The Feminist Pub is Open - Chat, Rant, or pull up a chair here!

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

This thread started when we all decided to imagine what the perfect local for feminists would be like. So far, it has taps with plenty of good real ale, and some decent non-alcoholic alternatives too. There are comfy chairs and there's a feminist film night, as well as lots of nice feminist-friendly books on the shelves and space to curl up and read. The open-mic nights are attracting feminist singers and comedians, and we're just sorting out the feminist creche.

Please come along, draw up a stool, and have a good chat about whatever you fancy - as serious or as trivial as you like.

For starters, I have a half-pint of lemonade. What can I get anyone?

I was almost here demanding drink at 9am
Had I only know that there was coffee and cake, I certainly would've been here .

That passage from the Handmaiden's Tale is really interesting wrt to consent, isn't it? Not sure what your average, maybe not-yet-sexually active girl would make of it. I think I was simply ...

Wrt wanting/needing to impress teeaged boys: I think the single most important thing is to give girls (and boys!) a strong sense of self-worth and self-esteem and to tell them outright that it is ok to not be sexually active before YOU actually want to be and that they are more than their body parts.

I really, really worry about on-line porn and how easily really horrible stuff is accessible free of charge and without necessarily looking for it. I am no prude and don't think that seeing naked bodies doing things together that they both enjoy would damage by precious offspring (I do have an issue with porn as an industry but that's another story), but I don't want my boys to grow up with the idea that rough, degrading sex with passive partner is the norm .

Penguins congrats

Maybe chocolate coated almonds would do the trick?

Yes please bunny

A bourbon that is.

Thanks for the congratulations.

Pacific - Yes, it is an interesting passage. I don't think I would have been able to really follow the thought process through on consent as a teenager. I recognise that she had limited choices given Gilead and the other options, but I don't think I'd have joined the dots to current society the way I would today. The thing I remember being most struck by was the sort of disengagement from her own body Offred is displaying.

Which kind of links back to your point about porn. I worry about my young DD's and what the sexual environment might be as they get older. There seems to be so much pressure on young women these days to automatically leap into behaving like a porn star - threesomes, anal, blow jobs for just about anyone - when they have very little actual sexual experience. No building up to experimentation you might fancy after years with a trusted partner. As a teenager of the 90s, the boys had seen porn mags, maybe the odd video, but nothing like the plethora of material they see now. And they think it is normal. Normal. That that kind of 'take it passively in every orifice and groan in ecstasy at a tweaked nipple' stuff is how sexuality is. It must take enormous disengagement from your own body for the average woman to routinely behave that way. Not saying that there aren't some women for whom that represents their sexuality. But I'm willing to bet that they are a fairly small minority.

bourbons all round.

pacific you can arm teenager with all the self esteem in the world, but it's also a question of what she and her partner understands sex to be.

I'm late 20s now and don't think my shagging days were anything like as influenced by porn as it is now for younger people. So it's difficult for me to gauge how much modern porn seeps into the bedroom. I slept with a guy once who had clearly seen far too much porn and it was a terrible experience, but thankfully a rare one in my day . In 2013 I imagine a lot of younger women than myself are having a lot of very rubbish, demeaning sex.

I guess my generation and above were, for the most, part already sexually experienced before they saw any brutal hardcore porn, so we know that that's not how sex really is. But this generation are seeing it before they experience it. Along with arming them with high self esteem, making them understand that it's so far from what sex is really about is important. Not sure how easy that is in practice.

Penguins I have a DS and a DD. they are both very small but I already worry about the influence on them as they grow up. I agree with what you said there.
Not sure how to anage it tbh they're not even in school yet

Another Chablis please bar woman. Is it a woman? Or a man?

It's a bar woman tonight. Reporting for duty.

Let's have a good chat tonight.

The porn debate is just depressing. And I agree with bunny - it is changing so fast.

Chablis sounds nice - make mine a large one.

The porn thing is depressing - I know a woman who is sure her marriage broke up because of it. He expected her to act it out in the bedroom and called her a bad wife if she didn't come up to scratch.

I can't remember who it was on here who said the answer is to tell your boys that if they watch porn it will make them crap in bed with real women, so don't watch it. I think I'll go for that one

Oh, I'll have a Slippery Nipple. Or a Shag At The Beach...

I hate that kind of innuendo or I suppose it's not actually innuendo, is it? It's a (v small part) of gradual but accelerating pornification of life.

Sorry, I'll stop. 'Tis a subject dear to my heart. My boys are too young to have seen porn yet, but my 5 year old has been heard to use 'cunt' as a swear word and my 9 year old refers to his 'tits' (he has moobs ).

I'll have Campari on the Rocks.
My getting drunk drink. Doesn't take much these days.

Good evening. What a busy day. Am tired... I need a drink or three. Not sure what. A cup of strong milky tea with 3 cloves in it. That's always nice. Has anyone else tried it?

Ooh, hello! Keep me a seat! I've just got to finish my lesson planning for scary new job tomorrow

Saving a seat for yoni (that could sound so wrong).

upto - I have milky tea with cardamom in, and I love that. But then I love cardamom in most things.

Oh - can I ask you lot something, and you can snigger if you will. My mate told me that drinking a spoonful of vinegar in hot water is meant to help regularise your periods. True? False? Witchcraft?

LRD, my mum swears on vinegar in hot water to regulate her bowels!

Maybe it is just one of those 'it tastes shit, it must be doing summat' remedies?!

But cardamom in tea is lovely. In fact, the best thing ever is full cream milk, heated slowly with cardamom in it. Delicious. You can also grind it in with coffee.

Ah, the spirit of enquiry is a different thing. It's rum macerated with cardamom pods.

Now that's interesting.

But I can't have any

I'm pregnant! hurray!

Oh! How lovely.

Congratulations!

So when are you due? Can I bombard you with questions?

Yes, bombard away! I'm bursting about it really

Due the very end of May, so early days yet.
My third, please God, all going well

Congratulations sinistersal

But....but.... you're a feminist, and you had sex...? I thought we were all man-hating, sex-hating prudes?

(non-alcoholic of course)

Well, yep, that's pretty much the bombarding done!

Glad you are feeling well.

So can we pour you a glass of something non-alcoholic to celebrate the advent of a feminist baby?

Is it first baby sinister?