Sex is neither a right nor a need

Transcript

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney. I’m here with my spouse Royce. Together we are The Ace Couple, and at least for now, we are going to conclude our little stint talking about consent. That’s right, August has been Consent Month over here at The Ace Couple Podcast. We began starting with the movie Obsession, we talked about Voice Memo Guy, last week we really started getting into the weeds talking about different models of consent, and how enthusiastic consent as the end-all be-all sort of buzzword catchphrase that gets thrown around in these conversations utterly lacks nuance and does not serve everyone or, in my opinion, really do nearly enough for the conversation about actual safe, respectful sex practices. And today we’re gonna dig a little more into why I think that is.

Courtney: Because for all of our conversations about how, yes, consent is necessary for the buzzy allo slogan that we sometimes hear of consent is sexy, which I of course have my criticisms of, for models like Planned Parenthood that uses the FRIES model that tries to expand upon the concept of enthusiastic consent, one thing we began talking about last week was that even going through Planned Parenthood’s page for what does every word in the acronym of FRIES means, what does it look like, it was using “you” language. It’s when you consent. When you consent, it can be withdrawn. When you consent. And I said it last week, I’ll say it again, please don’t get it twisted.

Courtney: Some of these models are useful in some situations, but they are all wrong and they are all flawed. And I think in order to have proper conversations about what consent actually must look like in society, we need to be able to talk about the shortcomings of all of these models. And as we’ve seen with the fallout in the discourse of both the movie obsession and the Voice Memo Guy, in very close proximity to one another, it has become abundantly clear that no matter how often we talk about what consent looks like and consent needs to be enthusiastic, and we need proper communication, an alarmingly high percentage of people can still not, in daily interactions, identify whether or not certain means to an end are actually done in a respectful or safe way. Voice Memo Guy specifically said, oh, I know you said I don’t know about that, but for me, I need to know if we’re sexually compatible.

Courtney: There wouldn’t be any reason for us to meet up if we aren’t going to fuck. That is the very definition of seeking coerced consent. That is a coercive tactic.

Courtney: Obsession as a movie, so many people are seeing themselves in Bear and thinking, he’s not a bad guy, he tried to do everything right, this was just a really tough sticky situation! But he’s doing his best given all this, but the way it reads to me with my worldview about what consent actually does and should look like, this is a guy who knew the rules. He knows on paper what consent is supposed to be, so he hims and haws a little bit when he goes, oh, maybe she’s on drugs, oh, maybe she’s just sad, so I’m gonna be the good guy, I’m actually not gonna have sex with her on the first night, I’m gonna sleep on the floor and give her her space because— not because he respects and values her own autonomy, but because he knows the rules. He has seen the conversations about consent.

Courtney: Maybe he has had a woman friend who has talked about the FRIES model. This is a man who has listened to the feminists and said, great, Got it. These are the boxes I need to check off in order to be a good guy. But because he knew those boxes and he was trying to check them, a lot of people actually do say like, well, he did check the boxes.

Courtney: But that is also very much where the enthusiastic consent model falls apart. Nobody can argue that what he saw of Nikki, who is not a real Nikki, was enthusiastic. She was overly enthusiastic about him. So check. He did it. He checked the box.

Courtney: That does not mean he is a good guy. That does not mean he was respectful of her as a person and her fundamental rights throughout that movie, because he was not.

Courtney: And to me, what this all really does boil down to is that we can find new models, we can identify new frameworks, we can give people more boxes to check, and that might be inching in the right direction. It might save some people from dangerous encounters, or if someone has a dangerous encounter, it might give them better vocabulary for identifying what happened to them, and perhaps hopefully models like that can help reduce the shame that can often come from being subjected to sexual violence. But until there is genuine respect for the other person you are engaging in a relationship with, be it sexual, romantic, or both, then I truly do not think there is a single consent model out there that we can come up with that will cover all the bases and be as nuanced as it needs to be.

Courtney: And that’s what makes the conversation so muddy, because people want a nice easy framework. People want a simple box to say, if we do X, Y, and Z, everything will be better. But it’s unfortunately never going to be as simple as that. And unfortunately, I do not know a well-rounded, comprehensive means of fixing the problem that a lot of people do not respect their partners or potential partners. I am not an expert on teaching respect. I do wholeheartedly agree with a lot of the advice about teaching consent to children early in ways they can understand, such as, you know, keep your hands to yourself, how not to, you know, play rough with someone on the playground who doesn’t want to, how to identify if they’re trying to pet a cat or a dog if that cat or dog does not seem to want to be pet or touched.

Courtney: I do agree with those things. I’m not an expert enough in early childhood development to be able to prescribe, this is how we need to do it, at what ages we need to do it. I do think it needs to be an ongoing thing, but I also truly believe that every consent model being used as a solution or an aid to safer sex practices is fundamentally as a reaction to violence and patriarchy and all of these violent and coercive systems that exist in our world. Because there is violence, because consent gets violated, we have to react to that, we have to respond, it’s reactionary.

Courtney: And that is why I don’t think that’s ever going to be enough, we need to go deeper and identify the deeply entrenched societal ideals that lead to such a high percentage of negative outcomes that we see now. And I really do think that even a lot of people who consider themselves to be sex-positive, who consider themselves to be feminist activists on the side of survivors, on the side of sex workers, what have you, I think a lot of them still very often have very common but problematic viewpoints about society. And two of those that we desperately need to tackle because they are far too common is the right to sex, or that sex is a right, or that it should be a right. Right alongside the notion that sex is a need. Too many of these conversations start with, well, we need to destigmatize sex, we need more sex education, we need less censorship.

Courtney: They start from the framework of like, well, sex is a need. We need to have sex. Or we have a right to have sex. And in most sex-positive frameworks that are popular and common right now, this is accepted, it is celebrated.

Courtney: But from my viewpoint, and from that of a lot of aces, we’re starting from a fundamentally problematic place. Because a sexual encounter with at least one other person is no longer just about you. And all of these people, all of these activists, everyone proclaiming these viewpoints, is going to agree with me that yes, you do not have a right to someone else’s body, you do not have a right to violate their consent and autonomy.

Courtney: That’s where a lot of these conversations start. But I think that is fundamentally incompatible with the concept of sex is a need and/or a right. If it is a need or a right, and someone genuinely in their heart of hearts thinks, I need sex, I have a right to sex. There is no world where that endpoint, if you carry that logic far enough, means I have a right to do what I want with your body. There really is not. There is no way where these two can be compatible.

Courtney: So I think we need to untangle them, and we need to stop using the shield of sex positivity and sex liberation. In order to perpetuate these harmful notions.

Courtney: So let’s start with a right to sex, because we’ve discussed this in past episodes a little bit. There was a bit of a burst of discourse about it, uh, back in the Twitter days. That started predominantly with a congressional candidate named Alexandra Hunt, who started a whole Twitter thread with the very alarmist thing that we had critiqued before that point and after and we will continue critiquing, the ol’, uh, young men aren’t having sex! Oh no, what a disaster!

Courtney: Very catastrophizing language and trying to draw parallels between like, well, when sex— when men aren’t having enough sex, they are more depressed. They don’t work as much, they don’t have jobs, they become more violent, they become more lonely. All of these are bad things, right? So therefore, the antidote is for young men to have more sex?

Courtney: It baffles me how often— ’cause this woman is not the only one, this happens all the time— how many people genuinely think that they are on to something. They’re like, sex is the solution! If we just have more sex, all of these problems will be solved. But that means that sex is a solution to loneliness, which I vehemently reject. It means that sex is the solution to the current state of the working class and everything that unemployment or underemployment entails, especially for the younger generation right now, which I vehemently reject. It means that having more sex is a solution to violence? Absolutely not.

Courtney: Just, like, please listen to yourself for one moment. Every time I see someone just absolutely think they’re cooking with these talking points, like, listen to yourself. Do you really think— and yes, these are often conversations done from a heterosexual viewpoint. Normally they’re talking about men needing to have more sex. Normally that kind of sex they’re talking about is sex with women. But you’re really telling any young man out there who has mental health issues, who’s dealing with depression or anxiety, who’s dealing with unemployment or underemployment— maybe some of these mental health issues have led to internal thoughts of anger or violence, And you’re really telling them it’s not your fault, you’re just not having enough sex. Sex is the solution. This is how we get incels. This is how we get incels.

Courtney: And people will sometimes point to incels as evidence that, yes, see, this is what happens when men don’t have enough sex. I think there are so many societal injustices and inequalities that sex is just far too simple of a solution to point to. And I think a lot of incels— this isn’t going to be an incel episode, I promise. We’ll do one eventually.

Courtney: Society is telling them the problem is they’re not having sex, and they’re believing it. And every single societal talking point is just giving them more evidence or ammunition of this.

Royce: Yeah, and I mean, for incels, it’s not just society, it’s the entire red pill manosphere thing, which operates very much like a cult, and that is intentional. There are a lot of things being sold in that sphere. There is a profit motivation for getting people sucked into that.

Royce: But on the, like, loneliness side of things, there have been people who have come out of, like, the whole pickup artist industry where they have formulate— they’ve figured out the social equation and have worked the numbers and have found out to have a lot of short physical connections and have come out of it with the self-awareness that they’re even lonelier than they were beforehand. And that like, they’ve sort of lost connection to humanity by trying to game social interaction.

Courtney: Because since when did society just agree that yes, having sex and a sense of social and communal like fulfillment are synonymous? Why do we accept that? That’s absurd. It’s not the same. They are not synonymous. They never will be.

Courtney: It’s also, I think, diverting attention away from the actual problems. Patriarchy being one of them. Yes, it subjects a lot of women and nonbinary people to intense violence, but even the men who are meant to benefit from it still need to play the game right in order to reap a majority of those benefits, and that is still not healthy for men either. When we do talk about a mental health crisis or employment crisis, those are problems that do need to be adjusted on a societal level. And another facet to this argument that I don’t even hear a ton of people who are on my side arguing similar talking points to me say is that you’ve taken societal issues and you’ve once again Individualized it.

Courtney: It’s not a problem that, you know, college is way too expensive and a lot of people can’t get jobs in their degrees, and even if they can, they’re going to be underpaid, perhaps they’ll be overworked. A lot of jobs are getting cut because of all the changes in the tech industry right now. So a lot of people have been sold promises. That they cannot cash in, and a lot of people in the younger generation are feeling heavy effects from that right now. We should be holding corporations to account, we should be holding the government to account, we should make sure that our actual fundamental basic needs, which in my opinion are food, water, shelter, healthcare, are actually taken care of. For the people.

Courtney: Instead, we’re saying young men aren’t having enough sex. And if you’re treating sex as a personal problem and you’re conceptualizing it as, this is a human need, I need to have sex, that already erases whatever your prospective partner is and their needs and their wants.

Courtney: So we’re starting from a flawed place. And every so often, obviously asexuality in general is a challenge to the notion that sex is a need, if there are populations of people out there who say like, no, it’s not a need, it’s not even a want. And yet still, doing this podcast for as long as we have, speaking publicly about asexuality, um, in our community, in our relationship as often as we do, we will still occasionally get allosexual people saying, okay, that’s fine for you and that’s valid, but for allosexual people, sex is a need. Maybe it’s not for you, but it is for me.

Royce: This is like how people get all up in arms when scientists use the word theory, because in a scientific context, a theory is a very specific thing. But you could just be, you know, talking to a friend and be like, well, I have a theory about what’s going to happen in this TV show, and it’s the same word but in different context. It’s completely different, a completely different definition.

Royce: Um, something that you need to feel happy and fulfilled in a relationship or in your life is very different than like a human right.

Courtney: Very different. And if people were not talking about and treating it as if it were a human right, this might be a very different conversation, but it is not. We have people using the words like and to go back to this Twitter thread too, she literally said, we should be moving toward a right to sex. People should be able to have sex when they feel they want to. And we need to develop services that meet people’s needs without attaching the baggage of shame or criminalization. Tell me more about these services to meet people’s needs.

Courtney: If you’re saying they have a right to sex, they should be able to have sex when they want to. What if, literally, what if not a single person wants to have sex with them?

Courtney: This person, even in this thread and after criticisms came later, said like, of course consent is necessary. Of course consent is necessary. All of this is going to be done with consent, don’t you see? But no, if there’s a situation where someone wants to have sex and there is not a single person on this planet that wants to have sex with them, they don’t have a right to have sex. They don’t. They do not have a right to have sex. And you know what?

Courtney: They’re not gonna die if they don’t have sex because sex is not a need. What I think would be a more appropriate alternative to a right to sex is people have a right to privacy. I think privacy should be a fundamental human right, which is constantly being threatened at large scales. But on an individual level, no, you do not have a right to someone else’s body. But do you have a right to do with your own body what you wish? Which can include whatever kind of masturbation works for you, if you do actually feel a physical urge and you really want that physical release, absolutely, I think you have a right to privacy, and I think you have a right to not feel shame about whatever way in which you want to do that release. Should you have other consenting individuals, absolutely, you have a right to use your privacy in that way also, should there be a proper level of consent too.

Courtney: But throughout the discourse of this particular Twitter conversation, there was a very interesting response from none other than James Somerton, who was retweeting this, uh, with strong agreement. And if I recall, he was trying to take it a step further, being like, yes, there should be like state-sanctioned sex workers. And the argument being that he had an anecdote saying, like, I know people who have been pulled off of the ledge, people who were on the brink of suicide, who had, you know, one night with a sex worker who was able to bring them back, and so this is, you know, the power of sex work and everyone should have a right to that. But listen.

Courtney: I do feel like sometimes in conversations like this, people who want to be supportive of sex workers, and on paper are, often don’t actually know any sex workers, or if they do, they don’t know anyone who has been doing survival sex work, which is often a whole different ballgame. Sometimes I do think kind of objectify sex workers as a population of people in these conversations, because people will be like, oh yeah, you know, if we you know, say everyone has a right to sex, then that means we can’t criminalize sex work, and that means, you know, more business, more money for them. But I think that kind of oversimplifies and ignores the fact that sex workers are at a much higher risk of facing sexual violence. And so yes, the oversimplified model of consent can be withdrawn. It is good to have in the back of your head and say, yes, this applies to sex workers too. Even if they got paid, they still have a right to say no. It is still their body.

Courtney: Theoretically, that’s great, but what happens when we tell an entire population of people, you have a right to have sex, and if you can’t get that willingly from someone else, you can go pay someone for it? You’ve now given someone not only the entitlement that comes from being told, I have a right to this. But now you are adding a financial transaction, which very often also comes with a sense of entitlement.

Courtney: The very transactional nature with which the sort of people in and around the red pill sphere will talk about, you know, how much cost it is to have sex with a woman, how many dates you have to go on, if you have to buy dinner, how many conversations you have to participate in, they talk about that as this— they literally call it the sexual marketplace. They say it’s all a transaction, this is all capitalism.

Courtney: If you have to go on three dates instead of one, that’s an expensive woman. And never once in those conversations are those people respecting that woman for who she is and what she wants.

Courtney: Well, I’m only talking to you because I want to have sex with you. So often, in response to people like that, I will hear people say like, you literally just want a sex worker. Just go pay for sex. Go find a sex worker. And I understand why they say that, because that’s a clear-cut example of now we are turning sex into a transaction. But I’ve increasingly gotten less comfortable with that because I know how much sexual violence sex workers are subjected to, and if you’re taking someone who already does not respect their partner who’s already really iffy when it comes to whether or not I would trust that person, someone who feels entitled, and you’re just kinda saying like, well, we don’t wanna deal with you, go to the sex workers. Like, you’re, you’re not sending them respectful clients.

Courtney: Because the entitlement is still there. That entitlement is the problem. The lack of respect for other people is the problem. The fact that people genuinely believe that they need And/or have a right to sex is the problem. And furthermore, I do believe that there are situations where someone is in so deep into a mental health crisis that they are contemplating self-harm, and perhaps a sex worker was, you know, right time, right place, and I guess good, I’m glad that person didn’t hurt themselves, but also like, sex workers are not therapists.

Royce: Yeah, that’s not their job. That could have been traumatizing for them in the moment. It’s like—

Courtney: Yes!

Royce: Have you ever heard people say, like, I mean, sometimes this is in media. I don’t know that I— I have never known an actual in-person friend to have this story, but like someone who has gone to a bridge in the middle of the night and they’re contemplating jumping, and then someone jogs by and says the right thing and it changes their mind. Are we gonna be like, okay, we need state-sanctioned joggers patrolling the streets?

Courtney: It’s— ’cause that’s the thing too, in that anecdote, you’re saying this person has a right to a sex worker because if not, they could hurt themselves. Where is the sex worker as a full human in this anecdote?

Courtney: Because for how often we sometimes overuse and misuse therapy speak, if this were like, two friends, people who know each other and one person’s like, hey, I’m in a really bad place right now, I’m thinking of hurting myself, like, I’m sure there’s someone who unironically out there right now thinks it would be acceptable to be like, you’re trauma dumping on me right now. And I’m not your therapist.

Courtney: And like, it’s just another form of example, but it is the same situation where these examples are being brought up and only one of the two people in this party are actually being thought of as a fully realized human. The other person is a prop.

Courtney: And that’s not even considering the fact that when you actually start talking to sex workers, you will so often hear how often people are seeking their services in order to try to affirm their own masculinity. They often are people who feel like they have failed on some level. They need to feel like a man. They need to have sex with a woman. Sometimes it is a domination fantasy. I need to feel like I’m dominating a woman. I need to feel in control of this situation.

Courtney: And sometimes, sure, maybe that man does actually want to have sex. But we also know there are research studies out there about how men, sometimes even allosexual men, people who do experience sexual attraction, will still sort of exaggerate their sexual desire in a performative way. They’ll depict their sexual desires or sexual activities as being more frequent than they actually are.

Royce: Yeah, it’s performative masculinity.

Courtney: Exactly. So if that is a big part of the underlying issue also, is performative masculinity, being told this is what it is to be a man, this is how men behave, this is how men have sex, this is how often men should have sex, instead of trying to unpack that, instead of trying to say, hey, this is an antiquated patriarchal ideal, we don’t have to live like this, we don’t have to perform this way, too many people say like, yeah, you wanna have sex? You should! You have a right to do that! You need to have sex!

Courtney: That reinforces the harmful social structures that led us to this point. It doesn’t help dismantle them. Because this isn’t even, I have seen this argument and this is why I’m bringing it up.

Courtney: People who do subscribe to like, yeah, well, you know, sex is a right. If someone wants to have sex, they should be able to have sex. Some of those folks might hear the argument of, well, sex is not a need. What actually is a need are things we still aren’t providing to everyone in our community.

Courtney: Not everyone has clean water. Not everyone has food. Not everyone has safe shelter or healthcare. And I’ve seen the argument where someone will be like, yeah, well, those are also really important.

Courtney: We can fight for both. We can fight for both at the same time. We don’t have to do these first and then the other.

Courtney: I, I think that’s wrong too. I do. I think even if everybody had their basic food needs met, water, shelter, healthcare, I don’t think now it’s time to start working on a right to sex, ’cause nobody has a right to someone else’s body. Ever. Ever.

Courtney: And like we touched on in the last episode and all of the previous episodes where we’ve talked about marriage consummation laws, where we’ve talked about sometimes international law concerning expectations of sex in marriages. There absolutely are times in law right now that does suggest, oh well, under these circumstances, at least under these conditions, you do have a right to that other person’s body. And as much as I think all of those laws need to be abolished, we really do need to tackle the social norms. Where far too many people believe that that is the case or should be the case. And I’ve even had— and I think most of these folks are saying as much in bad faith, but every now and then when I’ll say like, no, sex is literally not a need, it is not, sometimes people will outright challenge it and be like, no, it is for me.

Courtney: Maybe you can’t understand. ‘Cause you’re asexual, but me who’s not asexual, I do actually need it. And sometimes I think when people talk to me like that, uh, they’re like, oh my gosh, it’s just like when we were talking about Voice Memo Guy and everyone’s like, if you aren’t actively engaged in sexual relationships, you don’t get to have an opinion, you don’t get to talk in this conversation. Like, it’s the same kind of phenomenon.

Courtney: You are just like half a step away from calling someone a virgin as an insult. Like, shut up, virgin. It’s the same vibe. Even if it’s not the same word or the same scenario, it’s the same vibe.

Courtney: Which inherently suggests that having sex still holds social capital. And if it still holds social capital, then no, this brand of sex positivity that’s like, we need to have more sex, everyone who wants to have sex should have sex, we should have a right to sex, sex is a need, You should have different kinds of sex, you should have sex with more people. I think that’s kind of detrimental to people who already think sex is social capital.

Royce: Yeah, I think some of that is why I don’t have conversations with people.

Courtney: Just in general?

Royce: Just in general.

Courtney: Like, it’s—

Royce: I immediately check out of conversations that are just wrong. Like—

Courtney: And so many people are so wrong all the time.

Royce: I’ve said to you before that, like, people put too much stock in opinions. There are often objective truths and objective lies, or correct and incorrect things, and oftentimes I resolve this back down to like a “flat earth” conversation. There is no point in having a discussion, unless it’s just for your own curiosity, about why the earth is flat, because it isn’t. Like, it’s, it’s not your opinion, you can’t have an opinion about that.

Royce: The often stated things about needs is, you know, three minutes without air. Some will say three hours without shelter in extreme weather conditions, three days without water, three weeks without food. You won’t die without sex.

Royce: That’s not a thing. If you’re trying to argue that it is, you’re wrong. If you’re saying, well, I need this, you’re having a completely different conversation. That’s not the one we’re having right now. And even if they did try to pivot it to some kind of like you know, orgasm or release or chemicals in the brain that is produced during it, which all of that’s bullshit anyway.

Courtney: But it’s so healthy. Sex is so healthy.

Royce: Use your hands.

Courtney: Right?

Royce: There’s, there’s no excuse there that necessarily involves another person. There is a social relationship, you know, you know, angle here, a lot of community, a lot of people do feel unfulfilled if they don’t have meaningful relationships. in their life. And, you know, what is a meaningful relationship to you will vary as a person.

Royce: And you could go way off into the distance and say, well, the mortality rate for people who are alone or don’t have a good social connection, like, they don’t tend to live as long. But again, that’s not the same as starving to death, right? It’s still not a need, even if you’re trying to jump to that sort of conclusion.

Courtney: Well, and the conflation of the act of sex and a fulfilling communal relationship with another person. Sure, sometimes those two things can coexist in the same relationship, but one is not, you know, the secret hack to getting the other. Like, oh, I had sex, now I’m not lonely. That doesn’t work. It’s never gonna work.

Courtney: And sometimes on the flip side, aside from the people who genuinely say like, no, but it is a need though, you just understand because you’re a naive asexual person. You couldn’t possibly understand all the nuances of us sexuals.

Royce: Incorrect.

Courtney: Incorrect, for one. I’ve thought about your sexuality probably more than you have. But then there are people who are like, you’re just splitting hairs. We know it’s not literally a need. We know it’s not literally a need.

Royce: Then stop arguing. Like, why are you in here lying?

Courtney: Well, the thing is, I always want to challenge those people, like, okay, so you’re saying, you know, it’s not literally a need, but like, name two historical psychologists. I did this to someone once. I was like, name two famous psychologists from history.

Royce: And they said Freud and—

Courtney: Maslow.

Royce: Maslow, okay.

Courtney: Just as I thought they would. Just as I thought they would. First of all, I’m not even gonna spend any time on Freud. Fuck Freud. But Maslow. Good ol’ Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Courtney: You know, you’ve all probably seen that neat little pyramid leaning, leading up to self-actualization. What’s on the very bottom of that pyramid? Sex. Right alongside food and water and air and shelter and clothing and sleep. Sex.

Courtney: I remember taking a psychology course in high school and being shown Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and immediately being like, oh, nope. As soon as I saw sex on that bottom rung of this pyramid saying you need to have all these things fulfilled before you can go to the next stage, I was like, absolutely not, we’re throwing this whole model in the trash can. And I only later found out that I was a lot more right than even I realized, because Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as we are taught it and as it’s presented to us and as it’s sometimes used in arguments like this, I see people arguing, but Maslow’s hierarchy of needs!

Courtney: That has sex right there with food and water. So checkmate, asexuals. Checkmate, virgins. I am going to go to the thrift store after this episode and see if I can find one of those old virginity rocks t-shirts.

Courtney: Some people will use it as evidence that, look, this was a highly respected, uh, researcher. But it is so fundamentally flawed that you need to do like a series of deep dives to even learn where this theory of Maslow’s came from. So first of all, Maslow originally, before what has now become the pop psychology understanding of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that we all know and see and throw around from time to time, Maslow had a theory that he was trying to test about social hierarchies and how dominance over other people plays a part in maintaining these social hierarchies. And when he was trying to determine how universal this is, he traveled, he attempted to spend time with people from other cultures originally to see, how do they maintain dominance over each other? What are their social hierarchies like?

Courtney: And he spent many months at Siksika, in a Blackfoot society. Blackfoot and Siksika, I will probably use a little interchangeably here. His theory shattered spending time with the Blackfoot. He saw that they didn’t have this sort of social dominance that Maslow was used to back home. He saw what would later, from my understanding, be named his self-actualization. He saw self-actualized people in what might more realistically be called community actualization. This was a far more communal people than he was used to. that did not rely on for social dominance. And sometimes I’ll see people with a little bit of information about this history make the claim that, oh, Maslow actually appropriated his hierarchy of needs from the Blackfoot. But that is not in any way my understanding from the actual Blackfoot elders and researchers that I have read from.

Courtney: Yes, his theory was highly influenced by spending time with these people, but they never had, like, a pyramid. They didn’t sit him down and say, this was our model for how to live a good life. That never happened.

Courtney: And in fact, even what he observed, despite probably still being a kinder alternative to his original theory, was still someone coming in with this Western colonial perspective, coming from a culture of dominance and social hierarchy, and having that worldview completely changed. So what he applied was still his own perspective from a very individualistic and hierarchical society. So it was in a lot of ways his own theory, but he was still applying an individualistic ideal to a more collective type of society. So I don’t think anyone could argue in good faith that just that understanding alone— probably missed the mark in a couple of places, he probably had his own blind spots, his own biases. So while it may not have been a perfect attempt to put to words and put to research in a Western academic sort of a colonial model that academics are, were at this time, and still are, we are in present day using his little pyramid, using his, well, you know, sex is a fundamental necessity, you need to have sex before you can achieve self-actualization, you need to have sex before, you know, your safety needs, your love and belonging needs.

Courtney: But we’re sort of using his model, unbeknownst to a lot of people I’m sure, to reinforce the same hierarchical structures that he was originally trying to get away from after being exposed to different ways of being. Because so often missing from these conversations, about sex as a need and sex as a right. Sex is still to this day all too often used as a tool of control. It is used as a tool of patriarchy and hierarchy.

Courtney: It shouldn’t be. We should untangle those things. But if we can’t acknowledge that it still is— And we push forward with more, more, more, we have a right, we have a need, then at the end of the day, all we’re going to do is continue to reinforce structures of social dominance and social hierarchy.

Courtney: And I think that is a complete bastardization of Maslow’s hierarchy, which is already not perfect. I’m not defending it as a good, perfect thing. Believe you me.

Courtney: But I do think it’s not in the spirit with which he concepted this. And it’s in fact even my understanding that the pyramid we see was also sort of an interpretation of his interpretation.

Courtney: But I think psychology is already deeply flawed, and historical psychology is deeply flawed, and pop psychology especially is deeply flawed. And I think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in the way people talk about it and use it today is like an evil little Venn diagram where they all converge. And with pop psychology being as flawed as it is, unfortunately, I also see that time and time again being used to reinforce these same harmful hierarchical structures.

Courtney: And we see that with the conversation about, you know, Voice Memo Guy, with him being like, for me, This is my love language. Love language is one of those pop psychology things. Well, it’s my love language to, etc., etc. Well, it’s my boundaries that I need to be in a relationship that X, Y, and Z, or for my own sake.

Courtney: And because it sounds like communication and because it sounds like psychology, I do think a lot of people just accept that completely uncritically. It’s where we get— I even heard an actual licensed therapist using the word gaslighting wrong recently on a public stage. Like, people were just disagreeing with something they said, and they were like, you’re all gaslighting me right now.

Courtney: Are you not literally a therapist? Do you— that’s not what that word means. You’re using it colloquially like everyone else. And truth be told, pop psych language is being used as a coercive tactic. It is coercion to say, well, you know, if you love me, you’ll do this because this is my love language. That’s coercion. If you say, well, we have to have sex because it’s a boundary for me, I have to know that I’m dating someone I’m sexually compatible with, that’s coercion. You’re just using pseudo-psychology speak to coerce other people. But psychology is so widely accepted. I mean, how often do you hear like, go to therapy? Everyone should go to therapy. I don’t actually agree that everyone should go to therapy, but people say that as often as they say, you know, consent is sexy, or we have a right to sex, or all these other slogans, uh, that I will critique endlessly.

Courtney: And truly, at the end of the day, the culmination of all of these conversations we’ve had so far this month is that, yes, some people will intentionally coerce others. Some will.

Courtney: But coercive tactics exist because they often work. And you can use a coercive tactic to get what you want without literally understanding or knowing that you are coercing that other person.

Courtney: A lot of language and social interaction is learned by trial and error. That’s how kids learn how to speak. It’s how you learn second languages. It’s how you enter new subcultural groups. You take in what other people are saying and you try it out. You try to say something else to someone and see if it works, see if it lands. And that’s not fundamentally bad or wrong, but you will start learning the things that work and the things that don’t. And coercive tactics often work. They do.

Courtney: And the latest front of coercive tactics, I think, is the bastardization of therapy speak. And that is only gonna continue to muddy the waters in these conversations about consent because consent itself has turned into sort of a pop psychology sort of conversation.

Courtney: And so if you meet it where it’s at by using the same kind of language, It’ll sound like you’re playing by the rules. Maybe you’ll even think you’re playing by the rules. Or you’re just gonna see if you can get away with it.

Courtney: But the only proper solution to this is respect. Is respecting the other person. Even in situations where yes, this is just going to be a casual sexual encounter. That’s all there is to it.

Courtney: Neither person involved wants this to become a romantic relationship. It will be a one-and-done.

Courtney: Even in a situation like that, you still have to have a foundational level of respect for that person. And we can’t keep excusing bad structures by trying to dress it up in newer clothing.

Courtney: If someone thinks they need sex and they have a right to sex, I do not trust that they will respect another person once they get to that point. And I really think the only way that we can all properly achieve freedom and liberation and having all of our genuine basic needs met is by abolishing all of the hierarchical social structures that are founded on domination over others. And that includes any and every line of thought that considers sexual activity to be a form of social capital. That was an incredibly long-winded, winding way of saying it, but it’s kind of like, uh, every now and then when you hear someone so fed up with these conversations about sexual violence just being like, here’s an idea, how about you teach men not to rape? Like, you’ll, you’ll hear people say things flippantly like that, from time to time.

Courtney: And of course, sexual violence can be perpetrated by all genders. But truly, I— it’s— it sounds oversimplified, but that kind of is the answer, is teach people not to rape. But that conversation is a lot more complicated than people think it is, because when we talk about rape culture, saying things like sex is a need, sex is a right. Sex is my love language. Those all come from a foundation of perpetuating rape culture.

Courtney: And I know a lot of you aren’t ready to have that conversation yet. Maybe those of you who are still listening this far into the episode, all of you, you’re ready to have this conversation.

Courtney: We’re having it right now. Everyone else in the world, not so much.

Courtney: So again, just like I said last week, this is not the end of this conversation. We may have come to an end of Consent Month, so we will be moving on to different topics for now, but this in no way hit every single crack and crevice that there is to hit in this conversation. But hopefully we at least cast a broad enough net to start connecting some threads for all of you who have followed us this far.

Courtney: And so, as for today, we are going to leave you all off as usual with today’s featured Marketplace vendor, Teratopixel, where you can get pixel art commissions by a Brazilian aroace artist. Perhaps you are in the market for a pixel art character portrait. If so, you can find her commission website in the show notes on our website, as well as the description box if you’re also listening on YouTube.

Courtney: Or if you’re looking for something ready to buy, there is a beautiful space-themed wallpaper pack on itch.io That contains four different space-themed pixel art wallpapers. They’re absolutely gorgeous.

Courtney: Or maybe you even have a longer-term project, uh, like a game you’re trying to produce. She is also open for game jams and more ongoing work projects. So once again, that is Teratopixel.

Courtney: Make sure to check her out. And as always, thank you all so much for listening, and we will talk to you all next time.