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?

I don't really understand why a man would want to have sex with his completely unresponsive partner.

There is a huge difference between initiating sleepy sex and getting a response, and initiating it, getting no response, and just sticking it in anyway (sorry).

It's not really having sex with your partner, is it? They're not fully there - it's just their body. That's what would bother me.

misogyny? I think that telling people they should only sex, that happens 1 way anything else is abuse is misogynistic, superior and patronising. Some women (rightly) talk about bad it is that some men are controlling women, but don't recognise that with there superior attitude they are attempting to do the same. Talking about 'sexual freedom' but only within their idea of what's right.
As for the op meant to have been to spark debate. I don't believe it.
what would your reaction be is a man posted something degrading about women and tried to convince people they were being abused. I think you have realised that your argument has nothing to do with feminism or freedom for women to enjoy sex. Its to do with your need for people to only think like you.

Cocopops - its not really for you to understand. There are lots of things dh and I don't do. But that doesn't mean people shouldn't do it or get enjoyment out of it, just because i don't.

I have to say, I still don't really get why people are being quite so aggressive and defensive in response to the OP. Well, other than for the reason that whenever there is a whiff of feminism about the discussion, people come out swinging...

As I read it - Thistledew is talking about threads where women wake up to find themselves being penetrated, and, crucially, they don't like it. Further to this, she is also talking about responses to such threads with people down-playing it based on their own experience - which counts for nothing if the person in question is not happy about is.

I realise nobody is downplaying this sort of thing happening on this thread. But clearly it is happening on other threads.

I don't get why this is getting everyone's backs up. Surely if someone is talking about an experience that they're not happy about then it doesn't matter that random person X has had the same experience and hasn't been bothered.

People keep coming on to bang on that Thistle shouldn't be telling people how to have sex and to effectively provide a check-list of what is and isn't acceptable, but she's not doing that. If you're in a relationship where this sort of thing goes and you're happy with it, then no-one can tell you it's wrong. But likewise, you can't then tell people that because you're happy with it in your relationship then it's OK.

Again, not that anyone is doing that on this thread.

The OP was perhaps unfortunately worded in such a way as to get the usual people's backs up. But surely there is/was a reasonable discussion to be had around the issue that Thistle has raised? I mean, DH and I are prone to the odd minimal-foreplay quickie, but I haven't taken the whole thing as some sort of personal attack on our predilections...

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.
AIBU to think that there must be lots of women having pretty crap sex if they don't even expect kissing to start with?
That's why, the presumption only sex her way is the right way and the hint from others that anything else is abuse. But we must be to dumb to notice it. Wonder why people are arguing their point.

Have you made such comments on the threads in question, DPrince?

I highly doubt it. And if not, then clearly Thistle isn't questioning you or your practices.

So hang on, this wasn't a 'real' post at all, it was a post that was faked in order to get a debate going, and those posters who didn't agree with the way they were supposed to be provoked got shouted at by people who were in on the provoking game.

So we were all supposed to be tricked into saying that this might be a misunderstanding so we could have 'YOU AGREE WITH RAPE - AHA' shouted at us?

Disgusting.

I provided an explanation of what I consider to be good sex, and said that for me it has to involve kissing and touching. I have explained that if I was not responding with enthusiastic participation, DP would have reason to doubt that I was consenting.

I have explained that if sex with my DP did not make me react this way, I would consider it crap sex.

I posed a deliberately provocative question to make the point that there may be women who are having often sex in which they do not feel or show any real enthusiasm, and wondered if there was any correlation between women having sex like this and women who saw nothing wrong with being penetrated when they were not turned on, when they were not at the point of penetration in the mental state of wanting sex, and when such penetration was probably uncomfortable due to lack of lubrication.

For me, this is crap sex. In my opinion, having penetrative sex when I am not actively wanting it is crap. Some posters have responded to say that they actually like to start having sex when it is physically uncomfortable, but nowhere have I told them that they shouldn't as I consider it to be crap.

At no point have I written a prescriptive list of what I consider to be good or bad sex. I have only written from my own perspective.

I also wonder why people are set on reading more into my post than was there? I note that none of the posters who are doing so have come up with their own definition of what crap sex is to them. Is all sex, good sex? Or is there another reason for the defensiveness?

Worried - my OP was as real as any you see on MN. Just because I posted in provocative words doesn't mean there was no genuine opinion behind them.

I see nowhere on the thread that anyone has shouted that another poster agrees with rape. I also fail to see how anyone could be 'tricked' into expressing an opinion that rape was ok. It would be pretty disgusting if someone posted something that said that rape is ok and they weren't pulled up on it, don't you think?

Well I finally read the other thread in relationships, and it turns out that the OP was a man, which is interesting, more so because the 'debate' has more or less died off since that revelation.

'So we were all supposed to be tricked into saying that this might be a misunderstanding so we could have 'YOU AGREE WITH RAPE - AHA' shouted at us?

Disgusting.'

Agree.

There wasn't a "whiff of feminism" in the OP.

There were childish purile comments about "small dicks" and silly assumptions about womens sex lives.

Apparantly this was done to "get a debate going", presumably because the OP felt the women of MN wouldn't be able to understand a grown up thread asking for peoples views on women whose partners penetrated when they were asleep and who didn't enjoy it or consent to it. (Although that in itself would be an odd thread to start as I doubt anyone on MN would say "ooh rapes great")

That's not feminism. Not even a whiff of it.

I can recommend some books if you would like to find out what feminism really is?

no op, you have gone back and forth. You claim you always give your DJ explicit consent, then it turns out you don't. Your op talks about these women having crap sex and that their partners must have small dicks. you don't know what your point is, its certainly not about women been equals. Your quiet superior and patronising and clearly think you can manipulate people into giving a response that You can then say 'that's disgusting'. Its made you come across as though you are a bit a superior person that can control want everyone else thinks/ does. Not a good advert for feminism.

Let me be clear. This was a post pretending to describe something that could then 'seem' like rape, and be described as such.

Some people were then happy to shout rapist.

It is EXACTLY this kind of post that leads juries to be suspicious about rape allegations.

THAT IS WHY THIS STUPID BEHAVIOUR IS DISGUSTING.

Does anyone read posts anymore?

It is quite ironic that the people accusing me of telling them what to think about sex are the same ones that are happy to tell me that I have posted things that simply don't appear in my posts.

Why the defensiveness?

This comment does not state is how you feel. You say that unless it starts with kissing its crap.
AIBU to think that there must be lots of women having pretty crap sex if they don't even expect kissing to start with?
OP - why all the backtracking?

"to think" is a phrase commonly used to denote that someone is expressing a personal opinion.

Why does what I think make you feel so defensive?

Not defensive, debating. Or perhaps picking holes in your 'story', again why all the backtracking?
You asked aibu to think.... Yes yabu. Hope that helps. I agree with pp, its disgusting. Doing more damage to women. Feel free to carry on.

Thanks catgirl, I'm good.

Still don't get why people are taking it so personally.

The OP is not accusing women en mass of putting up with crap sex. Just the ones who come on to threads and justify men penetrating unconscious women.

And she's not man-bashing. Just bashing men who have sex with unconscious women who don't want it.

How many of us does this actually apply to? Not many I'd have thought, but you'd never believe it, given how many people have rushed onto this thread to froth and take offence.

You say backtracking, I say defensive.

Ad hominem attacks rarely move a debate on.

Personally, I don't see what is disgusting about asking people to think about the nature of consent, how they demonstrate it in their relationships, and what unhappiness or discomfort might tell us about whether consent really exists.

I admit to being provocative in my OP, but it is not as if I invented a scenario and pretended something had happened to me in order to spark debate. That would be disgusting.

I also fail to see how what I have posted could in any way perpetuate rape myths, unless you believe that women walk on such a fine line that talking about sexual assault in anything but wholly factual, dispassionate language is further evidence that women are not to be trusted when they talk about sexual assault. Honestly, I don't think even the worst rape apologist would be stupid enough to confuse talking hypothetically about sexual assault with talking about a specific incident. Even if someone were to be so clueless, is it really not possible to have a discussion about this issue without having to cater to the lowest common denominator?

is it really not possible to have a discussion about this issue without having to cater to the lowest common denominator?

Yes of course it is. Which is why you "setting up" a "provocative" OP rather than just discussing it like an adult is so distasteful to people. Its as if you see other women as "the lowest common denominator" given you think you need to resort to purile adolescent "humour" to get a debate going.

No, I thought that most people reading the OP would see it for what it was. It seems I was wrong, and I am sorry to anyone I have upset because of that.

usually have foreplay of some sort, but absolutely love it sometimes when we dont at all and just go straight to it, especially if its playing being all forceful about it swoons

I wouldnt mind occasionally being woken up like that, but would be pissed off if it was regular as i dont get enough sleep as it is. There is definitely a problem if your dp repeatedly does things sexually that you dont like

"... given you think you need to resort to purile adolescent "humour" to get a debate going."

Feminists are usually charged with being humourless prudes. Try going the other way and you also get your hand well and truly slapped.

Best just to be silent, really. That way you can be sure of upsetting no-one.

Oh honestly, such bollocks.

It sounded like a post about foreplay but was in fact bait for a consent debate.

You made an 'innocent' statement and then tried to manipulate it around to suggesting that anyone who has sex without foreplay or as wake-up sex should really reconsider themselves as having been raped.

I am not sure if you are demonstrating how easily it is for a small event to be repositioned as rape for the benefit of bringing cases to trial that can then be thrown out to reduce convictions, or are attempting to 'prove' that all women have been raped if they think about it for long enough.

Perhaps you are a false memory counsellor praised for your ability to draw rape and abuse identities from everyone's normal life.

Whatever you are, this type of behaviour makes juries and law enforcement look at people alleging rape as falling into your childish and manipulative category.

That is not helpful.

worriedbetty, thankyou for that reply