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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Safe place for budding feminists

376 replies

Mamaka · 21/07/2016 15:39

As some of us have had our opinions, feelings and questions so completely bulldozed in other threads, I thought I'd try and start a safe place for newly questioning and of course veteran feminists to explore without fear of being misunderstood or ridiculed.

A couple of things I'd like to know:

I've just found out that there is no feminism group where I live and am seriously considering starting one but feeling a little unqualified for it. Any recommendations for where to start if I wanted to do this?

I've just read the equality illusion by Kat banyard in its entirety and now I'm feeling riled up. How can I start to move from anger and frustration towards positive action? (This is really what my previous thread should have been called!)

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michelle303 · 29/07/2016 15:22

It's so hard to find a safe space online to discuss/engage with feminism. Things get really nasty, really quickly! It's exhausting to be honest.

RebelRogue · 29/07/2016 16:42

Don't you get pleasure from sex as well mamaka?

Mamaka · 29/07/2016 16:55

Not especially Rebelrogue! And even less so now with this everything is for men's benefit issue in my head constantly.

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RebelRogue · 29/07/2016 17:16

Then that's a totally different issue. I guess it depends a lot how you view sex,if you need it,enjoy it etc. Is your partner aware of your feelings towards sex? Is he accommodating?
For me it was always simple... I had sex because i wanted to and i enjoyed it. Things did change after having dd (for a multitude of reasona)but once i actually opened my mouth and talked to oh about how i feel and what works and what doesn't it improved a lot. I don't have sex because i need to or because i have to.

erinaceus · 29/07/2016 18:36

Once the light has come on and you start to see everything in your life through the lens of the patriarchal society where everything is designed to benefit men, how do you go forward with sex? It's become a bit of a block for me.

Do you have anyone whom you can talk about this IRL? This was not a major issue for me for various reasons, but I can see how it could be. I would imagine that this is related to how you viewed sex before you started to see everything in your life through the lens of a patriarchal society. This, I think, has to be a question for each individual to resolve in their own way.

BertieBotts · 29/07/2016 18:41

Slightly out-there suggestion perhaps but this is one of the reasons some feminists choose political lesbianism. If you're attracted to women at all it might be something to think about?

For me - yes I see everything through the patriarchy lens but I do also have a close personal relationship with my husband, sex is a mutually pleasurable thing for us and I don't mind that it benefits him and gives him pleasure, in fact that's a bonus. I don't know if I'd feel that way about casual sex.

tryingtomakesenseoflife · 29/07/2016 20:03

"how do you go forward with sex?"

Sex was the final nail in the coffin for my relationship so I can't answer from anything other than a skewed personal perspective.

Sex had stopped being enjoyable. I was mightily pissed off with trying to get back into it after DC2. I needed more time and I needed our relationship to be different. I felt like the medical answer - and definitely my husband's answer, was that I had to start doing it regardless of how I felt. There was no allowing for my own timescale, let alone the scenario of what if I never got back into it again. It was like I didn't even allow myself that view. I believed that there had to penetrative sex whether I wanted it or not.

As this happened I stopped enjoying sex. I started to see a lot of what we did as humiliating and about being dominated. Things I hadn't questioned before. Sadly I think a lot of this came from my husband's lack of confidence making him overbearing. I am sympathetic to that whilst still feeling angry that he "knew better" what I needed.

I think I would find it very difficult to enjoy sex with a man again. I'm currently uncomfortable with the word penis! I thought this was some sort of a reaction to my personal history but the more i delve around trying to read bits and pieces the more I think its a fairly valid choice to not want sex with men.

So while I thought my feelings were entirely personal I think a lot of it was about the expectations on me as a woman to meet my husband's "needs" as a man. I get that my own boundaries are fucked but I think this message was reinforced - by friends and medical people, and a relationship counsellor.

I should add here that I have had half a bottle of wine so probably posting far too much detail whilst failing to make a point. Blush

I am now going to go finish the rest and try forget that I won't see my children for two days. Sad

Batteriesallgone · 29/07/2016 20:50

My DH is all about my orgasm. To the extent that if I don't come first he struggles to maintain...because he's worried I'm not into it enough.

I think sex (with a man) is fine as long as you are with a man who prioritises your orgasm over his. That balances out the other pressures...I think. I don't know. All I know is when I have sex with DH I actively want it and it feels amazing, and he always puts the work in so I can orgasm.

BertieBotts · 29/07/2016 23:07

Sorry trying. That sounds hard Flowers

I think I have to rewind a bit and look back to when I was in a place when I didn't want sex with men. So much of what we are told is normal in sexual relationships is really fucked up and actually unacceptable. I thought I was either gay or asexual for a while actually because I just didn't understand why I didn't have desire for sex when everyone/thing around me seemed to be telling me that I should be gagging for it.

Apologies this will be a bit rambly and possibly TMI.

I was too young when I started attempting sex for the first time. For me - I was a late developer but nobody ever told me that it was okay or normal to be a late developer. I was distressed aged 16 because I thought I had missed the window of opportunity for a non-sexual relationship. I really believed that "everybody was doing it" and that there was no boy my age who would have been happy with holding hands and cuddling.

So as a result I started my first relationship, very drunk, aged 16.5, by taking my top off and inviting a boy I'd never met before to kiss me. He did, of course, because patriarchy had never taught him not to take advantage of drunk desperate crying girls. I learned: Behave sexually and boys will like you. Well, nothing else I'd ever attempted had worked so that must be it. I had nothing in common with him but we dated for six months during which time I fretted that he was leaving for university in the autumn and I didn't know what I'd do without him. Again, nobody ever mentioned to me that this was a weird basis for a relationship or expressed any kind of concern. Because of the way we had met and because I was anxious that everyone was much more experienced than me we (mutually, apparently) decided there was no point going backwards and basically started attempting sex immediately. This was entirely unsuccessful and led to a horrible dynamic where whenever we were alone together he would keep trying and I wouldn't know how to say stop or let's just give this a rest and go back to kissing because at least that part was fun, and didn't hurt.

Next boyfriend was better. I eventually managed penetrative sex aged 18 having believed for all the preceding time that there was something wrong with me. I sought advice on the internet and was told to try using vaginal dilators. This is still handed out as advice on message boards, BTW, which completely horrifies me. Again nobody suggested to me that maybe I just wasn't ready and I thought 18 was such an outlandishly old age to be virginal that the thought didn't cross my mind. Not helped by the "hilarious" film "The 40 year old virgin" which had just come out. Because it's so sad and pathetic and funny when people don't have sex. Right? I mean, um, again. I look back and am just really horrified that I didn't know that it was okay to not have sex. I thought it was just something you had to get used to, because men always like it, and then at some point if you were lucky you'd like it, but it doesn't really matter if you don't as long as it doesn't hurt, except the first time, then it's meant to. WTF? But also, I mean, isn't this exactly what society tells us about sex? It sounds horrifying when it's written down like that but the signs are there. Jokes about "DH will think it's Christmas!" or faking headaches or whatever else it is, uniform restrictions on girls because those teenage boys and their pesky hormones, the idea that men are completely helpless when around an attractive woman - it's really insidious.

My next boyfriend I never once slept with sober (apparently I'd already decided sex was better when I wasn't totally present), but he was the first one to ask me if I was okay because I was just lying there and didn't really seem to be enjoying it. This was my eighth sexual partner (counting anything rather than just PIV) at this point and yet it was the first time anybody had enquired about my participation or outright stated that I could stop if I wasn't into it and I remember feeling genuinely shocked. I don't think all of the other seven were awful - and certainly in at least a couple of the encounters I'd been enthusiastic enough not to raise any kind of alarm in any case, but still, the first time.

Next boyfriend was emotionally, verbally and sexually abusive/controlling so, again, not great. I won't really go into detail but suffice to say I would have been totally happy never to have sex ever ever again. A lot of the time during the 3-year relationship I felt like I was broken, crazy or again, asexual. The sexual issues in fact were never particularly overtly awful - there was no actual assault - but were probably the absolute worst part of that relationship because of the way I felt so slowly destroyed by it and beholden to it.

And yet, I did have sex again. I have had two sexual partners since that relationship (that relationship ended thanks to mumsnet and complete reworking of all my relationship views), one a sort of FWB scenario which was enormously healing just to basically have sex on my terms for once because I wanted it and because it was hot, to be frank. It was a bit of a surprise.

It was weird though because despite that when I got together with DH I was still very nervous. In fact, the first six months or so of our relationship was another massive healing process for me. First of all I'd been processing all of this weird sex stuff and trying to work out how I felt and I'd mentioned to him about how I had felt sad about skipping the hand holding and kissing stage and he said of course we can just do that, that would be nice. And we did. I felt like I got to go back and start again on my terms instead of rushing around trying to catch up. Then before we'd had sex he confided in me that he was feeling nervous about sex and thought he might not be ready until at least a year later. I'd been worried that he might be off if I wasn't feeling up to it by about two months. It just totally took the pressure off and it happened very naturally. Then for several months I would just stop in the middle of sex for no reason at all just to check that I could and he never ever once complained or displayed any kind of annoyance or upset. When I once questioned him about this he was confused and asked why he would be upset.

Anyway the point of this whole novel was basically to say that I have experienced a massive difference between sex which involved men taking advantage of patriarchy and rape culture and just taking it for granted that those things are there and either not noticing that they are harmful, or just not caring because it benefits them anyway, and sex where I really feel I am in control of whether or not I participate and that happens on my terms. I don't want anybody to have the first kind ever (and I am very conscious of it if I ever respond to a thread asking advice about sex and I get very annoyed when people seem unaware of the existence of those problems) but the second kind is very different.

I am not a sex-positive feminist and I find sex-positivism as a movement to be extremely alarming because it has a dangerous measure of assuming that all sex is the second kind when, actually, I think that a large proportion of it is not. (I have changed my estimation on the ratio though.) That doesn't mean I am anti sex but I am just really cautious about the way I talk about sex in that I feel it's massively irresponsible to assume everyone is having type 2 sex because when you're in a type 1 situation and you're reading stuff which assumes everything is great and "enthusiastic participation-y" rather than "minimal level of consent-y" it isn't appropriate to the situation. It's exactly like giving women in abusive relationships advice to see a relationship counsellor - it is likely to exacerbate rather than reduce the problems.

I forgot that caution in my earlier post and I apologise.

Mamaka · 29/07/2016 23:08

Haha Bertie, thanks for the suggestion but I don't think I will ever be attracted to women! Plus I'm married so could probably do with sorting this out!
I can relate a lot to what trying said. After having first baby (and 3rd degree tear) a male gynaecologist told me to have more sex for it to feel less painful. I obeyed like a good submissive wife who puts her husband's "needs" first. Surprise surprise, it didn't help and consequently was the final nail in the coffin that was my flagging sex life Blush
To be honest I didn't have a particularly healthy view of sex before either.
My husband isn't actually selfish sexually. He just doesn't get why I find it difficult.

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Mamaka · 29/07/2016 23:15

Vaginal fucking dilators! I was told to use them after first birth and stitching!

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Mamaka · 29/07/2016 23:17

I also started having sex waaaaaay too young and because sub consciously I was trying to get the affection I was craving. I feel like I've been having sex for years and years but never has it been for me.

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JacquettaWoodville · 29/07/2016 23:19

Great post Bertie.

Mamaka, yourcDH doesn't get why painful sex put you off sex?

BertieBotts · 29/07/2016 23:20

Women are gaslighted about our sexual experiences. It is traumatic to be entered when you don't particularly welcome it happening. Sorry to be blunt but it is. I don't think that a lot of men fundamentally understand this, and similarly to what I was saying in my giant life story, men are also (sometimes) oblivious to the ways that they engender this trauma just by not seeking to actively avoid acting in a traumatic way.

But we are told that we are just nervous, that we just need to get back into the rhythm of it, that it's a natural thing. I remember another person on the message board suggesting that I go to an art gallery and look at statues where the subjects have visible male genitals in order to acclimatise myself to the sight of a penis.

Nobody ever suggested that I might be upset by penises because I had been traumatised by a penis. This must seem so ludicrous, especially since my first boyfriend did "nothing wrong" - he was only doing what patriarchy had led him to believe was natural. (I don't blame him or have any hard feelings towards him, FWIW.) It sounds a bit ludicrous even now in my head typing it out, but honestly, it IS perfectly natural to feel repelled by something you've had a negative experience with. Maybe we just need to actually be a bit more vocal about that instead of meekly agreeing that yes we are nervous or suffering some kind of hormonal imbalance when actually what we experience is a perfectly natural reaction to a shitty situation. It is cognitive dissonance to pretend that it isn't a horrible situation.

(Sorry - tell me if I'm getting a bit feminist keyword heavy/keyboard warrior here).

Mamaka · 29/07/2016 23:22

No he did understand that. But that was 4 years ago now and I'm still not really that into it and that's what he doesn't get. Because I can't really explain to him properly that it seems like he is the one getting all the pleasure out of it and I'm just the means for him to get that pleasure.

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JacquettaWoodville · 29/07/2016 23:22

" It is traumatic to be entered when you don't particularly welcome it happening. Sorry to be blunt but it is. I don't think that a lot of men fundamentally understand this"

Yy to this.

Mamaka · 29/07/2016 23:23

Bertie - YES

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Mamaka · 29/07/2016 23:25

Bertie how did you become untraumatised?

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Mamaka · 29/07/2016 23:26

Oh sorry, you have said how.

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BertieBotts · 29/07/2016 23:29

You know the thing that makes me most RAGE about vaginal dilators?

They don't even work like that. Vaginas are not like a stretchy rubber band which loses tightness over time. They are not. You cannot "stretch it out" like it's a balloon you are struggling to blow up. They have never been like that. The theory of vaginal dilators makes no sense. It is a muscle that opens when it's relaxed and tightens when it is tensed. That's it. It can open up to allow an entire baby to come out and then go back to snugly holding a tampon.

The use of dilators is useful in specific medical situations such as when there is adhesion or too much tissue or, sometimes, for conditions like vaginosis where you want to learn to control the muscles there yourself because you can't and they keep tensing up in inappropriate situations. But in normal situations you don't need to learn to control the muscles because they will respond naturally to what you are feeling. If you are tense because you feel afraid or anxious or unsafe that is a totally normal response, and you can't fix it with a dilator anyway. In fact what you're learning to do in that situation is override what your body is meant to do.

BertieBotts · 29/07/2016 23:32

I am not fully untraumatised. There are still (specific) things I can't do. Sometimes DH mentions that he would like it if I would do it. He doesn't know that I physically can't because I would vomit. I might tell him one day, but I would also rather he didn't have that association, TBH. He doesn't push it.

Mamaka · 29/07/2016 23:33

Someone on here said, women are the only group of people expected to live with and love their oppressors. I guess I, and others, feel the way we do about sex because, well who would enjoy sleeping with their oppressor?
Then I get confused and think but my dh isn't actually actively oppressing me (any more, and even when he did it was through ignorance and blindness). And he's making efforts to change, we've been having counselling, reading feminist books together. So why can't I separate him from "the patriarchy"?

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almondpudding · 29/07/2016 23:34

There is a kind of common narrative that what is sexually enjoyable for women is to be the object a man's desire.

So women are supposed to feel sexual enjoyment when they put on a lacy bra, or when a man cannot control his desire for them.

I think if you throw the idea out that you are the object, you've climbed half way up the mountain. Then you have to work out what you desire, what your sexuality is. And that is something that is yours; it's more important than the act of having sex with another person.

Obviously that is just my opinion, doesn't neccesarily apply to everyone etc.

Mamaka · 29/07/2016 23:37

Thank you almond. Any ideas on how to work out what your sexuality is, when the thought of sex in general makes you cringe?

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almondpudding · 29/07/2016 23:42

I find that hard to answer without asking personal questions and giving personal answers!

I would definitely start with the idea that you can be a very sexual person and never, ever want to have sex. The goal of understanding your sexuality is to be happy in yourself. It isn't to make you want to have any kind of sex with another person.

I suppose I'd start by saying, do you find certain people sexually attractive (not that you want to have sex with them, but just that you find them sexy). Do you find particular ideas or interactions between people a sexually appealing idea (which does mean you're one of the people, or that it leads to you having sex)?