emma ’s Reviews > Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent > Status Update

- In the first few pages, emphasized the contemporary pressure on women to tell their stories in the wake of #MeToo. While the elevation of women’s speech has been politically powerful, it risks turning disclosure into a feminist obligation, where silence becomes suspect and speech is framed as moral duty rather than choice.
- This pressure is closely tied to consent culture, which urges women not only to articulate boundaries but also to clearly express desire—what they want and how they want it (implicit here is the assumption that women know their desires and can communicate them confidently —> STICK WITH ME)
- As SUCH, women’s speech is thus made to bear an excessive burden: ensuring pleasure, improving sexual relations, and even resolving sexual violence.
- “In urging women to be clear and confident about expressing their sexual desire (‘it’s our duty to ourselves!’) consent culture - like confidence feminism - risks denying wishfully the fact that women are often punished for the very sexual assertive positions they are being urged to embody”
- Which is especially pronounced for Black women in particular, racialized sexual stereotypes produce a condition in which desire is always already presumed: a “no” is less likely to be heard, while a “yes” merely confirms what is assumed.
- In these contexts, women’s speech about desire loses its meaning. If a refusal is not recognized, consent cannot be real. Demanding clear expressions of desire only fails those whose words are routinely ignored.