GROWINg strong heterosexual men, here’s how to get me off lily matchett I’m a woman who can love sex. Can being the pivotal word. Though, after ten years of being sexually active, it’s become blatantly obvious that sex for a woman can often be unsatisfying, objectifying and disempowering. Although I speak only from my own experience, I have noticed common threads emerge in stories told by other female friends. As a feminist searching for gender equality, voicing these experiences may help to challenge practices that perpetuate rape culture and replace them with ones that see women empowered by their sexual encounters. Finding a man that treats me with respect and has the capacity to satisfy my sexual desires has been incredibly difficult. Predominantly, I’m writing to educate heterosexual men who do not realize how their sexual practice disempowers women. In order to do this, I’ll revisit some of my key bedroom moments that have created, or destroyed the possibility of, satisfying sexual interactions. The prevalence of male-on-female coercive sexual behaviour appears to me to be the toxic, lingering hangover of assumed patriarchal entitlement to my female body. My body IS me and mine. Sex and coercive sex are distinct, but for a long time in my life they have seemed dangerously blurred. Coercive sex should not be the norm. As a young woman, I felt ill equipped to assert my sexual and bodily rights. Do I have any? What are they? What could happen and how do I protect myself ? What if it’s my friend who’s initiating the coercive behaviour? Where were these conversations? No discussions transpired page 22
to educate me on navigating coercive sexual situations, just the old ‘don’t get into a car with a stranger’ every once in a while. No mentor was there to guide me on how to handle pressured sexual acts, preserve my boundaries or help me understand the power and complexities of my consent. I now think this is poor form. We have a social responsibility to better educate people of all genders from a young age on individuals’ boundaries and the inappropriateness of coercive behaviour. This education is far more important than other things we learn in our youth. Sexual activity is buckets of fun when it’s safe, but when it trespasses into coercive, invasive or violent activity, one person leaves the room wearing an armor of distrust, violation and victimhood. The perpetrator may continue this practice unperturbed. Such practice is unnecessary and preventable. These days I have zero tolerance for coercive sexual behaviour. This should have always been the case, but it took some self-motivated feminist education and a respectful partner for it to really ‘click’. I may not want to kiss, have sex with or play in a particularly rough or kinky way with someone and that’s great. I now know that all these things require my permission; I have no obligation to comply. Heterosexual men, if you proceed to treat my body like an object you’re entitled to, my turn on will dramatically switch to off. From then on you’ve lost all my respect, so to circumvent this, read on. Never pressure, presume, demand or go ahead with anything without my permission, this is my body and my choice to make, not yours.