'But women have always used sex to get what they want'

[Echobelly]

Just to say I hate that expression so much! I hear it, quite often from older women as well, when there's a scandal around a man taking advantage of a woman sexually.

Because no one ever looks at it the other way round. Women don't have a fucking superpower to 'get what they want' by having sex with helpless men. What 'women get what they want by having sex' means is that some men who are gatekeepers to something (say a promotion, a film career) have the power to use women who may not like them, or may even be disgusted by them, for sex because they can say the woman won't get what she wants any other way.

And of course, can you imagine how many men have done this, and then not even given the woman what they promised in return, because how much sympathy would she get if she went public? None, she'd be called a stupid whore. Maybe, just maybe these days a guy who did that would face consequences, but it's still less likely than the woman being the only one to suffer. Not to mention the flipside of powerful men threatening to ruin women if they didn't sleep with them, and carrying out that threat.

[Luredbyapomegranate]

We’ll all that, but I hear it much less than I used to, as older generations die off.

Even in the instances where it might be true, it’s down to a power imbalance. Point that out?

[User135644]

Like using sex to get pregnant. Imagine.

[howdoesatoastermaketoast]

I agree it's usually used in such a sexist way! - It always makes me think or the phrase "When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail" and rather than making the point (sexist asshole) wishes to make I feel a frisson of admiration that even when stripped of all power and agency by hideously sexist societies some women still found a way to exert influence and control. Good on 'em I say (not a femme fatale myself by any stretch)

[howdoesatoastermaketoast]

"Because no one ever looks at it the other way round. Women don't have a fucking superpower to 'get what they want' by having sex with helpless men. What 'women get what they want by having sex' means is that some men who are gatekeepers to something (say a promotion, a film career) have the power to use women who may not like them, or may even be disgusted by them, for sex because they can say the woman won't get what she wants any other way."

Euggh you're so right though, even emergency workers giving food aid away - sickening

[Discovereads]

It happens both ways. Some men coerce women into sex by gatekeeping from them promotions/resources they are entitled to on their own merits and some women to use sex to get preference/access to things they are not entitled to on their own merits.

I mean when it comes to Carriegate you can’t really argue that Boris Johnson was gatekeeping that £100k/yr chief of staff job from Carrie as the most qualified candidate can you? She wasn’t coerced into being the OW (and later next wife).

[Echobelly]

I can see that's the case to some extent, but in those ones the woman isn't a victim as much (one could say that she is societally in some sense, because if she were a man she wouldn't need to have a sexual liason with someone she may have no feelings for to get it), and the man isn't as it's easy for him to say 'no' because the power is still with him.

It just pisses me off when 'red pill' type men go off on how all women can get whatever they want by offering sex, when the vast majority of women couldn't or wouldn't do that, and the vast majority of times where it happens it involves an abusive degree of power imbalance where the man gets what he wants and the woman may or may not what she's been promised, and gets used sexually in the process.

[Discovereads]

True. Saying all women can get what they want by offering sex is as wrong as saying all men can get as much sex as they want by offering whatever a woman wants. It’s extreme to the point it’s a false statement.

The red pill stuff is hugely disgusting and misogynistic as it even frames marriage as the woman offering sex for 50% of the man’s assets (which is why red pill advocates never marrying). So, yeah I get pissed off too when I read such stupid statements. Reality is much more complex and nuanced.

[MangyInseam]

I can't say I have ever heard anyone suggest that any woman can just get what she wants by trading sex. I'm not sure that anyone would say that.

There are people who basically take a commercial view of human relationships and sex. That kind of stuff has always gone on.

[Discovereads]

@MangyInseam

Its not mainstream, but OP is right that it’s often said on certain red pill/MGTOW sites…which are a gateway to Incel sites. It’s fringe misogyny.

[audeloquipalam]

Nobody thinks any one woman can shag her way to literally anything she wants. Don’t assume the precise peccadilloes of those many and various misogynistic “gatekeepers”. And for everyday people in everyday situations I’d say women have always been pretty adept at using sex or the promise of it to get what they want.

[SteveHarringtonsChestHair]

Given how many women really want a relationship and then find that once a man has got the sex he’s not interested in the relationship, I’d say that it’s bollocks that women can get what they want by offering sex. Often all they get is the sex followed by ghosting.