article: The Female Price of Male Pleasure

The article discusses 'what is bad sex' according to men and women and extrapolates - from admittedly quick, casual research and a series of unrelated surveys - to come up with the down and dirty explanation that men somehow make women feel obliged to endure. How is she reaching this conclusion when she hasn't established whether or not the men know the women is in pain? Or that the climax is faked?

Adding to the , the article is incredibly gender and heteronormative. Where are the lesbians? The trans women? The genderqueer?

Had the author included these groups, and focussed on 'what is sex for men and women' and how ties into self identity and what we feel/need sex to be, we would have had a better understanding of why women will put up with pain, and how we can resolve the issue.

KindofHere, simply rude. I could pick your thought apart, show where the idea of transference falls through, critique your personal example. But I don’t play without mutual respect.

Ausfet, can you expand on why adding input from lesbians illuminates the issue more?

Charmolypi said:

KindofHere, simply rude. I could pick your thought apart, show where the idea of transference falls through, critique your personal example. But I don’t play without mutual respect.

Ausfet, can you expand on why adding input from lesbians illuminates the issue more?

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If we remove the cis male half of the equation then we have an opportunity to identify to what degree male expectations encourage women to ignore pain or proceed with unwanted sexual activity, and if women in f/f relationships feel more comfortable discussing sex.

.................

ausfet said:

If we remove the cis male half of the equation then we have an opportunity to identify to what degree male expectations encourage women to ignore pain or proceed with unwanted sexual activity, and if women in f/f relationships feel more comfortable discussing sex.

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I balk a little at the idea that a Lesbian viewpoint would add a lot to a discussion of heterosexual sex. I guess though that 'contrast and compare' is useful.

From what I've read, if orgasms measure a woman's satisfaction with sex, then maybe all women should be Lesbian. It's fortunate for us guys that women don't usually measure satisfaction just with an orgasm count. We aren't very competitive that way.

It was the author of the piece who assumed that the surveys she was referencing included only responses and opinions from straight women. Then she referenced a gay man but no lesbian women. If the article is going to focus on men subjucating women for their sexual pleasure I think a comparison point and greater analysis of data would be useful. As it stands, it just reads as someone interpreting data to confirm their own bias.

ausfet said:

It was the author of the piece who assumed that the surveys she was referencing included only responses and opinions from straight women. Then she referenced a gay man but no lesbian women. If the article is going to focus on men subjucating women for their sexual pleasure I think a comparison point and greater analysis of data would be useful. As it stands, it just reads as someone interpreting data to confirm their own bias.

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I didn't think she was saying so much that men were subjugating women with pain, so much as she was saying that: women experience pain during sex, men don't care because sex is all about men anyway, and so women pay a price for men's pleasure. Then there were all of those off-topic asides.

The author showed so little understanding of heterosexual relationships that I have to believe she's either Lesbian or simply doesn't enjoy heterosexual relationships. Also, the incidence of pain in women was just a statistic to her. She made no attempt to piece out what it means, and I'd say the possible meanings are extremely complex.

The medical statistic I found was that 3 or 4 women report experiencing pain during sex at some time in their lives, and that less that half the women reporting pain ever sought medical help. So I think the author overstated both the occurrence of pain and its implications.

I can't speak for all men, but I'm pretty sure that most of us would not willingly cause pain in our lover. as HP put it so succinctly earlier in the thread, it makes you feel like less of a man. We try to make sex not just about our pleasure, but about our partner's pleasure as well. Of course, there are those men who will cause pain, and somehow they don't seem to have a hard time finding women.

And of course, pain is a price that women pay for men's pleasure, only if they don't gain something from it themselves. There's hardly a line between pain and pleasure--especially at the height of arousal--and pain-free sexual satisfaction isn't the only thing to be gained in sex, especially within the scope of an established relationship.

NotWise said:

I didn't think she was saying so much that men were subjugating women with pain, so much as she was saying that: women experience pain during sex, men don't care because sex is all about men anyway, and so women pay a price for men's pleasure. Then there were all of those off-topic asides.

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Yeah, my language there wasn't the best.

I concur with the rest of your comment, but I'd be willing to best the OP is straight. Nobody can hate women as much as straight men, and nobody can hate man as much as a straight woman.

ausfet said:

If we remove the cis male half of the equation then we have an opportunity to identify to what degree male expectations encourage women to ignore pain or proceed with unwanted sexual activity, and if women in f/f relationships feel more comfortable discussing sex.

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So treat lesbian relationships as a baseline for women’s pleasure (or pain) during sex. I’d be interested to see if lesbians cause less pain to each other during sex.

This really sucks

Handley_Page said:

I don't get it. "in sorrow thou shalt bring forth . . ."
Note that, given possible problems of translation, it does not say:
"in pain thou shalt bring forth. . . "
Surely we owe our womenfolk a duty of care as much as possible ?

Or have I missed something ?

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The quote I made was from the King James Bible, because that's the one most commonly quoted, but it's not the most accurate translation. Compare the same quote from the Revised Standard Version of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, which is arguably the most accurate translation into modern English:

To the woman he said,

"I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shalll bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband
and he shall rule over you.

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I think that makes it pretty clear that we're talking about physical pain, not emotional pain.

This whole subject of history's historical inattention to female health issues came up again in Samantha Bee's program Full Frontal last week. It wouldn't surprise people to know that, since Ms. Bee has been the personification of shrill feminism in the eyes of many people. But I think it's worth mentioning that it seems to be emerging as a subject for discussion.

Can I ask what I suspect may be considered a daft question:
What on earth is the prefix 'ciss' about ?
(I saw another about 'Sissy', but I'm fairly sure that there's a 'language difference' here).

Handley_Page said:

Can I ask what I suspect may be considered a daft question:
What on earth is the prefix 'ciss' about ?
(I saw another about 'Sissy', but I'm fairly sure that there's a 'language difference' here).

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CIS refers to someone who identifies as the gender they were born as.

'cisgender' means you're biologically born a man or a woman, and you continue to identify as one.

Not sure where it came from, although urban dictionary says something about incorrectly appropriating the prefix from Latin as the opposite of 'trans'.

Athalia said:

yet your desire shall be for your husband
and he shall rule over you.

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Yeow. I'd forgotten about that part. So the other half of that quote says that the woman is basically there to be a fuck-toy for her husband, and she shouldn't be "desiring" anything else but that.

So we've got some four thousand years of misogyny to unlearn. Tall order.

This whole subject of history's historical inattention to female health issues came up again in Samantha Bee's program Full Frontal last week.

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Yeah, I saw that. She made some good points.