Loose Women, Lecherous Men (22 page)

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Authors: Linda Lemoncheck

Tags: #Social Science, #Feminism & Feminist Theory, #test

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sexual expression for women. In the last part of this section I will argue that the "view from somewhere different" can negotiate the tensions between the two sides of the debate and provide a framework for understanding some of the conflict and contradiction in women's and men's conceptions of sexual deviance. In this way, individuals from a variety of social locations may begin to explore how different, not deviant, sexualities may figure in their own conceptions of sexual preference.
Antifeminist or Profeminist? Coercive or Consensual?
A cultural feminist's complaints against the adoption or advocacy of dominant/submissive sexual roles take two basic forms. One type of argument condemns man/boy love, butch/femme sexual role-playing, and lesbian sadomasochism for being antifeminist. This argument asserts that sex replicating the oppressive power relations of patriarchy is antifeminist and that these three types of sexual practice replicate just those relations. Those who argue in this manner tend to balk at condemning a sex radical's private sexual habits but object to the claim by some radicals that their sexual behavior is not only unobjectionable but also profeminist.
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Thus, even apparently consensual dominant/submissive sex is not sex that cultural feminists can conscientiously promote or advocate.
A second type of argument suggests that just because patriarchal power relations are replicated in the privacy of the bedroom is no reason for thinking that those relations are unobjectionable. From this view, since the personal is political, one's "private" consent to dominant/submissive sex has public ramifications. Indeed, according to this line of reasoning, it is a mistake to think that such sex is not openly political: practitioners wear distinctive dress; advertise their services and needs in newsletters and magazines; plan festivals and parades; associate in public parks, bars, and bathhouses; and attend academic conferences where their sexual lives are openly discussed. From this perspective, the public approval and encouragement of dominant/submissive sex by even the smallest feminist subgroup validates men's sexual intimidation, humiliation, or violation of women. Worse, this validation comes out of the very community that is designed to protect women from such abuse. Therefore, according to this view, no matter how much personal sexual pleasure or satisfaction may be gained through man/boy love, butch/femme sexual role-playing, or lesbian sadomasochism, their practice encourages men's violence against womenindeed, constitutes violence against those who submit to itand so is morally wrong.
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In the first argument, cultural feminists are claiming that since a sex radical's dominant/submissive sex is not sex
between equals
, such sex is antifeminist. In the second argument, cultural feminists claim that since a sex radical's dominant/submissive sex is not sex
between equals
, such sex is not only antifeminist but also morally wrong. In both arguments, cultural feminists assert that appropriate sex for feminists is
egalitarian
sex.
What does it mean to say that feminist sexual practice should be egalitarian sex? "Terry is the equal of Alex" means not that "Terry is the same person as Alex" but that Terry and Alex are equal in some specified respect(s). Not just any respects will do for a cultural feminist, however, since Terry and Alex could both be African
 
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American, middle-class, and gay but still be in a relationship between adult and child that constitutes man/boy love. In fact, they could be "equal" in their mutual enjoyment of every type of dominant/submissive sex that a cultural feminist rejects.
Furthermore, cultural feminists would not want to deny that egalitarian sex can exist between individuals of widely different races, classes, religions, physical abilities, personal interests, or age. The equality in which a cultural feminist is primarily interested is that relation in which each partner is equally cared for and respected by the other. However, since each partner could equally respect the other's desire for dominant/submissive sex, we still need to specify in what respects a cultural feminist wishes sexual partners to be cared for and respected. In chapter 2 I suggested that such respect implied acknowledging, understanding, and promoting one's partner's interests as she would define them; but if such interests include a sex radical's desire for sadomasochistic sex, then a cultural feminist will simply dismiss this desire as one she could not possibly respect.
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Furthermore, if one of the complaints about man/boy love is that no matter how caring his sexual partner, a very young boy is simply not capable of making reasoned judgments with regard to his sexuality, then more than acknowledging, understanding, and promoting the expressed desires of at least some sexual partners will be required of a cultural feminist's sexual ethic. I suggest that before we can specify a sexual ethic that is flexible enough to explore the tensions between a cultural feminist and a sex radical feminist, we must look at three respects in which equality in sex is an issue for both feminists: equality of
power
, equality of
attention
, and equality of
affection
.
Cultural Feminism's Egalitarian Sex
For a cultural feminist, equality of power in sexual relations means that each partner has both the capacity and the opportunity to participate in the decisions that determine the nature and purpose of the sex act. Equality of power in sex means that at no time does only one partner dictate the content, timing, or technique of sex, creating a power imbalance in which only one person is in control. Some feminists refer to this kind of equality in sex as a sharing of power, as opposed to an exchange of power; others advocate the elimination of power dynamics in sex altogether.
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According to either view, equality of power in sex means the absence of dominant and submissive sexual roles whose essentially oppressive nature under hetero-patriarchy turns a woman's willingness to dominate or her consent to submit into reconstructions of antifeminist sexual norms. From this perspective, when individual women "choose" to play either dominant or submissive roles in sex, they simply reflect the internalization of patriarchal values that are so strong and so insidious that women have unwittingly adopted them as their own. Dominant/submissive sex is perceived as a male invention promoting male sexual values that are coercive and ubiquitousvalues of physical force, psychological intimidation, and hierarchical privilege. From a cultural feminist's perspective, choosing or consenting to dominant/submissive sex simply makes no sense in a society in which heterosexual dominance is forced on women, sexual submission is required of women, and power is defined exclusively by men to eroticize the victimization of women.
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According to cultural feminists, given women's inability in principle to define sexually polarizing roles in our own terms, women are doing nothing but hurting ourselves politically by not actively resisting patriarchal sexual models. Many feminists
 
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believe that sex radicals are hurting themselves morally and physically as well. Sarah Lucia Hoagland asserts that "it is not OK for a womon to consent to her own humiliation" because this humiliation constitutes "[t]he erasure of [he]r autonomy, integrity and humor" (Hoagland's spelling). In Valerie Heller's words, "Sadomasochism is nothing less than assault and battery."
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Some feminists also point out that when women practice, write, and talk about butch/femme sexual roles or lesbian sadomasochism, they glamorize the violence and abuse of women and so reinforce the male belief that women are only turned on by violent, coercive, or abusive sex.
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This reinforcement only encourages men to rape, harass, and humiliate women. Thus, from this perspective, sex that is polarized by power dynamics or power that is eroticized for its own sake not only constitutes harm to women but also has political ramifications that reinforce that harm. According to many feminists, by pursuing sex for pleasure in the absence of political reflection, sex radicals ignore the very foundations of feminism.
According to a cultural feminist, man/boy love is simply another example of the patriarchal authoritarianism of male sex: children do not have the social, legal, or financial resources that adults do, making it tempting for mature pedophiles to extract sexual favors from children who may acquiesce to their demands out of fear or insecurity. Some feminists have joined more politically conservative groups in suggesting that cross-generational sex is just a euphemism for child molestation. Therefore, according to feminist critics, issues of consent become moot in man/boy love relationships where the boy's real access to behavioral alternatives is nil. From this perspective, the boys that gay men typically approach are either boys with little knowledge or experience of sex, boys without stable families, or boys whose sexual experience has so convinced them of the necessity of their submission to men as to make their informed consent to sex meaningless. While the men in these relationships do not have the special authority of an incestuous parent to press their demands, many feminists still see in such relationships a kind of emotional and material extortion that makes man/boy love morally reprehensible.
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Furthermore, from this view, if early in life young boys experience sex as something an adult male forces on his sexual partner, they will grow up thinking that this is the appropriate sexual role model for them. Thus, such relationships only reinforce men's patriarchal role as the subordinators in sex. Even if a young boy is a teenager who asserts that he likes sex with older men and tends to seek out his own partners, some feminists would respond that the mere fact that he is violating a heterosexual and generational norm makes it impossible for him to have sex without feeling victimized by a guilt and fear imposed on him from without. Thus, he would again reach adulthood with an attitude toward sex that is anathema to a cultural feminist's conception of egalitarian sex.
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Marilyn Frye suggests that the relationship between knowledge and power becomes complex when we consider that boys who say they enjoy submitting to the sexual power of a dominant man may have convinced themselves that they want to do what their partners request of them (even if they would not do so in less confining circumstances), because there really is no other alternative that would not create discomfort in the relationship. This conviction in turn endorses the belief on the part of a man that his much younger partner does indeed want to do what he requests,
 
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and a man's superior power position assures himself that his beliefs must be true.
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For all these reasons, a cultural feminist requires that power be shared, if not eliminated, from sex.
Shared attention and reciprocity of affection in sex are also required by cultural feminists, since from this perspective, egalitarian sex is not only a sharing of power but also a sharing of intimacy. According to this view, sex between equals means that no one person is attending to the sexual needs of her partner without also getting her own needs met. Reciprocity of affection means that each partner values emotional intimacy, rather than one partner desiring affection while the other cares for nothing other than physical performance. For a cultural feminist, such sharing of attention and affection means that there will be a loving understanding and promotion of each other's sexual needs. From this perspective, butch/femme sexual roles and lesbian sadomasochism do not allow reciprocal attention and affection since their
modus operandi
is the kind of polarized sex play that makes intimate sharing impossible. According to this view, sadomasochism in particular emphasizes the humiliation and degradation of the masochist and the rejection of intimacy by the sadist. In addition, the power imbalance in man/boy love makes such love suspect, since attentiveness and affection may easily be coerced from a young lover who is emotionally or materially dependent. Furthermore, from this view, boys will be more vulnerable to physical abuse and to the contraction of sexually transmitted diseases when they are in casual or anonymous relationships that are not governed by an equality of intimacy. Thus, for cultural feminists, sex that is equal in power, attention, and affection is essential for a feminist program of reclaiming a woman-identified sexuality. According to this perspective, only through the practice and advocacy of an egalitarian sex that equalizes, not polarizes, sexual roles can there be the kind of care respect that acknowledges, understands, and promotes the real needs and interests of women.
Sex Radical Feminism's Consensual Eroticization of Power
A sex radical feminist who advocates removing the social stigma against cross-generational sex, butch/femme sexual roles, and lesbian sadomasochism responds by claiming that it is she, not a cultural feminist, who practices and promotes a woman-identified sexuality. From a sex radical's perspective, by forcing women to accept what Esther Newton and Shirley Walton call "one look and one role for all,"
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cultural feminists restrict women to as narrow a range of sexualities and preferences as the status quo. Indeed, from this view a cultural feminist appears to be joining forces with patriarchy in her stigmatization of sexual deviance. According to a sex radical feminist, this much is to be expected, since the moral self-righteousness of cultural feminism engenders a plea for political correctness that is nothing more than a monolith of orthodoxy and totalitarian control. According to a sex radical feminist, the most insidious coercion of women is not in dominant/submissive sex but in the ways that the politically correct sexuality of cultural feminism prevents women from exploring and pursuing sexual difference.
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Sex radicals also claim that by rejecting all dominant/submissive sex as degradingly patriarchal, cultural feminists give patriarchy the ability to define the eroticization of power for women. A sex radical feminist would explore dominant/submissive sex to discover what the eroticization of power can mean for women's passion

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