I think what Alice Rye is saying is that survivor attitudes towards sex changed, partly as a response to sexual assault.

The Katie Simon quote that one reader highlighted was “ Savannah says that growing up, she absorbed the idea that ‘sex was something to give to a man to show him how grateful I was for him.’ ”

But the very next paragraph says, “Savannah, Libby, and many other survivors start to question these notions after their assaults. As Libby got older and articulated that what had happened to her was assault, she began to think: ‘there’s a lot more here, in terms of having sex, for me to go find and take for myself.’ ”

And now that you’re drawing my attention to it, I think I’m understanding it better.

That is, instead of sex as a always a transaction in which sex is given as an expression of gratitude, sex can also be something both people enjoy for its own sake.

That’s a much healthier way of thinking about it, so I hope I’m getting it right?