Why women have sex

[LadyBlaBlah]

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/28/sex-women-relationships-tanya-gold?fb_action_ids=3023185662982%2C2659272674836%2C2659286875191%2C2659264114622%2C2659264074621&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_source=other_multiline

Kinda wish she had just left it as the quoted number 1 reason - orgasm.

No real need to harp on about trapping men, prostituting oneself etc.

Giyadas yes we are. I've been this name for quite a while (except for over Christmas when I was TheFestiveWife). The other one has only been posting under that name since the 12th Jan. Can you tell I'm pissed off.

So the better way of putting it might be

What motivates women to have sex?

Their list +
Fear
Threat of violence
Protecting family
Unconsciousness (not really a motivation either
That sort of thing

I have sex because I enjoy it. My DP gives me sex because he gets enjoyment out of my enjoyment. And, in turn, his enjoyment from my enjoyment increases my enjoyment. Makes sense?

Basically, it's a two way act. I do it and always have done it to gain and give pleasure. I'm very fortunate that I have a partner who prefers to give than gain pleasure. And because of his selflessness, I gain a lot of pleasure from giving him pleasure.

Or did I just rewrite my first paragraph? Meh.

Anyway. I love sex (now. I didn't for the first six months of my DS's life. Which was weird. I did have sex with DP a couple of times out of 'duty' I guess. But once I got myself into I would start to enjoy it, then realised how much I had missed it.) Definitely back on track.

And yes, I do start out sexual acts with DP on the sole intention of getting an orgasm. :o

SQ - I agree "rape"'is the odd one out of the list.

But I still don't get why and how it could have been left out of the study.

If you ask 1000-odd women about their recent sexual encounters and some describe being forced or coerced to into intercourse what do you do: do you say "that doesnt count, we've defined that as not sex that was something else altogether -nothing to do with sex" or do you record it as one of the answers. How far do people have to be pressured for it not to count as sex and be ruled out of the study? It's not a legal assessment.

It's like if you collect statistics on causes of death, some people die peacefully in their sleep at 90, some are murdered. You can put both in the same set of statistics without saying they are 'the same' or being a murder apologist.

I'm flabbergasted that you should define rape not by consent/lack of consent but by whether the person physically participates or not.

Because "rape" is not a motivation for women to have sex. That's why.

The legal definition of rape does not include "having sex". It is non-consensual penetration.

Having sex and being raped are different. One is active, one is passive. I am not defining anything, I am simply pointing out that most people do not think of being raped as having sex, and certainly "being raped" does not make any sense at all as a motivation for women to have sex.

In normal conversation, people do not say that people have had sex, when what they are talking about is someone being raped. People do not describe films with rape as films about people having sex. It is just not how language is used.

In my part of the UK anyway, maybe the language is different in other areas.

Around here people would say things like

They had sex
He had sex with her
She had sex with him
They had sex with them

To mean neutral or consensual activities

OTOH

He raped her
They raped her

That means something quite different. People would never use the first set of phrases if they were talking about people being raped.

ugh ugh ugh. If there is one thing it hate more than psudo evolutionary psychology it is the use suggestion that it is 'in the genes'.

Which one is that exactly? [bitter knows what they are talking about evolutionary geneticist emoticon]

Murder = death

Rape =/= sex. Rape = assault.

As for the consent thing. My ex used to coerce me into rape. I won't call it "sex", as I consented under coercion, hence it was rape. I wouldn't enthusiastically participate, though. Towards the end of the relationship, I used to down a bottle of wine before he came home if there was any chance he'd want "sex".

The definition of consent should be active participation, with consent, which hasn't been achieved through coercion of any definition. If a woman is not actively participating in sex, then you bloody well stop, and check she's OK. What if a woman freezes during sex? That's a pretty big sign something is up.

Neutral or consensual - that's not what I meant - sorry!

I mean the first set of phrases would be used in all consensual situations, whether the situations were an unleashing of 3 months sexual desire, or a quick bunk up with someone from the pub you thought was OK but you probably wouldn't do it again. IYSWIM.

Just different from rape.

SQ, I'd argue with people not describing rape in films as sex...

I need to find an example, but I think Waitress may be an example. If we define coercion as "nagging" a woman for sex, using words, force, threats, etc, then there is a scene in Waitress where Keri Russell's character is raped. Yet, so many people I know described it as "sex".

Remember, until 1990, the law didn't recognize that a man can rape his wife. We have this mainstream image of rape pushed in our face, so that once we're confronted with the reality, we don't identify it as such.

It took me ten years to identify my first rape as such. (TBF, I'd suppressed the memories for most of that time) It took me four years to realise my son was possibly conceived through rape. Because the media pushes this image on us that if your rape isn't violent, or carried out by a stranger, it's not really rape.

That is all true frothy.

I don't feel that I've expressed myself very well on this thread.

My discomfort came from the idea that "rape" is a motivation for women to have sex. And the tone of the article - it just didn't fit.

I suppose it has been hard to try and explain why I felt the language there was all wrong, that to include rape as a motivation for women to have sex was all wrong.

I do think language is important - and to me "having sex" conveys a different message to "being raped" and I'm surprised that is so controversial I guess.

No, no, I think you've been quite eloquent, was just that sentence that bugged me. This whole thread has been difficult though.

You've definitely been more eloquent than I have in expressing your ideas.

But yes, the whole tone of the article was out. But then, it was a misogynistic, victim blaming, evo psych piece of trash.

can you tell I liked it?

Hmmm yes I guess you have summed it up there

SardineQueen - I don't have time to post properly but I wanted to say that I understood exactly what you meant in your first and subsequent posts.

Thanks yama.

I felt like I was getting a bit bogged down there so I'm pleased it made sense to some people!

I think I see what you mean as well SardineQueen. It's a logic thing really. Two women have been penetrated, non-consensually. Woman A doesn't call it rape, and if asked when she last had sex, would consider that incident as sex and name it as such. Woman B does define it as rape, and if asked when she last had sex, wouldn't consider that incident as having sex, so wouldn't include it in her response. So, at no point in the survey should the question, 'When did you last have sex?' provide the answer, 'last tuesday, when I was raped.'

Yes that's what I thought, wem.

SQ - i agree "rape" is not a motivation it is a description of sex that is forced or coerced. (so the motivation might be fear, physical compulsion, protection of family etc... I suspect rape was not a category in the study but implied in several of the different categories of reasons the women described - but the researchers are not lawyers)

I agree it's a shoddy article, and I have no idea about the book.

But I do not understand this business of rape is not sex.

To me there are two categories that define rape - consent or not consent.

Why complicate with another set of categories 'sex' (active) and 'not sex' (passive) - I think this is really dangerous and unnecessary.

The question of whether the woman is active or passive is immaterial.

So what if the woman is an active participant - if she is too young, too drunk or otherwise intoxicated to really give consent then it's rape. If she is coerced or blackmailed into having sex then its rape.

Because if someone is "passive" within sex, chances are, it's sex they don't want.

Having sex with someone who doesn't want sex = rape = not sex.

It's not complicating things at all.

I mean, if you really wanted sex with DP, would you just lie there while he does it? Or would you participate?

So you agree with me then.

Good

It's the language that is the problem. He raped her - he is active, she is passive. The language - not as a description of what the people are actually doing. She might be fighting for all her worth. But the language - he raped her - she was raped - it is not anything that she is choosing to do, it is not anything to do with her motivation.

She has sex with him - the language is active. She might be tied up or tired or a bit pissed but happy and not actually wriggling around - it's not about what the people are actually doing but the language - she had sex with him - it was her choice, her decision, she was doing it.

You see?

I don't understand the problem with this.

I am not complicating with "additional categories" I have said all through that the legal definition of rape is penetration without consent and I see no problem with that.

I don't understand how anyone can say that the phrases "She had sex with him" and "He raped her" are in any way similar in tone, meaning, anything.

Well there are problems with the legal process but I am not suggesting that the law on rape be changed in the UK.

Are there problems with people understanding about active and passive forms of speech? And that it doesn't have anything to do with people being active or passive, it's entirely about the way language is used and what it intimates.

There are lots of links on google, one is here for example

Although I do agree with frothy that someone who is having sex with someone who is being passive should stop and check whether things are OK.

And on that note I'm off to bed

SQ, frothy

I can't get my head around this, on a basic logic level:

"Having sex with someone who doesn't want sex = rape = not sex."

On one hand you define rape in terms of sex - if one person doesn't want to it then it's rape. This I agree with. I don't think there is any problem with this language or need to qualify it.

But then you say if it's rape then by definition its 'not sex' so the first part doesn't make sense anymore - having (what?) with someone who doesn't want sex ?? It seems like unnecessary wordgames to me, or like you've equated sex and "making love".

SQ - i dont think that what you've been describing is a difference of active and passive language (jill shut the door/ the door was shut by jill etc..) what you have said is that rape isn't sex...being raped is entirely different from having sex...a film of one looks entirely different from the other.

I think this is really dangerous.

As thunderboltsandlightening said
lots of women who have been raped, don't define the experience as rape, or take a long time to acknowledge it. Your argument - that if it was "sex" then it can't possibly be "rape" doesn't help here.

As I've said before there are lots of situations where a women are forced or coerced to have sex - trafficked women forced to work as prostitutes, abusive relationships, spiked drinks, blackmail etc..where they clearly don't consent but they are coerced into playing an active role in sexual acts. Your argument that sex is never rape just seems to put an unnecessary barrier to showing that non consensual sex - even without violence - is rape.