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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Depressing report - anal sex in under 18s

358 replies

noblegiraffe · 19/08/2014 17:45

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/8/e004996.full

The link goes into much more detail but the gist is:

"First, some men's narratives suggested that mutuality and consent for anal sex were not always a priority for them. Interviewees often spoke casually about penetration where women were likely to be hurt or coerced (“you can rip 'em if you try and force anal sex”; “you just keep going till they get fed up and let you do it anyway”), suggesting that not only do they expect coercion to be part of anal sex (in general, even if not for themselves personally), but that many of them accept or at least do not explicitly challenge it. Some events, particularly the ‘accidental’ penetration reported by some interviewees, were ambiguous in terms of whether or not they would be classed as rape (ie, non-consensual penetration), but we know from Jack's interview that ‘accidents’ may happen on purpose.

Second, women being badgered for anal sex appears to be considered normal.

Third, the commonly circulating ideas that ‘everyone’ enjoys it, and that women who do not are either flawed or simply keeping their enjoyment secret, help support the erroneous idea that a man pushing for anal sex is simply ‘persuading’ his partner to do something that ‘most girls would like’. Even Alicia's narrative contains some of the apparently coercive features of anal sex that other women report in negative terms, despite Alicia reporting enjoying anal sex.

Fourth, anal sex today appears to be a marker of (hetero)sexual achievement or experience, particularly for men.18 The society which our interviewees inhabit seems to reward men for sexual experience per se (‘every hole's a goal’) and, to some extent, rewards women for compliance with sexually ‘adventurous’ acts (enjoyment signifying not being naive, unrelaxed, etc), although women must balance this with the risk to their reputation. Women may also be under pressure to appear to enjoy or choose certain sexual practices: Gill describes a ‘postfeminist sensibility’ in contemporary media, where women are expected to present themselves as having chosen behaviours that conform to a stereotype of heterosexual male fantasy.24 The common portrayal of anal heterosex in terms of men breaking women's resistance can be compared with narratives about first vaginal intercourse25 and perhaps have superseded them to some degree in the British context where premarital vaginal intercourse is considered normal and so perhaps less of a ‘conquest’.

Fifth, many men do not express concern about possible pain for women, viewing it as inevitable. Less painful techniques (such as slower penetration) were rarely discussed."

OP posts:
SevenZarkSeven · 19/08/2014 20:30

grimble I think there were a few on this thread who hit a pretty good bit where having lots of partners was no problem, but condom use was the norm , and the more extreme sexual practices weren't considered standard. I am feeling very lucky right now as well.

And it is just messed up. If people want to have a go at / do more "advanced" sexual stuff, for want of a better term, then generally it's a plan to start with the basics and build up over a period of time surely. Getting to know what you like, having different partners and those experiences, getting to know your body and so on.

The expectation these days seems to be to do everything there is and right now. Whereas (example) I know that a couple of my friends regularly have anal sex with their partners because they like it, and they found that over the years of being sexually active. The pressure to do it all and right now is terrible.

GurlwiththeCurl · 19/08/2014 20:27

This thread is depressing me too. I am old and was a teen in the 70s. Boys then seemed to be relatively innocent compared with these days. We got our information about sex from books and magazines. It was all so much tamer.

I have DSs in their early twenties and certainly talked to them both about issues of consent, sex being something you did with a partner rather than to a partner. They are pretty open with me and we still discuss things like this now, particularly when there has been a case on the news such as Ched Evans for example.

HolidayPackingIsHardWork · 19/08/2014 20:16

Agree completely grimbletart. I wonder if some of the "sex positive feminism" is getting twisted and girls are left feeling like they have no way to say no. Any "no" is seen as repressed, uncool, prudish, etc because after all, everything goes and no one should judge what other people enjoy.

Some how in that message the fact that you don't always have to say yes and you don't have to enjoy everything is getting lost.

grimbletart · 19/08/2014 20:11

I am so glad I am an old biddy. I never thought I'd say it but our more repressed youth was actually healthier for girls and women than what is happening now. Porn has so much shit to answer for.

As for being pressed for anal sex. Let's hear it for the girls who have the guts to say OK - after I have shoved a broom handle up your arse first. See how you enjoy that.

I am so angry about this. Any youth who had tried that with me would have found his backside on the kerb before he took breath. Angry

I'm not victim blaming but I do also wonder where we have gone wrong with our daughters in instilling in them that boys are fine but they simply are not necessary. There wasn't one of my friends when I was a teen who had not at some point told push boys to sod off.

Rant over.

SevenZarkSeven · 19/08/2014 20:09

No idea queen.

What I would say is that having seen some gay porn, and some straight porn, bogstandard stuff, it's very different. I haven't seen much at all - but what I have seen with men together was much more focussed on mutual enjoyment and bizarrely lots of kissing and smiling and stuff. Affection. Which is a far cry from het porn where you get a man or men fucking a frankly miserable looking woman as hard as he possibly can. The whole atmosphere of the thing is completely different.

Having said that, I haven't seen vast amounts of either and of course there is all sorts out there but this was just what I noticed in what I have seen.

It may well be that the prevalence of gay porn has had a similar effect on expectations in that community but I have no idea. I expect there have been similar studies.

The other interesting thing is tewi talks about fanfic which is predominantly written by and read by women and although there is allsorts on there, where there is a consensual sexual encounter the norm is mutually enjoyable sex. And of course where it isn't mutually enjoyable sex that is being written about, it's not real people doing it. Yet in porn made by men for (straight) men, the focus is completely different. Mutual enjoyment and pleasure are not the point of it at all.

Why the big difference?

And still, what can be done?

HolidayPackingIsHardWork · 19/08/2014 20:04

Yuck. I was a teenager in the 90s. No one would ever have considered this, at all. I think the boys would have been grossed out at the thought.

It was truly a more innocent time I suppose. Boys were obsessed with boobs, not the back passage.

No one waxed off all their pubic hair either. That would have been considered odd. I think these things have come from internet porn. I wonder how viewing this stuff at a young age shapes a teenager's mind for life.

How sad for young people. Whenever a responsible adult suggests an opt-in for porn on the internet; they get shouted down as a prude. We seem to both overprotect and under protect children.

SunshineOutdoors · 19/08/2014 20:04

That was a bad choice of word in my last sentence. It's not a 'shame', it's fucking appalling.

SunshineOutdoors · 19/08/2014 20:00

The person I lost my virginity to had read a book about being good at sex which he showed me and it talked about massaging for a long time, working way up slowly, giving female gentle oral sex etc. basically nothing like what you see in porn. I'd love to remember what that book was to show my ds when he's older. All little details like kissing/stroking neck, arms etc. It's a shame that teenagers have a lot less access to information about how to have good sex and loads of information about how to have potentially painful and distressing sex Sad

queenofthemountain · 19/08/2014 19:56

Wonder why it's all about men doing it to women rather than gay men.Surely they have the same issues?

expatinscotland · 19/08/2014 19:56

What concerns me is that people are expecting to be anally raped when both males and females usually quite clearly understand that to penetrate a female the same way vaginally, without consent, is rape.

SunshineOutdoors · 19/08/2014 19:54

I was a teen in the 90s. When I was in my 20s I went out with a guy who said he wanted to try it but later broke down and said that he didn't, that it wasn't 'him' but that he felt it was something he needed to be in order to seem, I don't know, sexually exciting? A catch? Interesting I think to see it from perspective of a man who doesn't want to but feels this is what you 'should' do.

I have a young dd and ds and going to be doing my best to educate them both about sex and consent and porn v real life and just generally that nobody should do or coerce someone else to do anything they're not sure about or don't want to.

I did have a few guys ask for anal sex amongst other things but luckily had the confidence to say no if I didn't want to, and luckily only have dealt with men who took no for an answer and didn't feel the need to convince or coerce. I never felt that my pain was expected or wanted - that's shocking Sad

I hate that porn just seems to involve women being done to and not enjoying it. If a bloke only watches porn, how is he meant to know about real, proper, sensual foreplay? Is there any decent erotic literature that portrays sex in a more realistic, pleasurable light?

TeWiSavesTheDay · 19/08/2014 19:54

That's really incredibly sad Pacific.

I have 2 DDs and a boy and to be honest, and I know this might sound a bit bonkers, but it'sbeen on my mind for a while I might start seeking out erotica where the women have an enjoyable and consent filled time and start leaving it strategically round the house when they hit early teens... My introduction to 'this is what sex is' was mostly shipper fanfiction of that ilk and I think it served me fairly well.

The thought if my daughters not enjoying sex and my son being a rapist is horrific.

NewEraNewMindset · 19/08/2014 19:52

What concerns me is that it is my understanding that regular anal penetration can cause problems. My Mother used to work in a role that saw her have to look after facilities in her work building that included the toilets and she had real problems with tampons that were being used in the rectum to prevent leakage, being left in the cubicles and blocking the toilet.

I had never really heard of this before but I've since heard it's quite a common issue within the gay community. If this is the case then I'm not surprised hospitals are seeing an increase in rectal injuries.

AlleyCat11 · 19/08/2014 19:51

The real shame is all the good, fun, loving sex that young folk are missing out on. Porn is setting a violent, misogynistic standard. When I was a teenager, in the 90s, hardcore porn was something we giggled about. We certainly didn't want to emulate it. I think first sexual experiences are being fast-tracked by Internet porn. There was a big gap between when my first sexual experience & losing my virginity. I don't think that gap exists much anymore & girls are it finding harder to say no.

TeWiSavesTheDay · 19/08/2014 19:49

I think we are a similar age Bertie? Your summary matches up with my experiences. (except dh, who really had no interest in anal, and had to defend his straightness to our friends many times because of it!)

LRD - I laughed, but actually that would be a really interesting experiment.

SevenZarkSeven · 19/08/2014 19:48

Yeah that was the aim in our day, pacific.

What has happened?
Boys & girls learn from porn and we have seen the results but when did the idea that women can & should enjoy the sex they are having just vanish? Even with all the rest of the stuff, how come that has gone?

This report has really upset me, I have two DDs who are not teens yet, so it is a personal one.

expatinscotland · 19/08/2014 19:47

That is truly shocking and sad. I was 16 when I lost my virginity to a 23-year-old man I knew well and it was a really good experience of mutual fun and pleasure, respect and safety. What a shame for so many young people.

PacificDogwood · 19/08/2014 19:44

Many, many teenaged girls look at me like this Hmm and Shock when I suggest that sex ought to be mutually pleasurable and fun.
It is too depressing for words.

SevenZarkSeven · 19/08/2014 19:44

Of course it's porn linked.

It didn't used to be a mainstay in hetero porn, more a sort of speciality item, now it's just absolutely bogstandard.

expatinscotland · 19/08/2014 19:43

I lived an, erm, unboring life as a teen Blush but this was never brought up by any partners (all male) until I became single again. By this point, however, I was near 30 and quite confident that it was not for me and what consent was and the power of no.

NewEraNewMindset · 19/08/2014 19:42

I am absolutely sure it is porn linked.

I was a teenager in the 90s and none of my boyfriends requested it nor did I hear banter between guy friends about it. However once I got into my late twenties I can remember seeing a guy who deliberately 'missed' and it was so painful I actually fell off the bed and cried. He acted pretty non-plussed and didn't bother contacting me once I left to find out if I was ok. That was pretty shocking for me at the time although fortunately the guys I met after him were lovely.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 19/08/2014 19:41

What I mean is, it'd really only take one local shop stocking a particular kind of video, to up the likelihood of people picking up particular attitudes. Even now, I reckon if you dedicated a few months to relentlessly posting videos of people wanking over doorknobs on porn sites, it'd catch on.

BertieBotts · 19/08/2014 19:41

I was a teenager in the 00s and it might have been the men I dated/hung around with (mostly pricks) but it was a given that you'd have sex (I thought I was the oldest virgin ever at 18, literally used to cry about it all the time because I thought I was broken) and anal was a sort of "Ooh, would you?", so not a given, but every bloke I was with apart from the first who I totally failed to have sex with anyway was pushing the idea of anal.

SevenZarkSeven · 19/08/2014 19:41

So the idea here is that boys are learning how to "do sex" from porn and as a result are under the impression that sex is something they do to females, and it's all about getting what they want and here is a list of things, and how she feels about any of it is irrelevant. If you can talk / persuade / bully her into sort of agreeing to it more or less then go for it and obviously it's going to be painful for her so don't even worry about that.

So what the fuck do we even do with that.

Parents on the whole are not going to broach this with their children so that's not going to help.

It needs to be in schools doesn't it.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 19/08/2014 19:40

I think you'd expect there to be differences. Because internet porn didn't come from nowhere, after all, did it? It just made more accessible what was around.

I knew absolutely nothing about it (like I say, very boring teenager), but apparently my local town ran an extremely successful porn video shop, which was raided for child porn after I left school. Hmm