This article at Details, brought to my attention by Jessica, seems almost designed to get the readers to hate men, even if they are in fact men, by boldly asserting a sort of universal equation between being a man and being a complete and utter asshole—who is obsessed with getting a crack at female asshole without getting enthusiastic consent. The assholery starts with the picture.
They paint a dreary picture of how terrible men are in such vivid detail I had to pinch myself and remind myself that I know plenty of men who don’t exhibit the behavior portrayed in this article. The ostensible subject is anal sex, but it’s really more about men who see sex primarily as a way to abuse women and shore up their own egos through domination. As you can imagine from the use of the word “demand”. No, it’s not really okay to “demand” any sex act. The very idea of demanding in ostensibly consensual relationships between adults is loathsome. As you can imagine, the rest of the article posits that women are alternately games of “Whack-A-Mole”, and men who penetrate the most orifices somehow win and that women are essentially restaurants where men can order off a menu, except you know, they don’t pay. (Genuine prostitutes have a reason to put up menus, I suppose.)
He starts off with a story to establish that there’s something incongruous about a woman that you treat with respect having a sex life that includes anal sex.
With all due respect to Salt-N-Pepa, let’s talk about Todd. Todd (not his real name) is a friend of a friend. He’s a rare breed—a finance guy who lives in L.A. He’s been dating the same ladylike woman for three years. They are the picture of late-twentysomething, Amstel Light—drinking America. The very first time they slept together, they had anal sex. Miss Ladylike had never tried it before. For the next five months, anal was the only kind of sex they had. Supposedly, Todd had intimacy issues, and penetrating Miss Ladylike’s rectum was less emotionally intense than venturing into the vagina. Eventually, Todd did the deed with Miss Ladylike in the usual way, and continues to, but they still have a whole lot of anal sex.
It might be mildly funny to point out the incongruity if the rest of the article didn’t reinforce the idea that women who have anal sex are dirty and have no self-respect and should be treated like pincushions. He quotes Dan Savage and points out anal sex is on the rise, which is interesting but makes me angry, because the rest of the story is cruel to women and makes men look like monsters, and Dan Savage and anal sex shouldn’t really be associated with those things, since Dan Savage and anal sex are fine things, and the nastiness of the rest of this article is not. He alludes to the fact that Savage has adamantly said that guys who “demand” anal sex are out of line, but doesn’t delve into it. (Savage basically says that men who want anal sex should offer up their own asses to their girlfriends first, strap-on in hand, as a show of good faith. If you can’t do that, then you should keep your mouth shut in the interest of fairness.)
Phillip, an engineer in Chicago, says he and his friends request a ride in the back seat because it’s a harder-to-reach goal than old-fashioned intercourse. “Once a guy has anal sex, he’s put on a pedestal by his peers,” he says.
Rule #1 of dating for the straight ladies: Guys who have to think about impressing their male friends while getting off with a woman are not worth your time. I’m not going to suggest they are gay, because that’s unfair to gay guys. They are just fucking weird.
Now for the part that made me really angry:
For other men, the appeal of anal penetration is less the novelty—and the fact that it gives them a good story to tell over beers—and more the psychology. “For most of my friends, it’s sort of a domination thing,” says John (not his real name), 30, a writer in New York. “[It’s] basically getting someone in a position where they’re most vulnerable. My friends enjoy that and they tell their friends they did it. But it’s not like girls are ready for it—it’s something they do when they’re really drunk.”
See what I mean about how it’s supposed to make you hate men? If I believed that all men sat around bragging about date raping with their friends, I’d hate them. Luckily, I don’t think that all men do this. So I just hate this guy and his date raping buddies.
Albert (his middle name), a good-looking 29-year-old who’s fairly well-known in the music industry, says he asks the women he dates to have anal sex with him because it raises the level of intimacy in the relationship. He doesn’t demand anal sex—especially not if it’s a one-time hookup—but he won’t commit to a woman who refuses to grant him a backstage pass. “I had a girlfriend who I was with for a long time and she wasn’t into it,” Albert says. “There was definitely a thing in the back of my head like, ‘I can’t marry her.’ How can I, knowing I can’t go to all the places I can go with her? The physicality of it, being painful or whatever, shows how comfortable the girl is with you.” Here, he pointedly stops short of romanticizing screwing a woman rectally. “Ideally, every girl is a disgusting pig who wants it,” he says. “But only with you.”
Get that? He thinks that women who want anal sex are disgusting pigs. He requires that his wife, then, be a disgusting pig who ideally will put up with painful penetration to please him. Apparently, what he needs is a woman he can safely disrespect enough to keep her around. Nice.
Straight men who are into kinky stuff on any level, pay attention. Guys like the ones described in this article are The Enemy. They value kinky acts only because they think those things degrade women and they want to see women degraded because their own weak egos depend on it. Because there are so many guys like this, it’s hard for women not to wonder if a guy wants to do kinky things so he can lose respect for you and start treating you like dirt. So women are reluctant to do a lot of stuff they might otherwise want to do—like anal sex—because all they can think is, “Is he laughing at me and thinking I’m a dirty whore because I did this? Does he think he ‘won’? Is he going to treat me like shit?” So not only are these guys assholes to women, they’re assholes to guys who are not assholes to women.
There’s evidence that some women do like anal sex…
Duh. Ideally, if that wasn’t true, then said anal sex would never happen. But because these guys he interviews seem to only like it because they perceive it as something women hate—and therefore if it happens, it shows that she’s your bitch—I imagine the idea of women really wanting it takes the fun out of it. And wouldn’t you know it?
Dawn (her middle name), a 34-year-old married woman who lives in Ohio, first tried anal sex at her husband’s suggestion, only to discover that she was much more into it than he was. “It’s better,” she says. She’d like to have it more often, but it’s currently off the table. “He’s got more hang-ups about it than I do,” Dawn says.
After the forbidden territory has been conquered, some men find they have psychological issues with the act. Even Albert, the one who won’t tie the knot without a key to the back door, admits that. “You’re thinking, ‘I don’t want to hurt her, and I don’t want shit to squirt out at me,’” he says.
Let’s all pray to the Great Cat that one day Albert asks a woman for anal sex and she pulls out her strap-on and says, “Sure baby. You first.” And when he blanches, she sighs and says that she’s going to have to move on to find her husband.
I can only imagine the ads this will bring up.
“and that women are essentially restaurants where men can order off a menu”
or, y’know, women are like really restaurants with really outlandish working conditions for the chefs, wherein a man can order something that isn’t on the menu at all and then feel outraged if he doesn’t get it.
seriously, i remember as a kid, when i didn’t want to eat what my dad was cooking that night, he’d say “well sorry, kid. this isn’t Denny’s. we don’t have a menu, which means you have to eat what i cook.”
sometimes i really get the urge to say this to men, in bed.
So if the woman you ‘love’ is not willing to allow you to cause her physical pain, she’s not ‘comfortable’ with you. What a jackass.
I lived with a bunch of guys in college an had roommates in my early days - none of them would talk about their sexual experiences like this bozos. Maybe I’m just sheltered. . .
PSA unmentioned in the post: If anal hurts, you’re doing it wrong.
Update to Amanda’s PSA — If you’re healthy and anal hurts, you’re doing it wrong. (I don’t think there’s much hope for those of us with really destroyed anatomy back there.)
A guy who “demands” any kind of sex from me, first date or no, is going to get a counterdemand — that he remove his odious rapist self from my presence, stat…
Details used to be good back when it was first making the transition from being a niche-market gossip-and-lifestyle magazine aimed at gay men to being aimed at what would now be called “metrosexuals”…
These guys must really miss the days when just getting a girl to fuck you meant you didn’t have to respect her anymore and could treat her like shit because now no one else would want her either. How unfair that a girl can now sleep with you, sleep with someone else, realize how much you suck in bed, and tell all her friends so they can laugh at you and not sleep with you. Better to make sure fucking you makes a girl hate herself so much she’ll never dare to find out if there’s anything better out there.
I sure hope that image was somehow Photoshopped. If it wasn’t, whatever they paid that model, it wasn’t enough.
As I said on feministing, there is no right for anyone to demand anything. Asking is fine. Demanding is not. And I would hate to think any of these losers are getting off on domination unless the women they are with are in on the joke, so to speak.
Good call on the ads. Let’s see: anal beads, a Marilyn Chambers anal sex guide, something called “Young and Nasty”… and Monopoly 3? See, capitalism IS obscene.
He quotes Dan Savage and points out anal sex is on the rise, which is interesting but makes me angry, because the rest of the story is cruel to women and makes men look like monsters, and Dan Savage and anal sex shouldn’t really be associated with those things, since Dan Savage and anal sex are fine things, and the nastiness of the rest of this article is not.
I’ll agree that anal sex is a fine thing. I think that Savage however is profoundly overrated as an advocate for sexual liberation (re: bisexuality and oral sex.)
I’ll agree that the Details article is horrible. But then again, I sort of expect that from Details.
Eh, I don’t get the big deal with anal. I don’t even want to muck around in poop with waders on, why would I want to stick any part of my anatomy in someones rear? But, to each their own.
However, those guys are dicks, and the magazine, as most rags, paint wide strokes with their brushes for subscriptions. Not too surprising in my book.
That should be true for everything. I will not ask anything of a partner that I am not willing to do in return.
I wonder what the author thinks about santorum.
If it feels good, and nobody is hurt… jeez, who cares? If everyone is into it, go for it! I am so tired of the sexually active man=sex god, sexually active woman=slut. I don’t always like anal sex, but there have been men with whom it has been very pleasurable… and they were willing to be recipients, if I’d had a strap on available. Does that make me a slut? If it does, does that make me bad?
Oh, and just btw… I’ve only been reading this blog for a couple months, but… Amanda, you are one of the best bloggers out there. Your posts are always reasoned and thoughtful and I really enjoy reading them…. Sorry if that sounds pathetic, but it’s true.
So a bunch of guys who are so insecure about their sexlives that they “brag” about it with their buddies at the bar are interviewed by Details magazine about their sex lives, so they talk about how they always get the pornstar sex every time because they’re sexgods.
I’m sure in next month’s edition of Field and Stream we’ll see the same guys talking about how whenever they go out fishing they always catch 15′ bass… they always land a 10-point buck when they go hunting…
Journalism…? You’re soaking in it!
Dude, if you pulled out a strap-on on a guy who “demanded” anal, you’d be my hero. Having one on hand alone puts you up there. What would be really cool is if someone had like a gun rack on the headboard for sex toys.
What I cannot fathom is all of these blabbly men bragging to their friends. Huh? I’m 45 years old and have not heard males doing this since I was in high school and Rusty and Ron would bore the rest of us with their weekly report on their bet of how would lose their virginity first. Why the hell would my sexual behavior or that of my partner be any business of anyone else’s? Why, O why would I want to hear what my friends are or are not doing with their significant others? Eww.
I will make the exception that when one of my circle gets pregnant that I always ask, “how’d that happen” as a joke. And if as a joke they start to tell me, I say: “Shut up! it was a joke.”
Amanda: what a great mental image! May I add the Bandolier of AA batteries to it?
I can’t handle this. I just went off in another thread about the myth of inherent masculine “assholeness.”
And now…this? For God’s sake.
I wish the article had used their real names, so any woman whose judgment might lapse long enough to consider sleeping with one of these intellectually and morally stunted beavis-and-butthead child-men could be warned away by a Google search.
Without the benefit of a strap-on on hand, I once whipped out a pair of disposable gloves and put them on, as I asked the question “How many fingers shall I put up there?” in response to the inquiry, “So when are we gonna do anal?”
He never asked again.
This reminds me of something it took me a while to figure out about porn. No, porn is not intrinsically degrading to women. But, yes, there is a lot of porn that intends to be degrading to women. If you’re a woman, and you’re not being degraded, then that porn feels like it has failed.
No, not all men are utter pigs, but there are a lot of men out there who really hate women.
Queen of Spades: I think I love you.
Dangerous gamble, Queen of Spades… dangerous gamble.
I suppose I should elaborate, since I just realized that my comment could be construed as a vague threat against all womankind who would dare make moves for my rear entrance.
The possibility to which I intended to refer is one in which the guy says “Five, please.”
In my experience, women are more reluctant to probe my backside to allow me to probe theirs.
Enjoy delicious TMI.
There is a reason I have disposable gloves handy at bedside. It isn’t because I’m “reluctant.”
I don’t like anecdotal articles like this that try to paint a picture of men by interviewing a few shady guys at a bar. I really wonder what the selection process is for finding guys to contribute to this article. It seems like a total crapshoot. I wonder what would happen if the “random sampling” of guys for this article all happened to go to the same Mormon church.
Be careful what you wish for, I told an ex that I could take whatever he could, and lets just say that he ended up enjoying that a lot more than any other sexual activity, and we never did get around to seeing if I enjoyed anal.
and what crack did those idiots in the article crawl out of?
.
I think anal is becoming more popular because it’s featured in porn quite regularly. When they go there, I stop watching.
I’ve never asked for it; had a girlfriend who suggested it a couple of times. I obliged, but didn’t really enjoy it.
.
.
Okay, so Peter Rubin’s girlfriend won’t take his *penis up the ass and this is his attempt at subtle motivation.
Charming. And that image is Hustler-worthy.
*the assumption of course being that all men who write for Details are in some way sexually challenged.
They’d never all go to the same Mormon Church, because they’ll always be friends of the author. The only asshole I know to steer clear of from this article is Peter Rubin- and all his friends.
Well, the obvious has been handily taken care of (regarding demanding anal or any type of sex)—but I have to ask, what idiot let that one through editting and into print?
And is it the same guy who was responsible for the press release on “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s” box-office numbers with the headline “[Johnny] Depp’s ‘Chocolate Factory’ Has Tasty Opening”???
I didn’t think I’d ever see two headlines that manage to utilize both definitions of “anal.”
Also,
Do you live anywhere near Virginia?
Who cares?
Anyone else bored with this one?
“I don’t get the big deal with anal. I don’t even want to muck around in poop with waders on, why would I want to stick any part of my anatomy in someones rear?”
Yep, Brian is 17, tops.
Venturing into TMI territory here, but seriously. Shit does not actually live a quarter of an inch up a person’s anus. There is no shit up there. Your dick is not that big, I promise.
I have to say, and maybe i’m an odd case (though the fact that I’ve mainly been with women and used fingers and toys might be part of it), I’ve never yet actually encountered “santorum”.
Mmmm, yes, that Dan Savage is one great guy, all right…
This gem in response to a woman who was outraged at his advice to a man whose wife claimed she would let him “have sex” with her while she was asleep, but then shoved him off of her during same sleep. Savage’s suggestion? “Ambien. Next!”
What a feminist.
Not that I want to debate that particularly, tinfoil, but he was responding in good faith to a man who made it clear that he and his wife were trying to find a way to make a consensual sex fantasy work. The woman who wrote in grated on my nerves, too. He shouldn’t have snapped—that she was annoying probably doesn’t mean she wasn’t raped at some point, god knows it’s common enough—but once we start redefining consensual, thoughtfully planned out sexual encounters as “rape”, we have a problem.
There was nothing about his answer that implied that the Ambien should be slipped to the wife, either. I assumed he meant she takes it willingly. If you take drugs on purpose for certain sexual purposes, that’s on you. Surely an adult woman can make that choice for herself.
I’m with Kyra. That article was just plain fucking stupid. “Back stage pass”? “forbidden territory”?
Fucking please.
I’ve had my fair share of sexist, locker-room talk, but I’ve never been privy to the type of bullshit.
If some guido moseyed up and started talking about “back stage pass” I think we would laugh directly into his face.
Amanda, I wouldn’t get too bent out of shape. Guys can be assholes, but assholes like that are a rare breed indeed. I call them doucebags. You will know them when you see them.
Eh, it bothers me, El, because I’m a big fan of people feeling free to experiment sexually, and guys like this who take sexual experimentation as an excuse to degrade women hurt us all. They might be rare-ish douchebags, but the whole thing makes taking risks sexually a dicey maneuver—what if he thinks that you’re a no-good cumbucket in the morning? What if he starts to treat you that way? I just hate people who close off imaginations and possibility in any arena.
My inner George Carlin always tells me not to click on links to articles at mags like Details or Maxim et al, but I do, just to read teh stoopid, and man, I always regret it.
Shit like this always gets me wondering whether the author just calls up his old frat buddies and pokes around for the best bullshit story that he can throw in his article.
Plus, they’re contributing to discourse that normalizes rape, which disturbs me to no end.
I can totally picture this guy pouting because anal sex was supposed to be something his wife would put up with because she loves him, and it turns out that the bitch actually enjoys it. How is he supposed to get it up if he knows she’s actually enjoying sex?
I remember a friend telling me one time that a (male) friend had told her that he would only marry a woman who would agree to have sex with a dog.
I said, “Never, ever try to introduce me to that guy. Ever.”
You’re not bothered that he has decided, from his desk, that the woman who wrote in probably wasn’t really raped? Regardless of whether you agree that this woman’s withdrawn consent during sleep is unfair to an agreement she and her partner made previously, Savage’s answer is decidedly un-feminist, and rape-apologist to boot.
Is it just me, or does whoever staged that photo have no idea of where a woman’s vagina and anus are actually located?
Do I detect a love match?!
You’re not bothered that he has decided, from his desk, that the woman who wrote in probably wasn’t really raped?
Well, I would phrase it that I’m bothered that he took a mean swipe at her. But I could sort of see his point. I really, really hate it, as someone who’s been raped, when people use rape victims as this sort of card to play to disapprove of kinky but consensual sex acts. I suspect Dan gets that a lot. From that POV, I got his point. It is offensive to rape victims to have consensual sex redefined as rape. It minimizes the trauma of the experience and makes rape much more acceptable. That’s what he was getting at, though he phrased it very, very badly.
I really don’t think feminists should get into the right wing habit of playing “gotcha” either. Knowing damn well that he was right that a grown woman can decide for herself whether to take a sleeping pill to participate in a consensual, intimate fantasy with her husband is hardly rape, going after his snappish reply is a cheap trick. Let’s debate whether a grown woman can decide for herself what sex acts she wants to engage in, instead of playing “gotcha”.
What is the hangup about sexual pleasure? I understand some people don’t enjoy sex, and I understand it. Some people don’t enjoy anal sex, and I understand that. Some people don’t enjoy animal sex, and I am one of them, but as long as there is no force involved… I don’t get it, but oh well. I just have a hard time judging people with a particular fetish. If you like a partner that likes it up the butt, you have every right to keep looking (but not demanding) someone that likes it up the butt. If you like watching a woman taking it from a dog, then keep looking for a woman that likes to take it from a dog (because I’ve met them, though I doubt I could do it). I mean, honestly… If all parties involved agree that it is consensual, then what is the problem? I know people can be coerced, and that’s wrong… they can be convinced against their better judgement. But, I have done things I was not sure about that I liked. It is all so objective. I would not disbelieve someone that said someone else went too far, but…. I would never try to tell someone that they’re a slut because they went further than I would choose to.
Need you ask?
Monkey’s Aunt, I was waiting for someone else to point that out. The, um, train in that picture isn’t going in the woman’s anus.
Well, Bonnie, I do want to be polite.
Except that in the thread below he pissed me off to no end. In my class tonight, one student divulged that her younger sister was HIV+, from the first man she had sex with. She thought he’d been waiting as long as her. Bryan thinks she deserves death.
Another student of mine is doing research on MSMs and HIV. I’ve mentioned this, but last week we were talking about how many of his clients had been thrown off their meds because of Bush’s policies.
Bryan endorses death. I’m sick and tired of assholes like him. Let’s say I’m dating someone who’s poz, and we use condoms every time, but one of them breaks. According to Bryan, I deserve to die (and yes, I’ve date and had sex with poz men, and I’m still neg–and plan on staying that way).
Bryan has nothing of value to add to any of these conversations. He’s merely a throwback to the Ronnie and Bush-41 years of AIDS, in other words to a time when the basic idea was that those with HIV/AIDS deserve to die. Indeed, in the thread below he made the innocent/deserving victim.
As a gay man I’ve had enough of that shit. I’ll critique the fuck out of barebackers, but Bryan, he goes beyond that. He goes into an anti-human perspective. Fuck that worthless little shit. He has absolutely nothing of value to add to these conversations.
Well, Bonnie, I do want to be polite.
Except that in the thread below he pissed me off to no end. In my class tonight, one student divulged that her younger sister was HIV+, from the first man she had sex with. She thought he’d been waiting as long as her. Bryan thinks she deserves death.
Another student of mine is doing research on MSMs and HIV. I’ve mentioned this, but last week we were talking about how many of his clients had been thrown off their meds because of Bush’s policies.
Bryan endorses death. I’m sick and tired of assholes like him. Let’s say I’m dating someone who’s poz, and we use condoms every time, but one of them breaks. According to Bryan, I deserve to die (and yes, I’ve date and had sex with poz men, and I’m still neg–and plan on staying that way).
Bryan has nothing of value to add to any of these conversations. He’s merely a throwback to the Ronnie and Bush-41 years of AIDS, in other words to a time when the basic idea was that those with HIV/AIDS deserve to die. Indeed, in the thread below he made the innocent/deserving victim.
As a gay man I’ve had enough of that shit. I’ll critique the fuck out of barebackers, but Bryan, he goes beyond that. He goes into an anti-human perspective. Fuck that worthless little shit. He has absolutely nothing of value to add to these conversations.
sorry for the repeat…didn’t mean to do that, but I do despise Bryan that much.
That’s the thing… It’s all about consent, If you want to have a rape fantasy… do it, with a consensual partner. If you want… whatever! If you have a consensual partner, do it! And if that partner says stop, whether you’re about to start or about to come… stop! Damn, it’s not tough to understand. We all have fantasies… and they aren’t all PC. (And I hate that term!!!!) And we all most likely have someone out there that have a fantasy that will fulfill ours. We all tend to think everyone else’s fetish is unnatural (or un-godly). And it’s tough, as open-minded as any of us are, to let go of our prejudices or predispositions… and America is a great pace to hold on to some sort of sexual political correctness…. sex is great but gays are gross! gays are ok, but trans is disgusting! trans is ok, but a 30 year old and a 20 year old is gross! Realize… people over the age of 18 in every state are free to make their choices. Is 18 the rational age to draw the line? I dunno… I’m 34, so I won’t judge. But let’s let everyone do what they actually want, and can rationally judge they want, to do.
Because it has to be said:
“In the butt, Bob!”
We’ve certainly protested his presence often enough.
I agree with you, naturally.
Sorry if I seemed . . . terse? I’m in class myself.
Point taken, Jeff. I’m still mulling it over. He’s obviously a hateful piece of shit, but people do enjoy kicking him around. Hell, I do, since he’s so obvious a “libertarian” out of an embittered misanthropy that appears to be borne out of being rejected by all people everywhere for being such a piece of shit. But you know, some trolling drives up comments and people like to kick them around, so it’s a balance.
I haven’t had that experience either.
Any conversation about sexual experiences I have ever had with my guy friends have been extremely vague about what actually happened. No one has ever bragged about anal sex (or any other sex act). We certainly never talked about it like those bozos.
But maybe I am sheltered as well.
Eh, fuck it. I’m banning him. There’s a point where enough people I like complain that it’s silly to keep him around.
I think this post is the most appropriate use of the “sex” and “assholes” tags I have seen yet.
Hee, I was particularly happy about the tag “assholes”.
Thanks, Amanda. Maybe it’s the particular class I’m teaching right now, combined with my own history, but Bryan brings me back to the late 1980s/early 1990s. I’m sick and tired of the “People with AIDS deserve to die.” I’m fucking lucky (and oh, lord do I know it’s luck), in that I’m a 38-y.o. gay man who has yet to lose someone close to the disease (that I’m aware of). However, coming of age in that era certainly shaped who I am, and i have dated men with HIV. I think a big part of that is that such dating took place after “the cocktail.”
Bryan just brings me too close to Reagan/Fallwell/Robertson/Buchanan/Helms. He may protest, but he’s in that group. And such folks are just, well, assholes. There’s no other word that quite captures it. He’s willing to will death on people, on groups of people. I can’t describe the pain/anger that brings forth.
I apologize to my fellow Pandagonians for making this about me. In a major way, tho, it’s not, though my own writing will subvert that.
I dunno, i just got done teaching an amazingly emotionally intense class. How do I as a teacher respond to someone telling me her sister is HIV+? That’s some fucking intense shit. She knows her sister will die before her time. How do I respond to a student who deals on a daily basis with men who are dying?
If I were Bryan, I’d say they deserve it. But, I’m human and can’t.
OK, sorry again for babbling. But that fuckwit pushed one too many buttons.
what if he thinks that you’re a no-good cumbucket in the morning? What if he starts to treat you that way?
The nice thing about a lot of these guys is they’re not bright enough to know how to hide their true personalities. If they’re crowing to a magazine about how awesome it is to get women to do things they don’t like, they’re too stupid to let anyone get attached to them before they start showing their ugly, pathetic sides. Not that that’s true of all assholes, obviously.
No, I think you’re right. Granted, he strikes me as a housebound antisocial twit who hates other people for having lives, but you know what?
HE NEEDS TO TAKE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THAT.
I hold the strong opinion that a lot of libertarianism is driven by Nice Guys® who resent that women are permitted in a free and equal society to choose our sexual partners, because we don’t choose them. The underlying fantasy of libertarianism is this world where women don’t get to not choose the fantasizing libertarian, because he’s got the castle and the guns and it’s suck his dick or be thrown out in the snow to be even more brutally raped. Granted, I might be a tad prejudiced after having thrown off the affections of Nice Guy® libertarians in the past.
Why hate on gay men? Well, jealousy, I think. It’s weird, but I know a lot of conservative straight men who have told me that the problem with gay men is they get to have sex whenever they want. I point out that this isn’t necessarily true, but they can’t conceive of any obstacles to sex other than some sort of free-floating female prudishness.
MAJeff, I didn’t realize Bryan got under your skin that bad. To me he was just another pest/Libertarian (sorry for being redundant), but I can only speak for myself.
“Bryan just brings me too close to Reagan/Fallwell/Robertson/Buchanan/Helms. He may protest, but he’s in that group. And such folks are just, well, assholes. There’s no other word that quite captures it. He’s willing to will death on people, on groups of people. I can’t describe the pain/anger that brings forth.”
Well said. I remember well the hell those assholes spread around with their ignorant and bigoted rantings. I’m not gay, but I can imagine what the pain must be like…
Live well…
Amanda, my thanks as well. That fun ended for me long ago. Like the day he started posting.
——–
Back on topic (sort of) - my partner and I kicked around the idea several years ago of installing a lotion-type lube dispenser and “click locks” for the dildo collection above the bed. Never actually did though . . .
junk science: Nope. It’s not true of all of them, sadly.
Thanks Amanda and MikeEss,
Like I said, part of it may just be the confluence of particular circumstances. But the thread below set me off.
As I said, I’m lucky as hell. More lucky than many of the regular commenters here. But, as I was discussing with a student of mine on our walk to the train, it’s nearly impossible to come of age as a gay man during that era without internalizing certain lessons. Things like, don’t trust the state. Bryan might agree with that, but for different reasons. For us, the state was a murderer. Period.
But beyond that, the cultural politics of the era matter. Heteronormativity is a HUGE culprit. I often post to the “I hate straights” piece (and can’t wait to see what my students make of it). I don’t hate all straight people (I wouldn’t be here if I did), but that piece is really more about the way heteronormative structures impede upon personal relationships in a way that devalues queer lives. That’s something I will NOT tolerate. Queer life qua queer life is worth defending, and that’s something I’ll not stop doing.
I realize that when it comes to queer issues, I’m probably one of the more radical folks here. Even though I argue for marriage equality, I’m basically anti-marriage. Hell, I’m anti-normalization. (go read Warner/Berlant’s “Sex In Public”). But, at a core level I’m a humanist. The antithesis of what libertarians stand for.
So, thanks to those who continue to stand for, well, for humanism. I’m a poor spokesperson, but I try. As I said to Amanda in an email recently, I appreciate (deeply) this space for discourse. And I value the commenters here. I’ve learned from you, and hope that I’ve provided something as well.
But, to the Bryan’s of the world, FOAD.
Q : How many libertarians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A : Let the market decide!
I’m getting no ad, no ad, & the Hurricane Relief unpaid ad. Adsense is either very confused or very disturbed.
It is so nice to read comments from so many non-sexually disturbed people.
Jeff - You and I were coming of age at the very beginnings of the emergence of AIDS. I remember Reagan. My friends wore black armbands to highschool on his inauguration day.
We, you and I, were teen-agers of the love that dared not speak its name. Except in San Francisco. We had little if any overt social supports for coming out. I am thankful that my parents, parents who were raised in poverty in the South, were (are) intelligent enough to know that as I hit puberty this was just who I was going to be. I’m their daughter. They love me.
I hope for your continued health. I have enjoyed our time her in Pandagon land. While we don’t necessarily employ the same tactics re: knobs like Bryan and Hyzenthlay, we certainly have the same impulse - throw the baggage out. They have nothing useful to say. We’ve heard it all before.
And while I desire to marry my partner, I respect your viewpoint as well. My favorite uncle asks, “Why would anyone want to take part in such a patriarchal construct?” He’s 68. Great guy.
As I’ve said before, I gotcher back. And your biscuits.
-Bonnie
mod-bot got me
If you like watching a woman taking it from a dog, then keep looking for a woman that likes to take it from a dog (because I’ve met them, though I doubt I could do it).
I think you missed the point. He didn’t want a woman who likes to take it from a dog. He wanted a woman who was so desperate to please him that she would have sex with a dog to prove it. Actually enjoying sex with the dog was not only beside the point, it would have been counterproductive to his enjoyment of watching the act.
Those are two completely different things, yes? You’re not arguing that someone doing a sex act that they enjoy is the same thing as doing a sex act because they’re afraid their partner will leave them, right?
“I wish the article had used their real names, so any woman whose judgment might lapse long enough to consider sleeping with one of these intellectually and morally stunted beavis-and-butthead child-men could be warned away by a Google search.”
Betsy–Not to mention it would be great to see these pervs professionally derailed over the stuff they wrote if their boss decided to google their valued employees’ names.
It sucks that there are thousands of finance guys in LA, engineers in Chicago, and writers in New York; although it might be slightly easier to track down Albert from the info given (still almost impossible.)
So not only are these guys assholes to women, they’re assholes to guys who are not assholes to women.
Words to live by.
Radalan - exactly! LOL!
There are unfortunately, a goodly number of guys who continue to talk like the people in the article into their 30s and 40s. I am fortunate enough not to end up in such circles very often, but they are definitely out there, and I can only hope they fail to breed over the long term and die out.
The thought of someone demanding anal sex on the first date…just completely boggles my mind.
For the record, pigs are clean, intelligent, nice, and social animals.
[…] Marcotte complains that a magazine article was designed to make people hate men… then pretty much completely goes for it. […]
“What I cannot fathom is all of these blabbly men bragging to their friends. Huh? I’m 45 years old and have not heard males doing this since I was in high school…”
Yeah, about that. My own observation in high school was that guys stopped talking about how much sex they were having with whom as soon as they actually really did have sex. I’m not going to go so far as to say that all the guys interviewed in the Details article were lying to the reporter and each other. But it did read a lot like attempted self-aggrandizement. (The image’s desperately clueless implied anatomy feeds my suspicion.)
Which, yeah, makes them the kind of assholes grown up men should hate. Adolescent men too, for that matter, since it’s typically the inexperienced loudmouths who set the standards that other people then try to keep.
—
What’s *really* pathetic to me about the whole article is it’s so invested in the paradigm of women as the “no-sex” class — where men keep pushing for more and more marginal acts until she finally says no… whereupon he can say “I knew it, women really don’t like sex!” And then, to seal the deal, as in the case of 29-year-old Albert, when they find someone who says no to something they want to *marry* them! So that, of course, they can spend the rest of their lives grousing about how their wife has a lower libido. $@#$!%~@
Wonderful, wonderful post, Amanda.
figleaf
John Biles:
My mind is far more boggled by the implication that it’s OK to demand any kind of sex, ever, first date or not.
Hell, I don’t even expect a kiss on a first date.
disgusting.
vile.
very sad.
that picture is bizarre.
pigs are okay.
other creatures aren’t capable of these demented rationalizations for indulging in persistent abuse in the place of … in the place of sex, real sex, caring lovong sex where you are obsessed with your companion sex.
but that is abuse.
it is violence.
In the Politics of Experience (1967) r.d. laing defined violence as “treating another without respect for their personal destiny.”
suggesting this is accepted or tolerable is beyond my own female supremacy.
men are pretty much idiots already without making all men out to be sadistic monsters.
This one would suggest that sex is someting that is offered,not demanded.Ever.Oh,excellent thread,this one,by the way.
The Details home page is actually far worse. On the home page the article is linked to as:
“Anal Sex: The New Deal-Breaker.”
Byline: “Now that backdoor entry is commonplace, some guys demand it on the first date.”
That title and byline seems aimed at women moreso than men. The clear implication there is that if you don’t agree to anal sex on the first date you are in danger of being dumped because you are a cold, prissy bitch.
Hey ladies! If a guy asks you for sex (anal or otherwise) on a first date,reply by asking things like:”Should we buy a house inthe suburbs or live inthe city?How will we name our children?Can my mother move in with us?” And if he repies:”Er,isn’t this a bit early to…”,you say:”Well,you started it,didn’t you”
My point being that a man who expects ANY sexual gratification from you because you chose to flirt/date/wear that dress/exist is as misguided/deranged as a woman who expects a man to marry her just because he has stated somekind of sexual interest in her.And yes,while few women are that crazy,some men certainly are….
What’s up with expecting anything sexual on the first date? If a woman holds out until the second date, does that make her a prude?
Given the ignoble motivations for anal sex that have been discussed above, I feel a need to express a contrary perspective. The attraction of anal sex, as I see it, is the opportunity to cause someone intense fleshy sensual pleasure from a part of the body widely seen as naughty and dirty. It’s more the ultimate act of massage than anything domination-oriented, or about bragging to your jerkish friends.
-;-@ this rose is for Neil the Ethical Werewolf,who is totally,uterly right.
utterly,I mean!
This can’t be THAT new a trend; when my 95 year old grandmother was failing a few years ago and finally needed assistance with washing herself in her last few months, she would allow her daughter to help clean all but 2 zones, which she insisted to do herself.
She called them “possible” (vagina) and “impossible” (anus), based on her own preferences years ago. But then again, Gram was pretty darned forthright.
Okay, after I finished laughing, I reached a decision. We all cut that out, save it, and use it whenever trolls insist that Amanda Marcotte has no sense of humour.
Dawn (her middle name)
Am I the only one who read that and thought “last name…Eden?”
If a guy insits on anal sex right off the bat, I mean, before establishing he likes a vagina, I would wonder. About closets, and perhaps about how he might want to figure out how to escape from his.
Not that I care overly much, but its kinda weird thing to ask a person with a vagina, right off the bat and all, and it would make me wonder. Maybe I’m kickin’ it too old school, and variety is the spice of life, but there are certain basic principles that need to be established before I start getting creative.
Amanda, I’m not going to subtle about this, I’ve been reading about this on a couple of different blogs and you NAILED it. The others were good, but you…you nailed it in the ASS! And I liked it!(but only with you, I swear!) Does that make me a disgusting pig?
Sigh.
Reminds me of the asshole I never actually dated, thank God. We discussed sex, and I told him I’d never ever do anal. He told me about his long-distance, on-off girlfriend, who was a nice, Catholic girl in South America. She had refused to have sex, and he had told her he couldn’t have a relationship without sex, so he’d have to break up with her. “And after that, she’d do _anything_! It was amazing! But of course, I wouldn’t force you into anything you wouldn’t like…”
No, not force, but he obviously was a damned skilled emotional manipulator, and his girlfriend had probably heard enough guilt trips about her virginity to try her best to keep the man she “gave” it to.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I somehow didn’t get the memo in which the practice of anal sex had somehow turned into a national bowel movement.
I agree, turn the tables on men who want to ‘do anal’ and see how they like it. Why is anal popular? A lot of men use pornography. They soon become inured to ‘regular’ sex. One of the biggest trends in pornography now is anal sex, so they want to do it.
Rhea,
A friend of mine and I were talking recently about one of her exploits, where she got to wear the dildo and fuck the guy she was with. We were laughing because the strap wouldn’t stay on her right (didn’t fit), but she kept on a going
When talking with girlfriends about blowjobs, etc., I sound exactly like one of Margaret Cho’s gays in her stand up, “You need to stick your finger up his ass!” Generally, both the men and women are appreciative for the advice.
Oh please! It’s not a love of assholes that makes me gay, but a love of men. Sure, I’ve come to appreciate assholes, to enjoy them quite a bit, but cripes, can you be any sillier. Bodies provide pleasure. In lots of different places.
Is anyone else vaguely disturbed by the anatomy of the illustration?
Just speaking as someone who has been both “pitcher” and “catcher” in regards to anal sex. “Catching” (at least for me as a man) is one of the most intense sexual acts that I have experienced. “Pitching” in contrast was highly overrated, and I probably wouldn’t do it unless it was a major turn-on for my partner.
Well, Amanda, I guess you and I just disagree that his taking a cheap shot at a rape victim is a good defense against what you call playing “gotcha.” I have a non-existent tolerance for sexist asshattery disguised as cutesy smarm, which is how I read his response.
Also, my view is that pointing out someone’s sexism is not feminists playing “gotcha.” And my view is that he was being extremely sexist, not to mention exercising his male privilege to decide that his letter-writer probably hadn’t really been raped.
Finally, I do believe the husband in question is being a dick. If someone swats you away during sleep, when her unconscious mind is probably the part doing the swatting, that counts as “no,” in my book. He probably needs to find someone who just loves being someone’s sextoy while she’s asleep.
I probably shouldn’t admit it, I guess, but when I saw that picture with the pretty girl’s butt and the little choo-choo I laughed and laughed. You’d still have to pay me money to get me to actually read Details, though.
Ahh, of course. The obverse of “No means No.”
“Yes doesn’t always mean Yes.”
So now consent isn’t enough, there must be a certain emotional state attached to it, thus making consent forever a grey area where a woman can claim that she wasn’t enthusiastically consenting, just mundanely consenting.
This of course will be grounds to lock up her mail partner.
Female partners, well Lesbian gangs can rape young girls all they want to. They are of a Protected Class.
More than likely, he’s just watched way too much porn.
I am a heterosexual man, and I just don’t get the obsession with anal and blowjobs some men have. Not that either is a bad thing. After all, variety is indeed the spice of life, but IMHO, nothing beats regular old vaginal sex.
But maybe I’m just old fashioned.
Omg. I haven’t read the whole comment thread yet but I just have to say real quick that I happen to really like anal sex, or at least I did til I read this article. Now I’m so grossed out I think it’s gonna be a while before I ever want to do it again. and I REALLY LIKE it !!! and this is the effect this article has on me…hope nobody who’s kinda on the fence about it reads that puke. They’ll NEVER wanna go there after that.
damn, i am having major problems with formatting lately.
Bunny video in 3…2…1…
For Joseph, though, it should be a gerbil video.
errm . . . “male partner”.
In any event, I will be dating those whose first language is Spanish.
You cannot force us to Marry you.
You cannot legislate us ignoring you.
Change and be happy, or remain as you are.
Just read this and haven’t had a chance to read all the comments yet, but all I can say is “wow”. I have known many guys like the ones discussed in this article and Amanda is right. They are the enemy. “Demand” anal sex? Who the fuck do you think you are? And then, if you do get it and she likes it, you say no? Jesus, these guys are fucked up in the head. I don’t even know where to start.
Carrie: I’m sorry, we are talking up the butt. A cigarette is in order.
Charlotte: I just don’t want to be known as the “up-the-butt girl”.
Seriously, dude, what the fuck?
We got a world class misogynist here.
This of course will be grounds to lock up her mail partner.
I’m supposed to get a partner from the Post Office? I hope they haven’t raised the rates again.
It would seem that’s what Joseph plans on doing.
Queen of Spades,
No, I’m not near Virginia, and I’m married, to boot! Double whammy.
If it’s any consolation, I’m not very attractive.
In any event, I will be dating those whose first language is Spanish.
Good luck with that — if you have any illusions that Latinas are submissive in any way, you’re in for a hell of a surprise. Lorena Bobbitt was from Ecuador.
oh joseph, that’s so charming, i’m sure native spanish speakers will be ALL OVER you.
and change and be happy? what if i am happy right now? does that mean i can be a happy ball breaking bitch, and all is good with the world?
“Demand”?
Jeez. Only if she can reciprocate. (Hey, that’s what appliances are for.) Let’s see how far that suggestion flies.
And the photo’s all wrong anyway. That train is about to have Teh Perineal Seks.
And a really incomprehensible one, to boot.
Wow. It’s like some sort of idiot-zen poem. I can make neither heads nor tails of it. I love trolls for whom coherent thought is a second language.
Well, Amanda, I guess you and I just disagree that his taking a cheap shot at a rape victim is a good defense against what you call playing “gotcha.�
No, we don’t. Please reread my comment. I said he shouldn’t have done it, but that it was understandable because it’s so offensive to rape victims to have rape conflated with kinky sex. I wish he had been calmer in his retort to the woman who offended those of us who take non-consent very seriously. But I understand his anger; she was highly offensive. “Rape” is not a code word for “consensual sex that freaks me out”. It’s a very serious matter.
I wish he had phrased it better, but I understand why he was offended, and it’s because he takes rape seriously.
A grown woman can decide for herself if she wants to use drugs to create a certain sexual effect. That feminists are deciding for her against her will that she can’t because she’s being “raped” offends me, yes, as a rape victim who did not “choose” to get raped.
Hey, Joseph, I know that you have problems getting women to actually want to fuck you, but why brag about it? I mean, it’s not that hard to get sex with women who like it, is it? I guess it must be for you that you get offended at the idea that a woman should be saying, “Yes, please,” instead of, “If I lay here crying while you fuck me, will you please quit bullying me?”
Aww, the MRA’s upset because he wants to emotionally coerce women into having sex with him, and we have to go and ruin his preferred method of getting laid.
And yet somehow, he’s worried about us evul rape-calling bitches forcing marriage upon him?
That, and facials. That seems to be a recent thing.
I like anal. I haven’t done it too many times, but it’s been fine, and pain-free. I’d expected it to be painful, which is why I’d put off trying it even though it was interested, but due to a miscommunication about what I was expecting when I presented my backside to one partner, I got a little surprise. He was very apologetic about the misunderstanding, but as it had always been on the table (and we had discussed doing it, I just wasn’t sure how something THAT BIG was going to fit IN THERE), it was not a very big deal. I think it may have been helpful that I wasn’t tensing up in anticipation of something THAT BIG going IN THERE).
However, it would have been a big deal had we not previously discussed it and I had indicated my willingness, or had he brought it up and I’d refused, so he went ahead and did it anyway. And it would CERTAINLY have been a big deal if he were trying to extract some kind of concession out of me just to exercise his power.
I haven’t really gotten many requests to do it since then, and while it was nice, it wasn’t transcendent, so I haven’t really pursued it to its logical, um, end. Maybe the guys I sleep with aren’t into anal porn.
However. I *have* gotten a number of requests to allow a guy to come on my face or body. I always refuse the face. I’m not happy about the body, either, but if the relationship is right, I figure it’ll get it out of his system and I’ll sometimes say yes. It makes me very uncomfortable, because I know this is a porn thing, and it feels degrading — because what is the purpose of spilling your seed all over a woman’s body?
Well, I read the entire article and especially the part that Amanda told us to read. It is pretty sad that some guys would use kinky sex as a tool to promote misogyny. As a person who would love kinky sex, I was pretty offended at the men’s graphic detailed account of how they degraded women. And Amanda, you’re right about those men — or should I say boys — in your article being The Enemy. I have a suggestion for those immature assholes, such as Bryan: keep your mouths shut.
It is ok to ask for kinky sex. It is never ok to demand your partner to do kinky sex. Same thing for regular sex: it is ok to ask for it, but it is never ok to demand it.
Mary Winkler described in her murder trial about how demanding her husband was of sex acts she was uncomfortable with.
Back to those boys, they are dickheads.
Both the article and the picture are totally loathesome, but thank you, Amanda, for articulating something I’ve felt for awhile about guys who insist on anal sex, but haven’t really been able to put words to. As for the guys interviewed in the article who seem to think the good part about sex is bragging to your friends about it later, I’m just kinda speechless and I wonder how much of what they’re saying is actually true. Twice in my life I’ve had guys I refused to even go out with brag to their friends in explicit detail about how much and the type of sex I had with them, which made me feel really yucky and violated and really, really angry.
My apologies to the dudes at Pandagon because I know you’re not all like that, but sweet jesus did a big wave of man hating break over my head while reading that.
zuzu,
Easier to clean you up than to shampoo the carpet?
Seriously, though, people have VERY different opinions on that fluid. Some people would rather it didn’t exist anywhere, ever, some people are pretty indifferent to it, and others genuinely want to take a bath in it. Frequently in pornography, it is the latter attitude that is expressed by the receiving party, though the first is not at all uncommon. However, I’ve known men and women near both ends of the spectrum… rather more men than women enjoy it, I think
Damn, Amanda. You may have the most well thought out and healthiest view of femisinism and human sexuality that I’ve ever encountered. You have a bestseller in your future, if there’s any justice in this world. Please start finding a publishing agent ASAP. Thanks for the wonderful post.
On the subject of Dan Savage and rape, overall I do think he’s a very positive force on the topic. Here’s an interesting link:
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=9530
While he’s clumsy in some of his responses, and I think he unintentionally hurts the feelings of a lot of women that have suffered, he does make a good overarching point about how awful rape is, and how pernicious it is to “dilute” the horror of rape by redefining dark, kinky, but nonetheless consensual sexual exploits as “rape”.
This was a compelling quote from the above link, where YNAW is a letter writer that proposed a somewhat sweeping redefinition of rape, and FR was another person who had been raped in especially horrible fashion:
A lot of men use pornography. They soon become inured to ‘regular’ sex. One of the biggest trends in pornography now is anal sex,
Sorry, did this come from a fundie blog? The argument about how perversion is the lurid and inevitable result of sexual boredom, coupled with a baseless assertion that (whatever) is a ‘trend’ in pornography sounds awfully familiar.
Zuzu–
I think the facial and cum-on-body deals are definitely porno driven, and fairly recent. It wasn’t that long ago that the issue was “does she swallow.” Now, it’s “will she let you blow your dick snot all over her face.” It’s weird how sexual tricks can be fad driven.
As for anal, I’ve never been a huge fan, but to each his own. But the idea that anal, or anything else, would be subject to “demand” is bullshit.
You cannot legislate us ignoring you.
Oh, we can only dream that you would ignore us.
Oh please! It’s not a love of assholes that makes me gay, but a love of men. Sure, I’ve come to appreciate assholes, to enjoy them quite a bit, but cripes, can you be any sillier. Bodies provide pleasure. In lots of different places.
MaJeff, did ya read the full post? I am aware of pleasure comes in many forms, and places. Thank you.
Maybe I’m just getting old, but I remember a time when men weren’t so comfortable admitting their preferences for other men and would “make do”. Spend lives “making do”. Times, they are a changing, praise freaking be, but that is where my mind would go. As opposed to thinking he was a pornified freak that would use me as a tool to massage his own ego. Strangely, I would rather a guy was closing his eyes pretending I’m male than actually using my aquiescece as proof of his sex-godliness. Why? Fuck if I know. Probably I could have some sympathy the gay guy since I’ve spent chunks of my life pretending to be something I wasn’t. The other guy just wants a prop to keep up his ego, else it falls. That I don’t understand. So a guy that hasn’t been introduced to the vaginal orifice demanding access to the anal orifice I would assume was someone that isn’t being honest with himself(IYKWIMAITYD), not some assfuck that wants me to be a dirrrty pig for him. ‘Cause I’m an optimist, not because I am a silly prude twit, completely unaware of or morally opposed to ass pleasure.
The worst part of the article the running theme that these tools think women humiliating themselves for men proves both the women’s love AND their unworthiness. What was that Offspring song? “The more you suffer, the more you really care. Right?” Christ on a cracker.
I haven’t lost so much faith in humanity that I believe these guys are the norm. I’ve been out of the dating scene for awhile, obviously.
Well, I still think we disagree. And isn’t that what makes the world go ’round?
Unless you’re Joseph, I guess.
When I came out and was sexually active, I was taught it was better to cum on a person than in them for safety reasons.
And gee, all this fuss about Dan Savage. He’s an entertainer. He’s not especially pro-feminist. He’s not really sex-positive. He says the right thing some of the time, and now and then shows how he’s a knuckle-dragging throwback other times.
While I’m sure that there are people more experienced than me here, my admittedly limited experience has been that I also haven’t encountered santorum, even after going at it pretty vigorously. There’s a reason why it’s the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the result of anal sex. (And besides, that’s why they make towels, showers and laundry. It’s not the end of the world.)
By the way, did you ever find that Mucha print of Sappho from oh-so-many threads ago? (I’m gearing up to throw a whole batch of his stuff onto the Wikimedia Commons on January 1, 2010, when his works pass into the public domain.)
On another note, was anyone else reminded of the (it’s horrifying; you’ve been warned) Tucker Max bit about anal sex? It’s got the complete disregard for women as people, the idea that you have to buy sex from them with money and shiny things, the idea that sex is something you do mainly to brag about it to your homies, and, well, pretty much a complete inversion of the idea of a decent human being.
Dude, what do you think the condom is for?
I’m not disputing that there are many, many people who like to have men come all over them, or swallow, or what have you. I’m just not one of those people. But I have been sexually-active for long enough and with enough men to have noticed that this is something that’s only been requested of me in the past three or four years.
Actually, what gets me are the ones who, when I tell them that I don’t care for the taste, texture or temperature of semen, so please give me a warning before you blow your load so I can hand-finish, will try to *argue* with me that I really must be mistaken, or it’s not so bad, or their jizz is the magic jizz that will change my perception forever, or give me tips on how to hold my tongue against the roof of my mouth so that it doesn’t shoot down the back of my throat, or just rinse out with some vodka afterwards if it bothers me.
Interestingly, they never do have an answer when I ask them how many dicks they’ve sucked that they’re such experts on the subject.
Okay, could you go back and reread that letter? The guy wrote in because his wife consented to sex while she was asleep. As in “sure, honey, you go ahead and do that, that sounds like fun.” The reason he wrote to Dan is that after obtaining her consent, he couldn’t do it, because she resisted when she was asleep, and he stopped.
Are you going to tell me that I can’t say to my boyfriend “yes, you can fuck me when I’m asleep without waking me up to ask”? How about “yeah, I know I’m really intent on staying asleep, but you can ignore me in this particular instance, unless I safeword”? These people discussed this beforehand and he stopped when she appeared to change her mind. They appear to have discussed it again afterward–the tone of his letter suggested that she is still willing to engage in this fantasy. What exactly is the problem here?
Thank you! My social circle consists of a small number of close friends (which is a polite way of saying I don’t get out much), and it’s so easy to think that everyone carries the same basic ideas that I do that there’s probably a name for the psychological principle describing it. So, the naive point of view (the blowjob principle, if you will) is that I want sex, and that making women feel bad about it is probably the worst way to get more sex. I merrily go along in my insular fashion assuming that my fellow men have done this thought experiment, and wonder why women seem so nervous about what I’ll think of them after sex.
So then I joined an athletic club, and people talk in the locker room. And I think, ah, so these are the guys who are ruining it for the rest of us.
I should clarify that I’m well aware that degradation hurts everyone, and I’m certainly not advocating that men treat women decently just because it’s in their best interests. I’m expressing surprise that even though men should treat women decently simply out of selfishness, even if they’re horrible misogynists, they don