Sex beyond Yes: Quill Kukla on pleasure & agency

Every discussion of sexual ethics revolves around consent, but is this notion enough to help us understand good sex?

We're thrilled to welcome philosopher Quill R Kukla for a discussion of pleasure and intimacy and the tools needed to navigate them!

Kukla's new book Sex beyond Yes is an invitation to think beyond reductive concepts of consent, gender, and freedom to reframe the communication and social support we need to establish sexual relationships founded on genuine respect, open discourse, and unhindered joy.

Kukla explores what sexual agency is and how it can be enabled or hindered. They reimagine pleasurable, ethical sex beyond the constraints of commodification, patriarchal and heterocentric social scripts, ableism, and puritanical and stigmatising attitudes toward sex. The book argues that traditional discussions of consent leave no room for the reality that we can have good sex even though we may get drunk or high, or become forgetful with age, or be limited by social pressures and power relationships.

Join us for an evening of gentle, curious discusission,reimagining of what it means to have pleasurable, ethical, and respectful sex.

Quill R Kukla is Professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies at Georgetown University. Their research interests include ethics with a focus on bioethics, sexual ethics, health communication ethics, and science ethics. Their fourth book Sex Beyond “Yes”: Pleasure and Agency for Everyone was published by W. W. Norton & Co. in September 2025.