Do 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)
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.
The Gender Role We Leave Unexamined…
Y’all may have missed the two humongous feminist “controversies” this past week–…
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.
[...] Oh yes, please tell us more about this “Teh Sex” you speak of, oh wise asexuals! at PunkAssBlog.com (tags: Action Feminism lolz InterWebs Blog) [...]
[...] Nevertheless, a lot of people took it upon themselves to exactly intuit the motivations of those women who enjoy giving oral sex. Lines were drawn, blowjobs were declared unfeminist, R. Mildred gave us the fellatio finger (the importance of which doesn’t lie in prostate stimulation, but in that it is the middle “fuck you” finger, as in “fuck you blowjob haters”), and 50% of Twisty’s readership decided they hated her guts for five minutes until they realized she is far too cool for gut hatred. Why it was the blowjob conversation that sparked so much controversy is up in the air, but ask your readership about masturbation and you’ll get a million tales about how Dude X normalizes the vector or how often Chica N orders the clam bake for one. I doubt you’d get as much offense and defense from a conversation on exhibiting perfectly normal behavior. God forbid you admit to putting a penis in your mouth, sitting on somebody’s face, or being on the receiving end of a blumpkin. [...]
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.
[...] Harken back to my first foray into this stuff, Twisty says “blowjobs are inherently patriarchal”, I say “No, this and this fucks with certain patriarchal assumptions that go with blowjobs, and in fact the idea that blowjobs are inherently passive or submissive acts performed upon women is itself patriarchal.” [...]
[...] I’d pointed out at both Pandagon and Punkass that radical feminism just doesn’t stop at actual heterosexual sex, but also subjects lesbian practices to critique — and has a history of claiming that gay male sex — because it is, at long last, men without women — is exemplary of the kind of sex men would want if women weren’t in the way. [...]
[...] Bitchlab asked DeBurg to clarify, “Teh Patriarchy doesn’t ejaculate inside pussies. Ever. It’s a clever illusion. But Teh Patriarchy needs to ejaculate somewhere, so it invented Teh Hummer.” She’s not talking about the gas-guzzling kind, either, though she’s sure talking guzzling. [...]
Free love is no longer an option that we can take lightly any more so it seems there are a few alternatives to keeping it safe.Nowadays condoms no longer prevent a life threatning situation, still transmitting plenty of scary diseases.Online I can find many options that do not run the same risks as playing the field.With so many different websites to chose from it is hard to decide which one to go to.Personally I prefer the ones where the model satifies my fantasies.