ABSTRACT
The principle of consent reflects the ideal that people should have sex only if they want to. However, while much consent research and activism do not problematize the distinction between wanted and unwanted sex, what people want is not always clear even to themselves. This chapter deepens the analysis of the complex ontology of wanting, based on interview accounts that in various ways problematize the idea of wanting as something unambiguous and self-evident. Experiences of wanting to want, of not knowing what one wants, of having no will, and of having one's will trumped by desperate desire are analysed, and the gendered patterning of such experiences are discussed. The chapter also problematizes the voluntariness/coercion binary by highlighting that coercive factors are not only external but that inner forms of compulsion may also stand in the way of sexual voluntariness.
