To think most women wouldn't want to go back to their 20s and date men of today

[penelopepitstopsgain]

Now I don't look at the past with rose tinted glasses as I'm sure sexual deviants have existed since time began, however having read this story today of grime artist, solo 45, being convicted of horrific sexual assaults on multiple partners which included waterboarding, threatening with guns and beating for sexual gratification it struck me how, in a relatively short period of time, sexual boundaries have been pushed to breaking point for many women with practices such as strangulation and slapping seen by many as vanilla sex.

I would never want to go back to my 20s and face dating todays' porn inspired men and feel very sad for young women having to navigate this.
If you would love to go back to your 20s and date = YABU
If you would rather stick pins in your eyes= YANBU

@tellmewhentheLangshiplandscoz

Realised I tagged the wrong person

"You mean like how they claim rape was consensual sex, literally all the time. Should we all be against consensual sex because men can use it as an excuse when they rape us?"

Oops, first message was a response to @TinklyLittleLaugh

Clearly I've been posting too much and my phone's had enough.

Women into kink are literally being blamed for male violence! Its staggering

No, they’re not. Most of us are blaming hard porn. You’re so intent on proving to us what a cool girl you are you’re not engaging with what anyone else is saying.

Nope not blaming women at all, that's why I used the word men.

@alsohuman

Oh, my bad. Ya, I just prefer to blame poor education, poor parenting, and the misogyny that tells us sex belongs to men and not women. Porn in a world where boys and girls are taught sex and relationships education, that they both entitled to pleasure and to enforce their boundaries, where little girls aren't taught that their value is not between their legs, and boys aren't taught that the world and everything on it (including female people) is theirs to inherit. In that world, porn is not dangerous.

Blaming porn is simplistic and will solve nothing. The roots of misogyny are far far deeper than videos of people engaging in sex on the interwebs

We’re not talking about misogyny.

Nope you are only interested in porn.

Its off to me that you differentiate between girls and women being forced or coerced into sex they don't like...and rape. They are the same thing to me. And rape is very much rooted in misogyny....

Women into kink are literally being blamed for male violence! Its staggering

Oh give over.

No, some women into kink get pushback on threads about women being murdered for being tone-deaf. Crashing on to threads to shout 'what about women who are genuinely into x, y and z kinks?' after a death looks incredibly tactless and self-absorbed.

Over the last 15 years, the constant wittering on about kink acceptance (which I must confess I also joined in on as a daftie in my 20s) has led to an expansion of the rape-myths that already existed. It used to be that if a woman was actually dead, people thought it was reasonable to assume it was murder. Now they go, "but maybe she was into BDSM!' and flatter themselves they're being progressive and accepting.

A woman is alive to allege rape but visibly seriously beaten, with injuries that include vaginal lacerations? That used to be evidence a jury would take very seriously indeed. Now, the defence can claim that the woman asked to have rough sex, and then randomly accused the man of rape, and they're not laughed out of court.

Being accepting of BDSM is not the most priority in life. Sometimes, recognising murder and rape is more important than avoiding being unfair to a man who 'accidentally' killed his girlfriend. But apparently we don't think that any more.

Yes it's not like a lot of us havent sung the same song at some time or other, I know I did. But then we actually realised that defending a tiny bit of our sex life wasnt really the most important thing.

@pothole

Honey sweety baby....

Kink came into the conversation before murder. So what you are describing...didn't happen.

And I'm glad that with maturity you realised that judging other people's sex lives saved women. Well done you. Only, it doesn't. Promoting women's rights is the only way to do that.

See, there you go again.

People start threads about their concerns about women being pressured into particular sexual acts, and other women flock on to the thread to be self-pitying about their sex lives being 'judged'.

What I would expect to see from any woman who put rape victims first would be "yeah, that's terrible. I am angry that consensual kink is being coopted like this, and I and other people in the community don't want to be used like this'. For a role model, perhaps google responses to 50 Shades of Grey. Lots of men and wome came forward to condemn that.

You could opine about how much resemblance Natalie Connelly's death has to consensual BDSM. You could talk about responsibility regarding intoxicants in BDSM and what constitutes negligence.

Or you could focus on feeling sorry for yourself.

@Muna

I didn’t have to think anything about it. It was part of the defence that she consented. And it played a material part in the conviction for manslaughter, not murder.

You can’t consent to your own assault. Even if you have had a nice long discussion beforehand with safe words, the law stands to protect you because of this.

BDSM and it’s mainstreaming have made consent a problem in the law. BDSM people blur consent in their world with that of the law. This is deliberate in my view. Legally it means very little and the law will and should be tightened up. I am confident it will be.

I'm very recently separated and I must say the tiny pool of experience so far has been crazy!!

@PotholeParadise If youd bothered to read the thread you would have realised that OP was in fact arguing that unlike the 80s and 90s, which she appears to think was some kind of utopia for women, men of today are basically misogynist rapists. I was arguing that actually, today, women have more rights than they did then.

That's what all of this is on the back of. Youd do yourself a favour by actually bothering to read what's been discussed and is being discussed, than creating your own topic and arguing with yourself about it.

50 Shades was bollocks, but mainly because of the writing.

@LexMitior

Again, just because some killer uses it as a defense doesn't mean whatever it is evil. Your logic isn't just flawed, it's broken. Just like rapists claim the rape was consensual, doesn't mean we should ban consensual sex or blame consensual sex for rapists.

Oh, and also because whatever her name wasn't into what was happening and the "dom" dude was using BDSM as therapy. Big no no for anyone who knows that they are doing. God, I'd forgotten so much of 50 shades. I'm annoyed to have to remember it in this much detail

I assure you, I have read the thread, including your own posts, all the way since the beginning.

Unhappily for you my logic is actually the law that applies in this country. That you cannot consent to assault. That BDSM does not displace the law about consent probably annoys you but does not make it any less true.

I don’t say it is evil. You did. Whatever the morality of BDSM you should understand where the law applies and why. You may think you don’t need it’s protections. You have it anyway.

The law on assault is clear. If you change your mind one day as to what you think is consensual then the law gives an objective standard which is clear. In Natalie Connolly’s case there was an effort to claim that BDSM set the context of the relationship. It did. It also meant that there was a lesser charge on conviction.

You don’t like these statements I imagine because you consider consensual assault to be a private matter. It isn’t. Even if you were thrashed and throughly enjoyed the process does not change these very old legal principles.

OP was in fact arguing that unlike the 80s and 90s, which she appears to think was some kind of utopia for women, men of today are basically misogynist rapists. I was arguing that actually, today, women have more rights than they did then

What OP was saying was much more nuanced than that. She was actually saying that a lot of young men now consider sexual practices that used to be very specialist tastes to be normal and expected. To the point where they pressure their sexual partners to do things they don’t enjoy or want.

Perhaps you could tell us what rights women have today that they didn’t have in 1990? Not that women’s rights are even relevant to this debate.

@LexMitior

Actually, it doesn't bother me a jot, because I know the police aren't going to turn up in my bedroom and arrest my partner for our consensual sex. Any more than they are going to arrest Anthony Joshua after his next fight 🙄 (clearly the law is not so clear is it?)

You keep repeating your point without addressing the point I am making. Blaming BDSM for the actions of abusers is no better than blaming consensual sex for a rapist.

@alsohuman, I mean...I mentioned marital rape, various pieces of legislation relating to domestic abuse, sexual harassment. Heck, we have a law against upskirting! Stella Creasy, recently returned from mat leave!, is campaigning for misogyny to be considered a hate crime.

But ya, the 80s and 90s were the heyday for women's rights. Not only that, but clearly they stopped evolving from January 1st 2000 🤦🏾‍♀️

Marital rape became an offence in 1991. I’ll give you upskirting, but that’s about your lot. Your knowledge of feminist history leaves an awful lot to be desired. However, that isn’t the subject under discussion, despite your determination to drag women’s rights into a debate about the prevalence of questionable sexual acts.

Yup, and my point was it was part of the roll FORWARD for womens rights. Erm...as someone who actually works within the field of domestic abuse, you haven't a clue what you're on about. Dismissing the legal protections women have fought for for decades as unworthy because...they haven't got rid of porn(?) is crass and offensive.

So...what exactly is on topic for discussion? Because I assumed womens rights and status was directly tied to their ability to give full and meaningful consent...

There is a huge difference between men that have watched rough porn and have no respect for women and those truly involved in the BDSM community.

Communication is vital and a d/s relationship will not last without it. Consent and respect are two of the most important factors.
For instance, I tried something new with my FWb Dom (who is in early 20's) yesterday that was on the edge of my limits. We spoke about it in detail beforehand and also during, he constantly checked that I was ok with what was happening, he would have stopped instantly if I asked him to but he would have also been really upset that I had had to ask him to stop because he is constantly aware of body language and signs that the limit is near.

This is how it should be, I can't imagine those porn obsessed men being the same, and is verging on abuse at times.
Interestingly the most disrespectful and worrying types of men I have come across are all late 30's/40's.

Actually, it doesn't bother me a jot, because I know the police aren't going to turn up in my bedroom and arrest my partner for our consensual sex. Any more than they are going to arrest Anthony Joshua after his next fight 🙄 (clearly the law is not so clear is it?)

Given that you are aware of that, then there's no need for the defensiveness and worry about kink-shaming, then? You can just get on with condemning BDSM being used to excuse murder without worrying that your freedoms will be trampled on then?

Although, frankly, women who are into BDSM have the most to lose from the cultural shift. I wouldn't want my past sexual activity to be used to excuse my death as 'rough sex gone wrong' to a jury worried about kink-shaming, and that is what women are facing. This is an issue that affects women who are open about their sexual preferences more. Not less. Natalie Connelly is said to have enjoyed 'rough sex'. A summation of her condition when the paramedics came: "40 separate injuries, including serious internal trauma, a fractured eye socket and facial wounds, and was bleeding heavily."

And this was termed the 'rough sex gone wrong'. You'd have less injuries than that after a boxing match!

The judgment in R v Brown, which is the major source of precedent on the subject of what injuries you can consent to, made specific exceptions for organised sport, and surgery. The law is very clear.

Heck no- goin back to a day when we were expected to iron men's shirts and marital rape was allowed?