It’s not inherently degrading.
The realities of the situation though are that the older the boyfriend is than the girl, the greater the odds that he’s using her, and most girls seem to have their first sexual boyfriend be +4 or +5 years older, which then pretty well establishes the current standard that going down on a guy is an act of submission.
I wouldn’t say to not give blowjobs, just to not go down on a guy unless he’s going to go down on you as well.
Would you say it’s ever possible for a woman to enjoy something like that? Like, maybe not a girl in high school but say someone who’s eighteen or older screwing or orally servicing a large group of men? I’m thinking now of someone like Annabel Chong who was part of the world’s largest gang bang. (A lot of people criticized her, too–I guess it is kind of creepy that she was actually gang raped prior to making the gang bang porn film.)
With all due respect, it’s not the 60s anymore.
And I find the whole “What did we want? Who cared?” thing to be more than a little silly. It’s up to YOU to care what you want, and to ask for it. THAT is what “liberated” is supposed to mean. If that’s not what you got out of it, you were doing it wrong.
It’s in that vein that I brought up BDSM. There are a significant number of people who like taking part in sexual behavior that both they and others consider degrading, humiliating, and submissive. It took me awhile to really understand that, but it is certainly true of several people i know and the literature on the subject leads me to believe that they are not unique. I think the question you mean to be asking is less one of degradation than healthiness: is it always unhealthy for a woman (to use your initial example) to be a promiscuous slut?
In Annabel Chong’s case I would be inclined to say “no” just based on numbers and the risk of STDs (also based on sex, men luck out STDwise in heterosexual activity). For the garden variety orgy, however, I could imagine a special sort of woman liking it for any number of reasons. and, if everyone involved is enjoying it and getting what they want out of it, I would have a hard time labeling it as unhealthy unless I had some specific reason to be especially paternalistic.
An orgy sets off my “weird!!!” detector, of course, but I’m long past considering that a perfect indicator of much of anything except my personal preferences.
I never slept with anyone where I didn’t get something in return… even if it was “just” an orgasm. 
But seriously- sex for fun was fun, sex in a committed relationship was emotionally fulfilling as well, drunk silly sex was, well, drunk and silly, etc.
YMMV, of course.
i don’t really agree. I think that a young girl might really like giving oral to lots of older guys but I think it would be a control thing, not a sex thing… …much in the same way that anorexic / bulimic behavoirs are often a way for a woman to prove that she has total control over something.
And as a full grown adult woman, I much prefer giving to receiving as well and I freely admit it is a control thing and I think that in an equal adult mutual relationship the “blower” is dominant and the “blowee” submissive.
You know giving a blowjob can be a reward just in itself, right?
I definitely agree with people saying that sex is fine as long as it’s for the right reasons. I’m male (gay) and went through a phase where I was having a lot of sex (a different guy every day for a week) and eventually reached a point where I was having to ask why I was doing it because it was starting to feel like a chore, not fun. I think at that point it was definitely about self esteem and not enjoyment.
However that was then and this is now, and as much as I’m sleeping around a bit at the moment it’s only when I want to and on my terms. If I had a daughter I would want to ensure she felt the same way, and would talk about it as much as was necessary to help her understand that sex shouldn’t be used as an attention seeking device or a bargaining tool, and that a man who demands sex from you for affection isn’t worth it.
You’re doing it wrong.
Maybe it’s the plutonium dildo ?
“Doing” the whole team wouldn’t necessarily mean a gang bang situation. It could well mean lots of dates.
Naw, promiscuity isn’t damaging in and of itself. Sometimes it’s perfectly healthy, and in the cases where it’s not, I think it’s more likely to be a symptom of issues like low self-esteem than their cause.
If I remember the cited thread correctly, the kid in question was giving blowjobs because she thought if she didn’t boys wouldn’t like her and nobody would go out with her–that in the dog-eat-dog world of 7th-grade society, she’d essentially be an outcast. That, imho, is not a healthy reason to be promiscuous. The idea that sex is the only reason for somebody to be with you, that you’re not worth dating without it, does seem like a pretty damaging message for a woman to internalize.
I would think a 13 year old giving blowjobs is probably doing it to keep the attention of the boy. What physical pleasure is she getting out of it? She gives him blowjobs, she gets a boyfriend. It’s sort of like she’s prostituting herself for a perceived love connection. So yeah, IMO that’s a little degrading.
Please. The girl who goes around blowing the football team or banging half the guys in a fraternity house? No one respects her. She becomes a sort of laughing stock. Let me put it another way. For those people who think I’m a misogynist jerk, imagine 20 of me (but worse) sitting around the locker room comparing notes and laughing about where and how you blew us and tell me if you still feel good about yourself.
Even with older women (20s and 30s), there is often an air of desperation to them. They get drunk and sleep with guys they would often never associate with when sober. Often it is just because they are lonely or it gives them validation.
Truth is that it is very difficult for most women to be a real life Samantha Jones (Kim Catrell from Sex and the City). The reason for this is that very few women are truly financially independent and successful in their careers, have no real desire for long term committed relationships and can be as selective as Samantha, cherry picking good looking and/or wealthy men. Most of the women that I met are more like Carrie Bradshaw or Miranda. Lonely, self conscious, average looking, disatisfied, constantly seeking a man who will validate them or maybe even take them away from their lifestyle of trolling bars until it’s time to go back to their shitty third story walk-up.
Because men who fuck random women are studs who just want orgasms, but women who fuck random men are desperate and want “validation”?
Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better, hon.
Yeah, it was that attitude I was picking up on in the thread about the 13 year old. (I’m going to try to link to it later.) Granted, I think we can all agree that a thirteen year old giving oral sex to guys to get them to like her is unhealthy. But I wasn’t getting that attitude from the people at all–it was more like, “Do you really think guys respect you, etc.” I don’t know, I think that disturbed me more–it was less concern for someone potentially hurting themselves and more like guys will think of you as a used up piece of trash if you go around doing this.
And that surprised me because it wasn’t “She could get an STI or pregnant”–it was no one respects her. And if she’s a competent adult who can consent–why not?
Wise wise words.
My problem with this whole discussion is that we are using damaging and degrading interchanbably, and we shouldn’t (at least in my mind). The OP had damaging in the thread title and degrading in the text, and I think much of our problem arose from that.
Is it degrading? - oh, heck yes. That’s probably why guys want her to do it (and maybe why she wants to do it). Is it damaging? - in the long run, probably not. In the short run maybe, but as she matures and realizes why she does it and why guys want her to do it, then probably not. I think the Annabel Chong reference was very revealing in relation to this.
The thread I mentioned. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=313652&highlight=stepdaughter+oral
Is it degrading if she genuinely wants to do it? I mean, apart from the opinions of assholes and proponents of the double standard?
I don’t think I’m being patronising by saying that a 13 year old might not be completely clear for herself on the reasons she’s engaging in such sex. I wouldn’t say she couldn’t be, just that she might not be. This isn’t because I hold female sexuality in low regard, but because other people do and the consequences of this are the double standard.
As I said if it were my daughter I’d want to be clear she was having sex because she wanted to, not because she felt obligated to or thought that if she didn’t the boy in question wouldn’t like her.
Well you could argue that it’s a symptom of other problems, I don’t think it’s a problem in and of itself.
In the case of the football team, well, a school is a very particular sort of social environment. A woman giving a lot of guys blowjobs who are not otherwise part of her social life would not have the same consequences as a woman giving blowjobs to all the guys at her job.
And whether or not an act is actually degrading, the perception and judgement other people have about it can cause trouble.