More Than Mere Consent: Why we're still having bad sex and how to fix it.

Washington Post columnist Christine Emba's book Rethinking Sex: A Provocation is a critique of our sex-positive culture. In it, she argues that today's young people emphasize consent while failing to consider the ethical and emotional 'rightness' of the act, resulting in bad sex.

Old taboos that people should refuse to have sex if they're 'moral' have now been replaced with a new taboo that they should openly embrace any opportunity to have sex if they're 'liberated.' Emba says this leads to sex that feels lacking and disconnected.

She isn't advocating for going back to a time when the wills of women were ignored, LGBT+ people were excluded from sexual mores, and abstinence until marriage reigned. Rethinking Sex is meant to be a step forward. Consent is key, but it shouldn't be the only consideration.

She heartily believes in consent--but it should serve as a baseline. It's the floor of what we should expect or consider prior to getting intimate. It forms a distinct, measurable rule for whether something is legal--but not whether it's 'right.'

Consent is a selfish metric by itself. Once we're assured the other person wants the encounter to happen, we move on to satisfying our own desires. A moral and ethical lens, she says, would lead to better, more gratifying encounters. But who determines what's ethical?

A lot of religions have strictures around sex. That's fine for those adherents. But Emba looks for a rubric of what good sex looks like most broadly. Even if someone isn't religious, what bar do they set for whether they're ready to be intimate with someone?

What we owe each other is her proposal. We should actively care about what good sex looks like for the other person--what we owe them--and aim to to fulfill that. If we can't figure it out, we simply aren't close enough to the person emotionally. We should abstain until we do.

People are still going to have bad sex. They'll misjudge what they think they know about the other person. But she believes if people wait until they at least think they know what the other person wants, needs, and expects--the odds of being satisfied are more in their favor.

Rethinking Sex is a call to start with consent and continue on the path until you understand the deeper needs of the other person. That journey may take you a couple dates or a year--but in taking that journey, you have a shot at more affirming, lasting connections.