Feminism: chat
'Sexual Pleasure is a Human Right'
LemonSwan · 25/09/2021 11:32
Hi everyone,
Browsing the net quickly during a cuppa to make sure the sky hasn't fallen in and I stumbled on this... an article about the contraceptive pill dubiously titled: ‘Sexual pleasure is a human right’: 60 years of the pill and how it changed the world'
This just grinds my gears considering all the Incel narrative of 'sex is a human right' and the shooting earlier this year.
Surely it should have been 'Contraception is a human right'.
I will be honest I have no time right now to actually read the article (which seems like it may be a feminist article besides the title), and have woken up on the wrong side of the bed - but the headline alone has made me want to smash the laptop shut. Thought I would share.
metro.co.uk/2021/09/25/in-focus-60-years-of-the-pill-and-how-it-changed-the-world-15191039/
Thelnebriati · 25/09/2021 12:57
I agree that 'Sexual pleasure is a human right' but not in the way they mean. I don't think anyone should have the ability to feel sexual pleasure taken away from them, unless its a life or death medical decision.
Sexual pleasure is a bodily sensation like taste or hearing or sight, and doesn't have to involve anyone else at all.
PlanDeRaccordement · 25/09/2021 14:41
I’ve seen this before. It was on some feminist website saying sex is a human right wasn’t enough, it should be that good sex is a human right. So similar to sexual pleasure is a human right. They were saying that because they felt women are socialised to put up with bad sex. That the narrative about female orgasm being hard to achieve and it being “normal” for a woman to have sex and not orgasm was unacceptable. Feminists need to demand good sex and not settle for unsatisfying sex lives. All well and good until they summarised it as “good sex is a human right” (or this similar sexual pleasure is a human right). To me that goes too far. Nothing sexual is a human right, except for right to masturbate.
Cerebelle · 25/09/2021 17:43
Sexual pleasure is a human right in that the ability to have it should not be taken. FGM explicitly does this as did chemical castrations of gay men like Alan Turing. Its a passive right similar to the right not to be harmed or killed.
However you do not have the right to demand others facilitate your sexual pleasure in any way. It's not an active right e.g. right to housing or medical care.
Contraception should also be a human right for women and men but it's distinct from the right to pleasure. It's more similar to the right to a private and family life in that the ability to choose when/whether to procreate has a massive impact on your life.
IveGotASongThatllGetOnYNerves · 25/09/2021 17:46
It's a human need but not a human right.
Need as in very strong urge not need as in will die without it.
God I really need that tub of Hagan daaz or I'm going to cry vs I haven't had any water for three days and I'm about to die from dehydration.
ErrolTheDragon · 25/09/2021 18:22
@PlanDeRaccordement
Yes.
Perhaps it would be clearer to put some of that as 'Refusing unpleasurable sex is a human right.'?
RaininSummer · 25/09/2021 18:30
I find the human right aspect problematic as as if you replace 'sexual pleasure' with something like 'sight' or 'speech' it sounds wrong. If somebody has a disability affecting any senses, it isn't an affront to their human rights. It's a misfortune for sure. Actually consciously removing a sense from somebody may we'll be against their human rights but maybe in the sense of chemical castration, in their best interests.
Sorry if this makes no sense... Tired and gin
LobsterNapkin · 26/09/2021 01:43
[quote LemonSwan]Hi everyone,
Browsing the net quickly during a cuppa to make sure the sky hasn't fallen in and I stumbled on this... an article about the contraceptive pill dubiously titled: ‘Sexual pleasure is a human right’: 60 years of the pill and how it changed the world'
This just grinds my gears considering all the Incel narrative of 'sex is a human right' and the shooting earlier this year.
Surely it should have been 'Contraception is a human right'.
I will be honest I have no time right now to actually read the article (which seems like it may be a feminist article besides the title), and have woken up on the wrong side of the bed - but the headline alone has made me want to smash the laptop shut. Thought I would share.
metro.co.uk/2021/09/25/in-focus-60-years-of-the-pill-and-how-it-changed-the-world-15191039/[/quote]
I understand what you're saying here, and I largely agree they are different, but I think that it's important to see that these are related ideas.
Contraception is a technological innovation, one that hasn't always been available.
And before it was available, the alternate, if you didn't want a pregnancy, was not to have sex. The promise of contraception was that women could have sexual pleasure without the consequences of pregnancy - therefore, contraception is conceptualized as a right because sexual fulfillment is seen as a right.
Of course we can all see now that when you begin to talk about sexual fulfillment as a right, it can lead to some odd places, and in fact if you go back and read some of the arguments about contraception in the early part of the 20th century, that argument was made.
NiceGerbil · 26/09/2021 04:23
Erm...
A common side effect of the pill is reduced sex drive.
And
The pill many women could sleep with men more freely and that = sexual pleasure for women? Ha fucking ha what??!!
It meant more sexual pleasure for men for sure...
Women's sexual pleasure probably it was more openness and info about masturbation, and maybe the rampant rabbit?
NiceGerbil · 26/09/2021 04:35
For now though-
I skimmed the article and saw that statement but no one in the piece mentioned pleasure o don't think? Not worrying about pregnancy etc was the main thing.
So that's a bit random.
And no of course sexual pleasure isn't a sodding human right!
If you go to bed with a man who doesn't deliver.
Hello your honour. I went to bed with Dave and he was rubbish. This is a breach of my human rights. I demand compensation/ provision of a man who knows his stuff/ Dave to be punished...?
NiceGerbil · 26/09/2021 04:39
And how does it look for some men?
Hello judge
I derive sexual pleasure from having sex with animals/ children. This is illegal. The law breaches my human rights
Or
Hello judge
I derive sexual pleasure from sadism/ voyeurism/ being violent during sex. These things are either illegal/ I cannot find a willing partner. This breaches my human rights...?!
And no sex with another person is not a human right either.
trancepants · 26/09/2021 10:37
@IceLace100
sex with another person isn't a human right because it impinges on another persons right to bodily autonomy.
There we go I've solved it for you!
This is mostly right. But I do think that it may be worth pointing out that there are people, I suspect mainly abusive men, who use withholding sex as a way to hurt their partners. While nobody ever owes anybody sex, obviously, there are emotional abusers who use withdrawal of intimacy from their monogamous partners as a way to hurt and belittle them.
My ex-husband did it to me. It took me well over a decade to fully recognise it. It wasn't until I had actually stopped loving him that I was able to hear the words deliberately chosen to devastate me when he talked about his reasons for our lack of a sex life. While I don't think that he consciously made a decision to take away sex, he just had no real libido due to his substance abuse, it was a bonus to him that our lack of physical intimacy hurt me. When I'd try to talk about it, at times his 'reasons' for not wanting to have sex with me were consciously chosen to hurt me as much as possible.
And it's something that affects me now, years on. I haven't been able to have sex with anyone else because even though I know on an intellectual level how utterly absurd his claims about me are. They still eat away at me on some deeper level. I feel a mix of not good enough for a partner and also too baseline terrified of allowing anyone to get so close to me again. Withdrawal of sexual affection is far from the only abuse in our marriage. There was mental, emotional, financial and severe physical abuse too. But I actually think that the fact that in the last 20 years, my only sex life with another person, was with someone who used sex as a weapon has left some of the most lasting damage.
Thelnebriati · 26/09/2021 11:29
And thats why there was a feminist blog that explained that if sex was a human right then it should be good sex. Because sex involves two people.
If one of them is routinely not having good sex, that should be a human rights issue.
It wasn't a popular article among anti feminists because it implied that 'sex work' is not good sex for the person who is being paid, but there you go.
LobsterNapkin · 26/09/2021 11:58
@NiceGerbil
I don't disagree, I think artificial contraception has had some pretty negative effects.
However, women, consider that contraception allows them to be sexually active, and they want to be sexually active because they like it.
I suspect that if you went to every women in the UK today and told them "Sorry dear, you don'r REALLY enjoy sex, you just do it for men" they would tell you to piss off, because you'd just be wrong.
And they don't much like the idea that abstinence would be the other option.
LobsterNapkin · 26/09/2021 12:08
@Thelnebriati
If one of them is routinely not having good sex, that should be a human rights issue.
It wasn't a popular article among anti feminists because it implied that 'sex work' is not good sex for the person who is being paid, but there you go.
Good sex is a bit off an odd wording. I think because with the way it is usually used, it has a sort of Cosmo gloss, good sex is hot while bad sex is sex where you don't orgasm six times or the man doesn't go down on you.
It gets a little closer to "sexual pleasure" than is really ideal.
Good food has a more ambiguous feel, it could mean something from a high-end cookbook, but also might just mean healthy and culturally normative.
Maybe the issue is that society has adopted a fundamentally fairly shallow view of what good sex would be. We've certainly separated the concept from it's biological purpose, unlike food, and we also don't seem to want to imply that it needs to include relationships or love or anything like that.
sawdustformypony · 27/09/2021 13:59
20 posts in and I'm a little confused. Aren't Human Rights fundamentally to do with laws that a State enacts in relation to it citizens - rather than whatever passes between individuals ? I thought so, anyway.
Closest of the existing HRA articles might Article 8, a right to private & family life.
LobsterNapkin · 27/09/2021 15:27
@sawdustformypony
Closest of the existing HRA articles might Article 8, a right to private & family life.
Yes, but I think that the way this affects how people conceptualize what humans need to be healthy and happy. This particular one has become relevant when you think about the idea of legalization of prostitution, or making it available to people in institutional settings, for example. And if sexual pleasure is a right, there are some strange implications around how that intersects with reproduction.
NiceGerbil · 27/09/2021 21:57
Aicm I would put lots of caveats around the sexual fulfillment that people should be able to seek. Must exclude anything like underage, partner understanding consent, no coercion whether subtle or overt (including financial). Not to do things which are dangerous/ risky etc.
On the second as well as people should be able to.
We are miles away from everyone having those rights.
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