In the converse sense - I think it would be helpful to point out that being GGG doesn't just apply to kink (not just removing kink bias). The original letter sparking these comments mentioned you get a lot of letters from women struggling to be GGG, or dealing with male partners who find them 'insufficiently GGG'.

You mentioned one reason for this was that kinkiness tends to skew towards men - but I think you left out that GGG requests don't have to involve kink. You certainly get a lot of letters from women whose partners won't go down on them, and I think you should include those letters under your GGG-troubles umbrella.

And make sure those women realize that their partners are failing to be GGG (usually) in those refusals.

I disagree. The root of this is the application of the ethical principle that coerced sex is wrong. These two ideas are (potentially) in conflict: 1) Everyone deserves (has a right) to refuse sexual activity that that person does not want; and 2) Everyone deserves (has a right to) sexual activity that that person enjoys. To demonstrate the potential conflict, a thought experiment. Suppose there exists such a person with whom, due to a combination of unattractive appearance, antisocial behaviors, and whatever factors would be necessary, no person would consent to sexual activity. This person does desire sexual activity, however. If everyone has a right to refuse undesired sexual activity, then this person can never have partnered sex; however, if this person has a right to partnered sex sie desires, then it would inevitably be necessary to coerce someone into sexual activity with hir. The principles are at odds, so we give the right of refusal of sexual activity priority (because rape is wronger than a hypothetical person not having sex ever) and modify the second principle to: Everyone deserves (has a right to) sexual activity that that person enjoys with a consenting partner.

Obviously this leaves a whole lot of room for GGG (the "within reason" part of "game for anything" is important) negotiation (and really, since there are power differentials of some sort between all people, there is no partnered sexual activity - and possibly no solo sex - that takes place without some degree of coercion, either direct or due to circumstance/context), but the default assumption that the person refusing a given activity get preference follows from the ethical principle that coerced or forced sexual activity is wrong. No one has a right to a sex partner, and you can always break up with someone if the relationship isn't working for you. Kinky people have a right to their kinks; they don't have a right to inflict those kinks on unwilling partners, though they also have a right to break up with any partner unwilling to indulge those kinks.

John @ 2

You seem to be missing the "compromise in a relationship" part. This assumes that two [or more people] wish to negotiate/meet each others needs as best able in order to stay in said relationship.

Dan, the Republican Party would like to formally ask that you STOP removing all the Puritan bullshit baggage from sex. It's the only thing that gives their lives meaning.

John,

Who is saying that everyone has a right to have the partnered sex they desire? Can you show me a quote?

John, it's not "everyone deserves (has a right to) sexual activity that that person enjoys", it's "everyone has a right to pursue the sexual activity that that person enjoys". It's like the pursuit of happiness thing. And I think Dan said it several times, that you are not entitled to whatever you want, but you are entitled to seek it. Also, I disagree that all sexual activity has some degree of coercion. Do you mean to say that there are no two people in this world who both equally want to fuck each other?

Being GGG should be a life philosophy. An aspiration for ones entire relationship(s). Its application is workable outside of ones bed.

off topic, but I thought this was interesting:

http://www.alternet.org/election2012/154…

Thank you, sometimes it seems that people on SLOG only care about the people with the kinks and not about the partner who doesn't want to for sometimes good reason. It's not the always the person who doesn't have the kink's fault. Both partners should be GGG after all, even if one partner is more vanilla.

@4: It's funny. Just as I read letter #1 I was struck by the thought these non-GGG types act an awful lot like Republican congressmen. i.e. utterly obstructionist.

moreover, sex is the only place where you can't easily go outside the relatioship if your needs are being met in the relationship. if my wife wants to jump out of an airplane with a parachute that may or may not deploy, she can do that without me! if i want to go on a writing retreat with writer friends, i just need to line up childcare. if she wants to bike across the freaking country, if i want to stay up all night talking about how im feeling and the meaning of life -- we can find other people to do those things with. but if i want more sex than she does, or different kinds of sex, or to be the object of someone's unbridled desire .... well, i'm just shit out of luck.

@6 yes. Because: Foucault.

What I like about the definition of GGG as "negating the anti-kink bias" and "communicate and compromise also in sex" is that it also takes away the coercitive power that some people had given to notions such as "GGG": since it refers foremost to a strategy ('negotiate and be fair'), you don't really get to have "GGG cards" that can be "revoked" if you don't indulge in anal sex, BDSM play, or whatever it is that I want to manipulate you into.

As long as GGG is seen as a philosophy -- I won't freak out about your kinks, you won't freak out about mine, we try to find a workable compromise -- this manipulative use is no longer possible.

@2(Mr Horstman), I disagree as per puddles@6, with the following further elaboration: there are many goods in life that cannot be guaranteed because they either depend on intangibles that cannot be fully defined (such as happiness) or then depend on limiting freedom to a damaging degree (such as assuming that everybody has a right to sex of one's favorite kind with a consenting partner). The founding fathers didn't settle on the right to the 'pursuit of happiness' instead of a simpler 'right to happiness' because they were a little mean, but because they knew it would be truly impossible to guarantee a right to happiness. How could this be done, when we aren't even really sure what makes happiness happen for each person ('what's happiness to you?')? We can assume that part of each person's life journey will be to determine (by whatever means, even trial and error) what happiness is for him or her, and then to attempt (by reasonable means, e.g., avoiding harm to others) to attain it. Inasmuch as sexual satisfaction is seen as part of happiness, the same rule applies to it.

Of course, there is no guarantee that this pursuit of happiness (or of one's favorite kind of sex with a consenting partner) will be successful. In fact, it can be predicted with full certainty that some people will never find happiness, or/and will enver enjoy the pleasure of sex with a consenting partner. As Dan sad once, this is true and it sucks and it hurts. But it is true; worse yet, it is unavoidably true. It is ultimately part of the greater problem of suffering (and evil) and its meaning.

I'd say that if you're asking someone to be 'GGG', you have a responsibility not to ask that they enjoy it beyond a certain basic enjoyment of helping you be happier. There's a big difference between asking that someone not act as if they're doing a chore and asking them to express a truly fake level of enjoyment.

@2 Your premise is illogical because you equate a right with deserving.

As Clint Eastwood said in Unforgiven: "Deserve's got nothing to do with it".

@14 pretentious much?

@2 --

Suppose there exists such a person with whom, due to a combination of unattractive appearance, antisocial behaviors, and whatever factors would be necessary, no person would consent to sexual activity.

Please keep me out of it, OK?
Heh.

*facepalms*

Why are there always so many drama queens making the absurd logic leap that expecting a reasonable amount of sexual attention and satisfaction from a relationship = OMG RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE!!!!

The issue isn't that the less sexual partner should be FORCED to have sex they don't want, the point is that they should WANT to want it...out of love if not their own desire. Or be trying to want it/figuring out why they don't want it because for fuck's sake, your partner's happiness matters. And if they don't want it, and they think that's okay? No, it's not.

Also, pretty damn sure most people who complain of not getting enough sex from their relationship aren't going to be satisfied by their partner letting themselves be coerced/persuaded/forced to do it when they're not into it. What they WANT is to be desired.

I'm so happy to see this particular comment elevated, from among the long list of responses there.

The premise that somehow making do with less than what you want is less of a burden or imposition than doing more than what you want to do is total BS.

@21 is right: just because it isn't your fantasy, doesn't mean it's rape.

And yes, if you love someone, you ought to want to do things for them that they like, even if you don't particularly love them.

Dan, you rock.

@21, quite so. Indeed.

I wished more people would see that. People who would do everything to help a partner with a health problem -- from toothache to lung cancer --, or with a financial problem, can sometimes still think that leaving one's partner to deal by him/herself with unsatisfied sexual desires is OK. Sex is really a difficult topic to think about rationally.

If you are in a committed relationship and you want to play with other people and your partner vetoes that, even though you really want it, what can you do? Nothing, it seems, unless you are willing to sacrifice the relationship. But if you stay in the relationship, you'll resent them. How does anyone win in that situation?

@12 This is definitely true, it seems.