Wow. I sincerely hope that the author's experiences are idiosyncratic and not widespread. It seems to me she is mostly just describing her own experiences . . . but what if you are correct?
I have told my teen kids (who probably have access to plenty of such pornography, whether I try to control it or not) that whatever they may see in pornography on their internet machines has nothing to do with real world relationships.
And now you are telling me I am wrong.
I suppose it is because I am a bit on the old side that I can be oblivious to this (even if I shouldn't, as a parent).
On Cardi B and those songs: It does seem to me that the author is legitimizing old people's disgust at many of the lyrics of people like Cardi B and Megan the Stallion, and dozens of others. The idea that you have to be a Republican in order to be so disgusted may mean that the future of the GOP is far more secure than some think, as it can now be expanded to anyone over 50, of any demographic.
Thank you so much for this. I feel increasingly alienated by the "sex positive" movement, especially the normalisation of pain etc (often accompanied by a lack of interest in the female orgasm!).
In fact, many women experience pain during sex at some point in their lives, but instead of raising awareness of how to handle this or when to see a doctor, we seem to have moved in the opposite direction and are further eroticising women's pain. If pain is supposed to be sexy, when do you know if something is wrong? This is especially true for younger women (and men!), who might not know what's normal and what isn't.
Also, since these trends are presented as "sex positivity", we're at a linguistic disadvantage in tackling them - no one wants to announce to a hot date "I'm sex negative"! But it's so important to talk about the impact of these trends, challenge our current ideas of "sex positivity" and normalise asking for what we want. We can bring intimacy back, but we can only do this by talking about it and being honest about what we want.
Well, that is a sad state of affairs. What happened to the idea that Intellectual Intimacy is the foundation for physical intimacy. You write about a world void of intimacy and filled with shame. Your article makes me grateful for 25 years of marriage.
Thank you, Zoe Strimpel, for such a powerful article. There is nothing new about the detachment of one-night stands, be they through contemporary apps or old-fashioned out-of-the-norm chance encounters. When I was a young woman I fully and freely embraced sexual liberation in the 1970s, so glad to be shedding the old female-as-a-wilting-flower trope--the waiting female who is acted upon and does not have agency or desire. I enjoyed that for a while, but during that era, many feminists started to express concerns about what was actually "liberated," as some young women then felt pressure to do things they did not want to do. After that type of liberation, I walked away and recalibrated what I wanted and decided I would only pair up with a man who valued me as a person, first. That was the most sexually freeing decision I ever made and brought a huge change in my life. I hope that is a value that is embraced more fully and that more young people have the personal strength to pull away from group or cultural pressures to decide for themselves was is normal or right.
This is a vital and much overlooked topic; we mustn’t underestimate the toxic effects of violent porn. Young people can have their ideas about what is normal or acceptable hugely distorted by what they view during their formative years. The desire to be seen as acceptable/accepting can cause young women to claim (and believe) they want things because they believe that is what’s expected of them - I have heard no end of examples of this from girlfriends over time. The idea that wanting to be abused and treated without respect is being sex positive is absurd. It is misogyny dressed up as being woke. Feminism is forever 3 steps forward and 2 steps back it seems.
BDSM is a pycho-sexual fantasy with primal origins, I suspect. Treating it as a mere sociological phenomenon misses the point. Viewing it through a Lefty lens wildly misses the point. Human nature exists and this is one of its quirks. A substantial portion of hetero women have fantasies of being dominated, I suspect. If you're a female and you doubt this, ask yourself this question: how many of your sexual fantasies feature men weaker than you? How many equal? How many stronger? We all know the answer. The reverse is true for males. A glance back at pre-history gives obvious clues as to why this is so. Nothing new here. The internet merely gives it broader expression. And while the visual content on-line appeals chiefly to hetero males, the story-based content appeals to females and is pervasive. Fifty Shades is merely the most popular story and it came late to the internet explosion of this fetish. Has it gotten unhealthy for many? No doubt. It's always hard to keep such things under control and in perspective. But millions of people do, I suspect, and their intimacy does not suffer. It's a game to them, an ocassional novelty.
For the older crowd wondering how it came to be, porn is definitely a big factor, but another factor is in the first line "many of the men—ordinary men—whom I meet through dating apps". If a couple meets through social circle the hard kink is much less likely to happen. No one wants to be known as the Jian Ghomeshi of their group, but a ONS with a stranger, well, things might get a little more adventurous. I've had a woman straight-up tell me something like "since we'll probably never see each other again we can explore things we might not with other people". The context there was explicitly about our conversation, but the innuendo was clear. Most men are also much less likely to kink-out on someone they view as wife material, but rightly or wrongly, a woman who puts out easily is generally relegated to a lower status.
Casual sex via online dating is the human version of a throwaway Reddit account.
The apps really are pretty toxic, and this is from someone who did pretty well on them. No one 'wants' to settle when they've got 10 other even hotter prospects lined up (even though they probably won't date you/me as a woman, and probably won't have sex with you/me as a man).
Wow. I sincerely hope that the author's experiences are idiosyncratic and not widespread. It seems to me she is mostly just describing her own experiences . . . but what if you are correct?
I have told my teen kids (who probably have access to plenty of such pornography, whether I try to control it or not) that whatever they may see in pornography on their internet machines has nothing to do with real world relationships.
And now you are telling me I am wrong.
I suppose it is because I am a bit on the old side that I can be oblivious to this (even if I shouldn't, as a parent).
On Cardi B and those songs: It does seem to me that the author is legitimizing old people's disgust at many of the lyrics of people like Cardi B and Megan the Stallion, and dozens of others. The idea that you have to be a Republican in order to be so disgusted may mean that the future of the GOP is far more secure than some think, as it can now be expanded to anyone over 50, of any demographic.
Thank you so much for this. I feel increasingly alienated by the "sex positive" movement, especially the normalisation of pain etc (often accompanied by a lack of interest in the female orgasm!).
In fact, many women experience pain during sex at some point in their lives, but instead of raising awareness of how to handle this or when to see a doctor, we seem to have moved in the opposite direction and are further eroticising women's pain. If pain is supposed to be sexy, when do you know if something is wrong? This is especially true for younger women (and men!), who might not know what's normal and what isn't.
Also, since these trends are presented as "sex positivity", we're at a linguistic disadvantage in tackling them - no one wants to announce to a hot date "I'm sex negative"! But it's so important to talk about the impact of these trends, challenge our current ideas of "sex positivity" and normalise asking for what we want. We can bring intimacy back, but we can only do this by talking about it and being honest about what we want.
Well, that is a sad state of affairs. What happened to the idea that Intellectual Intimacy is the foundation for physical intimacy. You write about a world void of intimacy and filled with shame. Your article makes me grateful for 25 years of marriage.
Thank you, Zoe Strimpel, for such a powerful article. There is nothing new about the detachment of one-night stands, be they through contemporary apps or old-fashioned out-of-the-norm chance encounters. When I was a young woman I fully and freely embraced sexual liberation in the 1970s, so glad to be shedding the old female-as-a-wilting-flower trope--the waiting female who is acted upon and does not have agency or desire. I enjoyed that for a while, but during that era, many feminists started to express concerns about what was actually "liberated," as some young women then felt pressure to do things they did not want to do. After that type of liberation, I walked away and recalibrated what I wanted and decided I would only pair up with a man who valued me as a person, first. That was the most sexually freeing decision I ever made and brought a huge change in my life. I hope that is a value that is embraced more fully and that more young people have the personal strength to pull away from group or cultural pressures to decide for themselves was is normal or right.
This is a vital and much overlooked topic; we mustn’t underestimate the toxic effects of violent porn. Young people can have their ideas about what is normal or acceptable hugely distorted by what they view during their formative years. The desire to be seen as acceptable/accepting can cause young women to claim (and believe) they want things because they believe that is what’s expected of them - I have heard no end of examples of this from girlfriends over time. The idea that wanting to be abused and treated without respect is being sex positive is absurd. It is misogyny dressed up as being woke. Feminism is forever 3 steps forward and 2 steps back it seems.
BDSM is a pycho-sexual fantasy with primal origins, I suspect. Treating it as a mere sociological phenomenon misses the point. Viewing it through a Lefty lens wildly misses the point. Human nature exists and this is one of its quirks. A substantial portion of hetero women have fantasies of being dominated, I suspect. If you're a female and you doubt this, ask yourself this question: how many of your sexual fantasies feature men weaker than you? How many equal? How many stronger? We all know the answer. The reverse is true for males. A glance back at pre-history gives obvious clues as to why this is so. Nothing new here. The internet merely gives it broader expression. And while the visual content on-line appeals chiefly to hetero males, the story-based content appeals to females and is pervasive. Fifty Shades is merely the most popular story and it came late to the internet explosion of this fetish. Has it gotten unhealthy for many? No doubt. It's always hard to keep such things under control and in perspective. But millions of people do, I suspect, and their intimacy does not suffer. It's a game to them, an ocassional novelty.
For the older crowd wondering how it came to be, porn is definitely a big factor, but another factor is in the first line "many of the men—ordinary men—whom I meet through dating apps". If a couple meets through social circle the hard kink is much less likely to happen. No one wants to be known as the Jian Ghomeshi of their group, but a ONS with a stranger, well, things might get a little more adventurous. I've had a woman straight-up tell me something like "since we'll probably never see each other again we can explore things we might not with other people". The context there was explicitly about our conversation, but the innuendo was clear. Most men are also much less likely to kink-out on someone they view as wife material, but rightly or wrongly, a woman who puts out easily is generally relegated to a lower status.
Casual sex via online dating is the human version of a throwaway Reddit account.
The apps really are pretty toxic, and this is from someone who did pretty well on them. No one 'wants' to settle when they've got 10 other even hotter prospects lined up (even though they probably won't date you/me as a woman, and probably won't have sex with you/me as a man).