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.

中文翻译：

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谁的接受很重要？性拒绝和接受的伦理

听众的接受程度在决定演讲者是否拒绝或同意性行为方面发挥什么作用？吸收构成理论的支持者认为，说话者所进行的言语行为很大程度上取决于收件人的吸收。然而，这似乎会带来一个令人不安的结果：说话者可能被迫做出违背其意愿的同意言语行为。作为回应，我们发展了一种吸收的社会宪法理论。我们认为，在某些情况下，收件人的吸收可以构成说话者说出“不”作为同意的言语行为，但这并不妨碍我们判断收件人犯有强奸罪。其次，我们认为，收件人的理解并不是唯一重要的理解形式——话语社区其他成员的理解也很重要，并且可以凌驾于收件人的理解之上，将说话者的话语构成其本来应有的言语行为。