Thanks to jetlag I’m up at 5 AM, which means I’ve got time to blog. I know — you’re all pumped. Here goes:
We all know what a prude is. I don’t need to quote the dictionary here because dictionaries are like assholes: everyone has one and they’re all pretty much the same (please, for the love of Long Duck Dong, let’s not anyone mention “goatse”). A prude, as most people define the term, is someone who is opposed to fun based on some kind of religious conviction that has no basis in logic or in coolness. For example, a prude is a guy who doesn’t drink Pepsi because he’s been told not to by a church (a church that owns a large share of Pepsi Co., no less) started by some asshole in the 1800s who pretended god had given him the sequel to the Bible in order to convince people it was OK for him to have more than one wife. A prude is someone who doesn’t do the Roger Rabbit because her church said dancing is the first step on a road that leads to sacrificing babies to Satan. A prude is someone who thinks we should only have sex to create babies, that it ought to be done in only one (male-led, male-dominated, male-centered) way, that it ought not to result in pleasure (especially for the woman), and that we all ought to feel like singing a Morrissey song about how much we hate ourselves when it’s over. Because religion said so.
Prudishness, which the prude likes to conflate with morality, is really just piety, however ill-conceived, ill-understood, and misdirected that piety might be at times. However, morality and piety are not, in fact, coterminous. Morality can and does exist among atheists, agnostics, “secular progressives” (or SP’s, for you fans of Bill O), and even a few religious types (well, as long as they don’t go to churches in which pastors baptize people in hot tubs). Morality doesn’t require outside enforcement because morality stems from the natural human tendency towards empathy and the natural human aversion to seeing blood and suffering. It isn’t law or religion that keeps me from killing Joe Rogan, it’s that instinctive human morality that comes naturally to all save a few of us. (Mind you, I’m speaking of the most basic kind of morality, that which governs the most fundamental of human interactions. Stealing and related crimes are another matter and would require me to get into theories of mine on economic systems that I’ll need to leave to another post. And don’t bother telling me we’re becoming more and more callous towards each 0ther – I blame that on the fact that marketers have ever more control of our minds, of course.)
And here comes the ergo: moral objections to morally objectionable things do not of necessity result from prudishness. And hence another ergo: arguing that radical feminists are opposed to porn and prostitution out of some form of prudishness is a straw man extraordinaire. I mean, really, how many radical feminist fundamentalist Christians do you know? Prudes are proud of their continence, prudes love it when people take notice of the fact that they never do anything fun, prudes revel in abstemiousness for its own sake, and their reasoning usually rests either on nothing or on a prideful adherence to the anachronistic and untenable prescriptions for living laid down by dudes who lived during a time when people had never even heard of burritos or synthesizers. Prudes, basically, are dumbasses — and usually arrogant ones at that. So don’t call me one or I’ll take away your birthday.
We’ve dealt with prudishness. What’s dudishness? Well, I’m from California. Everyone is a dude to me. I use “dude” to get people’s attention; as an exclamation of surprise, irritation, shock, pain, or extreme anger; as a general way to refer to a male person; as a way to express incredulity. You get the point. But that’s not what dudishness is about. Dudishness is a special brand of male (and female – no gender exclusion at the ‘chine, man) behavior that might best be described as a striving to approximate a balance between the behavior of the character Buddy Griffith in Just One of the Guys and that of the average Eli Roth fan. Don’t get me wrong – I love Buddy Griffith more than life itself. He’s the funniest caricature of teenage boyhood I’ve ever seen, not to mention the ultimate 80s movie character, and his juvenile obsession with getting someone to touch his wiener, while it did lean hard on the total objectification of women, was at least slightly endearing. But that’s only cute in the movies, and it’s only funny when the only goal is sex in that relatively innocuous way that teenagers conceived of it in 1985 (and I do mean relatively – it was still dehumanizing, but it seems quaint in comparison with today’s youth’s idea of what sex is about).
Something’s changed. Our culture has always hated women, but it’s manifested itself in much more obvious and – I’d say – sinister ways in the last decade or so. We all know about backlash theory: the more social gains women make, the more threatened men (especially those lower down on the social ladder) feel, and we’re seeing that express itself in more and more media in which women are punished simply for being women (and/or for having the audacity to be beautiful but unwilling to fuck any asshole that whistles at them, to enjoy sex, to assert themselves, to be happy, etc.). See porn, the new brand of overtly sexualised horror movies, and the general entertainment media, etc. if you really can’t figure out what I’m talking about, though I’m sure you can.
Well, that’s what dudishness is: a combination of a juvenile obsession with sex and overt misogyny. Some examples: the fascination with seeing some boobies in a Playboy that characterized male adolescence a few years ago has (d)evolved into an insatiable demand for footage of women having sex with dogs, women having their faces ejaculated upon, women performing fellatio after being on the receiving end of anal sex, etc. (I’d go on but I can already sense my WordPress ticker of disgusting search terms skyrocketing.) Men have gone from swiveling their heads to get a look at a retreating woman’s ass to routinely groping women on trains and drunkenly demanding in public places that women “show us your tits.” That’s dudishness. That’s the state of the world. And, apparently, the fact that that scares me makes me a prude according to some people.
Plttth. Give me a fucking break. Sorry, but the fact that I’m not turned on by the average Ludacris lyric doesn’t make me frigid, and fuck you if you think you have the right to tell me it does.
Some of you may remember an exchange that took place in one of my recent (OK, I know that when I’ve not posted anything of substance in a month I can’t exactly call it recent) posts’s comment sections between myself, a commenter named Sarah, and a few others. There was a serious misunderstanding going on in that exchange, as well as some clearly willful misrepresentation, and this post was inspired in part by that. Sarah took offense to my claiming that certain sex acts were degrading, and she thought I was calling her a slut for engaging in them. I wasn’t. I think people know that (and I think Sarah does too), but the topic still wants intelligent discussion.
You see, every time I bring up an objection to porn and to men’s increasing sense of entitlement to treat women like objects, women come over here to tell me I’m calling them sluts because I’ve got a problem with male behavior. Say what? I’ve addressed that specific issue before and won’t get into it again, but I am going to address these absurd and insulting (not to mention misogynistic) claims that I, and women like me, must be boring, selfish, sexless PRUDES because we take offense to the dehumanization of ourselves and our fellow women. And I’m going to do so without discussing my own private sex life, which, frankly, I’m tired of having to tell people is none of their fucking business. I don’t ask anyone to give me the details of their exploits, for fuck’s sake (though I still get plenty of unsolicited details — thanks).
There are several problems with the “you’re a prude!” approach when presented as an argument against my (or any other radfem’s) positions on porn and sex work. First, it makes the incorrect assumption that radical feminism is about telling people what they ought to desire. I’m pretty sure you could go through every word on this blog and not find a single instance of me telling people what they should like or not like (unless we’re talking about bands and TV shows — seriously, STOP watching Family Guy). I know we don’t grow up in vacuums free of the kind of social conditioning that creates desires that may not be politically correct or all that feminist. I don’t think anyone ought to be ashamed of those desires or their sources, but should rather just be aware of them and consider what they mean. That does not translate into me telling people not to do something, all it is is my meager attempt to get a few of the nine (OK, maybe 500) or so people who read this here blog to think about the connections between sex, power, and the social structure we’re all stuck in. A commenter on that post mentioned above had the following to say on just that, and I think it’s worth considering:
First, why do some women choose to take jobs as porn actresses? Why do they want to have sex for money rather than getting themselves off? Do you think a lack of options or a difficult economic situation factors into that very much? How do you think they feel about the fact that strangers and people they know alike can watch them having sex as long as they’re willing to pay? Do you think they maybe feel cheapened by it? Could they better express their sexual autonomy by reserving their sexuality for people that turn them on and treat them in ways that make them feel good, rather than by allowing their image to be mass produced to give others jack-off material? Do you think there are very many women who actually enjoy being in pornography? Do you think the patriarchy’s eroticization of treating women as objects has anything to do with that?
Do you think pornography expands our conceptions of human sexuality, or do you think it limits the potential range of it? Do you think that the only way to go outside the box in terms of human sexuality is kinkiness? What other forms of expression might there be? Do you think we might dream up more fulfilling means of keeping sex interesting if left to invent our own fantasies, rather than watching full-color explosions of what other people think our fantasies are? Do you think pornography alters our expectations of sex? Do you think that alteration is generally positive or negative? Realistic or unrealistic? Do you think missionary (or simple forms of mixing up sex, like changing positions and locales, but still ultimately remaining vanilla) are inherently boring, or is it only because we now expect sex to be crazy-exciting with lots of kinks (essentially, to be like pornography)? Do you think there are women for whom kinkiness is a burden more than a freedom? Do you think women ever feel pressured to perform a particular sexual act because it is regularly depicted in porn (and thus expected)?
Do you think there are any kinds of pornography which might show images which are harmful or which it might be better to choose not to view? Do you think porn depicting women in pain or coerced into sex acts is harmful (to men and women, to our conceptions of sexuality, to the way we relate sexually to each other, to what we consider erotic, etc.)? Do you think the majority of porn relies upon sexual stereotypes, unrealistic depictions of women’s sexuality, economic pressure applied to actresses, or any other unfeminist things? In light of the porn that is currently out there, do you believe the burden is upon feminists to prove that it is harmful, or on pornographers to prove that it’s acceptable? Do you think wanting to watch videos of other people having sex is a natural and healthy impulse? Do you think wanting to watch the kinds of standard porn videos that are out there is a natural and healthy impulse?
Why do you (or any woman) want to have your partner ejaculate on your (or any woman’s) face? Why does your partner (or any man) want to ejaculate on your (or any woman’s) face? Given the power relations that are culturally predominant, do you think domination or humiliation could have anything to do with it? If not, why else would it be sexy? Do you think this alternate explanation for why it is sexy is the reason most porn viewers find it sexy?
My point with all of these questions is, there’s a lot more to this issue than “all consenting adults! that means we’re all free to do whatever we want!” Well, duh. Obviously porn actresses who accept money for their services made a choice. Obviously women who allow men to ejaculate on their faces made a choice. We’re not saying to shame people who make those choices, and we’re not saying we should legally ban them. But it’s important to consider, why do people make these choices? We know that the culture we live in makes some assumptions about gender roles and sexuality. How does porn interact with those power relations? How do we make sex and sexuality empowering for all participants?
When we answer those questions, we try to see the whole context. We think that context includes uneven gender roles, and believe that patriarchal thinking warps mainstream expressions of sexuality like porn. As an alternative, we don’t see a world where everyone engages in every sexual act without analyzing it, but rather one in which we consider each other’s feelings and in which we occasionally step back to see whether what we think we want is really sexually good for us. We see a world where people probably don’t want to intentionally spray bodily fluids on other people’s faces (perhaps you disagree), and a world where people have their own satisfying personal fantasies and sex lives that pornography seems like a cheap substitute for real human sexuality.
You might come to different conclusions, but the rad fem critique is not meant to return to “NO! YOU CAN’T DO THAT! GOOD GIRLS DON’T DO THAT!” Rather, it is to move towards a future conception of sexuality that is more personal and more satisfying for all participants. Maybe there’s a way to incorporate face-shots into that world. (I personally think probably not, or at least not until both partners have seriously deconstructed power roles.) Maybe there’s a way to incorporate anal sex into that world. (I personally think probably.) In all honesty, that world probably looks different for all of us (for some people it may involve waiting for sex until marriage or at least love). It’s okay that those worlds all look different. But I promise, promise, promise that when we say that we don’t think a particular act meshes well with a positive sexuality, it is not a referendum on the people who choose that activity. It is not us scolding and saying no. It’s just us saying “Hey, I’m not comfortable with this, and here’s why I think you might want to think it over again too.”
Props to B for that. It’s a much more diplomatic (and hence probably more effective) way of explaining the difference between asking people to take the relationship between sex and power into consideration and slut-shaming (AKA prudishness) than I might have been able to muster.
There’s another problem with calling radfems prudes. Isn’t feminism about women’s freedom, sexual and otherwise? Does someone who knows exactly dick about my sex life telling me I do sex wrong fit that definition of feminism? That’s a negative, Ghost Rider. It’s presumptuous, pushy, judgemental, sexist, and exactly the kind of behavior sex-pozzers (wrongly) accuse me of when I discuss the relationship between power and sexuality as it relates to sex work. Hypocrisy isn’t cool, man.
And that leads me to the most serious problem with the prudishness/dudishness binary that sex-pozzers have tried to create in arguing with radical feminists. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I thought sex-positivism was all about freedom of sexual expression. Where’s the imagination? I don’t mean to sound like a hippie or anything, but John Lennon would really be disappointed in these sex-pozzers. They’re really not thinking outside the box (I could make so many stupid pun jokes there, but I won’t). I take a very dim view of media, marketing, and the general sale of packaged lifestyles, and I think pornography and the objectification of women in the mainstream media has seriously limited our ability to imagine sexuality unalloyed with power. But it isn’t impossible, and that’s what I’m asking people to help me do. Do people really believe our only two options are to thoughtlessly join in the big porn party or to hate sex? Seriously? Come on.
I’m stoked that there are women out there who are trying to expand the parameters of what sex is about, to decouple sex and male domination, to reclaim female sexuality from the swirling abyss of misogynistic porn, to illustrate the ways in which sexuality and social inequality intersect. Why can’t we talk some more about them, and about ways to do those things, than about whether letting men ejaculate on our faces is cool? I’m honestly tired of that conversation. I’ve written nine-plus posts now on this subject, and I think it’s clear that I see porn as a force that damages women’s lives, that I believe it’s anti-woman propaganda, and that I believe that anyone who has read the series and disagrees is in serious denial. I’m no longer interested in arguing about whether porn is or is not detrimental to women, because its negative effects on women’s lives, women’s safety, and human sexuality in general couldn’t be plainer, and because the counterarguments are all too tautological and simplistic for me to entertain any further.
But as to prudishness, when we allow men to re-enact scenes from anti-woman propaganda on us, we aren’t being loving partners, we’re allowing ourselves to be debased. When we do things we don’t enjoy out of fear that our men will look elsewhere for someone who will, we’re capitulating to terr’rism. When we don’t do those things, we aren’t being prudes, we aren’t being selfish, we aren’t being cold, we aren’t on the road to crew cuts and combat boots (not that there’s anything wrong with those), we’re respecting ourselves as women and as human beings. Anyone coming here and telling me and my readers that we’re bad lovers, that men find us undesirable, and that we’re slut-shaming them for participating in such behaviors just because we question the basis of the forces behind the desire to participate in them is an asshole and an agent of patriarchy. Patriarchy has us convinced that our chief worth lies in our desirability to men, and its greatest tool for keeping us in line is threatening us with erasure. That any woman would abet that is beyond me and is honestly vastly more frightening to me than the similar comments I get from men (which I completely expect to receive).
In that same comment thread I referred to above, Sarah also asked me repeatedly (being, as she is, the head of the Department of Redundancy Department) if I think that there is such a thing as an inherently degrading sex act. That’ll be the subject of Porn Part 10. You didn’t think this series was ever going to end, did you?
26 Comments
January 6, 2009 at 4:26 pm
“moral objections to morally objectionable things do not of necessity result from prudishness…prudes revel in abstemiousness for its own sake”
Can I emphatically agree, as someone who has been told that there’s a contradiction between me being a vegan and me not giving a damn if my food is full of msg, chemical flavourings, or delicious, delicious salt?
I sometimes think the contrast between prudishness and dudishness, in relation to sex, lines up with a contrast between individual and collective ownership of women. Prudes, in relation to sex, have ‘their’ women and want to restrict access, to stop anyone else having sex, even if that means keeping people locked inside in stifling clothes. Dudes, in relation to sex, feel like all women are ‘theirs’ and freely available to be harassed, groped, or leered at.
Also, while someone whose body is collectively owned by many people has more freedom, since none of them can exert as much individual control, they’re also more prone to violence – just as a third-world country has more freedom of action when there are multiple rival imperialists than when there’s just one, but is also more prone to being torn apart in a proxy war.
I talk about this in more detail here: http://directionlessbones.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/stages-of-patriarchy-analogies-of-feminism-and-marxism/
January 6, 2009 at 5:54 pm
Begrudgingly admits I’m glad to see you back…
And for the record, I don’t think you’re a prude. I think we have some very different ideas on sex, but nah, I don’t think you’re a prude…do whatever the way you like- that’s my theory.
There are a lot of interesting points in this post, but I still think an overriding problem in assuming there is some sort of univeral sense of what is “good sex for women”, and I guess from listening to and reading and talking to a lot of different women of all sorts that simply isn’t the case. I think the best thing that women could do for themselves is encourage one another to stand up and say what they like and want and what they don’t like and don’t want, even if from woman to woman that is vastly different. People having whatever kind of sex they like? I think that would be very cool.
January 6, 2009 at 7:14 pm
I’m never going to say this or that kind of sex is good or bad for women, but I would like to ask people where the desire for certain acts stems from. And, unfortunately, that often seems to lead to a pretty uncool place.
January 6, 2009 at 8:19 pm
ND: Well, sometimes people are pretty uncool, with uncool moments and urges and sides to them. We’re not all happiness and shiny light and stuff. Not a lot of people anyway. Humans often have a huge dose of “uncool” in them. And most folk I know who have some “uncool desires”, well, yes, they’ve looked and pondered and examined, yet still like what they like. At which point, it’s become a huge double edged sword sort of thing…you can do what other people think you should do and possibly be miserable, or do your thing (with other consenting adults) and realize other folk won’t like it, but enjoy yourself. Shrug. Not in the business of telling other folk what to do with their bodies, and no, you aren’t either (I utterly get that), but there is a point where one has to say “i’ve examined, and I still am gonna do act X”… and nah, it may not be feminist in the least, but I think people should do what makes them happy in the sex department (with other consenting adults, of course).
January 6, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Ren – I don’t disagree at all. I think that’s an apt description of how thoughtful adults deal with the results of patriarchal sexual conditioning. I think my aim is more at those who might not be so thoughtful, and at those who might be confused about what some of the choices they’re presented with mean. You know, I’m sure, that I’m all about recruiting radfems to take over the world.
January 6, 2009 at 10:13 pm
The “sex pos” stance always struck me as turning women into lap cats of the patriarchy.
Excellent post!
January 6, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Bah, you just got back from vacation, it will take you at least another week to plot the ultimate plan for world domination.
January 7, 2009 at 12:00 am
The porn industry relies on Victorian attitudes about sex. The kick of porn is the shock of it so as people become more and more desensitized, they require more shocking porn. And we all know who gets to be the sexy-fun victim of progressively more violent, vicious and degrading porn, now don’t we? Hint: Whoever is playing the woman in that particular video/ film (though not always an actual woman).
Anyway, in this sense porn itself is prudish. If we had a healthier attitude about sexuality, the porn industry would be in very bad shape.
On that happy note: Happy New Year, Nine! Hope your cold or flu–or whatever it was– is long gone and things are looking up for 2009!
January 7, 2009 at 1:50 am
The real dichotomy is between sexual repression and sexual liberation, i think.
Whether one is participating in porn or religiosity, both are sexually-repressed; in fact I’d go so far as to venture that much of the fear-based distortion of sex that manifest in porn are a result of various religious and social repression constructs in the first place. They aren’t opposite ends of the scale, but just different sides of a repression coin. And they both sit on the opposite end of the relevant continuum scale.
To extrapolate a bit further, I think that in that continuum of repression to liberation is equatable with an immature to mature scale too. Both porn consumption and denial of sexuality are indicative of a sexually-arrested development.
We are i think, as a species, still very much in a burgeoning and juvenile state. Emotional, psychological and sexual maturity is scarce.
January 7, 2009 at 2:09 am
You wrote: “I don’t think anyone ought to be ashamed of those desires or their sources, but should rather just be aware of them and consider what they mean.”
This is how I feel as a working escort and pro domme and I try to convey this on my blog. I am not terribly ashamed of being a prostitute because it’s a SEX job, but I’m not exactly proud of it either, and that’s because I am aware of the shitty social conditions that make prostitution possible, which include the sexist values that men place on women. Unfortunately to some of my readers, pointing out such things means that I must have “issues” with my sexuality.
January 7, 2009 at 2:10 am
I’m so glad you’re back!
RenEv: I think that the argument that “some women CHOOSE this” is ultimately a red herring. It’s like the nature-nurture arguments; we can’t prove it one way or another. What we do know is that women are often pushed into this type of role, whether they want it or not, and that enforcement of this as a single model of sexuality and what everyone “should be like” is stupid. I know I was profoundly unhappy, having drunk the good pornified koolaid, as a teenager– and it took me finding the radfem community to realize that I’m NOT alone and I CAN have sex how I want.
I agree. I think people having sex however they truly want is a goddamn amazing thing, and I’m so glad I’ve managed to find a way to have it the way I want it, with people who love and appreciate me for who I am and not for what my sexuality resembles (or doesn’t). I just would really like models of silly, open, honest, tender, gross, awkward, and ultimately exceedingly intimate sex to be out there, and accepted as awesome, so girls don’t grow up thinking you can only have sex in a way that doesn’t necessarily fit them and conflating ’sexual’ with ’sexy’.
For the record, I didn’t even come from a conservative background– I’m from a very liberal family and I went to a fairly liberal school. But somehow the dudified culture at my school had me buying garter belts at age 16 in the hope that someone would find me sexy so that I could finally be worth something.
Anyhow, back to the post.
9-2: I LOVE THIS POST AND THANK YOU.
I get really confused looks when I tell people that I’m very sexually liberal (with graphic examples, that I won’t repeat here) after saying that I extremely dislike pornography and would not date someone who used pornography. I mean, like, masturbation can happen without pornography? And sex doesn’t need to involve power? And sometimes who’s on top is just… uh… who’s on top, not who has control? Gee, who’da thunk?
I just love the conflation of sexual liberation with being more open about classic sex roles. You’re just playing up the “whore” in the virgin/whore dichotomy, not forging any new ideas.
January 7, 2009 at 3:27 am
I don’t know, Nine Deuce–Morrissey’s always seemed to have a pretty high opinion of himself to me. I think the pathos in his music comes less from hating himself and more from feeling cast out and unappreciated by the crude, thoughtless world we live in–i.e. from the failure of the rest of the world to see how great he is.
January 7, 2009 at 4:35 am
Porn hurts men as well, or at least it does in my opinion. Porn is taking over our preconceptions of sex and relationships, and ultimately destroying both. And let’s face it, this is bad for both genders, cause if we men learn to be aggressors, and to treat women as objects then they’ll never be able to have healthy respectful relationships, and that blows, for everyone.
January 7, 2009 at 8:58 am
Well, avoiding accusations of “slut shaming” is always going to be awkward. I mean, you mention that there are various aspects of porn that you find degrading and wrong (personally I find descriptions involving things like “till they cry” or “punished” to be more disturbing) and that there are people influenced by this and choose to do it in their own lives. It’s not terribly surprising then if people interpret that to mean that those that do are doing something you think is wrong, and that they are therefore wrong to do it. But I think it’d be best to wait and see what you sat in part 10.
Oh…as for pornography becoming ever more extreme to satisfy a jaded audience, as many have said, should we then welcome the increase of various unusual fetishes? Furries, for example, are very strange, but not neccesarily degrading (at least mainstream furries). As an aside, one can hope that the advent of furries will get rid of (or at least take some of the sting out of) those stupid animal related insults like bitch and cougar and so on.
January 7, 2009 at 11:17 am
A-fucking-men. The weirdest and scariest thing about Radical Feminism is that I have to face up the the fact that I have no idea what the hell I would be into in the kink and sex departments if it wasn’t for all the bogus social programming I was subjected to in the past and present—and probably the future. I mean, our entire definition of sex revolves around the theory that it’s dirty and that a woman’s worth is encompassed by her simultaneous chastity and ability to produce boners. What the fuck would sex look like after a revolution? I mean, would splattering body fluids all over someone be a fun and titillating activity if it didn’t mean anything bad?
I’ve come to realize that humans are like the stupidest things ever when it comes to boning—because of our culture. There’s so many conflicting messages that our brains just turn to mush. Then we conflate arousal with morality (it turns me on, therefore it is good… no, it’s bad… but bad is good… oh fuck it, let’s fuck) and turn probably the most uncomplicated human activity ever into this whole cultural charade of stupidity. If omniscient aliens ever visited this planet and didn’t immediately think that we were dumb as rocks; as soon as they saw how we fuck they’d vaporise the planet and do us all a favor.
Sex, because of all this bogus crap, is just either an exercise in letting the social programming take over, or a mental triathlon in which you’re trying to do one thing while the brainwashed bits of your brain tell you to ask him to call you a slut and spank you harder. It’s exhausting. We’ve literally all failed as a species because we’ve let the one thing that ensures the success of the species become an exercise in violence, bullshit and scripts. The station that tells you what color of sweater is in this season has just as much as a say in your sex life as you do.
We suck, don’t we?
January 7, 2009 at 2:16 pm
“The weirdest and scariest thing about Radical Feminism is that I have to face up the the fact that I have no idea what the hell I would be into in the kink and sex departments if it wasn’t for all the bogus social programming I was subjected to in the past and present—and probably the future. ”
Well, is that not true of everything?
We believe that women are equal to men, not because they are, but because we have been brought up to believe such. If we lived 500 years ago, we would believe that women are inferior to men, not because they are, but because we would be brought up to believe such. And if that thought is disturbing, it would be equally so from the point of view from the hypothetical you of 500 years ago.
Regarding subjective things like culture, the right way for things to be is simply the way I desire them to be. Any other viewpoints are wrong simply because they differ from mine. You, of course, will differ, claiming that the right way for things to be is the way you desire them to be. But you are wrong, of course, because I say so. And I say so, in part, because of the world I have grown up in.
January 8, 2009 at 1:11 am
Nine Deuce, I really want to thank you for what you’re doing here. I’m someone who simply can’t get off without BDSM, which is a real strain for me since I happen to be a feminist. Other BDSM’ers all seem to be going around insisting that since it gets them off, there can’t possibly be anything negative about it, and it’s offensive to even suggest that we explore if it’s problematic.
This has caused me an awful lot of inner struggle and pain and I’m pretty desperate to find others out there who are willing to deconstruct it, especially to acknowledge that it’s highly unlikely we’d have such fetishes in an equal society.
January 8, 2009 at 1:53 am
“I don’t think anyone ought to be ashamed of those desires or their sources, but should rather just be aware of them and consider what they mean.”
Such a simple request, and yet, so likely to make people’s heads explode.
January 8, 2009 at 3:42 am
@ Jenn: Yes, yes we are. May the nuclear rain wash away all traces of our existence before we’ve scarred the aforementioned aliens’ brains for life.
I confess to having a bit of a thing for quite a few of the less savoury activities listed in these blogs (which may have been why I’ve railed so, erm, zealously against them…). My way of correcting this, in addition to appeasing my general queasiness towards sexuality in general, has been to keep it all hidden in a padlocked cellar in my brain. I fear it may end in madness, but for now no-one else is getting hurt…
January 8, 2009 at 2:47 pm
If omniscient aliens ever visited this planet and didn’t immediately think that we were dumb as rocks; as soon as they saw how we fuck they’d vaporise the planet and do us all a favor.
Love this comment. :-)
January 8, 2009 at 3:44 pm
“If omniscient aliens ever visited this planet…”
See, I’ve always suspected they’d think “Jesus Christ, how did chickens become so successful? And what the hell kind of society do they have, where they breed in such vast numbers, live so close together, and then die so soon. Is it some sort of bizarre religion of sacrifice?
And why do these funny primates expend so much energy helping the chickens to multiply?”
January 10, 2009 at 6:56 am
“I agree. I think people having sex however they truly want is a goddamn amazing thing, and I’m so glad I’ve managed to find a way to have it the way I want it, with people who love and appreciate me for who I am and not for what my sexuality resembles (or doesn’t). I just would really like models of silly, open, honest, tender, gross, awkward, and ultimately exceedingly intimate sex to be out there, and accepted as awesome, so girls don’t grow up thinking you can only have sex in a way that doesn’t necessarily fit them and conflating ’sexual’ with ’sexy’. ”
I could not agree more, actually. For real, I could not agree more…which is why I am all about women talking about what they like and don’t like and am all for women encouraging other women to do the same thing. But, I do think a lot of us like very different things, and while examing the why of that is fine, the judging needs to be left on the side of the road.
Itxaro: Um, where did I mention choice? Are some women pushed into the pornified role and hate it? Yep. Do some other women find it a natural fit? Yep. What I want is for women to say what they want and help other women do the same. I want women to explore, to make their own opinions, to enjoy having sex and doing things they enjoy…that is what I am for, and the choice I would like to see women make.
January 10, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Nine Deuce, I love your Porn Series; It’s very well written and inspires much food for thought.
My only beef with your series is that you seem to be spending too much time placating the misogynist Pro-Sex feminists. It seems that every time you expose another heinous aspect of porn, you add a disclaimer somewhat apologizing to Pro-Sex feminists if they are offended and assuring them that it is okay to think as they do.
You should just accept that whatever you write, there will be some twit on the uber-right of the porn sphere who will be offended and nitpick your words. People who dissect the definition of every word you use need to learn to vocalize their arguments using logic.
January 13, 2009 at 9:53 pm
I’m more than happy to concede that you’re not a prude if you don’t want a guy to do something with you that you find demeaning. No one should ever engage in any sexual activity if they’re not into it, and if they feel like either they or their partner(s) are disrespecting them(selves) by engaging in a certain activity. All the same, I think that if you say that if I engage in a certain sexual activity, I’m promoting an unequal and damaging power dialectic, what you are doing is not very different from those who mistakenly call you a prude. It attempts to conflate action with motive. You differ from prudes in your reasons from abstaining from certain kinds of sex, and you want people to understand that your reasons are different. The same goes for me and another girl who might engage in certain sexual acts — while she might do it because she wants to be appealing to other men and engage in THEIR fantasy, I’m doing it because I get off on it. Our actions might be the same, but the reasons are not, and therefore, the power dynamic is not the same either.
Beyond that, I feel your argument ignores that power play is a part of sexual fantasy, regardless of gender or gender dynamics. If two women engage in an act that, had a heterosexual couple engaged in the same thing you would have argued it was “anti-woman,” is it still anti-woman? Does it mean that these women are still complicit in an unequal and damaging power dialectic? Or is this kind of power play simply part of human desire? These are questions we can’t really answer because we have never lived in a world without porn or patriarchy. In my opinion, though, to attribute ALL to porn and none to nature is to play in a child’s paddling pool of oversimplification. To condemn a specific sexual act as across the board “dehumanizing” or “anti-woman” is to pretend that pornography is the root of all fantasy. It is not.
There is much to criticize in the porn industry — particularly the manipulation and exploitation of young, poor, and uneducated women who have been made to feel there is nothing to be valued or desired in themselves except for their bodies. However, I think your argument about porn oversimplifies both the cause and the effect of porn. While I’m also sick of having the conversation of whether it’s okay to let someone cum on my face, this is the only conversation you are going to get as long as you refuse to converse with women who engage in those kinds of sexual activities in a way that respects and appreciates their desires and sexual agency. Despite the fact that you say you aren’t telling women they shouldn’t engage in certain activities, you are telling them that by engaging in certain activities they are engaging in that which is offensive, insulting and demeaning to their bodies and their persons, which is a judgment — and nobody wants to engage in a conversation with someone who is judging them. Maybe you’re not thinking “slut,” but you are thinking, “little idiot who is allowing herself to be used by men,” and to be honest, I’d rather be a slut. At least a slut is treated as an agent of her own sexuality, not as a perpetual victim.
January 14, 2009 at 7:06 pm
With regards to what Katie has said, feminism to me is neither about blaming individuals for their particular sexual desires or denouncing them as stupid or ignorant, but about asking us to question where they might come from and whether or not they are truly fulfilling for us (and for those we may act them out with) both physically and mentally. Noone can say with 100% certainty that if it wasn’t for porn noone would ever want to engage in a certain act but what can’t be denied is that it does influence how we think and behave sexually – which is very much a negative thing in my view because the fact is that porn as it exists now is highly misogynistic and male dominant and has got nothing to do with the feelings and physical and emotional needs of real women.
February 5, 2009 at 7:28 am
Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I used to be friends with a rather large crowd of sex-positive folks. I really liked the beliefs that they espoused about the individual’s freedom to choose what worked for them in their sex lives. And then I found out that the freedom only applied to having sex, not abstaining.
I chose to be celibate for a period of time. I made the decision because I was unhappy with the decisions I was making at the time and wanted to take some time to figure out what *I* wanted from the whole deal. I don’t feel I should have to explain anything beyond “I don’t want to”, but I still feel a fair amount of pressure to explain that I’m not a prude.
I didn’t make a huge announcement with fanfare or anything, but when the situation arose I would explain that I wasn’t going there for a while. Oops! Between being being shamed for being sex-negative and repressed, having people blatantly disregard my requests *not* to be fondled and having one person try to trick, manipulate and/or coerce me into sex, because it would be “good for me”, I ended up having to leave that social group.
They have a very open, non-judgemental attitude about sex– as long as you’re having it.