Erotic Citizenship: Beyond Consent Culture and Into the Republic of Desire

Friday, April 4, 2025.

Once upon a time, consent was enough. You said yes. I said yes.

The legal boxes were checked.

Nobody filmed anything (hopefully), and we all moved on with our lives, slightly awkward and vaguely empowered.

But as the sexual wellness industry bloomed and feminist therapists started quoting Gabor Maté on dopamine and childhood wounds, a strange new meme began to form—one that suggests your role in a long-term erotic relationship isn’t just about consent.

It’s about citizenship.

What is Erotic Citizenship?

A quietly radical idea sneaking its way into Substack essays, trauma-informed marriage counseling, and deeply honest conversations between people who’ve been in a relationship long enough to know that “enthusiastic consent” doesn’t cover dishes, emotional availability, or the foreplay of actually listening.

What Is Erotic Citizenship?

At its core, Erotic Citizenship is the belief that long-term sexual relationships function like small emotional democracies. And in any democracy, the question isn’t just “do I have rights?” but “what are my responsibilities?”

That means:

• Practicing emotional attentiveness, not just sexy spontaneity.

• Offering reciprocity, not just performance.

• Understanding that your partner’s pleasure is your civic duty, not their solitary project.

• Owning your contribution to the emotional economy of the bedroom—whether it’s booming or in recession.

As one therapist put it in an uncannily tweetable phrase:

“A good erotic citizen doesn’t just want sex—they help build the infrastructure where desire can safely return after a flood.”

Why Now?

The Limits of Consent-Only Culture

Consent is the floor, not the ceiling. It prevents harm. It doesn’t build trust.

In fact, research suggests that the presence of consent does not guarantee the presence of erotic connection (Jozkowski et al., 2014). Many couples report “technically consensual” sex that still feels emotionally unsafe, performative, or disconnected.

The Rise of Emotional Labor Awareness

As feminism moves from legal equity to emotional realism, there’s increased recognition that sex requires context.

The emotional conditions of the relationship—stress load, resentment, mental health—shape desire more than lingerie or lube (Luscombe, 2021). Erotic Citizenship asks us to account for that broader terrain.

Post-#MeToo Realism

In the wake of movements that focused rightly on harm prevention, there's a cultural hunger for something constructive. Erotic Citizenship offers a post-crisis vision: not just avoiding damage, but cultivating joy. It’s what happens after we’ve learned to say no—when we’re trying to figure out how to say yes to each other again, without self-betrayal or coercive duty.

The Clashing Models: Libertarian Sex vs. Civic Sex

Here’s where it gets interesting. Erotic Citizenship challenges two dominant narratives:

• The Libertarian Model of Sex: You own your body, I own mine, we transact desire like autonomous agents at a farmer’s market of vibes. The end.

• The Care Model of Sex (proposed by Held, 2006): Sex as a relational ethic, embedded in care, power, and interdependence. Not just “do you want to do this?” but “does this help us grow?”

• Erotic Citizenship leans heavily into the second camp. It says: You’re not just free—you’re responsible. You don’t just have rights—you have a role. And that role is to make the erotic space co-owned, maintained, and fed like a communal fire.

What Erotic Citizens Do Differently

• Practice Erotic Attunement: This isn’t mind-reading. It’s staying aware of how context, timing, trauma, and connection impact readiness and responsiveness (Basson, 2001).

• Participate in Mutual Aftercare: Not just during kink scenes, but after every intense emotional or sexual encounter. Even cuddling can be civic.

• Name Power, Even When It’s Subtle: A “yes” given under emotional pressure or economic dependency isn’t erotic freedom. It’s performative compliance.

• Talk About the Invisible Work: Who initiates? Who manages rejection? Who keeps track of what the other likes? Erotic citizens share that labor.

Isn’t This Just Fancy Monogamy?

Yes and no.

Erotic Citizenship can exist in monogamy, polyamory, or anything in between—but it is a quiet rebuke to transactional hookup culture and its cousin, toxic monogamy, where sex is assumed, owed, or bartered for affection.

It doesn’t mean sex has to be slow or sacred every time. It means even your wildest sex should feel voluntarily co-authored.

It’s a return to relational eroticism—not just erotic capital.

The Neurobiological Argument for Erotic Citizenship

It’s not all ethics and ennui. There’s science, too.

Sexual desire is deeply influenced by co-regulation—the nervous system dance that makes us feel safe enough to feel anything at all (Porges, 2011).

Erotic Citizenship is, at heart, a nervous system contract: “I’ll work to help you feel safe, so we can both be free.”

And research shows that when couples build shared meaning around sex—why they do it, what it means to them—they report higher satisfaction and lower resentment (McCarthy & Metz, 2021).

Turns out, being a good erotic citizen doesn’t just make you morally smug—it might make you better in bed.

Final Thought: The Bedroom as Civic Space

In the end, Erotic Citizenship asks you to treat sex not as a reward, or a commodity, or a test—but as a shared habitat. One that requires attention, empathy, and—God help us—vulnerability.

Not everyone wants to be an erotic citizen. Some people want erotic anarchy, or erotic monarchies where one partner rules with benevolent dominance. Fine.

But for those trying to build a relationship that lasts longer than a dopamine cycle, Erotic Citizenship may be the quiet meme that helps us get there. It isn’t a revolution. It’s a zoning ordinance. It won’t make you famous. But it just might make you known.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

REFERENCES:

Basson, R. (2001). Using a different model for female sexual response to address women's problematic low sexual desire. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 27(5), 395–403.

Held, V. (2006). The ethics of care: Personal, political, and global. Oxford University Press.

Jozkowski, K. N., Sanders, S. A., & Dennis, B. (2014). Consensual, but not wanted: A qualitative exploration of young women's experiences with unwanted sex. American Journal of Sexuality Education, 9(3), 333–348.

Luscombe, B. (2021). Why sex therapy is booming. Time Magazine. Retrieved from https://time.com

McCarthy, B. W., & Metz, M. E. (2021). Enhancing couple sexuality: Creating an intimate and pleasure-based sexual relationship. Routledge.

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. Norton.