Are things worse now than they were 5 years ago?

[OptCmdEsc]

I'm in my 20s, and having spent the better part of the past year online, I'm starting to feel like things are way worse for women now than they were, say, 5 years ago.

Hop on to your local Facebook page for uni students, and there are tons of posts talking about how 'sex work is work' and that camming or doing OnlyFans can even be 'empowering' for women. Below those posts? Men talking about how lucky women are to be able to earn a 'fortune' from such endeavours. Should I feel lucky that I can take my clothes off for the internet?

These guys swear up and down that they are progressives and that they respect the hustle but when they're rating all these women and giving them descriptive, derogatory nicknames and compiling them into lists based on what sex acts they perform on camera, I just can't see the respect.

Hop on to one of the biggest forums on the internet and the whole place is filled with men my age saying it's a women's world. You'll see posts claiming how good women have it by being able to monetise their bodies via camming, OnlyFans, sugar daddies etc, how women can get promoted just by sleeping their way up, how things like anal/choking/spitting are 'baseline' now and that not liking porn is a sign of insecurity.

It's not just a small group, but thousands and thousands of posts everyday regurgitating variants of that. You can't tell someone's gender on that forum, of course, but a lot of self-proclaimed women seem to vehemently agree with all those points too.

Has it always been like this? When I was graduating from sixth form the predominant message was that women are not men's playthings, but their equals. What happened to that?

Am I the only one, of my generation at least, who sees the power imbalance that inadvertently follows the normalisation of all that? Logically I know I'm not but it doesn't always feel like it. It's certainly not something I can mention to some of my friends as I can already imagine the names I'd be subjected to behind my back if they knew I held such views.

[PurgatoryOfPotholes]

Yes. They are worse. I stopped posting on student forums because of it.

[FictionalCharacter]

It’s got much, much worse. I really fear that my teenage daughter will be sucked into this horrendous world where women are subjected to sexual violence and expected to like it. I’d love some advice on how to talk to her about it, but part of the culture seems to be rejection of anything parents say. They seem to have been convinced that their parents generation are ancient, out of touch, clueless and generally wrong about everything.

[SmokedDuck]

Yes, that stuff is worse.

Part of it is the effect of young people who have grown up with porn, it affects their development and thinking.

But from a slightly wider perspective, I think what you are seeing is the effect of several generations having been taught this stuff.

People from my father's generation, and even my own, might have believed at a certain level that porn and sex work were ok in principle, under certain circumstances. But there was a residual sense that there was something potentially dark there, it was a bit embarrassing to be too caught up in it as a man, that some things would just be going too far. In my days in the military, many of the young men looked at or watched some porn, but none of them much trusted or liked the few guys into what they considered extreme or weird stuff.

Now we have several generations that have grown up with this, it's considered completely normal because it's so easily accessible, and even what appears regularly on television would not long ago have been seen as pornographic. Sex is completely commodified even for actors in the mainstream entertainment industry.

There is no clear principle for people that's articulated in mainstream culture as far as why this shouldn't be the case, and any residual cultural memory is increasingly distant.

[Gothichouse40]

Sex is everywhere because it sells and I know I will get flamed for this but certain female music 'singers' have set women back by about 50 years. Music videos nowadays are just awful and are nothing to do with,actual music. All this tosh about liberation and freedom of expression, yeah, so it is. So strange how all the videos seem to be women gyrating and writhing around, usually around the men. Sorry, but it all contributes.

[BlackWaveComing]

It's worse. Very regressive. Women and girls on a backward slide under a thin veneer of 'progress'.

[Happylittlebluebird]

Worse now it's considered controversial to use the words "woman" and "women."

[quixote9]

Adding my voice to the chorus who feel it's worse. But I hadn't been thinking in terms of the last few years. It struck me sometime in the Naughts that there was less understanding than ever that women are human beings. Things stalled in the 1980s, started sliding down in the 1990s, and then seemed to go into freefall.

So I'm horrified to hear, from someone at the coalface, that the loss of fellow feeling for women is only accelerating. What you describe IS worse. You're not imagining anything.

[WoolOfBat]

I think it is horrific. I cannot understand how we ever got here.

When so was young (20 years ago) there was certainty sexual harassment but eventually we learned to deal with it (jokingly but loud “eh, your hand is in the wrong place”, “are you making those comments in front of your wife as well?” and when more senior, just a death stare). I have never worried about being assaulted by a sexual partner and the choking/spitting... I cannot even comprehend it. We felt sorry for sex workers and thought the men going to them them were pathetic pervs. Men didn’t want to be caught doing it, it was shameful.

Now it seems that everyone claims to be woke and understanding. And nobody would make any comment out of place. Which is juxtaposed with the complete and utter exploitation of women, pushing them into sex work and treating them absolutely appallingly in bed.

[Piccalino3]

I have two sweet and innocent young daughters and I grew up just before the Internet boomed - this thread is scaring the life out of me. I do think sexual violence towards woman is becoming more normal because of porn, there seems to be an element that anal, strangulation etc is what is expected as normal sex these days with no regard from both sides as to if women actually want this and enjoy it, or care when she gets injured. How do we teach our children that this isn't normal, women should enjoy sex and see that these acts are often used to degrade them? I had seen a group against online porn and openly discussing the damage it does led by Gail Dines called Culture Reframed but I had probably come across her name here so it isn't widely known. What can we do about this? I dread to think what girls and women will be facing now that society has essentially been locked in their houses for a year with most teens and adults having unrestricted assess to the internet 24/7 with no interaction with others and not thing to do all day.

[toffeebutterpopcorn]

Of it was such a great thing the boys would be pushing the girls out of the way to do it. But they don’t. They just ‘benefit’ from it don’t they?

And all the ‘I bought a flat after 2 months on flashyertits.com’ stories. Absolute crap!

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

My eldest DD is nearly 10, youngest 8. When they were younger, I thought parents were winning the gender stereotyping of children battle. Let's Toys be Toys campaign for example.
The message seems to be shifting now.

As for sexualisation... It seemed to me to be around the same time as 50shades of grey. Not blaming the whole thing on one book obviously... But it did seem to make it more mainstream.

[LemonRoses]

Yes, in general the country (or perhaps the world, certainly the USA as well as UK) have become far more tolerant of very right wing views. They even elected very right wing governments.
That sets a tone of ‘them and us’ and creates a divide based on intolerance and power imbalance. It’s fuelled by money but the red neck types buy into the hate messages and propaganda.

The knock on effect is that those who are less powerful suffer and abuse is seen as acceptable. Women are sidelined and hugely sexist attitudes and behaviours condoned. Look to our government to see how mysoginistic they truly are.

[toffeebutterpopcorn]

I have noticed - and I am assuming this is down to social media - a fashion for women to have huge bums and wear tight leggings/trousers and cropped tops. Social media seems to carry all this SWIW nonsense - all the ‘glam’ but not the gritty reality.

[highame]

Sweeping generalisations LemonRoses and I'd love to know who these 'red neck' types are? We have working people in the UK

[Oenanthe]

I'm in my 20s, and having spent the better part of the past year online, I'm starting to feel like things are way worse for women now

Stop living online. Reconnect with reality.

[Wrongsideofhistorymyarse]

Five years ago transwomen weren't claiming to be women, and the word 'woman' wasn't a dirty word for healthcare providers and others.

Five years ago OnlyF*ns wasn't being pushed as a way for young women to make money.

I hate to say I think things are worse.

[TurquoiseBaubles]

I'm beginning to think we need a dose of good old-fashioned shame. Some behaviour is just not acceptable and we should be able to call it that. Back in the 70s and 80s we were encouraging girls not to be ashamed - of their bodies, their opinions, their pregnancies. Moving away from church rule, and (we thought) from the patriarchy, girls and women could stand up and shout "this is me, and I matter".

But like many things the pendulum seems to have swung. We are now not allowed to criticise any behaviour. Kink-shaming is now prudish, suggesting that sex acts are kept behind closed doors is laughed at, porn is normalised and glamorised. SWIW means that women and girls who take part cannot be criticised, but also that the men using those women are also above reproach.

Women are called Karen for trying to uphold safeguarding. Girls are sneered at for listening to advice from older women who have, of course, been there, seen it, and been negatively affected by it, and want to show younger women that there is (or should be) another way.

It this "anything goes" society women and girls are, as they were in the past, at the bottom of the pile. Few of the new behaviours negatively affect men.

[WoolOfBat]

I think it is a problem with masculinity these days. I believe that many boys and men are lost. This is what Jordan Petersen taps into. There seem to be a big push for men to be “understanding”, “woke”, “equal” etc and some may feel the need to pretend.

There is also the social media which has normalised behaviours that were unacceptable years ago. A bunch of kinky weirdos have found each other and believe that they are normal (as opposed to disgusting) and call out anyone who “kink shames” them.

Somewhere in this insecure boys and men feel that they have no natural place, feel that they need to be quiet about a lot of things and get even angrier. Then they watch “advanced” porn which is purported to be so normal and think it is great. They can take their anger issues out on women in an accepted way.

[IvyTwines2]

@Gothichouse40

Sex is everywhere because it sells and I know I will get flamed for this but certain female music 'singers' have set women back by about 50 years. Music videos nowadays are just awful and are nothing to do with,actual music. All this tosh about liberation and freedom of expression, yeah, so it is. So strange how all the videos seem to be women gyrating and writhing around, usually around the men. Sorry, but it all contributes.

No, it's about who controls what gets shown, which messages get through, which stories are told and promoted. Back when I watched pop channels it was very noticeable that female artists who did not dress in a revealing way or dance in a highly sexualised manner were getting far less airtime. It would be interesting to see a graph of the early 21st century's highest earning women in music/TV/movies alongside what their typical 'work outfit' looked like.

[Worldgonecrazy]

It’s definitely worse. When I was exploring sex, there was very little porn and it was very basic, anal was a niche thing and choking was never heard of.

Masculinity was based not only on how many women you had shagged, but also there was an expectation that men would try to be good at sex and their sexual prowess was judged on how good they made the woman feel. Now it seems to be judged on what extreme act they can coax a woman into.

There is also an expectation that women must be fuckable at all times. The fashion differential between male and female clothing is greater than ever. Thong bikinis were in for young women last year, yet males get to wear knee length board shorts.

There may be a minority of non trafficked non exploited women in the sex trade, but millions more suffering daily rape. For every one who makes enough money to buy a house, how many more end up with no money and a lifelong sense of shame?

It bothers me greatly. I have no idea how to help my daughter navigate this minefield. Of course she is going to want to be popular with boys, that’s a normal teenage reaction. But the behaviours and expectation being driven by the normalisation of brutal sexual acts on Pornhub and Redtube makes me genuinely scared for her.

And then there is the awful way femicide is brushed away and ignored.

The list goes on and on and on. Yes it is definitely worse.

[WarriorN]

I like touch screens and the internet, use them every day, but yes it's getting worse primarily because of them plus social media.

Speed and accessibility of information can do good and harm.

[WarriorN]

Obviously it's then up to the individual as to how they use and react to that information.

But children are accessing this stuff and generations see it as acceptable so it's just getting worse.

[WarriorN]

Masculinity was based not only on how many women you had shagged, but also there was an expectation that men would try to be good at sex and their sexual prowess was judged on how good they made the woman feel. Now it seems to be judged on what extreme act they can coax a woman into.

Absolutely this, and the rest of your post, I remember growing up and men being extremely sensitive and worried about making sure I was happy and comfortable with sex and allowing me to take the lead.

I get the impression it's really not like that now.

[WoolOfBat]

Quick thought, and do tell me if I am way off here, but do you think that many men constantly like to push boundaries (but like my children)? They like to try to get something and not being quite sure if they will?

In this line of argument, if I was on a date (a million years ago), it would be a big thing if I even kissed the guy. Being in his flat was another massive step and I would in most cases decide that actually I would not like to consider that particular male as a sexual partner. For me, that was a big thing and I needed to get to know the guy and feel quite a deep connection- and they guys I dated knew that and generally tried to be good people.

These days, the presumption seems to be that girls should wear very revealing clothes and be up for anything. Maybe then the whole “if she really likes me she would kiss me” turns into “if she really likes me she will let me choke her”?

[zzizzer]

It is so, so much worse. I thought we were heading the right sort of way in the 80s and 90s and then bam, the Internet.

Everything is suddenly more gendered than ever; women are more sexualised and objectified than ever before, stereotypes are reinforced everywhere, and just porn everywhere.

We are living in a civilisation which will apparently wank itself to death.