"Intercourse/PIV is always rape, plain and simple."

He also said that there were types like "bears and cubs" and "fathers and sons" and others that I've forgotten. I thought he was winding me up after a while. Again he said that the types didn't switch, so no bears with sons or twinks. It all seemed very strict!
Perhaps the papers frown on frotting? Frothing could probably mean something else. Corduroy is beyond the pale though.

Thank you Joan, Buffy, Cailindana, somedyke and possibly others I've missed for turning an unpromising OP into an interesting discussion.

The original premise, certainly as related by the OP sounds batshit crazy but examination of the ideas behind it really causes you to think again. The expectation that piv sex is the only kind of sex is one that I really wish would go away.

Yes, I was very confused talking to a gay friend once, and he said that generally the penetrator and penetratee (?) don't switch roles. Which seemed strange to me.

Yeah, me too! And during (too) many years of reading the old paper-style gay men personal ads, and asking gay male friends what X means, I came across many things (and weirdest of all? guys who liked guys in corduroy)..............

.......but nothing about frotting! Perhaps I mistook it for frothing and thought they were into cappuccinos.

So is this discussion leaning towards the view that, after all, rape is about sex rather than power & control?

torturous limb deforming

I would think of high heels (in terms of shortening the achilles tendon, shortening calf muscles, and back pain etc from the thrown forward position). Also deformed limbs if you fall off the bloody things too often!

Then we have the limb deformation from even ordinary womens shoes. The compression of toes (leading to some women opting for surgical removal so they can fit their feet in! And the original ugly sisters and the glass slipper!), bunions, deformation of the toe (hammer-toe?), various foot problems caused by unsupportive flat shoes (I'm always amazed how you're supposed to keep those flat shoes on that only barely cover your toes?). Then we have the hip and back problems caused by fashionable non-supportive things like ugg boots and their rip-offs (no support, I have seen so many women walking off the soles on those things. Plus the nasty sweaty feet some women must get when they wear them even in the summer!).

What do I know, I'm just a 'woman in sensible shoes' dyke. I will admit I've never worn any of the shoes listed above, always just buy mens shoes anyway. I'm just constantly amazed by what the female students wear on their feet, it all just LOOKS so uncomfortable!

Someone up thread asked what sex might look like in a world with equality, and this is the question that the PIV issue makes me wonder about. What would it be like if, for example, oral was seen as the default form of sex and PIV only really engaged in for purposes of conception? Like Buffy says it's about questioning those things that have been accepted so long that they become seen as the normal, natural, or automatic way of doing things.

Tribadism-"a woman who practises unnatural vice with herself or with other women". Sounds a tad judgemental.
Yes, I was very confused talking to a gay friend once, and he said that generally the penetrator and penetratee (?) don't switch roles. Which seemed strange to me. There's probably something deep and meaningful and feminist-related that could be drawn from that, but I'm sleepy and can't.
Hopefully will not dream of penis fencing!

I don't think your group of friends is at all unusual, Alpha. Neither am I unusual in preferring PIV.

It's just what it is.

Sometimes it occurs to me that parts of both male and female sexuality evolved amidst practices and times when we weren't human, or human society was vastly different than now. So I mean biological and cultural aspects of sexuality.

So some things may stimulate a certain physical response, or even cause pleasurable sensations, because those responses evolved as a survival mechanism. The people who didn't have that response may have in some situations died out, or flourished less. and some aspects of human sexuality reflect that. It's very, very murky and cloudy.

To put it somewhat clumsily but to illustrate a point, did any current woman "choose" to evolve to be a member of one sex in a species where the majority of physical investment in child making falls so disproportionately heavily on one sex and not the other.

I can see how in that very muddy context, concepts like "consent" only really address a tiny little top slice of the interaction between the sexes that is going on. The part of sexuality that has evolved since we had developed a certain level of intellect and social behaviours. And that's before you take into account the distortions that sex, gender, race, class, health, education and so on place on people's relationships.

So, in that extended sense, I can see where she's coming from...all those millenia of tiny incremental evolutions that made us what we are today were hardly ever consensual choices.

But I also don't see how we can suddenly easily change to be more like sea horses or whatever. There are ethical questions with a lot of things that people already do in the area of reproduction that are only recently technologically possible. Look at things like the surrogacy industry in Asia...are some of the choices open to people in all roles in that equation really free and fair? Depends on how you frame those choices. And I think there could be a lot to consider before embracing technological routes to evening up the ability of men and women to bear children- things like the ability to genetically engineer children or grow them outwith a human body. Add in to that rapidly blurring gender lines and definitions, rapidly growing economic inequality in many parts of the world and you've quickly got scenarios only really addressed thus far in science fiction. (The works of Iain M. Banks have some interesting situations re gender identity, reproduction and power dynamics.)

Our bodies aren't usually that logical about sex leading to reproduction, though, AF. We get pleasure from genital stimulation. Enough of the time, we do mutual genital stimulation with members of the opposite sex and, enough of the time, that delivers the reproduction. But we don't usually get more pleasure from PIV that causes impregnation. And we don't all get equivalent pleasure from identical genitally stimulating activities. Nature takes a gloriously scattergun approach to such things. Other mammals are homosexual, bisexual, asexual; monogamous, polygamous and promiscuous within the same species; individually varied in which kinds of stimulation they prefer.

If we reproduced through pollination, we'd probably get it on when insects tickled our stamens. Or when the wind did, or something brushed against us in passing - and we'd probably vary in which kinds of stamen-tickling we liked most It's still all scattergun, though. Insects aren't devoted to pollination, they're in it for food! (I guess things could be worse in the human world ...)

A few weeks ago, a few friends and I shared several bottles of wine. The subject of sex came up, and being quite pissed, we had quite an illuminating conversation. Of the 6 of us slumped gathered together, only 1 of us said they really, really enjoyed PIV sex. The rest of the group admitted that that thought it was nice at best, mostly ok and boring and sore at worst. So why did we agree to it on a regular basis? We all enjoyed the associated intimacy of the act, the feeling of closeness separate from the physical sensation. There was also the fact that our partners expected it (and to make it clear, none of us felt coerced by our partners) but more that that - because we felt we should like it. In M/F relationships, there is the idea the if you're not having regular PIV sex then it doesn't really count as sex.

Perhaps we are very unusual as a group, I don't know. But it was a very interesting conversation and I've been thinking on this topic a lot recently. As you were.

Surely not, Buffy ?

frotting? Like frottage? The rubbing against strangers on trains people?
Between the thighs would still be kind of enveloping surely? Not to be too pedantic.

O, please let's be pedantic!

Frotting seems to be the gay male slang for the same act as penis fencing in bonobos. En garde! I'll never look at Touche Turtle in the same way again...........

I had heard of tribadism, the female equivalent. Reading wikipedia at least, makes clear the many words as regards gay men and lesbians, and the many worries, but usually over whether or not someone was usurping the male position by penetrating someone, or accepting the female by allowing themselves to be penetrated.

I read a comment somewhere, likening the wearing of high heels to foot binding.

the thing is, biological imperative has got really lost along the way

what do blow jobs, for example, do for the continuation of the species ?

it's a complete waste of valuable genetic material innit

and yet, some men don't consider they are having an adequate sexual experience without it

Well she has a point there I suppose!

high heels, pencil skirts

I just find it irritating when posters try to attract a lot of attention to their threads by using transparently provocative titles.

Oh yes, you're probably right. I was thinking of arms for some reason!

Maybe our bodies make us do those things that go along with our sexual orientation ... You can say we're slaves to our hormones, but (shrug) maybe that's true.

Yep. That's my starting point. We are mammals. It's what we're built to do, sex-wise. The other stuff created & woven around the biological facts is problematic. You won't erase them by trying to erase the biology.

female biology doesn't mean that sex equals penetration.

I'm disappointed you think I meant that.

We are what we are. I'm heterosexual. I would mainly prefer to be lesbian. But my body doesn't respond to female bodies the way it does to male. I don't get equal or better pleasure from non-PIV sex. I wouldn't presume to tell other adults what their body wants or likes sexually, and I don't like it when people of (any sex) tell me I don't know myself.

I have been raped several times. It's by no means the same thing.

What is the ' torturous limb deforming' she references as a side effect of decorating oneself for male consumption!?