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Saturday, April 11, 2009

PIV = PATRIARCHY

This one is GreenEarth's fault. I mean, okay, like everything else on this blog it's obviously my fault, but GreenEarth gave me the link.

A fairly minor Twisty post goes wacky in the comments. The OP is about a spray that reduces premature ejaculation, which is obviously a horrible thing because guys might enjoy it or something.

There was no point in imagining that the spray to which it alludes was, say, pepper spray, and that the scenario proposed incapacitating your would-be pronger long enough for you to get the job done yourself.
...Apparently the idea here is that you would fend off a rapist and then masturbate? Either that or you just mace your boyfriend and then masturbate. (If the test of a sexist statement is how fucked-up it sounds when you reverse the genders... yeah.) Either way, make really sure you wash your hands in between.

But in the comments is where things get kind of weird. Weirder.
Twisty:How long should “sex” last?
And doesn’t this assessment entirely depend on your point of view? What if you are a prostituted woman? Or you suffer from one of those conditions where penetration is painful? Or you’re one of those women in Afghanistan who is required by law to make herself available whenever Mr Dude wants it? Or a mama in a motorcycle gang? If such women were allowed to define sex, I imagine no ejaculation would ever be judged “premature.”

Gosh, I'd rather not be raped than be raped but it's real quick. I guess that's overreaching though.

Anyway, even "prostituted" (remember kids, women can't make decisions!) women, Afghan women, and biker mamas (what?) might still want to have consensual straight sex at some point. The fact that someone has suffered sexual abuse doesn't mean that they automatically become gay or asexual.

slythwolf:
I also seem to recall that women were likely to report two and a half minutes of penetration as having taken five minutes, which to me says we’re mostly staring at the wall going, when is this going to be over?

That's certainly the pessimistic way of looking at it. I might use phrases like "feels so fucking fantastic time stands still," but I'm sure that's just some man or other speaking through my helpless little puppet mouth.

Also, a thought: ejaculation is premature when it’s too early to have a chance of impregnating anyone.
...Huh?

rubysecret:I’d like to see a “Shut up about yer stupid weeny and bring me a sandwich” spray. Or a “Hon, would you please run to the store a pick up fresh batteries for my vibrator?” spray. That I’d buy.
"I’d like to see a 'Shut up about yer stupid coochie and bring me a sandwich' spray. Or a 'Hon, would you please run to the store a pick up fresh lube for my pocket pussy?' spray. That I’d buy."

FIGHT THE POWAH! REPLACE IT WITH A COMPLETELY IDENTICAL POWAH! *fistpump*

Jonathan:The men who fall over in bed after 5 seconds are seen as losers by the other dudes. It doesn’t matter if their foreplay* stamina lasted orders of magnitude longer than their weener did. It doesn’t matter whether their partners were happy, bored, or asleep. Their dudefriends are who they are having sex for.
Gosh, if that's the only reason, maybe they just shouldn't tell their friends about their ejaculations.

rubysecret: I don’t know if it’s been discussed in any studies, but I’ll bet that there are many women who say they enjoy penetration but are saying so because they know it pleases their partner - because it’s so ingrained that our sexual pleasure comes from pleasing someone else.
I'm so glad that you know what women really want even when they say something completely different. ("C'mon, baby, I know you really like it.") If we started believing what women said about their own sexuality, we'd never defeat the Patriarchy.

Twisty:One of these maneuvers, which I try to explain in this post, is that men own and define women’s sexuality in this dudely world. Surely — may I call you Shirley? — you can see that because our social order is a patriarchy, and because women in a patriarchy are a subjugated sex class, submitting to penetration is not a politically neutral act.
"Submitting to penetration" does sound like a bad idea. How about craving penetration, welcoming it, asking for it, loving it?

(Terminology break: I actually agree that "penetration" is not the most even-handed expression for the act. One of the Twisty commenters suggests "envelopment," but that's just the opposite problem. Figleaf mentioned "interlocking" recently, which works. But for practical purposes I think I like "fucking" best. It's easy to use reciprocally--he didn't just fuck me, I also fucked him--and it's pleasingly street-level.)

Anyway, an awful lot of lesbians penetrate in one way or another, and an awful lot of women penetrate themselves with no dude watching. Jesus, it's like dudes are controlling us when they're not even there! Either that or there are nerves in the vagina, it's really a toss-up.

Narya:Members of a subjugated sex class have no other option but to “submit” to penetration, just as members of the dominant class have no other option but to own and define the sexuality of the sex class.
Actually you're pretty free to not fuck if you don't want, or to define the type of fucking in your own relationships in any way you like. If someone is forcing you to be penetrated you should probably stop whining on the Internet and call the goddamn police.

niki:Even if you’re on top with a whip and he’s gagged, if he’s penetrating you you’re still the sub, ultimately.
Well, what in hell would it take to make him the sub? You're just setting up your definitions so that the very act of owning a vagina means that I'm a natural submissive. Fuck that.

(Anyway, what if I am the sub? What if I'm gagged and he has the whip and I'm his dirty little slut... and afterwards we laugh, put our clothes back on, and treat each other as equals? Seems like making sexual submission structured, explicit, and thereby optional is really quite feminist... but honestly I'd come up with any excuse to keep doing it.)

hedgepig: As long as we hets (cises?) continue to take part in hetero activities we are preventing the revolution from taking place. The fact that I can’t be part of the revolution and am actually contributing to its failure is one of the biggest disappointments I have about myself.
Why the fuck should we hets even want that kind of revolution then? We can't fix things until ~90% of women give up something they're emotionally and physically wired to want? Yeah, good luck with that and let me know how it goes, honey.

CassieC: lotsa foreplay and short and sweet is how I like it - they can stop thinking about Manchester United or whatever it is they do to drag things out. As mentioned above, this leaves more time for hot chocolate, cuddles, playing with the cat, telling bedtime stories, tickling, running out to play on the swings, beer and sleep.
Women do like chocolate and cuddles more than sex, don't we. Also, sewing and cooking and aprons with little flowers. That shit soaks my fucking panties.



Ultimately, the Twisty crowd are making the same fundamental mistake as their favorite strawmen the "stripper pole feminists"--assigning way too much political importance to private sexuality because it's more fun to talk about than childcare or health coverage. I like pontificating about sex too, but I hope I don't pretend it's a Revolutionary Battlefront.

I like dude-stuff in my vagina, I like it there for a while, and the option to use a substance that furthers those goals is just fine by me.

10 comments:

  1. "Gosh, if that's the only reason, maybe they just shouldn't tell their friends about their ejaculations.


    Or maybe they should go have ejaculations with their dudefriends.

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  2. Or maybe in the real world, we don't really talk to other guys about our stamina unless it is to brag (or lie to pump up our statistics).

    That Twisty is one messed up person. "Messed up" is in the DSM-IV, right?

    p.s. My signature is due to a medical condition where the muscles in my back and shoulders won't loosen without the aid of botox shots. I guess it fits here on The Pervocy, too.

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  3. i think that the problem people *should* have with that spray is that its a topical anesthetic - its going to *reduce* the pleasure of the user. its kinda fucked up, really - getting off generally happens because the friction feels really really good, but for some reason if you get off "too soon" (what is too soon? what is too long? i love fucking, but there is a point after which its just friction and pain...) you're somehow less manly or something, so voila, a spray is invented so that sex feels less good so it can last longer...

    which sounds, to me anyway, like taking all the good taste out of an apple so that you can eat more of them (not the calories, just the tasty molecules. i hope this analogy makes sense lol)

    that may just be me - i'd rather go a couple of rounds, spaced out over a couple of hours, than have straight pounding for 45 minutes. YMMV :D

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  4. Reading the article itself, said spray increased the stamina of the users from a few *seconds* to just over two minutes- that's not "pounding until sore" territory for me. I agree the topical anesthetic sounds kinda iffy in and of itself, but if that's the timeframe we're talking, maybe it IS a good thing for all parties involved- for the right audience and not the guy who already lasts just fine and mistakes endless fucking for manhood.

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  5. Denelian - If the guys are still coming in a couple minutes, I don't think they're all the way anesthetized. Also, since it's just a spray there's not much commitment; if a guy tries it and hates it he doesn't have to use it again.

    Anyway no one's doing nothing for 45 minutes, according to the article it only gets guys from about 30 seconds to about 4 minutes. I wouldn't call 4 minutes endless pounding for the sake of ego.

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  6. I guess Twisty & her (its?) fans just don't like... gosh, I find myself at a loss for words other than what you suggested - penetration/envelopment/interlocking much, which is fine with me.

    I'm a male that is pretty thoroughly into co-op sex (a "we both get to jointly decide what we're going to do together" sort of thing, y'know?). If that isn't their experience of sex, I suggest that the police in their area are missing a few rape statistics (police will be the first to tell you that this is true, btw).

    Otherwise its all just posturing and BS.

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  7. thats what i get for not reading the specific article because i think i know what they are talking about...

    i thought it was supposed to be a new version of a "cream" that came out, oh, maybe 16 years ago? that promised users "hours" of stamina - to the point where (like people joke of Viagra) the erection wouldn't go AWAY. when i say hours, i mean, thats how it was pitched, i was in high school so i never interacted with it, and it was off the market before anyone i had sex with was 18.
    if its just a couple of minutes... but still, anything that makes pleasure less? i *do* see the difference between 4 minutes and 45 :)

    i guess i am just worried that so many people seem to be thinking of sex as a "performance" act as opposed to a "pleasure" act. while many things can, and are, both (playing piano is for me, as an example) i have noted a tendancy of people being so worried about the *performance* that they totally lose the *pleasure*

    and it would be REALLY sad if people stopped getting pleasure out of sex.

    i dunno, other than that gut reaction; i'm not a guy,and don't have the same sort of pressure when it comes to "stamina". i count quality of pleasure over quantity, but no one else has to :)

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  8. wow. I would go through those absolutely insane comments one at a time, but it would just be redundant to what you've said.

    I will say something about this one, though:
    ejaculation is premature when it’s too early to have a chance of impregnating anyone.


    I had a friend who told me about his problem... he couldn't get his pants off prior to sex before ejaculating. I'd say that that qualifies.



    I do find it interesting to see how "the other half" thinks. It really does appear to be self loathing.


    note: by "the other half" I mean the half that is absolutely fucking crazy.

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  9. denelian: you'd be right about the "lessening pleasure to extend duration" thing, if "pleasure" was a purely one dimensional axis for all guys.

    For yours truly, there's a a significant 2d mapping there, where "physical pleasure" is one axis, and "pleasing the other person involved" is the other.

    My lover and I are perfectly aware of many, many other things besides PIV sex that will get her off, but she's told me (and, like a fool, I've actually believed her! ;) ) that the regular old biological PIV part is different, and in many ways, better.

    So, extending that duration for her, gives me a deeper emotional satisfaction with the act.

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  10. You have a good point Perlhaqr, but it does seem a bit iffy considering the pressure men have on them to 'endure' the pleasure as if it's something to be endured, for the sake of conforming to a harmful model of sex.

    I mean, I guess many men do get genuine sexual satisfaction by having their erection available to pleasure someone else for extended periods of time, and sacrificing a certain amount of tactile stimulation isn't bothersome to them. I just seriously doubt that would be the case if it wasn't for the stigma surrounding premature ejaculation, it smacks of 'lie back and think of England'.


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