Good reasons to be PIV-critical

1) PIV naturally puts women at a disadvantage. In addition, that which is natural, isn’t necessarily good (natural fallacy). Recreational sex is not the same as reproductive sex, so the “naturalness” of PIV is a bad argument either way.

If we assume that we live under patriarchy (with Rape Culture on top), PIV isn’t just harmless fun. It puts women at the mercy of men.



2) There are much fewer women who orgasm from vaginal intercourse in comparison to men. According to this study, only 12 % of the women interviewed (n = 19 307) had reached an orgasm from PIV only. I believe that this is a quite common occurrence. Vaginal orgasm is probably a myth anyways and PIV doesn’t effectively stimulate the clitoris or just passively does so.



3) There are several health risks associated with hormonal birth control, such as breast, cervical and liver cancer (see this for reference). There are also risks for cardiovascular disease (see this). Apart from that, oral contraceptives have several unpleasant side-effects. And then there are the costs for oral contraceptives.



4) PIV is defined as “normal sex” and is put above all other sex practices (including homosexual ones), although, apparently, it does benefit men more than it does benefit women. So the fact that it is institutionalized as “default sex” is also a good reason to be critical of it.



5) If het sex is defined by the male perspective and PIV is seen as compulsory, then how meaningful is the consent of women to PIV at a larger, societal scale? Why aren’t more women refusing PIV, given all the disadvantages? I mean, how can we talk about (meaningful) consent if there is a societal, patriarchy-induced pressure to engage in PIV?

That’s why radical feminists critically examine PIV. It looks like this is a patriarchic tool and if we assume that there is, indeed, a coercive aspect to it in society at large, then that would put PIV somewhere on the rape spectrum.

It’s also interesting that men don’t seem to bother about all the disadvantages women take upon themselves. They’re never discussed.