Sex Beyond “Yes”: Pleasure and Agency for Everyone
Quill R. Kukla
W. W. Norton & Company, 2025, 176 pages
$24.00

Reviewed by Allison Quinlan

“We need to talk to one another in order to explore what we want to do and how to do it well together.”

Kukla provides readers with vignettes of sexual encounters and breaks down the philosophical questions that arise surrounding pleasure, ethics, and desire in these encounters. As stated in the title, their examples do aim to include everyone: readers see queer stories, stories with older people, individuals with disabilities, neurodivergence, Black and brown individuals, and generally an avoidance of white, able-bodied, cishet stories. I appreciated this, as oftentimes material on sexuality can operate on assumptions of cisgenderness, heterosexuality, whiteness, and no disability. It’s important for a book/guide on good sex to actually be applicable.

The work acknowledges that discussions of sex often center on consent and how to prevent bad sex. Kukla makes clear, “This is a book about good sex. I want to explore how we can expand and protect our own and one another’s sexual agency and pleasure, and enjoy wanted, satisfying, ethically sound sex.” They explain that human flourishing necessitates opportunities to access and exercise sexual pleasure and agency, both safely and ethically. If our only understanding of sex rests on a yes/no binary, a binary of simply avoiding harm rather than exploring pleasure, we can miss the conversations, cues, invitations, curiosity, and mutual building that sexual relationships need to move into those safe and ethical experiences.

This is not to say the author rejects consent or the importance of avoiding harm; consent is defined at the outset and upheld as necessary at all times. A recurring concept in the work is “scaffolding,” which can be cultural, social, or interpersonal. The idea is that structures and systems will be set up to safeguard and reinforce autonomy. Examples include negotiations of safe words in advance (interpersonal) or having good sex education and access to contraceptives (social). Kukla writes, “Much of good sexual communication is not about asking questions or giving answers at all: We should be building fantasies together, flirting, expressing our concern and affection for one another, and establishing trust.”

I appreciated their efforts for practical guidance, and I enjoyed the work. I personally feel it needed more detail in the areas Kukla let us know were challenging, but the author still did a good job of engaging. My feelings may just be my own internal conflicts with ideas of consent and power.

You can watch an event Lighthouse Bookshop facilitated for the author online for free here!

Allison Quinlan is a PhD student in Scotland.