not sure what to title this but it's to do with ejaculation

I've always said I might try it with my (as yet nonexistent) husband if we both fancied it but I really do not want to reach a point where a whole host of men have ejaculated all over my face.

I have been asking a few of my friends if this is the norm for them. For 2 gay male couples: yes. Totally the norm, happens as often as not.

One female friend (hetero) said she didn't do it and she would never do it. She doesn't like ejaculate anywhere on her body. She is 28.

One female friend (hetero) said she has done it, likes it, doesn't feel degraded. She is 30.

One female friend (37, hetero) said she'd done and liked it.

Result: inconclusive. All 3 women identify as feminists.

FWIW on the spitting comparison, I wouldn't let my DH spit up my fanjo or on my breasts, as spitting is very different to coming IMO. When sex is a loving act, the 'end result' of that is all part of the fun to me.

Perhaps that's where the type of relationships your friend has is more relevant than whether the act itself is rooted in porn. If it were a loving husband doing this it may not cause you such a dilemma, trying to decide if its acceptable practice or not.

But the point is, you won't find out what 'the norm' is by canvassing a very specific demographic. The posters on here are by their nature very focused on things which affect women specifically. They all appear to be very articulate, very strong and would have no qualms about stating exactly what is (or isn't) acceptable bedroom practice to them.

If you want to know whether women are being coerced into sexual practices that are 'degrading', my guess is that you won't find many of them here!

Yes it's different, but not hugely - I'm not sure why. Probably because ejaculation is a normal part of sex but spitting isn't.

Saliva in the mouth is in it's rightful place, and absolutely fine, but on the face it isn't and could be seen as degrading then.

It would be interesting to canvass the wider opinion of MN in general.

I wouldn't do it in AIBU if you want it to be in any way a useful exercise though.

The OP would have to be worded carefully, I think, if you want things to be an exchange of opinions/explorational rather than a bunfight.

I would be interested to see if there is an age divide in opinions.

YF I guess a large part of my question will remain unanswered. is it the norm in sex? I know for some people it appears to be the norm for them but in general i was surprised that my friend seemed to think it was happening in more than 5 out of 10 sexual relationships/encounters.

But when upthread I suggested posting somewhere other than feminism to get a more 'typical' response you seemed offended. If you want an answer to the question rather than a lot of (very valid) feminist talk about porn in general, why not post "AIBU to think spunking on faces is degrading" and see what happens!?

When you and your lover have a good old teen style snogging sesh, you swop saliva.
How different would it be if you wanted to spit in their mouth/on their face?

I do think it's about disgust of ejaculate.
People have a visceral reaction against other people's bodily fluids. Probably evolved eons ago, for good reason, as bodily fluids can be vectors of disease.

It's not just ejaculate of course, but any bodily fluids.

(If you think I'm some sort of pearl clutching prude for saying this, please think honestly how you'd feel about having to pick up a wank tissue left in error beside the bed by a house guest)

However the feeling of disgust is overwritten, isn't it, by love or lust. In that way I can totally see where some men are coming from when they speak of acceptance. That makes sense to me.

The 'painter's radio' cohort probably do feel it's overtly disgusting, and to them it's degrading - the porn viewing reinforces & eroticizes misogyny.

So yes, it's context. And the woman's acceptance or otherwise of the 'worst' part of the man, is key.

It isn't about disgust of ejaculate. (That is just as incorrect as the 'prude' trope.)

It is about the symbolism of the face.

I like water but if my partner intentionally splashed a glass of it in my face when we were having a drink, I wouldn't like it.

Our faces are symbolic of our identities. (Hence why we have expressions like 'a slap in the face'.)

That is why the porn hounds decided to film women in this way in the first place.

I disagree on both fronts.

There is for me no connection with disgust for a demeaning act and disgust for the by-product of that act. I cannot follow your logic at all on that - and it doesn't apply to me.

I think I'm heavily influenced by porn and so is my partner. But neither of us watch it. We do however live in a pornified society.

Of course people can be influenced by attitudes around them. Since I was talking about something I did for the first time spontaneously, I was free of all influences except my own urges thank you very much.

I don't see why you find it odd, Charbon. Either it's demeaning (in general) or it's not. If you say it's demeaning, you must be saying there's something revolting about spunk.

Do you think people are only influenced by porn if they watch it themselves?

OK, YF, I tried to stick to the absolutely general in my reply. As you may have guessed, though, I've enjoyed this particular practice more often than not. I can remember making a swift duck on a few occasions but, mostly, have encouraged it. I like(d) being able to see the ejaculation and, in a context of oral sex, it seemed natural. Whether the blokes were influenced by porn I have no idea, but I've never seen this act performed on film so I wasn't.

That's a really odd extrapolation.

IME it's got nothing to do with finding semen itself disgusting. It's often about preferring to encounter it in other ways than having it splattered over a face or in the eyes. Plenty of women are happy to welcome it in any or every other place, but not on their face or in their eyes.

I'd see it as demeaning if the owner of the face wasn't willing (or expecting it). I don't think it particularly is when both partners are happy with it. Saying it's always demeaning, or has demeaning motives, involves the assumption that a man's ejaculate is somehow disgusting. I wouldn't call a woman's vaginal fluids disgusting, neither would I say spunk is.

But this isn't about individual women's sexual choices, or taking those choices away from people who are making an informed decision within the parameters of their own relationships. I genuinely don't care about what consenting adults do within the privacy of their own lives, as long as that consent is freely given.

I do care about men and women feeling a societal pressure to do something in private that instinctively feels uncomfortable, or which might cause them physical pain. That for me is an example of a coerced choice and if society is exerting that pressure, it ceases to be personal and becomes political.

This isn't about men or women stopping something they personally find erotically beneficial, for the greater good of society. At a personal level though, it is about all of us refusing to put pressure on other people to make a different choice, by accusing them either overtly or covertly of prudishness or sexual repression, because they say 'no' to a sexual practice or practices. This applies equally to the pressure some women put on some men and the weight of pressure men especially feel to be up for any kind of sex at any time. It's about the pressure we put on our friends or relatives and yes even the pressure we exert on fellow internet sprites.

And for me it's about campaigning against the pressure exerted by the sex industry and challenging the notion that it is 'pro-sex' when its effect instead has been to repress sexuality and especially women's sexuality. That industry only exists in its current form because of the patriarchy, but I regard it not just as a symptom of it, but as a horribly embellished version of it, where women are forced to be the brutalised and men, the brutalisers. Campaigning against that industry and its pernicious influence on society is a direct action we can all take, alongside all the others that overturn patriarchical structures.

None of us lives in a vacuum and whether we like it or not, we are all influenced by what the masses can see for free on the unregulated medium that is the internet. I don't want to take away anyone's personal choices about the sex that they want to have. I do want to take away society's right to see images of women being tortured, abused or demeaned and to infer that those practices are acceptable and enjoyable to everyone.

Just as you or I have the right to do what we like in private, we need to observe the rights of other people to do what they want to do, without feeling pressure to do otherwise.

But I didn't say that nothing would be done as the result of feminist analysis.

I said that women can choose what they do with that analysis. Some will act some will not.

I don't really understand why this bothers people. Just a second ago some of you seemed annoyed by the notion that feminist analysis is 'oppressing because it takes choices away from women'. (I may be paraphrasing slightly)

Now I am saying that the point is not to remove choice but develop tools for making choices (one choice might be to reject those tools or disagree with them).

And that doesn't seem to please either because it is 'doing nothing'.

Most feminists don't do nothing with feminist analysis - they use it to try to make the world a fairer, safer place for women. They use it to help themselves take a step back from the paradigms of the status quo and to decide for themselves whether they wish to accept them or not.

But it is not compulsory - nobody is going to make you.

WidowWadman I can't see anything about funfemproporns on this thread - IIRC it is from another thread entirely. Perhaps best to take it up there eh?

I can find you plenty of posts on various MN threads with ad hominen about radical feminists but I don't really see what the relevance would be.

beachcomber - see this is the thing which I just struggle to understand. What is the point of analysis without doing anything with the results? Without proposing any solution which would improve the status quo?

It also doesn't sound completely honest that "women can do whatever they like with that analysis" - as, just the phrasing of the analysis how it is being presented implies that women need to stop making choices for the sake of other women "it's about them". This impression isn't helped by sneering at "funfemproporns instead of proper radfems"

I appreciate that this quote wasn't by you - but I think it helps putting reaction to the analysis in context.

But then what is the product of the anaylsis if there is no action to take?

It isn't about taboo or stopping women from choosing to participate in acts.

It is about analysing the acts and the context in which they occur and are normalized and internalized.

Women can do what they like with that analysis. They can reject it, ignore it, disagree with it, etc.

But feminists think that analysis is worth doing.

So what are you saying Charbon - that people should not engage in this practice because it is normalised by porn and by engaging in it you are further normalising it and therefore adding to the expectation upon other women to engage in it when they may not want to?