Men occupy a more powerful position in society due to the generally patriarchal structures. Women occupy a less powerful position than men, even when a particular women holds more overt power (e.g., a woman that's a CEO). As a result, sexual relationships between men and women always have a power imbalance; that imbalance of power means that women can never really be consenting, since there's always some form of 'threat' involved. A woman that believes she wants sex believes that way because society has conditioned her to be that way, rather than that being something she chose in a vacuum.

And theoretically, this is all true, kind of. But it also isn't, because that would mean that women can never have any agency over their own body or their own sexual choices. ...Unless they "choose" to be lesbian, which isn't actually a choice at all.

[–] pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online 42 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

No, it's not all true, not even theoretically. The idea that women can't consent to sex is complete and utter horseshit, not to mention insanely sexist.

[–] OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I mean it is true to an extent, it is just treating consent as an absolute and not a spectrum. Power imbalances absolutely impact where that needle is.

I've had lots of sex like "yes please". I've had sex where I was like "ill probably enjoy enjoy this" or "I genuinely don't really care one way or another and it will please my partner" (who I'm not vulnerable to in a societally enforced way) and all of them would fit the binary of consensual but are at various points on the spectrum.

The last example is an illustrative example where it would clearly fall at different points on the spectrum if I was more or less dependent on/vulnerable to my partner.

Sex negative feminism had some points that were correct to some extent, sex negative and sex positive feminism both synthesized into a more sex neutral position for a reason.

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[–] wizzor@sopuli.xyz 27 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Wouldn't that line of thinking imply that women don't have any agency about anything? Whatever they decide can be framed as a reaction to internalized fear.

Not to mention that gender roles also affect men.

[–] Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Yeah it does and you couldn't really change it. As women would act based on internalized sexism and even if a man wants to respect the wish of a woman and give her 100% control, she would act in the sexist norms, which would signal to the men that women want those sexist norms. So men would continue to "enforce" those norms as women would fear to stop the men.

So sexism can't be solved; and then we can ask why bother trying to change it then?

Stupid line of thinking that is insulting to both, women and men. No means no, my friends. No means no. Respect your fellow humans.

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[–] systemglitch@lemmy.world 20 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Sounds suspiciously like insanity to me.

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[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

But also they shame lesbians when we actually fuck because we’re “imitating male behavior”. Like, girl, I assure you that while some men offer to take turns performing oral this is far from us imitating them. We’re just horny

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[+] Apytele@sh.itjust.works 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (48 children)

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[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 35 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Oh hey guys what's going on in this thre...

[–] Hacksaw@lemmy.ca 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm generalizing here, but men's lib looks VERY different to women's lib. Women started from a position of very low power, liberation was nearly a continuous improvement for all but the most privileged women.

Men's lib requires first giving up a lot of patriarchal power before gaining the benefits of men's lib, which in my opinion far surpass those of patriarchal power. There are a lot of barriers to this. First, most "online" feminists talk only about giving up patriarchal power. This feels hostile to most men and has bolstered misogynist influencers like tate et al. Second real life men and women are typically both complicit as men in enforcing patriarchal views of what a man is supposed to be. You can see experiences of men crying or expressing real emotion in front their prospective significant others as a prime example of this. Third there is no easy to access popular description of the benefits to men of men's lib. There are great examples, but they aren't as culturally relevant as patriarchal influencers yet.

The path to men's lib is complex and has very different challenges than women's lib. I think we're getting there, but it's certainly a slow process and at this time I think the counter reaction is more prevalent and popular.

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[–] Omega_Haxors@lemmy.ml 31 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

To be fair I've been called puritanical for pointing out that people shouldn't sexualize minors. It's the ultimate thought-terminating cliché.

[–] HelixDab2@lemm.ee 19 points 7 months ago (4 children)

That's... Genuinely complicated.

Kids aren't asexual, and then BOOM they're sexual the second they hit 18. I was very interested in sex from an age that would make most people deeply uncomfortable to think about. Romeo and Juliet laws exist because we recognize that first, kids are going to be sexual, and second, it's not always going to be with peers that are exactly their own age, and that prosecuting minors for statutory rape--since neither party could legally consent--is a little crazy.

So there needs to be some kind of line between recognizing that kids are sexual, and adults not treating them in a sexual way.

[–] Liz@midwest.social 8 points 7 months ago

Clearly what we need to do is a bunch of gene editing so that humans go through a cocoon phase where they sexually mature and emerge as a fully-formed adult.

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[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Sometimes you get something more blended. Dworkin was great at that because you can absolutely see where she’s coming from and get her line of thinking, but also she totally missed the part where most women want to have sex.

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