Gyrator53 wrote:
Krys - From what you had written I knew you had been abused before you said it. It may not take one to recognise one but it does made it easy. As I mentioned on the tread about smacking children my father was terrifyingly violent. Such abuse makes us inevitably prone to rather absolutist views on anything that even has the faintest whiff of the abuse we suffered. Unfortunately, the lessons we believe we have learned from the abuse don't help us in dealing with normal relationships. My father's beatings did not give me a better insight into the normal interaction of a loving father with his children. Similarly, I would suggest your sexual abusive relationship has not given you a better insight into the interaction with a truly loving partner.
Of course we can, as you have, find sources that tend to support our hard-line views (in my case there are organisations that want to see parents who smack their children imprisoned). That does not make those views right.
Just like to poor people who's response to a burglary or a mugging is to barricade themselves into their homes, sometimes we should accept that there are no good lessons to be learned from a bad experience and that we are better off trying to set the whole thing aside as if it never happened and get on with our lives. To do otherwise is to let the abuser win by undermining the rest of our lives.
Just as I have come to accept that an occasional slap on the wrist from a loving parent isn't child abuse perhaps you need to accept that mild occasional persuasion - seduction even - from a loving partner does not make for non-consensual sex. If you look at the thread about a substitute for oral sex you will see that most people seem to think that way.
Scarleteen is not an extremist source, it's widely recognised as one of the best sex education websites for teens and young people. It's supported by the majority of sex positive feminists. The 'consent is sexy' campaign was fairly big in America, I believe. Yes, my history makes me particularly passionate about consent issues - how could it not? But I'm not stupid - I'm able to separate what are obviously my issues (disgust with anal sex and a certain sexual position - that's just my problems) and what I believe are reasonable beliefs which my experiences opened my eyes to. The whole point of negative life experiences is that we're meant to learn from them - I learned to think about consent and I apply that to my behaviour towards my partners and have found that it creates a much healthier, happier sexual environment. And I don't just mean it's better than my shitty abusive relationship, it's better than any sex I had before that either. Caring about consent makes you a better communicator and makes sex a better mutual experience.