Rachel, 25, has the open face and friendly demeanor of a born-and-bred Midwesterner. She’s lively and opinionated, and feels in control of most areas of her life. But when it comes to sex, something isn’t right.
“I don’t know," she sighed over coffee as we spoke in downtown D.C. "I’ve never been in a situation where I felt pushed into something, exactly, but…”
Rachel (a pseudonym) reeled off a list of unhappy encounters with would-be romantic partners: sex consented to out of a misguided sense of politeness, extreme acts requested and occasionally allowed, degrading insults as things unfolded — and regrets later. “It’s not like I was being forced into anything or that I feel unsafe, but it’s not … good. And I don’t like how I feel afterwards.”
Young Americans are engaging in sexual encounters they don’t really want for reasons they don’t fully agree with. It’s a depressing state of affairs — turbocharged by pornography, which has mainstreamed ever more extreme sexual acts, and the proliferation of dating apps, which can make it seem as though new options are around every corner.
The results are widely felt. Many of my contemporaries are discouraged by the romantic landscape, its lack of trust, emotion and commitment, but they also believe that safer options and smoother avenues aren’t possible. Instead, they assume that this is how things go and that it would be unreasonable to ask for more — and rude not to go along with whatever has been requested.
