One Last Side Note on Feminist Elitism and Sex Baiting

In all my ranting and raving about R Mildred and the Feminist Sex Police, I missed a couple of links:

As is the usual, K at Bitch Lab is having a blast deconstructiong RM's slipshod analysis; you may feel free to check out her rebuttals here.

Also, on a related but slightly different angle; Bint Alshamsa of My Private Casbah has posted a very long but very succinct essay on her personal struggles with feminist arrogance, elitism, and snobbery; but of a slightly different kind than Teh Sex Wars. (She is more interested in how "establishment" White feminism tends to silence, coopt, and thusly silence and intimidate women of color; she channels all the grief that Nubian (of Blac(k)ademic took for defending her right to maintain a private space for feminist women of color, and how the ensuing firestorm of pettiness from some White feminist bloggers ultimately drove her (Nubian) out of the blogosphere. An excerpt to feed your brain:

[....]

Though they won't admit it, many white feminists resented the fact that women of color, poor women, and disabled women refused to settle for second-class membership in the mainstream feminist movement. After all, mainstream feminists weren't women who had just recently arrived from outer space; These were women who lived in a country that was only able to form and flourish thanks to the long-term subjugation of people of color. If they could obtain the rights that they wanted without having to give up their privileged status as white people, then that made their mission even easier to accomplish and left them with all of the perks that traditionally came with being able to stand on the backs of people of color. This option proved to be too tempting for some white feminists to forego.

If you fast forward to today, this situation has not disappeared and the blogosphere reflects that. There aren't many women of color who have feminism-centered blogs, so when people of color look for feminist writings that they can relate to and they find such a blog, it's a lot like finally reaching an oasis in the desert. Having sites like blac (k) ademic on the internet means that people don't have to settle for whatever bones white feminists are willing to throw at them. Some of us don't think that whether a woman keeps her maiden name or wears makeup matters nearly as much as figuring out how to navigate public assistance programs when you're working two jobs but still don't earn enough to make ends meet. To me, it seems like such a simple thing. Mainstream feminists can keep doing what makes them comfortable and people of color feminists can just write about and work towards solving the problems that we face. However, I've come to see that things aren't that simple.

Every time a non-mainstream feminist like Nubian dares to write about her reality, it challenges the notion that mainstream feminism is what all women need to subscribe to in order to fix the world. That's a problem because mainstream feminism is really faltering. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's a complete flop. The reproductive justice that mainstream feminists thought they had won now needs to be fought for all over again thanks in no small part to their complacency. Their justification for imperialism (e.g. We need to go and rescue those poor third-world women and bring them freedom) meets with increasing opposition from women that have their own ideas about liberation and see no reason to adopt American customs in order to feel free.

[....]

There's plenty more where that came from at Bint's blog....it is more than worth a visit.

...And Continuing On The Subject of Feminist Sex Radical Trashing...

...since it seems that today must be the unofficial day for the Carnival of Feminist Sexual Reactionaries:

....Take a gander at Pinko Feminist Hellcat's contribution to the lynching party for RKB and all other sex-positives who apparantly are contaminating and poisoning the feminist movement:

Some of us are dog tired of hearing about how we've got problems if we're bothered by the fact that women are almost always put in submissive positions, degraded, and derided in the name of sex. Some of us are not particularly jazzed by the rigid and puritanical sex roles assigned to women--women sell sex (and get power! Whee! Nothing like that kind of power, George Bush, eat your heart out!) and men buy it.

You'll just have to forgive me for noting that it's practically unheard of for the reverse to happen, even though women do like sex, do like sex without commitment, and do appreciate hot men.

What's seen as sexual for women is a bore. Am I oppressive and mean for saying that? Tough. Cope.

A blog post by Twisty (who was trying to stir things up and succeeded) does not make this a world that forbids the kind of sex you want to have, though, as Amanda points out, it sure would be nice if "sex" for women included more than forgoing it or being submissive, enthusiastic about facials, or so male centered in the act that you may as well not have a sodding clitoris. That's the "full range?" How unimaginative. How stale. How boring.

Not that there's anything wrong with that! Oh, lordy, heaven forbid I maybe mention that many women are dissatisfied with the dearth of options available to us in the world of sexuality. But for once, I'd like to see an acknowledgment from supposed sex radicals that women can be sexual without being submissive, that it's okay to not particularly like or want to engage in some of the sex acts out there (facials come to mind), and that in fact, not liking them doesn't make you frigid, or anti-sex, or whatever, and that the diversity of sexuality should extend to women and our pleasure. Instead, we're treated to finger-wagging over oppressive and mean feminists who would take your right to get on your knees away from you. It's pretty telling that articles that focus on feminism and sex focus on submissiveness, and our right! hard won right! to be submissive and degraded.

[...]

Because, really, why acknowledge that some women--hell, a lot of women--are left unsatisfied, marginalized, and derided in the world of status quo sex? Since when is critiquing the small box reserved for women in the world of sex a bad thing?

I'd like to see some acknowledgment that porn is male-centered, the so-called "sex" industry is male centered (it's not like Heidi Fleiss is getting a warm welcome by Nevada brothels, since women paying for sex is just so! unheard ofl! but men paying for it is just ducky) that the sexual double standard is poison to women and influences our choices and desires, and that we'll never be truly open and sexual and free as long as sexual women are derided as whores, raped women are dismissed, and women who want sex on our terms (not Hugh Hefners, Larry Flynt's, or Joe Everyman's) are marginalized.

Wanna know one reason why [Heidi] Fleiss is having such a problem with her dog house for women (besides the brothel association flipping out)? Prostitutes are defined as she in Nevada. Think about that. Women as servers, men as consumers. That's not completely messed up? It's what, radical to accept this? To say that women serving and men consuming is the norm and acceptable and questioning it is oppressive? Forgive me for being feminist and calling BS on that.

All of this blathering on and on about frigid feminists out to oppress the free-thinking radical bohos out there--enough already. It's tiresome and stale. (As is the insistence that all feminists are total sluts--antifems, please get your stories straight. You scamps are funny when you froth, but the rhetoric is getting old).

This kind of pseudo-sex positivity is stifling. I mean, what are my options, exactly? Pulling trains, getting dominated, and getting facials, or celibacy? No thanks. It's getting a little stuffy in the box you'd like to lock me into. And you can bite me if you don't like it and want to declare me either frigid or a slut for looking askance at this messed up set of standards for women.

And the coup-de-grace comes from Witchy-Woo, who finally reads sex positives their pink slips from the feminist movement without the two-week notices (This nuttiness deserves a full reading in its entirity):

To all pro-pornstitution 'feminists' out there...

...The best way to stop the global scourge of sexual slavery of women and girls is not to reduce men's slavering for warm, wet fuck holes but to offer oneself to the task.

How does that feel....thinking about that? Would you?

Would you choose that as a way to feed your kids, pay your bills, keep your particular wolf from the door?

No?

Why not?

So how come you kind of 'elect' and hide behind those women/girls who don't have the same level of choice that you do? Poor women, women of colour, drug/alcohol addicted women, girl children, teenage runaways, sexually abused in childhood women, etc. Women and girls whose humanity you should actually be fighting for - as feminists.

Instead, it seems to me, you're saying it's ok that these women/girls are in sexual slavery because it's somehow their choice. They're somehow 'living their dream'....or is it your dream? The phallic dream? I don't know. Whatever.

All I know is that you're not fighting for them. You're complicit in their destruction. You're colluding with patriarchy in dividing women into 'them' and 'us'.

So.....

I want to see every pro-pornstitution 'feminist' put her money where her mouth is (hah) and do a six month stint in the job (or send her daughter in if she's 'too old') before she tells me that it's 'ok' for any other woman/girl to go through it. And I want a report about how great it is to command such power and how it's touched and released her innate sexuality and re-formed her as a woman and made her feel sooooo good about herself she does talks about it to girls in junior schools.

Actually, I don't want any woman on this Earth to go through it but, hey, seems to me that some women need to properly understand exactly what feminism means.

If you're pro-pornography or pro-prostitution you are NOT a feminist. These institutions are the props of patriarchy and have nothing to do with women's self determination, ergo they are NOT feminist.

And to think that at one time I thought that I could have a reasonable debate with some people. (I was once accused by the very same Witchy-Woo of "butting in" to a debate over at Antiprincess' Paleofeminist blog on porn and feminism because I dared to respectfully criticize W-W's basic beliefs. Apparantly, being a man attempting to defend a feminist woman's right to choose her own sexual habits amounts to defending "sexual slavery" and rape.)

I'm not going to speak for other sex-radicals, but you can consider this Black Leftist man to be considered finished with these people. If this is what liberal feminism is becoming, then I want nothing to to with it any longer.

Memo to Witchy Woo and PFH: just join your ally RMildred in the "Fuck you" section of this blog. If you can't respect our beliefs, then the hell with you.

The "Punkass" Bitchslapping of RKB (Continued)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The "Punkass" Bitchslapping of RKB (When "Liberal Feminism" Just Isn't)

You know..it was my intention to keep my defense of Rachel Kramer Bussel's column on "Fucking and Feminism" to the high road, since Rachel is more than capable of defending herself from criticism from all angles....including the type lobbed by Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte that I fisked last night. And I figured that there was still some hope that the discussion would not degenerate into a flame fest on which sexual acts were considered poltically correct or "feminist" enough. At least Amanda tended to be amicable, if passionate, in her criticism of Rachel as a closet sexual submissive.

Apparantly, even that was not quite hostle enough for some feminists, though....because today while skimming through Bitch Lab's comments on the issue, I came across a link to what amounts to a virtual lynching of RKB which consolidates and distills every urban legend and strawwoman stereotype about sex radical/sex positive women as traitors of feminism and enablers of "patriarchy" into one massive fireball of hate, arrogance, resentment, and hypocritical elitism.

To save you the trouble of linkage, I will just repost the (long) essay in its entirity, and I will offer my usual annotations and emphasis as I go along. Trust me, Clones....it is more than worth the time to read this.

Oh Smug Sense of Cultural Superiority, How You Love Your Footbinding Female Circumcision Shoes

Published by R. Mildred July 18th, 2006

Oh baby, yeah that’s it.

In case anone hasn’t noticed, I haven’t actually tackled the OMGsporkitdeadSPORKITDEAD! Village Voice piece yet.

That last post, that was just my initial reaction to some of the comments in the various threads that the peice has spawned in the blogosphere, and now that the various threads have had an opportunity to mature somewhat, I have to doff my hat to Twisty again, the number of tools and straight guys who she offended is most impressive, she has earned her Oppressed Minority To Watch Out For status ten fold, and I can only parrot bitchPhd in the Boobalectemy ‘06! thread over at IBTP: Twisty, I would so mess (around) with you. (though my hetereosexuality would now doubt leave me unable to mess you properly). Any lesbian who can make so many heterosexuals so incredibly uncomfortable with two very short posts, deserves a crown and an ermin robe which she can wear as she rules over the earth as its queen.

But enough about Twisty’s amazing ability to turn the heads of easily swooned het women, what about the Bussel peice?

Well where should I begin really? The gawd aweful picture of a pasty white pseudo-goth crack whore wannabe, her eyes sort of not quite squinting at the camera, her body resting back on her elbows because her boobs are about to pop out of the butt floss she accidently put on the wrong end of her body.

Seriously, where does one begin tearing this sort of crap apart when that’s the accompaning photo? The caption to which is nothing less ironic than “no one has the right to tell you how to fuck”, which is precisely the sort of caption you should have under a photo of a woman who’s obviously been jammed into that faux-vampirella top (Cuz it’s sexy, bitch) and told to find the most ungodly uncomfortable position possible (cuz it’s sexy, bitch) by the photographer, who one can only assume had somewhere better to be that day because MAN, does it look rushed. But remember kids, being horribly abused and demeaned by the porn industry is “empowering”, a word that is quickly losing what meaning it once had thanks to its current use as prime anti-fem doublethink, doesn’t matter what it is these days, if it’s abusive and disempowering, some anti-fem is calling it “empowering”, as bussel is detirmined to prove over and over again

Oh sweet chocolate Cthulhu, I just wrote two paragraphs just on the photo that goes with the piece, God Help Us All…

Ah, yes...nothing quite like a highbrow criticism of Rachel's ideas, 'ya think??? We start right off the bat with a deconstruction of her faceshot (actually, part of a personal photogallery that Rachel did about a year ago). I mean, you'd think that RKB all but called out RM and other feminists personally with just the photo alone!!!

And the "pasty white pseudo-goth crack whore wannabe" smack is especially delightful in its insanity, too...I mean, it really strengthens your feminist critique of someone's ideas be referencing her looks....but I thought that was only what antifeminists and patriarchs do, ehhh???

Anyways....that out of the way, on to the main piece....but not quite yet:

No wait, can’t start on the actual piece yet, there’s more horrors on the page aside from the actual main peice.

For instance here’s two of the ads* in the side bar:

[Description of escort ads snipped by me for brevity]

*HeadDesks* yes folks, we have officially reached primo grade DEEP HURTING, a piece about how liberating sucking the patriarchy’s cock is, unsurprisingly, bracketed by ads for Prostitutes Escort Agencies, because whoring is fun and always entirely voluntary!

Of course, RM seems to ignore the fact that RKB's column happens to appear in the "SEX" section, along with other pro-porn and pro-sex columnists (including Tristan Taormino and Dan Savage); and that escort service ads are just a general portion of the VV's daily offings. But I guess that all that is just more worship to Teh Evil Patriarchy which warps women like Rachel to believe that sexual slavery is really freedom....riiiight???

Soooo anyway, on to the piece itself…

Let me jump right in at the beginning, but ignore the intial start where she plugs some books for what sound like some anti-fems who I neither know nor care about. They’re anti-fems, there’s twenty more money grubbing assholes for every one with an actual book deal, and they’re all very careful to be pretty interchangable, so it doesn’t matter if she does lambast them, they’re anti-fems, you’re supposed to lambast them, what do you want? A medal?

Actualy, the books that Rachel allegedly "plugs" are the Ariel Levy, Pauline Paul, and Rabbi Shumbley Boteach books which have been debated in the feminist blogosphere for months...and I hardly think that RM would cal Levy or Paul "antifems", either. Besides that, RBK doesn't even call them "anti-fem"; just points out their general criticism of women who pursue sex for its own pleasure. (Boteach is a bit more problemmatic, since he has written for Christian Right wingnut outfits like WorldNutDaily..but his critique is chock full of the usual antiporn boilerplate about how women have been "objectified" and "degraded" by the pursuit of sex outside of marriage and "love". Hmmmm...kinda like, you know, some liberal feminists I know??

This bit is the first bit that jumps out and pisses me off personally:

[quote from RKB's article] These well-intentioned prudes proffer a false choice: Be the next Jenna Jameson or support Hillary for president. There’s no room for a lusty woman in office (never mind Mary Carey’s political ambitions), and certainly no credence given to strippers or adult performers, who they see as airheaded sluts.

… now what bugs me is that Hillary is, and always has been, nothing more than an expression of the misogynistic left-of-centrists’ barely functioning sense of shame about their unwillingness to actually support feminist causes or politics, she exists as a candidate and politician only so that these Kos-holes can pretend that they’re treatment of women is in some way different from the repugs. She is in short the left wing’s equivalent to Condileeza Rice, a total tool who’s ownership of a vaginal token has gotten her to places that other toilet cleaners just can’t reach. She is in short, a perfect mirror image of Jenna Jameson, as both have achieved what they’ve achieved by being vaginas first and people second.

Funny, but doesn't much of Hillary's power come mostly from having been former President Bubba Clinton's vagina for so long??? At least Jenna actually gotten real pleasure from her pussy, and she's managed to even become quite a saavy and successful business woman...and she doesn't pander to right-wing fascists, either.

And no, having been a professional corporate lawyer and getting on Wal-Mart's Board of Directors doesn't change that fact that Hilliary's (and Condi's) power is mostly from the institutions she has exploited. A big difference between that and Jenna, who happens to be very much respected as a human being and a woman for her rise to the top of her profession...even by those who get the privilege of fucking her.

Oh, and Hillary is no Leftist by any means, but a consistent center-right Democrat, just like her husband....and is a consistent supporter of antiporn legislation, too...as is most Repubs....why bite the hand that feeds you, RM???

And the thing about giving credence to strippers and “adult performers” (of course adult performances often involve pretending to be jailbait in school uniforms, but hey! Nothing wrong there!), I mean, Wtf? They’re victims, even those who aren’t physically assaulted in their profession, I mean, come on! Their jobs involve being sexual objects who pander to the patriarchal sense of entitlement men have which tells them they all deserve pussy on demand, and how do they feed this sense of entitlement? By paying hard cash for pussy.

Nothing wrong there, so men are buying women like they’re inhuman commodities? So what? That’s normal isn’t it? Like honor killings in modern islamic countries, it’s a cultural thing, you’re not allowed to criticise it!

Oh, RMildred, where to begin??? For the last time (today): Men and women do not buy sex when they buy porn; they buy the right to watch men and women have sex with each other. And for someone who professes herself to be such a "moderate" feminist, as opposed to the Dworkin/MacKinnon school of eternal porn-as-primer-for-male-rape feminism; you certainly seem to have adopted their ideology in total about heterosex being nothing more than men forcing their hard dicks on "submissive" or resistant women.

And on this "modern Islamic countries" favoring "honor killings" nonsense...great to see that your bigotry and ignorance extends beyond sex; you can bash and bait Muslim culture with the best of neocons.

Still looking hard for any relevance of all this to what RKB actually wrote...keep reading while I search this dark closet....

Oh boy oh boy, I love this next sentence, Love it to pieces!

We’re in the middle of a culture war around sex, and it goes beyond left vs. right. Many of the voices quick to excoriate you for buttfucking, baring your boobs, having a threesome, or public sapphic smooching come from the left.

Emphasis mine.

Now why I emphasised that is for the very simple reason that I’m pretty certain that Bussel (named after a form of victorian asspadding for high society ladies, because it’s silly names month at Punkassblog) is not actually referring to lesbians kissing in public, because that would in some way not reinforce heteronormativity, and every single one of these would be counter-twistylutionary polemics are all about the heteronormativity reinforcing (except my ones of course, because I am the God Shi-halud, and free from heterosexual privelage of course, teehee).

No, what “public sapphic smooching” refers to in this case is two het girls (and with women this immature, the term girls is appropriate in this case) kissing each other in front of some het guys, to show them all that these two women are willing to do anything to display their unwaivering allegiance to the patriarchy, including gaying it up with their friends. It is of course crap like that that gives Bisexuals such a bad rep in the LGBT community, but I guess that if the act wasn’t hurting some women somewhere bussel wouldn’t have mentioned it.

Ahhh, I see...a 30+ year old woman is now reduced to an inmature "girl" for stating the obvious fact that some het and bi women might like the feel of kissing, sucking, or even fucking another woman without rejecting men outright. She may call it "unwaivering allegiance to the patriarchy"; most of us not blinded to radfem sophistry are more prone to call it personal growth and development. I mean, there just might be the idea that young women might be attracted sexually to other women simply because IT FEELS DAMN GOOD TO THEM, and not merely out of a desire to join a radicallesbianfeminist group or to "put out" for men..right??? Naaahhh, it's just the evil patriarchy warping girls' brains again to succumb to Teh Cock.

Levy argues that women have to (and want to) out-’ho ourselves to fit into our increasingly raunchy, male-identified sexual culture. She cites Paris Hilton as a lead “pig.” That the devil-may-care heiress wasn’t chastened for her slutty ways irks those who think women should never flaunt their bodies�even voluntarily.

Oh save us from the “voluntary” patriarchy victims! I’ve been thinking alot about multicultural feminism recently , and the thing I’ve stated to notice is a pattern that keeps reoccuring across all the various cultures that opress women, what happens is that a feminist will start talking about the nastiness in a foriegn culture and inevitably someone will whip out some variant of “but the women think that female genital mutilation is a good thing! Who are you to intervene?”, which of course instantly shuts down any discussion. Now of course western society is superior to all others, it is more enlightened, and of course feminism is no longer needed in the west for it has achieved its aims. This is bullshit, the “who are you to intervene” canard has kept large aspects of feminist critiscism silent all over the world, first and third world both, feminists are never allowed to actually criticise any culture for its abusive nature towards women, because there’s this culture and the women really want to be oppressed, really.

Do you know what? When a friend of mine turns into a total alchoholic, do you know what I’m obligated to do? Stage an intervention, irregardless of how much he really likes drinking til he pees himself, I’m supposed to stick my big fat nose into his “choice” to be addicted and gently kill himself with booze, because he needs help, and he needs to be made to realise that he has a problem.

But if it’s a woman, addicted to patriarchal self destruction, well that’s different, that’s a different sort of self-destructive “choice” all together, one she’s allowed to “choose” and if she’s being gently killed by her husband, well that’s an issue between man and wife and nothing for us to be concerned about.
Alchoholics get interventions by their family and friends, patriarchal abuse victims get bussel’s gentle rationalisations for their oppression.

Makes sense to me.

Me, too....I mean, we really shouldn't differentiate between a social drinker who dabbles in a couple of glasses of champagne or wine cooler and a stone-drunk alcoholic who could get behind the wheel of a car...so why should we do the same with a woman who "degrades" herself and her sisterhood by having "patriarchial" sex which by RM's edict automatically degrades and threatens her sisters??? (/snark) That's what feminism by RM's account should be, I guess; sort of an "Sluts Anonymous" that rescues women from their own evil baser instincts.

I really don't think that the phrase "We die a little with each orgasm" was meant to be taken that seriously....and WTF is "killed gently"???

And...it's so nice to see consensual sex acts be redefined as "patriarchal abuse", too.

Blogger Twisty of I Blame the Patriarchy (blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com) incited feminist ire when she wrote, “There’s a reason that deep-throating a funk-filled bratwurst makes a person retch.” Holier-than-thou pronouncements of sexual superiority don’t scream “sisterhood” to me.

Yeah, and you know what? Uptight little asswaste little heterosexual women doing their best to marginalize lesbian viewpoints doesn’t exactly scream “sisterhood” either, in fact the word “sister-fucker” comes to mind, along with the other term “anti-feminist”. FFS, Twisty is never Holier-Than-Thou, Twisty just doesn’t fuck around and pretend that she doesn’t mean precisely what she means. strange how when it comes to women sucking patriarchal cock, you’re free to do whatever but Oh. My. Gosh. As soon as someone actually blames the patriarchy for shit and Dares to mock the holy phallus no less, well, that’s just not on.

LOL, look at me getting all upset by this, like I’ve never seen a lesbian being marginalized before…

This is the most hilarious point of RM's analysis...I didn't know that Rachel was baiting and attacking all lesbians with the statement that ALL women should have the right to pursue sex for their own meanings and pleasure; I would assume that that principle would also include lesbians as well. But what do I know...I'm one of those evil patriarchial men who exist just to get into women's panties as often as possible. (Not.)

And this defense of Twisty's original anti-blowjob smack is fascinating, since it was this very blog that produced a particularly stong critique of Twisty's ambush. I guess that defending blowjobs is only legitimate when radfems criticize other radfems; but when those outside the charmed circle do the same, it's defending patriarchy?!?!

There’s a world of difference between being branded a sex object and choosing to be one under certain circumstances.

Umm, the net result if that you’re still a sex object, so that world of difference is not really all that different or good, is it?

Yup...only women who have sex with only one other partner for their entire life (hopefully only with a woman), and only in a certain "sisterly" kind of way without any mention of sex toys, lust, orgasms, or other "patriarchial" interference, can be accepted as a true feminist; any deviance from that and you fall from the pedestal into the profane world of "sex object". Tell me again, RM, that you are any different from the Religious Right or the MacDworkinites???

Recall Tad Friend’s classic 1994 “do-me feminism” Esquire article, in which Lisa Palac said, “Degrade me when I ask you to” (emphasis mine). Women’s true desires may not make for perfect propaganda, but sex is justifiably complex. I may like to get spanked until I scream, but I still deserve to be treated as an intelligent human being. Submitting sexually doesn’t equal becoming a doormat outside the bedroom.

Yes, except this brand of “there’s nothing wrong with being abused” sexuality does kind of require you being a doormat with a vagina.

So, it doesn't matter if you are respected in the real world as a human being; once you cross the line into accepting or even tolerating such acts, you have fundamentally sinned into becoming a "doormat". Who's objectifying whom here???

OK....so this will have to take two posts for a proper fisking. Just hang on, and I'll finish this. I appreciate your patience.

[to be continued in next post]

The Smearing of "Lusty Lady" Rachel Kramer Bussel: or, When Sex Liberationists Become "Anti-Sex" Submissives

It's bad enough that those of us who are sex radicals get whacked from the Christian Right and the usual conservatives as being beyond the pale....but what can you say when it is supposed liberals who simply can't get the idea in their heads that women can be free to make their own damn choices in matters of sexuality??

Case in point: Rachel Kramer Bussel's latest Lusty Lady column in the Village Voice titled "Fucking and Feminism", whereas she lays out the defense of the full program of sexual freedom and liberty for women from the attacks from the latest round of neoliberal feminists such as Ariel Levy (Female Chauvinist Pigs), Pauline Paul (Pornified), and Rabbi Slumbley Boteach (Hating Women: America's Hostile Campaign Against the Fairer Sex). (Actually, Boteach is more of a wingnut Rightist than a feminist, but he was included in Rachel's column.) Some nice excerpts:

There's a world of difference between being branded a sex object and choosing to be one under certain circumstances. Recall Tad Friend's classic 1994 "do-me feminism" Esquire article, in which Lisa Palac said, "Degrade me when I ask you to" (emphasis mine). Women's true desires may not make for perfect propaganda, but sex is justifiably complex. I may like to get spanked until I scream, but I still deserve to be treated as an intelligent human being. Submitting sexually doesn't equal becoming a doormat outside the bedroom.

Men are also unfairly judged—as brutish horndogs selfishly out to get as much sex as they can. The truth is, they're confused and constrained by the "macho" role too. Recently, a man asked me whether wanting to get fucked up the ass by a woman was "normal." Men have plenty of desires that aren't sanctioned by popular culture, leaving them to wonder if any woman will embrace such kinks as men wearing women's panties, getting tied up, or being penetrated with a dildo. On the other hand, women often question whether our dirtiest dreams (especially those involving BDSM) make us unfit as future leaders.

Feminists are just like any other women, with a range of sexual desires and practices from doggy-style to bukkake, and it'd be a shame for us to hold back in a misguided attempt to live up to the legacies of Susan B. Anthony and Gloria Steinem. We can choose to be celibate or to have someone come on our face. Having a full range of sexual options should be a high-priority feminist goal.


[...]

I encourage all men and women to make the sexual choices that are right for them, regardless of what's "cool." I can't tell you how to fuck. Instead of looking to gurus, activists, porn stars, and how-to books, you'd be better off looking inside, spending some quality time with your fingers around your cock or pressed against your clit figuring out what sets you off. Forget about the judgments of your friends and neighbors (who are probably just as wild in the sack as you are).

The feminist sex wars were largely fought before I was born, yet sadly, women continue to battle each other over what we do in bed, as if coming up with the most politically correct form of orgasm will automatically solve other inequities. I believe in advancing the cause of sexual freedom for everyone, by increasing our knowledge and offering room for fantasy and safe, nonjudgmental experimentation.

Sexual freedom is not the only, or the most pressing, issue facing American women today, but it's vital to any true feminist movement. Excoriating other women and berating them for a host of erotic sins creates unnecessary divisions and puts people on the defensive. No one has the right to tell you how to fuck.

Sounds reasonable and radical, and definitely pro-sex, you think???

Apparantly not to Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, who decided to drop her supposed "porn liberal feminist" cloak to attack RKB in one of her latest entries as a not-so-closet "submissive" who only want to liberate women to serve men. Indeed, Amanda derisively retitles Rachel's essay "I Really Like Being Submissive" to prove her supposed point that RBK is really, like apparently so many sex liberationists, just another sellout to THE MAN and his penis. Some lowhighlights:

[...]

...[RKB's] thesis is that feminists need to quit telling other women that we’re hurting the feminist movement by having sex wrong, and her evidence is that Twisty trolled her own blog, that a non-feminist rabbi wrote a book where he argued that women’s sexual freedom is hurting us, and that Ariel Levy wrote a book criticizing the Girls Gone Wild trend (particularly those manifestations of it where girls seem to be doing stuff that has a whiff of being less than fully consensual). But this column is an example of how not to convince people that you’re a pro-sex radical feminist. For instance, this paragraph:

[from RKB's column] Feminists are just like any other women, with a range of sexual desires and practices from doggy-style to bukkake, and it’d be a shame for us to hold back in a misguided attempt to live up to the legacies of Susan B. Anthony and Gloria Steinem. We can choose to be celibate or to have someone come on our face. Having a full range of sexual options should be a high-priority feminist goal.

The full range of sexual options, from her examples provided, appear to vary from sporting a patriarchy-approved purity ring to sex acts that are about men humiliating women. Awesome. I feel so empowered. I hate to sound like a sex-hating strawfeminist, but when coming up with a bona fide full range of options, I’d like to at least imagine that there’s women who aren’t religious nuts or sexually submissive might enjoy. And not to sound like a man-hater, but it seems a little more fair if the range of options involves women who are dominating as well as men who are. She does include examples of men who like to be humiliated in bed, too, but otherwise, despite her claims to sexual radicalism, she avoids the larger issue of whose sexuality is actually considered a threat in this society—you know, the non-submissive sluts of the world.

That's kinda interesting, since nowhere in RKB's essay does she even mention that she in fact is that submissive, nor does she explicitly say that submissiveness is the only desirable thing in sexual freedom for women. All Rachel says is that women should be allowed the full freedom to engage in consensual sexual acts that provide them with much pleasure, while still insisting on their rights to be respected as human beings. But I guess that for Amanda, only "non-submissivess" who follow her "porn liberal" feminist analysis should be allowed to engage in sex for pleasure; all others are simply tainted by male patriarchy, apparantly.

But wait...that's not all. Not satisfied with smearing Rachel's personal sex beliefs; Amanda goes on to fundamentally distort RKB's beliefs on so-called "rape fantasies" (actually, more like "ravishment" fantasies, because the woman only surrenders out of and recieves only pleasure rather than violence or injury as in real rape).

(From RBK)Sara DeKeuster is one of my heroines. In 2005, in The UWM Post, an independent student newspaper, she ran a photo essay exploring her rape fantasies. The uproar was instantaneous. One blogger, Kyle Duerstein, wrote (but later deleted), “Sara DeKeuster ought be[sic] raped today. And after that, she ought be [sic] raped tomorrow, by someone else . . . she might be killed by her attacker. Maybe then, she’ll get it, and if not, she’ll be dead, and the world will be a less f*$!ed up place.” The Women’s Resource Center claimed the spread created a “hostile campus” and was “an active act of harm.” In response, DeKeuster evoked Cindy Sherman: “I am not sorry for my art! It would be like saying I’m sorry for being a woman and that I like sex (or to be fucked rather).”

(Amanda's response) Very selective quotes from the Women’s Resource Center that make me wonder what the full statement said. But more interesting to me is that she uses for evidence of some sort of feminist anti-sex crusade a blog post from a young man who seems to have rape fantasies of his own. I would point out that men who really get all wound up imagining raping women is indeed something that we feminists are concerned about. But generally speaking, our main concern is the large numbers of men who actually act on the fantasies and go ahead and rape someone.

Funny, but I saw Duerstein's commentary as more typical of a radical feminist attack on DeKeuster for making public and acceptable such "rape fantasies" and encouraging and enabling men to actually rape women....hardly a thinly veiled desire to rape anyone. But, since Duerstein is a man, and men are innately, according to some radical feminist doctrine, compelled to rape and attack women, I guess that I could understand Amanda's conclusions. Of course, Rachel's point was NOT to even mention Duerstein, but to defend DeKuester's right to explore and speak openly about such fantasies, which many powerful women -- even feminists -- admit to having without any harm to their feminist credentials or any assaults by men. Nothing about dismissing the problems of real rape anywhere.

And the fact that Rachel doesn't include female-dominant/male submissive sex in her analysis does not translate into dismissal of those acts; what I got from Rachel's essay is that a full defense of sexual freedom requires an acceptance of ALL consensual and mutually pleasurable activities, whatever the personal taste or variety. Unfortunately, that tends to cut right across the general radical/liberal feminist goal of regulating and controlling sex that doesn't meet their standards of non-"patriarchial" purity....not to mention the personal dislikes of women who use feminist language to justify and sanction their own personal sexual myopias.

Oh, but the real charm comes in the ensuing comments to AM's column, where her sister and fella feminists are wating in the wings to pile on poor Rachel as a evil male submissive who is also -- get ready for this one -- "antisex and anti-women's sexuality". Witness this series of gems:

Amanda Marcotte Jul 16th, 2006 at 8:51 pm

PR, let me make it clear. She was thrashing a strawfeminist. And the reason is because she’s extremely defensive of something that she couldn’t even find feminists attacking. If she’s so damn proud of her sexual submissiveness, then why is she defending it against imaginary attacks from fake feminists? I think sexual submission is fine, and indeed completely understandable in a male dominated society. It’s not my thing, but I certainly get it. But if it’s no big deal, why is she defending it against attackers that she couldn’t even find?

I should write for the Village Voice. “I think women should be able to have orgasms and I don’t care what all these imaginary feminists say!”

And PR, you’re the one selectively editing, as I say in my post that she does include examples of men who like sexual submission, but while she takes the time to praise men who have non-male-dominated desires, she can’t bring herself to mention women who do. Some radical. Women like me don’t even fucking exist.



14 sophonisba Jul 16th, 2006 at 9:11 pm

but there very much are real, flesh-and-blood women who claim the label ‘feminist’ and do sometimes advance arguments that seem to be very anti-’some women’s sexuality’

Damn right. Women who write and talk as though the only interesting and edgy forms of sexual exploration are the ones involving female submission are both lying and doing harm. Women like that, like Rachel Kramer Bussel, are profoundly anti-sex and anti-women’s sexuality.

And although Amanda’s absolutely right about this being primarily a gesture of contempt and erasure towards women who like to do non-submissive sex, it’s also anti-submissive-women’s sexuality even as it pretends to be supportive of it. It’s really shitty to be unable to know if you really like what you think you do, which is what happens when the entirety of the popular discourse is trying to push you into liking it. The slutty/kinky=submissive model for women fucks up sex for all of us, including submissive women.


15 Amanda Marcotte
Jul 16th, 2006 at 9:27 pm

Thanks, soph. I think there’s a weird issue of people thinking that discussing sexuality will somehow de-magic it, but I don’t find that to be true. I think you can be thoughtful about how power is eroticized in our society without destroying your ability to enjoy your kink. In fact, I’d think a thoughtful approach to any kind of sexual experimentation makes it hotter, because you are capable of articulating your desires so much more when you actually think about them, where they come from, and how you can repackage them for your own pleasure.

I was so moved by this piling on to post a rejoinder to the Pandagon board defending Rachel, which I will not repost here; but considering such Orwellian nonsense as the previous comments (sexual freedom is "anti-sex"; opening up oppurtunities for women to safely experiment for themselves is "anti-women's sexuality" and "submission to men"...I guess that that means that Andrea Dworkin is truely a sex-positive, then??), I think that I will seperate myself from such "liberal feminists" from here on out. I just find it really sad that those who speak so passionately for women's rights and freedoms in all other areas are so tone-deaf and blind and so reactionary when it comes to respecting women's sexual choices.

Sometimes a blowjob is just a blowjob; and a bratwurst is not the same as a penis....and some women really do love sex and can still remain feminists. Although, if this shit keeps up, there might not be too many feminists -- or Leftists -- around.

P.S. -- Rachel has some followup to her VV column posted at her Lusty Lady blog here...just to show that not all feminists or women are so ignorant or dismissive. Feel free to check it out.

UPDATE (7-18-06): Amanda has since posted a rebuttal that clarifies her position on RKB's article; and I hate to admit it, but I may have been more than a bit harsh on her originally. She sounds now a lot more openminded than I first figured, and she even made some legitimate points about how some women are forced into doing acts that they may not like..which I can't argue against. As much as she maddens me sometimes, she is usually more right than wrong..and I do respect that. So, she's back on the positive side of the wall here....though I'm figuring that she'll go off and say something to rile me up again...lol