Consent, Bad Sex and Vulnerability with Katherine Angel | Transcript
CW: Sexual assault, sexual violence, and a short discussion about the murder of Sarah Everard
Find the episode shownotes here!
Katherine Angel
You know, consent can't solve all these many, many problems around sex. You know, the fact that so many women experience pain during sex, so many women encounter sexual violence, so many women experienced sex just as kind of bad, as unpleasant, as humiliating, as unpleasurable. You know, the bar is really low in terms of what women expect from sex.
Hannah Witton
Welcome to Doing It with me, Hannah Witton, where we talk all things sex, relationships, dating, and our bodies. Hello, welcome back to Doing It, the show where we explore the weird and wonderful world of sexuality and relationships. I'm your host, and resident sex nerd and enthusiast, Hannah Witton. And in a non pandemic world, I am that person at the party, who you get in a deep conversation with about your sex life, even though we only just met. That's a new intro. How was it? I'm testing out new things. I'm experimenting. But this week, I am thrilled to be bringing you this episode with writer and author Katherine Angel. She has written many books, Daddy Issues, Unmastered: A Book on Desire, Most Difficult to Tell, and her most recent book, which we dive into the themes of in this episode, is Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again: Women and Desire in the Age of Consent.
Before we get into the discussion, in this episode, we talk about sexual assault, sexual violence, and there is a short discussion about the murder of Sara Everard. So please take care of yourself if you need to.
So we cover a lot in this episode, but first, I'll say I really loved Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again. It packs a lot into a very short and digestible book. You may have listened to other podcast episodes, or seen some of my YouTube videos explaining things like sexual arousal, sexual desire, the model of responsive desire, and this book for me has given me lots of new things to think about when it comes to these experiences. We talk about what Katherine calls consent culture, the pressure we put on women to know what we want sexually as a way of protecting ourselves from sexual violence, why bad sex happens, a quick foray into our thoughts on pickup artists, the social and political landscape of sex, and the V word that we are all so frightened off. That's right: vulnerability. Oh, boy.
This was such a fascinating conversation with Katherine. I love getting into the murky, more nuanced discussions about sex and society, where we are constantly straddling between pessimistic despair and hopeful optimism. It's my favourite place to be. As usual, you can find more info and links to everything we've talked about in this episode in the shownotes over at doingitpodcast.co.uk. And please let us know what you think over on our Twitter or Instagram, which is @doingitpodcast. And if you want to support the podcast, you can do so on my Patreon which is patreon.com/hannahwitton, where you can get early and ad free episodes of Doing It and you can join a community of fellow curious sex nerds. Thank you so much for listening. And without further ado, here is the wonderful Katherine Angel.
Katherine, thank you so much for joining me. I just finished your book yesterday and so I - it's like all in my brain. And I'm so excited to dive into it. I guess like the first thing I want to know, because reading it, it was kind of like one of the only places I've come across some of these more like nuanced approaches to things I think about all the time, like consent and desire. And so, but why did you write this book? And I know that's such a like, standard question to ask an author. But like, I actually want to know.
Katherine Angel
It's funny, I was actually thinking about this the other day, I was thinking about being asked this question. And you know, when you do quite a few events and conversations, you end up saying the same thing. And I was actually thinking I haven't, I haven't really thought about the kind of truthful answer to this in a way which -
Hannah Witton
You have your kind of stock answer.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, you have, your kind of, you know, the thing you can say quickly, but I think partly the reason I wrote this book is because I just feel constantly preoccupied by a kind of mismatch between how we talk about sexuality, and especially women's sexuality in the kind of public realm and what it feels like to me. And I don't mean like what female sexuality feels like to me, because I think, you know, there isn't really any such thing as female sexuality, but what the experience is of trying to, trying to navigate this really complex social world and, you know, all these conversations about Me Too, for instance, and harassment and consent. It feels to me - you know, I'm 44 now, and I feel like, you know, for the past 25 years I've been feeling that there's, there's something really complicated that is really difficult, it seems, for us to explore in the public realm, which is this kind of ambivalence, that, you know, a lot of the public kind of discourse is trying to encourage women to be certain ways around sex and, you know, to kind of overcome the difficulties of misogyny and sexism and sexual violence. And quite, you know, quite rightly, those are really important things that we need to talk with women about continually what, you know, whatever age women are, but that sometimes the language that those sort of solutions get cast in feels to me just as kind of alienating.
And I feel like, you know, women have to navigate this really difficult situation, which is that there is sexual violence, and there is risk. And there's a lot of fear, and legitimate fear about sexuality. So how do we do that without kind of sacrificing our own capacity for enjoyment, and without making ourselves responsible for the violence that is out there? So, you know, the kind of personal answer to that question is, like, I still feel constantly preoccupied by this, like by wanting to explore sexual desire, but also feeling that it's a, it's a terrain of real difficulty. And, you know, the kind of immediate spur to writing the book was the whole Me Too phenomenon and how interesting and kind of fraught that was. So that was the kind of the final, the final straw that made me write this all down.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Like, I need to get this stuff down. Yeah. I think - because that really speaks to me because, like, as a sex educator, and like knowing other sex educators, we really want things to be simple, because that makes it easier to teach other people like this is right, this is wrong. This is how bodies function. This is what, you know, being a sexual human being is, right, and this is what it isn't. And then also, I guess, in like activism spaces of, like, this is consent, this isn't consent. Like, we really want it to be simple. And we really want it to be black and white, so that it can, like help us understand and make sense of these things. And like, one of the things I definitely got out of your book was just like, that actually, like, it is really complicated but trying not to feel like it's something to be fixed. I think there's also like, a huge thing of like, trying to fix women's sexuality as well, like, I just see that left, right, and centre as well. It's a lot.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, and I think, you know, that is a real, it's a real dilemma in a way because, you know, for sort of strategic purposes, in kind of, you know, the public realm, sometimes it is really important to, to talk in really stark terms about, you know, what's right, and what's wrong, and, you know, what's consent and what isn't, and, and some of those stark terms are completely right, you know, there's completely correct, like, you know, consent is absolutely vital, it's the bare minimum for sex, it's, you know, there are really clear distinctions between assault and consensual sex. You know, but also kind of strategically, sometimes it's important to, to not draw out some of the subtlety and complexity, and I completely understand that, there's a, you know, from a kind of educational point of view. But it is really complicated, because I think that sometimes in the name of that, of that, sort of, you know, educational kind of quest, sometimes some of the rhetoric around consent in particular almost tries to keep at bay some of that more nuanced, complicated terrain, precisely because it is really difficult to talk about and, you know, it's like the tension between wanting to be really clear, so that, you know, people don't behave really badly on the one hand, or wanting to actually kind of raise the bar a bit. And say, well, are we able collectively to sit down and talk about what's more murky and more kind of uncertain and unclear when it comes to sexuality? And I - it is such a dilemma. And it's one that I feel all the time, you know, also, because some of the some of the kind of arguments that get made in favour of, you know, making the conversation more complex and more nuanced are really awful, like some of those arguments are done in the service of saying, like, "Oh, it's very complicated, and there's gray areas and Me Too, has gone too far, and, you know, oh, consent."
Hannah Witton
"What, I can't just flirt with somebody anymore?" Like -
Katherine Angel
Yeah, exactly, you know, those kind of quite reactionary responses to what is a really important legitimate kind of social movement around consent, and, you know, how men act towards women, etc. So it's, it's treading, you know, a really fine line. And I, and one of the things I was trying to do in the book is to say, is almost to, like, reclaim that, that language of complexity, but but for, for us, like for, for women, who are actually individually having to go out into the world, and explore sexuality in a context of pervasive sexual violence, and pervasive fear about sexual violence and say, "Well, how are the kind of concepts and the languages that we're using - how are they helping me? And if they're not helping me, if they're, you know, placing the burden on individual women to be really clear communicators, so that they don't encounter sexual assault, or if they're placing the burden on women to know their sexuality inside out so that they can be really clear, then actually, what does that mean? Does that mean that individual women have to be a certain way and fulfil a certain kind of ideal in order to be safe from violence?" And that's what really worries me, because, you know, as I've said, like, consent is absolutely vital. And it's vital that we, you know, consistently educate all of us about consent. But if those notions of consent and some of the language around that ends up placing the burden on us to manage the risk of sexual violence, then I start to think, well, whose benefit is this this for? Because actually, I'm not sure it's for me. I'm not sure it's for women.
Hannah Witton
One of the things that makes me think about as well is that if you put this expectation on women to know what you want, know what you don't want and like, be able to communicate that effectively with a sexual partner. And like you said, that is managing risk. But then it kind of is assuming that confident women who maybe do know what they want and are able to communicate it, it kind of is assuming that they can't experience sexual violence as well. Which, obviously, like it could happen to to anyone.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, it makes women responsible for what happens to them. And that, and that's what's really troubling to me, because, you know, every single woman should be able to move about the world without fearing sexual violence and without encountering it, like whether she's sexually confident or not, whether she knows what she wants or not, whether she's very experienced or inexperienced sexually. We should not have to encounter the risks that we do. And, you know, again, like strategically, of course we find ways to manage risk, you know, we all do it all the time, you know, "Text me when you get home, Oh, don't walk home, no, get a cab, I'll pay for a cab for you." You know, all that kind of stuff we do to manage the risk, of course we have to manage risk, like we're alive, we're human, that's what we have to do. But what I'm really wary of is when that risk kind of management gets - like starts to infiltrate our notions of sexuality itself, and our notions of what counts as like actual, you know, activism, because, yes, pragmatically, we have to be realistic, we have to manage risk. But risk management is really a way of placing the burden on individual people to kind of fail or succeed. And it doesn't allow us to think about relationships of power and kind of structural, you know, systemic problems of inequality and power dynamics. And also, it's a form of insurance. And it does function as a form of insurance in the minds of some men, you know, who think about consent as something that they have to acquire. And then once they've acquired it, they're fine. And if a woman has expressed her sexual desire clearly, you know, the paradox is that that's sort of what sometimes women get encouraged to do is to be really clear - that that clarity is exactly what gets used against women in rape trials, it literally gets read out back to them as evidence against them and as evidence that exonerates a man.
So you know, and obviously, loads of really great consent education and sex education is really clear about this, that, you know, consent is ongoing sexual desires can change, you know, you don't just say to them, did you want to have sex and then that's the end the conversation, you know, people know that it's much more complicated than this. But I find it really striking how often you see formulations, about, you know, building a kind of better sexual world that really do address women and say, you know, "It's our duty to be really sexually assertive and sexually confident." But we know that that's exactly what comes back and, you know, bites us in, in the kind of public realm of accusation and slut shaming, you know, and, and of rape trials, so, so why are we doing that? Why are we placing this kind of hope, on self knowledge and on clarity, because actually, it doesn't really help us. And also, yeah, any, you know, if you if you're uncertain about what you want, if you're frightened, sexually, you still have the right to pleasure, and you still have the right not to be sexually assaulted.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, and also sometimes it makes you feel that, like, you aren't allowed to have sex, or if you're not sure what you want. Because often, a lot of the figuring out what you like, is probably through a sexual experience for a lot of people and kind of navigating it as you go. And one of the things that you said in the book, as well was about how - because you've written about like your own experiences of sexuality in the past, as well. And about how just always having it in the back of your mind, knowing that having that out there and being someone who, like publicly writes about sex could potentially be used against you in the future. And seeing that written out. I was just like, "Yeah, I think about this all the time as well." Like somebody could use my podcast, somebody could use my YouTube channel to be like, "She was asking for it. Look, look at her, look what she puts out on the internet." And that, yeah, that really, like, hit me when you when I read that I was like, oof, yeah.
Katherine Angel
Yeah. And it's this constant kind of forensic and sort of criminal approach that we take, you know, even unconsciously, like that, that is how we think about female sexuality, where we're always kind of thinking, "Oh, has that woman put herself in danger? Actually, you know, was a man justified in thinking that she was up for it?" And I think that that thread goes so deep in us, you know, that, that actually, we're doing that all the time, even if we're trying really hard not to, because we know it's really, really dodgy. But it's it's so much part of our thinking about sexuality, this kind of, you know, the courtroom, the courtroom in our heads. And I think it makes it, it makes it really difficult for women to sort of show solidarity to one another. And, you know, we even saw it like with the Sarah Everard murder. And, you know, obviously, it was horrendous and, and really moving a lot of what happened in the wake of that and people's protests, and horrendous the way the police, you know, swooped in and kind of manhandled women peacefully protesting and all of this. But some of the language around that even was really strange, because people were saying, "She did everything, right. You know, she, she was doing exactly what she should have done in order to keep ourselves safe." You know, she - I can't remember what it was people saying, you know, "She called her boyfriend to tell her she was on her way home," and this sort of thing. And so, so what about the woman who didn't do everything right? You know, what happens if a woman is, is drunk and doesn't know where she's going, and she's walking home from the pub, and she's wearing high heels, she is also entitled to be safe. And it's really hard somehow, for us to remember that, you know, even with the best will in the world, I think we do divide women into kind of good and bad victims and and I really want to kind of think that through and see how, you know, our concepts in all our language, we are still kind of placing the burden on women to keep sexual violence at bay or not. And, you know, it's utopian to say like we should, we should live in a world where we can be drunk and passed out and not be assaulted. But I genuinely think that we should live in a world where you'd be able to be passed out on the street and not be assaulted. And I don't actually think that's too much to ask.
Hannah Witton
That coming out of your mouth there, like, to me doesn't sound ridiculous. I'm like, obviously.
Katherine Angel
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
But you're right. It does, it feels like far fetched, in other ways.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, it's very far from where we are.
Hannah Witton
One thing that you talk about a lot in the book is consent culture. Would you mind explaining what consent culture is?
Katherine Angel
Yeah, so in the book, I sort of define that as the idea that consent is the place where we can resolve the ills of our sexual culture. So, you know, I'm trying to draw a distinction between like, consent itself, and the kind of rhetoric around it. So, you know, the laws, we have to get the laws around consent right, and we have to apply them in the right way. And I believe that, you know, broadly speaking, affirmative models of consent are good, you know, that you should be interested in what the other person wants, and, and that, you know, that we should make it acceptable for people to say what it is that they want without stigma or repercussion, and that that actually does help to define, you know, assault from from consent. But the kind of the consent culture that I'm talking about in the book is the way in which we actually lean, I think too much on this legal notion of consent, to try to make sex good, you know, to make sex better, more, more equal, more pleasurable, less, you know, less kind of pushy and coercive and unpleasant as it is for a lot of women. And I'm trying to kind of almost turn away from those legal questions and that legal vocabulary and say that, you know, consent can't solve all these many, many problems around sex, you know, the fact that so many women experience pain during sex. And so many women encounter sexual violence. So many women experience sex just as kind of bad, as unpleasant, as humiliating, as unpleasurable. You know, the bar is really low in terms of what's -
Hannah Witton
Yeah, it's like consent is the bare minimum? Yeah. And then, in order to kind of like have good, fulfilling, pleasurable, enjoyable sex, there's a whole host of things that we need to get right and do.
Katherine Angel
And they're really, they're really huge, you know, political and social problems. They're, they're things to do with, you know, what, what men and women are taught to expect from sex. You know, how men and women are taught differently about what they're entitled to about pleasure, you know, is sex going to be pleasurable? Can they - can they say what they want, you know, I am in favour of people being able to say what they want, and explore what they want, you know, who has the right to do that, who gets punished for doing that. But also, of course, you know, really, really deep kind of social problems to do with, you know, dynamics of power and inequality in society, you know. If you're financially dependent on an abusive partner, who hits you, or who controls your finances, or who controls your movement in the world, then, you know, even if that partner is not technically raping you, or you know, having non consensual sex with you, you may be having really bad sex that you've agreed to, that you've consented to but because you don't feel you have any other choice. Because that man doesn't allow you to explore your own sexuality, doesn't allow you to say no, or to say yes, you know, questions of racial inequality ,of the way in which we perceive the sexuality of women of colour, you know, the kind of historical legacy. All those kind of relationships with power and society, they're hugely important.
And, you know, one of the kind of critiques that's come out of Me Too, and that's also been made in relation to consent and to - especially in America, like, you know, campus sexual culture, is that, you know, these kind of social movements, they they conflate assault with bad sex. And what I'm saying is slightly different and I'm saying that, that yes, it is important to distinguish between assault and bad sex, but not then so that we can just say, "Oh, you know, everyone has bad sex. And you know, when you're young, and you're drunk, and you're at college, and you don't know what you're doing, it's just, you know, it's part of the ups and downs of life." No. No, actually, because really what happens is that women have bad sex. You know, women, women are the ones who come out of those experiences, feeling confused, feeling disrespected, feeling in pain, feeling humiliated. And they don't have the language to articulate that. And sometimes they articulate that perhaps in terms of assault when perhaps it isn't strictly speaking assault. But that doesn't mean they should be dismissed, it means that we should really think about, what are the conditions that are making sex really miserable for a lot of women? And why are we so quick to dismiss that bad sex? You know, it's like this huge round of experience for women. And it is, it is just as important as assault.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, and I think the kind of notion that bad sex is a like social and political issue, rather than it being an individual issue makes me think about just how much we do treat it like an individual issue. When we think about like, how to give a good blowjob or like the, like, preoccupation with function and performance when it comes to sex. Where it really is individualized, it's about like, am I good in bad? Were they good in bed? When, yeah, maybe it's got actually a lot more to do with their gender, their race, their upbringing, their education, their access to information, like all of that kind of stuff.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, what have they been taught? Have they had sex education at school? Probably not. Or if they did, what was it like? I mean there was a really interesting piece in the telegraph recently about sex education at school, and I suppose, you know, running up to the fact that it's going to be compulsory, as of next year, and there are lots of conversations happening about what form that should take. But um, it was really, it was really interesting, what the young people that they interviewed were saying about the ways in which they felt failed by sex education and school. And for the women, it was so much about just their pleasure not being addressed, or, or how to navigate their absolutely legitimate desire to have sexual experience with the fact that, you know, there's revenge porn and that there's, you know, loads of pressure from the boys to, for them to, you know, do everything all at once, etc. And, and it really kind of drove home to me again, this feeling I have that, you know, you have constantly you have generations of women who growing up, not being told that they have a right to pleasure being told that actually, if they are interested in pleasure and sexual desire, they're putting themselves at risk. They're being told that, "Oh, you know, boys will be boys, you've got to watch out. Boys, you know, boys, yeah, they're inevitably just going - they're after one thing, and you have to watch out, you know, men are dangerous." So it's this realm of discussion, which is all about managing this kind of totally naturalized risk of violence. And then, you know, somehow when they're, when they turn 18, or, you know, when they're, when they're consenting adults, and they're at university, and they go out into the big bad world, they're supposed to be full of confidence. And self-knowledge. I mean, it's a recipe for complete madness. And I think, I mean, I think women are literally driven mad by this. Because, you know, first of all, you're inculcated in shame. And also, you're just really not taught enough about how sex works, about how your own pleasure might work, let alone function, you know, but just sensation and experience and what might feel exciting. And then, and then suddenly, you have to be all knowing, and all in control. I mean.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, there's like, none of that foundation. Just being completely failed by institutions and society. And then on top of that, like you said, like, you reach adulthood and suddenly you're expected to kind of embody this, like, girl boss feminism when it comes to your own sexuality. It's just like -
Katherine Angel
And you have to be confident and you have to know the right sex toys to buy. It's very - it's also very kind of consumerist. Isn't it? It's very kind of, you know, you become a good sexual kind of subject by buying the right stuff and, and, you know, grooming yourself in the right way and, like, interacting with your body in this right way. And that to me is the least of it.
Hannah Witton
And there's not the same energy spent on men as well. Which frustrates me to no end. Because when I think about like, I mean, obviously, I'm part of like the people putting information and stuff out there for women to access about sex and about sexuality. But there really is like in the last five years like, oof, so so so much more has been coming out. And when I think about what's available for men on, like, a big scale in the same way that like sex positivity has, has, like you said been commercialized. And like, pickup artists is like, one of the only things I can really think of where it's like commercial, it, you know, is a, it makes a lot of money. And it's like selling men improving their sex lives. Yeah. But that's, that's the only one I could really think of.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, and, you know, it's really important to say that, like, men are failed by this to. They're catastrophically failed by sex education and by the culture that we live in, because I think that men are not taught to - they're not taught to be interested and curious in the other person's pleasure. But I also think they're not really taught to be interested in their own pleasure. You know, the way men are kind of socialized is, is so much about performance. And it is so much about, you know, like, the competition and the kind of race to, you know, to be really kind of sexually, you know, prolific and sort of confident, and all that, and, and I think there's so much that gets obscured within them, you know, in terms of, even just in terms of their own bodily pleasure, you know, what, what they might find exciting, that isn't just, you know, like, a very kind of mechanical sort of you do this, then you do this, and then and then, you know, and then you penetrate, and then you ejaculate kind of thing. Like there's, I think there's a lot that is under explored for men, because it is so stigmatized, and it's partly to do with whether men are allowed to be kind of exploratory and slow, or whether they're allowed also to be vulnerable, to acknowledge their own vulnerability, because men are also vulnerable, physically and psychologically in sex, you know, partly, because the stakes are really high for men, you know, they will be humiliated if they're not, if they don't fulfil a certain masculine ideal. And, you know, this is, I mean, I'm talking largely about heterosexual men here, but I, but I think, you know, there's, it's by no means exclusive to straight men either. But I think they are being failed. You know, they're also being felt because they're not being encouraged to have, like, enriching social exchange with women. And the pickup artistry stuff, and I talked about that, in the book, to some extent, is so interesting, partly because it seems to pose a solution to men who feel disempowered in sex, you know, they feel they're not successful, they're not getting laid. And then they take these crazy, wildly expensive courses with -
Hannah Witton
So expensive!
Katherine Angel
- charlatans, you know, who are like high on this kind of ridiculous sort of evolutionary psychology model of how human interactions work. And in a way it's solution, because it works, right? It does - it does increase their rates of sexual success. But, you know, this wonderful book by Rachel O'Neill that I talk about in my book, she did all these in depth interviews with these pickup artists and men who had taken these courses. And it was - I found it so moving and like troubling to read because there was such an undercurrent of kind of melancholy and weariness in them, because you know, it was this ever-chasing the kind of ever-receding horizon of success.
Hannah Witton
I mean, it's successful if you quantify success as like frequency or number of sexual partners, but it tells us nothing about the quality of the sex or the quality of the connection and the relationship. But yeah, oh, I've so many thoughts about pickup artists.
Katherine Angel
Oh yeah, do say.
Hannah Witton
It like just fascinates me, and terrifies me at the same time. I think like you said because it does work as well, because what a lot of them are doing is just like playing psychological tricks, which would work on any human really. And so I don't deny its effectiveness. But I also am just like - what I think a lot of the men who are drawn to it are searching for ultimately they will not find through what your pickup artists can give them.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, and it becomes another kind of stick to beat oneself with, another - I mean, it's really interesting the way a lot of is infused with kind of notions of work, you know, that this is a way to become successful and to like, get to another level and to get promoted. And you know, it's -
Hannah Witton
It gamifies it.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, it's so kind of capitalist and so kind of performative in its conception of human life and no wonder some of the men are made miserable by it, or, you know, surprise, surprise, their problems aren't miraculous solved by it because, you know, it's not necessarily fulfilling human exchange. And it's also not necessarily pleasurable. And I really think that's something that we don't think about enough, maybe, is like, these models of sexuality that are very gendered. You know, men's sexuality should be like this. And women's sexuality should be like that. Are they actually conducive to pleasure? I'm not, I'm just not sure that they are for anyone.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Pleasure should be the should be the goal.
Hannah Witton
So to switch gears a bit, one of the things that you talk a lot about in the book is desire. And this is something that we've covered on this podcast before, and I've spoken about in YouTube videos as well. And it's something that when I first learned about it, I was like, oh, my goodness, a lot is like clicking, this is actually really helpful, a lot of stuff is falling into place for, like, my own experiences with sex and sexuality. And that is responsive desire. And then you come along and flip it on its head. Just like, you and Foucault, I swear, you and Foucault just like always just loving to disrupt all of my ideas about sexuality. But I'd love for you to kind of explain a bit about kind of like, what we might need to be wary about when we're having conversations about responsive desire.
Katherine Angel
Sure, yeah. So shall I, shall I kind of quickly explain the the notion of responsive design? Yeah, so this is research that I was looking at that, over the last 20 years, psychologists working on sexuality, started to propose this model whereby it isn't the case in women, particularly, that you just have like kind of spontaneous sexual desire as this kind of force that just emerges within you and that then leads to arousal and then, you know, all things being well leads to orgasm. And so Rosemary Basson in particular, this Canadian psychologist, she's argued that for women, it's a much more circular model, whereby women are less likely to just kind of spontaneously want sex and fantasize about it. A fact which has often meant that they're categorized as being sexually dysfunctional as having like, sexual desire disorders, because they don't fit this model that she argues is actually very oriented towards men. And she says that for women, women can often be in what she calls a kind of state of neutrality, about sex, like, for all kinds of reasons, sometimes because you know, for very complex social reasons, like they're juggling a lot, they're doing the double shift, they're working full time, and they're doing most of the childcare and the housework. Or, you know, they they have unsatisfying kind of relationships with their partners, or you know, all kinds of things. So they might not be like, overflowing with sexual desire all the time. But in the right conditions, their design might emerge, and it will emerge from arousal. So if they're with a partner, and their partner is kind of, you know, wants to have sex, and if the woman is kind of, you know, maybe -
Hannah Witton
"Ehh?"
Katherine Angel
- not against it, but like, "Yeah, okay, maybe," then her arousal can build and then her desire will build. And as you say, it's a model, that's really, it's really interesting, because I think empirically, it shines with a lot of women's experience, that their desire can be slow to emerge but it can arrive and, and then it can really like, you know, build, but the conditions, the conditions have to be right. And it's really useful as a model, because I think it does do something really important about, you know, questioning this kind of really linear mechanical model that sort of assumes that, you know, that nothing interferes with your desire. And one of the ways I think about it is that if it is kind of empirically true that men and women experience desire in these different ways that might be very much to do with the fact that they live in very different social worlds around sex. Right?
Hannah Witton
Yeah. Because one of the things I wanted to ask was like, do you think we would all experience desire in the kind of like spontaneous desire way where you just kind of like get - you're like, "Oh, I want sex now." Would we all experience design that way if it weren't for sexism, racism - if it weren't for, like, our social and political climate where we're constantly having to check ourselves?
Katherine Angel
Sort of, but in a way I would flip the formulation and I would say that all all sexuality is responsive to context. Men's sexuality is as well. It's just that - it's just that we don't see that context, because we take it as kind of natural. We naturalize it. So, you know, I'm arguing that for women, you know, we live in this world where on the one hand, we're told, like, we have to be up for sex all the time, we have to, you know - to be good sex positive women, we, you know, we have to be really confident, and we have to know, our desire, and it's part of a healthy life, you know? You've got to want sex! But, you know, we're constantly punished for that at the same time. And, you know, we're made to feel that we're never, we're never good enough. We're never attractive enough, we're never slim enough, you know, all these things, like, in addition to the sexual violence, the harassment, the being groped, being catcalled when you're out running all of that stuff, right? For men, you know, men experience sexual violence, let's not forget that. And of course, you know, depending on your kind of, on your sexuality, and on your gender presentation, men experience a lot of that gendered violence as well, you know, if they're, if they're too effeminate, if you know, all of that stuff. But heterosexual men in particular, and white men in particular, I think move through the world, with their desires reflected back at them all the time. Like that their desire is elicited by the media they consume by, you know, TV programmes, by all the language we use. Their desire is invited, and then it's affirmed. And it's celebrated. That is not the case for women.
Hannah Witton
So if desire emerges - yeah, if so desire emerges in the right context, than the world we live in, is the right context for a straight cis white man's desire to emerge.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's, and I think it's really interesting to formulate it in that way. Because, because it helps us to think that, you know, you know, maybe there may be differences, broadly speaking, between men and women and their sexuality. And, you know, I mean, I don't think the research is conclusive at all or persuasive at all on things like, you know, testosterone makes you horny, it's, it's far more complicated than that. But if there are broad differences between the way men and women experience sexual desire, that may be because the conditions are so vastly different and men's desire is responding to the world in which they live. And so, so I think, you know, it's, it's such an interesting kind of fraught model, because I think it can allow us to think about this the way in which desire is invited and affirmed by the context that we live in. But some of the ways in which that desire, that model gets talked about, unfortunately, ratifies and kind of biologizes almost that difference and says, "Oh, you know, males, men's desire is just like, very animal and libidinal, and they're always raring to go. Women, you know, as we know, they're very kind of sensitive and emotional and contextual. And, you know, you have to go slowly." And it gets ratified again. And it is very, potentially tricky, because if you then think about female desire, as you know, needing elicitation and kind of a form of persuasion, then you are opening the door to saying like, "Oh, well, you know, you may not want sex right now. But you know, if I get you in the right mood."
Katherine Angel
"Just let me try, I can get you in the mood."
Katherine Angel
Yeah, exactly.
Hannah Witton
We've all heard similar things like that. It's really weird, because I've definitely kind of like - even though when I first learned about, like, responsive desire and that model, like it brought, it did bring me a lot of comfort in terms of like and understanding, especially like with my partner and stuff. But then, I realized, like, we were starting to have these conversations of just like, "I'm not really in the mood", "Oh, but I know I can get you in the mood." Like, and it's just like, obviously, me and him have an understanding. And there's like - and we're able to kind of like have these kind of like nuanced conversations with each other. But if it was, like in a casual sex scenario, and somebody is armed with that knowledge of like, "I've got this research, baby." Like, "Hey, you may not want to have sex with me right now. But just give me five minutes."
Katherine Angel
Exactly. And then also how that then links up to how we kind of fetishize the idea of arousal itself, right. So the kind of "Oh but look, you're getting, you're getting worked therefore, therefore, you want it." And pickup artists, they use that, they read the research and they use it exactly to those ends, the kind of like, "Oh, well, you know, women really want sex but they're, you know, they're slut shamed, and there's the double standard, which means it's really hard for them to say they want it so actually, she's gagging for it but you know, she can't say that because she she feels ashamed. But if you, you know, overcome the token resistance..." So they think of it as this very conscious kind of, "Oh, you're you're doing a display of modesty, so that you're not thought to be promiscuous" etc. But they invoke that as a kind of ground for pushing more and more against a woman saying, you know, "I don't want to have sex or I'm not sure I want to have sex." And then they're like, "Oh, you know, her body was screaming out for it because she was aroused." So those models are completely open to abuse, of course. But then, you know, so I mean, as you know, like, part of the book is me wrestling with this model and thinking, like, you know, how do we think about this? And the conclusion I kind of come to is like, yes, that model is open to abuse. But actually, I think any model of sexuality is open to abuse, because sexuality is open to abuse, because, you know, sexual desire is, is a complex kind of unfolding process, and that we are all in relation to one another's desire, and, you know, sexuality happens in relation to other people, and we are vulnerable to them, we are susceptible to them, that is also what makes us able to get pleasure and joy, not just from sex but from conversation, from friendship, from love. So it's inevitable that our sexuality can be manipulated, and that knowledge about it can be manipulated. And again, the question is, but actually, why do we put the burden on sexuality itself, as well as on women, to try to keep that risk of abuse at bay? You know, the fact is, sexuality is emergent and unfolding. And that means that we can be open to a kind of, you know, pushing and bullying and coercion. That doesn't mean we should be. You know? We shouldn't even -
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And actually that way that it emerges as well can also be like, part of a really pleasurable and exciting experience. You know, of being like, "Oh, actually, I might kind of be into this." And then like, maybe you dip your toe, and then you're like, "Oh, actually, like, maybe not." But that all kind of being part of that kind of like exploratory sexual experience. And one thing that I really wanted to ask you was, what does sexual liberation look like to you? Because you kind of - you talk about sexual liberation a lot in the book, but I was curious, like, if you were to, like, build a sexually liberated world? What does it look like?
Katherine Angel
It's such a good question. It's a really difficult one. I mean, I think I really, I really think that we're only going to have any chance of having sexual liberation if we actually start from the premise that sexuality makes us vulnerable, rather than starting from trying to keep that vulnerability at bay, because I don't think that works, we can never completely chase that, that risk and that vulnerability away.
Hannah Witton
Like, you can't have the empowerment without the vulnerability.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, exactly. So if we start from the assumption that, you know, we're physically vulnerable in sex, and you know, maybe women are generally more physically vulnerable, because, you know, men can penetrate them. And, you know, men tend often to be stronger, or, you know, whatever. And also, because they have greater social power, which is just as important as physical power. You know, we're vulnerable to that. But if we were to start from the acknowledgement that actually we are all vulnerable in sex, and that that vulnerability is both a source of risk and danger and a source of pleasure, as you were just saying, then, how could we like elaborate an ethical kind of approach to sex that just starts from that premise? And if we start from that premise, then we can start thinking about, well, how do we try to make pleasure possible and to make people feel autonomous and free, and entitled to joy and exploration given that they're vulnerable? And I think that's, that's the only way that we can start because if we're constantly trying to deny vulnerability, then we're just, I mean, frankly, we're deluding ourselves. But also we're not equipping ourselves with the kind of, you know, social skills that can start from that and include it and then say, okay, you know, given that we could hurt each other, how could we be kind to one another, and how could we create excitement without pushing and coercing one another?
So I feel like, you know, I want to see a world - and it's very far from this one - but I want to see a world where we can be hurt, we can be vulnerable, we can acknowledge, we can acknowledge that we are always at risk, not just of violence, but we're just at risk, like to be in conversation with you is to be at risk, just as it is for you, you know, we're encountering one another, we might have conflicting desires and expectations, and we might have hopes and longings that are disappointed. And that, that's what makes, you know, human exchange so amazing and also quite frightening. And I think that we should be able to move through the world with that vulnerability. We should be able to - I should be able to like collapse in a drunken heap outside my front door, and know that someone will take care of me, as opposed to take advantage of me. And that - itis wildly utopian. But I really think, like, starting from- and, you know, it has been such an interesting year in these times, because we've had it really driven home, how vulnerable we are to one another, and how at risk we are, and how we can endanger one another literally by breathing. And I think it's been, it's been quite useful a year in lots of ways, because, because we know, we know how risky the world is. But there's a lot of beauty and potential in that, because then we can really think -
Hannah Witton
And it's about about that trust as well, like, if you are coming from a position of vulnerability, then like you said, like, if you're drunk in a heap on your doorstep, you're trusting that someone will take care of you. If you're going out and about in COVID times, you're trusting that other people aren't going to, like, you know, get too close to you.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, yeah. So like liberation is, you know, a kind of sexually liberated world will be one in which we can really be vulnerable and not be hurt.
Hannah Witton
Mm hmm. I love that.
Hannah Witton
So I just have one question from our followers on Instagram, because basically, there were many questions that were all the same thing. Which is basically about consent, ruining the mood, and like, how to balance consent with spontaneity, and also it not feeling forced. And I wondered what thoughts you had on that? Because, like, I'm like, are these things even at odds with each other? Are we - are we just - are we framing consent wrong in our minds that we even think that it's a barrier to those things?
Katherine Angel
It's really tricky, because, you know, one of the ways in which people have tried to overcome that, that problem, you know, this idea that like, checking that your partner is into something, and agreeing what you're going to do is a kind of buzzkill has been to say like, "Oh, you know, make it sexy, make consent sexy, it's part of the kind of, you know, exciting build up," and, and encouraging again, you know, people to be really vocal about what they want and to talk a lot. And that, you know, again, that makes, that makes sense to me. And I think there is a real virtue in that, in being able to talk during sex and to say, like, you know, "Are you into this, I'd like to do this," and to have that kind of free flowing exchange. I think that's really hard for a lot of people, you know, for all the reasons we've been discussing. So again, that tends to kind of assume that, you know, you get behind a closed door in the bedroom, and suddenly you live in this alternative world where you can speak completely freely about sex without shame and fear. And we know that's not the case. But I guess it would, you know, it would come back to like to thinking like, what, what, what is it that we're not allowing ourselves to do? And I think so much of it is about curiosity. You know, like, I think, I think we should be really interested in other people.
Hannah Witton
Yeah!
Katherine Angel
Not just in knowing what we want, but like, part of what's exciting about sex is that you're encountering another human being
Hannah Witton
Like, "What do you want?" Like -
Katherine Angel
Yeah, "What do you want? What, like, what gets you off? What do you - what's exciting to you?" And, but also being curious about when, when they are not into it or what, you know, what the signs are that somebody isn't into something? And I don't know, I don't have an easy answer to that, to be honest. I've - you're probably much better placed than I am as somebody who actually kind of does like proper, proper, you know, advice to people. Whereas my book isn't exactly a kind of how to guide but, but like, the more we can - the more we can have human exchange where we're curious, and like, excited by the other person's otherness, you know, like even happy that they might not want to do what we do, as opposed to seeing everything in terms of like, "Do you want to do the same as I do? And if not, you know, this is a disappointment." Like that space of kind of disagreement is itself a really interesting kind of magical space of interaction. And that's really not - it's really not how we're taught. That's not hugely helpful for your listeners, I'm sorry.
Hannah Witton
The way that I try and think of it is that - not framing consent as a barrier. And kind of like what you were saying at the beginning of consent is the bare minimum, like, it is literally, like, the thing that has to be present in order for sex to be sex and not assault.
Katherine Angel
Yeah. That's all it is.
Hannah Witton
But I think everything else built on top of that - so like you said, the curiosity, the exploration, the kindness, the compassion, the dialogue, the intrigue, the fun, the flirting, like, like, all of these elements, if you have all of those, like, it's very likely consent is already there. And so rather than thinking of like consent as this barrier that you have to overcome in order to get to all of those good things, just focus on the good things, and like, just strive for them. And what you'll find is that consent happened in the process.
Katherine Angel
That's so good. I think that's such a good way of framing it. Yeah. Because if, if you're having the kind of conversation and the kind of, you know, physical psychological encounter, where you're talking about your pleasure, and what you feel excited by, and what makes you feel comfortable, or what, you know, what sensations you like, you're right, it's extremely unlikely that that is not consensual, because you're already in this realm where consent has been either explicitly or implicitly given and you're, you're getting down to the business of the joy and the pleasure. And I think that's a such a, that's such a good way to frame it, instead of this kind of acquiring this thing that then has to stand in for pleasure. And that is part of where we go wrong is that then "Oh, is it enthusiastic consent?" That's ridiculous.
Hannah Witton
Like, we think that consent is this like locked door. You find the key. "Do you consent?" "Yes." "Okay, great. We unlocked the door." And then all conversation stops.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, exactly. You're right. It's really in a sense should be the other way around. You know, if you start from what gives you pleasure, from what feels good, from the kind of fun, then, I mean, if it's clearly not fun, then you Stop. Partly - not just because it may not be consensual, but just because it's not fun.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, that goes back to like the bad sex thing as well, like, and it's actually I have like a very new, like, way of looking at things like consent and pleasure as well because me and my partner currently trying to conceive. And so the sex that we're having sometimes is sex that we don't want to be having, right? And but we're able to kind of joke about it with each other. Like, sometimes we'll be like, "Oh, like, I really wasn't in the mood for that," or like, we'll joke, just like joke about not wanting to have sex with each other, but like, but then it is still, we still do get to that like fun, exciting, like, place, whilst also joking about the fact that we would rather be doing something else.
Katherine Angel
Yeah, I think that's so interesting. Because it yeah, it's instrumental, isn't it? In a way. I mean, hopefully it's also fun, but like, you've got a goal in mind. And you know, that - it's a sort of another way in which that, you know, it's really important that we detach consent from pleasure. Partly for the reasons that you're talking about - also to do with sex work, right, that people agree to sex all the time that they don't necessarily particularly enjoy, or want, but they've agreed to it. And it's actually really important for the protection of sex workers that we make that distinction, because it's only if you can draw that distinction meaningfully - only then can you get to, can you get a kind of grip on what makes - you know, what the inequality is and imbalances of power that might make sex problematic, but it also it's only if you can draw that distinction that you can then support women and sex workers who have been assaulted, right? If you think that, if you think that, you know, those two things are completely the same, that, like, if you, if you consent to sex, then you enjoy it and you know, you don't have any cause for recrimination, that means you can't protect sex workers. So it's like, it's really vital that, that we think about, you know, agreement to sex and sort of, you know, signing on the dotted line in contracts, but also just verbally, but that there is a difference. There's a difference. And there are women the world over who agree to sex that they don't particularly enjoy, you know, either because it's a work and it's a form of just survival, or because they don't have other kinds of choices or, you know, their life circumstances don't make it possible for them to want that sex and enjoy it. And that - we can only understand those social questions if we keep that distinction really clear, just as in your case, you know, yeah, people, people have sex that isn't necessarily enjoyable. That doesn't necessarily mean it's non consensual.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, exactly. Well, Katherine, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to chat with you. And -
Katherine Angel
Likewise.
Hannah Witton
Where can people like find you and your work and d'you wanna give your book a little plug?
Katherine Angel
Yeah, so we've been talking about my latest book, Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again. It's published by Verso. You can buy it from their website. You can also buy it in all good book shops, support independent bookshops if you can, please. Although do leave nice reviews on Amazon too because that helps.
Hannah Witton
Once again, with just the strategic realism.
Katherine Angel
I know, right? Yeah, I'm on Twitter as well. My Twitter handle is @kayengels. But I think if you search for Katherine Angel, it will come up. Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. And thank you all for listening. Goodbye.
Thank you so much for listening to Doing It. If you enjoyed it, I would really appreciate it if you left a rating and a review. You can find shownotes at doingitpodcast.co.uk and do go follow us on social media and I'll catch you in the next episode. Bye.
This was a Global original podcast.