something I'd really like to see straight cis men try is letting go of the responsibility of deciding when their partners are warmed up enough for intercourse.

A lot of guys seem to think it's their job to set the pace of sex, when to move from one stage to another, when their partner is ready to be penetrated with fingers, when enough foreplay has taken place to allow for coitus.

I'm sorry for the clinical terms but it's important to be specific. "Fucking" can mean so many things, after all.

I get the sense that this is largely not something guys do out of arrogance, it's just what they've seen modeled for them and it's what their partners expect to happen.

The problem with this though is it puts women entirely on the defensive. If she's not ready to move on but he is, it's her responsibility to hit the brakes in this scenario---not his to obtain consent.

she can be 1000% into what they're doing right now but that doesn't mean she's ready to switch gears---but her partner might assume so, because to him they mean the same thing.

Being put on the defensive, feeling like she has to disappoint her partner if she's not ready, puts a lot of pressure on her, especially if she has physical or psych issues that complicate her relationship to sex and her body (which many women do)

What would it look like if men allowed themselves not to take responsibility for the pace of sex? If he just let her decide every time when and if her body is penetrated?

What if she asked him every time whether he wanted to be inside her? What would getting to say yes, instead of just assuming, mean for him? How would his relationship to sex change? How would hers?

For all the progressive sex advice I've seen given to us cis straights to model queer norms about sexual communication, for some reason when I talk about this I still blow the roof off people's heads.

if the thought of doing this sounds deeply unsexy to you, that's fine, you don't have to do it, but I challenge you to ask yourself why, and whether it is not simply a failure of imagination to come up with your own ways of asking and giving permission.

The conversations i have with guys about this reveal that while either person might initiate the encounter, once its underway the man is the one directing the pace---he decides how long they make out, how long they spend at each "base".

If i ask who decides when to initiate PIV, although its understood that she's free to say "no" or "not yet", the *default* assumption in the relationship is that the guy decides when it's time. He does not wait for her to decide; he decides for her.

I've heard in the course of these conversations that a lot of women expect that experience and would potentially be turned off if he didn't show that level of initiative. For many women, their arousal is dependent on being *taken*.

One person told me they experiment with this alternative dynamic by having the active partner tease the passive partner into using their words to ask for what they want, torturing them with delayed gratification. I think this is a fun solution?

It just seems wild to me that, even among progressive, sexually adventurous couples where one or both might be queer, if its an M/F pair the encounter follows the same basic pattern with the man setting the pace---is it because he needs to or is it because its all he knows?

Guys, has a woman ever asked you if you wanted to be inside her before initiating piv? If so, how did it make you feel? Turned on? Turned off? Would you rather she not say anything and just jump on you? What would getting to say yes in that moment mean?

Lmfao the instant he hears that