Anyone want to talk about men, women, and sex?

[PuertoVallarta]

I am trying to think through some ideas around sex and relationships. I apologize if my ideas are not that clear. I suppose that’s why I need help.

Was talking with a male friend who told me all the women he’s been with have enjoyed anal sex. And I said, “You don’t know that. Of course they’re going to act like they like it. They know they have to like it.” He was surprised and very hurt. I felt bad for casting doubt on his previous relations. I had no proof that these women were faking it, just because I myself can’t imagine anyone liking it.

But I do believe in my heart of hearts that women know they have to like sex stuff unquestioningly. On one hand, because we don’t want to hurt men’s feelings. On another hand, because we love men and we enjoy our relationships and we don’t want to lose them over something silly.

And I also believe that men don’t really consider women’s feelings in the same way. Instead of going along because they are scared of hurting us, the vast majority of men will harbor a growing resentment toward a female partner who denies them certain sex acts that they want.

When I asked the people around me, all I got was the same answer: “If one person wants to do something in the bedroom, and the other person doesn’t, then they are not sexually compatible. He shouldn’t pressure her. He should just leave her so they can both find someone they are compatible with.”

It is so depressing to me! Am I just being a control freak to think it’s unfair to ask women (almost all women, I think) to either give it up or be abandoned? Yes, I know nobody is entitled to a relationship. But I feel like this idea of “compatibility” is a result of women’s worth being tied to what we can provide sexually. A few days have passed since this discussion. My friend is still hurt by my comment, and I am sinking into a depression thinking about how this notion of “compatibility” might just be a way to keep women in line.

Perhaps my thinking is way off the mark. If anyone has time to share their own thoughts, it would be appreciated.

do you think the 'what people do in the bedroom is private and we should let them get on with it unless you're a missionary position prude' stuff could have anything to do with it?

Quite.

You're just being goady though aren't you

hands up

I haven't accused you of being boring in bed though, so there is that

do you think the 'what people do in the bedroom is private and we should let them get on with it unless you're a missionary position prude' stuff could have anything to do with it?

I can draw the distinction between consenting to a mutually pleasurable act and doing something that results in the serious injury, or death, of one of the participants so I don't see why that is impossible for the CPS or judges to do.

Citing driving as an example again, if I drive my car dangerously or without due care I can be prosecuted. If I injure or kill someone as a result I can be prosecuted. We can make those distinctions without banning all cars.

I can draw the distinction between consenting to a mutually pleasurable act and doing something that results in the serious injury, or death, of one of the participants so I don't see why that is impossible for the CPS or judges to do

well, actually the important people here are jurors. and apparently they don't have your analytical skills, since they believed that ripping open a woman's vagina with a spray bottle was a concensual act

the overton window is over there >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Well, without hearing the evidence that they heard, on the surface it would appear that they are hard of thinking wouldn't it?

Well, without hearing the evidence that they heard, on the surface it would appear that they are hard of thinking wouldn't it?

Maybe

I am very interested in why a jury of our peers felt that this could ever be a consensual act

that shit of a man went to prison for 3 years 8 months for manslaughter

Well, yes. Presumably suitably convincing evidence was put forward but I can't imagine what it was.

or is it possible that their preconceived ideas that people will consent to any fucking thing for sexual pleasure led them to draw a really, deeply, offensively fucking stupid conclusion?

obviously we can't talk to them to know for sure, but option b seems likely to me

and quite aside from my views on it being deeply weird and creepy to want to hurt people, that is why it's important to not be taken in by the 'horses for courses, what people do in private is up to them' sex possie nonsense

We're just going round in circles. There's a massive fucking difference between spanking someone and raping them with a bleach bottle and I think most reasonably intelligent people can draw that distinction.

Even approaching the more extreme ends of BDSM I still think most sensible people can understand the difference between a consensual act that might cause pain but doesn't inflict a lasting injury and something that maims or kills.

I don't get why people do these things because I'm not into it but I can understand that others are and that they enjoy it. Some people are sick, depraved monsters who would find a way of hurting or murdering another person no matter what you ban. Women are killed during piv rape. That doesn't make piv sex inherently dangerous it make s the people that rape and kill dangerous.

You don't like this type of sex. You've made it clear but I don't think that gives you the right to ban it, just as I don't think people who like BDSM should have the right to ban the type of sex that you like.

Judge those people if you want but then expect to be judged yourself.

I can draw the distinction between consenting to a mutually pleasurable act and doing something that results in the serious injury, or death, of one of the participants so I don't see why that is impossible for the CPS or judges to do

Maybe you can...but from what I have seen this continual circling back to 'consent' and 'consensual acts between adults' keeps getting trotted out every time any criticism of pornography or 'rough sex' crops up.

That young women ( & young men) have 'consented' to degrading and painful acts somehow makes them o.k! And yet what we hear from women involved in the pornography industry and other lines of 'sex work' is that over time their boundaries are eroded and they are expected to submit to ever more extreme acts, to the point they become normal and part of the job. Max Hardcore says he likes to 'condition' his girls right from the start in what to expect going forward.

Also judges no longer seem to be able to differentiate - because all of our boundaries are becoming eroded by this stuff

Well, yes. Presumably suitably convincing evidence was put forward but I can't imagine what it was

Consent? Evidence of past 'consent'?

You don't like this type of sex. You've made it clear but I don't think that gives you the right to ban it

I have explicitly said that I don't advocate that.

We're just going round in circles

yes, if you argue against things that people haven't said that will happen

Judge those people if you want but then expect to be judged yourself

I can live with that

The tenacity of those who seem to be desperate for women not to talk about the injuries and also patterns of social harm to women and girls caused by the recent prevalence of what used to be (even 15 years ago) very niche sexual activities never disappoints.

The tenacity of those who seem to be desperate for women not to talk about the injuries and also patterns of social harm to women and girls caused by the recent prevalence of what used to be (even 15 years ago) very niche sexual activities never disappoints.

Nailed it.

SonicVersusGynaephobia

Were they niche though or just not talked about?

I am not advocating abuse. But I know of people who enjoy some of the things that we are taking about here and other posters have come on to say that they too enjoy it. I have no reason to disbelieve them.

There's a world of difference between people enjoying consensual acts and then people being brutalised and murdered.

I'm not at all dismissing those victims but I think it's wrong to claim that consensual acts should be banned? (if you don't want them banned then I'm not sure what it is that you do want) because some people use those acts to brutalise others.

(if you don't want them banned then I'm not sure what it is that you do want)

then you aren't understanding the thread very well. I can only suggest that you reread my posts

I have read them. I don't understand what it is that you are proposing though.

Maybe you could explain?

Were they niche though or just not talked about?

They were niche, and certainly not mainstream.

15 years ago I was at university. It was the era of cocktails and Sex And The City and we talked about sex in that opened nosey way that young people do. These conversations happened in single and mixed-sex groups. You found out from eg your boyfriend about what his friend and girlfriend had "done" in bed, etc.

We talked about sex, how good the guys we were sleeping with were in bed, how long guys 'lasted', waxing (women, not men), men trimming their pubic hair. "Deep-throating occasionally came up in that women didn't like gagging. Talked about the guy's willingness and ability with oral sex on us was. How many times. What positions we liked. That sort of thing. Nothing was off the table for discussion because we were such wonderfully fabulous and confident sexual beings, just like SATC (that was the mindset).

In all that time, I only ever knew one guy who had had anal sex with his girlfriend, and he openly admitted that "she didn't particularly like it but just does it for me". And one other guy I knew who said he'd like to try it "because it was tighter". In DH's group of guy friends, one of his friends tried it but unfortunately it triggered an epileptic fit for the girl and she lost control of her bowels. The rest of his group had no interest (either before he regaled that experience and even less after).

16-18 year olds at my (large) school were not having anal sex. Never heard of a single person doing it, and that is the sort of thing which would have spread like wildfire. Teenagers being teenagers.

A PP said upthread about how, for women, sex is something that you generally need to learn to enjoy by learning about your own body, the clitoris, etc, so first-time sex is unlikely to result in an orgasm for women, whereas it does for men. For that reason, I think women's "enjoyment" of sex is based on something different than men's (which is primarily orgasm-driven), whereas young women aren't as likely to have that so are conditioned to find enjoyment in other ways at first, eg the closeness, the nakedness, the "fun" of having sex, the man's arousal and response to her, etc. Over time, you learn about your own body and how to make sex work for you too. I haven't thought about that before but I definitely think there is something in that.

I can also say that all the boyfriends I've had from school up to and including DH) has been interested in having, or trying, anal sex, and expressly said so. I don't think that would be the case if I was 16-25 years old in today's world. It's now expected.

You're 2nd point is unrelated to the 1st though.

I worked in the urology department as a nurse in the 80s and 90s - my eyes were well and truly opened by what I saw there so in my experience, these things weren't niche. They just weren't talked about. They weren't as common place as they are today I don't think but ime I can certainly track that back to 50 shades of grey, amongst my friends of 40 and 50 year olds.

I think it is true that knowing what you like comes with experience and in a way men also have to learn what a woman likes too by her telling him. I don't think we can just expect them to "know" when as you say we didn't know ourselves at first.

I was making two separate points, it's allowed!

I can't help but wonder at the correlation between between working in urology and seeing a higher than typical number of people who happened to partake in more niche sexual practices.

We know some practices, eg anal sex, causes serious medical conditions such as prolapse, incontinence, etc, for example. It therefore follows that people who work in this area would see more people who have engaged in the activities which cause damage.

I am sure 50 Shades has had an impact. As has the prevalence of violent porn that children are viewing. They grow up thinking that is normal sex.

Hooves you were the person upthread making the (quite sensible) point that the qualitative research in the BMJ, particularly the in-depth follow-up interviews, weren't necessarily an unbiased sample. (I still think it's of interest, if only in prompting lines of research for larger, more carefully randomised surveys in future).

Can you not see that working in a urology department doesn't deliver an unbiased sample either?

[Joke version ahead...] For instance saying "I worked in A&E and you wouldn't believe how many men mangled their willies sticking them up hoover tubes" doesn't actually tell you anything about the prevalence of sticking willies in hoover tubes in the population at large - because the ones who don't do not show up in A&E with hoover related injuries. The sample is (unsurprisingly) drawn from those with a pre-existing interest in sticking their willies up hoover tubes.

Yes, pervy stuff has always existed. I was at university with people reading classics for god's sake - you know the phrase "the Greeks had a word for it"? Well they did. There is a single, concise ancient Greek verb which conveys in a single word the act of sticking a radish up someone's arse. Perhaps more usefully, the Romans had two verbs for oral sex - one of which described the consensual giving of a blow job, the other forced choking with a penis. A distinction English could do with having at its disposal. I also dipped into (out of curiosity in the English faculty library) - and subsequently wished I hadn't - de Sade. But I digress.

What we're talking about here is not individual tastes and oddities. It's a discussion about demographic shifts, and whether what was once thought of as a bit out there and niche has now become mainstream, to the extent that women feel they have to try it, whether or not they like it, or they'll lose their chance of a relationship.

I can't help but wonder at the correlation between between working in urology and seeing a higher than typical number of people who happened to partake in more niche sexual practices.

Ok. Ruptured urethras, perforated bladders, objects lodged in the bladder, fractured penises, it was all going on

BarbaraStrozzi

And my experience of working as a nurse is just as relevant as the poster stating that these things weren't prevalent 15 years ago because her friends weren't doing them.

I'm not publishing my experience as a study claiming evidence for a sociological change in attitudes, merely saying that I saw examples that proved to me that these things were happening more than my social contacts would have me believe.