May 15, 2025 • 19 mins
What happens when women repeatedly say "yes" to sex they don't actually want? The answer might surprise—and disturb—you.
Dr. Cami Hurst pulls back the curtain on her groundbreaking PhD research examining the hidden consequences of "duty sex" in long-term relationships. Drawing from over 1,300 women's experiences, she reveals striking findings that challenge our understanding of consent and sexual health.
Most disturbingly, 53% of women who consented to unwanted sex with their partners developed moderate to high PTSD-like symptoms, despite no history of sexual assault or physical coercion. These women reported significant emotional distress, relationship strain, and sexual aversion that compounded over time. One participant captured this perfectly: "The cycle of duty sex and resentment has killed any kind of emotional intimacy in our relationship."
The research illuminates a troubling reality—that unrecognized verbal and emotional coercion permeates many bedrooms, with 82% of participants experiencing pressure after initially refusing sex. As one woman put it, "He was never coercive, only pouty and mad at me. It was easier to consent than to deal with his emotions."
This episode serves as an introduction to an upcoming series featuring diverse cultural experts exploring how different communities experience this phenomenon. Dr. Hurst aims to expand beyond her homogeneous sample to understand how cultural factors may contribute to or protect against these patterns.
Whether you're struggling with sexual desire discrepancies in your own relationship, working as a therapist with couples facing intimacy issues, or simply interested in relationship dynamics, this research provides crucial insights into why consent alone isn't enough. Share your experiences or thoughts by emailing cami@camhurst.com, and join us as we explore this important conversation over the coming year.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi friends, I'm really glad to be back in the
podcasting chair and getting torecording and producing,
something I really enjoy.
But in this break I've taken,I've really been focusing on
expanding my PhD research andstarting conversations about it
(00:22):
and trying to get insights, andbegun the process of writing a
book for the public about myresearch and as part of that, I
wanted to clear up some of thelimitations of my research,
which was just this homogeneoussample that we got, you know,
(00:43):
1300 women, but they were prettysimple or similar, not simple,
they were pretty similar, whichmay lead to the simplification
of our findings, and really Ihave a desire to keep it complex
so that we can honor eachperson's experience and needs
(01:04):
who may find themselves in thissituation.
So, you know, several monthsago I reached out to other
experts in this area who have ancultural angle that can be
really instructive inunderstanding this.
So, you know, I reached out tosex therapists, who were an
(01:24):
expert with one certain group orcommunity or culture to try to
understand how those influencesmight impact the outcomes some
women experience when theyconsent to unwanted sex as a
pattern in their long-termrelationships.
So what I'm going to show younow is the video I sent out
(01:44):
months ago to the people that Ireally wanted to discuss this
with and had a really greatresponse.
It's a little overwhelming tostep into more of a public
facing position and to reach outto like my heroes, like my
mentors and the people that I'velearned from that I really
(02:06):
respect, and it takes somevulnerability and to put your
research out there this babythat you created and spent so
much time on.
But it was so rewarding and Ihope that you enjoy it too.
So this is our introductoryepisode to a series that you'll
be seeing coming out.
The series is this culturaldiscussion about the outcomes of
(02:31):
consenting to unwanted sex, andwe're defining culture here as
just any group that may havecommunity beliefs or group norms
, or may have community beliefsor group norms or rules and
ideas based on the group thatthey belong to Could be racial,
(02:52):
religious.
You know, anything can start tocreate a culture within a group
, and so here we go.
Here's what I sent them.
Here was the invitation.
Hi there, I really appreciateyou taking time to even consider
this invitation.
My name is Cammie Hurst, I havea private practice in Meridian
Idaho and I'm working on apersonal project which was my,
(03:16):
you know, turning the results ofmy PhD research into something
for the public.
And the research was aroundwhat are the outcomes of women
who consent to unwanted sex inthe context of their long-term
relationships, and we looked atemotionally, psychologically,
sexual and relationship distress.
And you know.
(03:38):
Here's just some informationabout me.
I am ASEC certified.
I do have a PhD in clinicalsexology.
My background is as an LMFT, Ido some supervision, I do some
free education on a podcast.
I don't have any financialdisclosures to make at this time
but I want to share with youabout my PhD research and the
outcomes and what I'd reallylove is your thoughts from your
(04:02):
world as a professional in thecommunities that you come from
and the communities that youserve.
So this research we got over1,300 women.
It was really fantastic.
Right now there's a manuscriptin the final stages for peer
review, for submission to anacademic journal with my
colleague, dr Lisa Diamond, whoassisted me with this research
(04:22):
and was on my dissertationcommittee, and I'm writing a
book for the public about myfindings.
The purpose was to look atmiddle-aged women who are having
an experience of sexualavoidance, low desire, sexual
shutdown in their relationships.
Some people might call this,you know, a long-term pattern of
(04:43):
duty sex or sexual acquiescenceor sexual compliance.
But O'Sullivan, muehlenhard andPeterson are calling this
consenting to unwanted sex andthey left a lot of implications
for further research in theirfindings.
And that's what I picked up,all the things that they said.
We want to know what this doesin future research and those are
(05:05):
the things that I chose as myhypotheses.
The requirements for this groupwas that they needed to be over
30, because most of thisresearch was done with college
cohort women.
We were asking for women whodidn't have a history of sexual
abuse, assault or violence,because we didn't want to mix
those results in with thefindings we were specifically
looking for.
(05:26):
They had, you know, to say yes,I've consented to unwanted sex
in my long-term relationshipsand we were looking for people
who'd been in a relationshiplonger than three years, so we
weren't seeing a bunch ofresults from the limerence phase
.
So the first understandcoercion.
(05:51):
We ask that they not have ahistory of assault.
But we really realized throughthis that recognizing emotional
and verbal coercion on thatother end of the spectrum that's
not physical force, that it wasreally unrecognized, that here
are the percentages of women whoafter they said no to an
(06:12):
invitation to sex, what theirpartner attempted to do to try
to get them to change theiranswer and realized that there's
quite a bit of unrecognizedcoercions in long-term
relationship.
That's emotional or verbalcoercion, and so we controlled
for that in all of our outcomes.
When we looked at what are theemotional, psychological, sexual
(06:34):
and relational outcomes of thispattern, let's make sure we see
what's from coercion and what'snot.
Unfortunately, there were only18% of our sample that said that
they had never experienced anyof those post-refusal strategies
.
And so here is basically theend from the beginning.
This is where we're headed,this is what we found and the
(07:01):
difference between those who hadsome verbal and emotional
coercion and those who had noverbal and emotional coercion.
And here's just some examples.
The participant quotes are thegold in this research study Over
700 submissions in their ownwords, and here's one you know,
just kind of showcasing thisconfusion about coercion.
It said he was never coercive,only pouty and mad at me.
(07:23):
It was easier to consent thanto deal with his emotions.
His need for sex outweighed mydisinterest in it.
And this last one, one time Ihad a UTI.
I tried to say no multipletimes, but we were on vacation
and he wanted to more.
Since we were on vacation, eventhough it hurt and I cried, I
let him.
I should have said no more, butI figured if he didn't listen
(07:45):
the first two times and he cansee my physical responses of
crying and being tense and hestill kept going his need must
be greater than mine.
Again, these are people whochecked that box of.
I have no history of sexualassault, trauma or abuse, just
completely unrecognizing what iscoercion and what is not.
(08:06):
Now for our emotional outcomes.
We used the PANIS 20 to askduring the most distressing
events of consenting to unwantedsex, what are the feelings that
you had?
We believe that there would bea significant minority of women
who were experiencing highlevels of distress, but in fact
we found that the majority ofwomen were experiencing high
(08:28):
levels of stress during the mostdistressing times.
They're feeling upset,irritable, distressed, guilty,
ashamed, nervous, some evenhostile.
Here's some quotes about youknow how it felt.
And while resentment was not onthe pannus, it was mentioned
157 times by the researchparticipants when asked in their
(08:50):
own words what the negativeoutcome was Guilt, shame,
spiraling.
I feel like I can be in mybedroom without feeling nervous
and dreading that he will starttouching me in my expectation of
sex or I feel like I can't be.
I should say the blame and theguilt makes me feel angry.
I feel disrespected because heputs his needs first.
(09:13):
Now we study the psychologicaloutcomes of we use the PCLS to
measure on your PTSD symptoms.
We fully recognize that therewasn't a physical threat here
and these percentages are womenin the survey who reported
experiencing this from amoderate to extreme levels.
(09:33):
Here we can see the avoidanceis super high, feeling upset is
high, angry outbursts,irritability high and really,
when we scored the PANAS withour sample, 39% had no severity.
So that is great.
There's 39% of women whoconsult or consent to unwanted
(09:56):
sex in their relationships andwe're not having psychological
symptoms of PTSD with anyseverity.
However, when you look at thosewho had a moderate to high
severity, we're now at 53% ofour survey population who were
experiencing moderate to highPTSD symptoms from this specific
situation.
(10:18):
Here are some quotes that talkabout you know, feeling some
trauma-like symptoms.
They're saying I feel like Ihave trauma now because of this.
I find myself avoiding him whenhe's home.
I avoid having sex with him.
I avoid vacations because Isense they're another tactic to
get sex.
I feel an aversion now tosexual activity.
(10:39):
I am uninterested now in sexmost of the time.
Another measure we use to lookat what is the sexual and
relational outcome of thislong-term pattern and used this
measure here from Frost andDonovan.
You know there's a lack ofphysical affection, a sense of
sexual predictability, a lack ofinitiation, a sense of
(11:02):
hopelessness, a lack ofnormalness, anxiety, guilt, all
coming up within therelationship because of this
pattern.
Oh man, these women just saysuch touching things, such
profound things I have no desirefor sex anymore, I have no
desire for my partner.
The cycle of duty, sex andresentment has killed any kind
(11:23):
of emotional intimacy in therelationship, you know.
And when we then coded thequalitative responses, we found
that 31 times by surveyparticipants they said they had
a lack of sexual desire onsexual shutdown.
(11:44):
So we looked at what about thefrequency and ratio?
Some of my critique was in thepast.
When this has been studied it'sbeen how many times last two
weeks.
But what we're learning is amajor symptom of sexual
avoidance.
And so we really can't excludethose low sex and no sex
(12:04):
relationships from our findingsand have them be very valuable.
And so here we're looking at,you know, for this population,
often, and very often we're upto 35% of people who consult,
consent to unwanted sex in thatrelationship.
You know they said everythingjust got worse as it continued.
(12:26):
This patterns led to lessintimacy.
There's resentment, frustrationand distance between us.
There's a lack of desire toengage, resentment, frustration
and distance between us.
There's a lack of desire toengage.
Here we were looking at themotivations, because that's kind
of been the model by O'Sullivanis.
Well, are your motivations toconsent to unwanted sex an
approach motivation toward therelationship?
Are they an avoidancemotivation, to avoid something
(12:48):
negative?
And we did find that theavoidance motivations were
higher, more highly correlatedwith negative emotional and
psychological outcomes.
But for those who were evenusing approach motivations, they
also had negative consequences,just not as high, like that the
(13:12):
most.
You know.
Here's the reasons.
I felt it was necessary tosatisfy my partner's needs.
I wanted to avoid tension inthe relationship.
I felt guilty, I was worried Iwould jeopardize our
relationship.
You know, here are all themotivations, with the
percentages of our populationand how they identify to this
scale.
This scale, okay, you know, andthese women are saying I
(13:36):
allowed myself to believe thatif I didn't give it to him he'd
find it elsewhere.
I did give it to him and hestill found more elsewhere.
It was a false sense ofsecurity.
So this is starting to feellike a coping mechanism, right
Consenting to unwanted sex as acoping mechanism for some
relational insecurity.
I don't feel like I can make iton my own financially, so I
(13:57):
stay in the relationship to havesex with him and Lisa Diamond
and I you know we're like isthis?
We had a little discussion withthe language.
Is this really an avoidance orshould we be looking at this as
a coping strategy?
Really, that sex is how womenare keeping their safety in this
relationship and that's whyit's showing up as trauma.
(14:18):
Even when there's not coercion.
It's still showing those highdistress emotional outcomes,
those high PTSD-like symptoms,even when there's not coercion.
It's high stakes for many ofthese women.
Here's some of the quotes thatlead to this idea of this is how
we're keeping some socialsafety and that's why it's
(14:39):
traumatic and why it's a bigdeal.
I think the feeling that Ishouldn't say no made consenting
to unwanted sex traumatic.
I worry that if I say no toooften, he won't feel satisfied
in our relationship.
I get anxious about sex.
I'm constantly worried aboutpleasing my partner and
sometimes I have panic attacksbefore, during or after sex.
(15:00):
For years I thought, and wastold by my therapist, that there
might be something wrong withme and that he would leave me if
I didn't help meet his needs.
It was my job to please him andnot pleasing him would put me
in a dangerous position.
So this is where the trauma Ithink is coming from the social
safety aspect.
And so throughout this research,with our hypotheses most of
(15:23):
them were confirmed thatconsenting to unwanted sex in
long-term relationships did infact for some women, in many
cases, the majority of womencreate long-term negative
emotional, psychological,relational and sexual symptoms
for these women.
Now this is a really quickrecap of the research study, but
(15:45):
we're playing around with thisidea of proposing a possible
syndrome of consenting tounwanted sex syndrome where
there's emotional distressbefore, during or after a sexual
encounter.
It's highlighted by sexualresentment, sexual guilt, sexual
inadequacy.
These women are scoringmoderate to high for
situationally based posttraumatic symptoms, and those
(16:08):
symptoms at the height areavoidance, some developed
aversion and anxiety, and thesexual relationship outcomes are
these are low sexual frequency,relationships with sexual
arguments with a decrease insexual desire for the female and
low sexual satisfaction forboth.
And here's how you can see howconsent is just not enough to
(16:31):
judge if the sex in a long termrelationship has positive
outcomes or negative outcomes.
We need to be looking at morethan just consent.
We need to be looking forunrecognized coercion and we
really need to be looking at theoutcomes of the sex, not just
if sex is happening, but what isthe emotional, psychological,
sexual and relational outcomesof the sex that is being had?
(16:56):
Here's where I'd love your help.
This study was very homogeneousin the cultural background and,
as I'm writing this book, I'mnot comfortable with that and I
would love to have an interviewwith you.
I'd love to pay you for yourtime and I want to really tap
into your expertise.
I'd love to know what yourthoughts are about the community
(17:16):
you come from and the communityyou work with, as far as what
are the historical aspects ofthat culture that might
contribute to this pattern ofwomen consenting to unwanted sex
?
I'd also love to hear theaspects of the current community
culture that's reinforcing thispattern, and I'd love to hear
all the exceptions, about thecultural ideas that can be
interpreted as preventative ofthis pattern and I'd love to
(17:37):
hear all the exceptions, aboutthe cultural ideas that can be
interpreted as preventative ofthis pattern.
Here are just the sevenstructured interview questions
I'd love to ask you I want toset up a time.
I'd love to pay you for yourtime.
We'd spend about one hourreally focused on these seven
questions with you teaching meabout how you would interpret my
(18:01):
findings with your culturalexpertise.
Thanks so much for watching this.
It was a huge ask.
I really appreciate your energyand attention and time already
and I hope to hear back from youto see if we can set up an
interview to help flush this outfor this project I'm working on
.
Thanks so much.
(18:21):
So there you go.
That is the conversation thatbegan this series that we're
about to begin releasing to youevery couple of weeks, a new
discussion with a new expertabout a new group and how the
idea of consenting to unwantedsex within that group might be
(18:41):
practiced or experienced.
I'm really looking forward togoing on this journey with you
guys over this upcoming year.
I would love to hear yourconversations and your thoughts
and your insights.
Feel free to email me at camiat camhurstcom If you'd like to
share your experience withconsenting to unwanted sex and
(19:04):
its outcomes, or if you're apartner or a therapist of people
who've worked through thisdynamic as well.
I would love to hear from you.
Hi friends, I'm really glad to be back in the
podcasting chair and getting torecording and producing,
something I really enjoy.
But in this break I've taken,I've really been focusing on
expanding my PhD research andstarting conversations about it
(00:22):
and trying to get insights, andbegun the process of writing a
book for the public about myresearch and as part of that, I
wanted to clear up some of thelimitations of my research,
which was just this homogeneoussample that we got, you know,
(00:43):
1300 women, but they were prettysimple or similar, not simple,
they were pretty similar, whichmay lead to the simplification
of our findings, and really Ihave a desire to keep it complex
so that we can honor eachperson's experience and needs
(01:04):
who may find themselves in thissituation.
So, you know, several monthsago I reached out to other
experts in this area who have ancultural angle that can be
really instructive inunderstanding this.
So, you know, I reached out tosex therapists, who were an
(01:24):
expert with one certain group orcommunity or culture to try to
understand how those influencesmight impact the outcomes some
women experience when theyconsent to unwanted sex as a
pattern in their long-termrelationships.
So what I'm going to show younow is the video I sent out
(01:44):
months ago to the people that Ireally wanted to discuss this
with and had a really greatresponse.
It's a little overwhelming tostep into more of a public
facing position and to reach outto like my heroes, like my
mentors and the people that I'velearned from that I really
(02:06):
respect, and it takes somevulnerability and to put your
research out there this babythat you created and spent so
much time on.
But it was so rewarding and Ihope that you enjoy it too.
So this is our introductoryepisode to a series that you'll
be seeing coming out.
The series is this culturaldiscussion about the outcomes of
(02:31):
consenting to unwanted sex, andwe're defining culture here as
just any group that may havecommunity beliefs or group norms
, or may have community beliefsor group norms or rules and
ideas based on the group thatthey belong to Could be racial,
(02:52):
religious.
You know, anything can start tocreate a culture within a group
, and so here we go.
Here's what I sent them.
Here was the invitation.
Hi there, I really appreciateyou taking time to even consider
this invitation.
My name is Cammie Hurst, I havea private practice in Meridian
Idaho and I'm working on apersonal project which was my,
(03:16):
you know, turning the results ofmy PhD research into something
for the public.
And the research was aroundwhat are the outcomes of women
who consent to unwanted sex inthe context of their long-term
relationships, and we looked atemotionally, psychologically,
sexual and relationship distress.
And you know.
(03:38):
Here's just some informationabout me.
I am ASEC certified.
I do have a PhD in clinicalsexology.
My background is as an LMFT, Ido some supervision, I do some
free education on a podcast.
I don't have any financialdisclosures to make at this time
but I want to share with youabout my PhD research and the
outcomes and what I'd reallylove is your thoughts from your
(04:02):
world as a professional in thecommunities that you come from
and the communities that youserve.
So this research we got over1,300 women.
It was really fantastic.
Right now there's a manuscriptin the final stages for peer
review, for submission to anacademic journal with my
colleague, dr Lisa Diamond, whoassisted me with this research
(04:22):
and was on my dissertationcommittee, and I'm writing a
book for the public about myfindings.
The purpose was to look atmiddle-aged women who are having
an experience of sexualavoidance, low desire, sexual
shutdown in their relationships.
Some people might call this,you know, a long-term pattern of
(04:43):
duty sex or sexual acquiescenceor sexual compliance.
But O'Sullivan, muehlenhard andPeterson are calling this
consenting to unwanted sex andthey left a lot of implications
for further research in theirfindings.
And that's what I picked up,all the things that they said.
We want to know what this doesin future research and those are
(05:05):
the things that I chose as myhypotheses.
The requirements for this groupwas that they needed to be over
30, because most of thisresearch was done with college
cohort women.
We were asking for women whodidn't have a history of sexual
abuse, assault or violence,because we didn't want to mix
those results in with thefindings we were specifically
looking for.
(05:26):
They had, you know, to say yes,I've consented to unwanted sex
in my long-term relationshipsand we were looking for people
who'd been in a relationshiplonger than three years, so we
weren't seeing a bunch ofresults from the limerence phase
.
So the first understandcoercion.
(05:51):
We ask that they not have ahistory of assault.
But we really realized throughthis that recognizing emotional
and verbal coercion on thatother end of the spectrum that's
not physical force, that it wasreally unrecognized, that here
are the percentages of women whoafter they said no to an
(06:12):
invitation to sex, what theirpartner attempted to do to try
to get them to change theiranswer and realized that there's
quite a bit of unrecognizedcoercions in long-term
relationship.
That's emotional or verbalcoercion, and so we controlled
for that in all of our outcomes.
When we looked at what are theemotional, psychological, sexual
(06:34):
and relational outcomes of thispattern, let's make sure we see
what's from coercion and what'snot.
Unfortunately, there were only18% of our sample that said that
they had never experienced anyof those post-refusal strategies
.
And so here is basically theend from the beginning.
This is where we're headed,this is what we found and the
(07:01):
difference between those who hadsome verbal and emotional
coercion and those who had noverbal and emotional coercion.
And here's just some examples.
The participant quotes are thegold in this research study Over
700 submissions in their ownwords, and here's one you know,
just kind of showcasing thisconfusion about coercion.
It said he was never coercive,only pouty and mad at me.
(07:23):
It was easier to consent thanto deal with his emotions.
His need for sex outweighed mydisinterest in it.
And this last one, one time Ihad a UTI.
I tried to say no multipletimes, but we were on vacation
and he wanted to more.
Since we were on vacation, eventhough it hurt and I cried, I
let him.
I should have said no more, butI figured if he didn't listen
(07:45):
the first two times and he cansee my physical responses of
crying and being tense and hestill kept going his need must
be greater than mine.
Again, these are people whochecked that box of.
I have no history of sexualassault, trauma or abuse, just
completely unrecognizing what iscoercion and what is not.
(08:06):
Now for our emotional outcomes.
We used the PANIS 20 to askduring the most distressing
events of consenting to unwantedsex, what are the feelings that
you had?
We believe that there would bea significant minority of women
who were experiencing highlevels of distress, but in fact
we found that the majority ofwomen were experiencing high
(08:28):
levels of stress during the mostdistressing times.
They're feeling upset,irritable, distressed, guilty,
ashamed, nervous, some evenhostile.
Here's some quotes about youknow how it felt.
And while resentment was not onthe pannus, it was mentioned
157 times by the researchparticipants when asked in their
(08:50):
own words what the negativeoutcome was Guilt, shame,
spiraling.
I feel like I can be in mybedroom without feeling nervous
and dreading that he will starttouching me in my expectation of
sex or I feel like I can't be.
I should say the blame and theguilt makes me feel angry.
I feel disrespected because heputs his needs first.
(09:13):
Now we study the psychologicaloutcomes of we use the PCLS to
measure on your PTSD symptoms.
We fully recognize that therewasn't a physical threat here
and these percentages are womenin the survey who reported
experiencing this from amoderate to extreme levels.
(09:33):
Here we can see the avoidanceis super high, feeling upset is
high, angry outbursts,irritability high and really,
when we scored the PANAS withour sample, 39% had no severity.
So that is great.
There's 39% of women whoconsult or consent to unwanted
(09:56):
sex in their relationships andwe're not having psychological
symptoms of PTSD with anyseverity.
However, when you look at thosewho had a moderate to high
severity, we're now at 53% ofour survey population who were
experiencing moderate to highPTSD symptoms from this specific
situation.
(10:18):
Here are some quotes that talkabout you know, feeling some
trauma-like symptoms.
They're saying I feel like Ihave trauma now because of this.
I find myself avoiding him whenhe's home.
I avoid having sex with him.
I avoid vacations because Isense they're another tactic to
get sex.
I feel an aversion now tosexual activity.
(10:39):
I am uninterested now in sexmost of the time.
Another measure we use to lookat what is the sexual and
relational outcome of thislong-term pattern and used this
measure here from Frost andDonovan.
You know there's a lack ofphysical affection, a sense of
sexual predictability, a lack ofinitiation, a sense of
(11:02):
hopelessness, a lack ofnormalness, anxiety, guilt, all
coming up within therelationship because of this
pattern.
Oh man, these women just saysuch touching things, such
profound things I have no desirefor sex anymore, I have no
desire for my partner.
The cycle of duty, sex andresentment has killed any kind
(11:23):
of emotional intimacy in therelationship, you know.
And when we then coded thequalitative responses, we found
that 31 times by surveyparticipants they said they had
a lack of sexual desire onsexual shutdown.
(11:44):
So we looked at what about thefrequency and ratio?
Some of my critique was in thepast.
When this has been studied it'sbeen how many times last two
weeks.
But what we're learning is amajor symptom of sexual
avoidance.
And so we really can't excludethose low sex and no sex
(12:04):
relationships from our findingsand have them be very valuable.
And so here we're looking at,you know, for this population,
often, and very often we're upto 35% of people who consult,
consent to unwanted sex in thatrelationship.
You know they said everythingjust got worse as it continued.
(12:26):
This patterns led to lessintimacy.
There's resentment, frustrationand distance between us.
There's a lack of desire toengage, resentment, frustration
and distance between us.
There's a lack of desire toengage.
Here we were looking at themotivations, because that's kind
of been the model by O'Sullivanis.
Well, are your motivations toconsent to unwanted sex an
approach motivation toward therelationship?
Are they an avoidancemotivation, to avoid something
(12:48):
negative?
And we did find that theavoidance motivations were
higher, more highly correlatedwith negative emotional and
psychological outcomes.
But for those who were evenusing approach motivations, they
also had negative consequences,just not as high, like that the
(13:12):
most.
You know.
Here's the reasons.
I felt it was necessary tosatisfy my partner's needs.
I wanted to avoid tension inthe relationship.
I felt guilty, I was worried Iwould jeopardize our
relationship.
You know, here are all themotivations, with the
percentages of our populationand how they identify to this
scale.
This scale, okay, you know, andthese women are saying I
(13:36):
allowed myself to believe thatif I didn't give it to him he'd
find it elsewhere.
I did give it to him and hestill found more elsewhere.
It was a false sense ofsecurity.
So this is starting to feellike a coping mechanism, right
Consenting to unwanted sex as acoping mechanism for some
relational insecurity.
I don't feel like I can make iton my own financially, so I
(13:57):
stay in the relationship to havesex with him and Lisa Diamond
and I you know we're like isthis?
We had a little discussion withthe language.
Is this really an avoidance orshould we be looking at this as
a coping strategy?
Really, that sex is how womenare keeping their safety in this
relationship and that's whyit's showing up as trauma.
(14:18):
Even when there's not coercion.
It's still showing those highdistress emotional outcomes,
those high PTSD-like symptoms,even when there's not coercion.
It's high stakes for many ofthese women.
Here's some of the quotes thatlead to this idea of this is how
we're keeping some socialsafety and that's why it's
(14:39):
traumatic and why it's a bigdeal.
I think the feeling that Ishouldn't say no made consenting
to unwanted sex traumatic.
I worry that if I say no toooften, he won't feel satisfied
in our relationship.
I get anxious about sex.
I'm constantly worried aboutpleasing my partner and
sometimes I have panic attacksbefore, during or after sex.
(15:00):
For years I thought, and wastold by my therapist, that there
might be something wrong withme and that he would leave me if
I didn't help meet his needs.
It was my job to please him andnot pleasing him would put me
in a dangerous position.
So this is where the trauma Ithink is coming from the social
safety aspect.
And so throughout this research,with our hypotheses most of
(15:23):
them were confirmed thatconsenting to unwanted sex in
long-term relationships did infact for some women, in many
cases, the majority of womencreate long-term negative
emotional, psychological,relational and sexual symptoms
for these women.
Now this is a really quickrecap of the research study, but
(15:45):
we're playing around with thisidea of proposing a possible
syndrome of consenting tounwanted sex syndrome where
there's emotional distressbefore, during or after a sexual
encounter.
It's highlighted by sexualresentment, sexual guilt, sexual
inadequacy.
These women are scoringmoderate to high for
situationally based posttraumatic symptoms, and those
(16:08):
symptoms at the height areavoidance, some developed
aversion and anxiety, and thesexual relationship outcomes are
these are low sexual frequency,relationships with sexual
arguments with a decrease insexual desire for the female and
low sexual satisfaction forboth.
And here's how you can see howconsent is just not enough to
(16:31):
judge if the sex in a long termrelationship has positive
outcomes or negative outcomes.
We need to be looking at morethan just consent.
We need to be looking forunrecognized coercion and we
really need to be looking at theoutcomes of the sex, not just
if sex is happening, but what isthe emotional, psychological,
sexual and relational outcomesof the sex that is being had?
(16:56):
Here's where I'd love your help.
This study was very homogeneousin the cultural background and,
as I'm writing this book, I'mnot comfortable with that and I
would love to have an interviewwith you.
I'd love to pay you for yourtime and I want to really tap
into your expertise.
I'd love to know what yourthoughts are about the community
(17:16):
you come from and the communityyou work with, as far as what
are the historical aspects ofthat culture that might
contribute to this pattern ofwomen consenting to unwanted sex
?
I'd also love to hear theaspects of the current community
culture that's reinforcing thispattern, and I'd love to hear
all the exceptions, about thecultural ideas that can be
interpreted as preventative ofthis pattern and I'd love to
(17:37):
hear all the exceptions, aboutthe cultural ideas that can be
interpreted as preventative ofthis pattern.
Here are just the sevenstructured interview questions
I'd love to ask you I want toset up a time.
I'd love to pay you for yourtime.
We'd spend about one hourreally focused on these seven
questions with you teaching meabout how you would interpret my
(18:01):
findings with your culturalexpertise.
Thanks so much for watching this.
It was a huge ask.
I really appreciate your energyand attention and time already
and I hope to hear back from youto see if we can set up an
interview to help flush this outfor this project I'm working on
.
Thanks so much.
(18:21):
So there you go.
That is the conversation thatbegan this series that we're
about to begin releasing to youevery couple of weeks, a new
discussion with a new expertabout a new group and how the
idea of consenting to unwantedsex within that group might be
(18:41):
practiced or experienced.
I'm really looking forward togoing on this journey with you
guys over this upcoming year.
I would love to hear yourconversations and your thoughts
and your insights.
Feel free to email me at camiat camhurstcom If you'd like to
share your experience withconsenting to unwanted sex and
(19:04):
its outcomes, or if you're apartner or a therapist of people
who've worked through thisdynamic as well.
I would love to hear from you.
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