Loose Women, Lecherous Men (21 page)

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Authors: Linda Lemoncheck

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Page 82
Sexual Preference from the "View from Somewhere Different"
Since the reaction Moulton refers to is itself a socially located reaction based on a perception of the incomprehensibility of sexual perversion, I suggest that the concept of sexual perversion be replaced with the concept of sexual
difference
. This replacement has the advantage of making all sexual behavior different, not just perverse behavior, since by jettisoning the notion of sexual perversion, we jettison the concept of the normal as well. In this sense, the concept of sexual difference is a deconstructive concept designed to explode the polarity of normal/perverse that equates the perverse with the unacceptable, corrupt, sick, bad, and the normal with the acceptable, innocent, healthy, good. The concept of sexual difference avoids the pejorative connotations of being on the "wrong" side of the polarity of the normal yet does not deconstruct the concept of difference itself that allows us to locate, particularize, and evaluate worldviews. In so doing we can reconstitute sexuality as a differentiated category of nonstigmatized sexual variation. When all sexual behavior is "other" than some "other" behavior, the value of otherness remains an open question.
51
What my critique of the philosophical literature on sexual perversion suggests is that when perversion is regarded as subversive or in some other way bad, we close the question as to whether some sexual perversion may be unobjectionable. Yet when we retain the concept of sexual perversion but ascribe it normative neutrality, sexual perversion becomes empty of meaning or inadequate as a way of distinguishing sexually perverse behavior from the normal. I have suggested that this is because the concept of sexual perversion only makes sense when polarized against a norm of behavior that is preferred to the perverse in order to encourage social compliance with the norm. Once we deconstruct that polarity, we can make room for an exploration of difference that does not presuppose that some sexual behavior ("ours") is better than others ("theirs").
For those who bristle at compulsory sexual normality but find marginalization equally oppressive, such deconstruction can create new ways of thinking and talking about sex that makes marginality and centrality equally valuable in their difference. Indeed, many contemporary philosophers and social critics argue that gender constitutes a broad spectrum of socially constructed behaviors, revealing the lability and complexity of gender in such phenomena as the inventive cross-gender performance of drag queens, the sadomasochistic sex play of lace and leather-clad dominatrixes, the gender fascination and sex transformation of transsexuals, and the dynamic and conflicting uses of the term "queer."
52
Moreover, if we continue to treat the perverse as the bad, we repeat the mistake of the "view from nowhere" by refusing to countenance alternative points of view; or we reiterate the "view from somewhere better" by acknowledging alternatives but refusing to question the superiority of our own location. If thinking and talking about sexual perversion in terms of sexual difference can create new avenues for sexual understanding, then we may well question Freud's contention that heterosexual norms are the necessary price of civilization.
The notion of sexual difference derives its significance from the "view from somewhere different," which eschews assumptions of superiority in the name of recog-
 
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nizing, understanding, and promoting worldviews from which one's own views differ. While such a perspective encourages a respect for what Jeffrey Weeks calls a "radical pluralism" of diverse sexual behaviors,
53
this perspective does not require that every behavior be accepted as equally valid. The feminist philosophy of sex described thus far is grounded in the belief that patriarchal institutions and ideology are sexually oppressive to women. The "view from somewhere different" recommends characterizing human sexual behavior in terms of the individual social location that gives such behavior meaning and value. From within that context we can articulate a feminist ethics and politics of sex that affords individual women better treatment than one that would harm, marginalize, or exclude them.
In fact, the "view from somewhere different" acknowledges that there will be those whose sexual stimulation derives in large part from the association of their sexual behavior with what is immoral, unspeakable, forbidden, or taboo.
54
As I have already argued, jettisoning the polarity of normal/perverse does not also mean that we must jettison the categories of sexual difference that allow us to call some sex good and some sex bad. It simply means that no one will be compelled by social stigmatization of sexual deviance to perceive difference as bad. The appreciation from the "view from somewhere different" of the dialectic between gender and sexuality also means that a woman's pursuit of passion and pleasure becomes as pressing an issue for a feminist philosophy of sex as her sexual violation and victimization. While such a philosophy cannot promise undistorted investigations into the meaning and value of sexual difference, my contention is that the "view from somewhere different" offers us a more representative picture than philosophies of sex that would determine difference from the beginning.
Politically Correct Sexuality
The problem with correct ideas is that they can all too readily become cor-
rectional ideals.
Jeffrey Weeks,
Sexuality and Its Discontents: Meanings, Myths, and Modern Sexualities
The feminist movement is driven by an activism aimed at reclaiming women's power over the content and direction of our lives. As such, it is a political movement with inevitable tendencies toward defining "politically correct" behavior in terms of its consistency with feminist values. Indeed, since many members of the feminist community condemn sexual experiences, preferences, or desires that either replicate or reinforce the institutional and ideological patterns of male dominance, such sex might arguably be called "politically incorrect" sex from a feminist point of view. Such sex is criticized by feminists for being both oppressive and androcentric since it is sex that unjustly subordinates women to men by defining women's sexual needs and interests in men's terms.
55
The immediate danger with any form of political correctness, however, is that in its demands for strict compliance with purportedly less oppressive forms of behavior, it tends to replace one oppressive regime with another. Thus, feminists must take
 
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care that an androcentric vision of women's sexuality is not replaced with an equally narrow gynocentric vision that, as I pointed out in chapter 1, risks allegiance to the "view from somewhere better." Even if appeals to a superior perspective are avoided, proponents of political correctness will tend to adopt a "view from nowhere" that is averse to considering alternative points of view if they adhere to a universal truth about what is best about human behavior. Neither cultural nor sex radical feminists consider themselves advocates of politically correct sex, since this would imply, as Jeffrey Weeks warns above, a dogmatism and special interest that would preclude valuing alternative points of view. Yet feminism is often maligned for expressing an unequivocal political bias that many women and men regard as totally foreign to their own life experience. I have argued in this and other chapters that the advantage of understanding women's sexuality from the "view from somewhere different" is that of embracing disparate views of women's sexual experience, so that no one sexuality is perceived as right for all women or right for any one woman in all areas of her sexual life. Thus, the conflict between cultural and sex radical feminists over sexual preference can be viewed not as an unbridgeable rift between mutually inconsistent perspectives but as a disagreement within a continuing dialogue over the meaning and value of sexual difference.
An Outline of the Debate
For cultural feminists, a truly woman-identified sexuality is one that eschews defining women's sexual experiences, preferences, and desires in terms of
power
: while male-identified sex is constructed in terms of dominance and submission, a cultural feminist's woman-identified sex consists of a relationship among moral equals whose partners share a care and respect for one another's sexual needs. Such mutuality is regarded as impossible when one partner alone controls the when, where, and how of sex. According to cultural feminism, the sex that women prefer is egalitarian sex, where the power to determine the terms and conditions of sexual experience is either equally shared or eliminated altogether; the sex that men typically prefer is characterized by a power
im
balance in which those who do not control the action are coerced into sex that they do not really want. From this view, women's consent to such sex only signifies the depth of the oppression that they experience under patriarchy, since women, if given a real choice, would choose nonpolarized roles over polarized ones.
Three forms of sexuality are particular targets for cultural feminists who condone gay and lesbian sex but not their so-called perverse variations: cross-generational sex between men and boys, sex between lesbians adopting butch/femme roles, and gay and lesbian sadomasochistic sex. All three are oppressive forms of sexuality from a cultural feminist perspective, since they are believed to replicate the oppressive hierarchical relations of male dominance that cultural feminists actively resist. From this view, man/boy love is exploitative of young boys not emotionally or sexually mature enough to decide for themselves whether their lovers are right for them. It is argued that unlike lesbian cross-generational sex, man/boy love exemplifies the patriarchal dominance and control of an adult male over his young sexual charge. Butch/femme sexual roles and lesbian sadomasochism are regarded as nothing more
 
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than corrupt manifestations of women consenting to sex that is oppressive in its form and often violent in its content. Gay male sadomasochism is regarded as an ironic reconstruction of the most harmful and exploitative aspects of heterosexuality. Many feminists who do not advocate cultural feminism's strong adherence to a specific set of woman-identified values have nevertheless joined cultural feminists in condemning women's sexuality that appears to do no more than re-create oppressive, male-dominated sexual hierarchies.
56
A sex radical feminist's response is that cultural feminists are mistaken in thinking that all man/boy love, butch/femme sexual role-playing, or gay and lesbian sadomasochism are mere replications of the dominance and submission of patriarchy. From this point of view, the relations between butch and femme or lesbian sadomasochists express feminist values because such relations enhance each partner's ability to recreate power in sexual relationships
in women's terms
, not in men's. According to a sex radical perspective, such relations are consensual relations constitutive of the sexual ethic of care respect described in the previous chapter, the same ethic that a cultural feminist demands of her "vanilla" sex. Indeed, sex radicals contend that butch/femme sexual role-playing or lesbian sadomasochistic sex can liberate individual women to explore their sexuality in positive and creative ways. From this point of view, such sex is predictably vilified by a patriarchal society whose sexual norms are designed to favor an oppressive male-identified heterosexuality, referred to by Julia Penelope as "hetero-patriarchy."
57
Sex radical feminists further contend that the sexual relations between a man and his young gay lover or between two gay men engaged in sadomasochistic sex should be equally judged, not by what they appear to imitate but by their real concern for understanding and promoting one another's sexual needs as revealed by the partners themselves. From a sex radical point of view, cultural feminists create an oppressive sexual environment equal to, if not greater than, that of the status quo by refusing to allow either women or men their full range of passion and pleasure.
58
In what follows I will explore the debate over sexual difference between cultural feminism and sex radical feminism, first by looking more closely at what cultural feminists mean by "egalitarian" sex in two distinct types of arguments. I will give primary attention to the complaints lodged against man/boy love, butch/femme sexual role-playing, and lesbian sadomasochism; the issue of reinforcing patriarchal dominance, exploitation, and abuse that arises in feminist complaints against gay male sadomasochism will be subsumed for my purposes under these three types of sexual difference. This is not to suggest that gay male sadomasochism exactly parallels lesbian sadomasochism or that there are no features of gay male sadomasochism that are worthy of separate investigation. I simply wish to focus my attention on some of the complex ways that women in sadomasochistic relationships with other women may reinforce men's sexual subordination of women.
59
I will then investigate the variety of responses sex radicals can offer to cultural feminists' complaints as well as arguments in favor of a sex radical feminist approach to sexual difference made on her own and others' behalf. While I will refer to feminists from a variety of theoretical backgrounds in my discussion of the issues on both sides, I have intentionally situated cultural feminism in diametric opposition to sex radical feminism to emphasize the kind of polarization that has occurred within feminism generally over issues of freedom of

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