Thanks Coco. Yeah, any reference to "false advertisement" gets my hackles up. Side note - what is a hackle??
It would seem that a lot of men don't realize just how vulnerable a woman is during sex. I seriously doubt that there is any woman on the planet who hasn't experienced some sort of sexual violence.
FFS, I read an article the other day about a girl who was raped in the hallway of her high school in the middle of the day. She said she screamed, but no one came. How does that happen? She was a virgin, so rape is her first sexual experience. 😥
Yup, super fucked up. She's going to have some serious hurdles to jump to have a healthy relationship with her sexuality. Hell, I consented when I lost my virginity, but after a lot of introspection I definitely feel like I was coerced to a certain extent. And I paid the price for that and didn't have sex for years after that because I couldn't trust anyone.
Re: the screaming and nobody coming to help thing, I can see how that might happen in a school, the halls during recess or even passing periods are so crazy loud. But there are some disturbing studies on pain vs. pleasure sounds. I would need to do some digging to find it, but I remember reading a study re: how men who consistently watch porn have a difficult time discerning between images of women orgasming and images of women in pain. If I remember correctly, a similar study was also conducted re: sex sounds vs. sounds of pain. I'm not sure if a similar study was done with women who watch pornography. I'm also not sure if they controlled for type of pornography being watched i.e. whether it was violent vs. more soft core, what type of penetration etc. but I'm sure all of those things matter too.
TMI Warning
I do know that the porn my XH watched (well, at least what I found over and over, who knows what else I didn't find) was almost exclusively centered on ass-play. After any of my numerous discoveries I didn't watch much as it is really jarring to come upon that when you're not expecting it. But from what I did see, these women were all "enjoying it." I put that in quotes because it's very difficult to tell if they truly are, or if they're faking it for the paycheck. Either way, it had the appearance of pleasure, which I think skewed his perceptions on that particular act.
I also read a quote from a former pornstar recently regarding her time in the industry. I just spent half an hour trying to find it in my Pinterest boards but can't seem to track it down. Anyway, I'm paraphrasing here but what she said was that while shooting a double penetration scene, she was torn inside. They finished, and continued filming, I think she said it was even while she was on the ground waiting for an ambulance. She ended up hemorrhaging and had to have surgery to stop the bleeding. The scene ended up winning Best Anal Scene or something of that nature at a Porn awards show that year.
End TMI Warning
I do think this effects all of us BWs in hetero relationships, because whether our WHs think this way, or we are newly single and having to navigate a dating scene where many men think this way, we're going to be affected. And many of us BWs have sexual trauma in our past, and at the very least betrayal trauma, so we're bound to be more on edge moving forward no matter what.
"What men fear most about going to prison is what women fear most walking down the sidewalk" I honestly don't know how to address this issue. I wish I did. I've had a lot of talks with my brothers about these things. They seem to get it, more than other men I've discussed this with. But even in a recent discussion, one I thought was super productive, my oldest brother still pulled out some version of Not All Men. And while I get the impulse, because it might sound like I'm talking about all men, and since he is a man, he therefore thinks I'm talking about him, it's just... hard. I have to say it stung. I love all of my brothers deeply, and I think they are all great guys who would never, ever say use a phrase like "false advertisement" with a woman, or ever insinuate that they are entitled to their body. But we've still got a long way to go.
I fear any discussions with future partners, because I worry that we will always inevitably get to some point like this, and I'll no longer be willing to look past it. I looked past seemingly well-meaning statements from my XH - "Continuing to talk about misogyny is only giving it more power. You're breathing life into it." Ok yeah, on the surface, I can kinda understand that. And I really don't think he was trying to be manipulative, I do think he thought he was being helpful. But what it really means is, shut up about it already.
I don't want to be looking for the hidden meanings in everyone's statements. Part of that I can't avoid, I'm an INFJ and I can't shut that part of my brain off. Then there's all the messaging I've received growing up as a woman. But my life experiences have also taught me that I have to constantly be on alert for people like this, male and female. I somehow married one of them! What would life without hypervigilance look like? I have no fucking clue.
On a happier note, go for it Coco, I say put the presents out! I tended to buy presents throughout the few months preceding Christmas as a way of spreading it out financially. Plus I shop for a living, so I'm always out in stores and would pick things up as I saw them. It was fun to wrap them and put them under the tree as soon as it was up! The girls would shake them and try to guess what they were. Sometimes I would put them in funky shaped boxes to throw them off the trail haha.
My parents never did that, Dad always waited to wrap until the night before. He would shut himself off in his room and we weren't allowed to go in there! He would sometimes have us come in to help wrap things for other people, and would just hide our presents while we were there. That's where I learned my awesome wrapping skills!
I also liked wrapping early because it meant I didn't have to keep them in hiding any longer, using up my storage space, or worried someone would find them. They were hiding in plain sight, and also building up some fun holiday anticipation. Win, win!
