When Sexual Boundaries Are Ignored Because Men Enjoy Our Pain
I thought I didn't like sex, but really, I just didn't like feeling like shit afterwards.
This essay discusses coercive and violating forms of sex in detail. I tried to enjoy sex with men—cis and otherwise—for several years before I began seriously questioning my sexuality and gender. I hated a lot of things about sex with men, the things surrounding it, and the language used to describe it, but I tolerated the things that I didn't like about it so I could enjoy the few things that I did like, and later I learned that I could get those things elsewhere and in more healthy ways. Finally, I came to the realization that I just didn't like the kind of sex that I’d been having, the only kind that I had ever experienced, since the very first guy I ever had sex with coerced me into it. The kind of sex that I was conditioned to believe was normal, that I was expected to accept as standard, natural, and unchanging, as something not shaped by environmental and social factors, and gender cultivation. I know now that I could enjoy sex with men more if they were at all interested in making it comfortable for the people they fuck. Instead, they seem to get off on making the experience uncomfortable and painful for their partners, regardless of whether or not that's what we want. I'm not talking about BDSM, kink, power play, power exchange, or the things related to them. These are all valid forms of sexual expression and engagement, and can absolutely be fulfilling and rewarding when all people involved are consenting to all agreed upon aspects, communicate desires and boundaries effectively, and commit to practicing these forms of sex ethically. This is about men who are interested in nothing more than reproducing the things that they see in pornography or hear in mundane social conversations and colloquialisms about sex, because they think this is all that sex is and should be. This is about men who are never interested in talking to me about what I want or need from sex. Men whose idea of sex is nothing more than a sum of various fantasies produced by a paternal and misogynistic society which amount to degradation and subjugation that I am expected to accept as not only normal, but necessary parts of sex with them. A normalcy in which I am supposed to accept being in agonizing positions, and subject to being tossed around and repositioned at their will, regardless of how I feel, because they believe that's how sex is “supposed” to look. A normalcy in which the prospect of making me orgasm is always about their ego and never about my ecstasy. And they push harder against me or pull me back to them when I adjust or pull away because something feels uncomfortable or painful or overwhelming. And they say, “Come back here” and “Stop running” and “Don't fucking move” because I'm not allowed to react to what's happening instinctively, because they don't care that this position hurts me. In fact, it's supposed to hurt me, and I'm supposed to just stay here and take it, because that's what they really get off on. They've been conditioned to be aroused by women in pain. Because it makes them feel good about the size of their dick or the stroke of their strap-on. Because they think that fucking hard and rough without nuance or sensitivity constitutes good sex.SUPPORT WEAR YOUR VOICE: JOIN US ON PATREON
Brett Kavanaugh’s Nomination is a Hellscape For Survivors of Sexual Assault
The men who commit sexual assault are humanized and given the benefit of the doubt over and over again, while the victims of rape are abused, doxed, and accused of lying. Over the past few weeks, I have started and then
Diane Nguyen and Vietnamese Americans Deserve Better Representation
I want to see "BoJack Horseman" succeed at writing a nuanced portrayal of a person of color and their culture. By Linh Cao “I stepped outside of the Ho Chi Minh airport and felt the humid air envelope me. Palm trees taller
Black Horror Films Could Be About More Than White Violence
I want so much more than seemingly unrelenting reminders of how anti-Black this world is.
As a horror aficionado, I am constantly caught between appreciation for the few Black horror stories that we have and the desire for them to explore so much more. Blackness in horror doesn't always have to be about racial injustice and anti-Black violence, and yet it so often is. In a pre-”Get Out” (2017) world, the most premier example of a horror film that used white violence as its foundation and impetus was Bernard Rose's “Candyman” (1992), and I don't doubt that many horror fans see it as fitting and appropriate that Jordan Peele is the one who is currently in talks to remake this horror classic. [caption id="attachment_50045" align="aligncenter" width="800"]

SUPPORT WEAR YOUR VOICE: JOIN US ON PATREON
RAG HEAD: Exploring the Violence Perpetrated Against Sikhs in the U.S.
Sundeep Morrison's RAG HEAD exposes the ways in which Sikhs are increasingly unsafe in this xenophobic society. Hate, racism and xenophobia have become a regular part of the lives of Sikh people in the United States. According to a report by