Nice Girls Don't

[DukeOfSussex]

Society used to tell girls that sex was basically a thing that was done to you. Lay back and think of England etc.

Society evolved and eventually the idea that women could have as much fun (or more!) as men during sex came about. Eventually lads mags and then porn turned it around again to women being spunk receptacles that men do the sex to.

Just idly wondering, do you think that's why lots of young women are also calling themselves asexual and demi romantic?

Because it gives them a societal opt out that they no longer have?

I think it's a distinct possibility. A label gives validation to what might otherwise feel like an unfashionable choice.

When she was about 17 my daughter told me (reluctantly and very tearfully) that she was asexual. She had just broken up with her boyfriend of about 6 months, and she furiously told me that I wasn't to suggest she wasn't asexual as it wasn't up to me to define her. I held my tongue at the time, but did manage to say a little while later that I doubted very much that she was asexual (though it didn't matter in the least to me either way) but that she just hadn't been sexually attracted enough to her boyfriend.

Four years later and it's clear this was the case. She assumed, from everything she'd heard and read online, that all girls should be up for it, all the time. That they should react enthusiastically to the most clumsy advances and encourage them. From the fact that she emphatically wasn't, she deduced that she was forever asexual.

I'm not by any means saying that I don't think asexuality is genuine and valid and should be respected. I absolutely do. But I think it also gives girls a safe box to jump into in a culture that encourages them to look and behave like porn stars. (And boys too, if they are intimidated by porn.)

Probably, in some cases. I'm asexual but didn't have the word for it until I was 25, and before that just thought there was something wrong with me for not wanting sex. But I can see why a girl not wanting sex yet might find it easier to call herself asexual. And 'demisexual' is apparently only wanting to have sex with someone you have an emotional connection with, which I would have thought is just normal for most women! But porn has skewed what young people see as normal I guess.

I think it’s shorthand for “I’m not up for it, so leave me alone.” I would have found it a handy label for me when I was in a very blokey 6th form doing STEM subjects. Politely declining (damn that female socialisation) the many requests for dates/to cop a feel/a blow job got very wearing. I can also say firmly this is not a stealth boast, rather that girls were in short supply in our cohort so we all got hit on lots.

Materialist - x-posted. I’m not disparaging your experience. I was referring more to young women in school or blokey workplaces.

Watching girls today it seems like if you say you fancy men you are pressured to fancy all men that want you.
If you say you fancy women you are obligated to fancy men who call themselves women.
It must seem like the only way to escape unwanted pressure to sleep with men you don't want is to label yourself asexual, like a taxicab turning off its 'available' light.

Seems logical - better to brand oneself asexual than be declared frigid by others. At least that way you have set your own narrative. I can imagine this being quite an appealing option for young women.

Perhaps it’s the modern day equivalent of having to say you have a boyfriend because the creep won’t respect your ‘not interested’ and will only leave you alone if they think you are another man’s possession.

Perhaps then, some transboys are trying to become their own imaginary boyfriends? Sort of like AGP’s trying to be their own girlfriends, only motivated by self-protection, rather than paraphilia?

I didn’t know what Demisexual meant until a few years ago. I’d kind of assumed up till then that most people didn’t habitually shag people they weren’t emotionally connected to, so I was surprised to find out there was a label for it, which kind of in turn suggests that it’s not usual. I think it is normal not to have sex with random strangers though, but as usual male sexual expectations have moved the goalposts of sexuality again. It’s quite staggering how much, to think something so ordinary 15 or 20 years ago has now got a special queer label all to itself.
I really pity the girls and young women growing up in this cesspool of pornography. I’m glad I’m too old and homosexual to be much affected by it, but I don’t know how I’m going to steer my son away from it and stop him becoming part of the problem.

I think it is also possible that the mass consumption of the female contraceptive pill has altered how women feel about their sexuality. My experience and that of others I've spoken to is that it dampens feelings of wanting sex. This can often be confused with starting to find a long term partner boring (long term relationship = go on the pill). Not being on the pill allows you to feel the natural ebb and flow of desire that comes with ovulation.

I agree OP. These labels enable girls to opt out and in ways that avoid them being targeted and harassed.

If you say you're demi sexual or pan sexual for example you're not going to be berated for actually being homosexual and refusing sex to someone who believes you should be homogenderal and has so little respect for you and so much ego that they intend to 're educate you' into giving them their own way. After all you can identify as anything - including a table - the whole point is it doesn't have to be objectively proven.

DukeOfSussex I was thinking about this exact same phenomenon over summer. I did quite a bit of evening Googling and this line from this article stayed with me:

"As soon as older feminists had won sexual liberation, patriarchy reframed it as sexual availability for men."

When I was growing up, young and ballsy as many proto-feminists start out, it was totally the feminist thing to do to be sexually assertive; to take what you wanted, to embrace and not repress your sexuality on account of society's taking you for a slut when a man would not be similarly shamed.

These days I find that that attitude has now morphed into a sense of sexual entitlement from the men we thought we were standing up to; the men we thought we were using like they had been believed to use us, and that this was being turned against our fellow woman. That because some women were now sexually aggressive, "up for it", simply because they personally wanted to be, meant men now felt all the more entitled to female sex. Women who didn't make themselves available in the way sexually assertive women did were defective and shamed.

So now you have a double bind. You can't be a sexually assertive heterosexual woman for fear of throwing your fellow woman under a bus by reinforcing sexual availability to men. Equally you can't be a sexually conservative one because men and a porn-addled society does not tell you that is what a woman should be! No wonder women who don't see themselves as the former might feel like something's wrong with their sexuality, and those who don't see themselves as the latter might feel the same; once again feeling they must repress their sexuality in a way never expected of men.

Demisexual is about attraction.

So if you’re not demisexual, you might meet somebody, be attracted to their personality and looks, but think that you won’t have sex with them until you know them better and can trust them.

Demisexual don’t experience that attraction. They are only attracted to people who they already have an emotional connection with.

Because they know that masturbation is much more pleasurable than sexual intercourse. A night out these days can lead to coercion into anal sex.

It is said that some men prefer masturbation to sexual intercourse as well.

Exactly. So to say you are demi sexual gives you better protection from harassment than to say you are homosexual.

So now you have a double bind. You can't be a sexually assertive heterosexual woman for fear of throwing your fellow woman under a bus by reinforcing sexual availability to men. Equally you can't be a sexually conservative one because men and a porn-addled society does not tell you that is what a woman should be!

Sexuality is not binary. You know Rat it's a bit more complicated than that. A double bind that is equal? FFS!

Sexuality is not binary. You know Rat it's a bit more complicated than that. A double bind that is equal? FFS!

I think you've misunderstood what I was talking about placemats. I read the OP as saying women and girls - particularly heterosexual ones - are these days so expected to be pornified nymphos that perhaps women who feel that isn't their "sexuality" (I mean the word as in how much sex they want to have, how adventurous they want to be etc., NOT who their orientation) might think themselves abnormal in some way.

has the confusion come about because you read my use of the word sexuality as referring to sexual orientation? Which yes, of course, is not binary; but I didn't at any point refer to a binary anyway, so I'm really a bit confused

I should point out that I don't know anything really about asexuality or demi-romaticism (?), but I was responding mainly to the following bit of the OP:

Society evolved and eventually the idea that women could have as much fun (or more!) as men during sex came about. Eventually lads mags and then porn turned it around again to women being spunk receptacles that men do the sex to.

I'm really a bit confused

I know Rats.

I think you are too!

These labels probably describe something useful about people that they can use to explore ideas about themselves and can explain those to other people.

And they’re also useful for escaping from some disturbing ideas and pressure around the expectations currently being placed on heterosexual and bisexual women. And as such, are no doubt also used by women as a defence.

I agree with you Jamieandwordswo

Also, some people are probably asexual at different parts of their life due to hormonal changes - teens, pregnancy, menopause.

And some probably become asexual based on what they have experienced or observed about sexual relationships or objectification.

It's not just women in isolation though. In this instance boys and young men do matter too.

Personally, I think it's all about the pressure on heterosexuality a binary sexual concept that has no escape hatch.

I think you are too!

This isn't the school playground Rat It's an adult conversation.

I'm not sure 'asexual' is the right descriptor though.

placemats I wasn't tit-fot-tatting you, I was attempting to align myself with you in recognising a mutual misunderstanding between us. But whatever, let's sweep it under the carpet and move on.