Own Your Pleasure, Part 2: Antipatriarchal Sexuality

We are living in a patriarchy, which in the most basic terms means that men hold more power while women play a supporting role. In terms of sexuality, it means that male pleasure is centered, and that the primary worth of women is in looking beautiful and being of service to the sexual gratification of men. Patriarchy is central to so-called “rape culture,” in which men feel entitled to sex, and women’s bodies are treated as objects to be used for male domination and sexual pleasure. 

The patriarchy is all-in on the gender binary. Men and women have roles to play. For this reason, what I’m going to call patriarchal dysfunction shows up most strongly in heterosexual relationships with cisgendered partners. However, some of the patterns certainly show up in gay, lesbian, gender diverse, and other queer partnerships.

Patriarchy tells us that men are supposed to be strong, dominant, logical, unemotional, virile. They are supposed to get what they want. They are supposed to go out and get what they want, to hunt it down, to claim it, to own it. They are entitled to sexual pleasure and gratification. According to patriarchal norms, masculine men embody predator energy.

Women, by contrast, are supposed to be soft, weak, submissive, dependent, emotional, subservient. They’re supposed to be nurturing, nice, accommodating, reliably available. They are supposed to look beautiful, to be attractive to men, to please men, to give men what they want. However, women are also supposed to be discerning, coy, and to put up some resistance to male advances, to not be too “easy.” In the context of patriarchy, feminine women embody prey energy.

It takes a special kind of awareness and consistent effort to make life choices that counter the patriarchy rather than feeding it. When we’ve been participating in patriarchy by playing our prescribed gender roles our whole lives, it can be hard to even see what’s going on, let alone to make different choices to disrupt the patriarchal system. 

A good start is to notice how you embody your gender. 

If you’ve been socialized as a man, how do you display dominance and/or predator energy? Notice when you feel entitled to get what you want, especially when it involves women. 

If you’ve been socialized as a woman, how do you display submission and/or prey energy? Notice when you focus on pleasing men, giving them what they want, or resisting their advances.

Even in relatively healthy and equitable relationships, patriarchal themes of ownership and dominance show up in interactions that feel perfectly normal. For example, say you and your partner just finished having sex, and you say, “You make me feel so good!” or “You made me come so hard!” These are nice things to say to your partner, right? Debriefing a pleasurable sexual encounter, expressing gratitude, and positive reinforcement are all great. However, there is a subtle cue in these phrases that your pleasure isn’t your own.

Here’s the message that I want you to hear and internalize: Your partner isn’t in charge of your sexual pleasure. It’s not up to your partner to give you an orgasm or make you feel amazing. The two of you are allied in creating and experiencing as much sexual pleasure as possible, together.

Owning your sexual pleasure means knowing what you want and asking for it. That sounds pretty straightforward, but a lot of people, especially those of us socialized as women, often have a hard time with one or both of these (the knowing what we want and/or the asking for it). 

When a partner asks, “What do you want?” or “How would you like me to touch you?”, do you have a hard time knowing how to respond? Does your mind draw a blank? Does this question even arise?? Cultivating the ability to feel present in your body and to sense what would feel good to you in a given moment is a life skill worth developing. 

It’s ok to take baby steps, to ask for what would feel good right now, regardless of where it might lead or what you might want a few minutes from now. For example, you might request some gentle hair stroking to help you relax and bring your senses alive. After hair stroking, you might want kissing or hair pulling or something else. Can you stay with what feels good, moment to moment, and continue to ask your partner for what you want?

It’s also ok to know that you want a super intense orgasm resulting from some anal play along with vibration on your clit–and to ask for that in particular, and then for you and your partner to make your way toward that vision. In other words, you can start with what you want right now in this moment, or you can start with what you want to eventually experience and then move toward that. Both ways work!

If you’re a person who tends toward responsive desire, it takes more conscious effort to stay in touch with your pleasure. People who experience responsive (as opposed to spontaneous) desire rarely feel like they want to have sex out of the blue. They need something to respond to… they need a conducive context and cues to initiate their desire. 

If this is you, then it’s important for you to track how your desire is activated and to consciously choose to turn yourself on. You can also invite your partner to join you on your unique path to arousal, but your participation in stoking your own desire and coaxing your own arousal are empowering for you and enlivening for your relationship. 

Particularly when responsive desire folks are in a long-term relationship, they can get into the habit of relying on their partner to stoke their desire and turn them on—and over time, this dynamic can feel lopsided. Owning your pleasure means knowing what helps you relax enough to be open to sexual pleasure as well as what piques your sexual interest. And then—this is important—acting on that knowledge by pursuing your pleasure and asking for what you want.

Antipatriarchal sex happens when we all know what turns us on, what feels good, and what we want… and then we communicate that to our partners so that we can collaborate on an experience that is mutually pleasurable for everyone involved. 

The sexiest thing is knowing yourself, what you like, and what you want… and believing that you deserve all the pleasure, so you can ask your partner for exactly what will be most pleasurable for you.

For more on this topic, I invite you to read my very first blog post, How Pleasure Dismantles the Patriarchy, which I wrote in January 2025.