"Intercourse/PIV is always rape, plain and simple."

[partialderivative]

I was trying to find out what piv sex meant when I came across this blog.

witchwind.wordpress.com/2013/12/15/piv-is-always-rape-ok/

I was rather taken aback by its premise.

Other quotes include:
...intercourse is NEVER sex for women...
...intercourse is inherently harmful to women and intentionally so...

Is this a commonly held view point amongst feminists? Or just the extreme radical side.

I am not posting this to be goady, if anything quite the opposite.

I can't believe people on here think PIV is necessary for conception People have been doing the old turkey baster method since forever, sometimes in cases where the husband was sterile and a neighbour "helped"out the childless couple.
We were taught in sex Ed in school that if sperm gets into contact with the vulva, not even the vagina, it can make its way up there all by itself.
Therefore we can conclude that the obsession with PIV I our culture has not much to do with conceptionnot really it's about... Something else

Could be, Casualty I like evolutionary examinations of stuff - and get simultaneously annoyed by childish assumptions that evolution Always Does What's Best. No, it doesn't. It does what works well enough. Honestly, if you were designing bodies from scratch you wouldn't have all the peeing, pooing, fertilising and young-producing equipment in the same place! It's ridiculously unhygienic, mechanically inefficient and cumbersome.

There are loads of alternative and less difficult reproductive strategies. The way mammals do it isn't 'best' - it seems to work well enough, so here it is. And, due to inherent design flaws, is liable to cause infections & injuries.

There is nothing fixed or innate about murder - you have times and places with low or negligible homicide rates through to times and places of massacre. Nobody sits and goes massacres are just inevitable. There is a line drawn somewhere - and surely it is no murder/no rape is acceptable. If you don't think that is achievable, it is like shrugging and going well, it is always going to happen to someone. Really?

Yes. Also, rape rates are much higher than homicide rates. If one in four men ended his life by being murdered, I am pretty sure people would feel they have to do something about that.

Women being raped at that rate, though? People just stand by and say it's sad but there's nothing to be done.

And I think that rape is very much what should be discussed in a thread that is essentially about whether PiV is always rape. As feminists, we should aim to end rape.

A thread in which we discuss the question of whether PiV is good for women or very good for women, is rather pointless, is it?

sakura
I said up thread that I've had 2 conceptions that didn't involve any PIV
Both involved procedures that were FAR more invasive than any sex I've ever had
If you come from the philosophical starting point that PIV is traumatic to the point of being analogous to rape, there is no reliable alternative method of conception that wouldn't be equally traumatic.

I'd be staggered if there is any reliable evidence (beyond the hyperbole of teachers trying to scare teenagers off sex) that conceptions have happened from sperm being placed externally on a woman's vulva

we can conclude that the obsession with PIV in our culture has not much to do with conception

Well, it's certainly more complicated than that. I don't think feminism can ignore the long-standing ownership of offspring thing; it must be what's behind many cultural assumptions about women, power and heterosexual relationships (enforced or chosen.)

it's about... Something else

That's complicated, too, isn't it? We're capable of being transported by pleasure from it. I'm pretty sure we can put that down to evolution. Then there's all the politics of power & ownership. Which is extremely, fundamentally problematic.

Stops women shagging someone else in the few days afterwards and therefore casting doubt on cave-paternity?

Evolution is not about catering to men. Even though one has good reason to think that.

It would be far more beneficial if all cavemen thought they could be the father of a child - they would treat it better, just in case. (Female lions have very elaborate strategies to prevent male violence against their cubs)

Or to start a race between the sperm of different men, so that the best genes win.

I am in the "sometimes, evolution makes things shitty" camp on that one.

I'd be staggered if there is any reliable evidence (beyond the hyperbole of teachers trying to scare teenagers off sex) that conceptions have happened from sperm being placed externally on a woman's vulva

But we do agree that sperm can travel through the vagina, yes?

Putting it in there like you put a tampon or menstruation cup in would likely be a less reliable method of conception than PiV, but you can always try several times.

The statement that PiV is not needed for pregnancy is still valid, and does not mean more invasive methods are needed.

After all, just because some women need IVF doesn't mean it can be considered necessary for conception, either.

Well, there's always bonobos, Buffy :) I rather like their cheery approach to sex.

I think most of us know you can get pregnant even if there is sperm outside - it tends to find its way even . Even anal sex is not safe sex. And of course you can have virgin births these days with IVF. However most men and women are quite keen on PiV sex and most people in the West at least seem to manage it in a happy and consensual way. if they aren't into that or are asexual or don't want a partner or are gay or want an alternative form of sex they can choose it.

On the historial issue don't assume mankind always knew babies led to sex. Some cultures did not make that association.

There is also an interesting history book called the Origins of Sex i think it is by an Oxford academic that looks at the UK mostly and marriage, sex, babies etc from about 1066 (not earlier).

The ownership of children point mentioned above is also interesting. Most cultures including early kibbutzim found that taking a child away so it also sleeps away from parents to be brought up communally tended not to work very well (although it certainly relieves women of burdens). It is instead probably a useful instinct that most women and a good few men want to care for their children, that you put your child first before your political beliefs or causes or other people's children.

I'm not that knowledgable about animal sex, but my understanding is that animal-blokes don't have a cultural expectation of PIV several times a week, do they?

No, they have a cultural hope of getting to have PiV a couple of times during mating season.

Except bonobos, a fifth of whose male offspring vanishes without a trace during puberty. I would not model human society after them without first finding out if the reduced number of males is necessary for it to work ... and what happens to those males. Maybe bonobos are much worse than any feminist extremist.

Except bonobos, a fifth of whose male offspring vanishes without a trace during puberty. Really? Where did you get that from?

I like this quote from one of the bonobo experts: Some anthropologists, however, are reluctant to include the details of bonobo life, such as wide-ranging sexuality and a strong sisterhood, into scenarios of human evolution. "The researchers have all these commitments to male dominance [as in chimpanzees], and yet bonobos have egalitarian relationships," says De Waal.

So in conclusion, not saying evolution doesn't happen, saying the discourse of evolution is often used to justify women's oppression.

It is also very often utterly unscientific. Evolution theory is not meant to be used to justify things. Just to explain them.

Also, evolution still happens today. Therefore "This is so because of evolution, don't dare to try and change it!" is nonsensical.

We are all part of nature. Feminism is part of nature. If feminism leads to men evolving to be more compassionate and less violent, because women prefer that kind of man, then that is evolution, too.

Sex at Dawn is a really interesting book about evolution and human sexuality. It deals mainly with the question of how/why is monogamy a cultural norm but has lots of interesting things to say about female sexuality.

"I'm saying people who find an evolutionary reason for everything that sucks for women are cultural tone policing. They assume they're being scientific, drawing on the power of assumed objectivity, when actually the ideas that occur to them are culturally and historically contingent - of their own time and culture. They start at the end, and construct a plausible sounding explanation based on their life experiences and beliefs. "

Well put.

@Garlick: Someone told me about a documentary movie in which this was mentioned. The only thing I have been able to find online was this:

soa111.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/bonobos/

It mentions that females outnumber males. Logically, this has to be caused by something. The documentary only mentioned that the adolescent males vanish - to where, the researchers were not able to determine.

Hmm, VV. It doesn't actually say that. It says females out number males in a 3:2 ratio. There's no reason to assume they have equal numbers of m/f children. Their societies are female-dominated and adult males, having no way of knowing which children are theirs, protect all children.

I found this: The lower operational sex ratio in bonobos means that there will be less intrasexual competition among males for access to females. Female mate choice, therefore, becomes the most important factor in determining whether a male's genes are passed. Perhaps for this reason, there have been no reports of forced copulation among bonobos.