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Feminism, sex-positivity, and sexual prescriptivism
I put more time than I probably should have tonight into being unhappy about the comment threads on the Feministing post An Asexual Map for Sex-Positive Feminism.
There were two things that bugged me a lot. The first was seeing a bunch of sex-positive people acting like assholes in all the ways that people who don't like the sex-positive movement always claim sex-positive people act. I really, really hate it when people in movements I feel strong intuitive agreement with start making the straw man arguments that our enemies put into our mouths. I've already had to significantly renegotiate my relationship with feminism on that front; sex-positivity, you're on notice.
The other thing that frustrated me was... when various asexual members of the conversation said things that pushed my sex-positive buttons, hard, and made me want to jump down their throats. /o\
So, there are two big things that I think were happening in that comment thread. The first, as several people in the comment thread noted, is the ambiguity between the statements "What you're saying is at odds with my intuition and so wrapping my head around it is going to take some work--please explain further!" and "What you're saying is unintuitive and incomprehensible--explain yourself!" and the ease of saying one when you intend the other.
The other is, I think, a bit more deeply rooted in sexual identity politics and the nature of conversations about them. The normative range of human sexuality is a very narrow segment of the available spectrum, with the normative female range drawn even more narrowly than the normative male range (see: virgin/whore complex). Any level of sexuality outside that range is marginalized; though the vocabulary is different for each end of the spectrum, the overall effect is similar, and anyone whose normal level of sexual interest falls outside that range is likely to have internalized a set of hot-button phrases that set off defensive "my identity is being attacked" alarms. Unfortunately, it turns out it's really difficult to explain life on one end of the spectrum without stumbling onto phrases that are often used as weapons against the other end of the spectrum.
Further, people who live outside the norm, especially when they gather together into communities, tend to develop narratives that center their own experience in opposition to the norm in ways that are just as marginalizing not only to people who are non-normative in different ways than they are, but to people who happen to be normative as well.
Normative people are not the problem. The systems that describe the norm, coerce people into it, and punish those who don't comply, are the problem. People (and companies, cough legos reference cough) are a problem to the extent that they engage in enforcement and punishment. But compliance with a rule doesn't necessarily imply being duped by it. And enforcement and punishment can come just as often and just as vindictively in defense of counter-cultural norms.
So, for instance. Let's talk about me a little bit. I'm a fan of talking about me. I'm the grand-daughter of a Women's Studies professor. I grew up in a former commune surrounded by environmental activist feminists. I grew up and went off to a women's college, where I came out and started dating. Then I graduated and moved to San Francisco and found a home in the LGBT, fannish, kinky and poly communities, with their substantial overlap.
In my head, the most transgressive sex I've ever had was penis-in-vagina missionary position sex. I was 25 before I ever tried it out, and WOAH was it a head trip. There were all these unspoken, non-negotiated power dynamics that played out in fascinating ways. There was a fascinating ritual of specific actions that happened in a specific order. There was never any trading off of roles like in normal sex! (Ok. Eventually there was trading off.) And it had all these fascinating inherent risks--like, there was just this thin latex bag preventing me from a life-altering mess of hormonal and other biochemical changes that would result in another human being growing inside me like in Alien.
Seriously, it was so trippy. Also it was really fucking hot. Unfortunately, it came along with all this intense emotional baggage about being a bad queer or maybe even a bad feminist for enjoying it so much. And while part of me found that guilt fascinating and transgressive and hot (lol masochist), it was also really, really hard to process.
Somehow, while they tried to help me out, my grandmother and mother and very many practically-aunts; and all the picture books about suffragettes and female scientists and how women could do everything; and Our Bodies, Ourselves and Sociology 101 and hanging out in the Jeanette Marks house and with my gay chorus and in fandom had... taught me an additional set of norms. One that's just as insidious and pervasive as the first set, even if what they said was different.
And while I've been working to neutralize them, to figure out how to pick and choose the ones I value and the ones I want to leave behind, I keep bumping unexpectedly into their strange and slimy trails and the fascinatingly sticky bits where they cross over one another.
I never told my parents about that boy I was having missionary PIV sex with (and never considered myself to be dating him) for fear that if I admitted I wasn't 100% gay they'd assume I was straight; it's highly likely that the only reason I was as comfortable as I was telling my parents about my current boyfriend is the fact that he's trans. (And yeah I know exactly how fucked up and lesbian gender-essentialist that is; trust me. Definitely working on that one.) I'm way more comfortable talking about my sexual interests when I'm in a toppy headspace, not just because I'm more confident when I feel in charge but because talking about my interest in control feels less shameful, less iddy, than talking about my interest in submission. I obsess over my body hair, and my pubic hair in particular--normally I shave it all but if I'm likely to have sex I suddenly get thrown into a tizzy--what assumptions will my partner make about me if they see the bare skin? Will they see, as I do, intentionally created vulnerability and a swath of highly-sensitive skin; or will instead they see a bad feminist a dupe and capitulation to patriarchal infantilization of women? I always, ALWAYS simplified any explanation of one of the most important relationships of my life, one that shifted back and forth along the spectrum between complex more-than-friendship and a deep romance where the sex thing only rarely hit wavelengths that worked for both of us, for fear that it be reduced entirely to friendship.
Because apparently when I was learning norms, I picked up "non-normative is better than normative" right alongside "masculine is better than feminine." Which left me believing not quite that masculine was better than feminine but... that I needed to be more masculine than feminine to defy norms appropriately, no matter what was intuitive, and no matter what my fantasies insisted.
So yeah, when I see an asexual person talk about how they don't understand why some women sexualize themselves, I get pretty damned defensive. I've been hearing the same thing from my internal Good Feminist monitor (and from many internet feminists) for ages and I'm only just learning to silence it. And when I hear sex-positive people claiming that coming up with a million categories to splice apart the complexities of sexual attraction and romantic attraction and intellectual attraction is nonsensical and pedantic? I get defensive about that too.
(And I get very grateful that there are intellectually curious and didactic people like Julia Serano and Hanne Blank and Clarisse Thorne to write very clever things that help me sort this all out in my head.)
There were two things that bugged me a lot. The first was seeing a bunch of sex-positive people acting like assholes in all the ways that people who don't like the sex-positive movement always claim sex-positive people act. I really, really hate it when people in movements I feel strong intuitive agreement with start making the straw man arguments that our enemies put into our mouths. I've already had to significantly renegotiate my relationship with feminism on that front; sex-positivity, you're on notice.
The other thing that frustrated me was... when various asexual members of the conversation said things that pushed my sex-positive buttons, hard, and made me want to jump down their throats. /o\
So, there are two big things that I think were happening in that comment thread. The first, as several people in the comment thread noted, is the ambiguity between the statements "What you're saying is at odds with my intuition and so wrapping my head around it is going to take some work--please explain further!" and "What you're saying is unintuitive and incomprehensible--explain yourself!" and the ease of saying one when you intend the other.
The other is, I think, a bit more deeply rooted in sexual identity politics and the nature of conversations about them. The normative range of human sexuality is a very narrow segment of the available spectrum, with the normative female range drawn even more narrowly than the normative male range (see: virgin/whore complex). Any level of sexuality outside that range is marginalized; though the vocabulary is different for each end of the spectrum, the overall effect is similar, and anyone whose normal level of sexual interest falls outside that range is likely to have internalized a set of hot-button phrases that set off defensive "my identity is being attacked" alarms. Unfortunately, it turns out it's really difficult to explain life on one end of the spectrum without stumbling onto phrases that are often used as weapons against the other end of the spectrum.
Further, people who live outside the norm, especially when they gather together into communities, tend to develop narratives that center their own experience in opposition to the norm in ways that are just as marginalizing not only to people who are non-normative in different ways than they are, but to people who happen to be normative as well.
Normative people are not the problem. The systems that describe the norm, coerce people into it, and punish those who don't comply, are the problem. People (and companies, cough legos reference cough) are a problem to the extent that they engage in enforcement and punishment. But compliance with a rule doesn't necessarily imply being duped by it. And enforcement and punishment can come just as often and just as vindictively in defense of counter-cultural norms.
So, for instance. Let's talk about me a little bit. I'm a fan of talking about me. I'm the grand-daughter of a Women's Studies professor. I grew up in a former commune surrounded by environmental activist feminists. I grew up and went off to a women's college, where I came out and started dating. Then I graduated and moved to San Francisco and found a home in the LGBT, fannish, kinky and poly communities, with their substantial overlap.
In my head, the most transgressive sex I've ever had was penis-in-vagina missionary position sex. I was 25 before I ever tried it out, and WOAH was it a head trip. There were all these unspoken, non-negotiated power dynamics that played out in fascinating ways. There was a fascinating ritual of specific actions that happened in a specific order. There was never any trading off of roles like in normal sex! (Ok. Eventually there was trading off.) And it had all these fascinating inherent risks--like, there was just this thin latex bag preventing me from a life-altering mess of hormonal and other biochemical changes that would result in another human being growing inside me like in Alien.
Seriously, it was so trippy. Also it was really fucking hot. Unfortunately, it came along with all this intense emotional baggage about being a bad queer or maybe even a bad feminist for enjoying it so much. And while part of me found that guilt fascinating and transgressive and hot (lol masochist), it was also really, really hard to process.
Somehow, while they tried to help me out, my grandmother and mother and very many practically-aunts; and all the picture books about suffragettes and female scientists and how women could do everything; and Our Bodies, Ourselves and Sociology 101 and hanging out in the Jeanette Marks house and with my gay chorus and in fandom had... taught me an additional set of norms. One that's just as insidious and pervasive as the first set, even if what they said was different.
And while I've been working to neutralize them, to figure out how to pick and choose the ones I value and the ones I want to leave behind, I keep bumping unexpectedly into their strange and slimy trails and the fascinatingly sticky bits where they cross over one another.
I never told my parents about that boy I was having missionary PIV sex with (and never considered myself to be dating him) for fear that if I admitted I wasn't 100% gay they'd assume I was straight; it's highly likely that the only reason I was as comfortable as I was telling my parents about my current boyfriend is the fact that he's trans. (And yeah I know exactly how fucked up and lesbian gender-essentialist that is; trust me. Definitely working on that one.) I'm way more comfortable talking about my sexual interests when I'm in a toppy headspace, not just because I'm more confident when I feel in charge but because talking about my interest in control feels less shameful, less iddy, than talking about my interest in submission. I obsess over my body hair, and my pubic hair in particular--normally I shave it all but if I'm likely to have sex I suddenly get thrown into a tizzy--what assumptions will my partner make about me if they see the bare skin? Will they see, as I do, intentionally created vulnerability and a swath of highly-sensitive skin; or will instead they see a bad feminist a dupe and capitulation to patriarchal infantilization of women? I always, ALWAYS simplified any explanation of one of the most important relationships of my life, one that shifted back and forth along the spectrum between complex more-than-friendship and a deep romance where the sex thing only rarely hit wavelengths that worked for both of us, for fear that it be reduced entirely to friendship.
Because apparently when I was learning norms, I picked up "non-normative is better than normative" right alongside "masculine is better than feminine." Which left me believing not quite that masculine was better than feminine but... that I needed to be more masculine than feminine to defy norms appropriately, no matter what was intuitive, and no matter what my fantasies insisted.
So yeah, when I see an asexual person talk about how they don't understand why some women sexualize themselves, I get pretty damned defensive. I've been hearing the same thing from my internal Good Feminist monitor (and from many internet feminists) for ages and I'm only just learning to silence it. And when I hear sex-positive people claiming that coming up with a million categories to splice apart the complexities of sexual attraction and romantic attraction and intellectual attraction is nonsensical and pedantic? I get defensive about that too.
(And I get very grateful that there are intellectually curious and didactic people like Julia Serano and Hanne Blank and Clarisse Thorne to write very clever things that help me sort this all out in my head.)
Yes, this.
Re: Yes, this.
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(Off topic--I've been mulling over the idea of writing a "how to read Wikipedia like an editor: a guide for people who don't edit Wikipedia" post that digs into article discussion, edit history, etc. Would you be open to betaing it at some point?)
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One thing I think many people really forget is that in the fight to end oppression, it is important to avoid becoming the oppressor.
(Edit: I don't think that asexuality and sex positivity need to have an oppositional relationship. I was no longer comfortable identifying as sex positive several years ago not just because of asexuality-related matters, but because I saw a lot of prescriptivism going on about the 'right kind' of sex and bodies...and I decided I was more comfortable working in solidarity with rad sex positive people than I was being inside the movement. That said, I still don't think the ace community and sex positive community need to be ast war with each other. Both communities need some work on internal crap, and both have a lot to offer each other.)
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(And I don't think they're necessarily opposed to one another, either! Any time before yesterday I would have scoffed at that idea and said that sex positivity was about embracing the entire spectrum as equally valid. That comment thread shook the bedrock of that view, and I'm now left in roughly the place where I was when I realized that the mainstream feminist movement had at its center some ideas that were fundamentally at odds with "my feminism." I'd love to have a "fuck yeah, the entire sexual desire spectrum is not just valid but awesome" movement, and I definitely think there's room for the two communities to build that together once their conversations move beyond the rather painful one I saw in that comment thread.)
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I feel like we need a meme of aces hugging sex pozzies, going 'can't we just be friends?'
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And from the other side, I cannot stand talking to people who are all "I have no culture, I am not in any way affected by the messages of Society, I spontaneously manifested all the clothing on my body and my views about the roles of men and women and all my life plans from a perfect state of Nature, how dare you call me brainwashed!"
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I think "how dare you call me brainwashed" is a valid thing for anyone to say. Surely there is some way of expressing this thought without using that word. It is not only an insulting way for you to make your point, it's also pretty demeaning to people who've actually experienced aggressive mental indoctrination using physical force.
The big problem that I have with people who insist that femmes are "brainwashed" (aside from their use of that word) is that it always seems to come from people who think everyone would look the same if they weren't "brainwashed" and only dress for practicality or the weather or whatever. Frankly, I think the grey jumpsuit/flannel & denim for everyone people are frightening in their own way, in their insistence that personal tastes have nothing whatsoever to do with anything, plus the general feeling of enforced asceticism I get when I'm around people like that, like it's wrong for me to take pleasure in such trivial and sensual things as scents or the drape of fabrics or colour.
Put me in a cismale body, I'd still be fem, so far as I can tell--I think I might even be more comfortable with expressing some of those interests because I wouldn't have the problem with people assuming my femininity equals a properly submissive nature when I'm pretty assertive and even quite dominant. I wouldn't dress exactly the same because as you point out, my available options would be limited, plus I would be less safe. But I wouldn't be in denim and flannel all the time or cut my hair really short. I just wouldn't. I remember watching my brother growing up and being really grateful that I wasn't him, that I fought with my mother about clothing and other things but at least I was allowed some of the things I wanted.
Frankly I have a really difficult time with the fact that I can't wear a lot of the things I'd like to wear to work, not because they're impractical (though some of them are), but because society demands that people of any gender dress soberly if they wish to be taken seriously, and also because I have enough trouble with people throwing fits at me because they think I am supposed to be demure based on the way I look--and then get angry when I'm not. Some people wig out when any woman dares to assert herself or speak with authority or set boundaries, but those people are always nastier when it comes from a woman dressed in frills.
The other thing I have trouble with, with regard to statements such as this one, is that I refuse to justify myself to people every time I turn around--especially to people who don't accept my word as valid when I state that actually I have thought a lot about all this with society and I still like what I like (and feel the need for those things I feel I need) strongly enough to take rather a lot of shit for it, including a relatively large amount of shit from people who claim that they are on my side as a person who is oppressed in various ways (while also having various sorts of privilege).
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<3!
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It's not a shitty week exactly, just kind of a high-willpower, dealing-with-scary-stuff-that-has-already-been-put-off-too-long one, and I think I've run out of brain. Huh, more meta-y thoughts on that now, but am taking them to my journal so as not to make your comments section All About Me. Sorry!
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And I didn't actually get upset so much as I got a button pushed in a way that had me well on my way into self-righteous lecturey mode before you diverted it. :P I'm pretty sure you didn't actually need to hear me pontificate about how some people get defensive when their dietary limitations get regularly judged. It's a... thing you actually know.
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I do get what you mean about asking someone to consider whether social pressure might influence whether they might want to be doing something when none of their reasons seem to have much logic behind them and having them flip out on you--that always sucks.
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When I read metaphortunate's comment, what I took from it was the idea that it's frustrating to live in a world where all these damaging, oppressive systems really exist, but most people actively, defensively deny it if you try to point it out.
Absolutely there are folks like tiferet (and like me!) who have thought deeply about gender presentation and gender politics and self-expression and then consciously choose to be very feminine sometimes. And it is super annoying to have people assume that you're thoughtless about it just because you look really "good" by gender-norm standards. But I think they are two totally separate issues.
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Anyhow, I assure you that when I wear lolita, I don't get treated the way girls in ordinary dresses with fake-natural makeup and uncomfortable shoes and nylons do, and if I wore it to work (sigh) I'd never hear the end of it.
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WfHcjnyieb
(Anonymous) 2013-05-22 06:23 am (UTC)(link)no subject
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And yes, I'm delighted to be back in the world of not freaking out about talking to people I care about just because I'm anxious about facing the reality that my not having talked to them in a while means they're probably concerned about me. I wound up having to give myself email amnesty for December and January to get back into my inbox at all; but I would love to see you or at least talk to you at more length at some point in the near future <3
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(Anonymous) 2012-02-27 06:29 pm (UTC)(link)-Digitalemur, who has forgotten her damn password
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This post also suggests I am not very up-to-date on what is happening in your life! Which is fine--that is, please don't feel guilty--but it would be nice to talk to you sometime.
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I don't know that I actually have any conclusions on the subject yet, but now it's bouncing around in my head pleasantly , and I've got your post to thank for it.
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*winces* I picked up both of those, yep. They're hard to shake. Especially that first one, when you're a geek; I think some of the Geek Social Fallacies hearken back to its underlying principle.
As for sex-positivity...
I think my reactions hinge on the other person's definition of "sex positive". Sometimes it seems they're using it to mean "sex should not be negative", I can get behind that. Sex shouldn't be a negative thing. Unfortunately it often seems to me that many use it to mean "sex is good", which is where I dig in my heels. Even leaving out the "and absence of sex is less-good" rider that often comes implied along with it, I find myself unwilling to go along with this one.
As far as I'm concerned, sex simply is: a human action that is neither good nor bad, in itself; it's what you do with it that matters... a view I've held since before recognising my own asexuality, whatever that's worth. Which sounds rather like what the linked writer feels, though s/he doesn't say it in quite those words.
Regarding the link, I am happy because I now have terms for two of my narrative kinks re: asexuality. :D I am ALL ABOUT fic exploring the Compromise Problem and (versus?) the Enthusiastic Consent Yardstick!
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I don't know that I ever spent much time about the literal meaning of "sex positivity" and its implicit notion that sex should always be good. In my head it's been closer to... I don't know. Sex-choice positivity? I always thought the philosophy it stood for was something along the lines of: People should generally be able to choose the kind and quantity of sex they want to engage in without being stigmatized for it (as long as they're communicating openly with their partners and there's active consent on all sides). As I've been learning, the term means a whole lot of different things to different people though, so *shrug*.
As for the idea that sex simply is--I don't suppose you happen to have seen The Geek Social Fallacies of Sex? "Sex should be no big deal" is on there, although in a very different context than it sounds like things work out for you, namely the tendency of geeky sexuals to decide sex should be neutral and hurt their own and others' feelings in the process. For me, personally, the act of sex itself is technically neutral, but the many questions surrounding it are potentially an emotional minefield--vulnerability about discussing what kind of sex I do or don't want to engage in; body image issues about hanging out naked with another person; questions about whether the other person's expectations of the act vary from mine; fear about whether I'll be able to make another person enjoy what's going on; fear that I'll be insufficiently responsive to my partner and damage their self esteem. Worries that I'll end up resenting them or they'll end up resenting me. The inherent weirdness of rolling around with someone and rubbing squishy bits together. Etc.
Weirdly enough, something that one of the Republican candidates said in a debate this week pinged strongly for me. They were arguing about whether immorality caused birth control or birth control caused immorality (/o\) and I think Ron Paul made a reference to the catchprase "guns don't kill people; people kill people". I think that applies pretty well to emotions about sex--sex itself doesn't cause massive emotional issues, but people bring a lot of emotional baggage to it and are very good at overthinking and bringing emotional baggage away from it.
(And wow, that was a rather long and rambling diversion there--hope you don't mind!)
And I'm so glad that the Feministing post was helpful to you!
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And ooooh would I love fic about it now that I realize it's actually a thing and not just me! *speculates*
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Yeah, I remember Inappropriate Neighbor being INCREDIBLY awful and judgy about your not dating. :/ I definitely don't think you're bizarre or need to be fixed, especially given that you're one of very many friends of mine who aren't interested in dating. <3
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And my very best to you, and I hope you get some sort of blessing from whatever you've been going through.
Also: The profession of your grandmother makes me really happy.
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(Or we could go for drinks and I'd have something dorky like a Shirley Temple. Nothing makes me want to drink like being pregnant. I mean, not that pregnancy drives me to drink! But the you-can't-have-it thing.)