Radical feminism and PIV

Yes, and the more I think of it, we live in a very different world now than when Andrea Dworkin wrote Intercourse 25 years or so ago, (which many see as sparking the discussion on whether PIV is inherently abusive.) Porn was either print or on film and accessed either by buying in a shop, purchasing mail order or viewing in a cinema. Now, it's readily accessible via the internet and mobile devices discretely and free. Children either had to steal or get an older friend to purchase it. Now, it's easier to get hold of than cigarettes. Depictions of sexual activities that then would have been seen as hard core, extreme and not so easy to get hold of now feature regularly in mainstream porn. And now, we see a strong influence from the images and messages of porn throughout popular culture, from music videos to car adverts.

So perhaps similarly, the fixation on PIV being the problem in and of itself fails to recognise that "sexual norms and practices" have moved into a whole different landscape now. Continuing to focus on this could, imho, indirectly legitimise non PIV practices which can be just as abusive and damaging and miss that wider problem - that within patriarchy, men as a group are seen as entitled to sexual services of women, even where this may be abusive, controlling, exploitative and physically and/or psychologically harmful to women.

i'm not sure about the details but somewhere in the 40's a whole regiment of italian soldeirs were exposed to a sort of nerve gas, it made them all impotent, over the following few years their wives divorced them in their hundreds.

clearly it's an individual choice, xenia, many women may prefer clitoral arousal over PIV, many marrages are sexless for a variety of reasons.but 'PIV critical" appears to be more than a personal choice though, it seems to me like it's a , (fairly haphazzard,) ideology. google PIV critical and you get plenty of hits, it's a movement. and thats why were talking about it, if it wasnt a movement, it would simply be a case of saying, "if you dont like PIV dont do it".

Plenty of women choose to celibate. Many are gay. Some are married but don't have sex and some are married adn have sex but not penetrative sex. Obviously on musmnet most peopleare married with chidlren (although there are actually quite a lot who don't have much sex in marriage because they have babies - see many many other threads about no sex in marriage on here).

So it is wrong to assume just about every woman is having and choosing to have penetrative sex with a man for a start. Plenty of course once their men are older and particularly ilf they are fat or ill find even if they wanted it erectile dysfunction has set in and they can't have it with that man even if they want it so either have to give it up or find a lover.

Those who do choose to that's fine, they can but that doesn't mean people who feel the act is more trouble than it's worth can't express their views.

I am not sure if there is anyone on here who avoids penetrative sex on principle so it can only be debated from a theoretical point of view. I can see all the disadvantages to many women from sex of course. It causes them to bond with the person they are with which means they are hurt when he leaves either the next day, in 5 minutes or in 10 years although that's not the positive way most of us look on life. Across much of the planet it means you're left hlding the baby whilst he swans off doing just about nothing except impregnating a heap of other women like Genghis Khan.

Then there are the issues that women tend to be aroused clitorally not through penetrative sex so that the act in theory might be pretty pointless from a female satisfaction point of view.

Mess, STDs, unwanted babies...

if we carry on like this we'll be forming our own convent which is what women used to do in the 1500s in the UK if they wanted to avoid the whole wretched business.... Laughing as I type and throwing away the key to the chastity belt.

I rarely post here (I mostly lurk) but I do find radfem theory to be fascinating. I can understand why PIV is seen to be more risky for women than men. I can understand why many radfem see PIV as an abuse.

What I can't understand is why so many people post here to mainly derail threads and also I can't understand why (semi) educated posters, both male and female, can't get their heads around the very basic fact that sex shouldn't just be purely PIV however that is the general perception in society. It is the mainstream perception of many forms of pop culture and for that I am thankful that people are questioning this.

I hope folks won't think I'm diverting too much here, but can I ask a question or two for clarification?

The discussion generally is about PIV (i.e. Penis in Vagina) sexual intercourse and whether or not some radical feminists see the practice as inherently misogynist and abusive, and why they believe this to be so (if they do.)

It seems to be coming through that while some here recognise PIV can be used as a tool of abuse and control, it can also be pleasurable as a sexual practice and for the purpose of conception, if you want to have children. The tricky issue is that I don't think it's that easy to distinguish between what a woman genuinely wants from what women have been socially conditioned to believe that they want.

Thing is, if we focus on PIV as a practice being problematic, could we not be missing the fact that other forms of sexual contact can also be abusive, can also present risks to physical and emotional health and well-being?

What's prompted me on this is a convo with a colleague who works with vulnerable young women and girls. Many of them are being coerced or forced into engaging in sexual acts that don't necessarily involve PIV, but these are most definitely abusive and controlling. For example, girls are "expected" to give blow jobs to their boyfriend's mates, or they are pressured to film themselves or go on webcam masturbating. In pornography, the dominant images aren't necessarily about PIV, but involve things like anal sex, oral sex and ejaculating on the face. Young men seem to be picking up the message that PIV isn't the be all and end all of sex, but they are expecting women to perform sexual acts that also carry risks of physical or psychological harm. The other problem for young women is that because these acts don't involve PIV, they don't see what's happening to them as "genuine abuse."

First off, I just wanted to clarify whether those who are saying PIV is inherently problematic regard other forms of sexual contact as "okay," (and I don't think they do, but it's just not being mentioned.)

And, I suppose the other question is might there be a risk of focussing so strongly on the practice of PIV being the problem that we miss the wider context that there are other sexual practices that can be used to abuse and control women that aren't being discussed and analysed so much?

Perhaps if people didn't insist of using the ridiculous term PIV and making this sweeping statement that the goal of sex as being misogynous, you'd get a better debate on the subject.

Instead with the initial wording of the thread, it gets started off with a wholly negative approach to the subject where women are straight away painted as victims and have no free will of their own.

I just feel rather than questioning whether RadFems think that PIV is inherently abusive you are actually doing the same thing, by saying its 'inherently unsafe'. And I'm not sure that the OP even in questioning the idea that sex is inherently abusive really gets very far at all from that line of thinking. Yes there are risks in having sex, but then there tends to be risks in pretty much everything you do in life, so I'm not sure that critically tearing it apart is helpful or going to achieve much. For the majority of women its a risk that they calculate and decide also has benefits to, for them as well as their partners.

When some of us say, hang on a second this is all bollocks, the debate gets turned to outside the first world and theres more sweeping statements about how women are the victims of sex.

Well yes of course they can be, but I also think its a tiny bit patronising and making massive assumptions to say its the only thing going on and how women in the first world are the only ones who might shock horror enjoy sex, and might have genuinely loving relationships.

My major problem with RadFeminism, is not only its obsession with women as victims but also its utter inability to look at things in a positive way or make positive comment about things. Its all about the bad stuff and theres no balance whatsoever to whats said. There is a need to associate everything with stuff that is inherently bad purely for debating purposes and to tar everything with the word misogynist, often to make things appear worse than they are and to make everything black and white.

If there is risk to sex, then I'm not sure thats completely a bad thing. The OP certainly makes the automatic assumption that it is a bad thing.

There are plenty of people who are drawn to risky and find it exciting and more attractive for that very reason. Why do people do loads of things they know they shouldn't? I think its something that applies to both men and women. Everything from having a quickie in a public place where you might get caught to having a full blown affair when actually someone has no intention of leaving their partner.

Equally, the element of risk, can make you stop and think and prevents you from engaging in things without considering consequences. Again, I do believe it goes for men and women, though not necessarily in equal measure.

Imagine life where there was no risk whatsoever in having sex... risk is a natural thing to control the balance of things in nature.

Having a debate where we are all supposed to go, well PIV is bad as it is risky and its used to abuse women is not a debate. Like someone else has said, thats surrounding yourself with 'yes women'.

Abuse very rarely, if ever, is carried out by PIV alone. Its accompanied by other forms of violence and abuse. Focusing on the act of PIV, I find pretty unhelpful really.

I've got to say, I'd have a lot more time for some debaters if they were capable of uttering a note of positivity and critically assessing something as having benefits as well as negative elements. Give women some power in what you say too, instead of helping to take it away. The world is not black and white, and I really do think it does a disservice to women to completely ignore another side of the coin, because it doesn't suit the argument you want to have and how you want to control it. Critically assessing something, is not just being sourfaced and saying how we are all victims.

whats meant by that basil?
are there too many people here with the 'wrong' opinions?

"'m pleased that elecric shock, WW and other less radical feminists are here these days "

Yeah I bet you are.

thank you for that insight alameda, i'm deslexic actually.

but where do you poo? I like my Armitage Shanks or continental equivalent beneath me

I can't imagine just curling one out on the grass of a campsite somewhere?

i'm also an athiest but i spent a whole evening a few years ago in the spitfire bar in alexandria talking about religeon with an austrailian catholic preist, we diddnt judge each other, allthough we clearly thought differently about things.
i could have told him that he might as well belive in the tooth fairy as god, and he could have told me that i will burn in the eternal flames of desire in my afterlife. but we diddnt, and it was a very enjoyable evening.

Campers don't want to change society, they want to go camping.

It seems to me RadFems do want to change society, it's quite hard to glean exactly how society should be though.

I've read views on porn, transwomen, PIV sex and separatism, but what actually are Radical feminists objectives?

i cannot belive after what i have been witnessed to on these threads,( radfems wadeing in to give a victim a good verbal kicking) that you have the ordacity to cry boohoo and mistreatment when someone disagrees with you.

feminism interests me, and has become more interesting to me over time , i'm not a woman, but i can identify an in justice when i see one, as arther daily said, "you dont have to have measells to know you can get spots".

beachcomer, as your addressing me i'll still adress you.
'glass houses' beachcomber, if you dont want people getting personal, dont make personal remarks to them. also, i diddnt call you anything, simply pointed out that your post doesnt explain what PIV critical means , only kicks back against it's possible adversaries, who's phantom opinions you have chosen for them, i certainly havent heard them here.

my position hasnt changed, i'm open to a proper debate about this, without the adversarial tone, i really want to understand the thinking behined the whole 'PIV critical' thing. the radfemhub states that "all posts muct be PIV critical". well suround yourself with 'yes women' and sycophants and you will have that safe area devoid of other opinions or common sense for that matter.
it's like you want to have a conversation where one set of opinions are silenced.

camping is a properly extreme activity though isn't it? the wholesale rejection of all known physical comforts, is it a sort of masochism

I might even find out for myself this summer if my daughter has her way and we die of heat exhaustion pushing a dodgy campervan around Sardinia

I'd like to think I have better things to do with my time, but am probably just too lazy. And I have that mental disorder where am not sufficiently arrogant to appoint myself Changer Of Minds.

(I do actually think camping is completely mental though )