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

Her reasoning isn't entirely wrong, but she is entirely wrong to use the title "PIV is always rape". That's an anti-feminist statement that denies women's autonomy--saying that a woman can never consent to sex with a man. She might say (and she has plenty of arguments for it) that intercourse is a very bad idea for women, and women shouldn't consent to it, but she can't deny that consent can exist, unless she has a very low opinion of women who disagree with her. In fact, it can go all the way to enthusiastic agreement and great enjoyment, and if she doesn't recognise that, she doesn't know women very well. She'd do better to apply her intellect to the question of why people make choices that are bad for them.

Of course then we get into the issue of what we're able to choose--for the most part, things we're familiar with and encouraged by society to choose. And beyond that, what does it mean to "be heterosexual"? Maybe our bodies make us do those things that go along with our sexual orientation, from seeking out a partner of the other gender to some pretty crazy stuff that may be bad for us, but can still be freely chosen. You can say we're slaves to our hormones, but (shrug) maybe that's true. Here we are, as we are. And it all takes place against a background that we've been familiar with all our lives, of what a "normal" person is going to want to do. And maybe there's something to learn from people whose urges are in another direction, who used to be called "abnormal" but are now just seen as living in a different but also legitimate way.

Didn't Dworkin not say "Intercourse is rape" but people keep claiming she actually did say it?

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.

"Just to point out, female biology doesn't mean that sex equals penetration. In fact, many lesbians seem to manage quite nicely without any penetration at all."

Would it be correct to say that, in the biology of reproduction, sex does equal penetration? As a previous poster said, I can't think of any way a woman can get pregnant without some sort of penetration - penis, pipette, turkey baster, etc.

So sex for pleasure absolutely does not require penetration, but the continuation of the species does - at the moment, at least.

Men, by definition almost, have to have their penis enveloped for proper feeling, either by a hand or mouth, vagina or anus.

In bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) who are famous for their sexual social activity, indulge in male-on-male penis fencing (For pleasure not as a competitive sport, I assume!)

In gay men we have frotting (I just learnt a new word!), and in ancient greece (you can see it on the naughty pots they used to hide from the nice polite museum visitors!), males used to engage in intercrural sex (between the thighs).

Stimulation doesn't have to mean penetration, apparently!

I just remembered another interesting example of what happens if you're stuck in the sex=PIV rut (okay, multiple double entendres there!).

The silver-ring, just say NO to sex abstinence thing in the US. Where with no useful information about condoms or STDs loads of girls apparently indulged in other acts -- because it wasn't PIV hence not real sex hence their virginity and purity were supposedly untarnished. But oral and anal sex without knowledge of condoms etc meant leaving themselves at risk of STDs. Because they thought REAL sex was just PIV.........

I agree to a certain extent with SomeDyke and Scallops.
I am not really down with my feminist lingo, before today I hadn't read anything on mn feminism and very little about feminism in general.
Sex, to me, should be whatever you find pleasurable. So lesbians can just use clitoral stimulation, or digital, or whatever they like. Men, by definition almost, have to have their penis enveloped for proper feeling, either by a hand or mouth, vagina or anus. That's just where their sensitive bits are (except for the prostate which is outside my knowledge). This is what I think. The conflict comes by putting men and women together. Lots of women I know find penetration boring and uncomfortable.
But isn't it more to do with the other parts of life that are filled with inequality- like household chores, and being made to feel crap by media, insecurity about looks, earnings, being seen as 'unfeminine' or a bad role model (when I don't even know who my role models are anymore).

I think I mean why talk about sex distorting things when surely it's everything else distorting sex.

Feel free to educate me, like I said, not an 'active' feminist.

X-post with SomeDyke there. Nice post.

I was going to make the point that PIV = rape would be pretty much a certainty for lesbians!

Can we please stop calling women loony and insane. It's misogynistic. Women's views have been dismissed for centuries for those same reasons.

"You see, if you rewind fwr back to the hey-day, this is pretty much the view that attracted the MRAs". That's inaccurate and unfair madwomanintheattic. MRAs are attracted to shutting up any woman with an opinion and especially women with opinions about men. The fact that this website is in existence and is called Mumsnet is enough of an attraction for MRAs.

Agree with AF, Buffy, Plays etc. It's is an opinion. It's a starting point for conversations around the inherent dangers for women in PIV and about the power dynamics in play within a patriarchy and what that means for consent.

She isn't killing baby boys or bombing civlians in Syria.

It looks like a bunch of important & valid points being suborned to a single idea which ignores biology.

Just to point out, female biology doesn't mean that sex equals penetration. In fact, many lesbians seem to manage quite nicely without any penetration at all. But many males (gay or straight), DO seem to think that the ONLY valid thing to do with a penis is stick it somewhere, and only differ in terms of exactly which hole they are sticking it in (plus I have found that some gay men are just puzzled how some lesbians supposedly manage without even a plastic pseudo-penis dildo, because no penis equals no sex as far as they were concerned!).

I was rather taken aback by its premise.

As far as I'm concerned this is a good thing! Why, after all, should penetration be synonymous with sex in the first place? Separating sex as sex, from the reproductive act, why should it involve penetration at all? Indeed, for lesbians, penetration need not be involved at all in sex, and only minimally in reproduction, with a turkey baster (usual implement for self-insemination). So why the focus on penetration as sex, who does it serve?............

Indeed, you could view FGM as the ULTIMATE statement of sex=PIV in that the purpose of FGM is to remove the clitoris (hence there goes pleasurable sensation for the woman), and to make the vaginal opening as small as possible (and who is THAT for?).

Then we also have what I seem to recall Andrea Dworkin was writing about in 'Intercourse', that penetration is problematic given the current culture of sexual inequality. And I think this is reflected by gay men as well, where the submissive partner is the one who is penetrated, and the dominant is the one who does the penetrating. I think you can see there what goes back to the greeks, that woman IS the thing who is penetrated (and that a male who allows himself to be penetrated is mocked as being a woman!). Just as vagina means sheath (for the penis). I think she didn't mean that ALL intercourse/penetration IS rape. But these ideas of sex ARE tightly bound up with both sex equals penetration (by a penis or a substitute for a penis), and that penetration also signals inequality.

What would sex look like if we had sexual equality?

Ignore me. I'll take that thanks.

for women than men

I'll get me coat. Twas a long day.

To be

This is not a mainstream view, even among radical feminists. Lots of us enjoy penetrative sex, but don't consider the two terms to interchangeable. It's like that myth that male homosexuals only get it on by anal penetration.

There is no getting away from the fact though, that on a worldwide scale, PIV sex is massively more dangerous for men than women.

Garlick- it's a wonderful expression, isn't' it. Spoilt a bit by the actual derivation- but we don't have to bother with that.

Thanks calindana - that's interesting. The writer if the article goes way beyond that.

And oh please can nobody say "And that's why I'm not a feminist". Because I might cry........

She explains in the comments that pregnancy can occur when semen is placed on the vulva, and she can do this herself, by asking a man for some semen.(!) She also says that she deletes any comment which says that her point of view trivialises 'real' rape, and that sex is enjoyable. It worries me that someone who is supposedly supporting women's equality, can despise and censor other women. She doesn't appear to be promoting love and happiness!

X post with Buffy

I don't think you're trying to be goady partial but your question 'is this a commonly held viewpoint among feminists' is entirely disingenuous as you know the answer. It would have been far more honest for you to say 'I read this and I'm pretty sure it's a bit loony but what do you think?'

There is a radical feminist viewpoint that says that women's consent to sex is problematic (and therefore has undertones of rape).

Here's the theory:
In practically all cultures sex implicitly equals PIV, despite the fact that there is a whole host of other sexual activity possible.
PIV almost always guarantees an orgasm for men and carries much less risk for them than it does for women.
Many women don't orgasm from PIV alone
PIV is far more dangerous for women than it is for men in terms of health risks, particularly pregnancy
As recently as 1991, PIV sex was seen as something that women owed men once they were married - it was seen as an integral part of marriage to the extent that a man could rape his wife with impunity.

There are many other forms of sexual activity that are more beneficial for women besides PIV, both in terms of pleasure and safety. It would make perfect sense for women to entirely refuse PIV in favour of other things that they enjoy more and suffer less risk from. But in our society PIV is presented as the norm - it's what you do. Therefore women are not given a true choice between options that are presented as equally valid. Their consent to PIV is based on a societal expectation rather than on their own preferences or their own safety.

The argument is not saying that all men are rapist or that all PIV is rape. What it is saying is that consent in a situation where there aren't really any other options is problematic.

but we don't really know our own little female minds...

I hadn't even noticed that! You're so right! Grr!

I've read all the comments now. Kind of wish I hadn't. It looks like a bunch of important & valid points being suborned to a single idea which ignores biology. I'm completely done with valid points being used to prop up biologically irrational arguments.

It makes me feel sad, though ... every hetero female’s “first time” is painful. Bloody hell, that's awful. My first time was actually rape but it didn't hurt physically. I was pissed off, not injured. Of course some even more unfortunate women & girls are injured; I'm just highlighting the non-inevitability of PIV pain. Which invalidates all the other arguments, even though the other arguments are actually important & real.

She doesn't address either of the points raised in the comments about 1) what if a woman decides she wants to have a child, and 2) how come most other mammals reproduce in this way