Well, I’m actually not so sure about that – in the end you just have to make a decision and if you’re not attracted to somebody, does it really make a difference if there’s just one or multiple reasons for that? But also: what if you’re interested anyway? I’m just really, really not liking this idea that if (a serious percentage of) straight men are lousy partners, straight women should just not have sex with anyone. It’s just not really as empowering as it sounds and the reality is that most people’s sex drive is a strong enough that women do end up in dodgy relationships anyway – even when they can grasp and articulate what it is about their partner that’s upsetting/unsatisfying to them. I mean, sure, ideally nobody would be interested in the assholes. But am I the only person on this website who’s ever provided a shoulder to cry on to friends who just can’t seem to bring themselves to break up with the jerk they’re with, even while they nod miserably along when you try to tell them so?

Basically, my objection to Cimorene’s view of bad boyfriends is that it sounds an awful lot like the catholic church’s stand on pregnancy/STD’s: if you want to avoid them, don’t have sex. It’s just not very good policy.

“deciding that, regardless of one’s own *sexual* desires, one is going to refrain from sex with someone until something about their behavior changes (Lysistrata style) is manipulative and sort of calculating in a way that is inappropriate for romantic relationships”

Also, it’s ineffective. Deciding that I won’t sleep with somebody isn’t going to make them a better person.

And then of course there’s the girls who actually want to fuck boys (you seem to have forgotten about those?). Maybe some of these girls want to fuck boys who end up treating them badly. And maybe then these girls are caught in impossible situations where to reclaim respect they have to give up on fucking the boy they want to fuck – and that’s tough. That’s all I’m saying here.

Now if you could find a way to arrange it so that girls only ever fall for/are attracted to the decent guys, I’d be all over that.

“This thread of conversation started when I suggested that we teach 11 year old girls that they are not required to be in a relationship with boys who treat them like shit”

If that’s what you meant, it was very badly formulated. As far as I can see this is the first time you’ve brought up 11 year old girls. Also, yeah, again, what if they *want* to be in a relationship with boys who, as it turns out, treat them like shit?

@Cimorene – “so for women to give up sex and relationships with men who don’t consider women their equals, isn’t really giving up love because it doesn’t exist in the first place with the hypothetical misogynists in question.”

Well, perhaps that’s really easy for you – an outsider to a hypothetical relationship – to acknowledge and accept. If you were the one stuck in the shitty relationship however, if you were desperately willing somebody who doesn’t treat you with love/satisfy your sexual needs to do so, if you were desperately loving/wanting that person anyway, isn’t it just possible that that love and desire and desperation might clout your vision just a little bit? Because basically, you’re really not being very compassionate here at all.

“This is not victim blaming; this is not putting the responsibility of the shitty relationships on the women. This is blaming the culture that tells women to conform to men’s wishes and desires.”

And it’s placing the responsibility for changing that culture on whom exactly? Cos it still sounds to me like you expect the victim to do all the heavy lifting.

@ Tall-in-Heals – “It’s not like Cimorene was advocating that women withhold sex to get a new car or something.”

Well, no, but she does seem to be ignoring the fact that women also actively desire and need sex and will miss it if it’s eliminated from their lives. She’s asking women to give up sex if they can’t find a respectful partner. But that ignores the reality of countless women who have invested time and energy into bad relationships with men they might themselves sexually desire and/or love but who either don’t reciprocate those feelings in equal measure or do not manifest such feelings in their behaviour. Perhaps these women don’t want to leave their partners, find it too difficult to do so or impossible to imagine a positive outcome for themselves if they attempted it. Maybe they just don’t want to give up on an attachment they themselves feel and are trying their desperate best to inspire in their partners. Laying blame on them for the shitty situations they’re stuck in by saying “well, all you have to do is claim something better for yourself” is way too harsh and incredibly unhelpful.

I just don’t think that it’s women’s responsibility to improve either their own lot or men’s behaviour by forsaking sex with all but the best of men. Women already know that their choices open to them are often shabby – they don’t need that rubbed in their faces. Educating men to be better partners would be a much more reasonable proposition.

“Oh, and ask any rape or sexual assault victim about that “undisputed gatekeepers of sex” piece.”

I was being sarcastic. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

My parents and I talked about sex and sexual relationships throughout my adolescence (and still talk about those issues today). My mother and I did have a deliberate “talk” when I was reaching puberty about physical changes, menstruation, etc. She read over some materials with me, the two of us in private, and let me know she was available when questions came up. Though I already knew that! She also pointed me toward her reference books (i.e. Our Bodies, Ourselves) and let me have at it. This was in the days before internet-based sex education resources.

I was a little akward about it, in passing, just because I was a very practical child and figured I’d deal with puberty when it happened. I wasn’t interested in sexual relationships or boys so it all seemed fairly distant and irrelevant to my life when I was twelve. But mostly I’m grateful that my mother (and my father, when he has been called upon to step up to the plate and talk with us kids — now 30, 27, and 25 — about sexual intimacy) are willing to talk about the sexual side of human experience without a great deal of shame or judgment.

Talking about sex with your kids doesn’t have to be a serious talk at a pre-ordained time, it’s more about parsing out information on am age-appropriate need-to-know basis and keeping the lines of communication open so that they feel safe and comfortable turning to you for advice.

I simply don’t understand your idea that “I am against letting a parent decide when it’s the right time to talk about it and what to talk about specifically.”

If the parent doesn’t make that call, who does? The child? Part of being a parent is guiding your child’s development pro-actively. Children—especially young ones—are often not able to articulate “Hey mom, I need to know this and you need to explain it to me.” And if you raise a child in an environment where you aren’t pro-active and engaged with their development, they’ll learn that you are NOT someone they can trust or turn to with questions.

Eventually porn was discussed as well (I think that discussion happened in my late teens early twenties however – I was a late bloomer).

It was these discussions that helped me to be able to go to her when I was a teenager about things to do with sexuality, etc (even though I didn’t always have the best relationship with her during these years).

Maybe because of these discussions I was picky and choosey about whom I went out with and the kinds of relationships that formed (for all of high school I didn’t have a “boyfriend” or “girlfriend” for example)

It also meant that when confronted with porn, I felt able navigate my feelings and desires without being pressured by others.

I wasn’t talking about individuals deciding to stop fucking their boyfriends. I was talking about teaching 11 year old girls that they don’t have to fuck boys who treat them like shit.

Thing is, girls are taught that they have to fuck boys, and if they really really don’t want to then they can maybe fuck girls (but either way they still have to be virgins, of course!). There’s never any, “Well (assuming you’re straight), if there are no good boys to fuck, just…don’t fuck anybody.” It’s like that’s not even an option.

This thread of conversation started when I suggested that we teach 11 year old girls that they are not required to be in a relationship with boys who treat them like shit, and fuschia seemed to think that in order for this standard to be upheld, we’d need to live in a “chimerical post-patriarchal future,” and that teaching girls that they ought not be the passive receptacles of male fantasy, that women ought not change their own sexuality/desires/bodies/beings in order to please the men who they might engage in romantical relationships with, would be expecting women “agree to give up the possibility of love/sex for themselves for the greater long term good of womankind.”

I’m not sure how expecting a partner to treat you well is giving up the possibility of love and sex; I’m not sure how the greater long term good of womankind even comes into play. Because I was talking about women not getting involved with shitty men. And then I suppose I went on a bit of a tangent pointing out that if a man doesn’t treat his female partner with respect and equality, then he doesn’t really love her; so for women to give up sex and relationships with men who don’t consider women their equals, isn’t really giving up love because it doesn’t exist in the first place with the hypothetical misogynists in question.

I understand that women get into shitty relationships with shitty men all the time. I thought I made it clear that I understood that misogyny is the matrix in which all relationships take place, and that heterosexuality is a very precarious state for any woman. Women who stay in shitty relationships with men who treat them like shit are only doing so because we live in a world in which love and sex are tainted with the violence of misogyny. If we lived in a world in which women were equal to men, in which misogyny didn’t exist, in which girls were not taught from the get-go that they are expected to adjust themselves for the boys in their lives, then situations in which women remain in shitty relationships with their shitty boyfriends (for whatever reason) would be nearly eradicated.

This is not victim blaming; this is not putting the responsibility of the shitty relationships on the women. This is blaming the culture that tells women to conform to men’s wishes and desires. And it’s recognizing that a radical transformation of our culture needs to take place in order to end the misogyny that informs so much of our understanding of heterosexuality.

Besides, you’d still have some control over the situation because you’re the one who’s choosing the website/video. It’s just that it would have been made by someone who’s, most likely, more knowledgeable on the subject than any normal parent could be.

I’m sorry if I’m taking this off-topic (I know we were discussing pornography) but, I’m wondering, if there’s anybody who had a parent(s) who initiated “the talk” with you and how did that affect you?