As someone who came of age in the 1960s, the "sexual revolution," I so relate to this permission paradox. It's as if once women were allowed to want sex and to be sexual, we *had* to want it, and we had to do it whenever we were in the situation where it was possible, or else we were "hung up chicks." The right to say Yes was not accompanied by an equal right to say No.
Really, really appreciated this post. This is something we encounter all the time in the adult store I own; people think 'vanilla' is synonymous with basic or beginner, instead of just being one option on the menu of pleasure. I appreciate having your language and framing around this as a permission paradox; I'll be using this concept in my staff training going forward!
Do you have any tips for selling, to a partner, the "this isn't for me WITH YOU" without triggering their "there's something wrong with me/I'm unworthy" or "you're not treating me right/fairly if you did X with A but not with me" or (most likely with the former leading to compensatory latter) both?
Obviously in the ideal world people will just accept that the "right" to not engage in sexual acts is absolute, but some (many?) don't.
A relationship I've had recently more or less broke over this dynamic and while it probably did for a reason overall, I've been bothered by the ethics of this: do we have a moral obligation to NOT get involved with people with whom we might not be able (or will struggle to) do things we did with others, preempt that issue from the start, or is it acceptable ethically to tackle it when it raises (or in my case, lowers expectantly and hopefully) its head?
As someone who came of age in the 1960s, the "sexual revolution," I so relate to this permission paradox. It's as if once women were allowed to want sex and to be sexual, we *had* to want it, and we had to do it whenever we were in the situation where it was possible, or else we were "hung up chicks." The right to say Yes was not accompanied by an equal right to say No.
Really, really appreciated this post. This is something we encounter all the time in the adult store I own; people think 'vanilla' is synonymous with basic or beginner, instead of just being one option on the menu of pleasure. I appreciate having your language and framing around this as a permission paradox; I'll be using this concept in my staff training going forward!
Do you have any tips for selling, to a partner, the "this isn't for me WITH YOU" without triggering their "there's something wrong with me/I'm unworthy" or "you're not treating me right/fairly if you did X with A but not with me" or (most likely with the former leading to compensatory latter) both?
Obviously in the ideal world people will just accept that the "right" to not engage in sexual acts is absolute, but some (many?) don't.
A relationship I've had recently more or less broke over this dynamic and while it probably did for a reason overall, I've been bothered by the ethics of this: do we have a moral obligation to NOT get involved with people with whom we might not be able (or will struggle to) do things we did with others, preempt that issue from the start, or is it acceptable ethically to tackle it when it raises (or in my case, lowers expectantly and hopefully) its head?