Profs & Pints DC: The Ethics of Good Sex

Profs and Pints DC presents: “The Ethics of Good Sex,” a philosophical and practical guide to promoting pleasure while ensuring respect, with Quill R. Kukla, professor of philosophy and disability studies at Georgetown University and author of Sex Beyond ‘Yes’: Pleasure and Agency for Everyone.

Most discourse around sexual ethics—regardless of political orientation—focuses on how sex can go wrong and how we can avoid bad or harmful sex. Our sexual education emphasizes ensuring consent and taking “no” for an answer.

But as a society we spend almost no time discussing how to have good sex that is pleasurable for everyone involved and respects everyone’s agency. We are told to make sure that our partner says “yes,” but we are given no tools or roadmaps for what to do to have good sex, rather than minimally ethical sex, after that yes is given. We get no lessons on how to figure…