To ask if you and your DH/DP have foreplay before PIV sex?

[Thistledew]

So many depressing comments come up on threads about women who have woken up to find their partner having sex with them to the effect that "well maybe he was confused, he could have thought you were happy to have sex with him whilst you were asleep/half asleep".

Do women who post these comments not see foreplay as part of having sex? For me and DP, sex always starts with kissing and even with the most passionate quicky, some sort of mutual squeezing/stroking/fondling of erogenous zones.

For me, there is no way that my DP could be confused as to whether I was consenting to sex or not. My lack of enthusiastic participation would be a real giveaway.

AIBU to think that there must be lots of women having pretty crap sex if they don't even expect kissing to start with?

Am I missing something or do some women have the ability to go from zero to turned on instantly? Or do you just have men with really small dicks so you don't need any sort of lubrication before they stick it in?

Do we really think having a fair and equal sex life in our country today is not the norm? Have I just been exceptionally lucky sexually in my choice of partners?

I recognise this is not the same story for women all around the world, or for all in our country, but I do think that there are more of us out there having a good time than you acknowledge.

The issue is really about consent.

I personally think that in most relationships there is a degree of assumed consent. That's not to say anything goes, but that consent can reasonably be assumed if not withdrawn. It's how every relationship I've been part of has worked and I don't think it's unusual. How many people explicitly consent within a relationship?

To be guilty of rape there must be the belief that the person doesn't consent. If someone has enjoyed this mutually with another partner or even previously on an earlier occasion I can see how you can end up with a situation where a man may believe there is consent when there is none.

I think there are too many variables to be able to be black and white and say someone instigating sex with a sleeping partner is a rapist.

Imo you're not looking for more sexual freedom. As you only think your way is the right way and telling others their way is abuse. Its quite patronising to say people cannot make their own mind up.

But krumbum telling women they must only enjoy 1versuon of sex us nit feminism, that's women trying to force their views on women. So its not ok for men to tell women what they should like but it is for other women to tell them? That's not feminism.

oh dear lots of typos. Sorry.

With sex me and my husband it where ever it takes us.

Sometimes foreplay, sometimes none. It is all consensual

Tyler80 - yes, I do explicitly consent to sex. That is the point of my OP. If DP initiates sex, I consent by kissing him back, responding to his touch etc. That was my point about crap sex. DP is under no doubt that I am consenting because I enthusiastically participate. A relationship that normalises sex where one party is not showing enthusiastic participation does make it easier for the lines between consent and lack of active refusal of sex to become blurred.

There is no such thing as presumed consent to penetration. Presumed consent to a hug or kiss within a relationship, maybe, but not penetration.

But then thistle kissing back is not consent! Legally I mean, because I kissed someone back I wouldn't expect him to take that to mean he could proceed further.

I'm not picking holes in your argument, it's just immensely complicated isn't it.

That's not explicit consent. You could be consenting to a passionate kiss or a fumble. Nothing explicit about it.

Exactly rhona. Every situation is different. No one here is wrong for what they like from sex, just different. Women should be allowed to enjoy the sex they like without it being considered abuse. That's sexual freedom.

Thisledew what you describe is the definition of implicit not explicit consent. For example: a nurse says "I need to take some blood now"
Explicit consent: patient responds "Go ahead"
Implicit consent: patient extends arm

Rohnda- of course kissing is not consent in every circumstance, neither is responding to touches with hands etc, but a cessation of such enthusiastic participation should, in my mind, give any decent bloke pause to stop and say "Do you want me to continue?".

The nurse has stated her intended action though. Whether the patient responds verbally or by actions there is no doubt as to what they are consenting to.

Not so the case with an adult in a relationship with another adult responding to a kiss.

I just think its too complicated to put. "rules" on that work for every couple and every situation.

Obviously saying no is an exception to that.

For example, sometimes I don't enthusiastically participate, I just lie back and let DH attend to me. Sometimes I might have my hands tied so I can't participate. Or vice versa.

I am realising that I am writing about my own experiences in my own long term relationship but really that is all each of us can do surely?

I get the point being made, but for me, and in many dictionary definition 'to make explicit' can be by word or deed. You could make something explicitly clear to a deaf person without using words, for example.

Thanks for proving my point op. Apart from the word 'no' and physically trying to push someone off., nothing is the same in any situation.

Krunbrum, how do u know that 'people having fair and equal sex is not the norm?

It is to me,and actually most of my female friends. The ones not happy or in good relationships have divorced and most moved on.

Where's your evidence for this point?

Some of us actually like the idea that its not totally consenting sometimes maybe... (in that it is actually understood that someone is a horney cow who is up for anything day or night but enjoys the pretence of 'having' to do whatever that is) dont know who that would be though... honest

Squeaky - so if a man has previously had sex in a dark alley with a woman who is a stranger to him and she has enjoyed it, he should be absolved from responsibility if the next woman he does that to calls it rape? Regardless of whether he has asked her if she wants to have sex with him? All I have done is changed the location to between the sheets, and previously aquatinted the parties.

Completely different scenarios there. You just can not compare the two, and I cannot see ANY woman enjoying a stranger raping her in an alley.

If I was woken up by my husband groping me or trying to have sex with me, (not that it happens very often at all), sometimes I might say no, in which case he would stop, sometimes I might not really feel in the mood, but would just go with it anyway, (that, by the way, is NOT rape in my opinion, but I am sure there are some on here who will now try to tell me that I dont know my own mind... .... and sometimes I might just say "waheeeyyyy, you read my mind"....

I think we can all agree that in a relationship, we develop 'codes' with our partners that signal to the other person that we are enjoying having sex with them. Whether that is responding to kisses and touches, or saying to them "tonight I just want to lie back and let do all the work". It could even be at some point in the relationship saying to your partner "I would like you to wake me up by having sex with me". The point is that in all those scenarios both parties are in a position where they have the capacity to consent to what is going on (at the time that consent is given). Doing an act on your partner when they are not in a position to consent and have not given you prior explicit consent, is, in my view, and in the eyes of the law, wrong.

BabyDubs - if you are 'up for it' then you are consenting. Even if you pretend not to be. The offence of rape or sexual assault is not made out if the person does in fact consent.

There is an element of personal responsibility too thistle.

I mean

If say my DH started to fondle me etc while I was asleep, I woke up and thought, I don't like this but I went with it and didn't let him know I didn't like it, then the next time he did it, he hasn't had any signals that it's not on has he?

Do we all have conversations about which sex acts we do and don't consent to in fine detail prior to them happening?

But by your own definition it isnt explicit concent is it... and i thought that was your point? Sorry if i got that wrong, what is your point then? Do you mean that women are accepting being raped within their relationships?

Op no one has said doing it without consent is ok. What we are saying is that while you may like it, some do. Those that do, should not be told its abuse as though they are so dim witted they cannot decide anything on their own. It seems sex is only equal if it conforms to your liking, which is not the case. It some cases returning a kiss enthusiastically is not consent to be groped. Are they wrong as well?

Same for you squeaky - if you are consenting, it is not rape. It is part of your 'code' that you have agreed with your partner that he can "try" to have sex with you whilst you are sleeping up to the point when you tell him to stop.

This is the point that I was trying to make earlier. You would not feel the need to post on a forum to say you are unhappy with what happened, because you are happy with it. If a woman does not feel happy with it, it shows that her own consent is lacking.