Consent and ‘anything goes’ sex

[Anothernameforallthis]

I work in an educational establishment, not in the U.K. but English-speaking. Without going into revealing detail, we recently had a presentation from a professor of sexual health from the U.S. Her presentation was great in many ways. The overall message was that, frankly, as long as there is consent, anything goes in a sexual encounter and nothing is shameful in any way. Butt plugs, anal, choking, fisting; whatever - she provided graphic expectations of all of them. As long as both parties are consenting adults, anything - anything - goes. She encouraged straight men to experiment with anal penetration. She provided a detailed « Sex toys and how to keep them clean » guide. The whole shebang.

Is this the way it is now ? All I could think was that a lot of this comes from porn.

her focus on consent as the green light for all this really troubled me. I’m not convinced that all young girls / women are necessarily able to consent, properly, even if they say Yes.

My sister works in a UK university, in student services. Basically when a student breaks the university code of conduct (which all students sign up to when they matriculate) she’s the one that investigates the complaints and assesses the evidence for / against the student. A lot of the complaints are of student-on-student sexual assaults, but where the female student does not want to go to the police. Often it’s because she feels like she ‘consented’ to something that she really didn’t want to. We bring girls up to be so compliant, to be kind and nice and polite. They seem to have no idea about the boundaries they c are allowed to set. That they are allowed to say no to rough or unpleasant or kinky sex.

i guess alcohol and drugs are a confounding factor here. The prof is talking about an ideal situation where both parties are sober. Assertive. Aware of and ready to enforce their personal boundaries.

i just seemed to me that we are in the worst of both worlds. Where, literally, anything goes sexually. But where we are still socialising girls to be ‘nice’ and be ‘kind’.

Negotiating consent in kink like bdsm is a serious undertaking with check ins, safe words, and aftercare. If you’re going to take part in potentially dangerous activities, good communication is key, and before these practices became mainstream, this message was hammered home in bdsm groups and communities.

Even then, it’s a well known fact that you must check that your partner is actually capable of using a safe word to stop a scene, and a good dom/domme will test the limits precisely to gauge that. Not everyone can- and if there has been abuse or violence associated with sex, it’s not unusual to dissociate or freeze.

When bdsm was underground, word of mouth could help warn people against dodgy tops. As a long time kinkster, what has happened in the last ten years is terrifying. It’s ridiculous that you’d be safer in the hands of a true sadist than Johnny Next Door with his porn addiction and lust-blurred boundaries

I fully agree with @Carrotten

Well I hope you pointed out what utter stinking crap she is peddling. Sex is most definitely an area why "anything goes" does definitely not apply.

I think she's right.

I think as long as both parties consent then yes, anything goes. That doesn't mean I consent to sex therefore you can do anything to/ with me. It means, we discuss a particular act and both consent and try it or one/ both doesn't consent, so we don't.

There should be no shame in what two consenting adults enjoy sexually and you and your partner should be able to explore that in an non-judgemental way and both parties being able to consent or refuse as you like.

This is how I've always approached sex and think I've had much better sex because of it. I've tried most things once so I can work out what I like or don't. I've actually found sex get much more vanilla as porn has proliferated, not less.

Why on earth was this person giving this presentation in an educational establishment?

In a healthy adult relationship, with consent, then I agree that "anything goes". Obviously anything new or particularly out there would be discussed first but surely it's like anything in life, if you don't try, it you don't know if you are going to like it?

I find it really horrible how adults have invaded young people's sex lives so much. 18 is young. Did the young people consent to a talk about anal, fisting, and butt plugs? And all this talk of consent while men are forcing themselves into women's spaces at every level of society is mind-fuckery.

The 'be kind' thing. Yes it is completely pushed on girls by society. Girls t-shirts have that slogan, not boys. The allowing boys into girl's spaces is encouraged and girls pushed to 'be kind' or STFU.

My colleague, who teaches sport at FE college, had a class discussion about males in women's sports. He told me the girls said it's fine, and only the boys recognised that men would have the physical advantage.

I think young people (boys too) need to be made aware it's perfectly ok to say no to adventurous, kinky aspects of sex, it doesn't make you a prude. With full consent yes adults can do what they want in private but there should be no pressure or coercion which is the issue with young people of university age, the pressure to be cool about these things is real.

I have a good physical relationship with dp but I'm very aware it's vanilla- my choice and young people need to be aware it's fine to prefer it that way

@motogirl - yes, me too. I've always had a brilliant sex life, but it's been basically 'vanilla' (including with women). There was zero adult input telling me how to have sex, apart from Just 17 magazine maybe.

When I was 18 my extra illicit thrills were mainly from finding the time and place to have sex! And just having regular sex which was new and exciting.

I would have thought that if a person was going to be into more kinky sex, that would happen once they had some years experience of regular sex (either opposite or same sex, sex). Now it's pushed on young people from the start.

Completely agree with your posts @Charley50 @motogirl. There's something very unsettling about adults pushing this 'sex positive' agenda onto teenagers, which inevitably always seems involve centring kink, perhaps as some kind of over-correction against the idea that sex is shameful. And I say that as someone who enjoys kink! In a world where teenagers are exposed to BDSM practices as the norm via internet porn, a truly 'sex positive' education should be counteracting that narrow, internet porn-driven view of what sex is rather than actively reinforcing it.

You would think so, but maybe not. When I was 22 I went out with a lad who was 20. He was into knives. Like, wanted to use them in sex, said he wanted to feel the blade pressing his skin, I could not get my head around that or participate. He was totally normal apart from this and as far as I know is now a normal grown up, not a serial killer. This is almost 20 years ago.

Also how much of "Mr Grey" has also influenced perspectives on this matter ?

I don’t understand why this information was necessary within a work context. WTF?

I agree with you @littleburn and am also concerned about this as my DC enter sexual maturity. The goalposts have moved unbelievably far in the last 30/40 years. Our children are navigating a sexual world that looks very different from the one we encountered as teens.

As for @TheVolturi ’s knife scenario: really very disturbing.

I think degrading sex in any form is poles apart from romance. The two are just not compatible and I choose romance any day.

Have all the kinky sex you want - but even if your partner supposedly consents to being choked or having something shoved into their anus that shouldn't absolve you of any assault, manslaughter or murder charges if you cause injury or death.

Can anybody explain to me why anyone would consent to being choked or why anyone would want to do it to another person? Genuinely curious.

Tbh I'm not very happy about these messages to any children. My son is quite a gentle sort and while I'm completely aware that doesn't exclude any particular sexual act, I would also like messages about gentleness, tenderness, touch and erotic pleasure over time in a relationship being completely valid, far more than saying extreme and unsafe acts of violence are what you should consider normal. I'd have a MAJOR issue with anyone normalising choking or 'breath play' to any audience at all. So im with you.

I'd also be interested in finding out why it's (nearly) always the men doing the choking and getting off on it...

@Daenerys77 there's a lot of messages about suffocation supposedly enhancing orgasm. As far as I'm concerned it is uniquely unsafe even among this range of supposedly erotic violent acts. If you're having sex with people you don't know and aren't connected with (which I've done a fair bit of) i think you're more likely to seek extreme sensation in ways like this.

@FrancescaContini

I'm not in the UK and the educational establishments are a bit different here. This one is a private US business school (offering MBAs etc) operating in Europe. They take students from 18+yrs for various courses. As part of their "improve our English / knowledge of US culture" they have random speakers come through the year - often researchers, writers etc. This one was done by a professor of sexual health.

perhaps as some kind of over-correction against the idea that sex is shameful. This! Maybe it's not possible to find a middle ground between 'sex is shameful' and 'anything goes - get in there!' - but this talk certainly wasn't it.

Another thing she said was that we shouldn't refer to sexually-transmitted disease but to sexually-transmitted infections instead, and to emphasise to students that these days all STI can either be cured or can be lived with, with medication. Her point seemed to be that fear / shame of catching an STI shouldn't be a reason to avoid sexual practices that might be more risky in terms of catching them, but I may have misunderstood something here.

She also referred to 'people with vaginas / people with penises' throughout.

Is there any reason it needs to be spoken about in the public domain though? I genuinely can't see why it needs to be.

If you are with someone you trust and you talk over kinky stuff to do, agree, then do it. I don't see how not being given a talk such as the above in university would mean you don't do it?

So for me it begs the question why is it being done? There are whole generations of people who never had such talks, yet kinks happened.... so where is the need?

I would if I was certain I’d get non judgemental responses, but I’m not sure MN is a safe place for people into kink to discuss it as there’s a lot of anti kink sentiment. And to respond to another comment, it’s not just men who do it either.

I completely agree that for example, a casual sex partner suggesting choking, is a terrible idea.

But I also don't think people want a genuine answer because even if I was to say I enjoyed and initiated it (light pressure), there would still be someone coming along to say I'm damaged and it's degrading.

It definitely can be an unsafe and extreme thing. I don't think a couple in a relationship doing it is even in the same category as a near stranger.

I'm not sure it is easy for anyone to explain why they are turned on by what they are turned on by.

I think OP and most PPs have perhaps misinterpreted the point of the presentation?

‘Anything goes’ if all parties consent to it. That means you shouldn’t be shamed or criticised for experimenting with/enjoying sexual activities that are outside the norm as long as you give valid, informed consent, which can be withdrawn at any time. It’s really as simple as that.

A lot of what I’m reading here is people being shamed for consensually exploring their sexuality.