Oh yes, please tell us more about this “Teh Sex” you speak of, oh wise asexuals!
118 Comments Published by R. Mildred June 17th, 2006 in Blogitics, Cock!, Rape, Sex, Shame on you for being a womanDo you know what Twisty? Bite Me.
I dunno, maybe it’s just something odd about me, but lesbians and what appears to be asexual victims of patriarchal abuse telling me how to have hetereosexual sex just chaffs my wedge somewhat, you know?
I know I know, I was as shocked as anyone else to find out that lesbians find fellatio and penises disgusting, and while some idiot who never got over am incident of abusive sex they experienced once and has decided that, due to the wonderful combination of being frightfully dull and being too shit scared to risk being hurt again, that all sex with guys is Teh Icky and anyone who has sex with guys is trying to cozy up to the patriarchy etc…etc… *yawn*, those of us with two brain cells to rub together and an ability to actually connect in a sexually intimate way with other human beings of a male persuasion tend to be able to find ways to invite men into our beds without turning it into a threesome with the patriarchy.
But god forbid we should throw away the rape culture’s bullshit power games and heirarchies! Oh no we have to recreate them to suite our goals, so that the self appointed “high ranking” feminists (dipshit lesbians and their false conciousness prone bi/het acolytes) can dump on those “below” them for not raping men hard enough or something (because if the guy involved is enjoy it, then obviously it’s patriarchal), no doubt with “ex-straight” camps to help free us from the “false conciousness” that is making us abuse ourselves, because of teh “retching” and teh “gagging”, (Because Porn is Real, it’s like a documentary and shit) and OMGWTFBBQ!!!!11!!ELEVEN!! What about the pleasuring of men, how patriarchal is THAT!?
Of course I hope no one is surprised that, wonders of wonders, this sort of stupid ass outlook works to further stop heterosexual women from having sex, “oh you can’t do it like that!” “Oh no, that’s patriarchal!” Explain to me again why both this bullshit anti-sex “feminism” of yours and The Patriarchy you talk about despising so much, both involve me, a woman, becoming abstinent? Why is everyone afraid of the horrors I may commit with my vagina or mouth if just left alone to challenge the patriarchy one cock at a time?
Being Anti-Sex is being Pro-Patriarchy you fools! Patriarchy wants to control our sexuality and make us beileve that all sex is about dominance, and you’ve bought it you nincompoops! I hate the rape culture because of crap like this, where pleasure is subject interminably to who’s in control and who’s ontop of whom.
We all know that in a patriarchy, (and by ‘patriarchy’ I mean a social order in which all women are subject, by universal agreement, to all men), on accounta the power differential, all relationships with men are inherently inequitable.
Now I forget the precise term for this sort of logical fallacy (Quick, turn on the Beyerstein signal, we need a philosopher, stat!), when someone posits that because A is equal to B, and C is equal to B, all C must therefore be equal to A, but it’s bullshit, all relationships with men are inherently inequitable, yes, unless you choose to make it otherwise by stepping outside the constraints of patriarchal scripts and behavior. The patriarchy is like a vampire, it can only come into your bed if you first invite it in. But what do I know about heterosexuality huh?
And yes yes, I know that the heteronormative society does shove heterosexual sex down homosexuals’ throats (pun no intended), but not to the point where you know what you’re talking about vis a vis blowjobs unless you’ve actually taken a shit load of time out to study heterosexual sexual activities down to their minutest detail.
Which start to make you look a teensy bit like those homobigots who obsess about homosexuals to the point of dressing up in leather and going to special bars for men who like other men dressed up in leather. If a lesbian knew what they hell were talking about on this subject, then they’re probably not really lesbians.
So what you have here is a lesbian who has gotten all her information about fellatio from the patriarchy itself, including her asshole boyfriend of once-upon-a-time and who therefore has a strangely conspicuous lack of comprehension regarding how subversive fellatio can be to both social heteronormitivity and the patriarchy itself if one puts some thought into the act and does it correctly.
And when I say “subversive”, I speak not of teeth, or being able to make most of the muscles (it’s erectile tissue, like nipples, not a muscle) in a guy go completely limp with just your tongue, no.
Look to the Heavens, Oh Yeh Of Little Faith, for anything that should, always, requires you sticking a digit or thumb up the guys butthole and stimulating his prostate for it be maximally pleasurable for the guy, is not supportive of the patriarchy. Unless Twisty knows of another prothesis-less act in which women penetrate men rather than are penetrated by men. No? Well please, kindly, STFU.
The middle finger is the fellatio finger, never forget that, and we sex-positive, feminist, heterosexuals display it to show that we know it’s proper use: To challenge all oppressive sex obsessed social systems that stand between us and liberation.
(ETA: clarified a shit load of stuff, and fix a few typos)
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Umm, lol? I share your sentiment, if not your hyperbole.
You’re really exaggerating and Twisty does it much better.
I’ve been reading Twisty about six months now and think about half of us are heterosexual. Several are straight guys. Interesting ones too!
But if you’re determined that what she’s doing is telling you what to do…if we could spend a couple thousand years telling gays how to have sex and slaughtering them when they didn’t pay attention, the least we could do is allow some pay back listening. Doncha think?
Hey, I’ve never told homosexuals how to have sex. Wouldn’t presume to.
But you can pry blowjobs from my slightly smelly cold dead fingers!
(I do still love Twisty and IBTP, and I don’t think anyone is going to stop reading IBTP because of this scuffle, or possibly kerfuffle.)
No, Pony, I don’t think. What is this, a junior-high grudge match? Why not invite some of A.Q. Khan’s customers to finish the job, while we’re at? You know, payback for Crusades and support of Zionism?
Drivel is drivel is drivel.
Um yeah. There are heterosexuals and bisexuals who also agree with Twisty.
Twisty has, ostensibly, had heterosexual sex. she wrote about an ex boyfriend in a post about Oprah. May 9, 2006 IIRC. Something about how he was having an abusive rage, throwing books against her apt window while Oprah was on the telly explaining to women that they should leave the abusive fucker. Angels came down from the heavens and dinged T on the crown and she saw the light.
I suppose you could say that, being a lesbian still means you don’t get it and never could.
But, I don’t think this has to do with sexual orientation and everything to do with radfem theory: hets and lesbians alike agree with twisty on her argument. MacKinnon, for instance, is clearly straight. But she’ll still tell you that all sex, including lesbian sex, takes place under conditions of patriarchy and thus it is tainted. Yes, even lesbian sex, particularly if you engage in anything that seems to be reproducing het sex: butch/femme, etc.
I learned that the fun way, as a young bisexual in small college town where I was a townie. Townie lesbians had no problem with butch/femme. but the college lesbians? they just thought we were cracked and it was all about androgyny, no penetration, no sex toys, and NO butch/femme. and to be bisexual. well, i was confused and needed to see the error of my ways.
i had honestly thought we’d made progress when, in the 90s, i went back to college and everyone seemed to agree that it was a big mistake. alas, it hasn’t gone away and it remains all of a piece: all sex takes place under patriarchal conditions, even lesbian sex.
Hi!
But c’mon. All sex does not take place under patriarchal condtions and that is NOT what Twisty was saying. But it sure as hell takes a lot of work to pare it down to its essence.
Read Puffin. She nails it. Shows you how to separate it. Extrapolates on Twisty’s riff. I do love some of these young rad fems. So smart so smart. Just leave an old warrior like me in the dust.
I am personally opposed to receiving a blowjob without the promise of being able to perform cunniingus.
I’m disappointed that this whole discussion isn’t being framed around oral sex, in general. Or maybe I just think that because I haven’t followed all the links.
Bitch, I don’t think it’s going to go away any time soon because there’s a large scale tendency of people to “overcorrect”. Basically, there’s no doubt that the dominant discourse in America about sex is that it’s about domination of women. But to my mind, it’s actually a lot easier to “opt out” than try to dramatically rebel, which creates some very unpleasant side effects, as noted.
“suite our goals”
I’m glad you left this typo in, Kyso. But you may want to change it to the first word to its dandy homonym.
I’m proud to be a porn liberal.
I thought there was a ruckus, but then R. Mildred BROUGHT the *#*@& Ruckus.
First of all a nitpick
‘A is equal to B, and C is equal to B, all C must therefore be equal to A’
is called the transitive property of equaliy, and it is a law of methematics not a logcial falacy.
-The following property: If a = b and b = c, then a = c. One of the equivalence properties of equality.
perhaps you meant ‘implies’ not ‘equals’.
The thing is this
1 power differential support the patriarchy
2 all blowjobs have inheret power differentials
3 therefor all bjs support the patriarchy
is what you are arguing against. to do this you need only say that 2 is a false premise. Many many many blowjobs have inherent power differentials cuase guys are being asses and women dont really want to do them, but not ALL. So while many bj’s support the patriarchy, not all of them do. I think the value in Twisty’s post is just ‘before you give a bj, make sure 2 isn’t true’ sometimes 2 is isn’t true but onsecond glance it really is.
I’m disappointed that this whole discussion isn’t being framed around oral sex, in general.
Cuntlicking isn’t acknowledged by the patriarchy, so it doesn’t make you a patriarchy cheerleader. If anything, it makes you a hero, like doing the dishes.
Great rant!
It’s impossible to separate anything sexual, intercourse or oral or anal or whatever, from at the very least a vaguely-patriarchal framing, simply because in almost all of nature sex is male-dominated. We are more complicated beings, obviously. But sexual activity between humans takes place in patriarchal ways because the sex itself is a reversal of the process of courting, in which the female has complete control. Since her ability to procreate is limited by the number of eggs she produces, whereas males have an almost endless supply of seed, she must choose a mate. She dominates the dating. Therefore men dominate the sex. And the mental domination stems from a literal, physical domination (insofar as how the male mounts the female, human or otherwise). I am all for sexual equality but biologically speaking, it is fundamentally impossible.
That was a little graphic at times. Sorry.
Ooh, an evo-psych lesson! How fun.
The graphicness was fine.
The trivially disprovable assertions and ludicrous logical errors were troublesome.
But more graphicness! We like teh graphicness.
Bra.
VA!
Fuck doing the dishes! That shit’s demeaning!
[This coming from the guy who's about to vacuum all the carpeted surface after cleaning the toilets.]
BTW, this whole thing makes a lot more sense after reading Carpener’s breakdown. Give ‘em hell, Mildred.
‘She dominates the dating. Therefore men dominate the sex.’
She dominates the dating=false premise. when will this bullshit cheap sperm expensive eggs die?
Therefore men dominate the sex.’= unsupported logic leap that don’t make no sense.
(insofar as how the male mounts the female, human or otherwise)= completely subjective interprestation unarrented by objective critique, also not all sex is doggie style or man on missionary but even if it ws see previous line.
My God, I am all for sex and eliminating all the bullshit from it but with people spouting patriarchy affirming statements like
‘I am all for sexual equality but biologically speaking, it is fundamentally impossible.’ is it any wonder that Twisty and the like ask uu to think twice about who we give head to?
Amanda
I would agree. Howeve there are probably blow jobs out there they are not “opting out”, though there are many that are.
Well said, R. Mildred.
So fine
Heart from womenspace on Twisty’s riff:
http://womensspace.wordpress.com/2006/06/15/feminist-hierarchies/
What Pony said on Twisty’s about baggage, that makes sense to me. I grew up molested, and when I first recognized those experiences had left their effect on my adult sexuality I was troubled and ashamed. Growing up raped is a perverse sexual development, but it happens and you’re left with it. I know Twisty isn’t about therapeutic support, I went to Lydia Lunch for that, in the 80s she was open about her childhood rapes and totally unapologetic about taking pleasure in her own subjugation as an adult woman. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and anyone who thinks it is makes for interesting reading. I agree, Twisty’s baggage is fascinating, but I don’t have to carry it.
Where I always get hung up is this: If everything is the Patriarchy, why bother fighting it? I mean, not having sex is the Patriarchy, having it is the Patriarchy, I Blame the Patriarchy is the Patriarchy, even matriarchies are the Patriarchy.
If we can’t even concieve of a world outside the Patriarchy, why even bother trying to fight it?
I really don’t understand how you can argue with biology. I’m not saying I’m a scientist myself, but there are simple facts about nature that you can’t ignore. Asking “when will this bullshit cheap sperm expensive eggs die?” is obselete because it will never end. At least, not until male-female sexual roles reverse, as in, males get periods and women don’t (although I’m sure many of you would be all for that
). Christopher makes a good point: considering solving the problem of “Patriarchy” only reaffirms its existence. The issue is that we are trying to tackle a simple problem from extremely complicated circumstances. Look at the most primitive tribes–males hunt, women cook. Now, supplant that to an urban culture and it obviously becomes incredibly intricate. But you can’t just suddenly do away with a complex social structure when it’s so deeply rooted in biological history.
Amanda,
rebelling takes work and no one’s giving much thought to that. instead, we’re advocating gazing at our navels and running around, as one woman said in comments, asking ourselves about patriarchy next time we’re waxing the carrot.
um. ok. but, as i said in a blog post recently, i’d no more bother with that than i’d bother to wax poetic about the lows to which i’ll go to suck my clients’ dicks.
because the lows to which I will go to suck client dick are not the problem.
why#2: it’s not be/c i have to accept the world around me, reluctantly, to say, “i have to make a living, so whateever” and likewise “i have to have a man, so whatever.”
instead, for me, the goal is to organize and attack the problem. i accept that radfems have their view as to what the problem is: pronography, rape, prostitution. Good. attack it. Go out and volunteer for these causes. Go out and build alternative isntitution and practices. go out and do something and for pity’s sake, stop attacking other women and do something constructive.
Why stop attacking other women? It’s not because debate is some that hurts my fee fees. Anyone’s who read my blog knows that isn’t the case.
it’s becasue there si legit disagreements about the problem. And this post, from Twisty, in fact her entire blog, is a rant against the reality of the existence of alternative explanations of women’s conditions.
the problem, for me, isn’t sex. i don’t agree with the rad feme theory that the root of women’s oppression is in the control of our sex. and, if it ever was, as i pointed out the other day in a post on judith butler, there is factual evidence of the existence of systems of oppression that start out for one set of reasons and are maintained for others.
but, because any other arguments are snidely written off as just another species of male identified patriarchy fucking, i can’t even get the decency of respect for my argument. it is written off from the get go with the assumption that rad feminist theory is not only the True Thoery, but that’s it’s endlessly abused as the outcast theory.
horseshit.
I’m currently reading Racially Speaking, the 1996 Big Read Tome that sets about, not to attack the patriarchy, but to endlessly attack every other feminist theory out there. And not just attack theory, but attack other women. It sets out to deny its racist and repeatedly engages in racism. It sets out to deny its biologically esesentialist, when their critics are arguing that they are culturally essentialist.
It really is hilarity on ice, when they demonstrate they don’t have fireing synapses when reading their critiques. But, it’s not hilarity on ice when, repeatedly, legimitate differences are written off and descirbed as women who are male identified, reallly men, etc.
It is, plain and simply, an endless attack on other women, endless misrepresentations of their criticisms. just as twisty’s second post was the claim that a bunc h of women had said that fellatio undermined patriachy therefore we can all go home.
no one ever said that.
thus, it is an ATTACK. it is misrepresnetation.
It is not just a joke. It is not just hyperbole. It is not because we are sensitive. it is not that we are protesting too much.
We disagree. For legit reason. We disagree and not because we are social dopes, tricked by patriarchy while all the Enlightened One are not.
It’s not just Twisty attacking other women. It’s Robin Morgan defining every other feminism as a form of male identification. it is Catherine MacKinnon telling black feminist that their critiques are attributable to their over determination by the patriarchy. it is Catherine MAckinnon telling lesbians that fighting for the gay rights movement before they fight for feminism is male identifitication.
When, over and over, rad fems attack other women, you have to start seeing it as part of their theory and explanation and not just an aberration or a mistake or a joke or hyperbole.
Uh, yeah. I can’t see straight under normal conditions ( i need glasses and no money). the book is _Radically Speaking_ which was the 1996 answer to radfems’ critics.
I try to avoid confrontation with you, Mildred, but that was a complete and total misreading of Twisty’s post. Nowhere did she tell anyone how to have sex. She merely opined. Like this:
I can’t stand reading >90% of everything you post, Mildred.
Did I tell you to stop posting? No. I merely expressed my opinion on your posts. There’s a difference. Learn it.
Well, there’s that, Dykonoclast, and there’s Twisty asking het women to take a public stance on sucking dick and setting it up in a way that will a) give antis free license to give the pros hell and b) asks that the pros respond to be humiliated and shamed. Perhaps it was a joke, perhaps it was meant to lighten up her seriously bad news, but Puffin, Pony, etc., took it to a new level: not patriarchy-blaming, but sister-blaming.
Nowhere did she tell anyone how to have sex.
No, but she did tell hetero women how to feel about their sex lives. Big surprise that people got defensive.
I guess my problem with all emcopassing philosophical generalizations, such as the ones Twisty, and Puffin made are that they are inherently dehumanizing. I mean I realize that politics are personal, if one completely seperates intent, such as through usage of a “false concienciousness” then one iherently discouts the value of the individual. Please note, that this is not to say that false conciousness does not exist but rather to caution that using it to analyze behavior on anything other than a case by case basis is fraught with error.
Not for one second did Twisty believe she wasn’t throwing a bomb, but clearly there were discussions to be had and opinions to be discussed.
As someone said, all sex is patriarchical, but so is essentially all culture on this planet. This being set aside, there is also some sort of reality of sex and clearly anything can be fetishized, and part of such fetishization are the biological and psychological (I would lean toward capital B and little p) underpinnings of sexual desire. On top of that, I would add the difficulty of the other versus the self. Guys with guy junk clearly could more easily imagine wanting someone to do something to it, meaning you have it yourself, you know what makes it tick, and it is already somewhat fetishized for you, because you probably get yourself off quite a bit on the side, regardless of sexual partner’s proclivities. I’m not saying you think about putting your mouth on it, but it is already an easily understandable sexual object. Yes, it happens to represent concentrated Patriarchy, but it also happens to simply exist as a penis. I really thought Twisty was being tongue in cheek, not about her actual thoughts on funky bratwursts, but on the statement itself- meaning if I declare your musical taste to be preposterous, which I most certainly do- kidding!- its kind of a joke in and of itself, i mean what could be more subjective?
There ARE issues, MASSIVE issues wrapped in the whole blowjob thingy, and it is clearly a platform for discussion, but a lot of people are making arguments based on personal experience, and what could be more subjective than that, given the low n=1 of most people’s lives on this earth. I think the discussion seemed kind of like penis therapy. And since the penis represents the Patriarchy (seriously) that is not a bad discussion, its just that how are you supposed to say to a bunch of people that their experiences aren’t enough to come to a conclusion about the topic a priori. And what I mean by that is that no conclusions can possible be reached in that forum as to the gross/non-grossness, patriarchy/non-patriarchy of a hummer.
Since I’m already in moderation, I’ll add that holy cow, I didn’t see the next post. Twisty, Twisty! I guess I just can’t answer that. If the dong cannot be removed from patriarchy EVER, nor can sex with a dude, then her point and I guess Mackinnon’s are legit, but if so, is it worth even arguing about it?
hah. how i missed the part in there about the fellatio finger, i don’t know. but thanks R Mildred for those of us who fuck men who take it up the ass good ‘n’ proper.
You know…asexual is a totally valid identity/place to be, too. And abuse happens: we all process it as best we can.
In general, I just think it’s best to own your shit.
“I find giving head icky and disgusting and degrading”:
fine.
“Let us discuss the ways in which the female-to-male blowjob might be seen as symbolic of patriarchal oppression”:
doable.
“Giving head is icky and disgusting and degrading, *categorically,* and *no woman* REALLY likes it, not REALLY (I’m Every Woman)–oh, you do? Congratulations, you are a tool of the Patriarchy! ™ which means whatever I say it means, except it’s not really me saying it, it’s some unnamed Authority”:
oh, piss off.
and, while I don’t know where Twisty’s coming from wrt her own erotic etiology, I do know that some radical feminists (Sheila Jeffreys, for one, whom I seem to recall Twisty has once called her ideological twin or something of that sort) are proponents of what’s been called “political lesbianism,” to wit:
“We do think,” …”that all feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,1517977,00.html
Which, you know, as someone who struggled with internalized shit over her own very queer but organic sexual desires, as do many of us, I found beyond ridiculous, and frankly infuriating. Who the hell are you, lady, to require compulsory *anything* of anyone else? And since when do you get to redefine lesbianism as *not* having anything to do with sex with other women? Oh, yeah: the notion that lesbians are simply women who don’t like men/sex with men, *because men are the only thing that matters,* *and women don’t have sexual desires of their very own.* Nope! No patriarchy there!
personally, I am political in part *because* I’m a lesbian and have thus become aware of institutionalized oppression from that angle. Not the other damn way around. I would never tell anyone else what they should or shouldn’t do in bed; and I’ll be damned if I’ll accept anyone ever telling me what *I* should or shouldn’t do in bed, should or shouldn’t *desire*, ever again. I’ve had QUITE enough of that, thanks. and no, I don’t care *what* your ideological rationale for your control freakery is: my body belongs to me, my desires belong to me; you’ve got your own. Deal with them.
>I try to avoid confrontation with you, Mildred, but that was a complete and total misreading of Twisty’s post. Nowhere did she tell anyone how to have sex. She merely opined. Like this:
I can’t stand reading >90% of everything you post, Mildred.>
Well, no, in fact, that’s not correct. What she said was, among other things, (as she’s done before, in other contexts)
*no woman likes…*
Big difference. One’s an opinion. The other’s a universalizing statement.
I can’t stand reading >90% of everything you post, Mildred.
Did I tell you to stop posting? No. I merely expressed my opinion on your posts. There’s a difference. Learn it.
Actually I cannot help wondering why you don’t like 90% of the stuff I post, it is inherently judgemental, the same goes for twisty and puffin’s posts, which amonuted to A) Giving blowjobs makes you a bad feminist and B) (this is the one that really fucks me off) I have never put as much thought into blow jobs or heterosexual intercourse as lesbians and people who have had really bad sexual expierence.
I love asexuals, homosexuals and I’ve been there for abuse victims, but seriously, do not tell me how to fuck, because you don’t know what you’re talking about for me.
The whole thing was so utterly manly in tone, pompous, arrogant and, the thing a feminist should never do to another feminist, they talked down to us heterosexual feminists like we were stupid and never actually think about how the patriarchy affects our lives.
And put on top of that the fact that every woman is currently having a wide variety of patriarchal elders decide whether or not any particular sexual activity is illegal (outlawing sodomy outlaws blwojobs remember, due to the fact that sodomy is a totally bullshit term from a misreading of the bible) and hovering over her ever sexual decision, if they don’t just fully legalize rape along with forcing women to be pregnant.
When I go to twisty’s, I expect the Patriarchy to be blamed, not supported.
>The whole thing was so utterly manly in tone, pompous, arrogant and, the thing a feminist should never do to another feminist, they talked down to us
THANK YOU
>And put on top of that the fact that every woman is currently having a wide variety of patriarchal elders decide whether or not any particular sexual activity is illegal (outlawing sodomy outlaws blwojobs remember, due to the fact that sodomy is a totally bullshit term from a misreading of the bible) and hovering over her ever sexual decision
oh, hello.
…um, did I miss something wrt the sodomy business, btw? i was under the impression that SCOTUS had overturned the last of ‘em, all of what was it now? three years ago? two? four?
of course, there are still laws against owning too many sex toys (or any) in some states; and god forbid you should consider using your bodymind *in that way* as a career; and hello yeah wrt reproduction…
tell me something. Why is “my body, my choice” only sacrosanct when it comes to reproductive rights?
>I grew up molested, and when I first recognized those experiences had left their effect on my adult sexuality I was troubled and ashamed. Growing up raped is a perverse sexual development, but it happens and you’re left with it. I know Twisty isn’t about therapeutic support, I went to Lydia Lunch for that, in the 80s she was open about her childhood rapes and totally unapologetic about taking pleasure in her own subjugation as an adult woman. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and anyone who thinks it is makes for interesting reading. I agree, Twisty’s baggage is fascinating, but I don’t have to carry it.
nice post, thank you, flawed plan.
yeah, and I get why a lot of abuse survivors would gravitate toward this sort of feminism, i really think I do. and why what’s apparently commonly understood as “sex-positive” would be offputting, especially now, in this weird time where on the one hand a certain small subset of Americans have gotten to the point where we can pretty much take being able to pop into our local woman-friendly toy store and get a Rabbit Pearl and a nice bottle of massage oil to go (download porn, hook up with a stranger without being censured, what have you); and on the other hand, the uber-patriarchal government appears to be bent on taking us back to the Gilded Age, if not the actual Victorians or original Calvinists–clamping down on reproductive rights, attempts to alter the Constitution so that god forbid same-gender couples won’t have the same rights as mixed-gender couples, the godawful “abstinence only” shite they’re cramming down the throats (ahem) of as many schoolchildren as they can get away with–yeah. Strange days indeed. And: rape, and violence, and abuse. They keep on happening. And happening and happening and happening; and where is the outrage of yesteryear? Who will be our champion?
I mean, I enjoy Tristan Taormino, for example, and I do consider her work real contributions to “sex positive” culture, and thus, to feminism. but I can understand why maybe if your experience of sexuality is all bound up with horrific abuse and misery and you’re still trying to process it all and hell maybe can’t even stand being *touched* right now…probably “The Ultimate Guide To Anal Sex For Women” isn’t exactly going to be what you need to hear about.
So I get it, as a way to address abuse. I get placing womens’ abuse at the hands of men–domestic, rape, familial, what have you–in a sociopolitical context, no doubt.
But I don’t think patriarchy-blaming the Twisty way (or the Dworkin way, or the Jeffries way, or the MacKinnon way, or…) is really all that helpful beyond a certain point, on the macro level; and it leaves a hell of a lot of people out. I mean, if “it’s all the fault of the patriarchy” helps put horrible experiences in a meaningful context and speeds toward the healing process, well…you know, I don’t want to get in the way of that. Annoying as I find it when this sort of blaming turns into (yes) attacks on me and mine for I guess not getting with the program, the One True Way.
But personally…besides everything else. How the hell much more criticism does any one woman *need,* really? about her body, her clothing, her *self.* How much more shaming and blaming and guilt?
Wouldn’t it be *maybe* more radical to consider just…acceptance, of yourself and of your sisters? and eventually, maybe, even your brothers?
Just putting it out there.
Re: Why attack other women.
That’s an interesting point, Bitch, but since you seem quite hip to all the various strains of feminist thought, I think the reason would be staring you in the face. Radicals believe fundamentally that people do not relinquish power voluntarily. It must be torn from them. Therefore attacking men is a waste of time, because they aren’t going to ever say, “Hey, you’re right. Let’s be equal.” So the only workable strategy is to work on fellow oppressees and get them, at least, not to be complicit in their oppression. When you have a worker rebellion, do you beg the bosses to see reason? Hell no, you have a strike and make the fuckers cave in.
Radicals believe women are the sex class. If you believe that, nothing short of a strike will get us better treatment.
I personally don’t see women as the sex class. I think women aren’t so much a “class” in the patriarchal model as a form of currency. Women have multiple functions in this system—womb-bearers, vagina-keepers, free childcare and household work, trophies to be displayed in front of other men, and objects that are traded to keep social networks amongst men functioning. (Anyone who is about to whine that women aren’t traded by men, I recommend that you go watch the movie Almost Famous, which has a pretty famous scene of blatant woman-selling in it. Also, pimping. Giving your daughter away at her wedding. You get the idea.) Striking isn’t an applicable analogy because the labor women do isn’t strictly for men, especially in the sex area. Women don’t fuck just to get favor with men. They have sex drives of their own. It screws up the “sex class” model.
That said, I don’t believe in breaking into camps on basis of fundamental disagreements like this. I think radfems have a lot to teach us not despite their weirdly patriarchal view of sex-as-labor, but because of it. It’s important to remember that in the dominant patriarchal discourse, women’s sex drives are ignored and denied, because the patriarchy has an interest in framing women’s sexuality as a task performed for men.
I think blow jobs are fun. I can strenously believe that all day and all night and it seems to have zero effect on the fact that in our culture as it exists, they are portrayed as a service done to men by women, period. My believing they are fun is putting me outside the dominant discourse and Twisty’s post made me realize that. I don’t agree with her, but her point made me rethink a lot of assumptions I had that I think might be wrong.
Amanda: Thanks, you clarified a lot for me. I enjoy your blog and comments. But interpret radfem theory some more for me: why is attacking men a waste of time? Wouldn’t that be the main action to tear power from them? And obviously, by attacking men, I mean their structures of power (in shorthand).
I continue to believe that attacking other women is a turn aside from attacking male power structures because it’s safer to attack other women, and incredibly dangerous to attack men. Why isn’t violence, largely specific to men and the Patriarchy, the main target of radfem analysis and attack?
Attacking women in pr0n and pr0sste2tion and blow job apologinistas seems well, rageful, infantile and boundryless (which I am, all the time). I’m reminded over and over again of Elaine Pagel’s book on the invention of Satan–I paraphrase: Satan is the sister who doesn’t agree with you.
yrs, B. Dagger Lee
Well, no, in fact, that’s not correct. What she said was,
*no woman likes…*
Well no, in fact, that is not correct. What she actually said was
I posit . . . . that no woman . . . . has ever actually enjoyed
How is that telling anyone what to do or how to feel?
And because this is all about me, that shit about political lesbians is absolutely terrifying. I don’t even want to know what Sheila Jeffreys would have to say about me [I identify as a dyke, but I'm just in it for the pussy. My more rewarding emotional relationships have historically been with men. It's a damned shame I find the male form so unappealing.]
As for Mildred’s complaint, if you don’t want to be talked down to, don’t read Twisty’s blog!
>I continue to believe that attacking other women is a turn aside from attacking male power structures because it’s safer to attack other women, and incredibly dangerous to attack men.
jeez, yeah. I’m shocked that the notion that “attacking men is a waste of time” might be someone’s actual position; that, that would never have occurred to me.
I think radfems have a lot to teach us not despite their weirdly patriarchal view of sex-as-labor, but because of it. It’s important to remember that in the dominant patriarchal discourse, women’s sex drives are ignored and denied, because the patriarchy has an interest in framing women’s sexuality as a task performed for men.>
Yeah, that makes sense. From a uh dialectic point of view, I suppose.
The thing about attacking (or, okay, harshly critiquing) potential allies as a way to bring them around to your way of thinking, though: seriously, does this ever work? Really?
> I posit . . . . that no woman . . . . has ever actually enjoyed>>
How is that telling anyone what to do or how to feel?>
The key part of that is not the “I posit” but the universalizing “no woman has ever actually enjoyed.” Which, as a statement–and Twisty has certainly made statements of this nature without the “I posit” beforehand–pretty much gives yourself the authorial voice; the speaker is now not just *a* woman, with whose experiences many women might be able to relate, but EVERY woman.
(”I’m every wo-man…it’s all in…meeeeeee”)
I suppose in and of itself one could read this one as “Is this speculation of mine true? Discuss”–which, fine. And it looks like that *is* how people were reading it.
the thing of it was, was, when women came back with “yes as a mater of fact I *do* enjoy it,” *that’s* when Twisty came back with (I think from the post she scribbled?)
>Some of you seized the opportunity to acquaint the group with your erotic autobiographies (don’t quit your day jobs!)>
…which, besides the sheer nastiness, suggests to me a certain disconnect.
“I posit that no woman has never actually enjoyed thus and so.”
“Well, I’m a woman, and I do enjoy thusandso.”
How do you respond to that? is my question.
“Oh, okay, I guess I was wrong; *some* women do enjoy thusandso. I still don’t. And I hear a lot of the rest of you don’t, too. Ew. Right? EW.”
But, no.
So, no; she did not *tell* women to feel or not feel anything, in so many words. And even if she had done…well, what’s she going to do? reach through the computer screen with a hypnotic device and FORCE people to feel thusway? Obviously not.
What she did do, essentially, is solicit womens’ feelings (perhaps with the hope/expectation that *everyone* would feel the same way she did? I can only speculate); and then, when the existence of feelings that did not match her own became apparent, she snapped back at the ones who didn’t feel the way she did, (and thus who contradicted her posit) in a rather nasty and humiliating way. And all through it, never stopped trying to control (yes) the terms in which the whole thing must needs be framed: butbutbut it IS Patriarchal. it IS. it IS.
well, says whom? and how do you prove it? How can you prove something like giving a blowjob is inherently degrading (in the Patriarchy, whatever; since we don’t have any alternate model, it may as well be saying “on Earth”) for a woman? Well, you can’t, except through personal experience.
But if everyone’s personal experience doesn’t fit the theory, then your choices are:
1) Revise the theory, even a little bit
2) Discount the people whose experiences don’t fit.
And Twisty, *I submit,* chose the latter option, and that’s why people are blowing up. Not just because it was nasty, or because “hey, she’s talking about *me!*”, which certainly factored. Because it was playing dirty pool, and people who’ve been engaging Twisty in good faith felt cheated.
I’m a scab, in thrall with the patriarchy.
“So the only workable strategy is to work on fellow oppressees and get them, at least, not to be complicit in their oppression.”
No wonder they’re frustrated. I wonder what part of “go straight to hell, girls” they don’t understand.
And Twisty, *I submit,* chose the latter option, and that’s why people are blowing up. Not just because it was nasty, or because “hey, she’s talking about *me!*”, which certainly factored. Because it was playing dirty pool, and people who’ve been engaging Twisty in good faith felt cheated.
Yep.
Hey, that’s cool. I’m a fraud, not a feminist, don’t care about Class Woman, and only am interested in making Teh Mens happy.
(no, that wasn’t Twisty or anything; some other little sparrowfart of a self-ID’d radical feminist)
Two things that are driving me nuts in this discussion:
1. I do not believe that radical feminists are radical. Radical means going to the root of the problem. If gender is not the root of all our social problems, then treating gender as the root of all our social problems is not a radical approach. The alliances with Christian conservatives in the 80s, the arguments for “political lesbianism,” the hostility towards transgendered people, and the sectarianism are not aberrations, but direct consequences of a political theory that rejects progressive approaches to the problem of sexism.
2. “Patriarchy” is the key word in the radical feminist lexicon. It refers to “patriarchy theory,” the idea that men as a class oppress women as a class, and all other forms of oppression are secondary. I’ve been seeing the word “patriarchy” used with increasing frequency on feminist blogs, to mean simply “sexism” or “women’s oppression,” by people who are not radical feminists, or occasionally “the elevation of ‘male’ values over ‘female’ values” — the last of which at least makes some sense. But in general, the usage of “patriarchy” by people who strongly object to “patriarchy theory” and who are not radical feminists is quite confusing.
Amanda: Thanks, you clarified a lot for me. I enjoy your blog and comments. But interpret radfem theory some more for me: why is attacking men a waste of time? Wouldn’t that be the main action to tear power from them? And obviously, by attacking men, I mean their structures of power (in shorthand).
This is my take on it, which again, I don’t agree with radicals. Attacking men=demanding that they are the ones to change. That won’t work. They’ll say, “Fuck that I like the way things are.” Only women have the incentive to change the power structure in this viewpoint.
I disagree with this, for what it’s worth. I think men can be enticed to join up the cause both because it’s the right thing to do and because it’s in their own self-interest.
As for Mildred’s complaint, if you don’t want to be talked down to, don’t read Twisty’s blog!
It’s a great blog, and twisty is a great writer, and eveyrone should read twisty now and again because it’s worth it, and because twisty’s Gray Area post is one of those firmly written posts that makes you want ot vomit copiously at the sickness of humanity.
‘I’m not saying I’m a scientist myself, but there are simple facts about nature that you can’t ignore.’
No seriously this is pop biology not real biology. Early experiments reaching this conclusion,ones about fruitflies, had systematic errors. A single sperm is easy to make, but it takes several rounds of entire good quality ejaculate to equal one egg ion terms of ensuring max probability of impregnation. Therefore one can’t say if sperm is cheap or eggs expensive, both require a complicated anergy imvestment with is differen for all animals. Reproductive stratgeies like male choice and female feamle competition and ployandry were not even THOUGHT of before, but now that people think they can exist they find them quite a bit. Old biology was unfortunatley intimately bound up in Victorian social ideals like eugenics and traditional sex roles. This was not disinterested science. it was systematicaly stacked. What you read in Time about biology is the same level of drivel as ‘the opt out revolution’ is an to actual economic occourence.
I’m rather fond of “Biological Exuberance,” myself.
http://www.salon.com/it/feature/1999/03/cov_15featurea.html
>
…Some homosexual animals have one-night stands and some have long marriages. Gay and lesbian geese stay together year after year. Bottlenose dolphins don’t form male-female couples, but males often form lifelong pairs with other males. Some are interested only in males, but others are bisexual and happily indulge in beak-genital propulsion and more with male or female alike.
Male black swans court and form stable pairs. With two males, they are able to defend huge territories from other swan couples, which sounds like a double-income-no-kids situation except that they often manage to wangle some eggs from somewhere — all right, they steal them — and become model parents, twice as successful as straight parents.
…Bagemihl formulates the charmingly named theory of biological exuberance, of which homosexuality is one manifestation. He wants to unlink biological analysis from the idea that reproduction — and hence, heterosexuality — is all. Biology must accept the apparent purposelessness of sexualities, he argues. Sexual pleasure is “inherently valuable” and “requires no further ‘justification.’”
In support of this view, Bagemihl cites celibate animals, animals that exhibit shocking indifference to reproduction and species where sex is rare and difficult. He all but proves reproductive sex doesn’t happen.
But of course reproduction does take place and must take place for natural selection to occur. (If creatures lived forever, they wouldn’t need to reproduce, nor would they evolve.) The riddle is how a process driven by reproduction produces nonreproductive creatures, but it’s not a very hard riddle, and indeed abundance, flexibility and exuberance are part of it.
Evolution is history. The forces of evolution operating in the past may have produced a creature that is fast, fierce or able to do calculus, but those forces don’t direct a creature once it is born. Penguins who mated with other penguins of the opposite sex are the ones who left descendants, and every penguin is descended from penguins who committed at least one heterosexual act, but that doesn’t mean this penguin, here and now, will commit only heterosexual acts. The capacity for pleasure that encouraged its ancestors to reproduce is available wherever the penguin chooses to direct it.
Successful life forms are characterized by diversity, so changing environments don’t wipe them out. That diversity often extends to sexuality. Thus bisexuality and homosexuality are characteristics not of twisted nature, but of generous nature.”
Foolish Owl wrote:
I figger: in the context of the leftist politics of the day, they appropriated the word and said, “it’s ours, fuck y’all.”
And, if you are fair to them, they have an argument as to why they are radical.
1. the root of women’s oppression as a class by men who operate as a class is that men dominate and control women through their sex: sexual and reproductive sex.
2. The lynchpin of that control is prostitution, pornography, and rape.
3. Getting to the root is getting at those three things. Once you undo those, you will undo the Gordian Knot that is all other forms of oppression.
Here, the base is pornstitution/rape and the superstructure is race, class, and things like women’s systematic occupational segregation. In fact, from that base we can explain things like greed, humliation, caste, bigotry, sadism, deception, manipulation, etc.
I can see that radical feminists like Echols and others have astake in the name. They have an argument as to why it no longer means what they believed it meant. They feel their early formulations were materialist and the current ones are not.
But others? Like me? A socialist feminist? I dunno. I don’t think I want to run around insisting they need to change their name. Plus, it just feels like calling them hypocrites. I don’t think that’s an approach we should take. [1]
Oh, this rather did tie my bloomers once.
i can see it being picked up b/c it’s easier to type perhaps?
it’s possible, but very unlikely that they are socialist feminists like Heidi Hartman that tried to theorize capitalism patriarchy as two sep. systems that couldn’t be reduced to the other. But Hartman and others were unable to demonstrate how patriarchy operated in the fashion that capitalism does: e.g.,, Marxism accounts for the demise of capitalism as the result of events internal to the logic of capitalism itself.
No one was able to find a similar logic to patriarchy without reverting to claims of biological determination for men. So, they largely abandoned such theorizing and went in two directions, leaving behind the concept of patriarchy.
That’s because Gayle Rubin came up with an alternative, the sex/gender system and thus people started speaking of various systems of oppression, among which were racial, class, gender, ability oppression.
Again, if you read Radically Speaking they cannot stand the use of the word gender. They argue that feminists who do so are only doing it because they don’t want to make men unhappy.
Yes, Gayle Rubin the lesbian is a male ID’d patriarchy fucker. Alrighty.
IOW, we don’t have a theoretical disagreement, we are male ID’d patriarchy fuckers.
And, of course, this is a dishonest charge that poisons the wells of discourse and makes it impossible to have a discussion.
The radfem approach to political practice is that it much start _first_ with changing women’s consciousness. It becomes imperative, on this view, to smack down every instance of what looks like resistance to recognizing the operations of patriarchy in every manifestation of our lives.
Political practice begins with an internal inventory of your own personal life to find where patriarchy lives.
You are familiar with Marxist theory, yes? Well, whereas class consciousness emerges from two process: the internal contradiction of captalism itself and then on the basis of political practice, in radfem theory, women’s consciousness as a class begins with this important task: rooting out the man that lives in your head.
You see? It’s only natural that radfems believe that part of blaming the patriarchy is blaming one’s self and anyone who appears to be a useless idiot or tool of patriarchy.
—-
[1] I just finished a crack at Alice Echols works, Daring to Be Bad She’s an early radfem and she thinks the movement went wrong with Morgan, Dworkin, Mackinnon, and others. She traces the split to Joreen and Solanis (I have an autobiographical account from Joreen up at my blog. It’s quite fascinating.)
Echols thinks they should be called cultural feminists be/c of the degree to which they emphasized that women’s shared oppression forms a special women’s culture which they believed should be valorized over male culture.
Amanda, you wrote:
The reason is that it’s important to start from the consciousness _of_ women. Honest. This is the crucial aspect of radfem theory. It’s not that men won’t listen, but that, at the time, consciousness raising was crucial because women didn’t even know how to name the problem. When they couldn’t have orgasms, their doctors told them to take a pill or learn to live with or find the source in their childhood.
When they got together in CR groups, they started jabbering to realize: Oh my! We have orgasms by stimulating our clitoris and this vaginal orgasm is a myth. Those meetings sent one woman off to write a paper on it.
The CR group was designed to say, “What so called personal problems are you having and how can we understand them as _political_ because, say, of the way men have controlled knowledge abt women’s bodies.
As this grew, radfems came to see how radically transformative such enlightenment was for women. It changed their lives and made them very passionate about the cause. They sought to continue that by a focus by insisting that, to change the world, women must begin by examining their own lives and understanding how patriarchy shaped every single manifestation of it.
Each woman’s consciousness thus needed to be transformed. Political practice starts there, in rooting around looking for the Man in Your Head and evicting him.
The partner to that was to revalue women’s identity. Where men defined us as, say, passive we would learn to revalue that as peaceful.
By establishing a huge, broad based unity of women across the glbe we would create a strong culture of women who recognize themselves as a class of women oppressed by men as a class.
Important here was building alt. intstitutions for women: alt healthcare, rape crisis centers, women run businesses, community centers, arts centers, etc.
then, was to come direct confrontation with patriarchal domination wherever it was encountered.
And that’s where the strike part comes in and why conformity is important: whereas a marxist argues that it is through political practice itself that a worker comes to understand the nature of her oppression, it is through self analysis in consciousness raising group that a woman comes to see the nature of her oppression.
In order to get everyone to strike in the context of a theory deeply suspicious of anything like an organized union (and for good reason at the time, the leftist men were fuckers), then you need to get women to tow the line. How? Here, speeches, art, poetry, rhetoric, essays, etc because utterly central. IOW, agit prop, propaganda, etc. are the crucial tools through which to take those raised consciousnesses and lead them to the Great Refusal in the Sky. (I do not use agit prop, propaganda pejoratively. They’re important tools.) [1]
The only answer has been separatism. Either full bore separatism or a modified version of creating women’s spaces where men are not allowed. Few people advocate that these days. They believed it failed.
In the absence of political agitation, organizing, creating alternative institutions all this seems to be is a lot of navel gazing which turns into beating any one up who steps out of line.
And I’m arguing that this isn’t a mistake: it’s an inevitable result of an unreconstructed framework.
Which is fine. It’s just that they need to remember that there are alternatives to their view and, by dismissing everyone who disagrees as falsely conscious, they are simply disrespecting anyone who has an alternative view as tools of the patriarchy.
that isn’t encouraging discussion. it isn’t encouraging critical respect between us.
not surprisingly, when Twisty’s audience isn’t on board for the whole program, they’ve been castigated as Male IDd rather than actually listened to.
[1] Carol Hanisch, in her new intro to the essay,’The Personal is Political,’ describes the split as emanating from debates over how to protest the Miss American Pageant. One group want to humiliate the contestants themselves. Hanisch and others argued that they needed to humiliate the profiteers and promoters who established it in the first place.
bravo belldame. wide variation and adaptability is the key to avoiding extinction. sexual selection doesn’t need to be completely tossed aside but it doesn’t need to be predicated on old assed nonsense either.
This topic is on like 10 other posts now. Did the BDSM crap spread around like this? Next lets do cunnilingus, I need something o cancel that horrible Snitchens blowjob post.
Thanks for that, Bitch. And yeah, it all makes sense. And the CR thing I think is a linchpin issue—a lot of women are full well aware of how and why they get a raw deal but the truth is that they stick with the system because it’s personally more beneficial than fighting. I’ve had a lot of women tell me they’re settling for marriages to men who they know will happily and stupidly oppress them because it’s better than the alternative, whatever that might be. Educating people isn’t changing their behavior.
And of course, you know I’m resistant in every way to the idea that men can’t or shouldn’t be included, which is weird since I then end up arguing with male allies who I want to just call “feminist” and they prefer the term “pro-feminist”.
twisty is a great writer, and eveyrone[sic] should read twisty now and again because it’s worth it
Well, duh [which is why I've been reading Twisty every day for, like, over a year]. What I’m getting at, though, is that Twisty’s posts are not often pleasant. She exposes patriarchy where we had suspected none before. You don’t go to Twisty’s blog to giggle and feel good about yourself. You go there to find out how fucked up and wrong every aspect of life is, your own included. And if you’re prepared to closely examine the fucked up aspects of your own life, you shouldn’t ever go to blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com
I feel like a hopeless wreck of a person from reading Twisty as obsessively as I do, but at least I know why I’m a hopeless wreck of a person. And I’m okay with that.
* I’m missing a negation there. If you’re not prepared to . . . .
Slutever, you get the point.
I hope.
B|lab, that was pretty amazing. Thank you. I pretty much agree with all of that. I am a Marxist, by the way.
With regard to radical feminists not being radical: yes, of course, they regard themselves as radical, so it’s not their choice of name for themselves that I object to. What really concerned me is that people who are not radical feminists, particularly Amanda and Arwen in this discussion, accept that radical feminism is radical, and describe some of the shortcomings of radical feminism as a result of their radicalism. I think those shortcomings are a result of a flawed theory that leads to flawed practice, including sectarianism: the tendency to condemn others for not simply accepting your politics immediately.
Somewhere in this discussion, I said that Twisty’s redeeming quality is her inconsistency: she isn’t a consistent radical feminist. In particular, she usually pulls back from sectarianism, and allows that her friends and allies may have valid reasons for their beliefs and practices, so she leaves some room to live and let live. I think part of the reason for this long discussion is that in this case, she remained consistent to radical feminist ideas, so there wasn’t the usual way out to avoid a confrontation with those ideas.
My sense is that the word “patriarchy” had become increasingly used on the circuit of feminist blogs I frequent over the last year or so, particularly in the last two or three months. Maybe it is because it’s easier to type, but I think the main reason is that Twisty’s blog has become increasing popular and influential.
Oops: grammatical error that may lead to confusion.
“and describe some of the shortcomings of radical feminism as a result of their radicalism”
Should be “ITS radicalism” rather than “THEIR radicalism.”
Amanda
heh. I had a similarly strong reaction to Chris Clarke’s insistance that he wasn’t a feminist. I can sorta understand, seeing as how my entrace into feminism was not at all normal. I didn’t identify with a word of until I read black feminist thought. That made sense. But I can hardly call myself a black feminist. And, I also agree with piny about just willy nilly saying, “i’m an ally” as if I’m the one who gets to say, “I’m an ally because I say so.” Uh. Yeah. So, I can sorta see the ‘hedge’ there as useful. Maybe. sorta. I haven’t figured it out because some days, I read Hugo and I just want to say “Woah. Modify the word feminism with “Hugo” mmkay?” LOL
I thought your posts at Alas a couple of years ago were just a remarkably and beautifully written explanation of your view on this topic.
I think my favorite person on rad fem theory is Alison Jagger. While she’s a socialist, her argument is that rad fem pretty much was the ground from which all other variants of feminist thought emerged — save for Liberal feminism, but even they’ve drawn on the important groundwork.
So, looking at commonalities would be instructive. That’s why Twisty’s so right in so much of what she says and says it with such style and wit. It’s why she resonates with so many feminists.
You can agree with a boatload, particularly on the descriptive analysis of what’s going on. But, for me, since I’m not one to think that it’s one system, Patriarchy, then that slight change in how I _explain_ the problem is going to shape how I think about how to address the problem: political practice.
I read you at Pandagon, so I picked up on the fact that you were either a Marxist or a heavy user of Marx. And thanks for tolerating the rant, an outgrowth of my immersion in this book I think.
This is an interesting point about inconsistency. I hadn’t grokked to that at all. And my rant was kind of focused more on published writings of radfems since I feel I’m safe ground: I can back up what I say with quotes.
Plus, Twisty’s an essayist, an agitator, and a charismatic leader. She doesn’t do theory per se, she applies it in the way she analyzes events and shows others how to do so.
Do you think that maybe it’s that radfems compromise on much but can’t compromise on the pornsitution/rape (and thus sexuality) angle since, that’s the lynchpin?
And yah, I suppose people are using the word without necessarily agreeing with or knowing the specifics of the theory and what P really means. I think that’s part of why I’ve been hashing this out elsewhere — because I happen to find analyzing the whys of this sectarianism fascinating.
But, do you suppose it matters if people use the word?
I ask because I had felt like that early on: confused. WTF? 10 years ago, I didn’t know a soul who used the word. It had been so widely critiqued as a failed theory even on its own terms, no one would use it. It implies that, just as twisty said, that patriarchy was established long ago, hijacking and warping human sexuality. I mean: that’s classic stuff to talk about it in terms of something that was established and thus, we can look to a world before patriarchy. If we know one existed before, then we have an inkling that it might exist again.
There’s a reason for that, I think. With Marxism, not very many people look to the past, to primitive communism, hoping that we can retrieve from that world a guide to how to build the new one. There is a theory of social change in its thought and it analyzed how those changes happened in the past.
But with radfem, the reason is because the system is _so_ structuralist there’s no escape. You need the evidence of a time prior to patriarchy to both show that it’s malleable but also show that it’s utterly entrenched since “time immemorial.”
There is no theory about how the system changes — progresses — through its own internal logic. (Hartman set out to find that, but it never went anywhere). Mostly, what I read is that if there are contradictions, they are, for example, the simultaneity of ‘raunch culture’ alongside a Victorian repressed sexuality. Which is interpreted as a sign of Patriarchy wrapping us clutches around us ever more tightly. No escape. No fissures or cracks we can grab and widen to open up spaces for radical change.
I was thinking about what you said about alliances with conservatives. Funny thing is, I ws just reading an interview with Dworkin where she says, basically, Women have always known that the enemy is rightwing. The real problem is leftwing men. And this will be of interest given that this interview was in 1990:
I’d been reading along, laughing, thinking she’d presciently described what some of us have found with the Democratic party.
Was slightly annoyed by the bit about left/liberal men, but know there’s a kernel of truth.
But I stopped dead in my tracks to realize: liberal men suck sewage, but she’s asking us to dialogue with conservatives? HUH? Sure, there’s confrontation… But dialogue. HUH?
The rest is interesting in light of this conversation.
Foolish Owl — Forgot. I’d really love to see how you see it as flawed theory. Particularly as you see its relation to sectarianism. Weirdly enough, I have been hashing out this book in my head on this topic, though more broadly to look at identitarian social movements.
Sectarianism makes my head hurt. And watching it play itself irritates me, but not enough to make me want to rubberneck the ten car pile up that ineveitably results.
>Did the BDSM crap spread around like this? >
Not so much. that’s been going on for years and years now, though (I mean in the world, not in blogland, obviously)
>Next lets do cunnilingus, I need something o cancel that horrible Snitchens blowjob post.
I want to talk about fisting. Specifically, whether it is a tool of capitalism or in fact a form of subversive class rebellion. I mean,
“UP YOURS!”
yes, yes; but, who is providing the labor, the lube?
I’m not sure I had things quite straight, but yes, I’ll get back to you on that.
“Watersports. Responsible environmentalism? How much water do you actually need to drink in order to do a scene? Can piss-play be considered a form of recycling, or is it just silly?”
>rooting out the man that lives in your head.
“Don’t think about pink elephants. And whatever you do, *don’t blow them.*”
belledame
LOL
I just saw this post from a ‘mean feminist’ and had to laugh. It’s classic. According to her, everyone was writing about how it’s feminist to wax the carrot.
http://meanfeminism.blogspot.com/2006/06/you-all-can-blow-me-or-not.html
somedays, I think talking about sex just makes people’s brains shutdown.
foolish owl
cool. when you get time, i’d really love another take on it since I hadn’t really thought about internal failures of the theory itself.
McBoing
You have characterized my posts as sister blaming. That is certainly not my intent, nor do I think a correct reading of my posts.
I would appreciate an explanation.
{with respect to the host: if you will allow}
gargh. MF is saying the same damn thing all the other defenders of Twisty’s take is saying:
to wit, that the people who are “defending” blowjobs (yeah, most people do defend what they like to do in bed and/or what they like to do with their loved ones when they feel under attack; it’s just how life works) are saying that blowjobs (BDSM, makeup, whathtefuckever) is *inherently* feminist.
Please. Finally. Name *one* person who has said, in so many words, that (given act) is *inherently* feminist, of itself. One specific person. One specific quote.
Because I am starting to think there is some projection going on here.
Because, instead, what I keep seeing is something like this:
Radfem: Blahblah is icky and degrading and *bad for women*, and coincidentally I don’t happen to like it.
Notradfem: Well, I don’t find it to be so.
Radfem: Look, do whatever you want to do, okay; just don’t try to tell me blahblah is “feminist.” That’s all.
And, like, excuse me? Who’s telling whom what, here?
Well, I can only speak for myself. For the record:
*in my opinion*–
There is nothing *inherently* feminist about giving a blowjob, BDSM, putting on lipstick, wearing high heels, or anything of that nature.
There is *also* nothing inherently *not* feminist about giving a hummer, BDSM, putting on lipstick, wearing high heels, or anything of that nature.
Sorry. I’m going to make that one a catgorical. There just isn’t. Because
1) context fucking matters
2) it’s none of your goddam business what any other woman does or doesn’t do with her body, and yes, THAT sentiment IS feminist.
You know the whole “my body belongs to me?” Great. Study it well. It doesn’t, in fact, mean “my body, my choice; but *your* body and choices are subject to endless criticism and picking and headtripping from us, your supposed sisters.”
Got it? Good.
Now consider the phrase, “Fuck off.”
I had no idea there was any kind of blowjob “controversy” going on in the feminist movement. I really must get out more.
Bitch/Lab’s view of false consciousness conflicts with many other theorists, such as:
http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-Yearbook/1999/mayo_body.asp
Belledame, I think the labor in fisting is shared. The top does the positioning and the lubing and the twisting and sweating, but the bottom does the concentrating and the relaxing, and it’s really a collaborative project; a shared performance. So in that sense, I suppose it builds a non-alienated connection to the product of labor that a Marxist would have to smile on. I’m no Marx maven, though.
I expect that watersports do not alter the net water usage, and certainly do not do so enough to be significant. Plus, the reconsumption does not involve repackaging.
***squick alert***
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Same thing for scat.
Ondreatwopointoh Jun 20th, 2006 at 3:46 am
Bitch/Lab’s view of false consciousness conflicts with many other theorists, such as:
http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-Yearbook/1999/mayo_body.asp
—-
it’s not my view. i was talking about the radfem view. i imagine a search on radical feminism at the blog linked would provide a good bib to verify.
i’m not a radfem. i’m a socialist (commie pinko fag)
Ondreatwopointoh Jun 20th, 2006 at 3:46 am
i read the link where it mentions Wendy Brown. She did a really interesting analysis of the same sort I’ve been doing the last coupla weeks re: MacKinnon. Basically, she says that MacKinnon’s work is a symptomatic reading of pornography and the persuavive rhetoric is one that mimes the rhythms of porn.
Drucilla Cornell says that “MacKinnon fucks her readers.”
Politie academic ways of saying: “She’s obssesed with porn and provide a pornographic alternative for her followers who sublimate their desire for porn with desire for radfem theory.” Kinda rude when you think abt it!
@ belledame
you wrote:
But you know, WRT 2, there’s no agreement on that — the notion that it is none of anyone’s godamned business. Radfems see this as a false consciousness. They’re not impressed by this because the same argument might come from a man who, say, rapes his daughter and, b/c the daughter is afraid and confused, she says she likes it.
Or just a rejection of a patriarchal notion of freedom — on the radfem view.
so, the argument doesn’t generally wash with them at all. It might appeal to the larger public b/c it’s a dominant value, but with radfems such sentiments ignore the social structure of power relations that undergird these sentiments.
that is why freedom of speech arguments about porn don’t mean a thing. nor do claims that, with a free market of ideas, we can create egalitarian porn. they’re retort is: nuh huh. not under these conditions you won’t. dream on sisters.
an illustration might be hate crime laws. haven’t looked at the numbers in a while, but it turns out last i checked that more blacks were prosecuted for hate crimes against whites.
whereas the intent was, it would seem, to address violence against targeted groups that have been historically disavantaged, it’s turned out rather differently. Since the racist society didn’t go away and the law didn’t actually address the problem.
I think I love you.
Seriously, reading this made me so happy. The thread on Twisty’s blog was starting to depress the hell out of me. I can’t believe that we’re STILL having the same argument amongst feminists that’s been happening since the 70s.
Points to take away – if you are a person who is not and never has been in the habit of giving blow jobs then you should probably accept that your ability to make sweeping statements about what the experience of doing so is like for other people is somewhat limited. If you are a lesbian then the fact that the very idea of fellatio digusts you is not a huge surprise. That the act holds no appeal for you does not in any way indicate that it should be equally unnappealing to other women who happen to rather like penises.
I’m not sure why there is this pervasive sense of contempt from lesbian feminists towards feminists who are hetero, but frankly I’m getting more than a little tired of it.
Also, picking up a theme that came up over at IBTP (I’m not even going to raise the subject over there since I don’t feel like being accused of false conciousness or some other similar bullshit), why exactly would anyone refuse to accept the idea that fellatio really is pretty much the “dudely” equivalent of cunnilingus? Both are things that one partner does largely in order to give pleasure to the other, rather than to recieve pleasure themselves. Both involve some element of pleasure for the giver as well as the receiver, mostly of the power-tripping sort, but the main goal is to get the receiver off. I’m not seeing how anyone can assume that one act is A-OK while the other is something that all feminist should be deeply uncomfortable with.
Listen, I’m bi. I’ve gone down on both men and women, and the details may vary but the idea behind the act and the way it makes the giver feel, and feel about herself, are pretty much the same. The only real difference is in the arrangement of the plumbing. Why is this so difficult to grasp? Sure, fellatio can be unpleasant and exploitative, but so can just about any sexual act if it’s being done with the wrong person and for the wrong reasons. Within the right context it pretty much falls into the category of “things we do for fun with people we love”. What exactly is so inherantly horrifying about that?
The fact that I sleep with men does not mean that my life is a gonzo porn movie. If I didn’t like giving head I wouldn’t be doing it. It would be nice if a certain misguided minority of my lesbian feminist compadres would quit the sneering and acknowledge that the fact that I sleep with men does not mean that I’ve been lobotomized, or that I’m not completely capable of figuring out what I do and not enjoy doing without any patronising “advice”. Maybe then we could get on with tackling the actual problems that are out there, because there are certainly enough of them to keep us all busy for a long time.
B/L, the interesting thing about the argument that the patriarchy will turn all tools to its ends is that it creates a real problem for any radfem solutions. Some radical feminists argue that broad swaths of depiction of sex cannot be done in ways that do not further patriarchy; but why is it any more possible to get a legislature in patriarchy to create a law in the patriarchy that will be enforced by the patriarchy to dismantle or limit something that is a tool of the patriarchy? One thing that some radical feminists (and I’m talking here about people I agree a fair amount with — I’d do a little dance in Vivid Video imploded in a wave of tax evasion charges and all the principals went to jail; they’re no friends of mine) put forward is the Dworkin/MacKinnon private-right-of-action antiporn ordinances. Leave aside that these are explicitly targeted at BDSM. They focus on violence, and provide a private right of action; which pretty much offers a pass to the core of the porn industry, where women’s existence only as objects for male sexual gratification is completely intrinsic to the message. They provide a good attack only on the fringes of the industry; either the abusive edge of patriarchal monsters, or on the other hand, a collection of BDSMers making material only for their own community. But IME, as soon as I start speaking as a litigator about ways that the ordinance could be misused to suit the patriarchy, eyes glaze over and nobody wants to talk about it anymore. There’s no similar blindspot for how the patriarchy co-opts feminist attempts at change when I talk about alternative depictions of sex.
Hey BritGirl! Good to see you around again.
Thomas Jun 20th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
Oh! I agree that this is interesting. HA. I won’t get into detaisl, but I think I’ve been ranting about this in one form or another for months now. Exploring radfem theory has been one aspect of this bigger project analyzing identity politics. I’m more interested in the “false consciousness” angle — and the link above glosses various feminist positions, arguing that the radfem approach is best at least on the issue of rape/sexuality.
My quick answer would be: because the only way to end patriarchy is to get at the root of the problem. Radical from radix meaning root. What is the root? The motor of patriarchy has three heavy duty belts:
1. rape – alternator belt
2. prostitution – timing belt
3. porn – water pulp belt (dont’ even know if that’s correct term)
Break those three belts off, motor no workee. Everything else is like attacking the motor by giving the car a new paint job or dumping the oil out. Things like encouraging the development of varieties of erotica and porn, to allow people to express sexual desires, that’s just giving the patriarchy a new belt.
I don’t know if anyone’s ever addressed the problem you raise from radfem perspective, but my guess? They’d say: It’s worth it to try it because women are being murdered, brutalized, and terrorized every single day. The reason why are those damn belts. And we think that, if you hack those belts to pieces, the basic violence will stop.
I don’t know how familiar you are with marxist theory, but for the fundamentalist there is the base and the superstructure. The base is the motor (the economy). Everything else is culture, politics, religion, ideology, etc. Wasting time worrying about the fundies doesn’t get at the problem. Waste of time.
That’s how rad fem see it, only the motor is pornstitution/rape. and those things _cause_ everything else: everything from capitalism to racism to envy to greed to scientific thinking to literature. The structure of our emotional life — why we are happy or sad — could theoretically be explained from the motor of pornstitution/rape.
Their eyes glaze over because they don’t buy it. Pornistitution/rape in any form is the problem. They don’t care that it’s the extremists and only effects a small amount. To them, ending the violence against any woman is worth the risks you worry about.
They simply don’t hold the same values with regard to personal liberty and freedom. It’s not that they have no concern for them, they just think that the current libertarian values placed on freedom of speech and freedom from government investigation without warrant etc. are simply not all they’re cracked up to be. They ARE tools of the patriarchy b/c they service pornstitution/rape. But, FBI? not so much. (that might be too flip a characterization, that last bit.)
Believe me,. I am currently being called a “kiddie porn advocate” by one radfem blogger because I’ve appealed to similar sentiments not really understanding this about their position. long story. and really, i seriously hope it’s harmless, because, with a background in cybercrime, i know the dangers. A colleague used to give a talk. At the beginning, he’d have everyone stand who answered to certain descriptions. By the time he got through the list of five (of the 15) characteristics, everyone was standing.
He informed them that they fit the FBI profile of a child porn fan/molester.
But, of course, you know how that would go over?
Oh see! Every man IS a child porn fan.
And my last statement, would be read as a sign that I’m callous since it indicates a little frustration with their sentiments. I try to understand. I just suck at it far too much.
Hey Thomas, how’s it going? I’ve been MIA since I got yelled at over at Twisty’s during the BSDM wars. Plus, my favourite band who I’ve never seen live are touring this summer, so I’m a bit distracted (thus speaks the music geek…ironically given the present discussion, as I had someone over at Twisty’s try to tell me that my taste in music is also inherantly antifeminist).
BritGirlSF
I’m not a radfem, but my guess as to why it was funny ha ha to say that cunninglingus was the dudely equivalent was to maybe forget that dudely can get off in at least three of your holes, not to mentiion breasts and hands i think that’s what ppl meant when they were saying that you are nuts to think you are any different from a cantalope warmed up and hollowed to simulate a pussy (’cept the cantalope might irritate you. Look: there’s web site somewhere on how to make varies substitutes from vegetables and fruit, ok?
clitoral stimulation doesn’t much happen those ways. hetwomen get off on pussy licking and hand jobs. that’s it. (Ok, there are some other ways, some of us do have orgasms during P/v sex)
a little unbalanced from the git go. that might be how some folks see it.
but i think T’s point would be: it simply ain’t happening on an equal exchange. Inequalities, domination, violence, oppression, exploitation, etc. are going on all around you and you better open your eyes and see it. because it’s in your bedroom and it’s shaped you in ways you can’t even realize.
And, becasue that’s the case, there is no even-steven here. Ever. Women as a class have already suffered to give that guy you’re with all those advantages.
You see? In the parlance of Marxists, you’re a scab.
OK. WE understand, a radfem might say. Everyone wants to get off. S’okay.
BUT, maybe you’re forgetting this (and I have no CLUE if T would say this) but I think it seems like good radfem toughtlet.
RF: “Doll, you know what? patriarchy makes all those nice guys. Know why? Because those nice guys grease the engines of patriarchy. You don’t think they’d actually allow nice guys to exist without getting something out of it, do you? Well?
They keep some women believing in the myth of romantic love and the family and the glories of pleasures with men. Meanwhile, there are boatloads of women who aren’t having the time of their life. Here they are, right on this thread, telling you their stories of abuse, rape, victimization, brutalizing boyfriends, and callous husbands.
And all you folks do when you praise the glories of the hummer is fool women into believing theymight have some of that action too. They’ll keep on thinking something is wrong with them and they might stop blaming the patriarchy.
So, enjoy yourself. But do keep it to yourself, y’hear?
–
Like I said, I’m not a radfem. Haven’t read loads and loads of their stuff. But that’s my guess from what I have read.
Discuss.
Good god. I think my inclination to try to be fair might just turn me into T’s useful idiot.
BritGirlSF, you’re alive! Huzzah!
And I think that the point that YOU are missing is that although everything you’re saying is true for society as a whole, some of us really are lucky/determined/damn stubborn enough to have created for ourselves a space in which we actually do have good and equitable sexual relationships with men, and when we tell you that and you reflexively smack us down or tell us that we’re just imagining the relationships in which we are actually participating it tends to piss us off. It’s condescending, it’s insulting to our intelligence that you assume that you know better than we do what’s going on in our bedrooms, and it’s no way for one feminist to talk to another, so cut it the hell out.
Clear enough?
And seriously, any woman who would say anything as demeaning to another as this “i think that’s what ppl meant when they were saying that you are nuts to think you are any different from a cantalope warmed up and hollowed to simulate a pussy” really needs to take a good long look at what she thinks “feminist” means. The fact that a woman is straight does not make her unworthy of either respect or basic courtesy.
Foolish Owl – Yep, still alive. (Waves)
Still trying to process the sheer nastiness of the post above yours. She pretty much illustrated my point about the way women who sleep with men tend to be talked down to as if they are mentally-challenged children by their fellow feminists.
Correction : by some of our fellow feminists, by no means all, and in reality very much a minority, just a very vocal minority with an apparent unwillingness to listen to anyone else’s opinions. It does happen often enough that you really can’t miss the pattern, though.
I think my point here is that there is this kind of pervasive implication coming from a small sector within the radfem community that women who sleep with men really are both deluded (which like I said is pretty condescending)and somehow intrinsically debased by the experience. Surely it’s not hard to see why that might cause some hurt feelings, or even anger? Sometimes listening to some of the things that people say (see the cantaloupe comment above) almost feels like listening to some of the nasty sexist shit you hear from men in it’s implication that sex is inherently demeaning to women, and if you think about it that’s a pretty crappy thing to be doing to another woman.
The other things that continues to bother me about all this is the implication that sexual relationships between men and women are so intrinsically tainted that there’s really no way to create one that isn’t exploitative, and that if a women thinks that she has actually done so she has clearly been smoking crack. Thing is, that line of thought leads to a dead end. If there really is no way to challenge the paradigm within our own relationships, then where do we go from there? What are we all supposed to do for intimacy and companionship in the meantime, until society is remade in a way that actually works for women? Most social scientists estimate that about 10% of the population of most societies at most is gay – what about everyone else? Is celibacy their only option? Because that seems like a pretty crappy solution to me, but it seems to be exactly what’s being implied as the only ethically valid option by some on the radfem side, and I don’t think that that’s a reasonable demand to make of one’s political allies.
Gah, getting sleepy, I hope at least some of this makes sense.
BritGirlSF, I think it would help if you took a look at B|Lab’s web site. I believe we’re on the same side here.
B|Lab, I sent you a rambling and incoherent email, to your contact address on your site. I thought it would do for a start, anyway.
One thing that jumped out at me in what you said above was that the way you were describing the relationship between base and superstructure didn’t sound right. The two have a dialectical relationship. For instance, a legal system is a superstructure on the base of class relations. Changing laws can have an effect on economic relations — tax laws will affect business decisions. There’s only so much you can do by attacking superstructures, but it’s not pointless. So, I could see radical feminists advocating laws to ban pornography as analogous to socialists advocating higher taxes on the rich.
(The thing that gets me about that is you’d think that radical feminists would consider that forging alliances with people who advocate literal patriarchy might be a mistake.)
BritGirlSF Jun 21st, 2006 at 12:39 am
And I think that the point that YOU are missing is that although everything you’re saying
…
I think you missed the part where I said that I’m not a radfeminist. I answered your question as to why I think they thought it was funny ha ha.
isn’t there any room for at least understanding what they’re saying and then making arguments that actually _address_ their claim, rather than ignore them?
that’s what pissed me off in the first place. i don’t really care what she happens to think about smoked sausage and corn dogs. I _did_ fucking care about the way she completely mischaracterized the women who responded as a bunch of deluded patriarchy fuckers who failed to blame patriarchy properly — without ever ONCE aknowledging that every single one of those women did.
the _only_ one who didn’t asserted that non-vaginal sex was about “no possible pregnancy” sex and was, thus, a blow against the patriarchy.
which is not a half bad argument.
If all each side is ever going to do to one another is refuse to listen, then here were are spinning our wheels getting nowhere.
BritGirlSF Jun 21st, 2006 at 1:29 am
Correction :… Gah, getting sleepy, I hope at least some of this makes sense.
I’d love to discuss this more, but I think I’d like to wait to be sure you understand that I’m not a radical feminist before I bother. I’m not really interested in having an argument with somone i actually probably agree with but having to go round and round because you missed the first sentence where i said “I’m not a radfem”. Honest. I’ve pretty much done nothing but engage in criticisms with that worldview, mostly after wanting to learn more from reading Airel Levy’s Raunch Culture. The book was rather irritating and poorly argued, and gave a kind of modified version of the radfem argument. So I wanted to know where she was coming from.
Sorry, I did say I was sleepy…
I misunderstood you as actually supporting the “every last one of you who says you like giving head is a fembot” tone that was going on over at IBTP, and I do get a bit testy when I hear that, because I seem to be hearing it more and more often recently.
The frustrating thing is that I can agree with some of the radfem wordview,particularly when it comes to environmental issues, and can see how it’s making a valuable contribution, right up until we start talking about sex, and then I run into that same brick wall every time. Honestly, I think that the whole blow job (and did we have to pick such a childish term? makes me think of giggling high school kids) argument is kind of a red herring. What we’re really all dancing around here is the whole idea of “political lesbianism” and what that means for women who just aren’t attracted to other women. Which isn’t me, just to be clear – I’m bi, but I can see that the whole idea of political lesbianism as opposed to just plain old “I think women are gorgeous and generally awesome” lesbianism basically puts straight women in an untenable position in which they either agree to give up their sexuality entirely or end up feeling guilty all the time for wanting to fuck men, which I don’t think is fair (not to mention being a really crappy recruiting tool for the movement). No one can help who they’re attracted to.
The arguments about BSDM revolve around the same issues -to what extent is there or should there be an offical feminist position on what kinds of sex it’s OK to enjoy, who gets to make that call, and what to do about women whose desires don’t fall in with the party line? What I’ve been seeing a lot of recently is those women being told that they don’t really want what they think they want, that if they do want it then they’re bad feminists, and that in general they should STFU. I don’t think that’s OK, and I think it’s detrimental to the movement as a whole.
Also, the whole “penises are icky” thing strikes me as petty and childish. Everyone is entitled to be disgusted by whatever they happen to be disgusted by, but it pays to remember that not everyone else shares your tastes, and “ew, gross” is a pretty silly thing to base one’s political positions on.
Also, the whole “penises are icky” thing strikes me as petty and childish.
The thing is that “penises are icky” I pretty much a code word for “penises are [have been] oppressive”, as was pointed out by Bitch|Lab upthread, lesbians generally have some experience with giving blowjobs, but because they’re only giving head until they realise they’re lesbians the blowjob becomes for them an act of oppression that will always symbolise this lopsided pleasuring of men over women, which in turn can work as a wonderful short hand for patriarchy.
And because this is a shared experience of lesbians and abuse victims, it becomes a tribalistic code word, and allows “penises are icky” to be a valid thing to base a movement around, a movement who’s theory starts from the base analysis of blowjobs and penises being icky because of the patriarchal assurances to the contrary.
Of course they then pull a serious Hugo and don’t examine the underlying patriarchal double bluff that is making the penis a tool of oppression while at the same telling everyone it’s an instrument of love, the patriarchy doesn’t want women having sex, certainly doesn’t want us enjoying it, so it tells us that “love” is this act of abuse so that even heterosexual women don’t want to have sex with men, because we’re convinced that sex isn’t fun, while it’s also telling us that we’ve got to have “sex” to be good women.
Which shouldn’t be surprising really, as “penises are icky” is this tribalistic badge that many radfems cling to, it becomes an unassailable dogma of radical feminism, which is a weakness the patriarchy, because it never stays static for longer than neccesary, adapts to exploit so as to include super-reactionary feminism into its system of oppression.
And so Patriarchy turns even lesbians into unwitting heteronormativity affirming patriarchal stool pigeons, just like men.
Fooliwh Owl
Yep. I made some crack in my first post about it being “so structuralist’ and saying that it had no theory of social change. (Probably inadequate or, as you described the theory, flawed, is a better characterization — rather than to say none.)
It’s also why I pointed out that M-theory sees change as coming from the internal contradicition: the system, itself, generates change but not in a deterministic way.
Hartmen set out to do that, arguing that it was crucial for a theory of patriarchy: show how it was governed by “laws of motion of patriarchy” and why it produced it’s own internal conflicts. But that never went anywhere. And internal conflicts are not seen as places that generate gaps or fissures which we can widen to advance radical change.
Seems to me, whatever contradictions occur are expl’d in radfem as just another example of how we’re ever more fucked.
MacKinnon has this bit, I’ve quoted it at the blog, where she kind of gives the smackdown to ‘cultural feminists’: people who valorize women’s culture. She tells them they are wrong to think that anything about women’s culture is anything other than the product of oppression. That’s not to say that women’s supposed culture is Teh Evol, just to say that it’s silly to think this way b/c you end up deluding yourself into thinking that you can run off and build ‘women’s culture’ and change the world.
As Wendy Brown says of MacKinnon’s theory, the most common response from students of her work, upon first reading it, is to say, “There is no escape.”
It’s crucial, on my view to have a solid account of social change, because the only other way to explain social change tends to lead to conservatizing or reactionary theory. Which, I think, could help explain what you were initially worrying about: why the willingness to ally themselves with the rightwing. You know? Why does Dworkin say to reach out and ‘dialogue’ with conservatives?
Why doesn’t that give her the willies? You could say she’s just rationalizing. But, to me, that’s just using logical fallacy to make attributions of motives you don’t know they have. I think you can look to the theory itself, as I think you’re saying, to find where the theory itself encourages Dworkin to think this way.
Beats me, but I think it’s fairer to do an internal critique, asking what _their_ goals are and then looking to see how the theory fails on its own terms.
You know? From their perspective, you’re just applying _your_ framework and saying, “Why don’t you live up to these standards?”
All they have to say in return is: because your theory isn’t ours. That’s marxist theory. We started out reconstructing Marxist theory and have moved beyond it to our own.”(Or something like that.)
I haven’t read it in ages, but Shulamith Fireston’s The Dialectic of Sex was probably offering the kind of account you’re looking for. I was too young when I read it to even ask any of these questions of the theory. Plus, it was presented as a theory that no one paid attention to much, except as an historical document of the movement.
Yep. It’s like that quote above from Dworkin. She’s literally telling her audience that the Foolish Owls of the word are your bigger enemy. I think what’s she’s saying is, the guys you think are your allies are the ones you trust, but they’re not trustworthy. No men are. At least when we work with the Conservatives, we’re already suspicious.
I know. I know. It’s not a satisfying explanation t o me either. But that’s what she said and it made me stop in my tracks to ponder _that_.
Which is also all very odd. Ariel Levy wrote a really long and balanced piece on Dworkin after her death. The woman wrote about men she loved in her life in the most loving, wonderful ways. But these are the men close to her. *shrug*
Just want to urge all Punkasses to keep an open mind about what radical feminism is and isn’t. BitchLab’s overviews and explanations are VERY different than what most self-defined radfems actually say and believe. The “false consciousness” concept in particular is very distorted by BitchLab, which was pointed out above, but she completely ignored the substance of the essay at the link provided, quoting Dru Cornell out of context instead (who is a friend btw) and evading the fact that other people define the concept quite differently.
Ondreatwopointoh
You’ve heard of the moneyshot, right? I’m waiting for it. Or did you need a fluffer?
I wouldn’t say B/L’s representations are distorted, but something appears to be missing.
Get to the part where radfems want to see women blow their brains out, already, then we’ll compare data.
To the functional person a rad fem may be interesting but not the least bit persuasive or sensible. So there’s one clue. Here’s one more: Are you able to identify when fantasy has complete possession of a person? Whats the criteria for making your list?
Some people don’t have a list of criteria, no reference point for malevolence, no handle on who is trustworthy and safe and who could do them harm. They’re vulnerable, not stupid, harm is all they know, so harm seems totally normal.
I’ve sat in classrooms of some prominent radfem professors, I’ve seen my share of unctuous nihilists with power and control *issues* and built in radar for the sexually abused, traumatized, ideal-starved, parent-hungry, crazy, students who have unstable identities and symbolic cognition, all the ingredients that make for automatic affiliation with the spectacular psychopath. Psycho’s go right into them, count on it, no boundaries, they are accustomed to invasion, they swallow it just like swallowing daddy, and what do these excellent mentors teach their novitiates? The world is daddy, no escape, blow your fucking brains out life is not worth living under patriarchy. Why do women drive other women to suicide? Of course it’s late, I’m hyperbolic, and
there’s no such thing as an unconscious, much less a folie a deux and certainly never in an academic setting, no. Visit a psych ward, meet the raving proteges, then go home and puke up your intestines.
Well now I get it. For the first time I can say I’m glad I didn’t go to some hot-shot university and study rad-fem theory. I’d know no more than I do now.
Twisty did in fact make an essay recently that went on a nihilist bent, concluding that since all is rooted in patriarchy and the only construct we have is patriarchy which oppresses all women, women have no escape and there is no hope of change. We die, rot, the planet will rot, all done. Go home and forget about it. I couldn’t help wondering suddenly then, why she gave a rat’s ass about it all and spent so much time pointing up flaws in our social structure, if afterall, its all for nothing.
Rad fems have done their share as well I think to hurt the feminist movement. They have served the patriarchal construct well by telling women they really have no power as long as they work within the system, period. Het women are to be despised because they don’t live their lives in total contempt of their participation in the system, and unaware that their heterosexuality supports it — and thus exploits other women, the false consciousness of which bitch speaks I guess.
Then sure, let’s just blow our heads off or turn fucking blonde, skinny and catch the guy driving the Mercedes and accept that we have no way out anyway, might as well live at poolside while you got the time.
Men who support the male dominant power structure just love calling feminist women lesbians and the same men love calling any women who refuse to get all gussied up, marry and get a ‘girl-job’ and keep their mouths shut the same.
I chose my career to provide a positive example of a het woman who can make a choice about what she chooses to do without having to co-opt to the ‘other side’ by aligning with lesbians and thus satisfying the dominant male’s need to marginalize and stigmatize her. In way the rad-fem seperatist is almost the living embodiment of the cartoon scare propaganda foisted on young women, “You don’t want to do that! It will make you a radical butch dyke!”
Just another way to allow men to frame the entire construct of women, even when they are rebelling against the power of men to frame a construct about them. Once the box is drawn, they willingly step inside and then put on their freak show for anyone who will watch.
So then I am marginalized by all people’s, by the women who fear me because of their fear of becoming the other, the rad-fems who see me as co-opting because I work with and even like to screw men and the men themselves who see me as representing rebellion against a system that inherently supports their interests, which demand that women subjugate their interests, which rebellion it indeed is.
I don’t believe that all men see their world completely threatened by the deconstruction of patriarchy. I do though, see men who enjoy without complaint the fruits of the patriarchy and probably if push were to come to shove, wouldn’t give up those fruits too easily. But they are keenly aware of the power differential, you bet.
It is easier to generalize the behavior of a large group, it is much harder to define or discern the single actions or thoughts of one or two individuals. I could say that in my business I’ve confroned plenty of sexism and oppression, but it is subtle and much less direct than what was common many years ago. By going underground, the real supporters of the war to keep women under can claim they really don’t exist. “See, I’m just really a sheep and nothing more, why be scared you sillies?” said the sheep-skin blanketed wolf to the frightened and somewhat frantic sheep.
The rad fems are hanging out by the stream, protecting themselves against said wolf, the braver and bolder sheep are trying to organize a protective sheild and play cool with the wolf to save their hides. Which is better? When the wolf is vanquished from the pasture, will the rad fem still be crouched at the stream waiting for the shrieks of terrified sheep to keep them from their field?
Like the loopie Christian Fundies, the Rad-fems seem to be sitting around and working toward the Great Armeggedon when right will be wrong and wrong will be right or something like that. In the meantime, the rest of us have to live and survive in this shit pool.
>Twisty did in fact make an essay recently that went on a nihilist bent, concluding that since all is rooted in patriarchy and the only construct we have is patriarchy which oppresses all women, women have no escape and there is no hope of change. We die, rot, the planet will rot, all done. Go home and forget about it. I couldn’t help wondering suddenly then, why she gave a rat’s ass about it all and spent so much time pointing up flaws in our social structure, if afterall, its all for nothing.>
Dingdingding.
To be fair, or something, I’m not sure to what degree that’s all of rad feminists/ism or mostly just her. I am skeptical of most all-encompassing Grand Unified Theory Of Everything ideologies, I’ll say, including radfem as I understand it, but there’s still room for individual interpretation.
but yeah: what was the point of this little exercise in particular? Because I’ve read all the different justifications ranging from it’s serious feminist (!) critique to it’s just a joke, lighten up, but I’m damned if I can see it as anything other than sheer nastiness for the sake of it.
Kate
I read that and I’ve seen frequent reference to the claim that, basically, she’s pissing in the wind. I always took that, _also_, as an aspect of her commitment to environmentatlism and, possibly, a serious embrace of evolutionary theory. For on such an account, there is no moral purpose to the universe. Humans are animals like every other and simply one part of the environment. Something like that at any rate.
Fancy universities don’t teach radfem theory, not much. It’s taught as a hodge pode. And, since there’s so little theory — some early radfems abjure theory as ‘malestream’, then they aren’t in the mood for being scientific, logical, etc. which are all tools of patriarchy (for some). There are still plenty of radfem academics and the books I read point to the UK and Australia where it’s also found. I think the leading feminist theorists in the US are hostile to radfem, for the most part.
Also, radfem has largely been incporated into other fems. It’s biggest critics tend to come from the cultural studies and poststurcturalist theory crowds. If you read Radically Speaking they are quite pissed about this.
Radfem largely seen as something most often encountered in political practice: domestic violence, rape crisis centers, semi-separtist groups, a lot of anarcho-feminism draws on radfem theory, etc.
To be really fair, Twisty’s more nihilist posts stop short of what some of her commenters go to, she may call the patriarchy teh matrix, but they see it as newspeak, and while everything in life may be the patriarchal matrix, patriarchal newspeak stops you even being able to think about freedom.
Well now I get it. For the first time I can say I’m glad I didn’t go to some hot-shot university and study rad-fem theory. I’d know no more than I do now.
Nah, for most radfems, it’s an entirely experiential thing, which is what caused troubles here, you had people saying “this is my experience of this activity” and then takign that a step further by assuming that their experience was the only way such activities could occur.
I have read ALL the IBTP posts and ALL the posts here and many posts elsewhere, and I must say:
I don’t think the discussions ANY of these places are all that awful and ugly. Almost every post is calm, many are very informative, and although occasionally there are some hurt feelings, no one seems to be TRYING to hurt anyone’s feelings (except for the few where hurt feelings are EXPRESSED back). I think the drama is being depicted as far worse than it is in reality. More of a kerfluffle.
As much as I Worship Twisty, I have to agree that she reacted to Het women expressing a differing opinion with unwarranted hostility.
Thanks Mildred and Bitch for your bits on rad/fem theory. I’ve dealt with seperatist lesbians and those who feel that lesbianism for the sake of lesbianism is a way out or the only way out, but I never really took them too seriously frankly.
But like I shared in my oh so long post, it does rub me wrong somedays.
Anyway, the interesting thing about these forums is that everyone’s comments are all out for everyone to see and what a variety! Twisty got called down a bit and that’s fine, I’d be more worried if all the het women just shrugged their shoulders and went on without saying a word.
And yes, I agree Belledame, any grand unified theory is just all complexities distilled into an easily digestible potion to ease the nerves.
you are right on with everything. anti-sex feminism sucks. universalizing statements about what kind of sex people shoudl have suck. but… i have beef with the title.
i think its really important to distinguish between anti-sex and asexual. i sometimes want to claim/not feel shitty about being asexual sometimes for similar reasons as you cite for the anti-sex perspective sucking – acting on what your desires are or aren’t rather than what someone is telling you you should do. also i think its not supporting patriarchy to question how centered our society is around couples, especially heterosexual married couples. also, because i don’t fit into people’s ideals of beauty which are heavily influenced by sexist partriarchal stuff (skinny, not hairy, etc.), there are not a ton of people that are attracted to me and i find it easier to not deal with it rather than constatnly getting disappointed because the people that are interested in me sexually are few and far between.
so… i think asexuality can actually fight patriarchy and support sex-positiveness.