Picking up from yesterday –
Now let’s talk coerced sex.
Yesterday, we said “bad sex” falls on a spectrum from good to bad (but it’s all consensual). Then, there’s the separate consent spectrum.
They’re not the same. You can have sex that’s a total, solid 100 on the consent spectrum – so enthusiastic. You’re both (or however many people) are stoked, and it can be a 0 on the “good/bad” sex scale. It can be so enthusiastic and yet so freaking awkward.
So, they’re not the same.
And, you may be wondering why a consent scale has a 1 – 100, when it pretty much should be “yes or no,” and if you’re wondering that, I hear you, and think your point has some merit. But also, as with most things in life, there’s just so much freaking nuance.
One of the things my friend and I talked about is how wide of an area we feel coerced sex can cover.
He put it like this – if the consent spectrum goes from 0 – 100, and 100 is enthusiastic, happy consent (which should be the goal), and 0 is rape – and I know this part gets murky, because this stuff isn’t so clinical/able to necessarily be totally quantified in pure numbers (and things affect people in different ways, and I don’t want to get into games of what’s “not as bad”)… So, I don’t know if this is the most perfect system, but it’s the best way I have in this moment to try to explain my point…
Anyway, if we think of this as sort of the “behavior scale,” and 100 is the gold standard, and anything below 70 is reeeeally starting to become questionable, and anything below 50 is becoming potentially criminal, my friend and I were saying coerced sex could potentially run the gamut from about 30 to 80 (ish).
Some people take a hard line that if you’re being coerced, you can’t truly consent of your own accord, so all coerced sex is assault… And I won’t directly argue with that camp, because I see the merit in various ways of making that argument, and how it becomes especially important in certain circumstances. But I also don’t think I (usually) take quite such a hard line.
[I do believe that some coercive sex can fall into the land of assault, depending on the specific details of that situation, but there is some coercive sex I would not personally label as assault (though I don’t wish to label other people’s experiences).]
I think there’s a lot at play in coercive sex.
I guess the easiest way to do this is to start with a story I have about coercive sex. (If you’re not interested in reading a sex story from me and want to skip it, feel free (of course) to skip to part 4!
Otherwise, hope to see you tomorrow!
[And/or for more on the sexual assault series, you can go here.]