Does penetration = presumption of power/control?

[skrumle]

Was chatting with my H last night and mentioned the Romeo and Juliet law in Ireland that's been discussed on here a few times. Anyway, when I asked if he thought it was reasonable his immediate answer was "no". I then asked him: if our son was gay, and started a conversation about a sexual experience that he was unhappy/uncomfortable about would he be more likely to feel that our son had been forced/co-erced if he was the one penetrated rather than penetrating and got a in reply...

I have to be honest, when I read the original thread on here my automatic view was that to protect girls over boys like this was to deny the fact that girls enjoy sex too, almost like taking a step back. When I read the thread fully though and thought about the implications for girls I probably did start to think that girls should have more protection than boys.

So, should there be a presumption that penetration equals a greater degree of control? So two heterosexual 15yos - greater responsibility lies with the boy to ensure that this is what both of them want?

Vesuvius was 79 AD, so after Christ but well before Constantine. And why a feminist would be keen on Pompeiian brothels is I fear beyond me. The tendency to equate loots of sex with feminist liberation is the curse of our age. often just the opposite is true; did anyone hear the shiver-inducing piece on the Romanian sex trade lately?

Oops, I posted without looking properly and crossed with your serious post posie. Sorry!

Loots! Nope, lots - but loots might well have a useful meaning. Brothel = women = commodity = for sale.

Abusive PMs, that's really not on
No matter how het up I've got over having myself/my marriage/my husband insulted ( and yes, there have been lots of insults from certain feminist posters) over the years, I've never resorted to abusing people by PM, it's nasty and very childish.

LRD, I agree 100% about your body being trained in it's responsiveness, we've kind of figured out over the years that my cervix is responsible for DH's orgasms, it's highly active during high arousal/orgasm , as is my g-spot area, he's now so conditioned to my body that only my orgasm/ the way my vagina acts during my approaching orgasm, sets him off. I've said it before on other threads and been totally ridiculed but it's hardly the kind of thing to make up and it has actually caused practical problems.
If having sex with the same man for 28 years doesn't train your sexual responses, I don't know what will!
Your body absolutely does change after childbirth and as you age, I didn't have sensitive nipples until I was over 40 and oral sex does far less for me than PIV these days, my orgasms feel much stronger too according to DH but I wonder if it's because we have a lot more sex than say, 3 years ago and consequently my muscles are stronger?

at 'loots'.

But I don't think pointed out PIV wasn't the only form of sex ever done in the past is the same as saying lots of sex=feminist liberation. It's perfectly possible that (for example) the attitude towards women improved in some feministy ways under Christianity, but was still broadly shite and with much room for improvement. The issue for me is, why as a society did we get to, and stick with, the idea that sex=PIV?

I wonder how much it has to do with us shifting towards binary rather than group relationships ... in a group, if women are pregnant they can support each other and all the men can do the same. In a couple, if a woman is pregnant and her main/only source of support is her partner, she will need him (I mean in really basic ways, like she will probably need someone to help her give birth and cut the cord, there will probably be a point in the pregnancy when she isn't so mobile any more. In modern society we're pretty healthy in pregnancy but I think it used to be much more debilitating). So maybe a pregnancy is also a very visible way of showing women how dependent they can be made/ showing that here is a woman visibly in need of a man.

I do think that women who are not in good, supportive relationships are uniquely vulnerable when pregnant if they don't have a female support network. There have sadly been far too many posts on MN from women in such situations, pregnancy really does sort out the men from the boys and brings out the utter bastard in certain types of men.

Abusive/controlling men certainly seem to use pregnancy to destroy a woman . It makes me so sad when they always say "but he's such a good dad" when he's usually anything but - strangely, withholding PIV sex always seems to feature heavily in their modus operandi too .

That's true.

I think there's all kinds of ways of being screwed up, basically, mal.

spoons I know I didn't mean that snidily, I thought it was funny

I am feeling a bit out of depth with the history/religion stuff so may lurk for a bit This is all fascinating so keep at it!

Having said that i think the TMI award of the thread so far has to go to Mal's hyperactive cervix

Now there's an image to conjure with!

You know so many of these threads come back to the idea that this victorian idea about men being out in the world and the women being the "queens" at home and basically isolated is a total disaster for us.

It's why MN is so successful - and some find it so threatening.

Sardine - absolutely.

Sorry I know my posts are feminism 101 so will relurk and let you all get on with it

The hell they are!

I do love the way there's a point in almost all teh really long threads where the idea we're discussing links up to about three or four other big issues - it makes it so clear to me that all these things aren't just random issues or picking round the edges, they are all connected to the same underlying structures in society.

Public abuse is just fine, but reply to something privately and that's a whole new low? Oh please.

I am realizing what this reminds me of. When I was young, I wasn't really part of the in-crowd of girls and I used to see all manner of bullying and sycophancy: hair-pulling, scratching, name-calling and general bitchiness; I see it here too. Remember the playground anyone?

Well that's fine; I shall leave you to it. My experience of feminism has been tarnished by my time here; some of you do feminism a great disservice - and that was always my point.

Thank you to everyone who PMd me with their support.

lol at the current love-in in an attempt to feel better about the earlier gang-violence