Sex under pressure

       In Scott Anderson’s paper: “Sex Under Pressure: Jerks, Boorish Behavior and Gender” Hierarchy we are faced with coming to a conclusion as to if it is acceptable for a man to use psychological pressure to pressure a woman into having sex with him. Through this we are given two points of view that of Scott Anderson’s and an opposing viewpoint from Sarah Conly. Scott Anderson seems to be more on the page that if she is being pressured into having intercourse then is she truly consenting to having sex, or is that a type of non-consent? With Anderson, it is crucial to understand that he is not saying that the pressure is wrong but rather the context. We live in a society which places women as subordinate as men and primarily as sexual objects so therefore consent under these conditions has lesser value. In the words of Anderson, “Seducers intentionally use these pressure techniques precisely because they tend to induce people to acquiesce to the wishes of seducers, even though doing so is against what the seduced person (at least initially) regarded as her best interests. (p. 352)” With this, we see that the seducer truly has his best interest in mind, and is disregarding her feelings and therefore continues with what is best for himself instead of taking into consideration what the girl would like. Conly’s view on the other hand, focuses more on a coercive threat and that threat leaves her with no other choice and has no way to avoid the situation. The threatener also might propose a sanction if the girl does not have sex with him such as being fired from her job or even failing a class. To fully understand Conly’s approach we need to be able to break away pressure from coercion as they can not be used interchangeably in her definition. As long as the pressuring does not lead to coercion then according to Conly then it is acceptable. We can not undermine the validity of a woman consent even in the face of pressure. 

When taking in my own ideas I would like to say that I agree with Anderson, however, I question the practicality of his view. While I would like to say that yes that if a woman is pressured into having sex then it is non-consensual but if you take into consideration lets just say your average couple we run into problems. In every relationship I am sure that there is a time in which one partner is wanting to have sex but the other one is not really feeling it, so they are like “well it wont take long” or “you will enjoy it once we start” and they just say yes even though they do not want it. So would that be considered non-consensual since she felt pressured into saying yes? According to Anderson it would be and I find this very problematic. I feel that by going with Anderson’s definition, more people are going to be guilty of rape than we would like to see considering some people just say yes to stop hearing the nagging.