Unwanted Sexual Behavior and Women's Sexual Agency: Gendered Experiences of Pleasure in Casual Sex

Dichotomous discourse surrounding sexual behavior frames sexual experiences as either consensual or non-consensual. This rhetoric suggests that all consensual sexual activity is desired sexual activity, and does not account for the effect of heteronormative sexual scripts and gendered power dynamics. What are the consequences of engaging in unwanted, yet consensual, sexual activity for heterosexual cis-women? In casual hookups, motivations to engage in sexual activities such as emotional commitment and reproduction are removed from the sexual equation, leaving sexual pleasure as the primary goal. However, in heterosexual sexual activity, women’s pleasure is often not prioritized. This reality creates a grey area of desire as it frames women as objects of men’s sexual pleasure, running the risk of creating unwanted, non-pleasurable experiences for women. How does engaging in unwanted sexual activity affect a woman’s expression of her sexual agency and self-prioritization of pleasure? I propose that engaging in unwanted sexual activity will result in the dissociation of sex and pleasure in any sexual context for women, including safe, nonpartnered contexts. More specifically, using masturbation as an indicator of sexual agency and prioritizing personal pleasure, I hypothesize that women who engage in unwanted encounters will have masturbated less recently. This paper analyzes data from the Online College Social Life Survey (2005-2011). The results refute the hypothesis that women will have masturbated less recently if they engage in unwanted sex, suggesting that women who engage in unwanted sexual activity will actually have masturbated more recently. GENDERED EXPERIENCES OF PLEASURE 3 Unwanted Sexual Behavior and Women's Sexual Agency: Gendered Experiences of Pleasure in Casual Sex The hookup culture has quickly become a common way in which young people are engaging in sexual activity within affluent Western societies (Paul et al. 2000; England et al. 2012). According to Armstrong et al., around 70 percent of students report having hooked up at least once by their final year of college (2013). Emotional commitment is often removed from the equation because of the casual nature of these interactions, allowing pleasure to become the central objective for sex. To an extent, to center personal pleasure as the primary objective of sexual activity is to engage with other individuals as vessels to provide that pleasure, especially within heterosexual contexts where gendered power dynamics and sexual scripts exist. The question of “healthy” sexuality then arises regarding these interactions. When factors like commitment, reproduction, and emotional attachment are removed from sexual behavior, more space can be left for objectification and the inclination to fall into socially designated sexual scripts and behaviors. Sex and emotions are two intertwined concepts for conscious beings like ourselves, and casual sexual activity encourages us to separate the two. Knowingly dissociating emotions from such intimate behavior can affect the way individuals interpret their own emotional responses to sexual behavior and relationships with partners or with themselves. So how does one define healthy sexuality, and how might this expectation differ for women specifically? Generally, scholars and women's rights advocates alike agree that desire, pleasure, and subjectivity are three aspects that encompass healthy sexuality (Lamb 2010). Unfortunately, these aspects are not often emphasized for women engaging in heterosexual relations. Because of this, Lamb makes the point that advocating for a sexuality which is based in pleasure, desire, and subjectivity seems to be a "response to three historically problematic areas for women and girls: GENDERED EXPERIENCES OF PLEASURE 4 objectification; abuse and victimization; and stereotypes of female passivity" (2010:294). Our socialized understanding of heterosexual sexual behavior involves a pleasure prioritization for men, which perpetuates these problematic areas for women (Armstrong et al. 2012). Because of this, when asked about sexual experiences in general, some women may express that sometimes there is nothing pleasurable involved. So why engage? If casual sex is for pleasure, why is a woman’s pleasure so often overlooked by her partner within a heterosexual and heteronormative context? Moreover, why would a woman overlook her own pleasure as she willingly inserts herself into a casual sexual culture not built for her pleasure and emotional wellbeing? As young women, we are either hyper-sexualized or judged for being hypersexual. What happens when we try to reclaim agency over our bodies and pleasure by embracing promiscuity? At the same time, why do we knowingly enter into a male-centric sexual realm where effective teaching about consent does not exist, nor do conversations about what to expect for our own pleasure, humanity, and self-respect? Sexual activity is vulnerable behavior, and not everyone’s boundaries are the same. Lack of communication regarding and during sexual activity creates the possibility for these boundaries to be pushed and misinterpreted, resulting in unwanted sexual behavior especially when taking into account gendered power structures. This paper investigates the issue of unwanted sexual interactions between heterosexual partners and their effect on sexual agency and prioritization of pleasure. It focuses specifically on cis-women’s experiences within a context where affirmative consent is given. Various scholars have defined unwanted sexual behavior differently. According to Flack et al., “unwanted sexual behavior” was defined as “any behavior involving sexual contact experienced as harmful or regretful during or following the incident” (2007:141). This definition includes sexual assault, rape and/or coercive tactics. However, O’Sullivan and Allgeier (1998) GENDERED EXPERIENCES OF PLEASURE 5 point out that while the terms “undesired” and “unwanted” are often used as synonyms for “nonconsensual” in various literatures, it is possible to engage in sexual activity that is consented to yet is still undesired or unwanted. More recently, many scholars are in agreement with the definition of unwanted encounters that excludes sexual assault (non-consensual encounters), giving much attention to the phenomenon of consensual yet unwanted sex and the social implications and consequences of these behaviors. Bay-Cheng et al. define unwanted sex as a "partnered sexual activity to which one consents but may not desire sexually or otherwise” (2008:387). For the purposes of this paper, unwanted sexual behavior is defined through the latter definition, as consensual yet undesired sexual behavior. Recently there is more exploration into the grey area of consensual yet unwanted sex resulting from a variety of pressures be it coercion, social expectations, or simply feeling as though another individual is entitled to a woman’s body. In the wake of the Me Too movement and an increase in discussions around consent and unwanted sexual encounters, the implications and consequences of said encounters are important questions to explore. At the bare minimum, it can help further a much needed conversation about women's sexual agency and right to sexual pleasure. This topic matters because we are in a time of sexual blurred lines while also in a time of more nuanced conversations about sex and sexual interactions. These interactions remain uncomfortable, undesired, and traumatic, yet still fall under the umbrella of consent (Aziz Ansari Story, Way 2018). In general, regardless of gender or sexuality, we as a society have a real communication issue surrounding sexual expectations in a country where sex is everywhere. These budding conversations and ironies must be furthered to expose the work that must be done by all individuals across the gender spectrum to combat how we have been socialized into our heteronormative, patriarchal, and sexist society. If non-reproductive sex is mainly intended for GENDERED EXPERIENCES OF PLEASURE 6 personal pleasure, why do so many women lack just that in their encounters? As women, what are we socialized to expect from sex? More specifically, can we see such themes of a lack of pleasure prioritization and sexual agency for women in general manifested through women's masturbation habits? THEORETICAL BACKGROUND There are several theoretical frameworks that help explain the existence and prevalence of gendered sexual behavior, along with helping to explain how these phenomena may influence a woman’s view of herself and her sexual pleasure. The first framework explored is gender structure theory. Gender Structure Theory According to Risman (2004), gender structure theory can be used to classify the different mechanisms which produce outcomes within social structures that are inherently gendered. Structuralists agree that social structures somewhat explain human action, and these structures exist separate from individual motives or desires. This definition exemplifies a dualism between action and structure, where action serves as one’s choice and structure serves as a constraint. Regarding action within a social structure, individuals compare their options and themselves with those who are in a similar position structurally, and therefore are intentionally seeking to “maximize their self-perceived well-being under social structural constraints” (Risman 2004:431). Therefore, people act within these constraints because they are imposed by the society into which we are socialized. We often believe these social constructions to be truths, and these structures to be absolute and unbreakable. The social structure of gender results in gendered behavior, and social interactions under this structure along with accounting for others’ expectations of us reproduce gender inequality GENDERED EXPERIENCES OF PLEASURE 7 (Risman 2004). Our perceptions of own choices and interests