The latest and most energetic addition to this genre is Sex Beyond Yes: Pleasure and Agency for Everyone (Norton) by Quill Kukla, professor of philosophy and disability studies at Georgetown University. Part guide, part manifesto, Sex Beyond Yes is full of practical ideas about how we can turn consensual sex into “good sex”—how we can learn not just to accept and reject, but also to invite, warn, ask, and command. Kukla, who is non-binary and has both an academic and personal interest in kink, sometimes writes with a certain condescension towards vanilla heterosexual couples who “have never been forced to think reflectively about their sexual practices and desires, may not have had the opportunity to develop these skills.” But their book touches on topics that will interest a wide audience, such as how to ethically have sex with a partner with dementia, or the liberating power of teaching children to set physical boundaries using safe words.
The doll complains that we talk too little about how to have good sex and too much about how to avoid bad sex. They sharply criticize the counterproductiveness of initiatives such as Take Back the Night, which, by suggesting that women are at high risk from strangers on the street, can increase their dependence on partners and acquaintances who commit more than ninety percent of rapes. They argue that the mainstream (and sometimes feminist) idea that men's bodies are gross and dangerous is actually a form of rape culture because it perpetuates the idea of sex as something that men should get from women. The Book of Dolls could end with the idea that rapists are simply people who have not yet had the opportunity to develop the “sophisticated skills” of good sex. It's not as Pollyannaish as it sounds: a 2000 Department of Justice report found that the most common age for sexual assault offenders was fourteen. And anyone who wants to advocate for better sex must assume that boys and men are capable of change.
When it comes to sex education, Sex Beyond Yes is clear and simple; in a better world this would be taught in high schools. But sex education, as Kukla admits, isn't everything: “The best communicators in the world cannot have strong sexual activity in a country with the most restrictive and punitive sexual norms or laws, or when they are locked in a brightly lit room in an institution such as a prison or hospital where privacy is not assured.” Sexual “agency,” Doll's favorite term, is different from sexual consent in much the same way that a walkable neighborhood is different from a gated community. If consent is our right to briefly release other people from the obligation not to touch us, then free will is our right to live in conditions in which we are free to follow our desires. The doll calls these conditions the “scaffolding” of good sex.
For example, a sorority sister will have better scaffolding if she has a place to dance, get drunk, and kiss strangers, rather than a house entirely run by men who have sworn allegiance to each other and who are themselves no strangers to sexual hazing. It will be better for the adopted child if he has his own bedroom with a lockable door. Birth control and PREPARATION can be the basis for better sex, as can financial independence. Doll mentions “24-hour public transportation” that allows people to “have the confidence that they can leave safely and easily whenever they want.” When I read this I thought of Jon Rideout attacking Sheila Moxley after he had too much to drink to ride his bike home. If there had been a bus stop outside, would Moxley have been more confident in driving out of Rideout, locking the doors, and sleeping peacefully through the night?
There is something unsatisfactory in my question, almost blaming the victim. After all, Rideout didn't rape Moxley because he didn't want to pay for the taxi; he raped her because he didn't see her as a complete person. Doll, who is certainly aware of such cases, nevertheless avoids gendered analysis of sex to focus on the material realities that contribute to bad sex. Ultimately, scaffolding looks less like reparations and more like a universal basic income.
Either way, money is money, and we might wonder what Greta Hibbard's life might have been like if she had been given a slightly bigger check from a sex agency. Pregnant at nineteen, she initially rejected Rideout's marriage proposal because she considered him “irresponsible.” After months of trying to raise the child alone on Social Security benefits, she changed her mind and accepted Rideout, who has since joined the Army. Even after Hibbard told her parents that Rideout began kicking and punching her, her father told her it was her responsibility to save the marriage and her mother refused to help pay for the divorce. Hibbard may or may not have been surrounded by monsters. But she definitely lived inside the monstrous architecture. ♦
