sigelphoenix

Warning the First: This post will be rambly and possibly long, because I don't really know what I'm going to say. I don't really know what I think.

Warning the Second: I will be talking about sex. Not in a personal-TMI way, but in a blunt-language-TMI way.



So, recently there's been a minor explosion in the (non-LJ) feminist blogosphere when well-known radical feminist Twisty made a post about blowjobs. It was short, blunt, and mocking, with little room for nuance - saying that no woman enjoys giving one. The implication, then, is that women only do so as a result of the coercion of sexism/heterosexism.

Now, is that her true and unequivocable sentiment? Or was she purposefully being polarizing in order to goad people into reactions? I've been following Twisty's blog for a while, and I think either one is possible. But what's significant is the nature of the responses to the post, both on her blog and elsewhere. There were - unsurprisingly - a lot of heated and angry responses, and those responses tended to fall into two extremes. Jill at Feministe expresses in an obviously exaggerated, yet still illuminating, fashion, that those who responded were either: "The people who argued that women who give head are brainwashed sexbots, or the ones who argued that you can't talk about that because it's sex and what I like sexually cannot be called into question."

And that's the problem with the sex/porn debate in feminism - it leads to polarizations that are simplistic and so often useless in the realities of women's lives. Yes, it's vital and helpful to recognize the inequalities of power expressed in common heterosexual sex acts - yet for women who don't have the time or energy to feel out the feminist sensibilities of every male lover they take, can we tell them 'this is sexist, so don't do it,' or 'doing this is sexist and means you're self-hating'? On the other side, it can be liberating to throw off the shame of being told that, as a woman, having this or that sexual behavior is wrong or slutty - but if we unequivocally embrace all sex acts, what about the women who really are coerced into engaging in them through sexist pressure?

Now, I'm a fence-sitting moderate who's probably too wishy-washy for most people's tastes, so my 'let's all be friends' approach is not shocking. Yet I think there is a real need for that kind of mindset for such a personal, intimate, and volatile issue - especially one that affects each individual woman so differently. I recommend reading the entirety of the post by Jill that I quoted, as well as one by Amanda at Pandagon, and at Women's Space (don't miss the comment by brownfemipower). They all engage the question - what is the nature of the exploitation inherent in (woman-to-man) oral sex and what does that mean for heterosexual/bisexual women feminists - and tease out the wider issues about exploitative sex and power dynamics. They don't give any big answers, no. You can't, not on this issue. But they're worth reading, and thinking about.

It should be mentioned that, besides the belligerent nature (humorously intended or not) of the original post, there are some real problems with the argument made by the, shall we say, anti-blowjob side. Often anal sex gets lumped in with blowjobs as another sexual practice in, as Jill points out, an attitude that is dangerously close to homophobia. It's one thing to point out how blowjobs and man-on-woman anal sex has been used, in pornography and elsewhere, as a method of degradation and domination. It's another to call both practices inherently disgusting, without explaining that the context of misogyny is what makes them so. Since the two acts are common between gay men (though, of course, with a man in the 'receiving' position), dismissing them, wholesale, as gross? I don't think so. Without further explanation, the implication of such statements is that anal sex is gross because it's not 'normal' vaginal intercourse, which is, of course, unacceptably homophobic.

Even for the heterosexual women, though, there are problems with this attitude - I get the sense that the 'that's disgusting!' crowd thinks that women who do engage in these acts have something wrong with them. They don't really enjoy them, or they're only doing them for men ... This attitude is dangerously close to the habit of calling other women slutty for having more/different sex than what is 'normal' - and yeah, feminists recognized the misogyny of that a long time ago.

But, back on the other side, there's a counter-attitude that implies that not enjoying blowjobs, or anal sex, or whatever, is what's disgusting. As if the women who don't engage in and enjoy these heterosexual sex acts are ... ignorant? prudes? repressed? This is an extreme and damaging reaction to the long-held attitude that sexual women are loose/immoral/whatever - that women who aren't actively sexual (in certain ways) are the deviants. 'I'm sexually liberated and you should be too,' is the attitude - and the sexual liberation in question is achieved by saying 'yes' to sex, even though the strength to say 'no' is liberating as well.

(I'm reading a book, Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy, that takes up this question. I'm not that far into it, but I like what she has to say so far - how we think that, for women, being sexual/attractive/liberated is defined by a very narrow set of (hetero)sexual behaviors. And that's fucked up.)

One last thing (I think) ... The comment from brownfemipower that I linked explains how compromise is a very important part of women of color feminism/womanism. And it is. Because of the intersection of racism and sexism, women of color have never been able to take the uncompromising stances exhibited by some feminists or ethnic minority movements. We can't say that, sure, men are the oppressors and the enemies of equality - because that forces us to sacrifice the alliances with other men of color that are vital to the fight against racism. We can't say that, sure, white people are the oppressors and the enemies of equality - because that forces us to sacrifice our alliances against sexism with white women. Picking one over the other, having an unforgiving stance, decrying compromise as collaboration or 'selling out' - these have not been options for women of color feminists.

I think this is relevant to the current issue. Like I said at the beginning, a stance on (heterosexual) sex that doesn't apply to women's realities is useless. Sure, there are some ... a lot ... probably a fuckton of women out there who don't enjoy giving blowjobs, who feel coerced into doing so by either their male lovers or society in general, and who would love the ability to refuse them. But for a lot of other women, I think it's harder to decide 'yes I like it' or 'no I don't.' Most likely, they will experience a combination of (negative) pressure to engage in the act regardless of their true desires, and a (positive) pleasure out of this form of sexuality. It isn't, as some people have said, all about women being on their knees, horribly uncomfortable and disgusted and gagging, and men taking advantage of their sexual dominance. If it was, it would be a lot easier to recognize how fucked up the practice is and stop doing it. But I don't think there's something inherently exploitative in the act of a woman giving oral sex to a man - the exploitation has been added in through our obsession with sexual dominance - so the potential for real, equitable pleasure is there. Competing with the patriarchal shit. How do you separate out which is which and decide what to do? You pretty much have to compromise somehow. Women of color feminists have known that to be the answer to a lot of problems for a long time.

That's it. For now. I think. Maybe. What can I say? There aren't answers, at least not that apply to any more than a few women at once. I think the value of the recent uproar, however, is that we've been forced to think really hard about a really hard issue. Was I angered by the posts? Defensive? Agreeing? Relieved? All of the above, and it's been worth it to puzzle out those reactions and see what they might mean.