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Male Desire, Consent, and the Impasses of Sexual Liberation

Furthermore, to make a woman responsible for a man’s suicide just because she didn’t gratify his (illicit) desire for sex, while simultaneously blaming her if she were to gratify it, attributes to women (at least those who are considered “attractive”) an extraordinary power, which reduces men to helpless puppets. Why isn’t the sixteen-year-old boy blamed for not being able to resist his desire? The true patriarchal moment of this horrible story resides also in the fact that the woman’s sexual desire is never mentioned. To be direct, what if she also desired an adventure with the young boy, but was prohibited from doing it because of her fidelity to her husband? Many praise her for this fidelity, but did the same hold for her husband? Her sister emphasizes that she did nothing, but what if she were to do something in accordance with her desire about which we know nothing? To put it in vulgar terms, she was beaten and raped because she refused to cheat on her husband. Ironically, she was held responsible for NOT consenting to extramarital harassment. This perverted reversal is the hidden truth of patriarchal ethics. Are we not now at the opposite end of the conflict around AOC’s boyfriend’s naked leg in Florida? Does AOC’s trip to Florida not appear to be a trifling minor affair compared to what happened in New Delhi? Yes, but there is something that unites the two cases: Upon closer look, they both challenge the obvious account that offers itself. Cortes’s critique of AOC as well as her reaction brings out not only the hidden male-chauvinist logic of the new Right, but also the inconsistencies of the liberal-Leftist approach to sexuality. The scandalous affair in India is not just the outcome of “primitive” patriarchal traditionalism: It could only have happened in today’s mixture of traditionalism and modernity. Only within such a mixture can a woman be perceived as endowed with extraordinary powers rendering a man her helpless victim, and at the same time as deprived of her own desire. The conclusion to be drawn is thus that while patriarchy and other forms of oppression of women (even in the guise of false “permissiveness”) should be ruthlessly examined and punished, sexuality remains a big mess. It relies on rules and their codified violations, so it is impossible to fully regulate; we have to learn to live with its crazy paradoxes. We cannot ever be sure of the consequences of our interventions (as well-meant as they are). In January 2022, the Royal Opera House in London announced that it was “consulting with Ita O’Brien—an intimacy coordinator who ensures actors feel comfortable during such scenes—for Katie Mitchell’s new production of Theodora … ‘There’s consent each and every day. You might agree one day that you’re very happy to kiss lip to lip, and then you develop a cold sore, so it’s not suitable anymore. So you explore what the moment is about, different ways to tell the same story,’ she said.”104 While one should support the fight against any form of harassment, there are some details in this announcement that make me feel very uncomfortable. First, why, again, the (implicit) reduction of women to victims of harassment? Second, while obviously there are scenes in which playing a victim of rape or violence could traumatize the actor, how could one enact on screen or stage a brutal scene without feeling uncomfortable? Third, the example mentioned (“you might agree one day that you’re very happy to kiss lip to lip, and then you develop a cold sore, so it’s not suitable anymore”) is ridiculously obvious and has nothing to do with harassment. Instead, it casts a strange light on the entire argument by putting a cold sore in the same series with, say, touching a breast of an actress. Fourth, the very term “intimacy coordinator” sounds (and is) ominous. At the end of this road lurks the question that even when a couple is alone and intimate, but not sure about how to interact, should they hire an intimacy coordinator? What sustains the need for such coordinators is a desperate attempt to control and regulate sexuality. Christiane Alberti characterizes the #MeToo censorship of language as a stance directed against phallic virility, but does the phallus (in the Lacanian sense) really stand for virility?105 The target of many #MeToo interventions is the inconsistent chaos of language games invented by sexual and power relations. In short, the #MeToo movement’s control is an attempt to purify language by way of using the utmost “masculine” procedure of totalizing control and regulation. We get here a nice example of how the very critique of the masculine phallic universe proceeds in a phallic way. So let me conclude with a lighter example, a misunderstanding that happened to a philosopher friend of mine. One of his female students said to him jokingly after a lecture, “If you explain all this to me in private, you can have sex with me!” He took a restrained stance and explained things to her, but with no sex, claiming that doing it to get sex as a payment would amount to sexual exploitation. Later, however, he learned from her friends that, far from being impressed by his honesty, she was furious at him—she really wanted sex, and she just playfully mentioned the price he would have to pay to avoid the vulgarity of directly asking for sex. So, again, what if women are not just victims of male predators but are also able to subtly provoke them? And why shouldn’t they do this? Why should they just be passive receivers who consent or not?

练习题

According to the passage, what is the patriarchal contradiction in blaming a woman for a man's suicide after she refuses his sexual demand?

A. It treats the man as fully responsible while treating the woman as morally irrelevant.

B. It attributes extraordinary power to the woman while erasing her own desire.

C. It argues that both the man and woman acted from equal sexual freedom.

D. It claims that women are always physically stronger than men.

Which statement best captures the passage's conclusion about attempts to regulate sexuality?

A. Sexuality can be completely regulated if all consent rules are made explicit.

B. Sexuality should be ignored because interventions never matter.

C. Sexuality involves paradoxes, rules, and violations, so its regulation has uncertain consequences.

D. Sexuality is only a problem in traditional societies and disappears in modern ones.

Why does the author compare the AOC controversy and the New Delhi violence, despite their very different severity?

A. Both cases are presented as equally violent events.

B. Both cases reveal that sexual scandals can challenge the obvious explanation offered at first glance.

C. Both cases prove that modern liberalism has eliminated patriarchy.

D. Both cases show that traditionalism alone explains all sexual conflict.

Which claims are made or directly implied by the passage about the New Delhi case? Select all that apply.

A. The woman was treated as responsible for not consenting to extramarital harassment.

B. The woman's own sexual desire is absent from the dominant account.

C. The passage treats the event as a simple product of only primitive traditionalism.

D. The case is used to show how patriarchal ethics can reverse guilt onto the woman.

E. The passage connects the case to a global south example discussed earlier.

Which ideas are part of the author's critique of reducing women to passive victims? Select all that apply.

A. Anti-harassment discourse can implicitly reduce women to victims.

B. Women may have sexual agency, including the capacity for subtle provocation.

C. The patriarchal mixture can portray women as powerful over men while denying their own desire.

D. The author claims women never participate in sexual dynamics.

E. The author questions why women should only be passive receivers who consent or refuse.

The passage argues that the New Delhi affair can be explained only as a relic of primitive patriarchal traditionalism, without reference to modernity.

The Royal Opera House example presents intimacy coordination as involving ongoing consent, including the possibility that what was acceptable one day may not be suitable another day.

In the passage, the author's criticism of #MeToo-style language control is that it may try to purify chaotic sexual and power relations through totalizing regulation.

The passage says the modern patriarchal mixture can portray a woman as extraordinarily powerful over a man while simultaneously depriving her of her own ___.

Explain why the author supports fighting harassment but remains skeptical of fully regulating sexuality through procedures such as intimacy coordination or language control.

Which interpretation best integrates the earlier critique that consent can reinforce passive roles for women with the current claim that patriarchal narratives erase women’s sexual desire?

A. Both critiques argue that women should be understood only as victims who either accept or reject male desire.

B. Both critiques challenge frameworks in which male desire is active while women appear only as passive responders whose own desire is ignored.

C. Both critiques claim that consent is unnecessary because sexual relations should never be regulated.

D. Both critiques argue that women’s desire is always identical to men’s desire.

Which statements correctly connect the New Delhi case discussed earlier with the current section’s analysis of patriarchal blame and modern patriarchy?

A. The victim was punished despite refusing advances, which connects to the current claim that women can be blamed for refusing illicit consent.

B. The earlier description of collective violence helps show why the current section treats the case as more than a private romantic tragedy.

C. The current section argues that the case resulted only from ancient traditionalism, with no relation to modern social contradictions.

D. The current section reads the woman as both excessively powerful over male desire and deprived of her own desire.

E. The earlier account proves that consent always prevents exploitation.

True or false: The current criticism of intimacy coordination as an attempt to regulate sexuality is conceptually related to the earlier claim that sex must be confronted beyond the parameters of consent, because both suggest that consent-based procedures may not fully capture the complexity of sexuality.

The current section’s claim that sexuality is impossible to fully regulate develops the earlier idea that desire is shaped by social norms and expectations: because desire is socially mediated and contradictory, interventions into sexuality have ___ consequences.

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