Christine Emba on ethical sex

Dialogues with Richard Reeves

Something's wrong with our sex lives. That's according to Christine Emba. In her new book, Rethinking Sex: A Provocation she argues that too many people are having sex that is consenting, but not good. Sex that makes us feel used, or sad, or alienated in some way or another. She argues for an ethic of sex that is based on the Aristotelian definition of love as "willing the good of the other".

Christine and I talk quite a bit about the differences between men and women when it comes to sex, and the dangers of women being held up (or perhaps down), to masculine ideas of sex. We talk about how the restriction of the debate about sex to one of consent misses the mark in terms of what people are seeking; the so-called "sex recession" as fewer younger adult report having sex (and whether that is a good or a bad thing); we agree that good sex, defined ethically, is not constrained by a particular institutional arrangement - and so can take place on a one night stand; the "orgasm gap" between women having sex in a committed relationship as opposed to a casual one; whether sex workers are having good sex; and much more.

Christine is a terrific writer and thinker on contemporary culture, and has focused here on a particularly timely issue, I think.

Christine Emba

Buy her book, Rethinking Sex: A Provocation.

Read her Washington Post columns.

Follow her on twitter @ChristineEmba