Richard Kimberly Heck

Richard Kimberly Heck (Riki) is Professor of Philosophy at Brown University.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@SexTalkTuesday Thanks to everyone who participated!

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@Ms_Joanne_F @ChoclateApollo1 @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday The philosopher John Gardner has a paper in which he describes 'good sex' as a kind of teamwork. The paper is "The Opposite of Rape". I tend to think his account has some issues with details, but it's a nice idea.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@ChoclateApollo1 @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday Yes, sex is widely seen as something men do *to* women, and that women do *for* men. Mainstream porn seems to reinforce that pretty well.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@TrojanViper @Ms_Joanne_F @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday Of course communication doesn't have to be verbal. I can think of a few pornos where you just have this sense that the partners are completely tuned into each other. It's amazing to watch.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@TrojanViper @Ms_Joanne_F @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday In a sexual context, it sounds like getting naked. "She debriefed him and sucked his cock."

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@ChoclateApollo1 @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday It's weird. From what my students tell me, men routinely treat them, sexually, with a disregard with which they would never treat them non-sexually.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@Ms_Joanne_F @TrojanViper @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday Hidden behind that is the simple fact that they care about your experience. Really care.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@HeadstrongHW @SexTalkTuesday and people tend just to fall into it. We all know how that script goes, and where it goes. (2/2)

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@HeadstrongHW @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday A few years ago, one of the gay male students in my Philosophy of Sex course mentioned that, in the circles he runs in, that's the first question (after consent has been established): What are you into? In heterosex, by contrast, there's a clear script (1/2)

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@TrojanViper @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday I agree with that, of course, but in some ways I think there's a prior issue. It's not that people aren't communicating. They're not motivated to communicate. Or, if they are, they for some reason feel unable.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@Ms_Joanne_F @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday I have this dim sense that part of what keeps these problems alive is the assumption that what works for men works just as well for women.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@ChoclateApollo1 @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday Cunnilingus still seems to be considered somewhat taboo, indeed.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@ChoclateApollo1 @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday Absolutely. I don't tend to agree with a lot that MacKinnon says, but she gets this right: "Man fucks woman. Subject, verb, object."

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@HeadstrongHW @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday I have heard this from some of my students. The few that have been able to talk about it say it is scary, but it's become almost normal.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@SexTalkTuesday @TrojanViper #SexTalkTuesday Porn shouldn't be sex ed, but in the absence of actual sex ed that addresses the actual concerns teens have (not just biology), it's become sex ed. That is, it's where teenagers these days actually 'learn' (or mislearn) about sex.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@HeadstrongHW @TrojanViper @SexTalkTuesday Ahh, good one!

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@TrojanViper @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday The unrealistic expectation part seems key.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@SexTalkTuesday @HeadstrongHW #SexTalkTuesday There's probably some film somewhere that's an exception. Maybe "Lost in Translation", actually. The SJ character is never shamed for her desire, I don't think. But still, very rare.

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

#SexTalkTuesday The really classic discussion of the 'asymmetry of desire' is a paper by Michelle Fine.
https://t.co/YLbpbPH0bP

[Richard Kimberly Heck @rikiheck]

@DoctorJay617 @SexTalkTuesday #SexTalkTuesday Yes, thanks, that seems exactly right. I often tell my students that male orgasm is the end of sex, in two senses: It ends it, and it's the goal.