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Original poster

This article about sex really depressed me

143 replies

Caligula · 15/04/2006 14:43

\link{http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1753327,00.html\here}

And made me think we need a new dose of feminist conscious-raising. I'm aghast to think my DD will grow up in a world where she's expected to do this mechanical sex and wax her pubes and be treated like a whore as a normal dating experience.

Come back Mary Whitehouse, all is forgiven

OP posts:
expatinscotland · 15/04/2006 17:59

i have girls, soph.

what concerns me is all that emphasis on anal sex. it's fine if you like it.

but the porn industry puts a LOT of emphasis on it and it isn't for everyone and should NEVER be something a person does b/c of pressure.

marthamoo · 15/04/2006 17:59

I don't know either, Caligula - it's a modern parenting dilemma.

expatinscotland · 15/04/2006 18:01

i agree, caligula.

i think having a strong father figure was, for me, very important in that respect. i had a man in my life who always taught me to respect myself.

that doesn't mean chastity till marriage, celibacy, etc.

it means being comfortable with who you are.

expatinscotland · 15/04/2006 18:02

well i plan to put the health spin on it, caligula. there's NOTHING liberated or sexy about STDs.

Original poster
Caligula · 15/04/2006 18:03

Yes, but the condom culture spins the myth that you won't get an STD.

When of course, most teenagers aren't competent enough to use them properly

OP posts:
expatinscotland · 15/04/2006 18:05

that's where showing them by example about self-respect comes in.

b/c that is the ONLY way i lived by what my own dad told me.

what do you say to a guy who won't use a condom?

goodbye.

monkeytrousers · 15/04/2006 18:05

Because it sells Caligula. Once capitalism co-opted feminism to reach a wider demographic, and in the 90s Loaded magazine took us on the naturalisation and desensitisation process that was the politics of ‘irony’ and even though we may have been at first shocked by the blatant objectification of women in the pages of such magazines, we were then let into the joke, and because it was a joke we had to laugh. And because we laughed it didn’t matter anymore. That laughter cost women their voice, their right to dissent and confused many already struggling with a densely laden rhetoric, not given to casual banter. It was a master stroke from the patriarchal media, who disseminated it everywhere to the point to now where irony is no longer needed and we just have Nuts magazine and girls willingly stripping for their pages in clubs.

Sorry, this is my pet subject as I'm doing my dissertation about this exact subject..

expatinscotland · 15/04/2006 18:06

most teens i taught sex ed to had never been shown how to use a condom properly.

there was a lot of giggling.

if you're too immature to giggle about condoms, you're too immature to be having sex.

expatinscotland · 15/04/2006 18:07

VERY well said, MT! We're starting to agree more and more these days :).

This is why I despise the porn industry so much.

monkeytrousers · 15/04/2006 18:09

Sorry, I didn't finish my point about capitalism co-opting feminism. They did it while it helped sales, now they deride it because it could harm sales. The market is amoral and has no allegiance to anyone save board members and profits. That's the bottom line.

Original poster
Caligula · 15/04/2006 18:19

But why have they managed to so successfully get into people's heads that it doesn't damage their profits to portray women in this way?

I mean, who tf is buying those "whores r us" clothes for their little girls that you get in dept stores nowadays? If someone didn't buy them, they'd just stop producing them. Women out there are buying them for their daughters and allowing them to wear them.

OP posts:
monkeytrousers · 15/04/2006 18:27

I dunno Cali, it may have a lot to do with the erosion of community values for a more individualistic society - basically everyone abstains from challenging anything because they think it's a waste of time - the trend is to be led not to lead. I really don't know what is happening because at the same time that Blair and Brown are asking us to save for our pensions they are at the helm of a global economy that paradoxically demands we spend more and care less about social issues - the "I'm alright jack" effect where we're all going to be stuffed basically, morally, economically...consumerism literally exploits our every human weakness.

monkeytrousers · 15/04/2006 18:28

Hmmm, until next time Expat Wink

monkeytrousers · 15/04/2006 18:34

I wish I could just write my dissertation on mumsnet and get them to mark it from here..Grin

monkeytrousers · 15/04/2006 18:37

It's a simulacrum basically - a world where people learn how to be human from a simulated, unreal world - like internet porn. Or young girls learn how to be women by watching Sex and the City, a dangeroulsy charming TV show written by gay men. Go figure..

Original poster
Caligula · 15/04/2006 18:38

I wish I'd watched sex and the city, it really did change the culture. I watched the first series and it was so dull and stupid, I couldn't be bothered to watch the next. Wish I had now.

OP posts:
Heathcliffscathy · 15/04/2006 18:39

oh god stop...it's sooooo f*cked.

:(

monkeytrousers · 15/04/2006 18:40

Soph - that's what 'they' want us to do. We must FIGHT!!

Original poster
Caligula · 15/04/2006 18:41

A gay friend of mine who hates the gay scene, once said "the media is turning everything gay now - it's promoting that gay-scene agenda to you lot so you start acting like us lot in clubs. It won't do you any good you know". (He wears a cardigan and carpet-slippers. Doesn't smoke a pipe, but would do if it were 40 years ago.)

OP posts:
Heathcliffscathy · 15/04/2006 18:43

yes. i try to. i stopped faking orgasms aged 17 which is quite a big deal in terms of not exacerbating the porn culture problems! :o

the challenge is how to counter all of this for ds. sex is an amazing important wonderful thing. but that's only if you're comfortable, feel natural about it, feel able to explore it for yourself and able to communicate your needs physical and emotional to your partner. how is that going to be possible for ds when he'll be exposed to so much sh8t from such a young age.

and i'm not even anti porn per se! but getting more so by the day.

cataloguequeen · 15/04/2006 18:44

I agree with you soph.. also many people do not realise that they are in control of what happens to their own bodies.. my mother told me from a very young age that the one thing I have and I can control is my body and who touches it,what they do to it, it is precious and mine not anyone elses and if I choose to give it to someone it's on my terms and when I am comfortable,this gave me the power/confidence to control my sex life when I was a teenager I had 'boy friends'but was not under pressure to have sex with them I was in control, many of my friends wished that they had waited...I gave my virginity to my dp on my 25th birthday....he's my dh now

anyone who says sex is overrated just aint doin it right! Grin

expatinscotland · 15/04/2006 18:48

oh believe me, catalogue, i had plenty of mind-blowing sex. enough times connected to love.

it's no substitute for simple human companionship and definitely isn't the have all to end all.

so in that sense, it's overrated.

cataloguequeen · 15/04/2006 18:54

now that I agree with expat.Grin

expatinscotland · 15/04/2006 18:56

sadly, so many young females today come to the conclusion that having sex will somehow buy them companionship, affection and love.

monkeytrousers · 15/04/2006 20:08

Feminism has had a bad deal in the press to the extent that is is such a stigmatized group that women no longer want to associate themselves wit the word even though they believe in basic feminist tenets such as equal pay and that a higher value should be place on the work women do in the home. In a study i found these women were called 'egalitarians' - women with a high level of feminist consciousness but a low level of feminist identification - and crucially they were found to be just as less likely as nonfeminists to challenge sexist behavior if they came across it in their everyday lives.

And for the record, I am against pornography though I am no Mary whitehouse or prude. There is nothing wrong with men and women enjoying looking at, even objectifying their bodies,; it is an essential part of human sexuality. Porn on the other hand is an industry predicated on the exploitation of damaged individuals - the vast majority of women (and men who allow penetration) have been exposed to some form of sexual abuse - even at the top - Jenna Jameson was gang raped, beaten and left for dead as a teenager. Now she personifies femininity and sex in the industry.

There is nothing wrong with sex, or even some erotica, especially literary - but porn IS, and the more I research it the more I'm apt to call it a crime against humanity. We are sexual beings, that is a fact, but porn appeals to us at our lowest primal level - it makes our gonads twitch without effort - being with someone requires effort. I really do call on you all to not fall of the 'frigid' accusation that comes with challenging porn.

Sex and porn are not synonyms.

We need to start by reclaiming the word - all of us - why are so many of us scared of being judged a feminist?

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