Penny Red: "Right now, we are in the middle of a sexual counter-revolution"
Like a great many wealthy, important men throughout history, Rousseau was a humiliation slut. He loved to have women boss him around in bed. He was also a flasher, and liked to moon unsuspecting ladies in the street and then prostrate himself for punishment. Nobody has ever suggested that this meant that the great enlightement philosopher secretly wished men didn’t run the world. In fact, Rousseau had some very specific things to say about women’s place in the social order. “Woman was specifically made to please man," he wrote in "Emile." "If man ought to please her in turn, the necessity is less direct. His merit lies in his power...If woman is made to please and to be subjugated to man, she ought to make herself pleasing to him rather than to provoke him."
Kink has been part of the sexual menu for so long that it’s hard to pretend anyone is shocked anymore when it turns up on the table. The practice of male masochism, for example, has become almost idiomatic when one is discussing Wall Street workers, or the British aristocracy - despite Rousseau and De Sade, the French still refer to sadomasochism as ‘La Vice Anglais.’
At no point, however, has anyone implied that men who want to be sexually dominated by women also want to be dominated by them socially and economically. Quite the opposite, if the long history of powerful men paying poor women to beat them up in backrooms is anything to go by. Apparently, though, a few smutty books about naughty professors wielding handcuffs are meant to prove that modern 'working women' (sic.) aren’t really as into all this liberation schtick as we make out.
In real life, men and women enjoy being bossed around in bed for lots of reasons - sometimes it might be about being punished, sometimes it might be about working out personal baggage, sometimes it might be about taking the break from all the responsibilities you have outside the bedroom, and sometimes it might just be about wanting someone else to do the work. And sometimes, yes, it might be about wanting to experience sex without having to take responsibility for your own desires - it’s not as if we live in a culture where women who want to have sex are encouraged to have it in a shame-free way. Both Fifty Shades of Grey and Twilight, the teen series the adult erotic novel was based on, are fantasies of pursuit, of the responsibility for sexual agency being entirely in the hands of a man, who desires the point-of-view-protagonist completely.
In a culture where women who express sexual agency are punished, humiliated and threatened with real rather than ritualised violence, that sort of fantasy is entirely comprehensible. What is more significant is that submission - alongside, from time to time, sex work - is the only kind of female sexual ‘unorthodoxy’ that is currently deemed worthy of discussion - unorthodoxy trussed up tight by the bondage tape of patriarchal expectations. Unorthodoxy that happens to involve fantasies of being dominated by men. Unorthodoxy practiced exclusively, if we go by the ‘examples’ Roiphe’s investigation turns up, by women who are young, and white, and straight, and middle-class, and, most importantly, fucking fictional.
Female sexual submission has never really been shocking. Right now, we are in the middle of a sexual counter-revolution. The backlash is on against even the limited amount of erotic freedom women have won over fifty years of hard campaigning: abortion and birth control are under attack, sexual health clinics are kitted out with bomb detectors and staffed by doctors who come to work wearing bullet-proof vests, and a fully-grown woman is denounced as a slut and a whore by male commentators across America by suggesting as part of a congressional hearing that yes, she may once or twice have had intercourse for pleasure rather than procreation. And until very recently, Rick Santorum, a man who considers contraceptives morally wrong, was a semi-serious contender for leader of the free world.The sexual heresies that truly upset the pearl-clutchers of middle America have nothing to do with whips and chains. That’s just faux-outrage, a bit of editorial baiting designed to upset feminists and titillate everyone else who likes to get cross and horny over the idea of dirty little girls tied up with tape.
No, what really gets social conservatives angry still happens not in swanky fetish clubs, but behind the closed doors of abortion clinics. It’s women who want to be able to choose to terminate a pregnancy. Women who want to control their own fertility. Women who want sexual autonomy, which is what any attack on abortion rights is fundamentally about. Women who want to live independently or raise children without the help of men. Women who want sex on its own merit, whether it comes wrapped in black bondage rope or scattered with rose petals.
Female sexual autonomy itself is what’s really unorthodox today. Agency and self-determination, the right to own our own desire - those are the kind of forbidden fantasies women across the world still pant over in private, unable to pronounce for fear of being slut-shamed. As Rousseau might put it : “Whether the woman shares the man's desires or not, whether or not she is willing to satisfy them...the appearance of correct behavior must be among women's duties.”
Radical Handmaids on Parliament Hill tomorrow at noon EST:
Send us your wombs and vulvas! we need to keep building momentum against the attack.
Wonderful, thanks Aalya! Keep that counter-counter-revolution revolving!
(And do drop by more often!)
The moment I see the Radical Handmaids protesting at a gender clinic demanding that all women, not just cis women, have federally mandated reproductive rights instead of protesting a non-binding resolution that'll let twenty MPs representing rednecks argue for a position that is never, ever, ever going to become law in this country, as opposed to the ongoing operation of a system eerily reminisceient of the Trudeau abortion regulation regime, I'll feel included.
PS: Referencing an excellent book about a cisheteropatriarchal dystopia while managing to erase trans women is a nice touch.
Wow. That's quite the response, RTTG and I am sorry if you feel excluded or erased. That is not my intention nor, as far as I know, the intention of any of the women who organized the protest.
I would like to be an ally to trans women and vice versa, but setting these types of conditions on your allyship is, IMHO, counter-productive.
Because you dismiss this position does not mean it couldn't happen in Harperland and that many women aren't threatened by it. But if you think the Handmaids, who are a brand-new group, ought to go and do a protest at a gender clinic, why don't you suggest that constructively instead of sneering?
Ah yes, I'm being a bad activist for demanding that cis people treat denial of agency to trans people with something remotely approaching the same level of seriousness as they do a non-binding resolution where some people will speak against agency that is constitutionally and statutorily guaranteed.
And while it really can't happen in Harperland. It can't even happen in his home province as the Alberta election showed, what's more stunning is that there's far more effort being expended in this one day against a theoretical oppression then there is against actual oppression that's been occurring for decades. Basically, the handmaids are worried about the potentiality of cis women facing the same kind of obstacles that trans women already face.
If you want to pretend that you're not centering cis concerns, that's fine. Just don't expect me to enable you in that. Don't expect me to pretend that a non-binding resolution will harm the bodiliy agency CAFAB folk (yes, there are men who want and have gotten abortions though you might not know them as men) in the way that the failure of C-389 to pass, in the way that the result of Nixon v. VRR, and the complicity of cis feminists in that othering and denial of services has harmed the bodily agency of WOMEN. Let's drop the modifiers: Women are being denied healthcare and instead you're protesting a non-binding resolution calling on the government to consider legislation that, if it were ever introduced and passed, (it would be political suicide, first of all) could under the desired interpretation of those who have drafted the non-binding resolution, introduce harm to other women that would be on a similar scale as the harm these WOMEN are already being subjected to.
This isn't about being an ally. This is about defending a woman's right to choose, which I do and have done at the top of my lungs, and not taking a day off when that woman isn't cis or class privileged.
I think that's you putting words into my mouth and the handmaids' mouths and that's your problem, not mine. You're the one who effectively said "Bad Activist" and your personalization of this issue says more about you than it does about the women who organized this campaign.
IMO, you are displaying great arrogance and rigidity in insisting that your issue must elbow its way to the front of the line RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW and that "cis" women are silencing you by organizing to speak out against this bill. And saying that cis women's oppression through the constant menace of losing abortion rights that are precarious and inaccessible in many places is "theoretical" is breathtakingly anti-feminist. What is this type of assertion doing in a feminism forum?
I notice you have ignored the issue of allyship completely because you are evidently not willing to be an ally to women with uteruses and it is a 2-way street. Feminist activism isn't a contest, ffs. Why must this be a zero sum game where these protests are somehow taking something away from you as a trans woman? If you cannot support my right to an abortion and not have my uterus controlled by a bunch of men, why would you expect me to support you?
As for effort and expenditure, that's laughable. The Handmaids were a tiny group of women in Ottawa who organized with no funding and zero resources. We hit the headlines big because our protest was creative and funny, and the idea of sending us knitted wombs caught on. Like I said, I am sure that our tiny group would be glad to support trans women and not undermine them as you are so hell-bent on doing here. If you staged a protest, we wouldn't expend effort sneering at you, so why are you doing this to us? And how is your behaviour feminist in any way, shape or form?
Catchfire, you want to know why I don't post on Rabble so much? This type of attack is why. It triggers me, it hurts me and it undermines my activism.
I saw that protest on the National last night. Fabulous!
I have been noticing the calls for kitted uteruses on facebook in recent weeks, and it was nice to see the product of everyone's efforts.
Well done, And keep posting.
Well, that you're putting cis in quotation marks is impressive. Mode is not default. No my issue doesn't have to elbow its way onto the table, my issue, that of a woman's right to choose, in this particular iteration has been around for a long time now.
Of course I have, do, and will continue to do so, just as I did in a piece I wrote in July of last year:
My animus lies in the constant erasure of other women. There's a reason you put cis in quotes. There's a reason you assume that trans women have to be allies to cis women, which presumes we're not members of the same oppressed group, like any infertile cis woman is. And the source of my animus is this:
By all means rally. If I lived in Ottawa, or Ontario for that matter, I'd be there, protesting this idiotic measure and asking you about the erasure of your sisters and what you have done to combat it to your face. But I'm saying that you've had decades to get angry about the denial of transition medicine to women, numerous flashpoints and instances, and that the actual abuse of actual women doesn't rate nearly as highly as a non-binding resolution (that will fail, and should fail) that, if it passed, would instruct the government to explore one legal avenue which would be a loophole for pursuing abuse on the same scale. In terms of demonstrating priorities, these actions is like leaving the scene of an ongoing attack to go march at a take back the night rally, writ over decades.
That is why I am mad. It's not going to stop me telling any yahoo who argues about life starting at conception that he or she (and yes, there are plenty of women who want to police organs which primarily belong to women too, usually intersecting with class privilege, let's not pretend otherwise) is wrong with the heat of one-thousand suns, that they're oppressing actual women (and men and people otherwise sexed) for theoretical possible, but not actual, people who don't yet exist. That they don't have the right to turn someone into a conscripted surrogate for their personal convictions. That denying anyone the right to security of the person is a violent crime. I don't have to demonstrate my bonafides on this issue any more than any other woman who supports the outcome of Regina v. Morgentaler.
I'm just saying: Don't try to pretend you care given your track record. Don't pretend you fight for women's rights when through your inaction you perpetuate a system that erases and kills women. And don't tell your sisters that they need to be allies, as though we aren't fighting for, advocating for, and dying for want of the exact same rights you take so granted that you have the time to protest the member from Mousefart-Wanewskaewin speaking in support of a resolution to explore considering a possible loophole by which those rights might be undermined.
And as an afterthought: Given what happens to women like me everytime we try to engage with cis feminists, the painful lesson we learn time and time again that we aren't really respected as women by your colleagues, I think calling upon us to be more active in a movement that has actively shunned us is coming from a place of extreme historical ignorance, non?
Ah, it would appear that I am not, "one of the good ones."
I'm a little too invested in making sure some eleven year old girl doesn't go through the same battery of bullshit that I went through, and maybe doesn't end up as able to cope with it that I was. They are killing these girls, Aalya, one day at a time. Denying them care, denying them knowledge that care exists and forcing them into reparative therapy and gatekeeping programs when they learn about and demand that care, condoning the abuse they receive in school and at home, and reinforcing structures that deny them the words to even articulate the oppression they face.
And so when a group finds M-312 an impetus for action, my response is always going to be, "Good to see you fighting for the right to choose now. Where were you for the last 24 years?" And being told to smile, to be nice and accommodating is just something I haven't the spoons for anymore.
We tried that. We tried education and accommodation and agreeing that perhaps institutionalized cissexism could happen to people who hadn't been operated on to have their genitalia present in line with cissexist standards of what a woman's supposed to look like. And your response is that I need to be a better ally?! How about you be an ally who has taken some fucking action in two-and-a-half decades and not just when trans people are nice and non-threatening enough for you to give two shits about?
How about we have a feminist movement where there's not so much recrimination and venom thrown at trans women that we trust that a women's only space will be inclusive of trans women instead of a CAFAB-only or CAFAB and trans women barely tolerated zone? Howabout I'm not the only one on this board who calls Janice Raymond's work what it is: An incitement to genocide. You know how I know you're not an ally? Because when I came in full of snark, you didn't say, "Oh yeah, we've done, or Adrienne who's in our group has done, X, Y, Z, you can look here, here, and here on our website."
It's 2012, and we're well past the point where platitudes are accepted as payment. If you can't even point to a fucking blog post or a petition or anything that you've been involved in, don't even bother deflecting. It's gotten really, very, old.
Aayla, you need to argue your point without personal attacks. Thank you.
Thanks for this, Aalya! It was heartening to see all those influential people signing their names to eloquent denunciations of Woodworth's motion.
It most definitely should not be derailed or dismissed, and I know it's difficult, but you need to frame your arguments in a non-personal way.
I suggest you reconsider, Aalya. Intelligent articulate people always have a contribution to make, and will always get pushback from the trolls, haters, and various folks with unresolved psychological issues that infest teh interwebs.
I first heard about "Shades of Grey" last week. I read a synopsis, and found it interesting. Not as something I am interested in reading, but because, like it or not, I believe it is an honest reflection of our times, even if I may not like what it says.
The Marquis de Sade's "Justine" was a treatise on de Sade's philosophy of Libertinage. He believed that all there was was power; no morality. We each had a perfect right to do whatever we wanted to anyone else, the only gainsay being the power of that someone else to stop you. Hence the subtitle of the book, "No good deed goes unpunished." "Justine" was always moral, always trying to do good, altruistic to the end. And continually abused and punished for it.
Even before the economic meltdown, I started refering to our economic system as "de Sadonomics". It's perfect Libertinage and indeed, I think most of us here feel that no good deed goes unpunished today. While bad deeds are cellebrated if one is a leading member of the patriarchy-- or their henchmen.
The synopsis of "Shades of Grey" tells me that an indebted student decides to become the slave of a billionaire. Take away the window dressing of S&M, this is what is actually going on in our economy. "Shades of Grey", I assume without reading it, may actually strike a chord, become a symbol that the author had no idea of when it was written.
The war on women, the attack on reproductive rights has been re-launched for no other reason than "because we can."
How we address this will have an impact on every living thing on the planet. We have to halt the Sadists now, here.
Though there is a big difference between the philosophies of de Sade, and what people call sadism today. For that matter, there is a big difference between naked political and economic power and his philosophies, and the modern sexual use of the term.
After all, he is someone who, on a point of principle, refused to send his in-laws to the guillotine when he was sitting as a judge over them. The reason? To condemn them - even though they hated him, and worked hard to get him incarcerated - would have undermined his personal freedom because he would have been an instrument of the state.
By contrast, most corporatists might say they don't believe in state power, but many will use it to their advantage every chance they get.
Simone de Beauvoir's analysis of Sade is still a very good and telling one.
So while there might be some surface similarities between these three notions, some of the motives underneath are completely different.
Interesting points, Tommy and Smith. Women's sexual and reproductive power represents a threat to a patriarchal power structure. After all, if the anti-choicers really did care about the precious babies, they'd devote some of their activist energies to taking care of the already-born.
Odd how the philosophy of smaller government never seems to apply to women's reproductive choice.
I'm not sure it's seen as a threat as much as it's just something they can take away for the sake of it.
We on the left try to understand these things in terms of reason. Trying to find the common thread, or maybe the internal logic. But how rare is it to find a fundamentalist for example, who takes "Thou shalt not kill" litterally? Rare birds, that.
The only discernable internal logic involved in all this is as an excersize of power. Like I said, "because we can."
"Though there is a big difference between the philosophies of de Sade, and what people call sadism today. For that matter, there is a big difference between naked political and economic power and his philosophies, and the modern sexual use of the term."
True, but I was limiting this to the libertine philosophy, not so much abot de Sade himself which, while and interesting and perhaps inexaustible discussion, is not really germain to this discussion, and would do much to de-rail things here.
But if ever you wanted to start a thread on either de Sade or pre-revolutionary and revolutionary France in the appropriate forum, I'd probably participate.
Though I agree that being arbitrary is one of the advantages of having power, I really do think that women's sexuality represents a threat to patriarchy. And we see that in all the obsessive ways that men try to negate female sexual power around the world: female genital mutilation, gender-specific restrictions on clothing, the extreme misogyny of organized religions as evidenced by the plethora of religious restrictions on women's self expression, and the ongoing obsession in socially-conservative circles to limit women's reproductive choices.
@ Tommy Paine
Sorry, my intent was not to disrupt. I'll just make one point of clarification then drop it. I don't see Sade as a writer much interested in the rights of women, nor about much of anything outside his class,
Really the only reason I bring it up is because I think to draw parallels in economics and power structures only goes so far. While Sade, like Rand, promoted an amoral libertarian philosophy, he was also very much a critic of systems of power. There is a reason why he made the libertines in 120 Days an aristocrat, a bishop, a judge and a banker.
Likewise, he was reviled and condemned more for his blasphemy than any sexual crimes. I don't think he included defiling communion wafers in his orgies because he got any sexual pleasure out of it. He was making a political point.
In short, his belief in unbridled liberty and cruelty was very much a personal one, that doesn't translate perfectly (though it may in part) to things like economic slavery.
(edit)
And again, as for what we now call sadism, I don't really see a connection. There is a big difference between real cruelty, slavery, abuse and manipulation, and sexual and personal relationships where power exchange is consensual - either as a serious lifestyle, or as a game.
And even in some consensual cases, the real power is in reverse.
Please don't go. RTTG has been made aware that her baiting behaviour is unacceptable, and your presence here is important.
Emphasis mine. Implication clear. Irony noted.
I'm no more bating Aalya than I'm baiting an Adrienne Rich fan... I'm calling out misogyny and erasure where it's screamingly apparent and begging to be proven wrong, and far, far, too frequently disappointed.
Rebecca, if you want to call that baiting, then fine. Once again cis people dictate the terms on which cissexism may be challenged. Nothing new here. I'm sorry I showed up again.
Also, here's the text of the message that you sent me, and yes, I do, last time I checked, have the right to discuss the contents of unsolicited mail:
My response was as follows:
Someone's going to have to explain to me how pointing out the paucity of trans rights activism by cis folk who call themselves allies qualifies as either passive-aggressive or baiting, as opposed to being a bothersome trans dyke who should just leave feminism to the cis women (since, after all, it's not really for me in the eyes of paragons from Dworkin to Daly, despite the rhetoric).
And lastly, since I think I'm probably done here:
Odd how the philosohpy of women's reproductive choice never seems to apply to trans women's reproductive choice.
Apparently M-312 has been postponed until the fall, leaving the Radical Handmaids plenty of time to launch an action in favour of informed consent HRT, which is much more gatekept and inaccessible than an abortion has been in Canada for the past 24 years. In fact the mandated gatekeeping, the arbitrariness of provision is exactly what CARAL was fighting during the 70s and 80s. I imagine, however, that the requisite number of fucks will continue to be given.