Follow up on profeminism and sexuality

I've been quite pleased by the thoughtful comments below yesterday's "In the Bedroom" post.  I'm also grateful that Amanda (who now gets linked by Newsweek!) responded in a fine post of her own.

Some things I've been considering:

1.  Obviously, "Henry" is not really named Henry.  I haven't identified him in any way, but I'm still somewhat ambivalent about my decision to post his letter and comment upon it without his girlfriend's consent.  She chose to comment here as well, and her anonymity is also guaranteed.  But of course, she knows who she is.  And I wonder if it's entirely appropriate for me to discuss an intensely private aspect of the life of another human being -- even anonymously -- without her prior consent.  In particular, as a self-styled pro-feminist, I wonder if it's not downright problematic to do so.  That's less on Henry than it is on me; I'll continue to reflect and invite responses.  "Blog in haste, reflect in leisure" is one of my standard mottoes, after all!

2.  Sophonisba quite rightly took issue with the way I brought up the problem of dominance, fantasy, and pro-feminism.  She quotes me and then responds.  I had written:

"If our fantasies and our politics don't mesh, does it mean our political commitments are just superficial? If we are aroused by the "erotics of asymmetry", have we failed Feminism 101? To put it bluntly, if our girlfriend or wife asks us to tie her up or spank her, what's a male feminist to do? If we say "no", we frustrate her desires; if we say "yes", aren't we playing along with a patriarchal role that teaches women to take delight in being dominated?"

She said:

What a blatant attempt to reframe the problem. I'm awestruck. The email was all about a man's honest expression of HIS OWN desire to dominate a girlfriend who went along with it ("because I found them arousing and she was comfortable doing them"). Now the subject changes to women's domination fantasies, because they take the discomfort away from men and dump it squarely on women's shoulders. Now the imaginary moral dilemma is, Should I satisfy her desires, or should I be a better feminist than she is? Oh, such horrible choices! Your "putting it bluntly" is asking a completely different question, because it's much easier. Women's rape fantasies are a commonplace; men's are taboo.

Sophonisba is absolutely right that I reframed the problem; what's embarrassing is that I did it entirely unconsciously.  The primary issue that Henry's girlfriend was raising that wasn't addressed was this:

Henry's discomfort with stepping outside of traditional male roles.  (From this bit in his letter: she asked me to do something which I would not have done spontaneously.  I did it, but also added that it was kind of hard for me because it's 'not something that guys do', it's 'gay' and 'something girls do, not guys'.

To his not inconsiderable credit, Henry realizes it's something he "needs to get over", especially because his language is, as his girlfriend has pointed out, so sexist.  She asked: How is one act sexy for a woman to do and yet disgusting if a man was to do the similar act?  We don't need to speculate about what that act is; we do need to address a basic question: what do pro-feminist men do with their own "training" that leads them to feel this double-standard so intensely?  How do we overcome it?

As I said yesterday, I don't think that there's a manual for "pro-feminist sexuality", beyond the basic rules of consent, mutuality, candor, and a willingness to help one's partner cope with the physical, emotional, and spiritual consequences of what is happening.  (And if you think about it, that's a tall order). But part of that commitment to mutuality is a willingness to work to overcome past experiences, cultural baggage, and fears associated with stepping outside of traditional sexual roles.

I don't mean to make sex seem incredibly "unsexy" by suggesting that it ought to involve a great deal of work.  Most folks, quite understandably, want sex to flow easily, to be a "no-brainer" (in the literal sense of the phrase); they want an escape, a release, a little warmth and joy before falling asleep.  Men and women of all ages, particularly in the early stages of relationships, already bring a host of anxieties to the bedroom.  (Does he like my body?  What if I can't "get it up"?  How do I compare to his/her last lover?  Am I exciting enough?)  Adding on a dose of feminist theory doesn't seem like a recipe for enhancing anyone's delight!  But at the same time, as Henry and his girlfriend have made clear, few things are less sexy than old double standards and roles that leave one --or both --parties feeling small, dirty, violated, or "less than."   Simply doing "what feels right" is, in and of itself, unreliable as a guide to carnal happiness, if only because what feels "natural" to us is too often dictated less by our deepest and truest selves and more by the noxious cultural baggage with which we are all raised. 

One classic problem that so many men struggle with, often particularly pro-feminist men, is the problem of power.  We live in a culture where men are often taught to measure their worth by the sexual pleasure they bring to their female partners.   Ask any woman whose husband or beau has been obsessed with her orgasm in order to prove himself a competent lover!  It's a tricky subject, because it's clear that a decent man, particularly a pro-feminist one, ought to be concerned with his partner's pleasure.  But as more than one wife and girlfriend has noticed, plenty of men have difficulty distinguishing between the real wants and needs of their very real partner,and the desire to gratify their own egos.

It trivializes pro-feminism, of course, to suggest that a "good guy"'s chief goal ought to be his partner's orgasm.  As long as a fellow is thinking that real pleasure is something that he gives to his partner, he's still seeing her as an object.  If he always takes the dominant role (perhaps as the more experienced one), he's not allowing his partner to discover her own sexual agency.  It may be a familiar and comfortable role for him (and for her), but sex at its transcendent best ought, at least some of the time, be about more than the familiar and the comfortable!  Part of living out pro-feminism in our intimate lives is taking the risk to subvert all that we've been taught about what is truly erotic.  Yes, we risk discomfort.  But the rewards are profound, and no one says that in the process, you can't laugh a great deal.  Too many folks seem to bring a humorlessness to the whole business, and that's rarely a turn-on.

Comments

[Henry]

We've decided not to be personally involved in this discussion any more; having the most intimate aspects of your relationship picked over by strangers is, as you all might imagine, somewhat stressful, even as people have generally been sensitive and thoughtful. You're all still welcome to continue this discussion, but we will not be reading or commenting on these threads after I sign off here.

Let me just add, in case anyone was worried, that she read my initial email before I sent it to Hugo, and I read her comment before she posted it. My other comments are all my own.

Hugo, maybe you could make up a pseudonym for her? I suggested she sign her comment with one, but she chose not to; as someone commented in the other thread, referring to her as nothing more than my girlfriend is obviously problematic.

[Hugo]

Harriet? To keep with the alliteration?

[xyz]

How about June. ;)

[The Gonzman]

Alice. As in Henry and Alice Mitchell.

And ya'll are way overcomplicating this. When sex becomes political, it ceases to be fun and becomes a chore.

[mythago]

False dilemma. Must sex be either mindless or political?

[sophonisba]

It's the greatest fallacy of all to suppose that politics only exist when they're explicitly acknowledged.

Women standing up to say, "Hey, this definition of sex isn't any fun for me" isn't the definition of "political," either.

[NYMOM]

"It's the greatest fallacy of all to suppose that politics only exist when they're explicitly acknowledged.

Women standing up to say, "Hey, this definition of sex isn't any fun for me" isn't the definition of "political," either."

NYMOM said: Yet it could be seen as political if many people started changing their behavior based upon women reacting differently to the definition of sex or even conducting themselves differently while having it.

For instance, when sex was 'defined' as being pretty much limited to contact between a husband and wife (or a future spouse, you're engaged or something) pretty much every man accepted that he would have to be married at some point to a woman he was having sex with regularly (other then prostitues so nobody throw in that false analogy and I know they have regular customers, but again = false analogy).

Otherwise man was seen as taking advantage of woman and the situation and condemned by others around him.

However, with more women willing to engage in casual sex and one-night stands today, many men have simply decided they don't need to be married anymore since they can get sex fairly regularly w/o that institution and nobody sanctions them anymore for not marrying.

So in some sense women's behavior has made sex political or at least more of an issue then it was before on the political landscape. As politicans are continuously railing against sexual permissiveness and the morals of our country declining and causing decay of our civilization and I believe this is mainly what they are referring to.

[mythago]

many men have simply decided they don't need to be married anymore since they can get sex fairly regularly w/o that institution

Why would anybody want to marry a man whose sole reason for marrying is getting laid? That's not exactly a marker of a good, reliable partner who will remain faithful and constant.

[NYMOM]

"Why would anybody want to marry a man whose sole reason for marrying is getting laid? That's not exactly a marker of a good, reliable partner who will remain faithful and constant."

NYMOM said: Every other society, as well as our own, used this as the social carrot and stick approach to getting men to marry and it worked for all of them including us until the 1960s/1970s.

Actually societies who did this had a far lower divorce rate then our own.

Of course, like many things relationships 'morph' into something different, even if they begin as superficial.

For instance, some very close friendships of mine began because we were co-workers in the same department. Superficially we were just thrown together because we were in the same company trying to make money, yet we now have solid friendships.

[The Gonzman]

False dilemma. Must sex be either mindless or political?

False dilemma your own self. Just because it isn't political, does that mean it must be mindless?

Play again?

[mythago]

Sorry, waiting for you to put your comment into something coherent. Let's try again: you're presenting any consideration of sexual desire and how other things (upbringing, social attitudes, 'isms) intersect with that as "political" and therefore boring. Why insist that we have to not think about sex much lest it become "political"?

Every other society, as well as our own, used this as the social carrot and stick approach to getting men to marry

This is flatly untrue. I can't believe you would even try to pretend otherwise.

[*Christopher]

Hugo, these are some interesting thoughts on profeminist men and sexuality. It's interesting to hear heterosexual men discuss such things. You and some others inspired my own comments on an oft used term...

[NYMOM]

"Every other society, as well as our own, used this as the social carrot and stick approach to getting men to marry

This is flatly untrue. I can't believe you would even try to pretend otherwise."

Huh...

Well name one that operated differently...

Where men and women just freely engage in sex before marriage???

Actually in every other place I know about besides western civilization and this only over the last several decades, men and women who have sex before marriage and get caught suffer rather drastic penalties.

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

Actually in every other place I know about besides western civilization and this only over the last several decades, men and women who have sex before marriage and get caught suffer rather drastic penalties.

Western civilization, seventeenth century: I was doing genealogy, and found a court case involving two of my ancestors, of the Putnam family of Salem, Massachusetts (it turns out that you can find out a whole lot of information about your ancestors if they lived in Salem, Massachusetts in the seventeenth century), in which they were charged with having sex after their engagement, but before their marriage.

They got fined. Evidently the penalties for getting caught, before the last two decades, in western civilization anyway, weren't all that severe.

They married and went on to become respected members of their local church.

[adrienne]

And in my understanding, in a lot of times and places where engagements were hairy legal phenomena (17th century Germany is an example i've just gotten from some historical fiction i've been reading), having sex after engagement but before married was reasonably ... well, if not expected, at least IGNORED. People got engaged EARLY and married LATE in that time period, as the marriage didn't happen until there were actual assets involved... so people expected a certain amount of hanky-panky.

But then again, i am not a historian.

[NYMOM]

Yes I agree that Western civilization has the most liberal policies regarding pre-marital sex. Since generally once you were officially engaged; it was ignored as long as the marriage went through.

But, of course, that was the caveat...

I think if you got pregnant however and/or the engagement fell through (or worse yet BOTH) that was another whole different scenario.

So women then took a chance doing it since if you weren't careful it could end badly. I think that was the thinking behind chaperoning engaged couples (since a woman's guard was down once she became officially engaged)...

I mean if something went amiss maybe they didn't stone you like they might in Iran or Saudi Arabia but you might be 'labeled' in your community and never get asked by anyone else respectable to get married again.

Or worse, be forced into giving up a child for adoption if you had already gotten pregnant and then for some reason the marriage didn't go through. This happened quite a bit when I was young, as it was either marriage or adoption for unwed girls who got pregnant. AND there were even homes around then for girls to go into until after they delivered their child. I think they no longer exist and probably went out of business in the 60s/70s.

As since the 60s/70s none of this is relevant anymore, at least in western civilization. Everywhere else this continues however and you still face severe penalties.

For instance in Nigeria recently, a woman was recently condemned to stoning for getting pregnant outside of marriage, but they decided to wait until she had the child. She claimed she was engaged to the father, but he said they weren't...I'm not sure if it would have made a difference anyway and I never followed up as the story kind of died out in the media.

However even if not stoned (which is the most drastic penalty) a woman might just never get asked by anybody else in her community to be married again.
So for most women this would be serious sanction enough to discourage premarital sex.

The consequences are too severe for most women, as most women still do wish to get married. Although I'm sure I'll now hear 1001 reasons why women really don't wish to get married now and requests for statistics showing someone did a study showing that most women still wish to be married.

But back to the main point which is that it is not so easy in other societies for men to get casual sex outside of marriage; as most women will not take a chance like this for a casual encounter. Thus these sorts of sanctions for women act indirectly as an encouragement for men to marry and have operated in in this manner in every society, including our own, forever.

I think the secondary point is that feminism has to take responsibility for this changing here and the subsequent consequences of it. Most of this thread appears to be devoted to attacks on me by feminists who are trying to disavow any knowledge of this or acceptance of responsibility for it.

I mean you can make the point (if you wish) that it's a better world where women can engage in casual sex and not have to worry about any consequences. But if that's what you think, then make the point. Don't keep attacking me by denying the fact that a change has occurred.

Especially please stop denying feminism's role in this change in social mores and behaviors in our society vis-a-vis casual sex...

[mythago]

Well name one that operated differently...

Where men and women just freely engage in sex before marriage???

Changing the subject again? You said "Every other society, as well as our own, used this as the social carrot and stick approach to getting men to marry", with 'this' meaning access to sex with women. (Since women in your world apparently don't like sex much, so doing without is no hardship.) How do you get from the cow-and-milk analogy to free love? Do you really think that every society in the world has placed the same restrictions on men having premarital sex as it does on women?

And, again, I really don't get the idea that anyone would want to marry a man who agrees to the wedding out of sexual desperation. Frustrated horniness is a rather shaky foundation for a lifetime.

[NYMOM]

"Changing the subject again? How do you get from the cow-and-milk analogy to free love? Do you really think that every society in the world has placed the same restrictions on men having premarital sex as it does on women?"

NYMOM said: No...I didn't change the subject in my very first post about it I clearly said:

First Post on issue: For instance, when sex was 'defined' as being pretty much limited to contact between a husband and wife (or a future spouse, you're engaged or something) pretty much every man accepted that he would have to be married at some point to a woman he was having sex with regularly...

So I never changed the subject...

No I never said anybody put the same restrictions on men and women regarding sex. It simply isn't necessary so why do more when you can get the same result with less? As I think placing the restrictions on women (as I said already) has the same impact as placing them on men. Since women will just refuse to go along with sex outside of marriage (if the stakes are high enough) and that will effectively end it...as you know what they say it takes two to tango.

Thus effectively neutralizing one has the desired impact on both and women being the ones at risk of pregnancy and disgrace (still in many societies) has more to lose by engaging in it...

Frustrated horniness is a rather shaky foundation for a lifetime."

NYMOM said: Every society I know of has based their public policies on marriage around this scenario and they have been very successful with it until our own changed the equation in the 60s/70s. Are you telling me western civilization has others beat with our 'lifetime' retention rates for marriages?

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

I mean you can make the point (if you wish) that it's a better world where women can engage in casual sex and not have to worry about any consequences. But if that's what you think, then make the point. Don't keep attacking me by denying the fact that a change has occurred.

I don't dispute that there's more acceptance of women engaging in casual sex than there was several decades ago. I'm simply saying that it's slightly more complicated than to say that sex outside of marriage was never accepted for women and that feminism bears chief responsibility for the change.

1) Sex leading to marriage has often been tolerated (as I see you've now agreed).

2) There may have been some cultures which tolerated relatively casual premarital sex for both sexes, but the extent of this is disputed (e.g. Margaret Mead's anthropological work in Polynesia, where she reported young women having sex relatively freely, but others later said that the young women had been pulling her leg). There are also a few cultures which accept polyandry, though not nearly as many as accept polygyny.

3) There have been, of course, plenty of times and places where men could get away with casual sex, so long as the women involved were properly stigmatized.

4) The relationship between feminism and the sexual revolution is complicated. Feminists generally oppose a double standard, and to that extent feminism has been one of the forces supporting the sexual revolution. But feminists vary in attitudes toward casual sex, porn, BDSM, and all sorts of other sexual matters. If you take Andrea Dworkin, and Susie Bright, and a Christian feminist, you'll get three different views.

As for whether "it's a better world where women can engage in casual sex and not have to worry about any consequences," I'm not going to make that argument, because: a) I don't believe it's true that I could engage in casual sex and not worry about any consequences (even if I were still single), and b) greater acceptance of casual sex often goes with the assumption that people who don't want to engage in more casual sex are repressed, particularly because c) some men feel entitled to have sex with whomever they are attracted to (something feminists would object to, of course). So if you don't want men's traditional role of being expected to want no strings attached sex - and I don't - the sexual revolution doesn't improve your position. On the other hand, the old system was flawed as well; socially punishing to a greater extent the sex that already bears the greater physical consequences for sex may be the more convenient way of exercising social control, but it sure isn't just.

[mythago]

For instance, when sex was 'defined' as being pretty much limited to contact between a husband and wife

Continuing to invent things out of whole cloth will still not help your argument any.

No I never said anybody put the same restrictions on men and women regarding sex.

Then your point kind of falls through, doesn't it? If men are not restricted to sex within marriage, then "marry me if you want sex" does not maintain a marriage--he can get it elsewhere, she can't. As for lower divorce rates, you drag that one out any time you wish to claim that the way it used to be was superior to how we do things now. Never mind that divorce laws, economic dependency, social sanctions for marriage, and so on were different. And never mind that many people did not get divorced because they simply abandoned their spouses (or worse).

[BritGirlSF]

So what NYMOM is saying is that it's perfectly acceptable to place all the burden for lowering extra-marital sex on women simply because it may be convenient to do so (ene though in fact this may not work, and in the past tended to simply create a class of women who were used for sex and then stigmatised heavily for it - even the Victorians had prostitutes). And you call yourself an advocate for women and their children?
Not that I'm convinced that decreasing extra-marital sex is a good goal in and of itself, by the way. Reducing teen pregnancy would certainly seem to be a good idea, or reducing the number of people who feel that they're being pressured into sex that they don't want, but if people of either gender want to have sex outside of marriage and are able to find a willing and enthusiastic partner then what's the problem, and why is it society's job to stop them?
Also, about the divorce rate...I think that the generally accepted reasons for wanting a low divorce rate are A. to protect any children involved from the problems they may experience if their parents get divorced and B to spare the adults involved from heartbreak. A low divorce rate in and of itself is not the goal for most people, and why should it be? Why make people stay in marriages that they're not happy in?
In other words, if a low divorce rate and less extra-marital sex are your excuses for reinstating and/or reinforcing slut-shaming for women (and ignoring the part men play in sex outside of marriage), then those are pretty poor reasons for making a large number of people suffer in order to further your social agenda.

[NYMOM]

Well, one thing is clear here.

Feminisn and it's supporters do NOT wish to assume responsibility for any of the changes they have instigated...

That's for sure.