not sure what to title this but it's to do with ejaculation

[YuleingFanjo]

and in particular a man ejaculating on a woman's face. Sorry - I feel awful writing it down.

I was talking to a friend last night, she is much nore sexually adventurous than I am and she was saying that she thought it was part of normal sexual behaviour, that most men found it a turn on and most people she knew thought it was normal.

I argued that it was something that came from porn, was not what I would call normal and there was no equivilant sexual 'thing' for a woman to do to a man. She said that women can 'gush' (I have never done this, maybe I am abnormal) or piss or poo (!) which I pointed out was a totally different thing. But is it?

I was trying to discuss it with her and point out that her sexual encounters are out of the norm, definitely aren't encounters within a loving relationship, and that ejaculating in someones's face is surely more about disrespect than anything else?

or am I wrong. I just find it really horrible and if anyone asked me to let them do so I would show them the door.

Soory - I hope I don't sound like some hairy trucker trying to get off on the whole thing, and I am not asking for personal experiences (I would prefer not to read them thanks) but more to discuss if I am right about the power/porn/disrespect thing...

I don't find posts like that particularly constructive yellow and IMO they reduce your argument. I am not 'desperate' to misconstrue what you are saying and in fact have tried to engage with you politely throughout.

I don't see why it is problematical for men to answer a question that is as straightforward as:

Where did they first learn that this is something that men-as-a-group enjoy?

I was expecting answers that said porn (obviously), or from discussions with their male relatives/friends, or from former sex partners who'd said that other partners had enjoyed it. It's not a particularly difficult or searching question, particularly if some posters are right and this practice has been around since the Year Dot, but for some reason never used to feature in porn.

Your partner answered the question and I thanked you for relaying it. If he personally learnt about it via porn, what is the problem with admitting he thought that this was something he and future female partners too might enjoy, just like the people he saw in the porn he was using? Isn't that the logical deduction, given his answer? That he saw something that transmitted a message that this was something that men-as-a-group enjoy?

I find the idea of men-as-a-group quite reductive. It doesn't mean anything to me. So no my partner didn't answer your question because I didn't ask him it. I asked him when he thought of this as a sexual practice.

There is ejaculation on faces in Marcus de Sade books. Lots of it. So I don't think it did originate in the 90s.

You say you've tried to engage politely, but I, and others on this thread, feel that we've been made out to be stupid. That really is how your post at 00:33 came across. If you think x you must be like y and if you aren't like that then well done.

There's really no need to say stuff like I've reduced my own argument. It just comes across as passive aggressive. If you feel like that, why not just ignore it and tell me your argument?

I'm off to bed now.

So you're saying that this practice might have originated with the Marquis de Sade, the eponymous proponent of sadism?

I'm afraid I do think that posts that include the phrase 'naa naaa naa naa naa' are unlikely to advance an intelligent discussion. I can't imagine I'm in a minority there . There was nothing passive at all about that observation and I don't think it's an aggressive thing to say that I personally don't find posts like that constructive. However, I moved past that and 'told you my argument'. You just don't agree with it, which is of course your right, but I advanced it anyway.

I don't think anyone is saying that ejaculating in a woman's face originated in porn, are they?

Rather we are saying that it has been normalized and popularized due to its featuring heavily in porn and following an increase in the availability of porn.

Marquis de Sade was an abuser, a rapist and a pornographer. He wrote about ejaculating on women in a derogatory and misogynistic terms.

Actually having just said that, if he is the originator of the act then it did originate in porn.

I doubt that it has originated with de Sade either - have you had a look at some of the writing of Roman/Greek antiquity? And my assumption is that they were not the first ones either.

My DH did understand the second question, he just felt it rather ridiculous to talk about what "men as a group" enjoy

Also - whenever this act has occurred it has always been at my request. It is not something a man has ever requested - it has always come from me and I didn't get it from porn

I do not disagree that porn has made it more popular / well known. It isn't abnormal though. Just because an act is popular within porn does not necessarily make that act degrading. Porn will have made cunnilingis more popular - it doesn't make it objectifying. Finally, people ae more than capable of frequently seeing an act in porn and not being influenced to make that act part of real life.

I don't doubt that it could be a lot older - the domination of women and eroticizing of that dominance has been around for a very long time.

I'm not claiming that ejaculating on a women's face is abnormal. I'm saying it is rooted in misogyny.

I think what is being left out of this discussion (particularly when people start talking about female ejaculation and cunnilingus) is that women do not dominate men in wider society. Therefore a women ejaculating on a man is NOT an act eroticizing female supremacy. Whether individuals find this particular act degrading or not is another issue entirely.

This is why I keep banging on about politics.

We are in a feminist discussion area - otherwise I wouldn't go on about the politics of the whole thing. Feminist analysis looks at things as they occur within the context of male supremacy. In other words in a context of male dominance and female oppression that is widely considered to be a natural state of affairs and exists currently as a misogynistic status quo.

Now, people can of course ignore the feminist political perspective altogether and say 'I like this act, my partner does it with respect' - fine, great, lovely jubbly. But this individualistic approach is not feminist analysis. It is personal anecdote.

People may also of course disagree with the feminist analysis being presented here. Fine, great - disagreement and discussion thereof is what feminist discourse is all about. I just haven't seen any political argument that solidly de-constructs feminist analysis on this thread.

Feminist analysis considers that nothing happens in a vacuum - personal anecdote which ignores the wider social context of female oppression and male supremacy is attempting to discuss from within the confines of a social vacuum IMO.

As has been said before on this thread, I think what my feminist analysis is about is the fact that this act has become something that men expect as part of causal sex (ie not within the safety of a relationship with a longterm partner) and women are being socialized to not question that.

Yikes! Say I.

But Charborn you are saying it originated in 90s porn. I countered that. Now you're saying "well de Sade was a sadist" (no shit). So what's your point? That it didn't originate in 90s porn after all? Because you're confusing me.

The way you phrased your post sounded a lot like you were saying we're right, you're wrong. Sorry that I don't have the intellectual capacity to phrase what you said beyond naaa naaa naa naa. I have no desire to sit in an ivory tower to be honest and that's exactly what you were saying.

Do men expect it, Beachcomber? I know you seem to hate personal anecdote (which frankly is quite hard to avoid when it comes to sex - how else would we know anything about it?) but I have never had any casual sex where men expected to ejaculate on my face.

You say it's rooted in male domination. Why is it? Tell me exactly why it is, because I'm not necessarily buying that.

And you say that females ejaculating on males can never be about supremacy because men dominate women in society. To me, that's just a totally simplistic argument that ignores the experience of so many women. If we ever achieve equality, will female ejaculation then be seen as something that can be dominant?

Maybe we'll never find an answer here because we're just coming at things from a totally different perspective.

coming at things from a totally different perspective

great turn of phrase on this thread :)

I do agree that it is rooted in male dominance. I don't agree it is becoming expected.

Jesus, Charbon. You are extremely patrinising! I might have t get my mum on here :-) talk about thinking you have the monopoly on feminist thinking....

I don't 'hate' personal anecdote.

Personal anecdote is a perfectly valid type of data and basis for discussion - but it has limitations.

DH's grandmother is 84, in brilliant health, and has smoked heavily since she was 14. That doesn't mean that smoking is good for your health though.

I said that "a woman ejaculating on a man is NOT an act eroticizing female supremacy".

Female supremacy doesn't exist. It is impossible to eroticize it.

I am not ignoring the experience of many women by saying the above. I am observing a straightforward fact - the fact that we live in a patriarchal system, AKA male supremacy AKA male dominance.

Yes, I suppose a woman ejaculating on a man could be seen as an act of dominance if we lived in a female supremacy where women as a group oppressed men as a group through the means of violence (particularly sexual violence).

Anecdotal data has its limitations, but it forms the basis of all the social sciences as long as it has academic rigour regarding control samples and the analysis of other 'hard' data alongside it.

The point isn't particularly when this act originated, but when it started to enter our consciousness as an acceptable part of people's sexual repertoire. We know for a fact that this didn't feature in mainstream porn before the internet era because that analysis has been done. We know for a fact that it is now a feature in mainstream porn that is now freely available to the masses. Whether we or our partners consume internet porn or not, we cannot cocoon ourselves from its influence, or its effect on people's sex lives. It's been around for nearly two decades.

And this is the political issue.

Some of you believe that ejaculating on a woman's face was happening long before internet porn, but among those posters most seem to agree that regardless of that, it has been normalised by porn. Only one poster as far as I can see disagrees that this act is always depicted in porn as an act of degradation and humilation towards the female recipient, but also seems to acknowledge that in most porn, misogyny and degradation is the norm.

That's why it's political. Misogynist porn doesn't exist in a vacuum. It flourishes precisely because of patriarchy. Hence there can be no equivalence with female ejaculation or dominance. This act is predominantly packaged to consumers as degrading to women and since we don't live in a cocoon, some users will act it out in the way it is presented.

It doesn't matter how many posters insist that since their relationships are founded on mutual respect, this is not the situation for them personally. Those of us trying to engage on a political level are not concerned with private lives, but we are concerned when misogyny in the public domain starts to impact on the choices and expectations of women-as-a-group, not a small collective of individuals trying to uphold their liberterianism or relaxed attitudes to sex, accusing other women of being prudes in the process.

Put simply, this is not about you.

It's not about me either.

It's about society and especially women-as-a-group and the things that oppress rather than free. For every woman who makes a free and considered choice about what she enjoys sexually, there is another who feels oppressed by the weight of expectation, not just from men but from other women.

It's about them.

"It's about society and especially women-as-a-group and the things that oppress rather than free. For every woman who makes a free and considered choice about what she enjoys sexually, there is another who feels oppressed by the weight of expectation, not just from men but from other women.

It's about them."

Interesting point. But - and I do agree about porn not being without problems - but should the group of women who make free and considered choices have these choices taken away from them in order to free others from the oppression of expectations. Wouldn't that be oppression in itself?

This is not a troll, but a serious question. I'm interested in what solution you have for this conundrum.

Personally, I feel it is important that every woman and every man, every girl and every boy should be encouraged to only do what they feel they really want to do, free from peer pressure and pressure from their partners, whilst the individual choices they want to engage in should be respected and not taboo, or seen as oppressive to someone who wouldn't make that choice for themselves.

So what are you saying Charbon - that people should not engage in this practice because it is normalised by porn and by engaging in it you are further normalising it and therefore adding to the expectation upon other women to engage in it when they may not want to?

It isn't about taboo or stopping women from choosing to participate in acts.

It is about analysing the acts and the context in which they occur and are normalized and internalized.

Women can do what they like with that analysis. They can reject it, ignore it, disagree with it, etc.

But feminists think that analysis is worth doing.

But then what is the product of the anaylsis if there is no action to take?

beachcomber - see this is the thing which I just struggle to understand. What is the point of analysis without doing anything with the results? Without proposing any solution which would improve the status quo?

It also doesn't sound completely honest that "women can do whatever they like with that analysis" - as, just the phrasing of the analysis how it is being presented implies that women need to stop making choices for the sake of other women "it's about them". This impression isn't helped by sneering at "funfemproporns instead of proper radfems"

I appreciate that this quote wasn't by you - but I think it helps putting reaction to the analysis in context.

But I didn't say that nothing would be done as the result of feminist analysis.

I said that women can choose what they do with that analysis. Some will act some will not.

I don't really understand why this bothers people. Just a second ago some of you seemed annoyed by the notion that feminist analysis is 'oppressing because it takes choices away from women'. (I may be paraphrasing slightly)

Now I am saying that the point is not to remove choice but develop tools for making choices (one choice might be to reject those tools or disagree with them).

And that doesn't seem to please either because it is 'doing nothing'.

Most feminists don't do nothing with feminist analysis - they use it to try to make the world a fairer, safer place for women. They use it to help themselves take a step back from the paradigms of the status quo and to decide for themselves whether they wish to accept them or not.

But it is not compulsory - nobody is going to make you.

WidowWadman I can't see anything about funfemproporns on this thread - IIRC it is from another thread entirely. Perhaps best to take it up there eh?

I can find you plenty of posts on various MN threads with ad hominen about radical feminists but I don't really see what the relevance would be.

But this isn't about individual women's sexual choices, or taking those choices away from people who are making an informed decision within the parameters of their own relationships. I genuinely don't care about what consenting adults do within the privacy of their own lives, as long as that consent is freely given.

I do care about men and women feeling a societal pressure to do something in private that instinctively feels uncomfortable, or which might cause them physical pain. That for me is an example of a coerced choice and if society is exerting that pressure, it ceases to be personal and becomes political.

This isn't about men or women stopping something they personally find erotically beneficial, for the greater good of society. At a personal level though, it is about all of us refusing to put pressure on other people to make a different choice, by accusing them either overtly or covertly of prudishness or sexual repression, because they say 'no' to a sexual practice or practices. This applies equally to the pressure some women put on some men and the weight of pressure men especially feel to be up for any kind of sex at any time. It's about the pressure we put on our friends or relatives and yes even the pressure we exert on fellow internet sprites.

And for me it's about campaigning against the pressure exerted by the sex industry and challenging the notion that it is 'pro-sex' when its effect instead has been to repress sexuality and especially women's sexuality. That industry only exists in its current form because of the patriarchy, but I regard it not just as a symptom of it, but as a horribly embellished version of it, where women are forced to be the brutalised and men, the brutalisers. Campaigning against that industry and its pernicious influence on society is a direct action we can all take, alongside all the others that overturn patriarchical structures.

None of us lives in a vacuum and whether we like it or not, we are all influenced by what the masses can see for free on the unregulated medium that is the internet. I don't want to take away anyone's personal choices about the sex that they want to have. I do want to take away society's right to see images of women being tortured, abused or demeaned and to infer that those practices are acceptable and enjoyable to everyone.

Just as you or I have the right to do what we like in private, we need to observe the rights of other people to do what they want to do, without feeling pressure to do otherwise.

I'd see it as demeaning if the owner of the face wasn't willing (or expecting it). I don't think it particularly is when both partners are happy with it. Saying it's always demeaning, or has demeaning motives, involves the assumption that a man's ejaculate is somehow disgusting. I wouldn't call a woman's vaginal fluids disgusting, neither would I say spunk is.

I guess a large part of my question will remain unanswered. is it the norm in sex? I know for some people it appears to be the norm for them but in general i was surprised that my friend seemed to think it was happening in more than 5 out of 10 sexual relationships/encounters.

no way of knowing.

That's a really odd extrapolation.

IME it's got nothing to do with finding semen itself disgusting. It's often about preferring to encounter it in other ways than having it splattered over a face or in the eyes. Plenty of women are happy to welcome it in any or every other place, but not on their face or in their eyes.

OK, YF, I tried to stick to the absolutely general in my reply. As you may have guessed, though, I've enjoyed this particular practice more often than not. I can remember making a swift duck on a few occasions but, mostly, have encouraged it. I like(d) being able to see the ejaculation and, in a context of oral sex, it seemed natural. Whether the blokes were influenced by porn I have no idea, but I've never seen this act performed on film so I wasn't.