More Social Than They Seem

Word.  But contemporary “postfeminism” or choice feminism compels us all to affirm each other’s choices, and forbids us to say that no, in fact, there is such a thing as an antifeminist choice, or sexual act, or whatever.  Whatever a woman wants is de facto feminist, and to disagree with this sensibility is to court backlash (as Margot is doing here, and as Dusenbery was in the exchange related above.  She made a completely sensible point, and was apparently leapt upon because she didn’t entirely affirm another woman’s theoretical choice as a feminist choice!)

It’s like childhood today:  everybody gets a trophy, and everyone gets to call herself feminist, no matter what their actual performance on the field.  But it actually is *harder* to stay in the workforce rather than “opt out,” if one has the luxurty of a rich partner.  It is difficult to think about how our sexualities intersect with and relfect (or contradict) our politics.  It is sometimes socially awkward for heterosexual women to choose partners who aren’t two inches taller/two years older/and making twice what they make.  We all make choices, but they are not all equally feminist.

As a pretty educated straight male who’s played both BDSM roles (with female partners ranging from  feminist scholars to libertarians and with work roles ranging from professor to lawyer), I agree that the politics of consensual BDSM are complicated. Personally, I’ve seen that there exists a huge connection between the scene and medieval fantasy.  My guess has always been that consensual BDSM expresses desires that didn’t go away but that became less acceptable (such as control and giving it up) to even talk about after the eighteenth century and especially after 1865. Democracy is incredibly useful and allows for self-actualization (for men and women) in ways almost unthinkable three hundred years ago. I think it’s probably the highest political achievement of humans so far, but the post-industrial version of it can be pretty boring.  Politically, consensual BDSM is an admission that not every desire is democratic. 

In terms of the the real world, I’ve never actually met any sub, male or female, who discussed rape fantasies. From what I’ve seen in real people, the desire in consensual BDSM is for control or the giving up of control under pretty carefully negotiated terms. And personally, I think that the negotiation of desire is a very good thing for both women and men. 

I don’t think historiann is implying a single, uniformly applicable feminism at all. She’s just implying that a choice doesn’t automatically become ethically neutral, much less “empowering” — nor is it cleansed of entanglements with power and socialization — once the language of emancipation (sexual or otherwise) is applied to it.

The problem with many common choice-feminist arguments — and bear in mind I say this as someone who overall comes down more or less in support of the choice-feminist camp — is that they confuse technical validity with descriptive power. It is, technically, valid to say that there’s no simple set of rules for determining which choices are and aren’t feminist, and that therefore any given woman’s sexual (or other) choices — even if they seem superficially disempowering — may well be empowering for her. But you can’t stop the analysis there, because all you wind up with is an abstract model of choice in which everybody must be assumed to be acting in their own best interests at all times*… and the world pretty clearly does not work this way.

The background of these choices is after all still a society whose ideas about gender are in transition, in which people grow up with many contradictory pressures, in which social and racial injustice remain facts of life, in which broken families and child sexual abuse are serious problems for many people… and this is all quite apart from the inherent limits on knowledge of outcomes, and the challenges of achieving genuine self-knowledge, that are common to every setting. Any analysis of choice and how it fits into a society, and into a narrative of emancipation and empowerment, has to take these kinds of realities into account and admit that choices can be and often are conditioned by them. (This may interfere with the notion of oneself as being a person whose choices are all inherently good and healthy, but none of us has an inbuilt right to such a notion anyway.) It’s correct to say that people should be careful about leaping to judgment of BDSM practitioners and communities, but fallacious to say that it’s either possible or desirable to completely abstain from any kind of ethical assessment of these phenomena, and it’s a habit that frankly does the community itself no favours.

(* The resemblance of this to neo-liberal economic theories that assume everyone is a rational actor is striking.)

Has anyone thought about asking BDSM  practitioners what they think about this?  I’m not, but in general, when it comes to sexuality, I put personal, lived experience first.  

I’m a bit fed up with cis people speaking for trans people, heterosexuals speaking for homosexuals, and in this case, people who do not identify with BDSM for those who do.

As far as 50 Shades Of Grey goes, I understand that the problem with it is that it is so awful. Poor writing, shallow characterization, and a complete lack of understanding of sexuality in general.  

This Dear Author review hits the nail on the head: “The narrative wants to occupy a position where we get to take the moral high ground sexually speaking but at the same time get to be thrilled by the eroticism of BDSM. . . . it seems to say of BDSM, ‘Tee he he he! That’s so gross!’ But secretly loves the titillation it gets from viewing the forbidden.”

You can read the full view here.

http://dearauthor.com/book-reviews/f-reviews/review-fifty-shades-of-grey-by-e-l-james/

It’s probably best not to get tied up in knots about this issue. I’d recommend submitting to the inevitability of ending up intellectually strapped and academically constrained. Having a good belt or two, however, will only end up masking the situation and knocking one back on her hells. It’s not always necessary to dominate the conversation or master the activity, no matter what the discipline. Not that I’d put a gag order on the discussion, or clamp down or wax censorial against the flame of knowledge.

But seriously, folks, it’s helpful to remember–as some comedian said–”How do you like living in an age when you can point randomly to any item in the Sears catalogue, and know that there’s somebody out there who wants to f**k it?”

 Good one! hahahahahaha

Incidentally, for the blogger: absolutely no link from any other part of this site to this blog is currently working, including from the on-site search engine. I had to go through Google to come back and re-read this. Thought you might like to know.

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