teenage girls under massive pressure to do anal :(

[GinAndSonic]

Article may upset some people. Saw this www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/11554595/Pornography-has-changed-the-landscape-of-adolescence-beyond-all-recognition.html in chat and thought it was something important to discuss, in particular this about teenages and anal Sex - "Moreover, both genders expected males to find pleasure in the act whereas females were mostly expected to “endure the negative aspects such as pain or a damaged reputation”."

Im not surprised by this sadly, as i was anally raped by my boyfriend as a teen over 10 years ago and pornification is only getting worse. What can we do, other thab talk to our kids? Can we do anything on a bigger scale to fix the problem, not just try to help our kids survive the shit storm?

If you feel rejected as a person because your partner doesn't want to do a particular sex act, then you need to resolve your own issues. Because they are your issues.

Anal sex is not what the body is designed for, often people that practice this will end up with incontanance of faeces problems later on in life, there is a risk also of a rectal prolapse. The prostate gland can be stimulated at other points on the mans anatomy, not just inside.

There is a wonderful feeling that comes from knowing your partner loves every inch of you and would happily suck your toes and anything else to give you pleasure. The implication of a lack of desire to do any particular thing is that you find that part of the other persons body unpalatable.

I heard this being discussed on Radio 4, probably months ago now. The researchers they had on had come to an even more depressing conclusion.

They said they had surveyed teenage boys and girls. The boys results were that they didn't actually think that girls did like it,nor did the boys tthemselves particularly enjoy the act either, but there was a lot of street cred in making a girl give in and do it. They were asked if they had ever successfully persuaded a girl to do something she didn't want to do and a high percentage said yes However, these same boys answered "No" to the question on whether they had ever raped or sexually abused someone. So there seemed to be a disconnect or misunderstanding of what rape and sexual abuse was.

Higgle, I don't agree at all. A person has the agency of their own body and chooses what to do with it. With me and my dh, for example, the feelings of love and acceptance that we have come from the fact that the sexual things we like to do, we do only with each other.

I'm very fond of penises, but the only one I choose to touch belongs to my husband. However, I don't want to, let's say, lick inside his nostrils, even though they're his. I know be explained that badly (!) but what I'm trying to show is that it works the other way round - exclusive acceptance but it necessarily total acceptance.

(Multiple phone typos, there!)

I don't think I'll ever understand why you would get pleasure from your partner doing something they don't want to do. I literally cannot fathom how I would enjoy a sex act knowing full well DP wasn't enjoying himself too.

My DP loves every inch of my insides. That's the bit that matters to me. I don't really care whether he loves the little toe on my left foot.

Back to the main point - this is ANOTHER reason we need proper sex education in schools. Most sex ed is (as far as I can tell) about scare tactics - you might get pregnant / STIs, or is about relationships in general. But it doesn't really discuss healthy sexual relationships (possibly due to daily mail headlines about schools encouraging teens to have sex?!)

No one would want their partner to do anything they didn't want to do, but for myself there is no true compatability that would make a permanent relationship viable without total physical acceptance on both sides. Fortunately that is not a problem I have had in the last 30 years :-)

This is the crucial bit of that article

"I’m afraid things are much worse than people suspect.” In recent years, Sue had treated growing numbers of teenage girls with internal injuries caused by frequent anal sex; not, as Sue found out, because she wanted to, or because she enjoyed it – on the contrary – but because a boy expected her to. “I’ll spare you the gruesome details,” said Sue, “but these girls are very young and slight and their bodies are simply not designed for that.”

What the hell is society about when its girls are expected to do something that damages them internally and causes incontinence (further down the article)?

I don't care what a few women say: it is deeply not normal to take part in an activity that can cause internal injuries and incontinence, never mind that it is deeply not normal to do it not because you want but because some teenage boy fancies shoving his cock where it isn't wanted.

We need to crack down hard on boys who have this attitude that they are entitled to do this. Why the hell is it always a girl's responsibility to be a gatekeeper? Although we need somehow to also instil in girls that it doesn't matter what the boy wants. It is just not important. It is your body and your decision and if he still thinks its OK dump him - he's a total loser.

I admit I am so baffled why girls feel the constant need to please boys - surely girls now can't be so different to me and my friends where the response would have been "fuck off sunshine". And if they are so different today then society is indeed "broken" as the politicos like to say.

Oh and girls could also try what the writer recommends i.e. you first mate, while wielding an extremely large dildo. Net that would make male enthusiasm wane...

Not in my case it didn't.

Education is what is needed - to teach what consent really means.

If two people want to have anal sex, that is their business, but it must be completely consentual, where both people fully understand what they are doing and have agreed to it without any manipulation or coercion.

Someone else's definition of what is 'normal' does not mean that things that fall outside that definition are wrong. We don't all have to stick to the same as what the majority of other people choose to do.

Consent is what matters. People need to understand that they must seek and give consent when they want to do something sexual with someone else, and that consent must be freely given. If it isn't, then that act becomes abusive.

I agree with both of the "opposing" arguments about not wanting to do a particular sexual act; no, I would not enjoy someone doing something with me that they didn't also enjoy. But also, if they point blank "didn't do" certain things that I personally really really enjoy, then I would consider us not sexually compatible- so yes, that is a rejection of sorts, really.

"We need to crack down hard on boys who have this attitude that they are entitled to do this. Why the hell is it always a girl's responsibility to be a gatekeeper?" Completely agree.

I don't think girls nowadays are much different from my day. In my day the pressure was to give a BJ and I know a number of my friends did to avoid 'going the whole way'. The boundaries have been pushed to where the pressure is being applied (and I think that is a serious concern) but the pressure was always there.

I really don't think it is up to girls to have to resist pressure, but it is up to boys to stop applying that pressure.

" No one should be pressured into doing anything they are not comfortable with but sadly refusal of oral sex does make men and women feel rejected as a person."

Yep- that's always been a line men use to get women to do things they don't want to. "If you really loved me you would.........."

We need to teach our children- girls and boys - about bodily autonomy and consent.

And anyone who thinks porn does no harm should read this thread- and think on as my mil would say.

Meph

Higgle's attitude makes me think of those rather tiresome people who say "what do you mean, you've never wanted to try snails in a garlic and pomegranate jus?" or "well of course you really need to get into early monastic polyphony of the 14th century in Andalucia, because unless you can enjoy that you will never really feel connected to Bach.." Irritating in its competitive I'm-cooler-than-you-ness.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with having what I think of as a "prunes and custard" list (named after the incident when the deputy head at my infants school tried to force feed the 5-year-old me prunes and custard - let us just say she regretted it and did not try it twice). I have no desire to try anal. This doesn't mean I don't like sex, just that I have no desire to try anal. Nor does it mean that I haven't met the right sex god who could make anal work for me - any more than Michel Roux could make prunes and custard palatable for me. Sexual desires are arbitrary, and that's fine.

Of course what's damaging about turning sexual preferences into a "cooler than you" game of one-upmanship is that (infant school teachers aside) no one tries to force feed me prunes and custard, but sexual assault is a very real and terrible risk in women's lives. And neither "slut shaming" (what do you mean, you do anal, how could you?) or "prude shaming" (what do you mean, you wouldn't even try anal?) help a teenage girl being forced to have a form of sex she doesn't want and finds painful. The first entrenches the rape myth that says only virgins can be raped, and then only down dark alleys, and anything else is just "wrong signals". The second denies women agency and the right to decide what they want to do with their own bodies.

And there's ample evidence (for instanceBMJ article which I think people have linked to newspaper coverage of) to suggest girls are being coerced into sex they don't want, then find painful and physically damaging, by boys who are aware before the even that the girls don't want it and will find it painful... And that is an intolerable state of affairs and no amount of "but my sexual practices make me feel soooooo connnected to my partner" make that okay.

Someone else's definition of what is 'normal' does not mean that things that fall outside that definition are wrong. We don't all have to stick to the same as what the majority of other people choose to do.

I'm sorry but I disagree. In some cultures it is 'normal' to circumcise girls, it is not imho ok to do this, consented or otherwise. Some things just are not normal even if they are 'normal'. Having a cock up the arse on a regular basis is not normal. Our bodies are simply not designed to do this. As I said there is an increased risk of prolapsed rectum and incontinence.

It is very sad that this sexual act is becoming the norm.

We've been getting sex wrong as a species for a bloody long time. I think this whole topic is just further evidence of this.

LA. there isn't much there I'd disagree with you about. I found this thread on "last 15 minutes" and felt interested enough to post as my views are as valid as anyone else's, but I didn't notice it the thread was in the feminist section, which I and 90% of the other Mumsnet posters avoid like the plague because you can't say anything in this section without someone having a go. So, no one should do anything they don't want to , if you are with someone who doesn't like the same things as you it is unlikely to work out, and no one should feel ashamed of liking generally unpopular practices just because Radio 4 and the regular posters in "feminism" say so.

Pandora, please don't compare female genital mutulation with consenting adults enjoying sex, that's ridiculous. And noone 'designed' my body, thank you, so please stop judging people who enjoy sexual practices different to your own.

I ment to add, I do agree with regards to consent, however I would add that really consent in this case would need to include knowledge of what it can do to the body. I don't think many young girls/women know until it is too late the damage it can inflict on the body.

"and no one should feel ashamed of liking generally unpopular practices just because Radio 4 and the regular posters in "feminism" say so."

This thread is about teenagers- not what experienced adults choose to do.

And anyone should be bloody ashamed if they are co tribute be to making it OK for teenage girls to be pressurised into doing things which a) they don't know whether they want to or not but are doing because somebody else wants to and b) which unless both partners are experienced and skillful (does that sound like the average teenager to you?) can be physically damaging.

I think that the "eww poo/it's not normal" view is actually part of the problem- if it wasn't so taboo, the attraction of it being so daring/worth boasting about etc might not be there?

Who is shaming anyone Higgle? Because it isn't feminists. It is the boys putting pressure on girls to do anal sex who are doing the shaming.

"90% of the other Mumsnet posters avoid like the plague because you can't say anything in this section without someone having a go." Oh give over. Some of us disagree with you. Just like in AIBU.