ABSTRACT
The negotiation of sexual consent is intimately connected to the negotiation of sexual activity overall. In fact, consent can be viewed as one aspect of sexual negotiations, whether purposeful or unconscious. Indications are that most of us do not verbally communicate our wants, needs, desires or our consent to engage in sexual activity to our partners. Why? There are many reasons. We live in a culture that has an ambivalent attitude toward sexuality. Sexuality has overtones of shame and guilt attached to it. This has generally been the legacy of a traditional religious orthodoxy that viewed sex as ‘sinful’ if performed outside of marriage or for reasons other than procreation (Davidson, Darling and Norton, 1995; Reiss, 1990; Tannahill, 1980). We certainly have more sex flashing across our television screens and in our magazines, but the sensationalistic nature of media images of sex tells us little about how to negotiate our daily sex lives with partners whose
reactions actually matter to us. This is what Claude Guldner (2001), sex therapist and professor emeritus, talks about in his sexuality therapy training workshops when he discusses society’s sophistication and ignorance with sex. In one sense, we are sexually sophisticated because of the abundance of sexuality related images, language, and ideas in the mass media. Unfortunately, our sexual ignorance with respect to sexuality is still quite evident because the ‘apparent’ openness about sex in our society is filled with half-truths and tends to perpetuate many myths, genderrole stereotypes, and sexual double-standards of a bygone era (Reinisch, 1990; Tiefer, 1994). The music videos of today’s female pop artists, like Britney Spears for example, and the sexual content of television shows like Temptation Island contain the same tired portrayals of women and men of 60 years ago. Women are Barbie dolls whose primary purpose is the sexual pleasure of men. The perpetuation of a belief in the unequal sexual power of women and men hinders the ability of either to effectively communicate sexual intentions to a partner.
