#manon garcia

Ladies, guess who had a VERY successful trip to the Chapters yesterday??

"Clearly, the inferences that people make about the meaning of consent are revealing.

It seems to be widely—though certainly not universally—understood that entering a man’s bedroom constitutes consent to sex, yet the vast majority of men do not believe, for example, that their partner has the right to digitally penetrate their anus on the grounds that both parties have agreed to sex.

A finger in a man’s anus, notwithstanding how good it may feel, is something that needs to be consented to verbally, whereas a penis in a woman’s vagina could be permitted by the very fact of having entered the penis owner’s bedroom.

This discrepancy gives us reason to believe that, first, most men know how to give and receive consent when their bodily integrity is at stake, and second, that we are supposed to intuitively know what sex is, which steps it involves, how it starts, and how it ends.

Thus when a women consents to sex with a man, this supposedly means that she gives the man permission for penile penetration of her vagina until he achieves orgasm, at which point sex will end.

"Les cinquante accusés de Dominique Pelicot ont violé Gisèle Pelicot mais, au fond, c’est comme si elle n’avait pas été là.

Les belles endormies, la Belle au bois dormant sont des mythes où la femme est là comme représentation, comme objet, mais où elle, comme personne, n’a pas lieu d’être.

Le corps mais rien d’autre.

Le fantasme nécrophile qui guide les viols de Gisèle Pelicot fonctionne de la même façon, c’est elle mais ça n’est pas elle.

Tout ce qui fait Gisèle Pelicot, sa joie, sa douceur, sa force, tout cela est dissous par les médicaments, il ne reste que l’objet.

Cette objectification absolue qui nie l’existence même de l’autre se retrouve dans le langage des accusés.

Dominique Pelicot n’appelle jamais Gisèle par son nom, elle est sa « sainte », son « amour », dans ses correspondances obscènes elle est sa « salope », mais ce ne sont que des images figées, la Maman, la Putain.

Adrien L. le dit en un double cliché, « ma mère, c’est la femme de ma vie. Ma sœur, c’est ma lumière ».

Il dit aussi qu’il s’est mis à haïr les femmes. Aucune femme particulière à l’horizon, juste un océan de généralité.

Comme ces hommes qui disent qu’ils aiment les femmes parce qu’elles mettent de la beauté dans le monde.

Les pots de fleurs vous remercient.

Il ne faut pas croire que c’est un fantasme d’homme du peuple ou que l’intellect protège de tels mythes.

Spring 2025: favorite books I read

Just sex?: the cultural scaffolding of rape (Nicola Gavey, 2005)

"The past two decades have witnessed a significant shift in how rape is understood in Western societies.

This shift in perception has revealed the startling frequency of occurrences of date rape, obscuring the divide between rape and what was once just sex.

Just Sex? combines an overview of the existing literature with an analysis of recent research to examine the psychological and cultural implications of this new epidemic."

excerpts: tagged/just sex

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The joy of consent: a philosophy of good sex (Manon Garcia, 2023)

"In The Joy of Consent, French philosopher Manon Garcia upends the assumptions that underlie this very American debate, reframing consent as an ally of pleasure rather than a legalistic killjoy. In doing so, she rejects conventional wisdom on all sides.

As a legal norm, consent can prove consent alone doesn’t make sex licit―adults engaged in BDSM are morally and legally suspect even when they consent.

And nonconsensual sex is not, as many activists insist, always rape. People often agree to sex because it is easier than the alternative, Garcia argues, challenging the simplistic equation between consent and noncoercion."

excerpts: tagged/the joy of consent

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Prisoners of geography: ten maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics (Tim Marshall, 2015)

"Yes, to follow world events you need to understand people, ideas and movements - but if you don't know geography, you'll never have the full picture.

If you've ever wondered why Putin is so obsessed with Crimea, why the USA was destined to become a global superpower, or why China's power base continues to expand ever outwards, the answers are all here."

« "Une vision bien éthérée de l'être humain, considéré comme omniscient et surtout transparent à lui-même, c'est-à-dire bien sûr sans inconscient" (Muriel Fabre-Magnan) : le consentement, comme le principe d'autonomie de la volonté sur lequel il se fonde, implique un sujet rationnel, volontaire et non vulnérable, un sujet conscient à chaque instant de sa volonté et de ce qui la fonde. Or la psychanalyse, par exemple (mais plus largement les sciences sociales dans leur ensemble), met en doute la validité d'une telle représentation de la personne en agent libre, rationnel et volontaire. » Manon Garcia, La conversation des sexes, philosophie du consentement, Climats Flammarion 2021, p. 106-107

« Dans la réalité sociale, creuset des significations, le sexe qui est vraiment désiré ou voulu ou bienvenu n'est pas qualifié de "consenti". Il n'a pas besoin de l'être ; sa mutualité y est partout inscrite dans l'enthousiasme et la réciprocité. » Catharine A. MacKinnon, Le viol redéfini, Vers l'égalité, contre le consentement, Climats 2023, p. 151

"As I argued previously in We Are Not Born Submissive, the norms of femininity are norms of submission.

Women are educated, in varying degrees, to submit to men because society values their submission more than their freedom.

In concrete terms, women are expected to take care of those around them, to be generous, altruistic, kind—in short, to put the needs and desires of others, and in particular of men, before their own.

Now, it is easy to imagine what problems this may generate in the sexual domain: if women generally give priority to the desires of others, especially those they love, then we can expect the same behavior in the bedroom. (…)

Likewise, if women know that they cannot expect anything besides patriarchal sex, they may well stop desiring anything but patriarchal sex.

This point is decisive because it allows us to understand how certain situations or sexual practices can be both chosen by women and harmful to them.

For instance, feminist media outlets often raise concern about feminists who like to be sexually dominated. How to approach this apparent conundrum? (…)

Being treated as a sexual object can be disempowering for women and, at the same time, be desired by women.

The idea of the agency dilemma helps us think about this sort of situation without simply asserting that women should not have such desires and that those who do are responsible for their own victimization and those of women generally.