Talking into the void

Legal scholar Robin West calls consensual but unwanted sex a personal, social, and political problem for women everywhere, from college campuses to long-term marriages. The resulting condition—that is, what happens to a woman after repeated engagement in this kind of sex—she calls consensual sexual dysphoria. Dysphoria means a state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction with life. In West’s analysis, unwanted, unpleasurable sex undermines a woman’s dignity, her sense of self-worth, her subjective happiness, and her ability to assert her equality. West’s work is relatively new. In her writing, she notes the limited empirical research available on the subject. She couches her conclusions in words like “it’s likely,” “it must be,” or “it’s hard to imagine.” For example: “It is simply hard to imagine a healthy sense of one’s own agency either developing or being sustained over the course of an adult life in which a woman as a matter of identity and habit bends her will regarding her own body for the sake of another’s physical pleasure.” I’ve discussed the issue with female friends—all of them fierce, funny, smart, independent women—and yet nearly without exception we’ve all done it. Once a year, once a month, or every goddamn night. We grin and bear sex that we do not want and do not enjoy. We follow a tradition laid down (literally) centuries ago by women without our legal rights, education, or consciousness. Why? We do it to keep the peace.

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