Just because women want to explore whether power games are part of what makes sex “sexy” for them does not mean they want to serve as an object for male violence in real life.
Have your romantic experiences with men made you wish you were gay?
As a feminist, do you feel guilty for watching pornography?
Let’s have a look at what radical feminists have to say!
Radical feminists call for a complete reorganisation of society where men relinquish control over all
systems. Sexism, for radical feminists, is the most prevalent and dominant form of oppression, which is also the root of other kinds of oppression. This article is part II of the series on radical feminism, I will be taking up the heated debates within radical feminist circles on sexuality, lesbianism, and pornography followed by critiques of these ideas.
Besides gender, sexuality also plays a significant role in the functioning of our gendered world. Therefore feminist philosophy is deeply engaged in understanding aspects of human sexuality.
Unsurprisingly, radical libertarian and radical cultural feminists are divided on their take on sexuality and its meaning for women.
Radical Libertarian feminists believe that all sexual practices are characterised by repression. Patriarchal society, they argue encourages the repression of sexual desires and pleasure by invoking notions of purity and chastity to maintain control. As feminists, one should reclaim control over their sexuality and exercise our rights to practice whatever gives them pleasure. They view the ideal sexual relationship as one between two fully consenting equal adults working to give each other pleasure and satisfaction by any means.
Feminist Gayle Rubin pointed out the discomfort of society with a form of sex that is not for procreation. Casual sex for pleasure, and sex between bisexuals, homosexuals, and sex workers are all taboo. This forces people to deny themselves the joys of sex. Rubin urged women to stop viewing sex regarding sin, disease, and pollution. All forms of consensual sex should be judgment free.
In contrast to radical libertarian feminists’ views, radical-cultural feminists’ saw heterosexuality as being characterised by the sexual objectification of women that directly or indirectly supports male sexual violence against women. They create a distinction between what sex meant to men and women. Arguing that women prioritise emotions and intimacy while men are only concerned with pleasure and performance, radical cultural feminists claimed that women should reclaim control over their sexuality by prioritising their wants and needs. The ideal sexual relationship is between all consenting, equal partners who are emotionally involved and do not participate in polarised roles.
Rejecting Rubin’s celebration of all forms of sexuality, radical-cultural feminists insisted that, in a
patriarchal society, it was feminists’ responsibility to make judgments about heterosexuality.
For them, heterosexuality was just another word for male sexuality that is genitally oriented, irresponsible, and potentially lethal. In radical-cultural feminists’ estimation, because men want “power and orgasm” in sex and women want “reciprocity and intimacy” in sex, the only kind of sex that is unambiguously good for women is monogamous lesbianism.
Lesbianism Controversy
Ann Koedt’s essay ‘The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm’ sparked much controversy within feminist circles in the 1970s with clashed with the rise of separatist lesbianism. In the essay, Koedt claimed that most women hold the misconception that orgasms during heterosexual sex are vaginally caused when in reality they are clitorally stimulated. She also highlighted men’s fear of becoming sexually useless to women if the clitoris replaces the vagina as the centre of pleasure for women. To avoid alarm regarding this information, which would render men inconsequential for female pleasure, Koedt noted that even if all women recognised they did not need men as sexual partners for physiological reasons, many women would still select men as sexual partners for psychological reasons.
Radical-cultural feminists interpreted the essay to argue that since there is no physiological reason for a woman to have sex with a man, there cannot be a feminist psychological reason for a woman to want to save sex with a man. A true feminist will become a lesbian, freeing her consciousness from the false idea that prioritising her pleasure by having sex with women is abnormal or deviant.
Radical-libertarian feminists agreed with radical-cultural feminists that heterosexuality is a flawed and
harmful institution. Still, they insisted it would be just as wrong for radical-cultural feminists to impose lesbianism on women as it had been for patriarchy to impose heterosexuality. The act of men having sex with women is not inherently bad. Rather the manner in which men prioritise their own pleasure over women is what makes the experience unpleasant. Radical-Libertarian feminists insisted that women can find pleasure in sex with men when men make women’s sexual satisfaction just as important as their own sexual satisfaction.
They also stressed individual men who, as bad as they could be were not the sole oppressors of women. Women’s main enemy was the patriarchal system, a product of centuries of male privilege. Therefore radical libertarian feminists urged women to confront individual men about their chauvinistic attitudes and behaviours in order to get men to freely renounce the unfair privileges they enjoy in a patriarchal system. Liberation did not mean relegating women’s so-called safe spaces to have sex just with women but to have the power to define oneself and to rebel continually against all forms of patriarchy.
This brings us to the scandalous debates on Pornography.
Radical-Cultural feminists saw pornography as nothing more than patriarchal propaganda that
demonstrates women’s ‘proper’ role as a man’s servant. They insisted that pornography largely harms
women by encouraging men to behave in sexually harmful ways toward women. (sexual harassment,
domestic violence). It portrays women as passive acceptors of this abuse, as persons who have so little
regard for themselves that they rarely fight back. This leads to men viewing women as second-class
citizens unworthy of equal treatment.
Radical Libertarian Feminists, on the other hand, encouraged women to use pornography to overcome
their sexual fears and reservations. They believed that women should feel free to arouse sexual desires
and fantasies through all sorts of pornography, even violent pornography.
Just because women want to explore whether power games are part of what makes sex “sexy” for them does not mean they want to serve as an object for male violence in real life.
Rather than stubbornly insisting that pornographic representations of men sexually dominating women
somehow harm women in real life, said radical-libertarian feminists, feminists should engage in an
entirely open-minded and non-defensive examination of pornography, saving their venom for real rapists.
Do you think consuming pornography makes you any less of a feminist and is women’s choice to work in pornography an actual choice?
References
1. Malamuth, Neil, and Edward Donnerstein. Pornography and Sexual Aggression. New York: Academic Press, 1984.
2. Segal, Lynne. Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate. Piscataway, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1993.
3. Radicalesbianfeminist Theory.” Hypatia 13, no. 1 (1998): 206–213. Ciasullo, Ann M. “Making Her (In)Visible: Cultural Representations of Lesbianism and the Lesbian Body in the 1990s.” Feminist Studies 27, no. 3 (fall 2001): 577
4.Gerhard, Jane. “Revisiting ‘The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm’: The Female Orgasm in American Sexual Thought and Second Wave Feminism.” Feminist Studies 26, no. 2 (2000): 449–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178545.
5. Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Signs 5, no. 4 (1980): 631–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173834.
Naomi Joy Yadav is the gender and communications officer at Ashray Trust, an NGO working against human trafficking and gender inequality. She holds a Masters degree in Gender studies from Ambedkar University Delhi. Her interests range from makeup to music to sports and “taking the fun out of everything” by looking at all these from a gendered lens
