So much in society would improve if we removed the emphasis on PIV.

[AnnieLobeseder]

Now don't get me wrong, I like PIV sex and don't believe it's quite as dreadful as some others do. But I have been thinking about the opinions expressed on these boards about how damaging it can be, and I see the point.

I'm a long-term married women with a monogamous partner who as has a vasectomy. So the risks of STDs and pregnancy are much lower (hopefully zero!) than for a young single woman who may choose to take casual lovers. So while I may enjoy PIV with little risk, for that young single woman, the risks are much higher than for her partners.

Then there are teenagers. Teenage pregnancy can leave a young women with much lower future prospects than if she had children later in life, and quite often the father doesn't stay in the picture. The cause of this, quite obviously, is PIV. If young people, and even older people who still face risks of STDs and pregnancy, were taught that ALL sex is sex, not just penetration, then everyone could have a satisfying sex life without these risks.

If there were no such thing as virginity, young people could slowly progress from kissing to oral and other sex acts without the need for the one big moment where penetration occurs.

I'm not a man, so I'm not qualified to comment, but I have to wonder if a man's orgasm outside of a vagina is really such a runner-up prize to orgasm within a vagina. If there's not much difference, WTF is PIV such a big deal? Is it a societal thing? But it's so widespread across the world that it seems unlikely.

Is it because PIV allows a man to orgasm even if the woman is uncooperative? Whereas with other methods, eg hand or mouth, she needs to be willing?

Surely if we removed the emphasis from PIV being such a big deal, things would be so much better, from there being fewer unwanted pregnancies, to fewer women suffering health issues from STDs or pregnancies (and men would have fewer STDs too), to couples probably having a deeper and more fulfilling sex life as they found new and creative ways to pleasure each other.

Yes, I know that I'm preaching to the converted for the most part here, and pardon me while I just get my thoughts down in print.

The bottom line of what I was thinking is, surely it would be beneficial to target a campaign at teens, instead of suggesting abstinence or pushing condoms (or perhaps alongside), with the message that All Sex is Sex, and All Orgasms are Good Orgasms. Spark the idea in their mind that perhaps PIV isn't the be-all and end-all, and that it's not an ultimate goal that needs to be hit.

Am I making any sense?

And dolphins too, I believe

Or was that just something spread about during the Great Dolphin Craze of the early nineties?

I agree with Mini and Kritiq that to some extent with the proliferation of Internet porn PIV sex, for some teenagers, is actually seen as pretty vanilla. Anal sex, threesomes etc are becoming more mainstream replacing the naive fumblings of 20 years ago.

I think to some extent the holding onto virginity by performing oral sex was quite common amongst more academic and ambitious girls not wanting to risk a pregnancy or STD - many of my teenage friends did this until university.

I don't know how I would feel advising my teenage daughters to do this as I still can't get beyond wanting to tell them to do absolutely nothing with anyone until they are at least 25!

Those are all valid points, KRITIQ, and I guess for my little scenario to work, there would have to be an equal de-emphasis on PIV, and healthy dose of respect for women. The scenarios you describe are all still about sex dominated by the man, all about his pleasure, and no pleasure for the woman.

You also spoke about people engaging in other sex acts in order to avoid PIV. What I'm aiming at is for all sex acts to have equal validity as PIV, so that they're not seen as second best or a guilt-free alternative. No woman should be engaging in anal sex if they don't want to.

Men with no respect for women, and abusers, will cause damage no matter what sex acts are engaged in.

I was thinking more along the line of a mutually loving couple, where the boy really does love his partner and wants her to experience pleasure, and the girl really does want to be with him. But because they've both been brought up with the principle that "Sex is PIV", when they become sexually active, PIV is what they do, with the attendant use of condoms or hormonal contraceptives to avoid pregnancy. It just never really occurs to anyone to be happy with other "lesser" sex acts instead until they actually do want to conceive.

I guess what I'm really wondering, is how much of our focus on PIV is from nature, and how much is societal conditioning.

I hate the idea of oral sex, my crap wrist hates giving hand jobs, PIV seems fine to me.

Slightly selfish view there, StarBallBunny. I like it fine too, but I was making the argument from a broader viewpoint. So you think its okay that teenage girls get pressured into sex they don't want and end up with babies they don't want because you find oral sex yukky?

I definitely agree that what is considered the "norm" for sex now has changed from what it was say 20 years ago and I am convinced this is due to messages from porn, which is now far more accessible than it was, is easily accessed by quite young children and its high quality images "shape" their expectations of what sex entails and the content now involves far more varied acts, rarely actually culminating in PIV. As Emphatic says, that's considered pretty boring and old fashioned. What's worrying also is that the content of "mainstream" porn is dominated by scenarios involving violence, abuse, force and degradation of women.

As you say Annie, the scenarios in porn focus on men's pleasure, including gaining pleasure from deliberately humiliating and hurting women.

Both young men and young women are internalising these messages and are genuinely seeing this as "normal sex." When I was younger, at least I had some expectation that sex would be mutually pleasurable. Honestly, many young women seem to resign themselves to feeling "satisfied" in knowing they've given pleasure to a man or men, or that they'll get some other kind of "reward" for sex (e.g. phone credit, alcohol, drugs, acceptance, status in their peer group, whatever.)

I realise I'm digressing a bit here.

I do get that pregnancy can result from PIV and not other acts, but that doesn't apply if you are post menopausal or have been sterilised. Also, if you are actually TTC, you kind of have to go that route or opt for assisted conception.

I'm wondering if the big issue with PIV stems from the writings of some feminists of the 70's and 80's - thinking off hand of Andrea Dworkin, who's often been misquoted as suggesting that all PIV is rape. Is this perhaps taking that argument and pushing it to its furthest conclusion? If so, I think it's probably missing the point that those earlier feminists were trying to make. And, they probably never envisioned the imagery and messages of today's easily accessible porn and its impact both on wider culture and on the definition of "normal sex" for many people.

Another thought - might it be something of a stepping stone towards a political Lesbian ideal? If women feel no need to have PIV sex, then effectively, they might then feel no need for there to be a penis involved in their sexual relationships at all (nor a man connected to the penis.) This then would make it easier and more conscionable to eschew sexual/intimate relationships with men, who are identified with the oppressor class, at least under the most "strict" definitions of patriarchy.

I'm just trying to work out where it's coming from. I think it's got to be about more than just the risk of pregnancy. But, whatever the origins or rationale, I would be worried if feminists "forgot" about the other sexual acts that can be used to abuse and control women and/or indirectly appeared to be endorsing these by saying "there's more to sex than PIV," without thinking of the potential consequences.

I think it would be great if there was less emphasis on it, but I don't know how this could be made to happen, I think there's too much history etc there for it to be possible (at the moment at least).

I think though there is a natural/hormonal draw to PI sex. Of course doing other stuff is nice and can be mutually satisfying, but at times you just want to be close in that particular way, I remember my cousin describing it to me when she had lost her virginity and I hadn't, that is was like wanting to be close to a person, really close to them, you cuddle and kiss them and that is good but then you want to be closer, so you get to cuddling skin on skin, and that is nice as well and fulfils it for a while and then you just get to this point where you need/want to be even closer to them and that's when PIV sex comes into it and it does fulfil this need (am talking about mutual, loving, comfortable pace sex here, obv) and it's kind of... I don't know, overwhelming (in a nice way!) when you first discover that and how it feels and how it helps you feel closer to a person. I think about this every so often and I think it's something you forget as you get older and PIV is just normal and not a big deal any more and you don't feel this need to be "so close we're almost one" any more because you know you can get that feeling any time you want, it sort of becomes an unconscious feeling/need rather than a more conscious thought process.

It probably doesn't work quite the same for some sex positions but I think the face-to-face full bodies touching part is important too and it's harder to get this with other things. So while I think that it's importance could be diminished I think that for most people it's never going to become something which is only used for procreation. I know I'd miss it too much!

I didn't know that sex is changing for young people, and apparently in a very worrying way. I have two DDs, 4 and 7, so this is one more thing to panic about for their future. I hope I'm raising them to respect themselves so they don't feel a need to please boys, and I'll certainly be giving them as thorough a sex education as I can.

Aaargh, it's things like this where women's rights and relative position to men is going backward that make me despair for the feminist cause. It really feels to me like after years of amazing progress, things are going rapidly downhill at the moment. How do we stop it and reverse the trend?

Honestly I don't think it's that different. The stuff I experienced in the mid 00s wasn't that different from what my mum experienced in the 70s. It's just that outside perceptions have changed the way we view things.

I have the answer here:

jezebel.com/5927470/how-a-womans-orgasm-can-save-a-man?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Kritiq, your posts are very interesting. What is your job, if it is ok to ask?
Also, what is the best way to educate girls about sex (I mean in the family, not at school)? thanks (worrying early - I've a 3 year old and a 1 year old)

Oral sex and anal sex without condoms/dental dams can be very risky, oral/throat and anal cancers are on the rise due to HPV infection, especially for men regarding oral cancer - I assume girls are now protected against those as well as cervical cancers due to HPV innoculations, so the question is, should boys also have the jab?

I doubt that PIV sex is seen as the ultimate any more, the focus in porn seems to be on everything but , certainly male orgasm is never shown in it's normal place of in a vagina , I remember seeing Dara OBrain saying that young men will have no idea of how to get a woman pregnant when all they see is men ejaculating anywhere but the proper place .

What's PIV?

Penis In Vagina.

Old style sex as opposed to the modern variations.

I agree with the op post, I want to live in such a world. Where a male partner would ask me what I was into instead of assuming standard hetero porn sex.
I'm really worried about how all the work towards better (hetero) sexual relations during the second wave or whatever, for mutuality, clitoris info (HELLO IT EXISTS and is important) etc is being erased by internet porn. Now young men are learning that sex= for men's pleasure, mainly about penetration, and/or a service women provide. Like how there has been talk about how girls are expected to give oral sex to boys...blowjobs. Job. There is no such a word for cunnilingus. (Not that I?d want there to be -?job? certainly takes the sensuality out of any sex) The boys are not expected to provide it, in fact, not expected to provide the girls with any pleasure in return.

I say the number one thing that must be done is to teach boys about empathy and mutuality. That sex should actually be erotic not some service or power thing. And of course, real info about female bodies and pleasure.
Teaching girls to say no to things they don't want is one thing, but something must really be done with boys.

Thanks tel. I hate acronyms.

The idea that women enjoy the sensual and the erotic, the romantic and the lovingly affectionate has been taken up by the radicals and lesbian separatists, many who would say that only women understand what women want. This seems to ignore the lesbian BDSM brigade and imply all women want the same thing. Just a thought.

I really wish growing up I had been given the idea that sex with a man did not equal PIV. I was told I had a choice to have sex with a man or not, but that sex was PIV. Until mumsnet I had never come across women with male partners who did not have PIV. I think the message that sex equals PIV, means that many women dont feel they have a choice to have a sex life without PIV at all. I know it didn't even occur to me that this was a choice.

I say the number one thing that must be done is to teach boys about empathy and mutuality. That sex should actually be erotic

Cardgames has a very good point. I read a paper the other day which was arguing (based on interview trnascripts with teenagers) that sex ed needed to be much more emotionally and positively focused as all the risk-based sex ed was just not connecting with teens and also was at odds with the rules they held for themselves. (No use telling girls to carry condoms if that's seen as unacceptable by their peers!)

The authors did talk about all teens enjoying the emotional side to relationships and made me think that talking to them about how mutuality, communication and trust can really enhance both the emotional and physical enjoyment.

OP - you are seriously overthinking this. It is not society that emphasises vaginal sex - it is not a cultural construct. It is a very basic human biological urge.

OP - you are seriously overthinking this. It is not society that emphasises vaginal sex - it is not a cultural construct. It is a very basic human biological urge

Even a pre-human biological urge. The vast majority of women like PIV sex due to this, and it is not going to change anytime soon.

AnnieLobeseder
"Then there are teenagers. Teenage pregnancy can leave a young women with much lower future prospects than if she had children later in life, and quite often the father doesn't stay in the picture.The cause of this, quite obviously, is PIV."

Funny, I thought for the most part it was feckless chavs not using contraception. Now I realize it's all the boys' and their dirty penis' fault...

Here's some casual advice: the only place men are going to stop using their penises for the thing which they evolved to do over the last few hundred millions of years is in feminist la-la land. Promoting the use of appropriate contraception and/or vaccination is far more likely to be successful in resolving the issues you raise.

Whatmeworry - Actually read a national survey with women on their sex lives - it claimed to be the largest ever. It found that women reported having orgasms much more frequently from other kinds of sex than from PIV. Women may like PIV - although not all do, but the female body is actually designed to get greatest pleasure from other types of sex, It is one of the reasons scientists can't really figure out why women do have a clitoris as there seems to be no evolutionary advantage at all.

Women aren't reporting orgasms from PIV sex because they are full of societal neuroses that prevent them letting go during sex, not because they aren't biologically designed to have orgasms during PIV sex. Chances of conception are greatly increased if a woman has an orgasm with or close to her partner during penetrative sex.

'Women aren't reporting orgasms from PIV sex because they are full of societal neuroses that prevent them letting go during sex, not because they aren't biologically designed to have orgasms during PIV sex.'

Gosh... do you have any scientific evidence to back this up?