[Discussion] Men talking to men about Feminism

This thread is for people who believe that when it comes to feminism it's important for men to listen to women and to talk to men.

In this thread we assume Feminism is something you wholeheartedly support or want to support. Questions about the validity of Feminism are for somewhere else.

If your partner has never complained about being in pain during sex, it wouldn't be a bad thing to ask about while not having sex.

I'd probably throw an addendum in here on how often SHE initiates versus you do, too.

Though I can't help but wonder how much of a blind spot this also created for me. I'd like to think, based on my experiences that I was a pretty good partner in that aspect for my ex-wife, and she was just as, if not more likely, to initiate than I was. She somewhat jokingly said during an argument that she couldn't even follow through with a threat to withhold sex until something got taken care of because she knew she'd blink first.

But what if that was all just societal conditioning and she did have a decent amount of discomfort?

Seriously, ever since that article got read, it's been doing my head in.

Demosthenes wrote:

I'd probably throw an addendum in here on how often SHE initiates versus you do, too.

Though I can't help but wonder how much of a blind spot this also created for me. I'd like to think, based on my experiences that I was a pretty good partner in that aspect for my ex-wife, and she was just as, if not more likely, to initiate than I was. She somewhat jokingly said during an argument that she couldn't even follow through with a threat to withhold sex until something got taken care of because she knew she'd blink first.

But what if that was all just societal conditioning and she did have a decent amount of discomfort?

Seriously, ever since that article got read, it's been doing my head in.

Totally agree on the question of who initiates.

I think as far as the social conditioning goes, ultimately all you can do, to paraphrase Vonnegut, is be kind to one another, dammit. People still have agency, which I don't think any social conditioning short of level North Korea can fully take that away. Ask your partner if sex is ever painful and what would make them feel more comfortable about speaking up when it is. Ask yourself if it is ever painful for you, and why you don't speak up when it is.

Another issue is that sometimes my wife initiates, but after discussing it with her she only initiated because she felt guilty about not wanting to as often as I do. So now, whenever she initiates I make doubly sure it's not just an offer out of guilt. How awful is it where our culture has made women feel responsible for their partner's sexual satisfaction?

Honestly, I can't understand why anyone would WANT to have sex with someone who wasn't giving enthusiastic consent.

Valmorian wrote:

Another issue is that sometimes my wife initiates, but after discussing it with her she only initiated because she felt guilty about not wanting to as often as I do. So now, whenever she initiates I make doubly sure it's not just an offer out of guilt. How awful is it where our culture has made women feel responsible for their partner's sexual satisfaction?

Honestly, I can't understand why anyone would WANT to have sex with someone who wasn't giving enthusiastic consent.

Maintenance sex came up a few pages ago....

Long and short - if you commit to being in a monogamous relationship, you're de-facto committing to being responsible for your partner's sexual satisfaction. That's not a gender issue, that's a monogamy issue.

Jonman wrote:

Long and short - if you commit to being in a monogamous relationship, you're de-facto committing to being responsible for your partner's sexual satisfaction. That's not a gender issue, that's a monogamy issue.

Yeah, I don't agree. The idea that people are obligated to sexually satisfy their partner is gross. If enthusiastic consent is important in dating, it should be equally important in a marriage.

Valmorian wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Long and short - if you commit to being in a monogamous relationship, you're de-facto committing to being responsible for your partner's sexual satisfaction. That's not a gender issue, that's a monogamy issue.

Yeah, I don't agree. The idea that people are obligated to sexually satisfy their partner is gross. If enthusiastic consent is important in dating, it should be equally important in a marriage.

You misunderstand me. No-one is ever obligated to f*ck anyone. Ever, full stop, end of story.

Buuuut, if you enter into a relationship with an explicit rule of "I'm the only person that you're allowed to f*ck", then you are taking responsibility for your partner's needs, because you've explicitly told them that no-one else can.

I'm not suggesting that that should obligate sex, I'm saying that it should obligate introspection and discussion with your partner about how to best meet both your needs.

It is much bigger than being "obligated to sexually satisfy your partner."

I am married happily to my wife. There are times when i go with her to do something I have less than zero interest in because I know it will make her happy for me to go. There are times that it works the other way. Because I care about her being happy, and she cares about me being happy.

For our[1] relationship, the same applies to the bedroom. There are times when she has felt like happyfunsexytime and I was tired, but, because I love her, I am willing to sacrifice a bit of my happiness to make her happy. And there are times that it works the other way around.

Now, if I really, really am not in the mood, I will say no, and she will be disappointed, but will accept it. If she really is not in the mood, and I am, the same deal applies. When you are in a long-term committed relationship, and are able to maturely communicate with each other, there is a lot more nuance that comes into play when you are talking about consent with your partner(s) .

[1] Your mileage may vary. Your relationship is not the relationship I have with my wife, etc, etc

Jonman wrote:

Buuuut, if you enter into a relationship with an explicit rule of "I'm the only person that you're allowed to f*ck", then you are taking responsibility for your partner's needs, because you've explicitly told them that no-one else can.

Huh? Since when does marriage suddenly render a person unable to masturbate?

Valmorian wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Buuuut, if you enter into a relationship with an explicit rule of "I'm the only person that you're allowed to f*ck", then you are taking responsibility for your partner's needs, because you've explicitly told them that no-one else can.

Huh? Since when does marriage suddenly render a person unable to masturbate?

orgasm isn't the only need that sex fulfils. There's bonding, intimate physical contact, a need for sexual variety, and needs for kinks a person might have. And probably loads of other needs that sex meets.

Jonman has the right of it.

Valmorian wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Buuuut, if you enter into a relationship with an explicit rule of "I'm the only person that you're allowed to f*ck", then you are taking responsibility for your partner's needs, because you've explicitly told them that no-one else can.

Huh? Since when does marriage suddenly render a person unable to masturbate?

If that's enough to keep you happy and content in the long term, more power to you buddy, but you're an exception, not the rule.

DanB wrote:

orgasm isn't the only need that sex fulfils. There's bonding, intimate physical contact, a need for sexual variety, and needs for kinks a person might have. And probably loads of other needs that sex meets.

Well then.. I'm certainly glad that my own relationships have not had this veneer of expected gratification of sexual needs.

Valmorian wrote:
DanB wrote:

orgasm isn't the only need that sex fulfils. There's bonding, intimate physical contact, a need for sexual variety, and needs for kinks a person might have. And probably loads of other needs that sex meets.

Well then.. I'm certainly glad that my own relationships have not had this veneer of expected gratification of sexual needs.

...that you know of...

Jonman wrote:

...that you know of...

Is this really necessary? Are we now resorting to veiled implications?

EDIT: Looks like I typed too slowly, but still, I'll leave my thoughts here.

Valmorian wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Buuuut, if you enter into a relationship with an explicit rule of "I'm the only person that you're allowed to f*ck", then you are taking responsibility for your partner's needs, because you've explicitly told them that no-one else can.

Huh? Since when does marriage suddenly render a person unable to masturbate?

Slightly orthogonal to the current discussion, but this is a perfect example/expansion of the point from up the page — men are acculturated to seeing sex as being about having an orgasm (or maybe, possibly, about multiple people having orgasms) rather than being about sharing an experience with another person, and that's a big problem we ought to be very interested in addressing.

For example, it's a big part of the answer to this question:

Honestly, I can't understand why anyone would WANT to have sex with someone who wasn't giving enthusiastic consent.

Because we have been taught to see sexual partners as means to the end of having an orgasm, and to equate having an orgasm to having good sex. And this is bad in so many ways, but the most pressing is that it enables people to justify all kinds of gross, destructive behavior on the borderline of consent.

I would guess that if you ask most men they would say that masturbating usually isn't as satisfying as having sex with a partner (or partners), but they would either be much harder pressed to articulate why, or simply reply that it doesn't feel as good. Granted, that may be at least partially the case — although I would suggest that they could probably improve their masturbation techniques a bit — but I would go further, and guess that for a great many men what they are struggling to communicate is that they are missing the great abundance of emotional and physiological effects of having and intimate interaction with a partner. But, you know, it's not "manly" to express an interest in emotional connection, etc, etc, so we focus on the orgasm.

Bringing it back to the maintenance sex thing, then, reducing a man's needs to the goal of having an orgasm, and presenting masturbation as an equivalent substitute is furthering that problem. Yes, masturbation can be an excellent tool in managing these things, because real talk, orgasms are great, and even in the absence of a partner can help manage all kinds of things. But, they don't satisfy the need for intimate physical contact with another person, and as Jonman and mudbunny have discussed, part of being in a committed, monogamous relationship is being aware of and interested in your partners needs and finding ways to work with them to bring them happiness and satisfaction because you've committed to being the only partners you will have for that particular brand of human interaction.

Also, trying not to get of on yet another big tangent here, but exploring various kink activities can often provide additional ways of sharing that kind of intimacy and connection when one partner's drive specifically for straight ahead sexual contact doesn't match up with the others. Another great reason to open up and explore your boundaries, particularly if you are in a long term committed relationship.

MOD

Cool it, Jonman. We're getting awfully personal.

Valmorian wrote:
Jonman wrote:

...that you know of...

Is this really necessary? Are we now resorting to veiled implications?

You called Jonman gross for the idea of maintenance sex and are claiming to be the victim of veiled implications?

Valmorian wrote:
Jonman wrote:

...that you know of...

Is this really necessary? Are we now resorting to veiled implications?

No veiled implication. Based on your posts, this is something you've not given thought to before, so how would you have known if those expectations existed?

EDIT - Mod note noted. Cooling commencing.

zeroKFE wrote:

But, they don't satisfy the need for intimate physical contact with another person, and as Jonman and mudbunny have discussed, part of being in a committed, monogamous relationship is being aware of and interested in your partners needs and finding ways to work with them to bring them happiness and satisfaction because you've committed to being the only partners you will have for that particular brand of human interaction.

I think the misunderstanding here is that for me, at least, a partner having sexual relations with me just to make me happy wouldn't work, because I don't have any interest in having sex with someone who isn't equally into it. It wouldn't meet my "needs" at all.

Now, if a relationship I'm in lacks intimacy in total, then perhaps that's not a relationship to continue. If it's one with less intimacy than I would like, I don't see how my partner feigning interest in intimacy would really help me out.

SallyNasty wrote:

You called Jonman gross for the idea of maintenance sex and are claiming to be the victim of veiled implications?

I find the idea of maintenance sex gross, yes. It's not an insult to anyone specifically. The implications of his post seemed clear to me, in that it implies that my partners had expectations that I didn't meet.

I think the misunderstanding here is that for me, at least, a partner having sexual relations with me just to make me happy wouldn't work, because I don't have any interest in having sex with someone who isn't equally into it. It wouldn't meet my "needs" at all.

Now, if a relationship I'm in lacks intimacy in total, then perhaps that's not a relationship to continue. If it's one with less intimacy than I would like, I don't see how my partner feigning interest in intimacy would really help me out.

I understand what you are saying here, but you might find it interesting to go back and read the more in depth discussion of the topic from a few pages ago. There are a lot of interesting subtleties to what's being discussed here that got communicated a lot more in depth previously that I think might address some of what you are talking about.

For example, to broadly and probably grossly restate some of the things that were said, the healthy version of it isn't about the less interested partner faking something, it's about them making a choice to modify their base interest level motivated by a desire to care for their partner. Again, the difference is subtle, but it still is all the difference in the world.

Valmorian wrote:
Jonman wrote:

Buuuut, if you enter into a relationship with an explicit rule of "I'm the only person that you're allowed to f*ck", then you are taking responsibility for your partner's needs, because you've explicitly told them that no-one else can.

Huh? Since when does marriage suddenly render a person unable to masturbate?

FWIW that’s not always an option in more conservative marriages. Sure you can do it but if your wife considers it borderline cheating than youre damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Looking at porn is seen as outright cheating by a lot of conservative Christian wives (I know this from talking to my conservative friends both men and women).

I’m personally torn on the whole porn issue due to the fact a lot of it is exploitive to women and often plays into the role of putting men’s satisfaction above women. Certainly I don’t buy into the whole “sex is a necessary evil” attitude but I struggle with how much of porn is sex positive versus unethical. It’s also easy to just turn to porn as an escape.

This is probably worth a whole other discussion but if your partner says “this behavior hurts me” than you’re also being a sexist jerk if you go against her wishes.

Valmorian wrote:

I find the idea of maintenance sex gross, yes. It's not an insult to anyone specifically.

I think that's because the picture you have in your head of maintenance sex isn't representative. It's not one partner rolling their eyes, checking their watch and sighing the entire time, because you'd be right, that would be kind of gross.

It's the recognition that while maybe you're not super in the mood for sex, you know (based on your history with your partner) that if you were to have sex with your partner, you'd probably both be happy about the fact afterwards.

Maintenance sex - a play in one act:

A: "Hey honey - you wanna f*ck?"
B: "Errmm, not really, but I guess I could? Sure, why not."

*fade to black*
15 minutes later

B: "I'm glad we did that. It's been a while"
A: "Me too."

Orgasm is but a solitary piece of the sexual experience. Masturbation can stimulate an orgasm, sure, but it lacks so much more. The touch of another. A sensual embrace. Seeing pleasure in another's eyes. Hearing positive affirmations. The visual and tactile experiences of the female (or male) form.

Honestly, the orgasm could be left out most easily. Sometimes, even as a man, I have had my fill of the experience before reaching climax.

Being desired by another in a sexual manner is amazing, when you feel the same way, and the journey to climax is the best part. The climax itself is great but it pales in comparison to getting there.

I think I'm just going to bow out of this discussion. Not a fan of how heated it gets in here.

Valmorian wrote:

I think I'm just going to bow out of this discussion. Not a fan of how heated it gets in here.

Valmorian I didn’t take your posts as confrontational and I hope mine didn’t come across as confrontational back. This is a constant struggle for me and I’m not perfect. Just trying to say that there are I’m sure millions of couples in the same boat as me.

There's the added component here (that seems right in the center of the disconnect) which is that there's emotional labor involved in maintenance sex and that labor is invisible to most men.

Women generally being the ones who are culturally prepared to think ahead to manage the needs of others may initiate sex because they see their partner as unhappy or they know it's been a while and that it's important to their partner, etc.

Men, generally more attuned to direct exchanges, may only see 'maintenance sex' as the moment when they initiate because they want sex and there is a response from their partner that is something other than 'yes I also want sex at this exact moment'.

Edit: To clear it up even further: the way I'm viewing maintenance sex in this conversation doesn't even mean that you don't want sex, it just means that you are thinking of your partner's (or the relationship's) needs instead of your own when making the decision.

Valmorian, sad to see you bow out, there's a lot of rapid-fire posting right now but I hope it's all in the spirit of understanding. I've been happy to read through and think so far.

jdzappa wrote:

FWIW that’s not always an option in more conservative marriages. Sure you can do it but if your wife considers it borderline cheating than youre damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Looking at porn is seen as outright cheating by a lot of conservative Christian wives (I know this from talking to my conservative friends both men and women).

My kingdom for a cultural shift on this. Changing the way men think (i.e., are taught to think) about sex would be so much easier if we could make significant strides towards destigmatizing masturbation, so that we could have the important discussions and recontextualization of sexual needs with additional subtlety and stratification.

Also, and this is genuine curiosity because I just don't have enough conservative religious people in my life who I'd be comfortable asking to conduct my own survey, but do you (or anyone else) have any sense of how much of that is about the masturbation, and how much is about the porn?

Because, I mean, masturbation doesn't necessarily need to involve porn, and even without having to deal with all the complexities of the morality and ethics of porn, the conversation could at least move forward a bit if we could just reframe how our culture understands masturbation.

But, no clue what positive personal actions could be taken along those lines, other than taking the time to advocate for a change of thought when the opportunity arises.

I’m personally torn on the whole porn issue due to the fact a lot of it is exploitive to women and often plays into the role of putting men’s satisfaction above women. Certainly I don’t buy into the whole “sex is a necessary evil” attitude but I struggle with how much of porn is sex positive versus unethical. It’s also easy to just turn to porn as an escape.

Thankfully, there is positive personal action to be taken here! The porn industry is not an impenetrable (heh) monolithic (ha!) entity. If one is interested, it's quite possible to be a more informed consumer, and find producers who at least make attempts to create their products ethically and treat their performers with care and respect. It might mean that you have to spend a bit of money, or that it's less convenient, or that maybe you no longer engage with something that really floats your boat, but it's something to consider putting some effort into.

It also can be helpful to broaden your diet beyond filmed and photographed entertainment. For example, in the worlds of erotic fiction and interactive media it's often a lot easier to be reasonably confident whether or not something meets your ethical standards in various regards — not that there aren't other concerns as well, but having the question of treatment of performers off the table simplifies matters greatly.

This is probably worth a whole other discussion but if your partner says “this behavior hurts me” than you’re also being a sexist jerk if you go against her wishes.

Yeah, that is a tough conversation. But, if framed and conducted properly it can also be a useful and productive one, both on a personal and interpersonal level, and for society as a whole.

@zeroKFE - you make excellent points and I think you are correct in that the porn is frowned upon more than the masturbation. Im glad to hear that there is a movement to more ethical porn as I don’t have a problem with consenting adults choosing to do porn as long as it’s not exploitive. Heck, the civic libertarian in me would be ok with legalizing prostitution if it could be done in an equitable manner (which may or may not be possible).

I am fortunate in that I get a pass to watch stuff like Game of Thrones which some of my friends don’t. Written erotica doesn’t do it for me even though as a writer I appreciate well crafted sex scenes.