In the years following the MeToo movement, there have been great strides in our collective societal understanding of what consent should look like. It is now included in our sex education curriculums – the importance of gaining consent, the need for it to be enthusiastic and informed. It is now the norm that there should be no ambiguity about if your sexual partner said “yes”. But is this enough? Is one little word really enough to rely on? And are we considering all the work that we are expecting one question to do?

In her book ÔÇÿTomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again’ Katherine Angel discusses the limitations of the consent conversation, and the culture and rhetoric surrounding it. The emphasis on the question “Do you want to have sex?” disregards the fact that desire is not fixed, and neither is self-knowledge. Asking the question towards the beginning of a sexual encounter has its pitfalls, because it can allow us to assume that the “yes” you may have received means more than it does. In reality, just like when answering any other question about your wants and desires, you can only give an accurate answer for the precise moment you are in. You can’t know if in 5 or 15 minutes you will feel the same. And yet the rhetoric around consent largely encourages the idea that once you have obtained consent, it needs no further consideration. 

So is there a different question that we should be asking? In my own sexual experiences, I was amazed and somewhat speechless when a new partner asked me why. Why did I want to have sex? Particularly after having experiences of coercive and abusive sex, this question was, and still is, incredibly important and eye opening to me. When we ask “why?” we encourage so much more discussion than a binary yes or no answer. And I think that the motivations behind our decisions and desires can offer a stark insight as to whether we are truly giving enthusiastic and informed consent.┬á

Perhaps you say “yes”, but then on consideration of why, you find that you are making that decision out of a place of fear of the consequences of saying no. Or out of a sense of obligation. Or because you feel the need to apologise for something. Or because you’re looking for validation. You may never even have considered these reasons for yourself, let alone thought of discussing them with a prospective sexual partner, if your only options were “yes” or “no”.┬á

Turning to consider sexual pleasure and fulfilment, understanding motivations and goals are vital. No two sexual encounters will be the same, and so it’s all important to understand what each party is looking to get out of it. Maybe you’re hoping to feel connected to your partner, aiming to de-stress after a long day or just want to feel good. In all of these scenarios, this knowledge might change the way that you interact with a partner, as well as what ÔÇÿgood’ sex looks like. If you don’t know what you’re aiming for, how can you possibly expect to achieve it?┬á