Sexuality and late modernity

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A little while ago there was a feature on German television on sexual harassment in mixed-sex gyms. The program was quite obviously designed to convey a certain message: In these clubs, where young, attractive men and women tune their healthy, gleaming physiques and afterwards wash hot sweat from freshly exercised muscles under unisex showers, unwelcome flirting and suggestive remarks are always an issue, as are impertinent peeps at body parts that are usually concealed and only revealed to public view during workouts at the machines. Both film and commentary assumed the viewer would be properly and correctly embarrassed at this coarse behaviour. Behind this deliberately chosen perspective"beware of sexual assault"-there was, however, quite a different story: first, that today heterosexual scenes are ubiquitously constructed and at the same time robbed of most of their erotic content (two strangers alone in a room under a shower are usually only there to wash themselves); second, in situations that are only ostensibly "exciting," unwanted approaches or assaults are rare (even if there are still too many of them); third, that a high a degree of discipline and complex etiquette are required and executed when nude or seminude men and women in full possession of their sexual powers find themselves together in a potentially intimate situation.

It is easy to sketch in the background to this scenario. On the heels of the liberal discourse of the 1960s and 1970s, which swept aside generations of sexual taboos, came an "equal rights" discourse in the 1980s. This was set in motion by women in the feminist movement and centered on the theme of sexual coercion and violence in all its forms and disguises. At the same time, women came up with a new code of sexual behaviour that, without seeking to reinstall the old taboos, tried to regulate sex along peaceful, communicative, predictable, reasonable, fair, and equal lines. The aim was to make sex, literally, agreeable.

A Morality of Negotiations

At the beginning of the 1990s, students at Antioch College in the United States formulated a sex code that epitomises this approach and illuminates the thinking behind it (Stan, 1995, p. 287). They agreed on a set of rules for both sexes, irrespective of their sexual orientation, specifying in detail how men and women (or men and men or women and women) should deport themselves when making sexual approaches: rules for flirting, for kissing, for stroking, petting, and making love. The principle behind these rules is simple: An explicit question and verbal assent are required at each stage of any sexual contact, a clear "yes" before kissing, before touching each other, before stroking an erogenous zone, or any form of stimulation. Just as the seducer, if he/she still deserves this name, is duty bound to inquire, so the object of his/her desire is duty bound to signal either assent or refusal in an unmistakable verbal or physical manner.

The story from Antioch may seem peculiar, but I mention it because it highlights a distinct new social development: Sexual morals in the old sense are vanishing and being replaced by a new moral code that prescribes negotiations between the partners. The old code was essentialist, stating unequivocally that certain sexual acts, for instance premarital sex, masturbation, homosexuality, oral sex, and contraception, are invariably wicked, often irrespective of the context. It was a "morality of acts" (Weeks, 1995, p. 47). In contrast, a morality of negotiations is founded on a belief in consensual, ratified behaviour, and in explicit verbal agreement; it has also been termed consensus morality (Sigusch, 1996a). Because this code does not make any moral judgements about the kind of sexual activity proposed, but only about how it comes about (i.e., the way the protagonists interact) it has a clearly liberal flavour. The students at Antioch are not at all prudish; morally speaking it does not matter whether someone is hetero-, homo- or bisexual, whether sex is marital or extramarital, genital, anal or oral, gentle or rough, run-of-the-mill or highly unusual, sadistic or masochistic. What counts is that the participants have talked it over and reached agreement. Even abstinence regains an honourable role, dressed up as the "new chastity."

The consequences are drastic and surprising: "Normal" sexual behaviour, in the form of heterosexuality, is relegated to being just one of several lifestyles. The perversions evaporate, only to reappear as now socially acceptable lifestyles promoted by the media and proudly "outed" to afternoon TV audiences (Simon, 1996). One can see how influential and universal the new code has already become by looking at the perversions, or what used to bear the name, where carrying out the correct negotiations is de rigueur. In television features and talkshows, sadists and masochists repeatedly and earnestly assure us that the tortures involved are only moderate, and anyway, it was agreed upon in advance. This is a world away from the horrors and visions that spurred on the Marquis de Sade. Only under special circumstances, in which this negotiating level seems inherently absent, such as in pedophilia where one partner is always weaker than the other, are sexual acts still regarded as perverse and condemned even more diligently and ruthlessly than they used to be 0 or 20 years ago.