What is it, pray tell, about the social and political context that would make this otherwise non-degrading act degrading?
I think we can resolve this issue with a simple experiment, Mr2001. Go get four of your male friends together in a room with your s.o. and then ask her (assuming you’re straight) to give you all blow jobs. Then - if she doesn’t seem perfectly enchanted with you - explain to her she’s a prude to assume there’s anything degrading in the request.
At the very least you’ll find out if she’s a prude too.
- Uglybeech the prude
Really? My friends and I gave each other money all the time. And in fact there were plenty of jewelry exchanges, too- generally boyfriend- girlfriend. What is unusual is for a teenage girl to give blow jobs in a relatively public place ( two other boys did walk in) to a group of five boys with nothing in return. I was a teenage girl once and so were my friends. Giving blow jobs was far from our favorite sexual experience. We did it anyway,willingly in a context of ( how should I put it) reciprocity of some sort. Either during the same interlude, or in a relationship where “68” makes sense, or I suppose in some cases in exchange for money or gifts or some other benefit. Does it mean she couldn’t have been willing? No, but it does call her willingness into question, in exactly the same way that her willingness to give her money to a group of five people would be questioned while her willingness to give it to one person would not.
I wonder if perhaps there’s a real gender difference- someone earlier asked if people would feel the same if the genders were reversed. I would, but I am having a very hard time imagining a group of five girls asking a boy to perform oral sex on each one of them in turn, and an equally difficult time imagining why the boys would do such a thing if not to put pressure on the girl. Is there something particularly exciting about standing in line with your friends for a sex act? I’ve seen more than one of these stories involving oral sex on a school bus, in the back of a classroom etc. Somehow it’s always multiple boys and a single girl- never the reverse.
Leaving aside the fact that there were more of them than there were of her, and that they were most likely bigger and stronger than she was, there is also the issue of the rumors. The ones going around the school which brought the incident to light. I am damned certain she wasn’t being described in complimentary terms. and I doubt very much that she started spreading them - if for no other reason than because she was the one who would be called a slut and a whore.
By that logic, watching The Tonight Show is degrading, because my girlfriend doesn’t like to do that either. I’ve dated girls who didn’t like giving or receiving oral sex at all - does that mean oral sex is degrading no matter what?
Just because some people don’t like performing certain acts doesn’t mean those acts are degrading when others perform them. Considering that this girl seems to have a history of doing this sort of thing, it seems unlikely that she hates to do it.
If the girl had five boyfriends, and she gave money and jewelry to all of them, I wouldn’t suspect coercion. Of course, having five boyfriends at once is pretty unusual in itself.
Times change. We don’t know she got nothing in return, though. Seems no less likely that she got something in return, whether it was personal satisfaction, social status, or something more tangible, than that she was somehow coerced.
Most men are bigger and stronger than most women.
I don’t recall reading about any rumors in those articles. Link?
Having been in a similar situation once or twice myself, I’m quite willing to say that a multiple guy one girl situation is not inherently degrading to the girl. I actually find it quite fun and enjoyable.
Group sex isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but that doesn’t make it degrading all the time, especially for those of us who find it to be just the right brand.
I think you’d turn pink to your shoes if I told you about my teenage years.
You can say that again. I don’t think there’s nearly enough evidence here to prove that she was coerced.
Or it could be that some of the boys have a history of doing this sort of thing. It’s not as though the prior incident involved a completely different group of boys.
Times haven’t changed so much that girls gain social status from that behavior- they still lose it. And they more often get punished for sexual activity , even today. Had it clearly been a mutual sexual experience, or had she received gifts or money from the boys, I am certain that she, too, would have been expelled quickly.
It may be just as likely that she got something in return as that she was coerced, but if the school was simply out to punish sexual activity because the administration is a bunch of prudes, without believing (whether or not that belief is correct) that there was some level of coercion involved, the girl would have been expelled as well. If she was a completely willing participant, then she would have been the one who violated what was expected of her, while the boys were simply “being boys” and taking advantage of an opportunity which presented itself.
I’m not talking about blow jobs or even a menage.
You’d have no problem asking her to watch the Tonight Show with you. But there’s no way you’d get together with four of your friends and ask her to give you all blow jobs together. So please give a (convincing) explanation of why she’d be pissed off at you that doesn’t involve her feeling degraded by the request alone.
Probably not. But even if you did willingly perform oral sex on five boys in a relatively public place as a teenager, that doesn’t mean it’s not unusual.
If she had been coerced by the same boys once before, why would she go back to meet them again?
I think it’s more complex than that. I doubt the boys she pleasured thought any less of her because of it, for example. I doubt she’s getting any less attention from other boys now, and I suspect that any other girls who were attracted to these boys (they were hockey players, after all) but never got close to them are now feeling a bit jealous.
If the school administration really is a bunch of prudes, that very prudishness could’ve led them to find coercion where there was none - the “a Milton girl would never do that willingly!” attitude.
Not necessarily. I mentioned earlier that the school had not yet decided whether to expel her, and I think the decision is in fact pending the criminal investigation. My guess is that they want to wait until the criminal investigation is cleared up before determining her level of responsibility. So I think it’s still up in the air whether they felt coercion was responsible for her behavior.
What the school is committing to is that if a group asks a single individual to perform oral sex, then that inherently constitutes pressure to peform a sexual act (whether the pressure was intentional or not) and that is in and of itself unacceptable behavior.
I believe they are intentionally divorcing their condemnation of the boys’ behavior from 1) whether the girl felt coerced or was a willing participant and 2) if the boys “meant” to pressure her.
catsix nailed it - my girlfriend isn’t into group sex. Like any other kink, not everyone is into it, but plenty of folks are.
For example, a lot of guys don’t like giving oral sex to women. They might consider it disgusting or even degrading, but that’s a personal feeling that can’t be extrapolated to everyone else. If they heard about one of their friends going down on his girlfriend, they’d be out of line to tell the girlfriend that she was participating in the degradation of the friend - what matters is whether the person who actually participated in the act felt degraded. Group sex is common enough that I find it inappropriate to merely assume she felt degraded.
Well, it looks pretty clear cut now. No coercion was involved. I know it’s hard to believe for some people, but some girls enjoy giving head.
As for the school’s decisions, Milton won’t make a judgement based on the evidence. Milton will make a judgement according to whats best for Milton. Four of the boys are represented by the same lawyer. I hope they sue the school for labeling them as coercive rapists.
Well, not so long ago when I was in school, it didn’t exactly give social status, but it was a great way to get cool boyfriends, be invited to the good parties and piss off the prissy girls. Not everyone is going for prom queen. Perhaps it’s not the best way to get attention, but people don’t always do the best thing.
You do realize, uhhhh, that you are advocating that women be punished for liking sexm right? This is the kind of backwards attitude we need to battle if our young women are ever going to really have control of their sexuality.
Anyway, I agree with the opinion that it’s damn stupid to sit here debating until you hear what the girl has to say. I absolutely reject the idea that a teenage girl is absolutly incapable of initiating, desiring and enjoying this. Theres a lot of pervy women out there, and pervy women start out as pervy young women. I know because I was one of them. While I stuck to one at a time in high school, a group sex situation with a sports team is and has been (since before I was this girls’ age) a fantasy of mine. Actually the “husband asks for blow jobs for all his friends” is another one of mine, although my dear SO is too straightlaced to even consider such a thing. The point is, not all women are interested in roses and candlelight, and pervs don’t suddenly get that way at eighteen.
But none of this matters, since the girl is probably pretty clear on if she was coerced by a threatening circle of jocks or if she happily blew away. And if it is the former, I hope we’d be hearing about arrests and trials, not expulsions.
If this was a consentual situation, then the girl needs to get the same treatment as the boys. A woman and a man are equally responsible for their consential sexual behavoir, and need to be held to the same standards. Women arn’t little porclein figurines on pedistools, they are often horny and sometimes stupid, just like men. Young women need to know what they are feeling, what they want and don’t want and how to communicate that clearly, and how to be responsible for their choices. Otherwise our young women are entering sexual sitations with nothing but a surge of hormones, a lot of confusion and misinformation, and not enough assertiveness and sureness to make sure that things go how they’d like them to. It is a diservice to deny the existance of sexuality in teenage girls and it is an insult to real rape victims everywhere to say that young women are never responsible for how they have sex and who they have it with.