Whose Uptake Matters? Sexual Refusal and the Ethics of Uptake

Abstract

Abstract What role does audience uptake play in determining whether a speaker refuses or consents to sex? Proponents of constitution theories of uptake argue that which speech act a speaker performs is largely determined by their addressee's uptake. However, this appears to entail a troubling result: a speaker might be made to perform a speech act of consent against her will. In response, we develop a Social Constitution Theory of uptake. We argue that addressee uptake can constitute a speaker's utterance of ‘no’ as a speech act of consent under some conditions, but that this does not prevent us from judging that an addressee committed rape. Second, we claim that addressee uptake is not the only form of uptake that matters—the uptake of other members of the discursive community matters too, and can override the addressee's uptake, constituting the speaker's utterance as the speech act it was intended to be.