' the orgasmic experience that breastfeeding and birthing their infants is for many women'

Now when you say many, is it many as in a handful, or many as in the majority of women. It's a very loose term.

I'll have a poll on the weekend of 15 mothers, and I'm pretty confident not 1 will relate even an enjoyment of birth in any way, and you're already down to about half who tried and tried to breast feed through pain and mastitis, which doesn't sound very sensual to me.

Good for you if that's your experience, but I just wonder about the many, and where that would really be relevant in the context of the general sexuality of women. Is the many a big enough many to be considered a normalised experience. Or are we back in potential land.

I see it as a romanticisization of the feminine. From my experience the kind of women who professes such experience always seems to be the same kind of woman who talks in a smug celebratory tone about her female-ness in the first place. Perhaps it's the power of the mind.

But if you try to convince me this is some kind of natural and correct experience of breast feeding and childbirth, and women have been prevented by the patriarchy from experiencing the true magic of these experiences I'll barf.

'whereby women are held responsible for men's consumption of cybersex fantasy and its historical reenactment.'

held responsible? By who and in what context?

Poirot it's only the misogynist male patriarchy forcing women to be the lowly tea makers and bandager-uppers, while the men take the glory of fighting fires and rebuilding stuff.

R0bert you sound so resentful about all that. I can kind of see why I suppose. There was a post earlier from some self professed lothario that sounded more like some kind of martyr-slave, outlining the extravagant efforts that should be performed in order to get women in the mood. Sure once in a while, but sex should be about giving from both people, not some grand one-sided performance.

So much for gender equality Athene… I've heard males use the expression giving birth to a brick and their descriptions of appeals to God and Jesus Christ whilst doing so didn't make it seem orgasmic.

All I'm left with now is performance anxiety… Oh well I'll just have to take myself in hand and get over it.

As Poirot said 'half yer luck'.

Houelle,

I enjoyed your pun on One Nature. If it wasn't so deluded, it would almost qualify as witty (in an undergrad type way).

Maybe you're not as dumb as I thought...

You are certainly an expert when it comes to coherence. How could I argue with this gem of English syntax:

"It's perfectly valid to write in the vernacular, it got me through English in High School that excuse. All you have to do is convince them it's an artistic decision to switch into my own highlyculturally significant vernacular for effect."

I humbly apologise. I sometimes wonder how us men managed so long without you brilliant women telling us what to do. Remarkable.

It is worrying that my assertion “many women” experience sex differently than is considered culturally normative, be interpreted as some prescription for a normative, correct sexuality. To be clear: sexuality for women includes our capacity for reproducing our species and understanding its often confounding cultural complexity and in particular, making sense of modern obstetrics/gynaecology narratives mired in the cultural delusion that mothers’ embodied experiences are not sexual. Accepting Petra Buesken’s argument that industrial porn’s representation of heterosexuality harms women and children, I seek to broaden debate about feminine sexual experience that, although confronting to a heterosexual ideology about womens’ sameness, allows space for many dissonant views in a narrative more consonant with how women and men live their lives

That is intended to be "clear", Athene?

>>To be clear: sexuality for women includes our capacity for reproducing our species and understanding its often confounding cultural complexity and in particular, making sense of modern obstetrics/gynaecology narratives mired in the cultural delusion that mothers’ embodied experiences are not sexual.<<

I think my brain switched off at "narratives".

Something it does quite frequently, I find.

"Accepting Petra Buesken’s argument that industrial porn’s representation of heterosexuality harms women and children"

There's your problem right there.

Perhaps that generalisation could give way for a viewpoint which "allows space for many dissonant views in a narrative more consonant with how women and men live their lives"

Maybe the inclusion of the word "industrial" is a recognition that there is more diversity than some seem willing to acknowledge but Petra's argument seem fundametally flawed in the first place and does not appear to give much space for alternative views.

It does not in my view honestly address a myriad of factors which feminists otherwise seem very keen on such as autonomy over your own sexuality, rather seeming presupposing that a women has some kind of right to control over her partners sexual choices.

As I've pointed out I think a lot of the arguments enter a different space when it comes to a healthy loving relationship but then some issues which feminists have fought hard for such recognition of rape in marriage or reproductive choice are not necessarily founded on healthy loving relationship's.

Houellebecq has done a great job of addressing a lot of the issues.

Athene if you are serious perhaps you could try engaging with some of the points which have already been made by posters. Leave aside the extreme views unless you are primarily interested in point scoring and run with less inflammatory but relevant points and see if a worthwhile discussion develops.

R0bert