Comments Elsewhere

cicely:

And if the anecdotal evidence (I think it was Charles who provided) is true – that a very high percentage of women (up to 50%) don’t actually enjoy intercourse, intercourse could *still* be widely conceived, albeit privately, as violation.

This is a good point, but I don’t think that the conception of intercourse as violative is even private in the first place. It’s pretty explicitly proclaimed when people (mostly men) write or talk about intercourse as a form of possession (a man “had her,” “took her,” etc.) or force (a man “nailed her,” “screwed her,” “hit that,” “penetrated her,” “rammed her,” “pounded her,” “banged her,” “fucked her,” etc.) or accomplishment against resistance (a man “scored,” “got lucky,” etc.). That men use these terms with regularity and confidence, while also declaring intercourse is the gold standard for sex itself, the realest or perhaps only kind of “real” sex out there I think it’s no surprise that sex is widely conceived as permeated with violation and control (and that violation and control are seen as shot through with sexiness); also that many women would experience intercourse as unsatisfying, perhaps even violative, when so many men are approaching intercourse on these kinds of terms, and being very emphatic about the right and duty of Manly Men to do so.