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

"It's about society and especially women-as-a-group and the things that oppress rather than free. For every woman who makes a free and considered choice about what she enjoys sexually, there is another who feels oppressed by the weight of expectation, not just from men but from other women.

It's about them."

Interesting point. But - and I do agree about porn not being without problems - but should the group of women who make free and considered choices have these choices taken away from them in order to free others from the oppression of expectations. Wouldn't that be oppression in itself?

This is not a troll, but a serious question. I'm interested in what solution you have for this conundrum.

Personally, I feel it is important that every woman and every man, every girl and every boy should be encouraged to only do what they feel they really want to do, free from peer pressure and pressure from their partners, whilst the individual choices they want to engage in should be respected and not taboo, or seen as oppressive to someone who wouldn't make that choice for themselves.

Anecdotal data has its limitations, but it forms the basis of all the social sciences as long as it has academic rigour regarding control samples and the analysis of other 'hard' data alongside it.

The point isn't particularly when this act originated, but when it started to enter our consciousness as an acceptable part of people's sexual repertoire. We know for a fact that this didn't feature in mainstream porn before the internet era because that analysis has been done. We know for a fact that it is now a feature in mainstream porn that is now freely available to the masses. Whether we or our partners consume internet porn or not, we cannot cocoon ourselves from its influence, or its effect on people's sex lives. It's been around for nearly two decades.

And this is the political issue.

Some of you believe that ejaculating on a woman's face was happening long before internet porn, but among those posters most seem to agree that regardless of that, it has been normalised by porn. Only one poster as far as I can see disagrees that this act is always depicted in porn as an act of degradation and humilation towards the female recipient, but also seems to acknowledge that in most porn, misogyny and degradation is the norm.

That's why it's political. Misogynist porn doesn't exist in a vacuum. It flourishes precisely because of patriarchy. Hence there can be no equivalence with female ejaculation or dominance. This act is predominantly packaged to consumers as degrading to women and since we don't live in a cocoon, some users will act it out in the way it is presented.

It doesn't matter how many posters insist that since their relationships are founded on mutual respect, this is not the situation for them personally. Those of us trying to engage on a political level are not concerned with private lives, but we are concerned when misogyny in the public domain starts to impact on the choices and expectations of women-as-a-group, not a small collective of individuals trying to uphold their liberterianism or relaxed attitudes to sex, accusing other women of being prudes in the process.

Put simply, this is not about you.

It's not about me either.

It's about society and especially women-as-a-group and the things that oppress rather than free. For every woman who makes a free and considered choice about what she enjoys sexually, there is another who feels oppressed by the weight of expectation, not just from men but from other women.

It's about them.

I don't 'hate' personal anecdote.

Personal anecdote is a perfectly valid type of data and basis for discussion - but it has limitations.

DH's grandmother is 84, in brilliant health, and has smoked heavily since she was 14. That doesn't mean that smoking is good for your health though.

I said that "a woman ejaculating on a man is NOT an act eroticizing female supremacy".

Female supremacy doesn't exist. It is impossible to eroticize it.

I am not ignoring the experience of many women by saying the above. I am observing a straightforward fact - the fact that we live in a patriarchal system, AKA male supremacy AKA male dominance.

Yes, I suppose a woman ejaculating on a man could be seen as an act of dominance if we lived in a female supremacy where women as a group oppressed men as a group through the means of violence (particularly sexual violence).

Jesus, Charbon. You are extremely patrinising! I might have t get my mum on here :-) talk about thinking you have the monopoly on feminist thinking....

coming at things from a totally different perspective

great turn of phrase on this thread :)

I do agree that it is rooted in male dominance. I don't agree it is becoming expected.

Do men expect it, Beachcomber? I know you seem to hate personal anecdote (which frankly is quite hard to avoid when it comes to sex - how else would we know anything about it?) but I have never had any casual sex where men expected to ejaculate on my face.

You say it's rooted in male domination. Why is it? Tell me exactly why it is, because I'm not necessarily buying that.

And you say that females ejaculating on males can never be about supremacy because men dominate women in society. To me, that's just a totally simplistic argument that ignores the experience of so many women. If we ever achieve equality, will female ejaculation then be seen as something that can be dominant?

Maybe we'll never find an answer here because we're just coming at things from a totally different perspective.

But Charborn you are saying it originated in 90s porn. I countered that. Now you're saying "well de Sade was a sadist" (no shit). So what's your point? That it didn't originate in 90s porn after all? Because you're confusing me.

The way you phrased your post sounded a lot like you were saying we're right, you're wrong. Sorry that I don't have the intellectual capacity to phrase what you said beyond naaa naaa naa naa. I have no desire to sit in an ivory tower to be honest and that's exactly what you were saying.

I don't doubt that it could be a lot older - the domination of women and eroticizing of that dominance has been around for a very long time.

I'm not claiming that ejaculating on a women's face is abnormal. I'm saying it is rooted in misogyny.

I think what is being left out of this discussion (particularly when people start talking about female ejaculation and cunnilingus) is that women do not dominate men in wider society. Therefore a women ejaculating on a man is NOT an act eroticizing female supremacy. Whether individuals find this particular act degrading or not is another issue entirely.

This is why I keep banging on about politics.

We are in a feminist discussion area - otherwise I wouldn't go on about the politics of the whole thing. Feminist analysis looks at things as they occur within the context of male supremacy. In other words in a context of male dominance and female oppression that is widely considered to be a natural state of affairs and exists currently as a misogynistic status quo.

Now, people can of course ignore the feminist political perspective altogether and say 'I like this act, my partner does it with respect' - fine, great, lovely jubbly. But this individualistic approach is not feminist analysis. It is personal anecdote.

People may also of course disagree with the feminist analysis being presented here. Fine, great - disagreement and discussion thereof is what feminist discourse is all about. I just haven't seen any political argument that solidly de-constructs feminist analysis on this thread.

Feminist analysis considers that nothing happens in a vacuum - personal anecdote which ignores the wider social context of female oppression and male supremacy is attempting to discuss from within the confines of a social vacuum IMO.

As has been said before on this thread, I think what my feminist analysis is about is the fact that this act has become something that men expect as part of causal sex (ie not within the safety of a relationship with a longterm partner) and women are being socialized to not question that.

Yikes! Say I.

My DH did understand the second question, he just felt it rather ridiculous to talk about what "men as a group" enjoy

Also - whenever this act has occurred it has always been at my request. It is not something a man has ever requested - it has always come from me and I didn't get it from porn

I do not disagree that porn has made it more popular / well known. It isn't abnormal though. Just because an act is popular within porn does not necessarily make that act degrading. Porn will have made cunnilingis more popular - it doesn't make it objectifying. Finally, people ae more than capable of frequently seeing an act in porn and not being influenced to make that act part of real life.

I doubt that it has originated with de Sade either - have you had a look at some of the writing of Roman/Greek antiquity? And my assumption is that they were not the first ones either.

Actually having just said that, if he is the originator of the act then it did originate in porn.

I don't think anyone is saying that ejaculating in a woman's face originated in porn, are they?

Rather we are saying that it has been normalized and popularized due to its featuring heavily in porn and following an increase in the availability of porn.

Marquis de Sade was an abuser, a rapist and a pornographer. He wrote about ejaculating on women in a derogatory and misogynistic terms.

So you're saying that this practice might have originated with the Marquis de Sade, the eponymous proponent of sadism?

I'm afraid I do think that posts that include the phrase 'naa naaa naa naa naa' are unlikely to advance an intelligent discussion. I can't imagine I'm in a minority there . There was nothing passive at all about that observation and I don't think it's an aggressive thing to say that I personally don't find posts like that constructive. However, I moved past that and 'told you my argument'. You just don't agree with it, which is of course your right, but I advanced it anyway.

I find the idea of men-as-a-group quite reductive. It doesn't mean anything to me. So no my partner didn't answer your question because I didn't ask him it. I asked him when he thought of this as a sexual practice.

There is ejaculation on faces in Marcus de Sade books. Lots of it. So I don't think it did originate in the 90s.

You say you've tried to engage politely, but I, and others on this thread, feel that we've been made out to be stupid. That really is how your post at 00:33 came across. If you think x you must be like y and if you aren't like that then well done.

There's really no need to say stuff like I've reduced my own argument. It just comes across as passive aggressive. If you feel like that, why not just ignore it and tell me your argument?

I'm off to bed now.

I don't find posts like that particularly constructive yellow and IMO they reduce your argument. I am not 'desperate' to misconstrue what you are saying and in fact have tried to engage with you politely throughout.

I don't see why it is problematical for men to answer a question that is as straightforward as:

Where did they first learn that this is something that men-as-a-group enjoy?

I was expecting answers that said porn (obviously), or from discussions with their male relatives/friends, or from former sex partners who'd said that other partners had enjoyed it. It's not a particularly difficult or searching question, particularly if some posters are right and this practice has been around since the Year Dot, but for some reason never used to feature in porn.

Your partner answered the question and I thanked you for relaying it. If he personally learnt about it via porn, what is the problem with admitting he thought that this was something he and future female partners too might enjoy, just like the people he saw in the porn he was using? Isn't that the logical deduction, given his answer? That he saw something that transmitted a message that this was something that men-as-a-group enjoy?

This sex act doesn't have its origins in porn from 1990. Do you really think no-one did it til then? Maybe it has become more normal, but seriously, I don't think no-one did it pre-then.

It is really really frustrating that you seem to think you are so much better at being a feminist or that you are able to see things we aren't. It just isn't the case. People are allowed different opinions, allowed to view things in a different way. I do not see it as a degrading act. It is degrading if it is part of a degrading relationship as is any sex act.

The fact it is marketed in porn as degrading (sometimes - it really isn't all the time) does not mean that men and women alike cannot see porn and sex as different things.

No Charbon, that's not what I said. What I said was he thought he personally got the idea from porn. Men-as-a-group - I mean, what does that even mean when it comes to sex? It's like saying women-as-a-group don't like ejaculation on faces, it's ridiculous. Why are you so desperate to misconstrue what I'm saying.

So you're saying you're right and we're wrong, naa naaa naa naa naa. Right. So the point of this was???

Thanks for the answers to those questions. It seems that only one man out of the three understood the second one and this was yellow's partner, who conceded that he (and therefore presumably men-as-a-group as that was the context) learnt that this might be an enjoyable activity for men, via porn.

I think if you have trouble believing that a) this sex act has its origins in porn produced from 1990 onwards and b) that it is marketed in porn as a degrading act, uses that as its selling point and might therefore influence society and individuals' interpretation of it as an act that degrades women-as-a-group, it must be really difficult to separate the personal from the political, or to see beyond one's own relationship and the parameters therein.

Those of us who do believe a) and b) don't have this difficulty and can see how problematical it can be for men and women to reject something that has been normalised by a sex industry that is perjorative to both men and women in its depiction of men as the brutalisers and women as the brutalised. And that the more something is normalised, the more pressurised both men and women might feel to do something they have discomfort with, or which they find painful, for fear of being described as somehow mundane, prudish or behind the times.

I named changed for it. Its actually rare that men ask for it.

But Fanjo, it IS an appropriate thing for him to ask a woman to do! Why wouldn't it be? Why is this one thing seen as being so awful in your eyes? And what is this talking of women "letting" men do stuff? Plenty of men are not interested in ejaculating on faces. Just because they've seen it in porn (or haven't) doesn't mean that they are automatically want to do it.

Why are people so intent on showing women as passive victims and men as marauding sexual warriors? It's just not my experience at all. In my experience, people are able to separate porn and real life, the same way they can separate films and real life. That doesn't mean porn isn't problematic.

Tis an interesting first post, therunner.

I am expecting to get insulted for my profession but I have worked for many years as a maid for working girls. Occasionally men ask for 'facials' on the phone. I act dim and say 'I am very sorry sir, my lady isn't a beauty therapist' They get embarrassed and stammer!

So what? You can't relate to it so it's therefore "strange"?

There you go again with the judging Fanjo. I'm so sorry you can't imagine a man wants to feel accepted in bed as well - the same way a woman might feel accepted by a man going down on her.

This thread is honestly massively messed up. No one seems to be able to speak to each other without being insulting.