Is the media stealing my sex life?

[DeirdreOfTheSorrows]

I've name-changed, because this is about sex and feelings and personal stuff and I'm probably pretty identifiable in my normal guise. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, either - but it's been on my mind for a while and I wonder whether anyone might be able to shed some light on it for me. I wonder whether I ought to have posted it in Feminism, too! But let's see how we go.

For a good few years now I've been feeling that my increasing awareness of of porn culture, and media stories about violence, sexual violence and cruelty of all sorts, are impinging on my ability to feel comfortable and secure in my own sexuality. I've never experienced violence myself, and porn hasn't been an issue in any of my relationships, so it's not a flashback type of situation - simply that my associations with sex are increasingly becoming mixed up with nasty and upsetting stories and ideas rather than my own (probably rather tame) experience.

Just as background, I wouldn't ever have thought of myself as a competitive sadder - I think I've got a pretty realistic idea about the way in which certain stories gain currency and play out in the media, and I think I can distinguish between empathy for a tragic or terrible situation and getting caught up in an emotional binge.

But for some reason I'm really struggling to maintain a sense of my own sexual self in the face of story after story of sexual violence or exploitation or coercion. It's as if I can't find the kind of easy lustiness I had when I was younger any more, and my brain can't switch off from stories about other people's dreadful experiences, or my political feelings about pornification, or MN threads in which people have shared how sex was used as a weapon against them, even though I'm in a relationship where sex should be perfectly safe and equal and unproblematic.

I really don't know what to do about this. One can't just stop knowing these things, and withdrawing from engaging with them would seem to be a dreadful cop-out. But how do I find a way to regain some innocence and spontaneity about my own sex life, rather than letting it be overshadowed by things which should be a political, rather than an emotional, part of my life?

Oh and OMC- I think what is meant by condoms are to do with men is that they go on the cock and even if the partner is involved in the assertion that one should be used it is all too common for men to take them off mid shag etc.

What an interesting thread. I haven't got the emotional space to deal with it right now so am marking place. Thanks for your extraordinary posts, everyone.

Working class women subjugated economically by all men and her middle class sisters, subjugated sexually by all men, have for hundreds of years absolved middle class women of performing certain displeasing functions.

Very true. You see it still, in commonplace attitudes to sex workers.

So interesting and chimes with me too - marking place...

Yes, I recognise that SGB but I think it misses the point and those feminists are not the problem because they're absolutely not saying 'do it to her instead of me'.

If we take as our starting point that whatever sexual act - no matter how vanilla or kinky - should involve the consent/enthusiastic participation of both/all participants, then it should be absolutely fine for any woman to turn down any act her partner suggests that she doesn't fancy. It's not then her fault if he goes and buys another poorer woman to perform said act.

Unless men actually do Haz Needz which must be satisfied by some woman somewhere because he's entitled to it. I know you don't believe that.

@ MiniTheMinx,

"Porn/prostitution is the flip side of the marriage coin. Just as welfare needs are the flip side of greater profits under capitalism, just as God is the opposite of the devil, so Madonna (mother/wife) is the opposite to Whore. As women (wives/middle class women) have made great strides towards equality in work and under the law in terms of property rights so men have sought to counterbalance this with greater subordination of the working class women and subject women to violence and abuse sexually."

Except that in historical terms, the "GREATER subordination of the working class woman" that you refer to is pure fiction.

It amazes me how ready people are to ascribe the advent of misogyny, or at least its rising tide, to the invention of the internet. Has everyone forgotten why prostitution is called "the word's oldest profession? Have people forgotten that for centuries, it was considered the natural, inevitable destination for any woman who couldn't or didn't get a husband, and didn't have a family with the money to avoid it? Have people forgotten that it's only a couple of DECADES since the very concept of rape in marriage was even recognised?

There is no greater subordination of working class women. There's just the same old subordination. By any objective account of western societies, taking into account jobs, the vote, sexual freedom, attitudes to DV etc, one would have to admit there is less (though of course not as much less as we would like).

The internet just means that some of what there is is much more readily available to view at the drop of a hat. I'm not convinced though that it makes that much difference over an eighteenth century gentleman's ability to just pop down the whorehouse whenever he felt like it, and have everybody turn a blind eye to it or just blame it on the whores if they couldn't.

Meant to say OP, thanks for this thread. It's the most thought provoking thing I've read here for ages and I meant to post something yesterday but the conversation has moved faster than my thoughts.

I'll make time to post something more generally in response to your OP tomorrow because I recognise exactly where you're coming from.

Excellent points Floris YY, no of course working class women are not subordinated to a greater extent now than before, I didn't word that very carefully! I agree but what I do think is that the experiences of exploited working class women now would seem far harsher when considered against the recent gains made by her middle class counterparts. So whilst women have the right to vote, access to education, better services (although that is declining) more sexual freedom, more choice available to us, their seems to be this backlash and as always those first in line for the vitriol and scorn, violence and abuse is of course those women most economically vulnerable.

Pubes, I am not blaming liberal feminists Do women turn a blind eye to their husbands sexual attitudes and errant behavior? well some still do but I guess OP started the thread because we as women can not continue to do so. Do women refuse to participate in some male centred, selfish, abusive sexual acts? Of course, do they decline because they are married? some might but I think men actually cause the problem because historically men have been able to separate women into two groups, women worthy of love and respect and women who perform as the unworthy. From my understanding it seems to be so deeply inbedded into the male psyche (a bit of Freud) born out by history with the birth of patriarchy, marriage and slavery ( a bit of historical materialism) and lived out in women's lives now ( radical I know !) How many women actually know what their loving and supportive partners real internal dialogue is? when women discover violent porn, cheating or prostitution the response is often to blame the prevalence of temptation.....how convenient.

I agree, this thread is incredible. Thank you.

And at least when it's 'the media' you percieve as damaging to your sex life, you have the option of ignoring, switching off, etc. Go back about a generation and a half and the the thief of your sexuality was 'society', which was harder to fight. Further back than that and your sexuality was the business of religion - fighting back against that got you tortured and killed.

Feels like we're in a maelstrom of vile and negative images of women. Female celebs seem to have no feminist agenda or responsibiliy. Hello, Holly, Ferne, Gaga, et al. How many young female faces resist the pressure to be porn-sexy? Er, I can't think of one.

I feel sure that ready access to hard core porn is bad all round. I read an article somewhere where some intellectual middle-class guy said that he was exposed, via the intenet, to paedophile porn and it triggered urges in him that might otherwise have been contained. He went on to access and purchase images of child porn.

"how many women actually know what their loving supportive partner's real internal dialogue is?"

I wonder this. And I didn't at 22. so yeah, I think the maelstrom of negative media images is becoming harder to ignore, although obviously with age other things roll off me and would have had me feeling insecure 20 years ago.

This thread is very thought provoking.

I hate to think of currentt teens trying to learn about sex and trying to develop their own boundaries and expectations after exposure to today's mainstream porn. In my day I felt very daring and a lad felt very lucky to get a squeeze of boob.
its frightening too that all porn isn't automatically 'female friendly ' surely that's what we all expect from an encounter in rl. At the very least. So either porn is not an accurate depiction of male sexual desires, but it's a road they are being led down. Or it is, and that's what they really think and really want. I believe and hope its option 1.
To clarify I don't think there's much wrong in watching happy people have sex, in itself. But a lot of the stuff isn't that 'banal' .

Fascinating and timely posts. Will come back with a more considered post later but I mentioned this to my wife last night in the hope of a hearty discussion. She just looked at me perplexed and said what a load of b***ks. Sums my marvelous wife up really!

Keep the posts coming people. Really has got the thought juices flowing!

Krystianah: Just because the guy was middle class doesn't stop him being a child abuser. And it's self-justifying bullshit (something common to lots of abusers) to blame it on outside influences such as porn.

IN general, though, things are still better than the days when getting pregnant outside of marriage meant backstreet abortion/being locked up/killing yourself etc. It's better than the generations of women being given the impression that sex was something to be endured with shuddering distaste as a necessary service to be performed for men.
It's worrying that there are calls to reframe sex education back to the old 'GIrls! It's your job to be the gatekeepers and tell your boyfriends to Wait Till You're Married'. It's worrying that so many people are whining away at celebrities to cover themselves up and be modest. Why should they?

The answer to this sort of problem is always a matter of making sure there is as much diversity of opinion and represenation out there as possible, not trying to shut everything down and forbid discussion of the issue, which is where the pro-censorship camp always end up.

I think celebrities should cover themselves up because MEN cover themselves up. Men can be in the public eye without having to cultivate a fuckable come hither look. why shouldn't young female slebs be given advice and guidance, or at least have it pointed out to them that male tv presenters don't have be porno-perfect. i was flicking through a free sunday magazine and all the young women had given their various interviews in underwear or in a bikini. men were interviewed and the accompanying picture was of them in jeans or a suit or sports gear. it's ridiculous. i pointed it out to my brother and expected him (well, half expected him to say yeah it's not right) but he blamed the women!! like as if they're begging to be photographed in their underwear??? they're encouraged to do it.

BBC story here.

Vaguely synchronicitous, I thought.

Also marking my place as this has struck a chord with me.

I've recently over the last year or so started to feel like sex makes me passive by the very nature of me being a woman, and I'm struggling to reconcile that, as I never used to think that way about it.

There seems to be an illogical argument going on here that because some things are better for women-as-a-group, others aren't worse. That isn't my lived experience and it doesn't seem to be the experience of the majority of posters contributing to this thread.

I really liked the post that observed that the pressure women feel to enjoy sex that is male-focused and popular in porn is just as repressive as the one that casts women in the role of gatekeepers. Insidious jibes that women who object to that pressure must be middle-class and prudish about sex is oppressive in itself.

It would be great to have a thread one day where women and men could talk about their lived experiences and objections to a pornified society and posters with an agenda to promote the sex industry didn't tell them they are imagining it or that actually, the world is better for women than they think and they've got it all wrong.

Charbon
There seems to be an illogical argument going on here that because some things are better for women-as-a-group, others aren't worse.

Missed that, I'll re-read...

It would be great to have a thread one day where women and men could talk about their lived experiences and objections to a pornified society and posters with an agenda to promote the sex industry didn't tell them they are imagining it or that actually, the world is better for women than they think and they've got it all wrong.

Which are the posters with the agenda on this one?

Yep charging, not liking the pornification of society is not a call to return to the days of the Magdalen laundries.being called frigid, a prude, vanilla is an insult now. Its not liberation if you are not free to be a prude, if that's what you are.

OMC - I think that is posters who use the sex industry and seek to defend that use.

Sgb - are there any of the pro-censorship lot on here?

Offred I thought this thread was a moderately refreshing change. There weren't piles of "Oh, it's all harmless", nor "everyone who thinks different is bastids".

I didn't see piles of users here, either ...