❝ “Do you want to x?” might mean “Do you want to x or to y?” or “Do you want to x or to not do anything at all?” “Do you like x?” might mean “Do you like x with me?” or “Do you like x generally?”and so forth. ❞
❝ Langton, in a later article (“Beyond Belief ”), lists a wide variety of ways in which porn can serve to disable women’s ability to refuse, several of which are illocutionary disablements. ❞
❝ Wyatt (“Failing to Do Things with Words”) argues that porn might establish second-order speech norms that turn women’s attempts to refuse into something like performances in a play. ❞
❝Sexual negotiation, like all communication, proceeds by way of gesture and body language as well as traditional speech, and indeed gesture and body language may give necessary context that help fix the meaning and force of the speech acts. ❞
❝The mere fact that an invitation can be freely turned down does not give people license to issue infelicitous or inappropriate invitations—which is something that street harassers, for instance, often don’t seem to understand. ❞