My previous post of the series was about how emotional/sexual attachment to men (‘heterosexuality’) exists only within the context of OPPRESSION, GENOCIDE or globally organised violence against women by men as a class. Which means that this emotional bond to men can’t be anything else than an uncontrolled chemical response to that inescapable violence and oppression. A response to which men have conditioned us through a fine-tuned system of repression, deprivation, constraints and reward, grooming and brainwashing – aimed to modify our behaviour to ensure our long-term submission. Within this inescapable subordination to men, we can only fear them or trauma-bond to them: therefore love does not exist towards men.
One aspect I haven’t talked yet about men’s heterocage is the role pleasure plays in securing our sexual submission. In other words, how sexual pleasure with men is manufactured – it’s not pleasure but dissociation from the invasion, pain or fear. It’s always worth reminding FCM’s definition of fear and trauma-bonding inherent to intercourse:
as i think has been made abundantly clear by now, women are literally putting their lives and physical and mental wellbeing on the line, every fucking time they engage in PIV. (sorry! really, i am). if its not the very reasonable fear of being raped at some point during the encounter, its the fear of disease, and the dread, absolute dread of an unintended or unwanted pregnancy. and that last one applies even in wanted encounters with trusted partners, does it not? every single act of intercourse, from somewhat pre-menstruation to somewhat post-menopause. or…until your mate gets his nads snipped…and even then. fear, and dread. foreboding, terror, and bargaining with god. counting the days. … when women have PIV with men, we are encountering a life-threatening situation, with another person, by definition. not surprisingly, we form intense bonds with our war-buddies, these men with whom we have literally faced death and disfigurement. terror.
Before I go any further I just want to pull up again some basics on consent, violence and oppression, because that applies to every situation of violence: no matter how much you think you want, enjoy or choose to submit to an act of violence, violence excludes choice by definition, so it’s never something you could have chosen. When we define an act of violence and a system of oppression, we look at what the abuser or oppressor class does to the victim that qualifies as violence or oppression in any form. This is the only usable criteria; anything else than the actions of the oppressor is excluded from the definition, such as how the victims react (or are made to react) to this violence, whether or not she submits. When we define patriarchy we look at the structure, the pattern of what men do to us. All this is always external to us, outside of the victims. It doesn’t have anything to do with women and our individual choices as free beings but with men, patriarchy. Their violence is about them.
The very purpose of violence is to inflict something on you that you don’t want and that’s against your interest: the point is to harm, destroy you or go against your will. It’s biologically impossible to want your own destruction, you always only want what’s good for you and your survival, because that is how female life is designed. The only reason we seem to be drawn to subordination to men is because men’s violence functions in a way that turns our survival impulse against ourselves, by making us paradoxically seek self-destruction for our survival (see previous post on colonisation).
Consent is meaningless and irrelevant with regards to defining men’s violence and describing the objective reality of it. The only ones to choose and want are those who do the violence: men. They choose to resort to violence because they want to obtain something from us that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to obtain (using us as their dick receptacles, control our reproduction). Will, calculation, intent and choice of means to achieve their end are all on their side. Saying that we choose and want it is a reversal and lie. The illusion of our choice protects men not us, because deception and reversal is in part how they maintain their rule.
Violence only gives two possible options for the victim:
#1- to get away from / stop the violence (therefore there is no more violence)
#2- to submit to violence and oppression because there is no escape > forced to stay in proximity to abuser
Neither of which are a choice. In situation one, for the sake of your life and safety, you have no choice but to get away. In situation two, for the sake of your life and safety, you have no choice but to do what the abuser/oppressor orders of you.
What (liberal) men want us to believe is that the options in violence are split between:
#1- to choose not enter in the situation, because you don’t fancy it, you’re not that kind of girl.
#2- to choose to stay in the situation because you want more of it.
Both of which have the effect of erasing the reality of violence, since violence only commands submission or requires escape, without which violence doesn’t exist.
Back to the topic of sexual pleasure in intercourse that so many women claim to have and which is often the only reason that keeps us into it. As radfems, we always say that whether or not we take pleasure in intercourse, it’s irrelevant to the point that PIV is inherently harmful: but that’s partly incorrect, because the pleasure is part of the intended harm too. Here’s why:
#1. The pleasure we experience during intercourse isn’t natural, but groomed. Men teach us how to instantaneously associate the fear, pain and/or invasion of the penetration to clitoral stimulation, so we dissociate from it – cut it off – and think it’s pleasurable. Clitoral stimulation may function in the exact same way as dissociation in a situation of sexual violence because it sends dissociative drugs to the brain. Dissociation is a drug, so this reaction to PIV may become an addiction, a rush we crave for like cocaine.
#2. This groomed chemical response to intercourse is harmful because it deliberately diminishes our capacity to identify rape/PIV as violence and get away from it. It confuses us into thinking we wanted it and enjoyed it. In BDSM for instance, it is very common for men to ask women to rub their clitoris during the acts. They know it will confuse their victim, letting her believe she likes being raped and humiliated and that she is a slut after all, exactly what he told her. It will make her feel more ashamed. It’s intentional. The best way for a man to obtain long term sexual subordination from a woman is for him to get her to believe she likes it and wants it, as he would do for pimping, marriage and any form of sexual slavery. It reduces his efforts in having to control her while maximising his use of her.
#3. So this so-called sexual arousal isn’t about pleasure at all and was never intended to be: it’s about power-over and domination, it’s a way for men to obtain obedience.
Men deceiving us into finding intercourse pleasurable has been documented historically. It was part of a very organised and institutionalised strategy to quash the “anti-sex” feminist movements of the late 19th and early 20th century, to put women back to the function of dick-receptacles and breeders. IOW when women started to run away from men en masse, men launched a massive campaign to trick women back into PIV by making us think we liked it, instead of the normal ‘we should do it because that’s the way it is, we’re subordinate to our husbands’. Sheila Jeffreys explains it all very well in her introduction to Anticlimax:
In my first book, The Spinster and Her Enemies, I showed how the sexologists before the Second World War believed that they would ensure women’s subordination by eliciting a sexual response to men. Compulsory conscription into heterosexuality and the performance of the orgasm with a man were seen to ensure woman’s submission to her husband and the death of feminism, lesbianism, manhating and spinsterhood. A Freudian psychoanalyst of the 1920s made this clear when he wrote: ‘To be roused by a man means acknowledging oneself as conquered.’ Throughout the history of sexology the focus of concern has been the resisting woman. The incitement of women to respond sexually to men continued after the Second World War. This becomes clear in a consideration of the politics of sex in the 1940s and 50s, when the future of male-dominant marriage was seen to hang on curing women’s frigidity. At this time sexologists showed no self-consciousness about asserting the connection between woman’s sexual response and her subordination.
In the 1960s women were enjoined to respond in more varied positions and situations and single women were conscripted into active heterosexual sex. The language of liberation was so loud in connection with the new sexual prescriptions for women that commentators have assumed some obvious relationship between the ‘sexual revolution’ and progress in women’s condition. There is no good reason to suppose that the sexologists changed step and started believing, contrary to all their previous ideas, that women’s sexual response to men would actually liberate women. As we shall see the rules of sexologic remained unaltered. Behind the baloney of liberation, the naked power politics of male supremacy were being acted out. The high priests of sexologic, helped by the pornographers, progressive novelists and sex radicals continued to orchestrate woman’s joyful embrace of her oppression through the creation of her sexual response. Sexologists have for a hundred years dedicated their lives to eliciting orgasms from women in order to prevent our liberation.
Sheila Jeffreys, Anticlimax p. 4-5
The great scam of the 20th century goes threefold: that women’s liberation consists in
-
being free to be fucked by any man
-
having orgasms in being fucked by men
-
achieving equality to men with the pill, so we can now be fucked by men without consequences, that is dissociate PIV from reproduction.
What it is about is men‘s freedom to rape more women, and diminishing men’s restrictions in raping already-owned women. They want to be able to rape even their neighbour’s wife or daughter and not get in trouble for trespassing other men’s private property. It’s about breaking down barriers to male ownership and trade of women, installing the model whereby all women are potentially touchable and violated by all men in public: the model of women’s constant prostitution to men, disguised as our sexual liberation. Liberalism, from its very beginnings, has always only been about liberalising access to property (as women) for all men.
I always find it interesting to look at the language of pre-‘sexual liberation’ for female subordination mandates. It’s surprising how everything was much more explicit before and how much more lucid women seemed to be about the fact that they didn’t have any choice about submitting to PIV and that was what they were married off to men for.
One reason it took me such a long time to get away from PIV and realise that it was destructive was precisely because I thought it procured me those “orgasms”. Believing that I enjoyed it despite the unease, fear and shame I always felt, and the fact I thought I had no other option, I never stopped seeking it until it became painful again, but that’s when I noticed that the dude didn’t stop, he continued regardless and didn’t care whether I enjoyed it or not. It dawned on me that the whole time my taking pleasure in PIV wasn’t about me or about reciprocity at all, but only a useful tool for men so they could effortlessly use me for penetration, having me thinking I wanted it.
As I said above, it has nothing to do with pleasure, because it’s a knee-jerk genital response that men teach us to have to the invasion of penetration, so we numb it off and feel this intense genital stimulation instead. It is over time and repetition that we learn to stimulate the clitoris with PIV and the body memorises this reaction mechanically: the first intercourses are mostly painful or uncomfortable. It’s like Pavlov who tortured / groomed a poor dog into drooling at the sound of the bell because it was associated to reward/punishment. In a similar way, at the sight of men’s erection or at feeling penetration, or even at the sight of men, we mechanically react in that way to protect ourselves from the fear or pain, because they’re either a rape threat or actual rape. It’s an uncontrolled chemical response to violence / threat of violence, just like trauma bonding is, it’s actually one aspect of trauma bonding, the “sexual side” of stockholm syndrome.
You know it’s a form of dissociation because it has this intense feeling followed by a release or a feeling of emptiness or excruciating need for more. If you pay close attention to it, when you’re in need it feels excruciating, like your insides are being hooked out of you. It’s a craving/longing followed by a high followed by a low. This is how you recognise dissociation and addiction as opposed to pleasure.
So a consequence of PIV orgasm policy on us is to to experience men’s presence as potential fucks instead of as rape threats, which is very, very deadly and puts us in harm’s way millionfold. In fact both potential fuck / rape threat situations are one and the same, the same pervy men and the same invasive gestures, but in the first case we dissociate through genital / emotional urges and aren’t consciously aware of the threat, and in the second case, we are aware of the external threat, feel fear directly and take measures to protect ourselves from it. So what helps me whenever I am invaded by such thoughts again in front of a man is to tell myself he’s a rape threat, which is precisely why I’m reacting that way, and he’s even more of a threat to me because of that reaction which hypnotically draws me to him instead of making me run away (thanks to Rididill for pointing out the men as rape threat vs. potential fuck).
Since PIV is violence and dissociative, it causes traumatic memory, which will be triggered in situations that recall it. And everything in this male world directly or indirectly refers to PIV, to women’s status as fuckholes. Any party, bed, public space, every film, book, song, ad, church, every other man leering at us, any man who physically resembles our previous rapist, every damn conversation. Men have turned every aspect of our daily life into a constant PIV threat / rape threat and reminder of our subordinate status. They even turn mundane objects such as cucumbers, beer bottles, lollipops and bananas into rape threats, which they euphemise as “sexual innuendo” or “sexual connotation”. As a result we may be continually invaded by visual/physical flashes of PIV. However what men have called “nymphomania” or “heterosexual thoughts and urges” are nothing but visual and sensory flashbacks of eroticised rapes from which we dissociated through genital arousal, so the thought of it trigger those same physical sensations and the need to dissociate again through PIV to overcome the current anxiety.
These flashbacks in presence of men or PIV ‘connotations’ can linger on for a very long time, even after years of celibacy, separatism from men or lesbianism. It haunts you and it feels like self-betrayal as a feminist, even though it’s not your fault. But more time passes, the more the effect wears off and the more the violence becomes physically and emotionally evident, becomes less abstract.
Our worth is only measured in how much men want to penetrate us, and we are forced into it from all sides; the violence of penetration/rape is erased and named “making love”; genital dissociation reinforces the erasure because we take this for orgasm. Men make us dependent on PIV by dangling carrots of “recognition”, “food”, “affection”, “prince charming”, “orgasm” (scare quotes because these rewards aren’t true) which traps us into a vicious cycle of more and more PIV because we never get what we’re so desperately looking for, so we try again, and again, and again, ad infinitum. More PIV is also offered as the only solution to our more or less unconscious resistance to PIV such as feeling uneasy, apprehensive, anxious, emptied, vulnerable, disgusted, abandoned, used, stuffed – they explain to us that we just haven’t tried it well enough, found the right man or tried with enough men, we haven’t learned to enjoy it the right way, tried the right positions, we need to put more lubricant, we just need to chill, be more cool and liberated and sexy.
Our normal physical defence reactions are defined as personal flaws, as frigidity and vaginismus, so instead of doing less or stopping altogether, we think we need to do more in the hope that we’ll end up becoming used to it, adapt to it, that this will eventually shake off the fear and make it feel as normal as eating.
We are also told that our feelings of fear, disgust, apprehension or second thoughts are due to the “double standard” that shames women and not men in intercourse. The inherent problem of PIV and men is displaced to being an external problem of diffuse societal shaming of women who do PIV. Men’s solution to this is to encourage us to be proud and open about PIV and our ‘sexual urges’, to free our inhibitions, be more open, push our limits to fear and pain further and further, which of course traps us back with men’s dicks and men’s violence. And their solution never works because the more we do it, the more we accumulate dread and shame, the more worthless we feel. And the more worthless we feel, the more vulnerable it makes us to assholes who manipulate us for intercourse/rape. As said before, this order to free our inhibitions to PIV is about men’s will to free restrictions to their sexual use of women, not about freeing ourselves. PIV escalation leads us to sink more and more into dissociation. There is no limit to this, it’s a bottomless pit, and the logical conclusion of this is “slutwalks”, “slut prides”, BDSM, torture, death. We can be trapped in this cycle forever, circling into more and more violence, forever trying to find freedom in our annihilation.
If we look at those genital arousals from a purely logical perspective, we have this. Intercourse may be experienced in three different ways:
either:
#1. PIV causes Genital Arousal
#2. PIV causes Genital Arousal + Pain
#3. PIV causes just Pain
or
#1. PIV + more Violence = Genital Arousal
#2. PIV + more Violence = Genital Arousal + Pain
#3. PIV + more Violence = Pain
or
Male violence on its own = GA
Male violence on its own = GA + Pain
Male violence on its own = Pain
or
just male presence = GA
just male presence = GA + Pain
just male presence = Pain
PIV / male presence are the minimum level of violence, and most often but not always in evident ways, men inflict additional violence on top of PIV. Genital arousal, contrary to choice, coexists with violence and doesn’t annul it. It may be experienced from the minimal to maximum level of violence, even torture. It follows that the experience of ‘orgasm’ is the same as experience of pain: it’s a natural and uncontrolled reaction to violence.
radical wind 
This is a brilliant outline. Lots to think about. I’ll add one more thing. It’s something about safety. When we are babies we associate safety with being held and loved. Somehow this is supposed to transfer to having heterosexual sex as we grow up!!111! (Freud’s warped theory).
Because girls and women are never safe, safety is impossible, girls begin to buy this myth. Women are encouraged to “open up” to men. This is supposed to buy safety through physical contact and through having a mate/protector. Unfortunately, this opening up is just a sham. Most women who have had heterosexual sex will notice that the men don’t open up, they disappear into some fantasy and the woman is a nonperson. They do violence instead. The opposite of safety.
On both counts, having a sexual relationship with a man is far less safe. Women are much more likely to be murdered by a male partner than a stranger. Women are at risk for all the things you detail.
I think the trauma-bonding feels like safety, but it is not. Never ever. Plus, the kind of safety we needed as babies is not what we need as adults. But because of the lifelong trauma for girls it feels like it. Because, hell, we do need actual safety. But as you’ve been pointing out, safety comes from the opposite of what they tell us it does.
Also, thanks for the previous post. It was timely and groundbreaking for me, having spent time with family/holidays and it clarified the pain of the female relationships and how to better understand what’s going on. Not blaming the women, but also realizing how women betray one another.
One more thing about the safety. This is portrayed in most “romantic” movies. I just watched “White Oleander” and it shows this young girl getting messed up by women in various ways (her mom and foster mothers). As per usual, it shows a romantic ending with a dude she can trust. Her salvation once she figures out her life. Wow, what a reversal. But so many movies, stories, etc. put this forward. It becomes irresistible to persons traumatised and forced to live in unsafe conditions (i.e., women). So, the male who is a rescuer then is entitled to have unlimited PIV with a “loving” partner. Another liberal story. The conservative one is not too different, but more overtly controlling.
I watched this movie because it is supposed to be about women and their relationships. It does show relationship development mother/daughter, but never really gets at the source of the women’s agony. Never even touches that.
The fact that Lars Von Trier is made a movie called “Nymphomaniac” and says it’s about addiction, as other deciphered it as porn. This article made me think about that.
I definitely see, and have experienced that “PIV” is an act of pure violence against women, nothing equal or beautiful, or even sexual about it. It’s rape, resource extraction, and absolutely destructive to a woman.
It makes me think about “sex” addiction in women and men have tried to reframe it to appear as if women simply are these unsatisfiable holes that are meant to be fucked, and like being fucked.
I need to do more research, but as you’ve stated I think “nymphomania” is literally a response of detachment to violence. As someone whose experienced the “urge” and “need” to get engage in PIV, that was only a response to low-self worth, and bonding to my abuser. Also just the general socializing of needing to be fucked.
Nymphomania, is a forced reaction. Women are forced into nymphomania because we are so conditioned to be fuckholes. Genital arousal can definitely be a response to impending doom and situations of stress and trauma.
You’re article was good, I’ll make sure to pick up Sheila Jeffreys I’ve never actually heard of her.
‘Clitoral stimulation may function in the exact same way as dissociation in a situation of sexual violence because it sends dissociative drugs to the brain.’ Does that mean you think clitoral stimulation is unnatural or harmful to women? I know that is a sensitive area its also hidden under a hood and its terrible men have mindfucked us to associate clitoral stimulation with PIV but I always thought it was normal.
‘we can now be fucked by men without consequences’ I don’t agree. No birth control works 100 percent and men often carry diseases and poke holes in the condom. Its still dangerous. At the same time I see what you mean, the harm reduction like barrier methods and chemical/surgical birth control try to obscure the fact that intercourse is inherently degrading. The belief in ‘safer sex’ is part of the mind control strategy which is implemented on a state level when public schools sex ed.
‘It haunts you and it feels like self-betrayal as a feminist, EVEN THOUGH IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT.’ I have known a lot of radical lesbians that do not understand the last part of that sentence. They think bc lesbianism can be chosen that anyone who is forced into the heterocage is ‘betraying’ womankind.
They have also acted like I was crazy by saying some little girls are forced into the arousal when seeing male privates. I never said it was a good thing and also felt like they tricked me and many other women into bringing up childhood trauma and they also believe mothers in patriarchy have ‘privilege’ and I think that is a lie.
I also don’t understand their belief in ‘butches’ as lesbian women who resisted femininity grooming, somehow. We all had it forced on us no matter if we were considered tomboys or not.
Hi Wordwoman, nice to see you again! Yes men actually warp our need to be held, loved and feel safe as babies so we project it to men penetrating us and we seek it as it if were the same thing because this is what men tell us it is, and hope that men will be our mother-like loving, protecting saviours, which never happens and it’s a lie we need someone to save us.
Men organise our unsafety as girls so they can then capitalise on our need for it by pretending to save us in order to trap us into their heterocage more easily
having a sexual relationship with a man is not only far less safe but is what puts our life in danger, it’s exactly how men oppress us, it’s what destroys us. So the twist is that men make us equate safety, love and attention to penile invasion, pregnancy risk, exploitation, domestic abuse, captivity, etc.
Thanks, Witchwind. It’s great to read your very fine posts! Yes, and somehow this can destroy even women who don’t participate in sexual acts with men. I have two lesbian friends who enjoy the company of men more than women (one rejects the “lesbian” and chooses “queer” but has only had relationships with women all her life and is in a long term relationship with woman. It drives me nuts. Not to mention how demeaning it is to their women friends to say this. (One of them has become a distant “friend” ever since I realized she is toxic to me. Your colonized women post clarifies this issue).
So, I’m thinking about how this works related to your post. I can certainly understand why lesbians would enjoy the company of other lesbians rather than het women. But why do they enjoy the company of men more than all women, including lesbians? Do they see women as sex objects? Do both of them see women as weak because of the violence toward all women. Is this a harm reduction strategy? Do they feel safer with men around (friends=protectors)? Certainly some lesbians (not radical feminist ones) play out things like BDSM and this indicates that the trauma has reached them, too. I stay away from anyone who I know practices BDSM or things like that, though. I’m still trying to sort this out, since I definitely don’t enjoy the company of men more than women and never have.
I don’t think that she meant clitoral stimulation is unnatural. It *is* the natural way females experience pleasure, but men have manipulated our natural pleasure to benefit themselves. That seems to be what Witchwind is saying.
Oh and:
“‘we can now be fucked by men without consequences’ I don’t agree.”
I believe that was sarcasm, depicting the way in which women are *supposed* to think. WW was speaking from the other point of view, so to speak.
Also, I don’t think it helps to say that hetero practicing women are betrayers either. I agree with you on that. It’s just not that simple to drop everything one has been groomed to do. It’s so much more complicated than that.
Thanks for that clarification ttm16 yes I was repeating liberal men’s lies and reversals about women’s liberation, what they persuade us it’s about.
And yes, I didn’t say clitoral stimulation was unnatural but that men use this so we disconnect from the violence and can’t experience the violence directly any more. It’s a way of making us tolerate or adapt to the violence so we don’t get away from it.
ongoing sexual and psychological violence / captivity to men is certainly what destroys us most, but no woman, even lesbians, are exempt from men’s invasion and violence, whether as girls or women. We are exposed to men’s violence on a daily basis, wherever we are and whoever we are, so long as men are around us and we live in their towns and villages and are still colonised by their ideologies and woman-hatred. Many lesbians, for one, reproduce the male het/couple template and men’s objectification of women and value men and maleness over women. Becoming lesbian in this sense is a way of becoming a man, of escaping the subordinate status of women by adopting the attitudes of the dominant class (men). It’s also a way to convince (delude) themselves that they aren’t affected by men’s violence, to block out the fact that they’re women, that they’re part of the oppressed class and victims too. And that it’s possible to avoid violence by being violent/sexist to other women. It usually requires being in denial of past and present violence. I see this pattern very often not only with lesbians but with many women who imitate men or try to escape the “female gender” (women’s role as dick receptacle and breeder)
(the previous comment was a reply to wordwoman). And I forgot to finish it, so I was saying it’s a way for women to escape female subordination but as they haven’t figured out what patriarchy is and have only gone so far as identifying that men have it better than women and women are treated like shit without reverting men’s reversals and cracking through the lies and myths and the reality of men’s violence, well what it does is that they become mirror images of men, token torturers
but this doesn’t protect them from violence, it only means they’re disconnected from themselves and the fact they were victims.
at blackmetalvalkyrie, yes i agree radical lesbianism as a theory fails to understand the very basis of men’s violence against women. It’s very misogynistic
‘I don’t think it helps to say that hetero practicing women are betrayers’ are you saying I said witchwind says that? I meant radical lesbians say that. Also no woman is heterosexual remember? Heterosexuality is an institution imposed on us. Its oppressive.
i think she was agreeing with what you said, like reformulating it?
Sometimes internet typing is a hard mode of communication.
Thank you for this post &your entire blog. It has truly called out a lot of the natural feelings I’ve held about sex (&/the opposite sex) since I was in high school. It was then that I read a book by Carolyn Gage which still haunts my instinct. (Like There’s No Tomorrow…)
I do have a question and maybe you could direct me to one of your earlier posts that addresses this (since I am still soaking in your posts from the last few weeks—esp PIV is rape…wow.)
I am 24 now, and I not only crave piv intercourse, but with extreme submissive fantasies in mind towards dominant men. It is the only way I can derive sexual pleasure, but once I enact it with a guy…..its sooo short lived, and after even the best of orgasms, I have a feeling of emptiness and subsequent despair…just superhollow I guess. And I’m usually pretty cold/”bitchy” towards the guy afterwards…it comes from an anger I can’t even name, (but I could sense it in your post.)
I’m just so frustrated that I’ve been conditioned (?) to get off this way sexually (sorry for the t.m.i….not trying to be creepy, just genuinely wanting to know about this)……………………………and what do I do about it? How do I condition myself to be satisfied in a way that is just as true to my sex drive, as my knowledge of how debilitating this is for me, in the short & long term?
Thanks for any and all insight,will keep reading regardless
If you have been conditioned, Kbella, you can be unconditioned. Anytime you get that fantasy just tell yourself to stop thinking that and think about something else, washing dishes, digging in the garden, exercising, etc. Then later you can replace it with something else. Not PIV stuff, but something else. It can be an addiction, so realize it will pull at you.
It’s so harmful to be with men (or less often, women) who engage in something like this. Staying away from these people is also important. Just like an alcoholic needs to stay away from previous drinking partners.
Honestly, since I have found this site PIV has started to hurt again.I thought I loved my husband, but it seriously hurts like when I was a virgin. Also, I have noticed his violent male tendencies. Thank you so much for opening my eyes to this.
Hi Kbella, these kind of fantasies are completely normal consequences of previous sexual violence – especially given that these sadistic scenarios of men sexually dominating and raping women are played out constantly in the media and public space, and it’s quite possible just to be traumatised by that, too, or that previous PTSD of forgotten violence takes on this form. As far as I understand it, the images you describe are a traumatic memory of the violence in form of flashback, it’s PTSD. And the flashback itself, because it recalls the sexual violence and anxiety / fear, triggers the urge to dissociate through genital stimulation. Which is why we think that these images sexually arouse us when that’s not the case, it just makes us want to dissociate but we’re made to confuse dissociation with sexual arousal. When this becomes an addiction it is called a dissociative behaviour, in the same way as binge drinking, putting ourselves compulsively in dangerous situations, scarring ourselves, compulsive thoughts of death and suicide etc. But the difference with this is that it often makes us believe men’s lies that we are disgusting perverted sluts for having these thoughts, not worth more than being fucked, we might as well be prostituted.
in order to decondition ourselves from this the first thing to do is to protect ourselves from any situation of threat that could trigger us: avoid any situation, image, film, song that describes or refers to PIV / sexual violence and sexualised, eroticised domination by men over women. This is very hard given that we’re bombarded with it every day and the very point of men doing it is so we can’t escape it, but even just trying helps a great deal and by switching off the tv, avoiding non-feminist films or any kind of art, and avoiding places such as night clubs, bars etc where men go to prey on women and women have to dress and act as prey, etc. All depends on your activity and work. Avoiding men altogether helps a great deal too, as it prevents being triggered by their presence, especially men that appear dominant, older and authoritative in any way.
I find that the second thing that helps when you are invaded by such thoughts is to look around you and tell yourself that you are in this room, there’s this around you, you are doing this activity or thing, and everything is fine, there is no man threatening you right now, you’re on your own, you don’t need to dissociate, you can get back into yourself and comfort yourself. Since the violent sexual thoughts cause dissociation, putting yourself back into the present time and space is a way of bringing you back to yourself and i find it sort of breaks the spell and you no longer want to go out of your body so much and numb it off through arousal. Also it will help to focus on the negative feelings that these thoughts bring you: hollowness, despair, anger: the reason you feel this is because with sexual invasion and violence (and all the other forms of violence) we’re being ripped off of ourselves and this forced exile from our body brings anger, deep despair, sensation of loss and emptiness, which comes back in full effect once the dissociative “drug” of genital arousal loses its effect. All the pain comes back in other words and it feels excruciating. As a comparison, pleasure in any form should never be experienced as excruciating, drug-like high/low but always feel calm and serene and make us feel whole and sustaining, it lasts for a long time, is very soft, we don’t long for anything, we don’t feel torn or emptied. So focusing on this takes off the idea that it’s about pleasure.
Last, rediscovering sensations with our body through simple touching helps to learn the difference between dissociation and pleasure.
Witchwind, I love your explanation of the healing process. Although I’ve used the process I outlined above, I can see how understanding the foundation of it all allows something much more complete to happen. The focus on loving oneself, being kind to oneself, etc that is implied by what you wrote. The focus on sex is so misguided but it is everywhere, always triggering a feeling of unsafety.
@ sandra, that’s awful, but i think that once the trauma-bonding to men peels off the pain does come back, and that’s often what men want to avoid so we think we want to continue PIV. But most of the time they don’t give a shit about whether it’s painful or not or whether we simulate pleasure or not, they continue regardless. That is usually a wake-up call for many women trapped into the piv for pleasure / leisure thing.
to only add to this marvelous series,
something about female desire for intercourse I’ve noticed.
Many women feel that being fucked is the only experience in which they become alive. Where they actually exist in a male culture which excludes them.
Women having been trained to detest their bodies, truly believe that they deserved to be broken and fucked into. That being broken into is this heavenly act where their body is put into it’s real use.
Men have assigned to us that our destiny is to be fucked. Whether there is sexual arousal or not, many women still desire it. I’ve experienced a strong mental/psycological desire for sex, when my body had no response or sexual stimuli to it. It was painful, but the bliss I felt was that I was finally coming into existence into a world in which I was invisible.
Men socialize women into the belief that our bodies are meant for male consumption, and that this act of consumption,intercourse, is some great beautiful thing.
That’s why women may experience the morning after bliss and happiness. I’ve seen it in many women including myself. Having felt better after their first sexual experiences.
I think it has much to do with the brain’s reward system. The brain releasing dopamine, and other happy chemicals when you have accomplished a goal. The same thing happens when many women have had sex. They feel like they have achieved a goal like when you do good on a test.
It’s the societal rewards that causes the female brain to feel happy after intercourse. Anything that is rewarded by society usually triggers dopamine release. Those rewards are feeling that you are normal, loveable, having done what society prioritize you do.
Intercourse being the highest activity in the scale of woman’s life, no wonder so many women mindlessly aspire to it, even though it causes pain, is life threatening, does not give them orgasms, and is degrading to their humanity. An act that only empowers their rapists.
This whole compulsory heterosexual disease is about keeping women with no connection to themselves, hating their bodies, and to believe that it is good to hand over our vaginas and wombs to be consumed by men.
Patriarchy literally kills us. We are all supposed to be dead objects for male consumption and disposal.
No wonder they try so hard to eroticize, normalize, beautify, glorify, prioritize, and sexual PIV.
Our own destruction is how we reach some sort of life in this culture!
That’s what I believe fuels much of “nymphomania” or women being highly interested in intercourse from men.
Sex is the only attention that women can gain from men, and since men run the world, they are this culture, if you are not being fucked you get no attention.
Or you just remain a dead object, waiting to be consumed.
It fucking kills us. The ritualized act of men murdering/raping us, becomes the point as to which we become alive.
Thank you witchwind. I love your suggestions about ridding myself of any & all environments that laud the PIV culture of sex. It’s everywhere; in not only advertisement & print/video media, but also ingrained in the semantics of our everyday speech, no?
and your description of this urge (theatrically extreme, in my case) s an addiction…is empowering and depowering at the same time…
so its a bit overwhelming but I guess we need to hear it ? I was talking to a hetero male friend of mine the other day and he actually said “women don’t actually like sex, do they?…like…they don’t really care about d*** right?” I WANTED to wring his neck and cry at the same time
@ skulldrix, that was really insightful, yes it’s totally true that the only time we feel alive and existing is when men fuck us, because men destroy our existence in every possible way and then restrict reward and recognition to when they fuck us, so we desperately seek to be fucked (violated) as if our lives depended on it. Very clever. This false reward thing, this social and individual fake recognition in the form of attention by men who demonstrate in various ways that they want to consume / fuck us, only works because all around it they annihilate any possibility to exist in ourselves (we have to live disconnected from ourselves at all times), and capitalise on our desperate need to have our existence and presence confirmed, as we don’t know who we are any more. It’s the ubiquitous violence combined with very restricted, false acts of niceness, which triggers the trauma-bonding reaction to men: being chosen by a man to be fucked is like being saved by prince charming.
Except that every reward for women is a double, or triple edged sword, the fact that it’s a reward is a lie and a reversal, because only men are rewarded with the woman they want to fuck, women are never really rewarded by men, it’s always at our expense. The feeling of being alive when fucked is a trick of trauma-bonding and dissociation, because what is really happening is that we’re being violated and killed inside. Life is replaced by death. The recognition isn’t true either, because what is happening is that men treat us useful as objects, objectify us, treat us as dehumanised, interchangeable dick sockets, and use manipulation tactics to lure us into their fucktrap, which they call “seduction”. They exchange tips between each other as to how best to manipulate women into being fucked by them. It is a mixture between manipulation, calculated flattery, persuasion and invasion. Men know it’s about domination and they use these words themselves when talking about their strategies.
The more I think about these posts, the more revolutionary it seems. As a child and also growing up, I could not understand sexuality. What it was or what it meant. I’ve lived a fair number of years and never could understand it. I figured there was something wrong with me. But it never, ever added up. Really, not ever. Not once.
In the current time with all this “diversity” and “choicyness” in sexuality it seems worse than before. The surrealism of it is becoming apparent, I think. But a surreal horror show.
In thinking about this, I realize that I could never understand it because it is a made-up thing. We were not designed to be heterosexual. Hell, we weren’t designed to be homosexual in any way that is based in heterosexuality. It is just a scam made up by the flim-flam men. It ensnares and enslaves women in many ways. It is utterly harmful.
I’m also thinking about relationships and their relationship to sexuality. Why should a “primary relationship” be based in this made-up thing called heterosexuality. (Or homosexuality in whatever way it’s like het stuff) We know why, of course because it separates women, tames us, enslaves us. Sonia Johnson’s book about relationships gets at this. But this is an even deeper level.
Oh you read Sonia Johnson, that’s so cool! I intend to write about the het template for relationships between women some time soon, which is really ridiculous and destructive. There’s no way you can reform men’s institutions, make it equal, and that includes heterosexuality (the couple, which is essentially based on marriage, that is, ownership of one over the other).
Witchwind, I’m eager to see what you have to say about the het template for women’s relationships. I should re-read SJ’s book(s) since there are some things I understand now that I didn’t when I read it. I also read J. Raymond’s “A Passion for Friends” and it sparked many things. So interesting to think about the herstorical examples she gives of women I’d never heard of. But also clear how the thread of repression runs through many cultures. But also it led me to think that I mainly wanted friends.
It is freeing to even think that I don’t ever have to replicate the het model again. Relationships seemed dreary at best. And no wonder, based on a model of colonization. How to begin to free oneself? And others in relation? Even talking a little about these ideas is too much for many women. No answers, but it feels good to question.
I completely agree with women reproducing male bullshit. The butch/femme is one of the most glaringly obvious. I wish more feminists would understand that reformism is toxic and will never work as well as avoiding men as much as possible and surrounding ourselves with women. Never. I don’t let myself feel despair when I hear about the trannies taking away women’s legal rights because the legal system has always been against women. Whether of not male law recognizes us as women or not is irrelevant. We will always be women sowing discord into the balls of patriarchy. There will always be a spirit of female resistance as long as human women exist. Butch lesbians have been some of most abusive women have known, they try hard to emulate male sadism/mannerisms.
I meant never trust men can you edit that please?
Bravo Witchwind! Your insights here are thrilling.
I remember being a child on a rare family vacation with my immigrant parents. In a motel we stayed in one night, a man in the next room sounded like he was MURDERING a woman. She was screaming and he was repeatedly throwing her against the wall. I completely freaked — (I was scared to death!) — I told my dad we need to call the police. My dad was thoroughly embarassed and shook his head “no” in silence. My parents were hugely relieved at leaving that place at the crack of dawn. I thought it was insane that my dad wouldn’t call the police when this man was clearly MURDERING this woman, practically right in front of us. Years later, I understood that this was PIV.
Long being post-man, I can report that distance from men heals, and that one can clear one’s mind of mens’ PIV conditioning and become completely unreceptive to them in any way whatsoever. To women who feel they are sexually stuck, kbella and maybe sara: mens’ training IS reversible. For some women it make take time (I am concerned about the new generation bombarded with porn at an early age), but in my experience, reclaiming one’s body first (separating from mens’ physical presence, as Witchwind suggests) has to happen first. The longer you hold your body as yours, including your thoughts of your body in your mind, (don’t get mad at yourself at setbacks; they are disappointing realizations of male colonization; just keep moving towards claiming your body as yours), the clearer your mind and spirit become. Mens’ conditioning will, over time, fall away all by itself.
I often think of that woman I was so scared for — in that motel room — that night.
Hearing PIV is always scary and traumatic. It sickens me it is considered normal. My grandmother is a recent born again pro birth Catholic and she said something like ‘Catholics believe that piv between a woman and a man is fine, its a celebration of life as long as they do not try to prevent the life that may come aka birth control’. I am really sad to see her emotionally manipulated by her son who pushed his born again Catholicism on to her. It must be really hard to birth a son, risking your life not just giving him birth but always having him as a terrorist in your life. I admire Sonia for cutting out her male kid from her life but I would not have done the same thing with the girl no matter what choices she made.
Hi TYP, wow that is a very chilling image. And so true, about the screaming, and everything you describe, it sums up what PIV is so well, when we see it with child’s eyes, before the grooming has completely veiled our sight. Why on earth would women scream so loud if it were pleasurable? Do we scream like that when we eat something we find really tasty? We might say “oh i love that it tastes so nice” and say “mmh yum”, once or twice, but we’re not going to scream, especially not repeatedly. As a matter of fact, men never scream, most of the time they stay silent or make grunting noises because they’re out of breath (yuck). Part of the screaming is learnt simulation (unless the rape is more violent than usual) but part of it is also screams in reaction to the violation that we transform in dissociative arousal. I guess screaming also covers the noise, covers what’s happening and the horrorshow of it all, enables to stop thinking about it.
It bears mentioning that in some countries, adults having PIV or “sexual relationship” in front of a child is an offense, for which you can be fined I think. I heard or read somewhere that children in general do experience it as a murder scene, they think the man will kill the woman or do something horrible to her – especially if they see the erect penis, they see it as a weapon. And this in itself can cause PTSD in a child. I read / heard this in these exact words. And it’s interesting that some people can recognise that this is the case for children (they meant girls though), that PIV is inherently violent and heavily traumatic for them, and at the same time logically believe that women suddenly grow out of it and from the age of 18 or 16 (or at whatever age threshold men enforce on women for drafting us into marriage and rape), and experience it as warm, fuzzy romantic love or harmless pleasure or whatever.
this makes no sense at all and doesn’t hold from a logical POV. Just as it doesn’t hold that a woman in prostitution doesn’t become a free happy hooker once she turns 18, after she was trafficked/pimped at the age of 14. The situation hasn’t changed at all. Well for women it’s the same really, the situation doesn’t change from how we react to it and what it IS from when we are girls to when we become adults. The violence is the same, it’s there, except that men have groomed us not to see it anymore.
a comment here from Cathy Brennan, on the PIV post: http://vimeo.com/83497259
Hi I was hoping to write to you but I could not find an email address so I hope it’s okay to comment.
I wanted to say thank you for your post about how PIV is rape. I have long felt this in my heart but struggled to put it to words and especially to explain it to others. My experiences with PIV rape were supposedly “consensual” but left me feeling used and traumatized and it took awhile to figure out why. You have said it better than I ever could.
I was hoping that there is something you could help me with though: many times when I am trying to explain this rape, people will ask what about other animals who have PIV sex. I am not sure what the answer is. Can animals rape? Do they have a patriarchy? Are animals just violent to each other because they are not as evolved as humans? On one hand, a female animals cannot ask her partner for sperm to use to impregnate herself, but also, does a female animal want to be pregnant? I was wondering if you had any ideas about this issue because it is the one point I am not sure about.
I couldn’t watch the video because my computer is too slow but it just seems odd for a reformist feminist to be commenting on your work. I do admire her for dedicating her time to the trans issue and it is important but I do not allow myself to despair because law is one of the big patriarchal institutions and even when feminists fought to have sex recognized the laws were not acted on as much as they should have been. There have been some stories of sexual predator trannies preying on women in women’s locker rooms and the like and I hope it does not take something bad happening to get the laws revised.
PIV is rape is really basic theory. I would expect anyone what self identifies as a radical feminist to understand this. I think most women have disturbing memories of hearing their mom being raped and deep inside I think there is still a part of us no matter how groomed that says it is WRONG for a woman to stick his dick into our internal organs! Men have normalized so much evil. Evil in my mind is synonymous with men.
as a response to what CB said, well thanks for openly supporting this position in the current shistorm, and I wasn’t aware of being attacked by err… liberal feminists who posture as radfem? Oh well too bad. I’m not sure who you’re talking about though, as I only got tons of trollish comments from unknown antifeminists.
I like your brick analogy! Very apt.
Just two things I’ll react to:
you said at some point that we have to look back and see that PIV is there to make us understand our role as fuckholes and breeders. However men’s penis as a weapon isn’t there to make us understand our enforced role as breeders and dick-receptacles (i don’t really like the term fuckhole as it’s using an anti-woman insult) but to enforce this function on us whether we like it or not. If it were only to make us understand this subordinate function instead of making it happen in reality by the use of force, well once we’d understand it we’d definitely not let it happen. The fact is that men enforce it, and that’s the problem, this is why we need feminism to understand how it works and get away from it.
at the end of the video, you said:
“that doesn’t necessarily mean you should break up with your boyfriend, or you should divorce your husband
it doesn’t necessarily mean.. anything.
but women have a right to talk about it
and to talk honestly and frankly about it
and that should be the focus”
I find that an odd thing to say, I can see maybe that it’s a strategy to calm down the denialists, but the main issue here isn’t about a right or not to say something, and that women should respect my individual radfem opinion without thinking about what it means and taking the thoughts to their logical ends, to their logical conclusion.
you respect my individual right to say what I said and I respect your choice not to leave your boyfriend, is (sorry) a liberal way of putting things. It depoliticises the radfem position that women are oppressed by men and that the primary means through which they oppress us is with PIV/rape/forced impregnation. This isn’t a personal opinion up to debate, it’s a fact. Whether or not I’m attacked for saying that, it doesn’t change the reality of what I’m talking about.
Also the issue isn’t about respecting or not women’s right to leave their boyfriends or husbands: first radfems never judge women for being victims of male violence because being a victim is by definition not the fault of the victim but of the perpetrator, and as women we ALL are victims of men’s violence; second, framing it as personal choice to stay or leave erases the reality of men’s oppression, since the purpose of oppression is to constrain freedom of choice and impose something we wouldn’t normally want.
The fact is, the logical conclusion to seeing being owned and regularly penetrated and exploited by men as harmful to women, IS to leave men. I’m not writing this to have the right to write about it and to have the right not to be attacked for it – this isn’t the point of feminism, to make statement just for the sake of making a statement. The point of feminism is to tell the truth about men’s violence and to free ourselves from it. There has to be a coherence, an integrity between thought an action otherwise feminism is useless to free ourselves and to decolonise from embedded maleness. We can’t possibly think and understand what men do to us without wanting to get out of it, immediately, to save our lives. This is why it’s also called women’s liberation. We’re not freeing ourselves from ideas but from REAL oppression, REAL violence, REAL persecution, REAL mental, physical and spiritual occupation. women are killed, raped, exploited, trodden on by men every single day. Feminism isn’t an abstraction, something to just talk about in a respectful way. It’s about real transformation.
So to clarify my position, yes, it DOES mean something, and it means that if you want to be free, you can’t be owned and enslaved and raped by a man. You can’t be controlled and vampirised by a boyfriend or husband, you can’t be colonised by male ideologies.
This is actually why I really don’t care about the attacks at all, because it isn’t about me. I mean I care about it to the extent that I care about my security and don’t want to tracked, hacked or harassed, and want to continue to write unhindered and don’t want radical feminism to be shut down and censored, but that’s it, I’m not personally offended by people defaming me or trying to shut me down, it doesn’t affect me in this way. What I’m saying isn’t anything personal, I’m not talking about my tastes, my opinions, why I like the esthetics of this painting (even though painting isn’t apolitical either) but describing the reality of a phenomenon that goes beyond me, a global structure, which is patriarchy, men’s domination over women.
You can scream and hiss and kick and insult me and spend hours and 10,000 words doing that, it’s not going to change anything, it won’t make men’s system of domination disappear, it won’t put your life in a special bubble outside of patriarchy. So you might as well not do it and think about it.
What an excellent reply to the CB video, Witchwind. The video didn’t work well enough to watch much of it, but I saw enough. Your comments paint a very clear picture of the difference between non-radical so-called feminism and radical feminism.
About the “shitstorm” comments: Is this an effort to stir such a shitstorm? Some people think this kind of drama is helpful to them or their cause and will try to stir it up even if it’s not there. Happens a lot in trying to get more media time, for instance. Kind of like the “bread and circuses” approach of the mainstream media hounds.
What you are doing, appealing to what underlies the pain women have in the real world, looking at the root issues (aka radical issues). I believe that this is the best long-term strategy. We don’t need a lot of fickle “likes” on facebook, but rather to help women understand deep deep down what is going on. Of course, the media circus approach diverts attention from this, which is the general plan of the patriarchal system.
my post has been circulated all over the internet by MRAs and antifeminists for repression (ie, look what she said, this is some crazy batshit, women don’t you dare go there look what happens to a woman when she does) and visibly by liberal so-called feminist women too, that’s what i meant by shitstorm. As they do for all radical feminists, but this seems to have been done at a far greater scale than usual.
“doesn’t necessarily mean.. anything”!!!! Yes actually it does! It means a whole damn lot especially when you are exposed to it for the first time and you realize your gut has been right the whole time! It is revolutionary the very essence of what ‘the person is political’ means. Wishing CB the best and here’s to hoping she goes to the end of her thoughts.
‘The point of feminism is to tell the truth about men’s violence and to free ourselves from it.’ Truth. Great response and thanks for quoting what she said so I could know. You are right she went really liberal at the end. The truth is men’s reproductive abuse of women is central to the oppression of all females on the planet and always has been. Leaving your male partner is an act of self love and respect. I find patriarchy has stolen in a lot of ways my capacity for self love and deep connection with other women but I do believe it is still there.
Thanks for the clarification, WW. I don’t spend that much time online or look much at other sites, so I wasn’t aware of the shitstorm. Not on social media, etc. Also, the video was choppy and kept cutting out, so I didn’t quite understand the situation.
It makes sense that the closer to the truth someone comes the more it will rile them. I wonder if using it for repression could backfire. When I first heard this position, it seemed quite new. It’s a way for more women to hear the idea, even if unfavorably. Also, it doesn’t seem crazy when you follow the logic.
Whenever something triggers my hetero grooming my vagina and whole pelvic region tense up so tight like a clamp that it hurts. The I stop being aroused because I am in pain.
then*
Hi Witch Wind 🙂
I was aware of one major liberal message board linking to you on this post (and at least one other I think) in order to claim that ‘not all radical feminists’ are like YOU!!1! Especially not the women who like sex and the men they have it with. And at least one of the male radical feminists (sic) chimed in to say that he obviously does not agree with your take on PIV…..
In any case, I made a post today at my (long neglected) blog which is related, but tangential. Have a look if you like.
Thank you for this space – so few to be had.
Hi Sargasso Sea! Nice to see you here.
Oh well I’m
pleasedhorrified to see that there are so many ‘radfems’ out there, and such a variety of them!Great that you just wrote a post. Will comment soon.
All this does make me think about the effects of public blogs, and now I have no idea what the benefits vs costs are. It’s difficult to measure the impact too, cause how many women in all those women who’ve read the post, will have been discouraged from feminism because of the repression (“mockery”) vs having been able to go to the end of their thoughts?
In regards to Cathy Brennan responding to you. More evidence that reformism is completely toxic to women and antithetical to real feminism, meaning women’s liberation from our oppression, meaning our sex-based oppression as female bodied people, by men as men. Let us speak plainly and name our oppression as well as naming the agent.
Reformism is gaslighting women, plain and simple. Ms. Brennan’s response to you is The Perfect demonstration of this, although of course she did not intend that. One. She felt the need to respond at all. Why? People were getting upset, men and women were both agitated over your post Witch Wind. But who cares? In swoops Cathy Brennan with the Wet Blanket to calm the men down…before they start throwing acid in women’s and radical feminists’ faces. Even more than they do now. That’s why she did it. To quell their, meaning men’s (innate, or at least demonstrable and predictable) violence. She demonstrates this truth as well as the fact that she knows this, she does not say it plainly but we can tell by the context, as we are not fools, or blind. If men were not violent, perhaps even innately violent, no response would be necessary to their anger. It would not occur to anyone to do this.
Two. Regarding Wet Blanketing the message to calm the women down. Why is this necessary? We can piece together what probably led to this result (Cathy’s response, both the fact and the content of it) it is not difficult to do this. Women, meaning liberal feminists (whether they self-identify this way or not, this includes this odd brand of RadFuns, the not radical “RadFems”) are upset. Again, who cares? Obviously it seems important to Ms. Brennan to quell the women too, but why? Why are “rifts” between women and feminists problematic enough to warrant action? Because men are waiting in the wings to rape and kill us, we need to protect ourselves and each other from male violence, is the answer, but this is not anything that any reformist would say. Because there is Still Hope For Men. And this is where the gaslighting purpose and effect of Reformism comes in.
There are contradictory messages throughout her response, including the fact that she felt compelled to respond at all. Contradictory messages, all being presented as being simultaneously true, is the essence of gaslighting. “Men can and will react to women without violence” is the message and indeed the very foundation of Reformism, but Cathy Brennan’s instinct or decision to quell men contradicts this. Her instinct or decision to quell women, to tamp down “rifts” and attempt to build a united front (against what?) contradicts the message and the inherent lie of Reformism, which is that men will free us from men, that men will willingly give us what we want at some point, which is our freedom from men.
The truth, of course, is that if men wanted women to be free of men, they would stop oppressing us, or they would not have enslaved us in the first place. This is the truth. There are other truths, but the crazy-making and contradictory messages of Reformism specifically prevents these truths from outing. Believing contradictory messages at the same time, or believing anything against the great weight of the evidence is the definition of insanity, and Reformism is nothing less than a global campaign to mindfuck women and cause our insanity and it is working.
Cathy Brennan, and all Reformist women, should stop gaslighting women.
Excellent, thanks Witchwind. I wish more women would wake up to the piv scam, instead of immersing themselves further into it.
The path to freedom is really separatism. With that distance, you get to see the rape threat for what it is, and not be deluded into thinking romance/attraction (in reality, just sexual stockholmism).
To the above, I will also add this. “Men are waiting in the wings to rape and kill us” which is a central Truth, is not antithetical to this post or to your premise that Intercourse is rape. It is all related in fact, and that Cathy Brennan does not recognize or address this is only more gaslighting on her part. If men are waiting in the wings to rape and kill us, if this is our reality and context, and our Main Problem in fact, then no, Consensual Intercourse does not exist. Do all females, globally, have the unalienable right to say “No” to intercourse with all men, and to say NO at the same time? The existence of prostitution and rape reveals that we do not. If we do not have the right to say NO, as a class, meaning all of us at the same time, for one second or forever, then our YES is meaningless. Therefore, Intercourse is rape. This is Logical. So what is the problem in saying this? Why would anyone feel “uncomfortable” with that if it is the truth? Because it causes dissonance, is the answer. Fundamental dissonance where Women’s Truth is not congruent with Reformist Premises (which are lies). And dissonance is uncomfortable. Assuming she is telling the truth and not lying to us, the Reformist Mindfuck is likely working on Cathy Brennan, she feels it as “Uncomfort” but she does not Recognize it or Name it.
Another way to put it might be, if one reason we must all band together and make Nicey Nice (RadFems and RadFuns and FunFems and class female) is that if any of us gets left behind we will be raped or killed, we are behaving like prey animals which of course, we are. This makes men What? Another way would be this: if we “lose” politically to men and patriarchy, and the more or less “natural” (inevitable, unavoidable) consequence to our losing is being raped and killed by men, what does this reveal about men? You cannot have prey without a predator. Reformism is a mindfuck 24/7/365. That is all it is, that is all it ever was, and is all it ever will be, because it’s all it can be. That is What It Is. The Whole Point.
I have been following that site for 11 years although I have been banned from commenting on the grounds of… ‘misandry’ and ‘transphobia’. The mocking comments were from well-known anti-feminists both male and female all of whom claim to be 100% behind “gender equality”.
Anyway, I can pretty much guarantee that some women followed that link back here and actually read what you had to say in context and thought about it – are thinking about it. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think that one or two of them had that moment when it all came together for them. And that’s what it’s really all about – for me anyhow. If even one woman comes to the realization that she’s not alone in her inner knowing, that she’s not crazy, that is really powerful.
Reformism is the ultimate lie. Men’s way of making us waste time we could have spent helping ourselves and other women directly. Charities are nothing but corporations and usually give little meaningful help. I like the term RadFuns! 🙂 We need to dedicate time to self love because of patriarchy mindfucking us into hating ourselves when the ones that really deserve our hate is men. Reformism tries to invalidate women who cannot be involved in protests for many reasons like being being disabled or rural or not being able to find enough people in your area that agree on the same thing. Liberals brag about this and that thing they did and it reminds me of how they use degrees on ‘women’s studies’ for cred too. It is honestly hilarious liberal doodants are linking to this blog. I think it will backfire on them and actually radicalize some women. I know it will. I know when I first found feminism it was all liberal stuff and a little of it felt right but mostly it was so wrong and when I found radical feminism is felt right. It validates the truth in the subconscious of every female, no matter how deep male colonization have shoved it.
“I was hoping that there is something you could help me with though: many times when I am trying to explain this rape, people will ask what about other animals who have PIV sex. I am not sure what the answer is. Can animals rape? Do they have a patriarchy? Are animals just violent to each other because they are not as evolved as humans? On one hand, a female animals cannot ask her partner for sperm to use to impregnate herself, but also, does a female animal want to be pregnant? I was wondering if you had any ideas about this issue because it is the one point I am not sure about.”
I just figured that animals must have patriarchy.Or that just because something is found in nature doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful.
Or, that maybe males of all species are evil?
But that’s a good point. I’ve never been asked that. But it doesn’t mean that PIV is unnatural and harmful because it is.
On the other hand, I understand why it can make people unsure as to whether the practice of piv is inevitable .
I know from mine and many women’s experiences it’s absolutely violent and terrifying. Maybe piv in humans is harmful because it isn’t necessary for reproduction, and actually contributes to overpopulation? But for animals coitus is the only way they can reproduce so it’s inevitable?
This is actually a quite jading argument. PIV in other mammals can contribute to many people’s belief that PIV is inevitable. Even if they think it is harmful and totally degrading to women and empowering to men. Maybe coitus is one of those necessary evils in the world, like killing other animals for food?
I’d like to know more about piv-free pregnancy and reproduction in mammals. But PIV really is the most efficient way known at ensuring sperm travel up to the cervix because of direct contact. Even though it’s painful, and damaging. SO maybe PIV is okay….sometimes, like if a woman really wants pregnancy and getting sperm on the vulva and vaginal opening doesn’t work.
But aside from the whole 100% of mammals participating in it, and it being very efficient in ensuring and forcing pregnancy, theres not much good arguments for it.
Maybe mammal’s are actually evolutionarily inferior to other lifeforms who can reproduce without harming the other sex? I feel pretty inferior to plants and bacteria who only need temperatures, water, and wind to create life.
” I think it will backfire on them and actually radicalize some women. I know it will.” Most women have never heard that this is an option. It could be like, “You mean somewhere someone said that I never have to have PIV sex again?” Wow, radical idea! What would my life be like then, etc. etc.
I think reading “The Spinster and Her Enemies” would be a good next step for anyone who finds this site and wants to see a history of how PIV evolved to seem fun!!111 and natural111!!!1. (NOT) Most women throughout history just put up with it because the church/culture told them they had to. At best, it was “duty”. No “fun” “natural” etc.
If it is the case that men use sexual intercourse, ‘consensual’ or otherswise, in order to take control from women of women’s reproduction, in what way, then, can women take control of reproduction, and how would that work?
@tracy25,
That is a good way of putting it, thanks. Patriarchy traps us into the confines of captivity with individual men, isolated from other women. Men’s wider system of patriarchy that sustains each of their individual ownership and raping of women is unattainable to women, we don’t have access to it or if we do we’re still excluded. Because of our physical and intellectual isolation from women and women’s perspectives, we can’t see that our being with (owned by) a man isn’t anything individual, that our actions, thoughts, choices, are part of something collective, our belonging to an oppressed class.
it’s really important to remind WHY it’s important that women don’t rip each other apart, and keep class solidarity consciousness at all times: because men are waiting in line to rape and kill us. Because an isolated woman is a woman in danger – in danger of chosen for prey by men and hunted down.
And yes, telling part of the information without putting it in the relevant context is a bit like watching the news (in a more or less extreme way), they talk about facts but retrieved from their context, so you think you’re being informed when in fact you’re being lied to, by omission or distortion (although men do more than just omit context, they doubly reverse everything and attack women
One thing this highlights is the importance of women to one another. I think that a lot of the romantic stuff we get filled with is a substitute for something else. It is a substitute for the deeper yearning for connection with other women. A sane, supportive, loving connection. Not talking sex at all here. That interpretation of sex as primary is misogyny’s tool.
I’m not saying that there’s not pain involved. For one thing, it’s the pain of watching other women get trapped by this and buy it. I think that some of the blame we see is an effort to avoid feeling the pain and grief of loss of self and loss of connection to other women who are whole (not enslaved, trauma-bonded, etc). The way to avoid that pain is to blame individual women for various things that are just built into the whole trauma bonding crap. Just to be pissed off at them for something that’s not their fault. I’m not saying we should not feel anger, but how about directing it as the cause rather than the result.
That last sentences should read “directing it AT the cause rather than the result.”
In that vein, of loving and appreciating women, I want to acknowledge the (no longer active) femonade blog and FCM for doing so much for so many women. I feel a rush of gratitude for the many gifts she gave us for so long and for her fine thinking and wit. Thank goddess for your blog, too, Witchwind. Like an oasis in the wilderness. Reading these posts is part of the connection with other women who are becoming sane and whole. I hope many women find it and begin to understand what is being said here. Going to the end of our thoughts is part of becoming sane.
‘maybe males of all species are evil’ yes they are.
‘But it doesn’t mean that PIV is unnatural and harmful because it is.’ uh yeah actually it does.
‘Maybe piv in humans is harmful because it isn’t necessary for reproduction’ piv is harmful to human women bc it is violent plain and simple.
‘Maybe coitus is one of those necessary evils in the world, like killing other animals for food’ Nooooo! Men are parasites, not necessary! Worse than useless!
‘PIV really is the most efficient way known at ensuring sperm travel up to the cervix because of direct contact’ Most effective would be medical insertion. Women are smart and despite being so oppressed we have contributed a lot to science and medicine, only to have most of our work stolen by men. Numbing the area and inserting sperm medically can be a lot less violent than a male’s disgusting cock inside of a woman’s internal organ (vagina).
‘PIV is okay’ No it isn’t. The endless terrorism against human females is unacceptable.
‘Maybe mammal’s are actually evolutionarily inferior to other lifeforms who can reproduce without harming the other sex? I feel pretty inferior to plants and bacteria who only need temperatures, water, and wind to create life.’ You sound incredibly self hating. The fact is female life is devalued and that is something radical feminists fight against, not attempt to justify. It is offensive to women to lump us into the category ‘human’ including males when we are so far apart and more evolved than they. Having respect for all life is great sure. We should all be able to walk with a gentle foot on the earth though with the way male society is set up that is difficult and THAT IS NOT OUR FAULT! The problem I have is when masochistic people generalize a whole species. We need to fight against the devaluing and belittling of human female life, please stop human female intelligence and inventiveness. Humans have one of largest brains for their body size. Women have never been able to use it to our full potential and for the good of all life bc of male terrorism. They are a constant threat. We deserve to live like any creature despite male propaganda telling us we are worthless. I see ‘vegan feminists’ caring more about dairy cows than women and it makes me sick.