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Friday, 17 May 2013

Vagenda, Anal Sex and Missing the Point Completely

Posted on 12:04 by Unknown
*I am aware that Vagenda is claiming that the article on anal sex is meant to be a satire of Cosmo sex tips. The problem is that that is not how the article reads.


I have a love/ hate relationship with Vagenda. When they are on form, they are just bloody brilliant but when they miss, they do so spectacularly. Today's piece on anal sex was well past missing the point completely and into shaming people who like non-PIV and teaching women how to avoid anal rape.

Now, I self-identify as pro-radical feminist so I am highly critical of the focus on the male orgasm as the defining moment in sex as if everything up to that point, including making women cum, is just making out. The obsession with heteronormative constructions of sexuality are deeply damaging to women and make women responsible for contraception, pregnancy, STDs and making boundaries. Sex education in this country is a joke. I also think pornography is incredibly harmful and deeply destructive. I am anti-prostitution and support the criminalisation of men who purchase sex and those who profit from selling the bodies of other people. I also support the Merseyside model which labels the rape of prostitutes a hate crime. I am against the heteronormative construction of sexuality which uses and abuses the bodies of women and children for male pleasure.

I am really concerned about the normalisation of pornography in our culture and the increasing pressure on young women to have anal sex. There is increasing pressure on young women to preform sex acts which make them uncomfortable or cause them physical pain otherwise they are labeled frigid. We need to be having this discussion but Vagenda hasn't started a conversation. Instead, they seem to have published an article written by a teenage boy with boundary issues. FGS, who actually says "I’m a woman and I like what I like when it comes to the party in my pants" who isn't in a really bad hiphop video produced by Playboy? And, what type of conversation were they planning on having by calling anal sex "bum funnery" and "rump ranging" I'm not even going to go into how angry this sentence makes me: "Now, I know that a few of the ladies out there are total arse-penetration converts, I do." This basically states that women who choose to have anal sex and who do it are actually lying about both.

There are women who genuinely enjoy anal sex and there are women who feel pressured into doing so. We need to be having a conversation about the second group of women, especially young women who are being raised in a culture which sublimates their sexual desires. We need to talk about how women are expected to be the arbiters of sexual boundaries. We need to talk about living in a rape culture where the word no is apparently non-existant in the vocabulary of an ever-increasing number of young men. We need to talk about how we are raising girls to believe that their orgasms aren't really all that important as long as men have one. We need to talk about raising a generation of young boys and girls in a pornified culture and the harm that is causing them. Let's be honest here, the Vagenda article was talking specifically about heterosexual relationships as if they were the only possible kind.

We do not need more infantile articles blithering on with childish language. We do not need more articles yelling 'yay, anal sex is awesome' or more yelling 'it's disgusting'. We need to be having actual adult conversations about having sex in a positive and loving manner, by which I don't always mean within a relationship. Sex without respect, even with a partner you never plan on seeing again, is not good sex.

What really worries me about the Vagenda article is this paragraph:

I have a lovely man in my life that seems to really enjoy my pant party to which he is now the only man invited to. I want to make him happy all the time above and below the sheets, but surely playing Backdoor Buddies isn’t the answer (I’ve forever believed the answer was bacon, but apparently I’m wrong about that too.) He loves the bum: he’s so fascinated by it you would have thought he had been born sans derriere - but there’s no hiding the fact that every time a finger so much as wanders over into that forbidden territory, I suddenly turn into a bucking bronco, jumping six feet in the air like a scaled cat screaming out an appropriate rendition of Meatloaf’s ‘I would do anything for love’, emphasis on: ‘But I won’t do that.’
If you are in a long-term relationship with someone and you have to keep telling them that you do not want anal sex, either with penis, finger or object, then you aren't actually in a very respectful relationship. If your partner respects you, you talk during sex. You should not ever have to repeat that you don't want to engage in one specific sex act, whether that be anal sex, oral sex, or whatever. If you've said no once, then a partner should respect that. If they don't, well I'm sorry, but a sexual partner who repeatedly tries to transgress sexual boundaries is not someone you should be having sex with.

Telling a sexual partner that you do not want to engage in a specific act should not be difficult. If it is difficult, then you should not be having sex with that person/ persons. No one should ever have to use this line to describe their sexual relationships: "(i)n the last few years, I’ve been remarkably creative with ways to avoid posterior decorating out of sheer necessity." You should be able to say no and that word be respected. If your partner doesn't respect that word or keeps asking or keeps trying, then you aren't in a healthy sexual relationship. You aren't in a healthy relationship.

A partner who does not listen to you when you say no is a rapist. You do not need tips to avoid having anal sex if you do not want too. A good partner should respect your decision. Crotchless panties shouldn't be used as a defensive weapon against the possibility of being anally raped. If you like wearing them during sex, wear them. But, do not wear them as a way of trying to focus your partner away from doing something to your body that you dislike. If you have to bargain with other sexual acts to prevent someone doing something you dislike, you should not be having sex with them. You most certainly should not be in a relationship with them.

The entire Vagenda article was basically an instruction manual on how to avoid anal rape. It puts the onus on the female partner, instead of expecting the male partner not to be a rapist.

Women don't need a guide on how to avoid anal rape. Men need to stop raping.


Correction: It has been pointed out, via twitter, that I am implying that it is easy to just walk out of an abusive relationship. I am very sorry. I do know how hard it is to leave an abusive relationship and I should never have made that implication.

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