Sexual ultimatums aren't necessarily sexually assault

(reposted with affirmative claim in title as requested by mods)

This post was inspired by an early scene from the TV series The Boys. Without spoiling anything, essentially a high-ranking member of a large organization pressures a new recruit to give him oral sex by threatening to have her fired if she refuses. In the fandom this was widely labelled as sexual assault and extensively discussed.

I do not consider most sexual ultimatums to be SA, unless the consequences of the ultimatum infringe on the rights of the subject, i.e. the person giving the ultimatum doesn't have the right to do what they're threatening to do.

So securing sexual compliance via credible threats to physically harm someone, or to steal/destroy their property, would be considered SA under this rule. It's fairly uncontroversial to say that these actions infringe on the rights of the subject.

On the other hand, I think most people would agree that ending a relationship, revealing a secret, or firing someone are legitimate actions that do not infringe on the rights of others, generally. So obtaining sex via an ultimatum with these consequences is consensual, and does not constitute SA, in my view.

It seems troubling to many, but if these situations were slightly reframed to ones where instead of an ultimatum, the subject is the one who offers sexual services to prevent these consequences that have already been decided from being carried out, I think more people would agree that they are consensual.

So, say, instead of a situation where a boss threatens an employee with termination if they don't provide sexual favors, say we have a situation where a boss decides to terminate an employee for other reasons and the employee offers sexual favors in exchange for keeping their job.

These situations are substantively similar, in both instances there is a proposal to exchange sexual services in exchange for avoiding some sort of consequence, the only difference is who is making the proposal. To me it's more similar to prostitution than anything else.

Ultimately, even if you face consequences for declining, I still consider it a free choice. Because in these scenarios the consequences you would face do not infringe on your rights, and the person giving the ultimatum has a right to carry out those consequences. Indeed, all actions have consequences......