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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Depressing report - anal sex in under 18s

358 replies

noblegiraffe · 19/08/2014 17:45

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/4/8/e004996.full

The link goes into much more detail but the gist is:

"First, some men's narratives suggested that mutuality and consent for anal sex were not always a priority for them. Interviewees often spoke casually about penetration where women were likely to be hurt or coerced (“you can rip 'em if you try and force anal sex”; “you just keep going till they get fed up and let you do it anyway”), suggesting that not only do they expect coercion to be part of anal sex (in general, even if not for themselves personally), but that many of them accept or at least do not explicitly challenge it. Some events, particularly the ‘accidental’ penetration reported by some interviewees, were ambiguous in terms of whether or not they would be classed as rape (ie, non-consensual penetration), but we know from Jack's interview that ‘accidents’ may happen on purpose.

Second, women being badgered for anal sex appears to be considered normal.

Third, the commonly circulating ideas that ‘everyone’ enjoys it, and that women who do not are either flawed or simply keeping their enjoyment secret, help support the erroneous idea that a man pushing for anal sex is simply ‘persuading’ his partner to do something that ‘most girls would like’. Even Alicia's narrative contains some of the apparently coercive features of anal sex that other women report in negative terms, despite Alicia reporting enjoying anal sex.

Fourth, anal sex today appears to be a marker of (hetero)sexual achievement or experience, particularly for men.18 The society which our interviewees inhabit seems to reward men for sexual experience per se (‘every hole's a goal’) and, to some extent, rewards women for compliance with sexually ‘adventurous’ acts (enjoyment signifying not being naive, unrelaxed, etc), although women must balance this with the risk to their reputation. Women may also be under pressure to appear to enjoy or choose certain sexual practices: Gill describes a ‘postfeminist sensibility’ in contemporary media, where women are expected to present themselves as having chosen behaviours that conform to a stereotype of heterosexual male fantasy.24 The common portrayal of anal heterosex in terms of men breaking women's resistance can be compared with narratives about first vaginal intercourse25 and perhaps have superseded them to some degree in the British context where premarital vaginal intercourse is considered normal and so perhaps less of a ‘conquest’.

Fifth, many men do not express concern about possible pain for women, viewing it as inevitable. Less painful techniques (such as slower penetration) were rarely discussed."

OP posts:
CaptChaos · 21/08/2014 10:52

gussie I think your friend's approach was entirely brilliant.

PacificDogwood · 21/08/2014 10:56

gussie, I am taking parenting note here although I'd rather never sit through that, coward that I am.

The problem with teaching values is that everybody's values are different and parents to get v offended if whatever is being taught is not in keeping with theirs.
That's why I think it should go back to the basics of human interaction: teach consideration, respect, treading carefully and with kindness.

I absolutely think that abstinence should be an option, but it needs spelling out: "It is ok to not want full-on sex" or in fact any sexual contact.
I thought kissing with tongues was really horrible aged 15, for instance, so why do it?!

Consent is a really important thing to be taught, meaningful consent. IMO when it's right, all parties know it's right. When it's not right the onus needs to be on the male to make it right, even if that means backing off, poor thing… Hmm

JohnFarleysRuskin · 21/08/2014 11:05

Don't most young people know about consent? It's kind of obvious.

Did you bother reading the article being discussed or not? I'm going to guess not.

HolidayPackingIsHardWork · 21/08/2014 11:05

The problem with teaching values is that everybody's values are different and parents to get v offended if whatever is being taught is not in keeping with theirs.

YY

This is how well meaning sex ed lessons can turn into a how to manual that seems to suggest everyone should be brave and go for it!

JustTheRightBullets · 21/08/2014 11:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WhatWitchcraftIsThis · 21/08/2014 12:14

I am amazed at the mother who watched the porn with her son. That's some hard ass parenting, I hope I'd have it in me to do the same, but suspect I couldn't face it.

I think when the times comes I will explain to my sons that the majority of times anal sex is painful for women. That it is often dangerous and can even cause a prolapse. I'll get as graphic (possibly show pictures) as I can. Also, (and I hope this won't need spelling to them, but I absolutely will spell it out anyway) that if you love someone you want them to feel good and them "proving" their devotion in a way that causes them any kind of emotional or physical comfort is abusive and shitty.

DD I will make sure she realizes the risks involved and that if a boy asks her to do she should explain the risks and that if he still thinks she should do it he is a nasty abusive piece of shit and that sex won't be fun with him and it will be painful and dangerous.

I can't imagine knowing my daughter could be pushed in to that sort of thing and I am almost as horrified by the fact that my sons could become those kind of men. It scares the hell of me.

KneeQuestion · 21/08/2014 14:00

Anal sex carries risks far greater than vaginal sex or oral sex. Vaginal sex rarely causes fecal incontinence, anal sex often does if practiced often enough, so I hope you're keeping up with your PFEs most, or in the not too distant, you'll be crapping yourself, literally. Boys who know it's going to hurt, really aren't going to give a shit if it actually does, so maybe some educational pictures for both girls and boys showing such delights as anal fissures, complete rectal prolapse and even some incomplete ones might put them off. Telling them the risks of rectal tears might be good as well, you can get some truly amazing infections from them

Thats bollocks.

WhatWitchcraftIsThis · 21/08/2014 14:05

Is it?

CaptChaos · 21/08/2014 14:08

No, it isn't.

WhatWitchcraftIsThis · 21/08/2014 14:13

Are you sure captain? Because knee said it was bollocks. They didn't follow through with any evidence or information and google and every medical website on the internet seems to disagree with them. But maybe it is bollocks and we're all wrong.

CaptChaos · 21/08/2014 14:17

Yes, silly me.

I might have been slightly incorrect on the complete rectal prolapse, you would have to be very unlucky or work in porn to get that through anal sex. It's more likely in fisting and similar sexual practices.

Everything else is spot on.

ClaudetteWyms · 21/08/2014 14:57

Thank you for this thread, I have been lurking but kind of too horrified to post. The report linked to in the OP is so depressing. I have a 6 year old DD and this kind of thing makes me terrified for her.

This is absolutely about porn, and about boys finding new ways to dominate and hurt girls. We've had the sexual revolution, women were enjoying sex just a little too much on their own terms, let's find a way to put them in their place again Sad

When sex ed kicks in at school I am going to be a v annoying parent, making sure school teaches about saying no, self respect, consent, and the difference between consent and coercion etc. DD is obviously a bit young at the moment but I will be doing all this at home as well.

CKDexterHaven · 21/08/2014 15:25

Well now sex with anal prolapses (rosebudding) has become a feature of porn maybe that will become the new normal as well. Maybe women will get their anal prolapse repaired in the same way they get botox and leg-waxes and breast-lifts.

The problem is anal sex is old hat. Ass-to-mouth is yesterday's news. Even gangs of men strangling barely legals as they fuck them in every orifice is boring now. Men's boredom threshold for porn is pushing it from extreme to extreme, so what are the children of today going to be expected to do when they are teens?

DownstairsMixUp · 21/08/2014 15:50

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request.

WhatWitchcraftIsThis · 21/08/2014 15:58

CXDexter, if porn doesn't get dealt with it will permeate every second of our children's lives. Full vulva and anus waxing is now expected... anal bleaching is "joked around about" but that's where waxing was a decade ago. I fully expect anal bleaching to be expected as part of a grooming routine for girls any day now. And then they will argue that they just love the way it makes their anus feel fresh and there is no societal pressure whatsoever. I'm American and it was the "norm" when I was in school to get breast implants while still in school. Real breasts will look as foreign to a teenage boy as a hairy vag does now.

CoteDAzur · 21/08/2014 23:30

OP's report is a sobering read. Attitudes towards sex have changed towards the more violent and extreme in the last 15 years or so, and I am not surprised by the correlation with the ready availability and extremity of online porn. However, I am surprised and saddened by the apparent 'normalcy' of sexual violence, coercion, and even violation among today's youth.

I'm happy to wave away threesomes, gangbangs, or anal sex as consenting adults doing what they like to do, but have been worried for some time about the popularity of "punishment" and even "rape" themes in porn. I worry about my DC growing up in a world where young men get off on watching a young woman crying out "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" as she is being pounded.

"Lessons about consent start at home. They start with not making your DC kiss grandma if they don't want to."

Very good observation.

weatherall · 22/08/2014 08:58

This is so depressing.

How can I protect my DCs?

I talk to my 11yo about sex and porn (he saw some at a sleepover party). Hopefully I can have enough of an influence for him to learn about consent and coercion and normal women's bodies.

My dd, how can I protect her without hiding her away?

FairPhyllis · 22/08/2014 12:52

Perhaps this is being utterly naive but shouldn't you be on fairly thin ice legally if you injure your partner as a result of anal sex (even if it was consensual) and you should have reasonably known that they would be hurt by it? (And it seems from the report that most men do expect it to hurt a woman)

Hospitals have a role to play here. If they are seeing rectal injuries as a result of anal sex increasing, they should be calling the police. It doesn't matter whether the sex was consensual or not - you can't consent to harm against yourself.

SevenZarkSeven · 22/08/2014 13:01

I think you probably can consent to harm to a certain extent can't you? In lots of things not just sex. In some things you consent to risk of harm. Don't know. Anyone else got ideas? I really can't see it being reported by hospitals unless other factors like underage etc

CaptChaos · 22/08/2014 13:22

You can consent to a certain level of harm to yourself, even if it a bit of a grey area. Otherwise, BDSM clubs and similar wouldn't be able to operate.

FairPhyllis · 22/08/2014 14:41

Yes - it is a grey area. But I thought that consent could not be a defence to ABH or GBH, which is presumably what some of these injuries amount to.

CKDexterHaven · 22/08/2014 14:55

I've seen rape cases where a woman has been raped by a stranger in the street and hospitalised with her injuries and yet the rapist has been able to claim 'she consented to sex and she liked it rough'. I don't hold out much hope for successful convictions for damage inflicted during consensual anal sex.

PenguinsIsSleepDeprived · 22/08/2014 14:56

There is a whole body of case law on this that we studied at uni. 15 years agoShock .

There was a definite thread of homophobia at that time. Women being able to consent to husbands branding them but not men nailing one another to planks of wood iirc. Don't know what the status is now.

gussiegrips · 22/08/2014 17:49

branding and nailing?

Please tell me these are euphemisms for something.

I'm so dull. Thank goodness.

gussiegrips · 22/08/2014 17:52

Been thinking about the consent thing.

It's really coercion that's worrying me. If young men badger and harangue women into consenting, well, do they believe that's actually consent?

Do young people get any prompting to consider the difference between "yes" and "yes under duress"?