Christine Emba
Senior Fellow, AEI. Author, "Rethinking Sex: A Provocation." Editor-at-large, WisdomOfCrowds.live
“Consent was meant to be the floor. It was never meant to be the ceiling.”
The Bulwark · Policy · November 2026
Context
Asked whether consent has become our only accepted sexual ethic out of fear of a return to old double standards, the writer gives the answer at the heart of her book.
Transcript
case, right? Jane Doe is suing. Yes.
…this woman described being treated like a sex doll, like an object, like a person without human dignity. And we should have the moral language to talk about that instead of sort of retreating to these legal terms. But in the conversations that I've seen around the case, we're failing to do that.
So do you think that part of what's going on and part of the reason that we are sort of relying on this idea of consent as being the only measure of what's right and wrong in matters of sex is that we're sort of afraid that if we introduce other kinds of moral standards, that people will fear that we are going back to like Puritan double standards or sort of more constricting sexual rules that we believe we have already transcended.
That is a great question. So as you know, I published my first book, Rethinking Sex, a Provocation, in 2022. And it was honestly about this exact question. Why have we become to, why have we come to rely on consent as an ethic when it was supposed to be, you know, it's a low bar. Consent was meant…
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