I thought back to the best sex I’d had in recent memory: the topaz pellet, my sweaty face on Rob’s couch, limbs tied up, lava lake of desire completely exposed. I was so disarmed, so trusting. That wasn’t the kind of sex you had with a one-night stand. Despite our best efforts, Rob and I had failed to keep it “casual,” and that was with our respective partners acting as emotional buffers. The high stakes of seeing Rob had also heightened the hotness. It wasn’t just sex but forbidden sex—a classic trope, of course, a source of eroticism that depended on dishonesty and the risk of negative consequences. That kind of thrill felt both inaccessible and antithetical to a slut with integrity. I wanted my hookups to be both fulfilling and morally sound.

Almost right away, I was confronted with a dilemma that has long complicated the success rate of casual sex, even between two upstanding humans. How could I have satisfying sex while feeling safe but not bored, cared for but not smothered in sentimentality? How could I stay true to my feelings but not be “too much”?

Facetious critiques of the theory and its resulting law expressed concern that enthusiastic consent would make sex artificial and sterile, requiring awkward checklists. Others gave the false impression that fishing for one “yes” and moving on was good enough, rather than interpreting consent as a fluid, ongoing process. Friedman would later clarify that enthusiastic consent is a more active process than just following rules or waiting for a green light; it’s “a humanizing ethic of sex.” Truly internalizing the values of consent, she wrote, must include “emotional literacy”—the ability to be vulnerable, and to be trusted with others’ vulnerability.