The female price of male pleasure
By Lili Loofbourow, 2018.
Why may women not recognise and resist sexual situations in which they feel uncomfortable? Because they have a lifetime’s training in ignoring that discomfort.
theweek.com/articles/74997… 1/11
By Lili Loofbourow, 2018.
Why may women not recognise and resist sexual situations in which they feel uncomfortable? Because they have a lifetime’s training in ignoring that discomfort.
theweek.com/articles/74997… 1/11
“Women are enculturated to be uncomfortable most of the time. And to ignore their discomfort.”
When men talk about “bad sex”, it’s often about sex that is passive or boring. When most women talk about "bad sex," they tend to mean coercion, emotional discomfort, or even pain. 2/11
When men talk about “bad sex”, it’s often about sex that is passive or boring. When most women talk about "bad sex," they tend to mean coercion, emotional discomfort, or even pain. 2/11
“we live in a culture that sees female pain as normal and male pleasure as a right.”
Women are constantly and specifically trained out of noticing or responding to their bodily discomfort, particularly if they want to be sexually "viable".
3/11
Women are constantly and specifically trained out of noticing or responding to their bodily discomfort, particularly if they want to be sexually "viable".
3/11
The traditional (patriarchal) social bargain between women and men is that one side will endure a great deal of discomfort and pain for the other's pleasure and delight. And we've all agreed to act like that's normal, and just how the world works. 4/11
One of the compliments girls get most as kids is that they're pretty; they learn that a lot of their social value resides in how much others enjoy looking at them. They're taught to take pleasure in other people's pleasure in their looks. A main form of social reward. 5/11
At every turn, women are taught that how someone reacts to them does more to establish their goodness and worth than anything they themselves might feel. 6/11
“Women have spent decades politely ignoring their own discomfort and pain to give men maximal pleasure. They've gamely pursued love and sexual fulfillment despite tearing and bleeding and other symptoms of "bad sex." 7/11
Women have "worked in industries where their objectification and harassment was normalized, and chased love and sexual fulfillment despite painful conditions no one, especially not their doctors, took seriously." 8/11
"Meanwhile, the gender for whom bad sex sometimes means being a little bored during orgasm, the gender whose sexual needs the medical community rushes to fulfill, the gender [...] with an entire society ordered so as to maximize his aesthetic and sexual pleasure 9/11
" — that gender, reeling from the revelation that women don't always feel quite as good as they've been pressured to pretend they do, and would appreciate some checking in — is telling women *they're* hypersensitive and overreacting to discomfort?” 10/11
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