rather, they’re in complete agreement with assertions that could come straight from Andrea Dworkin.

“Could it be that pornography doesn’t merely depict the subordination of women, but actually makes it real? I asked. Yes, they said,” writes Srinivasan. She continues, “Does porn bear responsibility for the objectification of women, for the marginalization of women, for sexual violence against women? Yes, they said, yes to all of it.” (Emphasis added).

Reading both Emba and Goldberg (and Helen Lewis in The Atlantic), it’s increasingly apparent to me that we’re approaching a critical cultural moment—a deep questioning of contemporary sexual morality that’s arising not just from traditionalist religious spaces that have always questioned the sexual revolution, but also from the heart of feminism and mainstream cultural commentary.

At the core of this cultural moment is the realization that one of the more popular moral trends of the last 60 years, the notion that sex can be both casual and recreational so long as both parties enthusiastically consent, is fundamentally at odds with our human nature and our profound moral needs.

In reality, the profound intimacy of this ultimate human connection can rarely (if ever) be truly held at an emotional arm’s length; a culture that views enthusiastic consent as not simply necessary (of course it’s necessary), but an entirely sufficient marker of healthy sexuality, is ultimately going to become profoundly damaging. In other words, the presence of consent should start the sexual moral analysis. It should not finish it. Here’s Emba again:

Even when it goes well, sex is complicated. It involves our bodies, minds and emotions, our connections to each other and our deepest selves. Despite the (many, and popular) arguments that it’s only a physical act, it is clear to almost anyone who has had it that sex has vast consequences, some of which can last long after an encounter ends. Over the past several decades, our society has come to believe that consent—as a legal standard and a moral requirement—could somehow make our most unruly activity more manageable. But it was never going to be that easy.

Indeed it wasn’t. In fact, one consequence of the combination of ubiquity of porn and the proliferation of consent culture was the almost total sexualization of American life. The “simple” morality of consent introduced new complexities (and perils) into even the most mundane of human interactions. If “consent” is the only touchstone of sexual morality, then virtually every single human space could become sexualized.

Does that include the workplace? Or business meetings? Absolutely—so long as there’s consent. Should you pursue the married person you just met? Of course—so long as there’s consent.

In reality, however, “consent” isn’t so neat and clean. Consent comes in many forms, not all of them positive. For example, both Emba and Goldberg speak of consent that’s really nothing more than acquiescence, a kind of yielding to cultural (or personal) expectations and demands that leave one or both parties feeling degraded and unfulfilled.

In addition, even when people don’t consent to sexual propositions, it puts (mainly) women in the position of having to fend off sexual requests or sexual suggestions in spaces where they are not welcome and not wanted. After all, how does one obtain consent except through an ask? And if consent is the only touchstone, when is the ask itself immoral?

I’ll put my cards on the table. I’m an Evangelical Christian. I hold to the traditional Christian belief that sex should be reserved for marriage, and for marriage alone. That is not some sort of religious formula for sexual fulfillment, but rather an act of joyful obedience within a holistic understanding of God’s created order, including the very purpose of sex itself.

I do not ask that people who don’t share my faith comply with its moral commands. But I do think it is fair to ask our culture to at least consider the wisdom contained not just in my faith tradition, but also in a number of faith traditions across the globe that place comparable constraints on individual sexual liberty.

In her essay, Emba doesn’t call for the formal rules of traditional faith, but she does ask our culture—religious and secular—to consider a sexual ethic based on love:

I asked many of these people what a better sexual world might look like. “Listening,” I heard. “Care,” they said. “Mutual responsibility,” some suggested. Or, as one woman plaintively put it: “Can we not just love each other for a single day?”

That question points to what looks to me like a good answer. The word “love” tends to conjure ideas of flowers, chocolate, declarations of undying devotion. But the term has a longer, more helpful history. Thomas Aquinas, the 13th-century philosopher and theologian, defined love as “willing the good of the other.” He borrowed that definition from Aristotle, who talked about love as an intention to bear goodwill toward another for the sake of that person and not oneself.

There’s profound virtue in Emba’s suggestion, for reasons that reach beyond the emotional needs of the people who have sex. Intercourse is very often potentially procreative, even when both parties use contraceptives. And if new life emerges, it should enter the world with parents bonded by love. If one should will the good of the other, “the good” applies not just to their partner but to the child they create.

Christine Emba, Michelle Goldberg, and many others are giving voice to deep pain. A generation of Americans have tried a new form of sexual morality and haven’t just found it wanting; they’ve found it profoundly harmful. The next generation should heed their words and choose a different course. Consent was never enough. Sex without love is a danger to human hearts.