Radical feminism and PIV

[EatsBrainsAndLeaves]

Hi just wanted to ask radical feminists and their allies their views of piv sex, I have no one I can ask in RL about this.

I can understand why PIV sex is inherently unsafe and that viewing PIV sex as the goal of sex is misogynous. But I really can't fathom the view that PIV sex is inherently abusive. Can anyone explain it very very basically? And do all radical feminists think PIV sex is inherently abusive?

Thanks

I rarely post here (I mostly lurk) but I do find radfem theory to be fascinating. I can understand why PIV is seen to be more risky for women than men. I can understand why many radfem see PIV as an abuse.

What I can't understand is why so many people post here to mainly derail threads and also I can't understand why (semi) educated posters, both male and female, can't get their heads around the very basic fact that sex shouldn't just be purely PIV however that is the general perception in society. It is the mainstream perception of many forms of pop culture and for that I am thankful that people are questioning this.

Plenty of women choose to celibate. Many are gay. Some are married but don't have sex and some are married adn have sex but not penetrative sex. Obviously on musmnet most peopleare married with chidlren (although there are actually quite a lot who don't have much sex in marriage because they have babies - see many many other threads about no sex in marriage on here).

So it is wrong to assume just about every woman is having and choosing to have penetrative sex with a man for a start. Plenty of course once their men are older and particularly ilf they are fat or ill find even if they wanted it erectile dysfunction has set in and they can't have it with that man even if they want it so either have to give it up or find a lover.

Those who do choose to that's fine, they can but that doesn't mean people who feel the act is more trouble than it's worth can't express their views.

I am not sure if there is anyone on here who avoids penetrative sex on principle so it can only be debated from a theoretical point of view. I can see all the disadvantages to many women from sex of course. It causes them to bond with the person they are with which means they are hurt when he leaves either the next day, in 5 minutes or in 10 years although that's not the positive way most of us look on life. Across much of the planet it means you're left hlding the baby whilst he swans off doing just about nothing except impregnating a heap of other women like Genghis Khan.

Then there are the issues that women tend to be aroused clitorally not through penetrative sex so that the act in theory might be pretty pointless from a female satisfaction point of view.

Mess, STDs, unwanted babies...

if we carry on like this we'll be forming our own convent which is what women used to do in the 1500s in the UK if they wanted to avoid the whole wretched business.... Laughing as I type and throwing away the key to the chastity belt.

i'm not sure about the details but somewhere in the 40's a whole regiment of italian soldeirs were exposed to a sort of nerve gas, it made them all impotent, over the following few years their wives divorced them in their hundreds.

clearly it's an individual choice, xenia, many women may prefer clitoral arousal over PIV, many marrages are sexless for a variety of reasons.but 'PIV critical" appears to be more than a personal choice though, it seems to me like it's a , (fairly haphazzard,) ideology. google PIV critical and you get plenty of hits, it's a movement. and thats why were talking about it, if it wasnt a movement, it would simply be a case of saying, "if you dont like PIV dont do it".

kritiq I agree with what you are saying. Yes there is lots of pressure on teenage girls these days to engage in all sorts of sexual practices that are not piv and are carried out in an inherently abusive way.

I think the ease of access to pornography and the kind of things teenagers watch, are having a radical influence on young people's sexuality and in what is seen as "normal" sex.

Yes, and the more I think of it, we live in a very different world now than when Andrea Dworkin wrote Intercourse 25 years or so ago, (which many see as sparking the discussion on whether PIV is inherently abusive.) Porn was either print or on film and accessed either by buying in a shop, purchasing mail order or viewing in a cinema. Now, it's readily accessible via the internet and mobile devices discretely and free. Children either had to steal or get an older friend to purchase it. Now, it's easier to get hold of than cigarettes. Depictions of sexual activities that then would have been seen as hard core, extreme and not so easy to get hold of now feature regularly in mainstream porn. And now, we see a strong influence from the images and messages of porn throughout popular culture, from music videos to car adverts.

So perhaps similarly, the fixation on PIV being the problem in and of itself fails to recognise that "sexual norms and practices" have moved into a whole different landscape now. Continuing to focus on this could, imho, indirectly legitimise non PIV practices which can be just as abusive and damaging and miss that wider problem - that within patriarchy, men as a group are seen as entitled to sexual services of women, even where this may be abusive, controlling, exploitative and physically and/or psychologically harmful to women.

I don't think it's wrong to concentrate on that because that is where the greatest risk lies . However I agree that people of either sex need to be warned they should not be coerced into acts they don't want of course.

However the converse of this is that we also shouldn't say girls cannot have as much sex and boys and need to be protected. Girl as precious virginal madonna or else whore is used by many cultures and religions to keep women down and deny them the expression of their own sexuality. "Protection" of girls often can involve just as much abuse - FMG, the burka and chastity vows as much controls and damages teenage girls as does feeling pressured as KRIT describes.

Xenia, I'd go even further to say that the purpose and outcome of societal rules and traditions that restrict young women's sexuality (e.g. body covering, requirement of virginity for marriage, ostracising pregnant or sexually active girls - still practiced elsewhere, commonly practiced in the UK even 50 years back,) are just the same as sexualisation.

It's about conformity. It's about control. It's about maintaining collective male "ownership" of young women's bodies and how they use them.

With a burkha or a promise ring, the conformity and control is pretty obvious. What is devious, however, is that in our current "modern" society, there is just as much pressure for young women to conform to specific modes of dress, specific sexual practices that facilitate male control of women. What's more sinister though, is these are dressed up as "free choice" and even as "liberating" for the women involved. But, how much really is choice? What's worse, if you aren't "happy" with the outcome of your "choice," (e.g. sti, pregnancy, shame of nude photos of you splashed over the web, rape, etc.,) then it's tough, because after all, you CHOSE it.

Conformity and control with the illusion of choice is still conformity and control.

Interesting discussion and of course PIV involves risks. But I can't help thinking that it isn't so much what you put where that is inherently abusive but that it is an expectation that it is "normal" that females should perform whatever acts are demanded, as per Kritiq's point about e.g. blow jobs.

It's the entitlement that is inherently abuse - to me anyway.

I still prefer when there is a "choice" even if the choice comes about through conditioning than being in say Saudi where you are not even allowed to drive if you are female. Obviously I hope parents can educate children so they take reasonably free choices whatever the parental prejudice or view and guide when the parent thinks the child's view is objectively wrong.

I suspect we are not too much in a culture in the UK where women perform sex when demanded. I suspect it's quite the converse in most situations which is why men on the whole find it quite hard to get sex and women can probably have it 5 times a day from various men if they wanted it. Women say no rather a lot.

Xenia, I think we may have to agree to disagree on your last paragraph. Having said that, I'm speaking more in the context of girls and young women - the "next generation" of women, so to speak.

"Hook Up" sex is a common practice amongst university aged young people - where you go out with the expectation that you will have sex with someone, whether you like them or not. It's rude to refuse. You get yourself drunk or high enough so you can do it if you have to. If you really, really don't want to do it, you skip the bikini wax or leg shave because the only thing more humiliating than having sex with a man you can't stand is having any man see that you are hairy. It gives the "excuse" they need to be able to refuse.

I work with young women and girls who also don't believe they have the right to say no to sex - not just from boyfriends in committed relationships, but from boyfriends' friends and boys they hardly know. I posted this on a separate thread, but have a look at this NSPCC Report on Sexting and the extreme and constant pressure girls as young as 12 are under to take and share nude pictures or perform sex acts. It's become very, very normalised amongst both girls and boys that it's "just what you do."

Grimble - yes, I agree that it's the "entitlement" that is the source of abuse and that's what needs to be tackled, rather than prescribing specific sexual acts, if that makes sense.

I know that sounds like "guns don't kill, people kill," but I suppose it's the same principle.

Well there may be some vulnerable teenage girls who give sex to every man giong and you work with those, but I don't think the majority is in that category at all. I think girls can be incredibly assertive and say no. I have had 3 children at university recently and I know the culture there but I think clever girls at university certainly know how to say no if they want to,. Once you get beyond that gosh in general men are so keen to find someone to have sex with and women say no to them all the time. It is so bad that a good few men pay. Isn't that a constant male theme- how hard it can be to get sex? We need a man on the thread for this perhaps.

i'm a man
and yes, in teenage and 20's sex was all i thought about......girls diddnt have such a problem saying no back then

there were allways girls who slept around more than others but even they could say no, i mean they probobly liked the attention and a night might end up with sex but only because they said yes, this stuff about girls feeling they cant say no, thats all new as far as i can see, no meant no back in the 80's and 90's when i was young.
i really dont know what could have happend to change that state of affairs.

"It's the entitlement that is inherently abuse - to me anyway"

I don't understand what is meant by the term entitlement. It's a fact that no one has a right to have PIV with another person. It's about mutual consent, hence why rape is illegal. I think you're confusing entitlement with want.

In mainstream society kissing is also a large part of relationships and is expected to a degree. Is this inherently abusive? It does carry risk.

"What I can't understand is why so many people post here to mainly derail threads and also I can't understand why (semi) educated posters, both male and female, can't get their heads around the very basic fact that sex shouldn't just be purely PIV however that is the general perception in society."

With regards to the derailing, we are all still talking at PIV. I think possibly talking about camping might be more of a derailment.

The assumption that we are semi-educated is rather ridiculous as its not based on any kind of fact, you dont know what level of education any of us have.

i dont have any after 16 anyway, but you knew that from my spelling.

i wonder why derailing is such a crime, it's my guess that it's just a tool used to silence people. i think it's only natural that threads will evolve , people can still adress the op with there post, even if it has evolved.

I think you're confusing entitlement with want.

You reckon?

I think the biggest silencing tool is posting "this is a silencing term".

I think Kritiq is talking about the pressure that girls/young women feel that they can't say no. I can certainly assert to that when I was younger. In my peer group there was the idea that if you went so far, but then stopped you were a "pricktease" and that was a very bad thing to be, or that you were "frigid" which was even worse. Of course if you liked it too much you were a "slut" and then people just mocked you.

It's hard to grow up and be curious about sex whilst trying to sidestep all the reputation traps, and reputation is so important at that age, well any age I guess.

And that was before the whole mad media sexualization went rampant so I can't imagine what it's like now.

In my view girls are much more assertive and better at saying no (when they want to). the fact they may want to say no less than when they risked pregnancy is wonderful. I accept there will be some vulnerable girls who feel pressured but I don't feel it's the majority by any means and because I have 3 university age+ children I know quite a lot of people that age.

I agree with what you are saying messy and am all for sending out the message that penetration isn't the be all and end all of sex.

What I find worrisome is if you go from the positive message "sex can be great fun without penetration, so there's no need to hide the sausage everytime, and anyway, not wanting to have penetrative sex doesn't mean there's something wrong with you" to the negative message "penetrative sex is wrong and dangerous and bad for you, avoid it at all costs"

There should be a balance. People should be encouraged to explore their sexuality whilst keeping safe, and that includes trying out things as well as saying "uh, no, I don't fancy that" or "no, not in the mood tonight, sorry".

And what is important, is that this is promoted to people of all sexes.

Is it me or does PIV automatically characterise the penis as the active "do-er" and the vagina as the passive recipient. Why is it never VAP - vagina around penis sex?