Can You Feel Desire if You Never Risk Rejection? — with Christine Emba

Consent culture was necessary. Too many women were being sexually harmed inside norms that treated silence as agreement, pressure as seduction, and the absence of a no as permission.

Today, an explicit yes is the standard. In some circles, consent is elicited at every step of sexual escalation: 

“Can I kiss you?” 

Yes. 

“Can I touch you here?” 

Yes. 

“Can I unbutton your top?” 

Yes. 

But that raises a harder question: in trying to remove all ambiguity, have we overcorrected? 

Because when every step of intimacy starts to sound pre-cleared, negotiated, and linguistically managed, something else can disappear—spontaneity, tension, and the feeling that desire is unfolding between two people rather than being carefully administered.

Christine Emba, writer for the Washington Post and author of Rethinking Sex, joins me for a conversation about the gap between consent and desire — and what gets lost when permission becomes the whole standard for intimacy. 

Listen to the full episode → Spotify | Apple Podcasts

This was one of my favorite episodes. 

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