Young women's boundaries have been eroded so much

[crochetmonkey74]

I'm currently working on an outreach programme for new adults (women only group)
My remit is to work with them on relationships guidance. This week the session has been romantic and sexual relationships. I've been really surprised by their resignation that certain things , although they don't want to do them, can't be disagreed with as that would be "kink shaming."
Several of then are ND so see everything in very binary terms so when I'm working with them and saying some things are more extreme and wouldn't be part of a normal or average sex life, they are very quick to pull me up on the word normal. It's very worrying how little say they think they have in a sexual relationship anymore. I've got a great team and we've all been chatting about how to tackle and redirect, but just thought it was interesting to share/chat about

In my 40's (am in my 50's now) I dabbled in OLD. I'd say the 2 questions I was asked the most (unprompted in every case) were "are you shaved" and "do you do anal". At first I was shocked and then it just became depressingly routine.

By my late 40s I'd given up. I still have a sex drive but I don't want that kind of sex. I've resigned myself to the fact I will probably never have sex again. It's ok for me. I've had children, not hugely fussed about a relationship so I can live with it. But yes, it does make me sad for younger women.

Back when I was young no man even asked me about anal, let alone things like choking. That wasn't even on my radar. What I view as "standard" sex just doesn't seem to be enough for men any more. It's all about hurting and/or humiliating women.

I wonder if OLD is particularly bad or if this is the case across the board?

Not my experience with OLD in the same age bracket. Lots of men wanting ONS but no dick pics and nothing like the behaviour the OP is experiencing.

Absolutely I think this would be a common experience - I think where I am seeing a shift is certain acts being seen as expected & normal for young people, rather than on the extreme end, & young men seemingly unable to appreciate vanilla sex. Girls are damaging their bodies going along with practices they believe from porn are as easy as changing positions during sex, rather than something you need to work up to gradually over time.

Pal of mine dabbled in OLD and said it's disheartening how many men open the sex conversation with questions about her shaving habits, gag reflex and access to her arsehole. So much porn poisoning. Eventually she thought she'd found a nice one only for him to slap her face and try and spit on her during sex. She kneed him in the bollocks and fled and has refused to go near OLD again since.

It does make me scared for my daughter. A small, secret part of me honestly hopes she's gay. I think on the whole she'd be safer.

I just hope and pray that the very frank conversations I've had with her and lessons I've tried to teach her are enough. She's a tough little thing who is very comfortable asserting her boundaries with us and her friends, I just... Hope it translates when she starts venturing into adulthood and sexual activity.

Don't bank on being gay as safe. I've heard some awful things from lesbian friends.

Free internet pornography is profitable mostly by advertising paid sexual services. The kinds of men who pay for these tend to have more extreme sexual desires. Videos of "vanilla" sex don't make much money, so even the free websites are dominated by nastier stuff. But this creates a vicious feedback loop where even young boys are exposed to horrible stuff so frequently they come to prefer it.

Mixed in with this is a crazy culture of "acceptance" to which young women, particularly neurodiverse ones, are especially vulnerable. This movement works by pushing the idea that anything short of praising people for their deviant sexual preferences is akin to the historical persecution of gay people, which is itself often exaggerated.

Same :(

True, but I still think on balance she's less likely to be killed or seriously hurt by a woman. Ugh. God I wish she could just be asexual, I'd feel much better about releasing her into the world. I know it's ridiculous of course, she has to be an adult eventually. Just scary.

This is slightly off-topic, so apologies, but it feels relevant. I met a young woman recently who was extremely left-wing and woke, and recounted a recent experience of being harassed in a public place by an aggressive, probably drugged up man. She explained that obviously she couldn't ask for help, as if the police got involved the man would be harmed, therefore she would be guilty of inflicting violence on him. She seemed really proud of having tolerated the harassment and ignored her own boundaries for the sake of protecting this man. It made me feel so sad and defeated, that she didn't seem to think her own safety and comfort was of any importance at all. The modern world has really done a number on these young women.

Well, part of the problem for lesbians now is that they find themselves being coerced into considering straight men with intact male bodies as ‘lesbians’.

I think this is the effect of 24/7 violent online porn. I'm increasingly of the opinion that it needs to be banned and blocked. All of it. And we need plenty of work done for young people to recognise healthy sexual relationships and assert boundaries, both males and females but especially young girls. Work like the OP is doing.

The only place in politics or corporate leadership I've ever seen to suggest banning online porn is the Project 2025 document. That's just sad.

I'm old enough now to see that in society the pendulum swings from one extreme to another. Currently we're at a highly permissive and violent swing. I hope it will swing back the other way but I fear women will lose out at both ends of the pendulum.

I think we need a women's revolution. The old fashioned kind of women, the ones without penises.

Well… 20 years ago was 2004 and there was a lot of online porn and no restrictions I don’t think?
In my experience of knowing people from a wide range of age groups, the most screwed up men are the over 35 ones. Older teen boys that I have spoken to (including sons) are pretty emphatic that a lot of the violent practices we worry about are “ for weirdos” and are not (in their world) considered the norm. My younger son said it’s “Emos” or older men who have been totally screwed up by porn. I think their school did a pretty good job actually in PHSE with a lot of frank discussions about the harmful effects of porn on men eg impotence etc so they are quite wary!
Im very good at snooping too and I’ve not found anything horrific, not that I’m saying there might be stuff there but I’m 90% believing that strangling and rape are not considered normal in sons circles.
I do think women’s boundaries in general ARE being eroded though and this whole idea of being kind and accepting of anything is very damaging to
us at all ages.

I wish modern feminism would tackle this sort of stuff instead of insisting that girls don’t like dolls and we need to buy them toy trucks instead

There was online porn but not as easily accessible - in 2004 I was 16, I didn’t have a smartphone or anything, the only way to access the internet was PC or laptop. I’m sure my peers were investigating what was available online but it wasn’t as mainstream & I was definitely not aware of anyone talking about the extreme kind. (It was more FHM and lads mags - problematic in their own way of course). I’ve never met a man my age who expected me to take part in anything extreme, if it came up in conversation most were more worried about hurting me. I wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet in my uni years or early 20s either. I know I might be very lucky, but this is a similar experience amongst my friends. There were defo issues where people were pressured into sex - but what we are talking about here is kink/extreme acts.

I was on a thread here and a woman had been raped and the discussion was about anal sex. I was talking about enthusiastic consent and one poster was saying to me that you don't need to give consent to anal as it's expected.

Schools and parents need to really hammer home the importance of enthusiastic consent. That they have every right to say no to whatever they like and to exit the situation if a boy insists.

I think it's also important if you're dating, to have a discussion about sex and what you consent to before you sleep with someone.

This is a much bigger issue online than in real life. By and large it's just being at a ladies' night and accepting that there might be trans women there -- usually they're nice and you just use whatever name they want you to use. But nobody who's actually a lesbian is going to sleep with them, and they know that too. Especially in a space for queer women where the vast majority are not the type a predatory straight man wearing a dress to do an elaborate rape would be interested in.

Following because as mum to a DD with ND I can see this type of session being very helpful in the turbocharged pornified woman hating culture we live in. Social media in the main has been disastrous for most young people as far as I can tell. Thank god for adults with good woman centred practice. Thank you OP.

Change the words 'average' or 'normal' to 'safe' and work from that place.

don’t talk about what’s normal. Talk about boundaries. Talk about how to have anal sex that provides pleasure to both partners (I assume that’s what this post is about) and that if they don’t like something then a good partner would stop / not force them. Nobody should be forced to do things they hate but at the same time ND women seem to be magnets to abusive men so you absolutely need to teach them to prioritise their pleasure.

One of the biggest issues is the normalification of acts that are not really average.
Like others, I have been sexually active for most of my life with several partners and some casual ones. Never once was I asked for or encouraged into anal (I'm late 40s) None of my friends of the same age were either. It just wasn't on the table. Neither is the gagging stuff or the hair pulling.
The labelling of it as normal because some people enjoy it (do they? or do they only see this 'enjoyment' in porn?) and the fact that nothing is allowed to be criticised if it is someones 'choice' have led to today.
There's a massive blind spot around how women's so called 'choices' are made from a misogynistic cesspit of the way young women are socialised.

I think a lot of the problems come from the positive vs Negative manipulation. As in i have this kink (positive) you won’t indulge (negative).
in the same way I overwhelm arseholes with kindness I just always try to flip the conversation another way so it’s their negative and my positive - for example:
Him ”I want anal”
Me ”I don’t like that”
Him ”ugh, your so dull and kink shaming”
Me ”Not at all, I love that you love Anal, it’s an awesome kink, but it’s not my kink. I have a Disney kink, I want things to be nice and sweet and like a romance novel with birds twittering outside”
Him ”OMG your so basic, that’s rubbish, whose into that”
Me ”Are you kink shaming me? That’s really not cool…….”

Yes one of our discussions this morning was on how to take the heat out of the language

The risk for lesbians comes from other women. It sounds like a really toxic space to be in, being a gay woman.

Totally agree with you @crochetmonkey74 The phrase “kink shaming” didn’t exist when we were younger; probably someone out there who monitors when certain phrases come into common parlance will be able to tell us that it came into being around the time that porn became readily accessible thanks to the Internet and especially since the advent of smartphones. That’s my humble guess.

It’s heartbreaking to read about what young women are led to believe by porn-sick men are common sexual practices.