Does being a RadFem mean that you can't like anything to do with males and PIV?

[TheFeministsWife]

I would class myself as a Radical Feminist, (but now I'm starting to think I may have been deceiving myself). But after reading this blog post now I'm not so sure.

I'm married and have been for a long time. I like PIV, I love my DH I don't think I'm trauma bonded to him. He's never forced me into sex, or made me feel guilty if I don't want it. I enjoy it, I like the intimacy and also the orgasms of course.

I don't want to ridicule what the blogger has said, (I read a lot of her blog posts and like them) but I'm struggling with this one. Am I fooling myself to think I can be a RadFem and in a happy het relationship? I've commented on the blog a few times (under Angela) but still can't fathom the whole thing. One commenter has said PIV is unnatural. I thought basic biology would prove it was the most natural thing in the world. And another commenter has said things won't be safe until all females live in colonies like we used to.

To those that think that the author of the post in the OP's link has never had a relationship or a 'shag', or is in emotional distress, or is mentally ill should check this out.

factcheckme.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/how-to-lose-a-nigel-in-9-years/

In 'biological' terms it's not the most natural thing in the world, if at say 20 you have four kids and what seems as a lifetime of PIV in front of you, the outcome looks grim. Unless you take, YES YOU WOMAN, precautions to prevent pregnancy, or know the tricks to get rid of it. It just seems like monotonous monogamy.

Dworkin have just read your link, interesting reading. Her relationship obviously wasn't a very good one though was it? If it was her that was doing all the reaching out emotionally and trying to make them "connect". If he's putting in no effort at all and she's doing all the work it's bound to go tits up at some point.

As for being emotionally dependant on your partner, well I am, in my relationship, as he is on me. He's my best friend. I'm also financially dependant on him. Her choice is admirable one, but I find the thought that every het relationship is down to trauma bonding and that PIV is dangerous for every woman, a little patronising. I like PIV, I have no desire to give it up. I also don't find PIV dangerous, never have. There is no reason for me to find it traumatic. I don't fear pregnancy, (have 2 dds, although don't want anymore it won't kill me if I end up pregnant again). I don't use hormonal contraception either. I'm not in any danger of STDs either. I've never felt coerced or bullied in to PIV. ALso get plenty of none PIV sexual action to.

What's a Nigel?

I'm trying to find out but I can't.

A Nigel is a man.

TheFeministsWife - good name btw I like that it's both sarcastic and oxymoronic - I know that in a western, priviledged society it's good to be safe and cosy in a relationship because you both put so much into it you couldn't possibly destroy that. But that's not everyone's position. Certainly I was once in your position and it lasted 18 years but suddendly he turned nasty and said that once the first child was born things changed. He went off to his affair partner and still remains with her. She has no children and that's how he likes it .

I had five pregnancies and three live births with him. I never felt my life was in danger but my first live birth was fraught after it was discovered she had pooed in the uterus, and hence was in danger of swallowing meconium. Her life was in danger and I would have been despondent had she died (which could have happened).

We aren't all so privileged to have a life like yours, happy that I am for you. I thought FCM's post was an honest appraisal.

I found it really difficult to get my head around the PIV argument until I really got what it was. Which is that it's problematic that only PIV = sex in our society and any number of other mutually fulfilling sexual options are dismissed as merely foreplay. That PIV is seen as the "goal" of sex and that "foreplay" exists in order to get one or both partners "ready" for the "actual" sex part. It is problematic that so much importance is placed on it, for example, if you met someone who didn't like oral sex, that would be slightly unusual, but not really worth commenting on, yet if someone did not enjoy PIV they would probably be regarded as odd, could be the subject of some concern or even have it suggested that they might have a medical problem.

But I haven't read the article, perhaps it's a case of the argument not being fully explained, or perhaps she really does have a skewed view of it. I would have thought that PIV which involves no coercion and is just as important as any other aspect of a couple's sexual practices, is not the problem, but this does not stop the pervasiveness being problematic. You can enjoy something while acknowledging that there are problems with it.

For example, it's like objecting to people who say porn is degrading, because the film you made, willingly, with your husband last week wasn't degrading at all and was empowering. It doesn't stop it being degrading for someone else.

Well, that's great TheFeministsWife, but you're in a tiny minority, globally speaking.

This discussion clarifies my view that PIV, for women, is a risk-reward balancing exercise. For me, really good PIV is worth the risks (which obviously I mitigate as best I can) but mediocre sex isn't. It also reinforces why men should ensure that their female sexual partners are enthusiastically rather than passively consenting (and why men who whinge and pressure for PIV are twats).

Coming back to the opening post, in my experience over the past 25 years or so, there are massive variations between women who describe themselves as radical feminists. I fine it a bit when I see either those who don't describe themselves as radical feminists saying "but this is what radical feminists believe," but equally when I see a radical feminist saying the same thing, or insisting you have to tick this, this, this and this box or you aren't a "genuine" radical feminist.

I'm not big on labelling people anyhow - ideas, streams of thought, political perspectives, yes, but not people.

I have heard the "nigel" term used a few time and I have to confess, I don't particularly like it. On one hand, it reads like a feminist attempt to find a counterpart to "her indoors," or "the wife," to describe male partners, with a feminist twist (and using one silly term to counterbalance another silly term is still silly, in my book.)

I think the idea though is that "a nigel" is supposed to be a man who's the "exception to the rule," a sort of, "well, yes men are sexist, but not my Nigel." While it's true that sometimes women can fail to recognise or even excuse the exertion of male privilege by their own male partners or men close to them, that doesn't mean that any woman who has a male partner or man who is close to them is living in denial. Unfortunately, I've seen the term used in blogs and such in that way - what comes across as a means of dissing or at least making fun women for not being "good enough feminists" because they maintain connections with men in their lives.

I had a cat named Nigel once though, so actually, that's what I think of most when someone says, "your Nigel." He was a fluffy ginger tabby, btw.

Your Nigel sounds lovely!

I do agree that PIV carries a greater risk for women than men. A recent lover wanted to fuck me without a condom and I point blank refused as I wasn't on a pill. He preferred it without; as do I. We then had the best oral sex ever; much better than PIV and more intimate. I think I converted him! TMI sorry!

However, I do enjoy PIV sex despite the risks and don't think I am less of a feminist for wanting it. I do think that as women we get more bonded and potentially have more to loose by having PIV sex however I am more likely to be totally gaga over someone for giving me great oral. Unfortunately biology has dealt us women an unfair blow as far as the sex fallout is concerned rather than a social construct such as patriarchy I think.

I don't agree that oral sex is more intimate than PIV, because it's sex where you can't see your partner's face. But there are different kinds of "intimate".

And that lovely Nigel--did he have all his parts?

Nigel Duncan Gingercat, RIP 10 October 1984.

No, actually I don't think he was neutered, but I think he was in a committed relationship with the next door neighbour's black and white tom.

Tei equally PIV does not mean missionary position. Many couples prefer positions which do not involve being face to face!

MooncupGoddess I wasn't trying to be smug, far from it. I think that if that is what the blogger thinks then that's her complete right to do so. It's the inference that ALL het relationships are based on trauma bonding and not romantic love, in fact that according to the blog romantic love can't exist between a woman and a man, and that PIV is dangerous for ALL women. I find that patronising. The reason I posted the thread was because I struggle with that notion that because I consider myself a RadFem who happens to be very happily married to a man and I enjoy PIV I'm somehow letting the side down. Which pissed me off!

Why did it piss you off and why did you get that feeling?

I'm a heterosexual, I like PIV sex and I don't know if I'm a radfem, I probably am in that I don't believe that the current way we organise society can ever delivery women's liberation from systematic oppression and we have to go back to the drawing board with regards to reorganising society, so I prob do count as a radical feminist, but I didn't feel even vaguely as if this blog was an attck on me "letting the side down". I just felt that the blogger was raising some interesting points more with regard to rape than with sex tbh and that I broadly disagree with the overall thrust of the post. I don't think she's trying to make me feel bad though.

I also thought the second link was slightly more interesting, in that it talked about the fact that because she could become pregnant, she felt more needy of her Nigel. That's a really interesting conundrum in that what's worth examining there for me,a) do women feel that they are more bonded to men naturally, inherently, when they are having regular PIV sex with them, because as someone else mentioned, they might need them to help raise any potential child, or does the fact that patriarchy ensures that pregnancy and childbirth means a loss of power for women (completely the opposite of what it would mean in a sane society), mean that they need the man they're with more if they become pregnant?

I found that second point particularly interesting partly because of my own experience and partly because of the very stark figures about domestic violence - 75% of actual physical violence starts, when a woman is pregnant or within a year of her giving birth.

That tells the story of men who know at a gut level, that the power balance in the relationship has changed because of the pregnancy and child. Is it because the woman is more bonded to him so will allow him to get away with stuff she wouldn't have had pre-pregnancy, because she is more emotionally dependent on him? And if so, is that primarily because she is having/ has had a child with him, or is it because having had that child, she is more dependent on his goodwill, in a society which makes it extremely difficult for women to function fully in that society, once they are mothers?

It is difficult to disentangle how much of that emotional dependence comes from the simple biological fact of creating a child together and how much comes from the deep down knowledge that having a child in a misogynist society, represents a real loss of power for a woman.

TFW - as you'll have seen from my other posts, I don't entirely agree with her myself. But surely part of radical feminism is exploring seriously, er, radical positions like these, and I think that's an enormously valuable thing to do and brings many insights even you don't sign up to the whole argument.

I suppose I also get slightly weary of feminists saying 'well, that's nonsense because I'm in a lovely relationship with a lovely man so there' (I'm not saying this is what you said but there is an undercurrent like this in some posts on here). The point of radical feminism is to analyse the relationship between the sexes systematically, yes? So it is generally more helpful to look at the overall dynamics rather than get hung up on individual examples.

Basil - really thought-provoking link you've come up with there about DV. Certainly that was the case in my relationship. Prior to becoming pregnant, I guess you could argue that I was the one with the power in the relationship (primary earner, independent means, own friends and social life, etc). My abuse started when I was pregnant, starting with emotional/psychological abuse and culminating in physical abuse at the point where I'd told him I'd had enough of the former and was leaving him. Looking back on that period - the whole of which lasted about 10 months - it was the most vulnerable I've ever felt in my life and I certainly tolerated behaviour from him that would have seen me leaving had I not been pregnant/a new mother.

Yep, same for me sunshine.

At the time I got pregnant, XP didn't have his own bank account (only building society) and couldn't get one as he didn't have a regular monthly income. So I suggested that I convert my bank account to a joint one and once he had a joint bank account with me, he could get his own one with the same bank (they would automatically give you a joint and/ or individual account at that time).

So we did this. Almost literally the first thing he did, was take a bank loan out on that joint account so I was legally liable for it, without telling me and then he hid the bank statements so that I wouldn't know about it (this was just before internet banking had become the norm).

It was something that if he had done before I was pregnant, I would have recognised as being proof that he could not function as a real partner and I would have thrown him out. By the time I found out about it, I was about 6 months pregnant and felt I couldn't go through my first pregnancy and experience of motherhood, alone.

The thing is, he knew that the odds of me throwing him out at the most vulnerable time of my life, were vanishingly small, which is why he did it. He would never have done it prior to my pregnancy unless he actually wanted the relationship to end at that point.

The lack of support for motherhood in our society, facilitates abusive behaviour by men.

You know I see how that article is relevant in certain situations and to those women affected by it its so bloody inhumane BUT for example in my circumstances PIV sex belongs to me. I feel that I am the active (or at least equally active) participant, I don't think of penetration as being 'done to me' but of enveloping the penis and recieveing joy and intimacy from it. I do think the blogger has a point but it doesn't apply universally. I'm pregnant at the minute and have actively tried to become pregnant so for me PIV sex is a beautiful thing. I do realise my position is privileged (even though it SHOULD be the standard norm)

I find this blogpost fantastically patronising towards women who enjoy penetrative sex. Yeah, I know, there's plenty of great sex to be had without penetration, but that doesn't mean that it can't be really really enjoyable to do it either.

The blog actually reads like it's a satire, drawing an extremist point of view to ridicule feminism. Certainly it's not a brand of feminism I could identify with.

I don't think it's patronising at all.

It's great that people look at ordinary things from a fresh perspective. Even if you don't agree, a new challenging viewpoint is a Good Thing.

PIV predates man and woman, so for me the question is how were our notions of wo/manhood formed by the act/dynamics of PIV.

Good point SS. If we look at higher primates, then PIV tends to result in a pregnancy about once every 5 years. The mother does not resume oestrus until her baby is weaned at about 4-5 years. Also interesting is that although there is a lot of social fluidity in chimp groups, mothers with children tend to bond together as a group.

That's all very different from modern society isn't it, though anthropological evidence shows that the mother/child grouping is quite common in pre-industrial societies. It seems to have a lot of benefits (arguably one being no pressure to engage in PIV ). Thanks to contraception, PIV is about much much more than procreation obviously, but I sometimes wonder if contraception has been a double-edged sword in terms of women's ownership over their sexuality. I also think it would be interesting to see what would happen if contraception become 100% responsibility of men, with the back-up that they would, without fail, end up paying child maintenance to its full extent. I think a side-effect would be a plummeting in STIs and a decrease in sexual assaults.

And a decrease in pregnancies.