Violence

Relevance

Many of the sexual activities that were reported as frightening – anal sex, choking, hair pulling, hitting, and other aggressive behaviors – are commonly portrayed in pornography.

“We were struck, but not surprised, at the gendered aspects of our findings. Substantially more women than men reported that someone had done something during sex that had scared them. This is likely because scary things truly do happen more often to women than men during sex. This is important considering that women’s allegations of assault are still sometimes characterized as simple “misunderstandings”…We note that some of the men’s descriptions of scary sex (e.g., that referred to menstruation, adolescent/learning curve, first coitus, wondering whether the person who’s performing oral sex is friends with a prior partner) differed considerably from examples more often provided by women that pertained to rape, forced sex, being held down, threatened with weapons, choked, and painful sex that one asks to stop but that does not stop. Even among the pregnancy/STI risk responses, women’s experiences more often alluded to feeling pressured into unprotected sex. In contrast, men’s responses in this category described forgetting to use a condom, not knowing about a partner’s sexual history, or finding out a female partner had many prior sex partners. And yet, the overall proportion of men who reported ever experiencing sex as scary was nearly half that of women.”

“Those who have not generally experienced alarming aspects of sex, moments in which they wondered whether they were about to be raped or killed, may find it difficult to imagine how scary sex can feel for others. Consequently, some may find it difficult to empathize with what it means to be a sexually active woman in a society where quite scary things happen.”

“Even in consensual sex, women more often give reasons for having sex that include feeling pressured, obligated, or at the insistence of one’s partner” and “many young women choose to continue having vaginal intercourse even when it is painful, not wanting to spoil sex for their partner by interrupting sex.”