The sexual revolution was in full swing, but the second wave of feminism was barely getting started. As Michele Goldberg recently put it, the dissatisfaction women felt toward the sexual climate was, "What do you get when you liberate sex but not women?" People expected women to be free and eager, but in reality, lovemaking was still tailored for men, thwarting these efforts at every turn. Many heterosexual women felt their emotional needs were overlooked, and their sexual needs remained a mystery to both their partners and themselves.

Half a century later, women face a similar situation. Generation Z has rightly seen that over the years, women have still been taught to prioritize men's desires over their own. They have begun to reject the concept of being sexually active and question whether casual dating is
worth it, sometimes choosing to abstain from sex altogether. With the justice movement of #MeToo gradually evolving into a more nuanced debate, women have reached a point where consenting and figuring out what they don't want is clearly not enough. What does it mean to
go beyond sexual consent, to discover what you truly want?

"but the internalized control over women's impulses, fundamentally undermining their desire through self-doubt and anxiety." Fighting this control, advocating for pleasure, intimacy, curiosity, and excitement, is key to expanding women's autonomy and enriching their lives.

Since then, much has changed. The right of women to sexual satisfaction is taken for granted; most are now familiar with knowledge about the clitoris and vibrators. But extracting what women truly need from the jumbled cultural and political influences still sometimes feels like an impossible challenge.

How did NANA end up in a marriage with poor sexual quality? Like everyone, she had the capacity to seek true erotic freedom, yet during high school and college, she remained unsure how to achieve it. NANA idolized Samantha from "Sex and the City," wanting to infuse her sex life with more meaning. She desired meaningful sex but was tired of the hetero normative tug-of-war, where women exchange sex for commitment and men comply. NANA resented this tug-of-war yet clung to the cultural validation of married heterosexual couples, sacrificing her happiness to stay too long in marriage.

At 32, divorcing to pursue her true desires, NANA wondered whether acts like oral sex or BDSM were genuinely her wants, or merely adaptations to a misogynistic society—or if these essences were indistinguishable.

The push and pull could not be distilled into ideal slogans. The elusive nature of sex makes the pursuit of sexual pleasure a tricky political agenda. Its goals are moving, often obscured by patriarchy and inherent contradictions in feminism. Wrestling with our true desires might feel like a daunting and often solitary journey. It demands vulnerability and trust from women, even when societal norms give them every reason not to. It can be frustrating and disheartening: our culture's expectations of sex are higher than ever, even as the quality of sex remains low.

Thus, it's no wonder people lean towards a defensive stance, narrowing their choices, focusing within boundaries—part of a sort of sexual positive backlash playing out today. "Rethinking Sex" author Christine Emba calls for elevating "the standards of good sexual encounters," creating "better rules" to counteract the unease many Gen Z women express. "In our rush to liberate the self, we might have missed something important," she wrote—that's better norms, and a consensus on what good sex should be.

Women should never advocate for endless sexual activity as the norm; forced sexual exploration is the dullest. But it's believable that seeking more rather than less sexual freedom, the liberty to engage in any type of sexual activity women want—yes, including casual, asphyxiation, and pornographic acts—is still the only way to address the problems in our current sexual culture.

In the wrong context, this freedom could lead to oppression; we still live in a misogynistic world. And yes, exercising one's freedom can sometimes be exhausting, especially for heterosexuals, as it means discarding cultural conventions to actively seek true happiness. For queer individuals, recognizing their desires in a positive, deliberate manner is often part of their politics. Poet Cheryl Clarke listed being a lesbian as part of her vision in 1983:

"Because it's part of my vision," "Because it's the woman's self-identification that keeps me sane." What if we each made our list?

Those early feminists understood that in the process of women freeing themselves from various frustrating stereotypical images—prude, slut, girlfriend, wife—sex could play a role. The impact of these concepts on women's lives extends far beyond the bedroom. To dissolve these images, we need to replace them with the myriad realities of women, including our sexual desires.

At one of the sex-themed discussions in the 1970s, Arnold recalled hearing diverse voices: some women couldn't enjoy sex without love; others were tired of the expectations they couldn't escape in marriage. Some felt rejected by their partners in sexual matters; others felt lectured by their partners.

"We can't draw any conclusions from this discussion," one woman commented. "We're all talking about completely different things."

"Fantastic!" another woman responded. "Maybe that's what true liberation is."