Isabella Corredor
Professor Richardson
PHI/WGS 297
Blog Post #5
Scott Anderson’s paper focuses on the question of whether it is ethically and morally okay for a man to use psychological pressure towards a woman with the intention of trying to overcome her hesitation/resistance to engage in sexual activity. I personally lean more towards the side saying it’s not okay but I certainly see both sides. I think Anderson brings up an important question and one that is extremely prevalent in college culture; If a woman is pressured into saying yes is she really consenting? This would depend a lot on how you define the word “consent”. Is consent simply saying yes or is it saying yes with no outside forces acting upon you or influencing your decision to say yes? It’s a general consensus that when coercion or force is involved it’s not okay; But when there is a little pressure involved it gets complicated. I would define it as there being a difference between active consent and passive consent. To me, active consent would be a woman being enthusiastic and excited about what she’s about to do and she definitely wants to engage in said sexual activity. However, passive consent, which is something I think many women are familiar with, would be when a woman says yes to having sex but isn’t really sure why she said yes. I know I’ve had a lot of personal experience with this; One my friends will have just hooked up with some guy or they’re telling me a story of them getting with a guy and I’ll ask if they’re happy about it and the response is “ehh” or that it was “okay” or “fine”. And then I’ll ask why they did it and the response is sort of reluctant. Either it “just sort of happened” or they’re don’t know why or because it was simply “easier in the moment to just go with it”. This to me is a problem because it begs the obvious question why are women passively having sex? Why wouldn’t she just say no? For this reason I agree with Anderson that we can’t just concern ourselves with whether a woman consents or not, we must also ask why she consents and focus on the mental states of these women. Anderson makes the claim that gender hierarchy empowers men in their stereotypical role as a seducer and, at the same time, weakens women in their stereotypical role as a target of seduction. So maybe the reason women are passively saying yes has to do with a subconscious fear of what will happen if she says no. Or maybe it has to do with a woman feeling inferior to the man, and that if he wants it that means she should too. Whichever the reason, I think it’s concerning and important to consider why women are participating in sexual activities without a true reason.
While I do find this to be a concerning issue, I also find it confusing to define what kind of pressuring is okay and what isn’t in regards to sexual activity. I agree that sex should be an enjoyable and fun activity for both people involved and ideally shouldn’t be filled with confusion or doubt. But at the same time does that make all pressuring not okay? A man or a woman could not be in the mood and then be persuaded to be by the other partner and then change their mind and decide to engage in sex, is that not okay? What about a married couple and the wife has sex with her husband because he wanted and she wasn’t necessarily so excited about it but she did it anyway because she loves him. Is that not okay? I think to say all pressuring in regards to sex is morally not okay sounds good at first, but is slightly impractical in reality. I definitely see cases, such as the ones previously described, where one could say pressuring is okay. However, at the same time, I do find it very troubling that people are having sex and not sure why the did it.
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