Having Sex Like a Porn Star

I read with great amusement the article "Dinner, Movie, and a Dirty Sanchez" on the GQ web site.

While the author is quite clever, and the article quite entertaining, there is an underbelly to the conversation that is quite distressing.

No, it's not that men have been raised on internet porn. Nor is it that so many have had so many expectations not just about sex, but also about eroticism and intimacy, informed by internet porn.

It's that there's a complete lack of communication around sexual desire, and the notion of consent is completely absent.

If the lover (and, in this context, I use the term quite loosely) in question had simply asked "Do you like it when..." rather than simply stating, "Where do you want this?," an entirely different paradigm would have been set into motion.

Communication is sexy. Knowing what your lover enjoys, what they want and what they hunger for, is so much more stimulating than "Where do you want this?"

"Where do you want this" implies that I am the only one of any concern or of any importance in this exchange. That you're really not worthy of the more important question, "Do you want this?"

And with the question framed so very differently — asking "Do you want this?" rather than "Where do you want this?" — we enter the realm of consent. In other words, "Do you want this?" "Do you like this?" "Would you like to do this," and more specifically, "Would you like to do this with me?"

The problem isn't the desire in question. The problem is being unwilling — or unable — to communicate that desire, to confirm enthusiastic consent (as opposed to implied consent) to engaging in that desire, and to graciously accept someone's lack of desire for engaging in said behavior when consent isn't forthcoming.

I hope Robbie learns how to better communicate his desire, to seek enthusiastic consent for the acts in which he wishes to engage, and to refrain if consent isn't granted.

And I hope, too, that the author finds the words she needs (if she hasn't already), in the moment when confronted with an act in which she doesn't wish to participate, to decline, however indelicate the offer.

Because it's not just communication that is sexy. Consent is sexy, too.