19 year old DD tells me ALL boys want to throttle.

[Spidermama]

I've just been left feeling really angry and powerless. DD tells me pretty much all boys 'even nice ones' like to put their hands around girl's throats semi strangling them as part of sex. She's told me other horrible things about what girls her age are fully expected to put up with.
She says the boys get it from porn and there's nothing unusual about it.

I and I'm sure many of us women, have put up with things during sex that we've not really liked just to get it over with. But this is getting ridiculous! It makes me so sad to think of all these young women having to put up with these levels of violence and hatred in something which is supposed to be enjoyable for them.

What can she do. I know how hard it is to stop things being done to you mid act.

Oh my God! I'm definitely going to be having a chat with my 3 girls (19, 19 and 20) and my sons (21 and 24) later!

I'm genuinely horrified! Also on the agenda is the fact that my DSD confessed the real reason her 3 best friends ( 3rd year uni students) didn't make it out on her birthday was because they'd taken too much ketamine!!!

Scary world we've catapulted them into.

Spidermama - is your DD talking about actual throttling or the boy playing his hand on girl's throat? I'm genuinely shocked if the former.

You can tie this into a general point with gender based violence. Physically dominating women is actually a sign of masculine weakness not strength. Anyone can dominate when they have a 15-20% size advantage.

This choking thing bugs me, I’ve done it in the context of martial arts training and actually I really hate it and it’s fucking dangerous. It’s the sort of thing you pull out if you want to kill someone, and just being in that mindset is not pleasant.

It’s very very easy to kill/do serious damage with choking. It takes very little pressure to do harm.

As for the "don't worry about it" school of thought - I have a DS, late primary school age. They are all starting to get smartphones.

I had to sit him down and talk about this shit (in vague, general terms). I should not have to do that with a pre-pubescent child, I should not have to mess with his head in that way, but it is inevitable that some time in the next few years some child (who has been subject to what I consider a form of society-wide grooming into inappropriate content - it's a form of child abuse) will show him something awful on their phone.

So I have to get in there first, tell him some of his friends may show him film footage on their phones of people having sex, and some of it will be nasty, and some of it will involve people being hurt, and this is not what normal sex looks like - normal sex is about love and respect and fun - it's only fun if both people are enjoying it. And that if he sees anything and is upset by it, he can come and talk to me about it, I won't be shocked, I won't think it's his fault, but we must be able to talk...

This is not a conversation I should have to have with a 10/11 year old. Frankly it makes me want to take every fucking pornographer in the whole world, line them up against the wall and shoot the fuckers with a machine gun. I hate that this is the world we live in

There was a point about 20 - 30 years ago where masculinity itself was beginning to be associated with the capacity to please women sexually, but it all seemed to regress very quickly.
Yes I think so too. Look at the fabled book in American Pie 1 - all about how to make women cum. When I was late teens it was all about how women might be faking and what men could do to give her a good time. Never see anything about that now. I am v glad I was a teen in the 90s. Lots of sex, no pressure to shave, anal etc

And now I feel like I should have pushed DH to have that conversation with nephew when he was that age, which again should not be necessary and is weird and awkward but if you don't try to set their idea of what normal is then some other bastard will and the ideas they'll be implanting will be all about torturing women for fun and profit.

I don't think many who 'justify' porn understand just what exposure to porn does to developing minds. Never before have we had a generation of children where parents and communities have unwittingly handed over aspects of their children's development to pornographers, fetishists, those with extreme anti social views, sexual predators who people the internet.

The internet 'disguises' all these people and their intentions and as parents are usually technically well behind children, we have often failed to understand just what children are accessing.

It's a massive social experiment on a generation of developing children's social, emotional and sexual development that has NEVER been conducted before (except in the pages of science fiction novels). And the results for children don't look good.

I think women have got to be fierce in challenging those who minimise the impact of porn. We have got to insist that governments start insisting that companies are socially responsible and, as far as is possible, make access to porn more difficult.

www.psychology.org.au/inpsych/2015/april/sampson/

HairyballTheorem
You're right - you shouldn't have to have that discussion with a primary aged child - but how great that you did.

It’s rubbish. My ds is a bit younger but as a study showed 90% of Y6 boys had seen online pornography what can you do? You have to start before Y6 as by Y6 it’s going to be too late. I’m very cautious of letting my dc online as I’ve done a lot of training wrt online predators and they’re everywhere. I see the ubiquitousness and accessibility of violent abusive porn as child abuse.

I’m sick to death of other women telling me that there’s nothing wrong with online porn and all men use it. If that is true then I despair of all men and the human race in general.

i read an interview from a porn director woman (mother with children) and a journalist. She described porn as similar to when you go to watch an action movie where cars explode, villains fire automatic rifles everywhere. High excitement and not real life. She said real life was about mutual respect, trust and agreeing together where they both wanted to experiment or not.

This article also explains about modern society and porn
fightthenewdrug.org/activist-richie-hardcore-talks-porns-effects-new-zealand-australia/

I also saw a documentary with a Dutch sex education teacher in the UK. She first talked to high school students and asked them about what a hot date would comprise where there were no restrictions. The boys dominated the group conversations and the girls were just mainly silent. The perfect date scenario culminated in the boy cumming all over the girls face.

The teacher the following week separated the girls and the boys and asked the girls if they agreed with the "ideal date scenario". They admitted that they hadn't but felt that they couldn't speak up. The group then joined the boys and explained that the ideal date wasn't actually what they would enjoy or tolerate. The boys were shocked and this then led to a conversation about mutual respect and trust.

dutchreview.com/featured/sex-education-in-the-netherlands/

I met and married the first bloke I had sex with (and it worked out wonderfully) but both DH and I have always wanted our DC to do things a different way - travel, have lots of different jobs, have lots of different safe sex with both males and females and perhaps both at the same time!
Nowadays, we fess up to each other that we wish DD (16) would just settle down with a halfway decent bloke for the next few years, just until she's past the easily influenced stage and has found her 'FOTTFSOF, mate' voice.

She is Belgian not Dutch.

www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/31/channel-4-miss-belgium-shake-up-sex-education

I saw that Butterfly, it made me want to lock dd up :( which is of course not the answer. Boys thought pubes were disgusting and they didn't need to ask for sex.

Thank you @ContemporaryPankhurst

I'm not an activist, I've only just really started to think (really think) about working harder to fight against the things I believe are wrong. I'll be truthful, I'm tearful and a bit scared and overwhelmed. I want to hide.

But I can't - I can't let my son grow up thinking this is ok. Fuck. I sometimes wish I just didn't know and could hide and not have to admit these things happen (and I bloody know they happen, I do! I'm a trauma therapist for god sake and still this ... the grand scale of it? .. oh it makes me heart ache)

Ok, I've signed the Ann summers petition (Ann summers?! How could they? Traitors!) and I'm slowly working towards the rest.

Thank you.

Sourpatchkid I totally get it and felt the same. I have found the Sisterhood to be wonderfully supportive and full of smart, funny women. Start small by talking to others, spreading the word or letting others know you feel the same as them can be the most powerful form of activism.

Is there an in real life feminist network you could join? Or could you start one? We have organised meet-ups in my area with wine & nibbles at some one's house.

I'll be truthful, I'm tearful and a bit scared and overwhelmed. I want to hide.

It'll be ok. The very fact that you feel like this is the evidence you need to be assured that you are a good parent and you understand the important stuff you need to teach your child. It'll be ok.

My sons are both young adults. Of course, I can't say for sure that they don't do or say things, including this sort of thing, that I wouldn't approve of. I bet they do. But they do manage to hang on to girlfriends and those girlfriends appear to me to be gobby, opinionated young women who don't listen to bullshit from boys. This reassures me!

‘All boys’ what bullshit!
I’ve never met any guy who has done this and none of my friends have either and I’m in roughly the same generation.
Making sweeping generalisations doesn’t help with things like this by the way, it just causes panic and is so unnecessary

I’ve never met any guy who has done this and none of my friends have either and I’m in roughly the same generation.

Are you the OP's daughter? If not, then why is your experience evidence that she must be lying about her experience?

'but both DH and I have always wanted our DC to do things a different way - travel, have lots of different jobs, have lots of different safe sex with both males and females and perhaps both at the same time!'

Why didn't you just want them to be happy? Why would you want them to travel, have sex with loads of people and threesomes just because you didn't? That's just odd as hell.

‘All boys’ what bullshit!

Way to miss the point entirely.

Just for the disbelievers:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-40670225

I’ve never met any guy who has done this and none of my friends have either

How many of your friends have you asked? Only you say "none". It's odd it came up in conversation if none of you ever do it.

I know people it has happened to. Can't say for certain all of my friends though as I haven't thought to survey them

I'll add that to people who definitely know their son wouldn't do that. Because of course, he would tell you that he loves strangling women.

’ve never met any guy who has done this

You haven't had sex with every guy you met.

Oh my, Nixen has some deep personal feelings and as we are aware feelings trump evidence, research and all other experiences of anyone else. I am so glad that finally this issue has been addressed and settled. All hail personal feelings as the sabre to slay structural issues. Individualism and choice shall triumph in the face of patriarchy and ingrained cultural misogyny, don't bother one's silly Lady brain girls xx