In a word, we keep hearing from people who seem to be saying that in certain relationships, they don't really want to be engaging in sex, or don't want to have some kinds of sex they are having, but feel that sex is something they have to do if they want to be in a given relationship. To put more blunt a point on it: that sex is what they need to do with someone to buy or earn an emotionally intimate relationship with them.
And pretty much always, this is coming from young women in relationships with men (there have, however, been some young men who have voiced something similar).
Here's the thing about this: by all means, sometimes what someone wants is a sexual relationship AND a romantic relationship (mind, historically, those are actually synonyms in many ways: the history of romantic love as a concept is only about four centuries old, and it was pretty much all about sex). But when they are going to have both of those kinds of relationships (or that one kind, again, they are pretty intertwined), the given should be that that's only because both people want both those things. And if and when any one of those relationships isn't working or good for anyone involved, the given should be that either needs to be remedied or folks just need to part ways so each can find someone where both those ways of interacting ARE a fit for everyone, not where one person just keeps going through the motions because they want something they feel they have to pay for with sex.
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You know, before second-wave feminism (though this changed for a lot of women after the first wave), the idea that sex was a duty women had to perform for men, that was about men, and the way it was about women was that the sex meant they could keep a roof over their heads, feed their kids, etc., was common. But that was also very much part of the socioeconomic conditions for many women (as it still is for many women in developing nations). And that is very much not an issue for most of the users we hear from in these situations, either because their parents are the ones paying their bills, or they are paying their own bills.
However, I still often feel, when folks talk about this kind of dynamic, like I got thrown back to 1950 or even 1850 for that matter. And it's 2014!
So, what gives? Why do you think some young people - and again, usually women -- don't feel able to only engage in sex when it is something they want, and something that is just as much about and for them as their partners? Why do you think some young women feel they have so few options that they have to accept relationships that clearly aren't a fit, rather than seeking out those that are, or have sex to "keep a man," or "get a man," when they either don't want to be having sex, or when they do, but the sexual relationship they have with this person clearly sucks and isn't going to get fixed, either because they aren't going to say anything about how much it sucks, or they have, but nothing is changing?