Sorry to return so quickly to the fetid mind of MRA blabologist JohnTheOther, but, well, you’ll see why I have.
Here is Mr. TheOther in AskReddit, responding to the question “Women of Reddit, how do you feel about cumshots?” (No, he is not strictly speaking a “woman of Reddit,” not like that’s going to stop him.) Enjoy the irony of the A Voice for Men second banana rehashing, apparently with utter sincerity, an argument once set forth, rather infamously, by a feminist fellow named Hugo Schwyzer. And enjoy the also-very-special response from fellow MRA SuicideBanana, whom we met earlier in the week.
I know Mr. TheOther is concerned about people “quote mining” comments, and presenting them out of context, but in this case, there is no further context. His comment, which I have presented unedited in screenshot form, isn’t in response to any other comment; it’s simply an answer to the question I alluded to above. Mr. TheOther does respond to SuicideBanana’s remarks about him being an advocate and facilitator of violence, as you can see if you clicky click here, but sheds no more light on the issue of porno cumshots as a “pseudo-mystical representation of the sexuality of the viewer.”
I’m sorry if my post contributed to that – I realized after posting that the last line in it could be taken that way. My intent was to say, “even if someone has been there, even if they’re the strongest, smartest, most experienced, utterly badass person ever, it’s still genuinely hard not to be manipulated when there’s another person in the equation actively trying to manipulate them,” but on rereading, I can get “you all just don’t know till you’ve been there” out of it instead. Which is true, I mean, people don’t tend to know what things are like until they’ve experienced them, but that wouldn’t follow as a response to anything anyone has said here, since I’ve no reason to doubt anyone’s accounts of their experiences.
(Incidentally, I am currently chock full of painkillers, so if any of my posts is completely incoherent, I blame the pills and/or the pain I’m taking them for.)
Arr they pirates?
David
Really? Why do you search this kind of stuff out? Honestly, are you actually making the world better for anyone by pointing this shit out? Granted, I have been drawn into JohnTheOther and your view of the world, so, bad on me. 🙁
This stuff is really hard to talk about without everyone inadvertently hurting each other, isn’t it?
My primary thing in terms of all of this is that the fact that so many women, especially young women, are manipulated into sex they don’t want doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and I think part of the issue is that on a cultural level we’re not at all giving girls the message that it’s OK to say no to sex you don’t want even with someone who you love, and that it’s also OK to say yes to some sex acts and no to others, and that doing so doesn’t make you mean or unreasonable or a bad partner. As I get older I’ve often found myself being the person to whom younger friends talk about that stuff, and often it seems as if they’re basically looking for someone to tell them that yes, they have a right to say no and no, it doesn’t make them an unkind partner or bad in bed or any of that stuff. Young women are getting the message that they can say no to sex period, which is great, but the finer grained stuff seems to be getting lost in terms of the messages people are picking up from the culture, and there’s a whole lot of cultural shit pushing the idea that women should always be sexually open and giving and willing to meet their partner’s needs no matter what the cost is to themselves, and I feel like that’s something feminists need to push back against, the narrative that a good partner (if she’s a woman) has very loose and permeable boundaries.
(I pulled an all nighter for work and am now on about hour 40 awake so I may be a bit incoherent too.)
@cloudiah
What’s this? MRAs advocating not listening to women and insisting no means yes?
and they wonder why we call them rape apologists. But hey they could care less about that, so lets put this in terms that they will care about. Ignoring a woman’s no is a rape accusation waiting to happen. Or at the very least, her calling him a creep and telling everyone what a coercive prick he is.
One of the things I’ve read is that women who will perform with black performers see their pay drop.
Also why the hell is she talking about this stuff with ‘the kids at work’ oh and citing fiction as reality….man we can have rape apologist bingo here.
No means yes? Check.
Don’t listen to what women say in bed? Check.
Rape fantasies reflect what women want in reality? Check.
MRAs think creep is only reserved for men, but GWW? Creep to the max.
I agree, MRAs can go fuck themselves.
Or get fucked by a rapist, amirite?
(Answer: No, only a terrible person would think so!)
So I guess a good way for a woman to establish that she is NOT a feminist, and get on the good side of MRAs, is to become a rape apologist. You go GWW.
Ruby, however, has managed to alienate both sides, because she thinks prison rape is okey-dokey.
It really is. I think it’s that it’s one of those issues that’s simultaneously extremely common and intensely personal (not to mention being tied up in all sorts of conflicting societal narratives that often seem to boil down to “if you say no, you’re bad, and if you don’t say no, you’re bad”). It makes it kind of an emotional minefield.
Yes, yes, yes, on all counts. I just recently had a young woman I know (to whom I’m kind of a “big sister”) cry to me about how she was obviously a bad girlfriend because she didn’t like a particular sex act. Not even because she declined to do it – that didn’t even occur to her as an available option! – but just because she felt like if she was really a GOOD girlfriend, she would magically always be completely and genuinely enthusiastic and eager about everything her partner wanted. It made me so sad, especially since I still catch myself thinking the same way sometimes, but at least nowadays I’m better than I used to be at telling myself, “no, actually, it’s okay to be a human being and not PerfectGirlfriendBot 9000.” I hate that that pressure to be a girlfriend-robot is still such a huge part of the lives of so many women and girls.
*tired people solidarity fistbump*
@Cliff Pervocracy- I had an exboyfriend who basically just did the “whine about wanting to cum on my face/boobs/hair/etc” until I finally relented and let him do it. Let me just say I hated doing stuff with him. It was always about his penis, about HIS pleasure, and he wouldn’t reciprocate until I basically threatened to leave, and even then his performance was lackluster and half-assed. And, by the way, cum STINGS LIKE FUCK in the eyes. But what do I know? I was a dumb 18 year old who wanted to enjoy sex for the first time, and instead I got some guy who just wanted to enact porn scenes on my body and then make me go clean myself up without any hope of reciprocation. And I was so afraid of being “one of those bitchy needy girls” that I basically just sat around HOPING he would reciprocate, while he figured that if I didn’t bother him about it, he wouldn’t have to do it since he obviously didn’t want to in the first place.
I wouldn’t say that I’m bitter, but after that horrible sexual relationship, I learned pretty quickly not to make compromises when it comes to the core things I want out of sex. As far as I’m concerned, not reciprocating or pleasuring your partner basically means I don’t want to be involved with you, full stop.
Basically, I am of the opinion that if you want to be a self-centered ass, you should stick to masturbation and not subject anyone else to having to endure you. JtO seems to be of this ilk. I hope that he and his “facial porn” have a great life together!!
” I just recently had a young woman I know (to whom I’m kind of a “big sister”) cry to me about how she was obviously a bad girlfriend because she didn’t like a particular sex act. Not even because she declined to do it – that didn’t even occur to her as an available option! – but just because she felt like if she was really a GOOD girlfriend, she would magically always be completely and genuinely enthusiastic and eager about everything her partner wanted”
Ugh. It feels like that’s actually gotten worse rather than better. When I was a teenager I definitely felt the pressure to have sex when in a relationship in general, and to be seen as good in bed, but I didn’t feel the same pressure to perform any and all acts that a partner requested that people seem to feel now. My evil ex was an anomaly back then in terms of the specific things he was trying to insist on, which made it easier to say no, and no one ever even tried to manipulate me into facials, because it just wasn’t so much of a thing then. The number of things that are considered mandatory seems to be increasing, is what I’m saying, and with them the pressure on girls to play along and fake enthusiasm if they don’t actually feel it. It feels like in terms of the ability of girls to say “yes to A but no to B and I’m not sure yet about C” the culture is actually backsliding rather than getting better, and men are getting pushier and pushier in terms of insisting that their partners act out very specific scenarios. It feel more and more like the cultural concept “sexy woman” translates to “woman who has no sexual boundaries at all and who will do anything that you want her to”.
And here’s the thing, say you are with a woman and she says no, but its a breathy sort of no. You dont just continue, you ask what’s wrong, you ask if she’s ok and if she wants to stop or continue, you fucking communicate…is that really so much to ask? Maybe she’s unsure, maybe she’s ventured into roleplay (though I have a hard time believing people just go into this without discussing or planning it first) maybe she really wants to stop. Either way you fucking stop and see what the problem is because its the right thing to do.
It feel more and more like the cultural concept “sexy woman” translates to “woman who has no sexual boundaries at all and who will do anything that you want her to”.
Oddly enough, I actually think this is tied into the “abstinence only” sex education. Everything about this model completely erases women’s pleasure, therefore, there’s no desire or agency on the part of the woman and all of the pleasure and agency on the part of the man. If no one’s teaching the girls that hey, you have a right to like what you like, don’t like what you don’t like, and express that preference clearly and reject men who don’t respect that, and also teaching the boys that women are people too and that you have to respect her boundaries, you end up with a lot of people who are confused about navigating sexual relationships. If a woman comes from the viewpoint that you have no desires when it comes to sex, then it becomes about what he wants even if she doesn’t like it. Which makes sex more like washing the dishes than it does about fun. And it becomes easier for guys to pressure women into doing things they don’t want, especially since he’s been taught that once a penis sullies a vagina, she’s pretty much a whore, so why not pressure for the porn star fantasy? Of course, this also assumes that all sluts are all the same, but that’s a feature, as they say, not a bug.
Something of a trend I’ve noticed in erotic medium is the idea that the man can be so good at sex that he can force the woman to enjoy herself even if she didn’t want to at first. I’ve seen a ton of plots that basically amount to making the unsure/unwilling girl submit through pure sexual prowess.
Maybe that’s part of the motivation here amongst the manipulative guys… they aren’t necessarily trying to be assholes, (though plenty probably are), they’re trying to prove how good they are at sex. I dunno… I’ve definitely done some pressuring in the past, something that I’m rather ashamed of now. I didn’t really understand what I was doing at the time, though… I thought I was being helpful. 🙁
That’s something to keep in mind too, re manipulators. There’s people who are really good at manipulating, and then there are people who are naive when it comes to being manipulated. No-one is born accostomed to being on their guard; it only happens when you’ve been tricked already. And just like there’s no shame in not being amazing at sex the first time, there’s no shame in being duped the first time either.
@AbsintheDexterous- You do not want to know how many other women I’ve talked to who basically likened sex stuff to doing housework, messy, drudgerous but necessary housework. Then you turn around and talk to the guys and they think they’re so great at pleasing their partners and they’re happy about their sex life, but they only wish they could “get it” more.
Meanwhile their spouse/gf is coming at it from the same angle as, “but why should I have to do the laundry EVERY single night? Isn’t once a week enough?”
And nobody talks about it forever because that would be, like…icky, and CAUSE PROBLEMS and stuff, and besides, at least he’s not abusive or something.
The reality of mainstream heterosexual sex is really depressing, actually.
Ugh. A lot of my female coworkers talk this way. It really makes me sad how many times I’ve heard someone at work talk cheerfully about “getting out of” sleeping with her husband.
You can’t just ask “so does he normally force you?” because they’ll always say no, of course not, nothing like that. Just he normally expects them to carry through on their obligations, and they normally sigh and allow it.
I don’t want to paint all of mainstream heterosexual sex this way, obviously someone doesn’t have to be queer or sex-positive or “enlightened” to have fun with sex, but there’s definitely a lot of people living in the “sex is just another damn chore” mindset.
Things were getting a bit too depressing. Now for something [not] completely different…but at least it’s playful. 😀
@Cliff- Yeah….it’s one of those things where people are taught that they can’t actually get what they want directly out of their relationship (because everyone knows that talking directly with your partner will “ruin the specialness of reading each other’s minds and you’ll stop loving each other and stuff”), so they have to do other things to get what they want. So if a woman wants to cuddle and get affection, she might submit to giving oral sex because then he’ll kiss her and cuddle her after he orgasms. If a man wants to get his wife to do anal for him, he’ll start out with some grand gesture of some sort as a way to “obligate” her into it. Or, alternatively, use passive-aggressive language to imply that perhaps he would go elsewhere and fuck around behind her back if she doesn’t do it. And then the woman feels trapped and panicky and decides to do it because the alternative is “worse”.
It reminds me of some show I saw where one male character realized that taking his wife to musicals actually made her want to fuck him because the musicals had subliminal messages in them that make women want to have (for direct male pleasure only without direct reciprocation) sex.
I found this depressing because it assumes that women don’t want to have sex unless they get tricked into it, which plays into that whole “haha I disrespect you” thing that men seem to heap onto women who *do* submit to their sexual requests.
Most of my childhood sexual fantasies revolved around someone raping me and me just vicariously orgasming. It did not occur to me until much later in my early 20’s that a good male partner should actively WANT to pleasure his partner, not simply rub his penis until he feels satisfied and then leaving me cold and alone to clean up and “finish myself.”
Of course, then this plays rather disastrously into the oft-quoted feminist line “everyone is responsible for their own pleasure in sex”- sure, I don’t just want to lie there or anything, but it does bug me that the idea of having sex seems to be that if you don’t magically get yourself off, it’s all YOUR fault, and it couldn’t possibly be because your partner is basically jacking off in you.
My mom, back when she was a public health nurse in the 80s & 90s, used to do sex ed at the catholic high schools. (She wasn’t allowed to mention condoms unless someone asked.)
She said the girls there were more interested in going EEEWWWWWW at the fake breast than to learn how to check for lumps, and seemed to be developing an attitude of commerce around sex. Like, sex is what you do so your husband will buy you a new dishwasher or something.
It made her furious, especially when contrasted with the sessions she did in the public schools, where it was much more of just another lesson, and “Oh, that’s what that is” and “But can you catch AIDS if…”.
NOTE: I don’t mean this to be catholic bashing, just an illustration of how much our society in general could improve if we could develop a healthier attitude about sex. I hope it comes across better than I feel it does.
Since someone mentioned bodice-rippers earlier, there’s actually a growing field in academia that’s analyzing the development of romance novels. There’s a fairly well supported theory that the bodice-ripping, purple-prose phase of the 70’s and 80’s were about women working through methods of gaining sexual pleasure without being branded a whore. Being forced to orgasm by Hero McAsshat was a pretty common trope for quite a while. Slowly, there started to appear more heroines who weren’t virgins, enjoyed sex, and were still able to meet and fall in mutual love with a (non-raping) man, and the rapish tropes fell in favour.
Can you imagine if nobody ever talked about bike riding? Like nobody thought it was proper to teach you to wear a helmet, or how to balance without training wheels, and you never developed an intuition about which roads were too sandy or which hills were too steep for your tastes? If you were never taught that it is ok to go biking on paths you find enjoyable, but rather that you had to go along with your current riding partner?
Can you imagine how many injuries there would be from self-experimentation? Or how many naive youngsters would get pressured into riding down the steep hill without hitting the breaks by the more adreniline-seeking and experienced folks (or dicks who derive pleasure from humiliating someone)?
That’s part of what infuriates me about “abstinence only” education, along with the fear our culture has about talking about sex. When you can’t even discuss sex without fear of being labled, you aren’t going to be able to find out what sorts of sex you like and dislike, because all sex is equally naughty and icky. And you certainly aren’t going to be able to know intuitively how to do it right or safely. And safety doesn’t just need to be about condoms; consent is another aspect of safety that isn’t discussed in sex ed (as far as I remember from mine).
I kind of hate talking about sex with random coworkers etc because it is so depressing, how mechanical and chore-like a view a lot of women have of it, and how oblivious to or uncaring about that a lot of men are. Also for a woman who’s attracted to men but not submissive the general cultural conversation about hetero sex is so baffling that you end up feeling like a very confused visitor from another planet. Like what Kirby said above about how he used to be pushy and thought that he was somehow helping – that cultural idea that men being sexually pushy is a good thing that helps women to get over supposed inhibitions was always so confusing to me as a teenager, because I’m not sure that I have any particular inhibitions (yay non-religious upbringing and kind of hippie mom?), and people being pushy when I’m either not indicating interest or actively indicating disinterest feels like such an obvious violation that I could never understand why the culture as a whole seemed to think that I should either like it or at least not mind it. That whole idea that women don’t really know what we want and need men to show us, forcefully if necessary, and that you should try something that you don’t think you’ll like because someone you magically will like it if the dude is just skilled enough at it…it’s never worked that way for me, and the whole mindset leaves me feeling like I’m reading something translated by someone who doesn’t speak either the original language or the one they’re translating into properly.
Not to mention, and I don’t mean to pick on you here Kirby because I think you’re a good guy, but when I see stuff like that it makes me feel like as a culture we’re actively teaching men to be bad in bed, rather than just passively not teaching them to be good. Does that make sense? But then the general assumption seems to be that most women are at least somewhat submissive, and I’m not, so maybe that’s why the whole thing seems so ass-backwards to me?
@Unimaginative- I didn’t read romance novels as a kid. Mostly, my messed up sex fantasies largely stemmed from my mom going into graphic detail about what would happen if a “bad man” decided to rape me/kidnap me. I think this must have been tied to her own sexual abuse that she suffered as a child (she has never talked about it directly, but some of the things she’s said makes me pretty damn sure that this was the case). This was around the time that Polly Klass was kidnapped/raped/murdered, so she succeeded in freaking my sister and I out about it (we were maybe 5 and 7 at the time).
Of course, rape also meant that someone actually WANTED me, which played into the dichotomous negative messages my mom ALSO gave me about how fat, unattractive and unloveable I was to the opposite sex. So yeah. It was complicated. And then sex ed was basically how I developed my impregnation fetish, because even though I didn’t want to actually get pregnant as a 5th grader, the graphic descriptions of what happens during reproductive sex were really fucking hot, and other than my sadistic rape fantasies, they were the only other option I could find.
So I think that the main things I was exposed to was the whole “predators are going to rape you” thing coupled with the whole “someone’s going to knock you up at some point” thing…and other than the obscure weird fantasies that would randomly turn me on that mostly stemmed from reading fantasy or science fiction novels and then wondering about various scenarios in a sexual light, that was pretty much my entire sexual education.
I didn’t even realize that “cum on the face” was a THING until I had said ex-boyfriend who was basically obsessed with cum all over females and jacking off to that.
And I internalized all of this stuff somehow without access to the internet (until I was in college) or romance novels (which I found boring). However, I would spend time coming up with various sexual sparring scenarios that would really get me off. Someone once called it “Strategic Ambiguity”- and it’s something that I find really really hot, but it’s really hard to pull off properly because of the fact that it has to be just right and that’s fucking hard to do.