It’s Just (Penis In Vagina)!!!!11!!11 April 10, 2010
Posted by FCM in authors picks, feminisms, health, international, liberal dickwads, PIV, pop culture, rape.Tags: entitlement, male privilege, PIV, pregnancy, STD
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the whole problem with this “its just sex” credo is that its a fucking fail, right from the start. and as far as problematic ideologies go, thats a big fucking problem, being problematic from the start. its like…adding a cup of salt instead of a cup of sugar. or trying to raise free-range chickens in hyena country. someone fucked up, and theres no reconciling it. theres nothing you can do in these situations, except reassess, cut your losses, and start over. right? thats what a normal thinking human would do, if they had any ambition at all, and the resources to do it.
it does make it more difficult to see the problem for what it is though, to stick with the above analogies, when some 99.9% of us dont have tastebuds. and half of us are hyenas.
you see, words have meaning. yes, they do. they arent just ink on the fucking page. and this game of life has rules. so when it comes to written rules (or “laws” if you prefer) theres a definitional section in the beginning, and a legislative history (aka. “context”) on the record so that we can all reasonably figure out *whats being said* and whats meant, when a new law is being hashed out, and later when its being enforced. we have to know whats being expected of us, as citizens. otherwise, its not fair. in fact, theres an entire multi-billion dollar, international industry thats been in existence for thousands of years, dedicated to ensuring that things are fair, and that the meaning and the intended meaning of words are vetted, and clearly understood. you know, when it comes to understanding whats being expected of MEN. and that industry is called “civil and criminal defense.”
when it comes to vetting and understanding whats being expected of women, and ensuring that things are fairly applied and interpreted when it comes to *us* we have…radical feminists. yeah, all 19 of us, taking on the same responsibilities and taking it just as seriously as a multi-billion dollar, international industry…and we are doing it, largely, with no money, and no time. and most of the laws pertaining to us are unwritten, to boot. (something men would never stand for by the way. if its not written down, they dont have to do it. simple as that).
and interestingly, our “clients” (other women) rarely appreciate our services, at all. almost all of them fight radical feminists every fucking step of the way. then when they have what they want, and are enjoying the fruits of our (and our mothers and grandmothers) labor, they call radical feminists fucking cunts and thank the men for “evolving.” the lack of appreciation happens in civil and criminal defense too, but at least most lawyers dont have their clients trying to claw their way BACK INTO prison. and most of them arent “consensually” fucking the guards (or very deeply in love with them).
so, understanding that this is the context in which we all live (and it is) let me ask a simple question, about the definition of a word. what is meant, and intended, and expected, when we use the word “sex?” as in, “its just sex!!!!11!1!” this is not a rhetorical question.
because there are many, many people out there bandying the term about, and many more who are using it to con other people into doing stuff. the religious right are telling women to have “sex” with men, in certain situations but not others, and for certain reasons but not others. and the lefty liberals are telling women to have “sex” with all men, in all situations, for any reason, or no reason at all. the religious ones, some of them, tell women they can desire it, as long as its with their husbands. for the lefty liberals, they dont care whether the women desire it, or not. (both sides: “yay, hookers!!11!!!!11!1” oh, and so much for anyone claiming that the religious right are “anti-sex,” yes? so stop making the comparison between allegedly “anti-sex” radfems and the religious right.)
but sticking your dick into a vagina AINT SEX. mm-kay? its not. since when did “sex” come to mean “men sticking their dicks into women?” because thats what it means. thats the intended, and working, meaning of the word. someone fucked up here, people. we need to start over, because “sex” has nothing to do with being sexual, with arousal, or desire, or with being interesting or creative or anything. and its definitely not about “expressing” anything, except penis-worship, and mens entitlement to put girls and women in harms way, without reproach.
so if someone were to say to me, “its just erotic massage!!!!1!!11!” or “its just mutual masturbation/digital penetration!!!11!!” or “its just authentic female desire” or “its just a warm, wet, aroused vulva with a non-phallic-looking vibrator stimulating it to orgasm!!!!1!!1” i would say “yay sex, bring it on.” but thats not what anyone means, when they say “its just sex.”
“sex” as its intended to mean, means “penis in vagina” and since that puts girls and women at risk for pregnancy and STDs, the payoff is not worth the risk. even if our clits were located in our vaginas, IT STILL WOULDNT BE WORTH IT. but they arent, and its not. “its just sex” means “its just misogyny and male entitlement.” and if you dont have a problem with that, you have a very serious problem, indeed.
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femonade 
Can I be the first to say two things:
1)May women greatly enjoy/are aroused by vaginal penetration
2)Said state can be achieved completly without the aid of a penis -some would even say it’s better with something else.
That’s it.
This is brilliant; this is a joy in radical feminism FCM. I will say more, but I just had to say that!
yep, yep. the clit that we are (indoctrinated) about is actually just an outward portion of an organ that is huge and has nerve centers within the vagina. we’re just all kinds of complex/wonderful when it comes to pleasure.
agreed FCM I think PIV is an indoctrinated addiction for het women in patriarchy. one of the major reasons that women aren’t taught more about the reality of their capabilities is strategic, because we’d quickly realize that PIV is just not everything, or even the best thing. Once a woman spends a little time getting to know herself “sexually” she realizes how powerful and flexible her capacities are. it’s one of those never go back things..thank you for posting on this.
yeah polly, i added “digital penetration” to the list of things that people *dont* mean, when they say “sex.” and as far as im concerned, it doesnt get a whole lot better than that.
i would also like to add “sticking things up mens butts.” if thats not sexual, then i dont know what is. and most het men like it, although thats also on the list of things that people *dont* mean when they say “sex” or “its just sex.” no, “its just sticking things up mens butts!!!!!11!!11!” is not what anyone means, when they say what they say.
and i am getting a ton of traffic from this site:
yeah, “its just life” alright. unwanted pregnancy is JUST LIFE. higher risk of STD infections is JUST LIFE. being regarded as a life-support system for a fuckhole i mean vagina, and not a human being, is JUST LIFE. all this stuff is just life, if you are a woman in a misogynist culture. and ignoring the context in which we are having “sex” and accepting the intended and working definition of “sex” as PIV, isnt feminist. sorry.
Yeah, intercourse was something I put up with to get my orgasm (digitally and/or lingually) and some cuddling. There were times when penetration felt good, times when it felt so-so, and times when it felt uncomfortable. You never knew which one it would be until you did it, and by then, if it was uncomfortable, I never felt like I could stop it. Guys get mad when you do that, or they say something asinine, like, “I’m almost done.” Fuck that shit.
I’m just really glad to be done with sex with men.
Well it is *just life* if you accept that life for most people and especially most women is nasty, brutish and short. The question is, are we attempting to maintain or change the status quo.
In the words of um – a man. “You don’t have to take this crap, you don’t have to sit back and relax, you could actually try changing things”.
And yes, most of the time it might not work. But at least I’ll have tried, eh?
And I well remember a female I know telling me ‘lesbians don’t have sex, it’s just foreplay’.
Says it all really.
thanks sheila, and tell your friends!!!111!1 actually, that means alot, so thanks for popping in. i look forward to reading your “real” post later.
Ok I read that piece, (didn’t take long) and I’ll say this. I do not disagree that ultimately we cannot subsitute our judgment for another person’s. And I seem to remember saying something about ‘victim feminism’ that got me in a whole heap of trouble (that’s another fine mess I got myself in). All of which I stand by actually. I don’t believe in rewriting history to cast oneself as a victim. I don’t believe in just taking any old shit (which also gets me into trouble, however I’d rather be in the trouble than take the shit) However I won’t go into all that again here.
However pace that DWM Antonio Gramsci, I say you should never underestimate the power of cultural hegemony. I have little sympathy with those who say ‘the patriarchy made me do it’ when they um, wanted to do it actually, and got something out of it. We have to take responsibility for our actions.
However that’s not the same as saying we all exercise 100% free choice either (a point at least some people got last time). It’s the hegemony stupid. If you think about it this position is NOT dichotomous. It does mean though that those of is in a position to do so need to question stuff, not take the easy option, and realise that not all *choices* are value neutral. If you really have got absolute agency and choose to exercise that by harming yourself, I’m very happy for you. However it behoves us to realise that not all constraints are obvious, and a bit of analysis doesn’t go amiss. And that if you fail to question, the status quo goes on. It may well do anyway even if you do (you can’t do miracles). But you do what you can. And it’s not all about you. If my friend was doing something stupid, I’d tell her she was doing something stupid. That’s the point of friends. If she chooses to continue to do something stupid, that’s up to her. But my friends would expect me to perform this service for them, and I’d expect them to do it for me.
If you believe that people are completely unaffected by *social norms* you have either spent your life in a coma, or you don’t understand the most basic thing about human society works. Therefore what the *social norm* is, matters.
polly, i think for women and others who arent fully human under the current system, that “social norms” not only matter, but they matter and mean a LOT. they are the corrolate to written laws, which apply to men (unwritten rules apply to the rest of us). there are extreme consequences for violating the law, the more foundational the law, the more severe the consequences for breaking them. refusing to have PIV with any particular man, for example, may get you raped by that man. so “choosing” to have “consensual” PIV with him isnt really a choice, and if you orgasm that probably has more to do with the fact that you chose not to see the act, or the act of “choosing” for what it really was. its not a coincidence that many, many women dont orgasm from PIV. and if you LOOK LIKE you NEVER have PIV with men at all (butch lesbian) you might not even be able to get a fucking job. i wish people would understand that unwritten rules are the law of the land, that carry extreme penalties for noncompliance. they arent just trite or antiquated “social customs” that you can take or leave.
for example, everyone knows the meaning of “driving while black” do they not? thats an unwritten rule that we all know about, and the very wording of it acknowledges that its not fair, but its real. “sex” sounds totally neutral, BUT ITS NOT. thats because driving while black mostly applies to black MEN who have the language of social justice behind them. women dont, so our issues dont even sound like issues, at all. and of course, black men are still demanding PIV from women, just like all men do. that might go without saying, but it pisses me off that they are benefitting from the language of social justice themselves, while they continue to rape and abuse and marginalize women too. on that note, theres some asshole trolling here lately thats demanding that i acknowledge that black men are targeted for their race AND their gender, because black (or any) women arent targeted by the cops like black men are. oh boo hoo, teh menz!!!11!!1! well…we are being targeted, at home, as the cops’ wives and girlfriends, and as the hookers they use. AND, we are also being abused by teh poor men who are being abused, by the cops. and when we are arrested, we get raped, or they let us give them a blow job, and we might not get arrested at at all.
and when men are wronged they can call a fucking lawyer to help them out. who are women going to call, really? now…which of these are the most obvious offenses, and which are “mere” social customs, eh? the laws that affect women are under the radar. thats deliberate.
I think the point is, some of us have more “wiggle room” than others. I don’t see why it is impossible for the so called “fun fems” to realise that. Yes there may well be women, who given 100% free choice would choose to spend that free choice standing by their man, Tammy Wynette style.
Most choices have a degree of coercion. I may ‘choose’ to go to work tomorrow. Now I genuinely do have a choice, I could not go, I could resign. I’d then either have to sell my house to survive (if anyone would buy it in this market) or find another job. But I do have a CHOICE.
If I’d won the lottery yesterday and was now a millionaire, I’d have a much better choice. And I’d resign, no questions asked.
That’s the difference between *agency* and free choice. The former should not be confused with the latter.
NB I should clarify that by *that piece* I meant the linked ‘not just sex just life’ one.
also, to clarify the above, i think its pretty obvious that some unwritten rules clash with other unwritten rules. like “driving while black” clashes with a very important one that everyone knows, “men are human.” so the conflict brings it to the surface. whereas “sex equals penis in vagina” meshes (not clashes) nicely with the other unwritten rules: “women arent human”, “women are hookers” and “women have babies.” so it remains hidden. “driving while black” appears as a dropped stitch in the fabric. “men are human,” “women are hookers”, and “women have babies” IS the fabric.
I’m sorry but saying ‘it’s just life’ is a fucking insult to me. Maybe I’m over-sensitive, but that *really* gets my back up.
(referring to the link above dissing FCM, not to anyone/thing else)
The outrage over discrimination against men become a political issue precisely because said people are men. It’s why you have this weird idea that gender apartheid in Saudi Arabia is fine and dandy (because that’s religion and culture), and race based apartheid in South Africa becomes an international outrage.
So sex based crimes against women, and the male definition of just sex aren’t legislated really all that much at all, which all are outraged over driving while black, which is about the men.
The law is easy to understand that way. Social custom is the coercive force that keeps women silent and compliant, and I see this ALL THE TIME! I see women being harmed and silent all the time. It makes me nuts. As a lesbian, it gets weirder and weirder every year watching this show of sex, men and heteronormativity.
Most women are putting up with things to get other things. Now I don’t want a life with men, and I don’t care what happens to them as long as they are out of my life. There is no trade off or compromise in this. So the whole socila coersion thing and the PIV coersion thing… it’s a horror show. Women are interesting when they rebel against men, when they take over spaces, when they make life very difficult for men through women’s social justice. We are the only group that has such a huge number of collaborators unwilling to rise up en masse and stop the sex with men machine. And I don’t see this change happening on a massive scale.
I wasn’t around for fun feminism, I think this is something about younger women. Just going into a store the other day, I noticed a whole magazine rake with porn magazines on it… I mean at least a dozen or so, so I went up to the owner and told him, get rid of that woman hating stuff. Then I spit on his counter and walked out. I called the manager over to do this, not an underling or employee. Other women in the door gave me a harsh look. Hey, lesbians speak up, we don’t tolerate.
compared to social context, the law is relatively easy to understand…even though the law is NOTORIOUSLY DIFFICULT to interpret and apply due to the inherent ambiguity of language. i mean really. i challenge anyone to try to say something thats not at least somewhat ambiguous. its pretty much impossible. but thats what lawyers and judges are there for: to make reasonable interpretations of whats been siad, BASED ON CONTEXT. when it comes to social conventions, they are even more vague. but no less real, with real consequences for failure. and we dont even consider the context, or the backdrop against which we are all living. its fucking insane. considering that the backdrop is a patriarchy, and we live in a fucking rape culture where men are default humans and women arent human at all…and this is the backdrop against which we all live, all the time, and its pretty much world-wide…whats it mean to be a bad wife? a bad mother? a bad pregnant woman? a bad woman?
against this same backdrop, what is meant by “sex?” whats the intended and working definition of the word? and…WHY?
this is what dworkin was exploring when she wrote “intercourse.” i am still reading that, am about halfway done. her book is all about CONTEXT and considering the backdrop against which women and men are having PIV. and against this backdrop, PIV starts to look very scary indeed. theres a reason that “sex” and rape look very much the same: because all thats missing from rape is “consent.” other than that, its identical. men abusing women by putting them in harms way, when theres no comparable risk for the man. women being penetrated, largely without being aroused, and without reaching orgasm (around 90-95% dont orgasm this way). so we are keeping men out of prison (yay!!!111!) but what does this have to do with an authentic sexuality, really? it doesnt. its the status quo: men abuse girls and women without reproach. many times, WITHOUT EVEN CONSIDERING THE HARM TO OTHERS, at all. thats the very definition of entitlement. and if “normal sex” looks quite alot like rape, then “normal men” look very much like rapists, if they are having PIV with girls and women. theres no way we can discuss PIV without discussing rape.
heres a thought exercise: what would you believe you were seeing, if you happened upon a man and woman kissing, and he was pleasuring her with a non-phallic looking vibrator? would you even wonder for one second whether it was consensual? at what point do you begin to wonder what you are seeing, and wondering whether its consensual or not? its something i have been pondering lately. what seems to get me wondering is obvious contextual stuff like time and place…but DEFINITELY penetration with an object or a penis would take me from “ok i know what this is” to “i dont know what i am watching here.” i think the fact that rape and PIV LOOK THE SAME in many ways needs to be discussed.
Being an outsider watching heterosexual women interact with men in the world, I would say, they very rarely consent to anything, even the conversation taking place with men. I find men so objectionable almost always in public meetings, and feel a kind of rage, that I am convinced straight women many times have trained themselves not to feel. I often go up privately to straight women during breaks at work conferences to ask them how they felt about such and such said by a man at the podium. When I bring it up, they will admit that they don’t really like what the guy said, but before I brought it up, they kind of pushed back the discontent into denial ville.
This makes me realize that if straight women aren’t all that happy with what men say at conferences, they must not be all that happy with their sexual relationships with men. They might talk about this amongst themselves, but not around me. It’s very hard for me to hide my revulsion at all male sexuality, and all male sexual expression. There reaches a point, where I don’t feel qualified to talk about this at all. But I sense this repressed discontent and brittleness among straight women, and they become more like this later in life.
So this lack of pleasure during PIV I think is a strong indicator that there is some trade off here. Better economic conditions might be worth the sexual stuff they tolerate from men. This horrifies me, but there you have it. I’m not objective at all in this discussion, since all PIV that women experience seems like rape to me… or a trade off, like food, clothing, shelter or disigner dresses… worth the temporary rapes for lifetime security. Ugly.
enjoying this.
I just don’t think it’s “good,” meaning physically healthy, for women to have PIV very often. I don’t think it was meant, not that i believe in any type of creationism, but things serve a purpose, I don’t think we’re supposed to be having constand effing PIV all the time. the fact that constant PIV for no other purpose than male appeasement is even called “sex” makes no sense to me. Or maybe it’s calling other things sex that doesn’t make sense. If sex is PIV for no purpose but male ejaculation then it doesn’t just look like rape, it IS rape.
sorry I’m not more on the level with what you gals are throwing down but I am enjoying it.
I can’t remember if it was Sonia Johnson, or maybe someone else, who talked about detoxing from PIV with males. That it takes a certain amount of time to come off the addiction. One of my girlfriendes said one time that having a relationship with a dude where you have a lot of PIV is like having an open wound and it makes you more emotionally vulnerable to him. It probably acts on an addictive level, i dunno-like a diabetic and sugar. It’s so bad for you but your body develops a dependence, especially women who are not getting emotional needs met elsewhere. anyway, I think it was Johnson who wrote about what coming down from that feels like. It takes months or years but once you “get off” PIV, no pun intended, shit changes and you can restabilize. I believe it.
well obviously its an acquired taste, like many addictions are in the beginning. when i first did it, it didnt feel that great. i have heard many women say that if you dont have PIV very often, it doesnt feel good. its a lot of irritation, mostly. and spermicides, lubes, latex and all that stuff can be extremely irritating and downright painful. so when i would “go without” for a long time, what i would absolutely fantasize about would be going 10 or 12 rounds with someone and make it really last…but in reality i could barely “finish” one because it hurt. think “honeymoon cystitis.” (and i am feeling veganprimate here, when she mentioned how difficult it is to get them to stop, before they are done.) thats when i was single. so hookups totally werent worth it, at all. frankly, i wanted more than anything to find someone who *could* go 10-12 rounds with me, and make it worth it. but (big surprise) noone ever did. i really dont think men like sex, in the end. i think they like to dominate women. its so obvious, when you start seeing it for what it is. when you see all the “sexual” stuff that they ARENT interested in doing, and the one thing they DO want, and its the least pleasurable and most dangerous for women, and they want to do it “with” (to) as many women as possible…what does this sound like, to you? i mean really. they wish so badly that it had to do with evolution, but we know better.
no, I don’t think they really like it either. I’ve heard sooo many dudes speak of sex as a stress release. they literally do not know how to calm themselves without PIV and you’re right, the prospect of a 10 round evening or weekend, there aren’t too many dudes who can take the time to do it right and get it done. and in fact, once a woman does feel that she wants PIV she has the physical capacity to deal with several “rounds” as you put it. it would seem that women’s systems are set up for infrequent instances of PIV with maybe multiple partners or at least multiple rounds, so basically the patriarchal system is wrong about everything, even on an evolutionary level.
Have your detractors ever read the *problem* pages of popular women’s magazines? I think they’d tell them everything they need to know really. So many times women write in saying “I don’t like sex” “I don’t have orgasms during sex” etc, etc. And then said magazines are full of advice on how to HAVE orgasms during sex, ie PIV rather than stating the bleeding obvious which is yes G spot orgasms DO happen, but a penis is a bit of blunt instrument to achieve them(pardon the pun).
Putting up with something is different from CHOOSING it.
Oh and if you ask me the human race is PROOF POSITIVE that intelligent design is a myth. Stupid design maybe.
laurelin, i doubt anyone here thinks that you are being “overly sensitive” by being offended that someone thinks that PIV is “just life.” its extremely offensive, which is exactly why i wrote this post to begin with actually. the “its just life” post was written in response to my “fun-fem” article, where i mentioned that my friends husband contracted HIV shortly after they were married. and i know what that person meant when they said “its just life.” what they were saying, and it came through loud and clear, was that they didnt think there was anything wrong with “sexuality” and that “sexuality” is just life. thats what all the fun-fem assholes say, when they accuse radfems of being “puritanical” or “anti-sex.” they really dont know how to fucking read do they? what they arent willing to examine, and my ENTIRE FUCKING POINT is that they (and we and everyone really, except some lesbians) have been brainwashed into believing that PIV *is* sex, and that its “sexual” to engage in PIV. and its SO CLEARLY NOT. its a tool of the patriarchy, whereby men routinely abuse girls and women by placing us in harms way. just becuase men get off on placing us in harms way, does not make it sexual. most men ejaculate during rape, too. thats how DNA evidence is collected at many murder scenes. its not because they left a cheek swab at the scene of the fucking crime. DUH. does that make rape sexual too? well…if the only criteria is “penis in vagina” and “man ejaculates” then, frankly, and horiffically, YES. rape is as “sexual” as PIV. rape/murder would be too, under that criteria.
this is all very triggering isnt it? sorry.
I just don’t think it’s “good,” meaning physically healthy, for women to have PIV very often. I don’t think it was meant, not that i believe in any type of creationism, but things serve a purpose, I don’t think we’re supposed to be having constand effing PIV all the time.
I agree.
I think when humans figured out where babies came from, they made available a choice that they didn’t have before (when they were simply aping the animals): have PIV only when you want to make a baby, and then pleasure yourself or others non-penetratively when you don’t want to make a baby. But by then, patriarchy was probably already established, who knows? I don’t know when humans figured out where babies came from. I know that well into the 20th century, there were still tribes who didn’t know.
I also agree that men don’t really like sex. They just use the PIV for dominating purposes (and stress release). I’ve noticed that men often become uncomfortable when women lavish a lot of physical attention on them during sex, that is physical attention other than sucking their nasty ol’ peckers. If you really “make love” to a man, they can’t deal with it. They want wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am type sex with only as much foreplay as the women need to become lubricated (or not, as is often the case).
sonia, thanks for mentioning the addiction part of it, particularly the withdrawal period. thats very interesting to me, and i am still thinking on that one.
Fascinating commentary. Clearly, feminism has got to get back to the basics in so many ways. Also, the comparison of the sex act to rape–results the same for men, should clue people in. How men define sex that is.
Fun feminists I just don’t think are being very honest or very well informed about what women’s power and agency could be all about. It’s what I find so frustrating about it all.
I know the whole “sexual ideology” often horrifies me, and so I do become kind of stuffed shirt and Victorian in response to blatant and disresepctful attempts to embarass or humiliate me. However, I am noticing, that in a proper context, I feel deeply connected to women who are respectful, and I can be respectful back; something I believe men have no clue about. Fun feminists don’t understand a radical feminist thought process, and probably don’t have much life experience to figure it out.
I do know back in the day, that radical feminism often came to women at a later age. Women would be in the early 30s and understand it. Mary Daly was in her 40s. I was the beneficiary of feminists who were born in the 1920s, 30s, and pre-boomer 40s, so I came to this knowledge around the age of 22. I was 15 when I became “officially” a feminist.
It still seems that girls and women get kind of stuck in the sexual ideology of the male sexual revolution at a young age, and men are always searching for young girls and women they can dominate at an early age. Patriarchy divides mothers and daughters, and boys and men seem like the attractive rebels. It’s a real set up.
I wasn’t suggesting that there’s a dude with a beard designing things, but nature clearly has an intelligence, in my opinion. Like the way animals develop characteristics that support their objectives. Chameleons that can turn the color of the branch they sit on. I just meant, obviously there is a reason for things. I think this argument, when not co-opted by dude based science and religion, but viewed in full truth, supports everything radfem says.
thanks, FCM. Luckily I’m pissed off rather than triggered. I feel like I’ve been spoken to like this before by others who did not have my best interests at heart, and I’m fucking sick of it (not that I’m suggesting that the author was speaking to me specificially!!! It’s bugger-all to do with me personally, but the implications of what she says are to do with my person, if that makes sense).
And yes, she seems to be responding to a different post to yours. Anyone who reads what you wrote and responds with ‘FCM is patronising women’ (or somesuch bullshit) has misread, or is mistaken.
I don’t bear any ill-will to the author of that post, but I do find what she wrote to be insulting. Obviously it’s not her responsibility to keep me happy (!), but… well… I have to say *something*. It’s very discomforting, this whole thing.
Yeah, FCM, I didn’t get the piece either. I mean, I got it, but it was a little “hmmm.”
I think the point was, it’s assumptive radfem crusaders like you who are out to keep girls from having fun.
or something.
If men truly liked sex, they would be fully invested in the sensual, in the depth of passion, and that means really listening and being with your partner, having a joyful connection to making love in the first place. But that’s not the language I hear from het guys or gay guys. They use terms like “banging her” “pumping and dumping” and a million more offensive aggressive things that have nothing to do with the passion of connection in love making. Men don’t even get that they don’t need viagra or anything at all. The sexual to men is about dumping some load, banging, getting it on… it’s weird to listen to men talk about sex. It makes me believe they are unfeeling animals, some lower order of species, not exactly human at all in the way I see human.
Clearly, a new revolution would be women really changing the whole thing of heterosexual sexuality. And not fun feminism, which is merely “adjusting” to male values, which inherently DE-value women.
Since men can’t think logically about this at all, and seem to have a great deal of trouble understanding what risk IS to women, well…
The whole viagra thing really seemed odd. Why not spend your older years learning what women love sexually, and devoting yourself to that.. no penis needed, but perhaps men, not knowing what sex is, and actually using it as a tool of domination want the viagra to continue being able to dominate, rape and PIV till they die. Scary isn’t it. Even former presidential candidates like Bob Dole advertise the stuff, tells you something…poor Elizabeth…
Oh and can I point out to Ms Antonova that youths threw sweets at me in the street today. Que? Dawg knows what they were trying to prove apart from they can afford to waste good Smarties. It’s an interesting variation from ‘smelly lesbian’ I suppose or ‘filthy dyke’ or ‘she looks like a boy’ or whatever. It’s JUST LIFE you see. And JUST social coercion that is often quite tough to resist, though on the whole I’d rather be hit with a smartie than a fist or a knife.
That’s what we’re on about. Yeah I TRUST lesbians. But still a hell of a lot of them find this shit hard to deal with. Yanno? So am I supposed to tell them and me to get with the heteronormative programme and at least TRY to look a bit more ‘normal’? Cos you know it’s JUST LIFE?
Or resist?
Sheila I dig the age thing. (awful) rite of passage? At least it helps me look at my past in a better light.
This is another great discussion! Thanks!
I totally agree that separating from PIV can be like coming-down from an addiction (I think separating from any/every thing male oriented can cause some really MAJOR withdrawals, but I’ll try to stay on topic). I remember this in my first lesbian relationship; it took me a while to realize that having my uterus banged with a blunt object wasn’t really satisfying. Even though I was having orgasms plenty of other ways, I still craved it for quite some time after I stopped…I totally believed that it was, like, cathartic or something. I think I was just accustomed to being dominated and thinking that that was a good thing, that is was sooooo satisfying to be used for someone else’s pleasure. I also thought that a sore vagina was indicative of a healthy sex life– I had this secret little sense of satisfaction about it. (Omg, WHY am I sharing this humiliation? Oh, because I love you all!)
So, this got me thinking about how lesbian sex culture is being overrun by DILDOS and “cocks”. And I considered writing a complimentary post about DIV (ha!). Cause lesbians have sex with their hands. Mmmm. And their mouths. But it’s not definitely not considered “sex” as FCM refers to Sex (TM) in this post. As veganprimate mentions, men can’t HANDLE it when you try to “make love” to them– lavishing attention on their body is like, WEIRD! Ahhhh! And the same thing is happening with Queer Butches who embrace a Stone Mentality. It’s not Forward!!! See Dirt for more on the fragmentation of lesbian intimacy in the New B/F culture.
Btw, Natalia is totally committed to Choice Feminism– that’s *all* she does. Basically, she’s considered EVERYTHING and ANY questioning (read: critical analysis) is undermining her female agency, therefore it is not feminist. It’s all a nice, neat logical circle. She’s gonna keep at it too, cause it’s easy! Her definition of Feminism is fundamentally in conflict with ours.
Omg Polly your smarties post made me lol. Srsly. BTW got a new smartphone that does all my caps for me. I don’t like it. Sheesh does punctation too. Wtf
haha it does spelling too but apparently misses some stuff. its still learning (really). scary eh?
i wanted to mention that i am getting a ton of traffic from ren teh porn stars site. apparently, she thinks that i “have a point” when it comes to PIV…but she felt the need to dedicate an enire post to my “arrogant” tone…and ultimately dismiss me, and my “point.” meh. like we havent all heard this before right? its not WHAT you are saying, honey, its HOW you are saying it.
what really hurts my feelings is that these funfem assholes dont appreciate how funny i am. they LOLLL!!!111!!! themselves to death misreading my posts and declaring them to be “unintentionally humorous”. although whats really funny is the fact that they dont know how to fucking read. if asked, i dont think they could tell you what i really thought about anything, and get it right. they would get it wrong, 100% of the time.
I missed the bit when you had to be nice on the internet, I must admit, and since I used to be rood and that was apparently ok.
Anyways I just had a great revelation. It occurred to me that *fun feminism* of the type I was just describing (don’t criticise anything a women ever does because it’s misogynist and hey, what can you do, it’s JUST LIFE) and the time I got into shit for criticising a rad fem for NOT admitting she had chosen to do something (which was massively popular with certain of the fun fem tendency) have something in common.
Complete abdication of personal responsbility. Yes you heard me. If you’ve got “agency” even of a limited kind, you have responsibility. To yourself, and to the rest of the human race. Failing to challenge shit and just taking the easier path is abdicating responsibility.
It’s like the situation that happened to me recently. A female trade union rep who was supposed to go to a hearing with me was scared and withdrew. She phoned me to say they’re *very powerful* and she was going to bring a sex discrimination case, but withdrew it because she was frightened.
WHAT? I have to work with these dudes a lot more closely than she does. And yes I know my employer has the worst fucking record EVER for industrial relations and is about as ethical as the CIA. As in they were once nearly charged with perverting the course of justice. But you know what? Bring it on. Do I a) run scared or b)stand and fight.
That’ll be option b. A man went with me in the end. The HR rep is trying to get out of investigating my grievance now because it might *make things worse*. No, get this fuckwit, you have a LEGAL DUTY to prevent anything happening to me as a result, and if you don’t, see you in court.
Now according to Natalia Antonova that makes me a misogynist. Because I actually expect women to step up in solidarity now and then and not just take the easy route.
You know what is really misogynist eh? Treating women like they are helpless chilldren, unable to resist the menz. Which is – oh so ironically – what the likes of Natalia Antonova do.
Collaboration doesn’t just harm oneself, it harms others. Would my life be oh so much easier I i just shut up and smiled sweetly? Yes I suppose it would. Is that a reason to do it? Not in my book,
All that Agency isn’t much good unless you actually use it to DO something you know.
yes polly, they all have the “agency” to sit on their asses and do nothing. and they all want to be different…like everyone else. we are all unique snowflakes you know. with the agency to fall helplessly wherever we damn please, and do nothing when we get there.
I would like to report that dworkins “intercourse” is absolutely resonating with me and with this article and discussion. It occured to me to just shut down this blog and tell everyone to read dworkin. Srsly.
Also, that I have gotten beyond the part about context, and into where she asks whether theres something inherent about intercourse that’s inexorably tied to and causative of women’s inferior social status. That’s intercourse 201 apparently. 101 is the contextual stuff that the fun fems can’t grasp. Stay tuned!
I’ve had Dworkin’s Intercourse book since the 1980’s, and it supplied theory that gave grounding to my instinctive disinclination to engage in PIV. I was lucky that I grew up with second wave radical feminism around (at least in print!) all during my youth, b/c I found its thinkers dealing with so many of the things that I had encountered and thought about during my child- and early adult-hood that the 2nd Wave literally saved me from a world of (further) hurt. It’s very, very strange, though, to be growing old and seeing the avid, and overwhelming reinstitution of sex-bigotry and woman-hatred that I had thought would be GONE by this new century. We like to think that progress won is progress set in stone, but it is not.
That last sentence about progress leads me into saying that the ability of rights and liberation to be eroded or disappeared is why it is SO important that forums like your blog, and polly’s former blogs, be around so that light can penetrate to young women who need them. I can’t always think of relevant things to bring to your conversations here, but I want you to know you might be helping someone more than you will ever know.
J!C! Please do not shut down the blog! We need you out here! Sheesh. Please don’t even joke about such a thing, my constitution is fragile enough already.
Also, looking forward to Intercourse 201. Haven’t read the book, so your summary will be invaluable to me. 😉
Thanks ladies. I’m not going anywhere, I don’t think. It does seem idiotic to me though to be constantly reinventing the wheel, when smart and learned feminists have been thinking and saying this shit literally for decades now. That’s why I decided to pick up some books and start reading instead of (or at least in addition to) flapping my gums here. It’s time to evolve, ppl!!!11!1
That is all.
Levelbest, I was hoping you’d stop by! I think the age of blogging has made things really interesting as far as progress goes, and being a beacon in the dark for others down the road. I mean, we have dworkin and mackinnon, in print, and hopefully those books will be available forever. Their work should absolutely be in the vault if society collapses, as some of the most important work that humans have done.
Blogs are different though aren’t they? There’s no boys club publishing house to suck up to anymore, and everyone with fingers and a keyboard has a voice. But blogs are inpermanent, and inaccessible to what, MOST of the worlds population? And on sucking up, how the fuck did dworkin ever get published in the first fucking place?? Does anyone know? That’s an accomplishment in itself, and a HUGE one.
Anyway, much of what happens here is due to the comments, so post em if you got em. And I sincerely hope you are right about this mattering, at all. That would be a nice bonus, although I would probably keep doing it regardless.
word up, how did she get published.
I dunno girl, I bet more people are likely to access radfem blogs than printed Dworkin. Just sayin’! Keep on, you’re the best new blog around this year.
Thanks ladies. I’m not going anywhere, I don’t think. It does seem idiotic to me though to be constantly reinventing the wheel, when smart and learned feminists have been thinking and saying this shit literally for decades now.
I think repetition is good, and everyone has a different way of speaking/writing and phrasing things that might help get it across to someone who didn’t grasp it before. I tried reading Dworkin and Daly in college and just could not understand them. I might try now just to see if I’ve gotten any smarter (but I doubt it).
I love reading all the radical feminist blogs and if they all say the same thing over and over, it’s still valuable and needs to be said.
Speaking of repetition, I was reading some piv critical stuff over at chicks dig me. And someone over at 9/2s place thinks that men don’t like sex. There seems to be a theme going. I hope it keeps going and going and going forever, or until they mention it on television. That’s when you know you’ve gotten through. I suspect forever will happen first.
There’s ALWAYS PIV critical stuff at chicks dig me….Anyway, keep away from my fiance!
I’d never thought about the whole PIV thing in too much depth (beyond asking heterosexual women who ask me “What do you lesbians *do* in bed, exactly?” why they can’t imagine for themselves what exactly might give a woman sexual pleasure that doesn’t involve worshiping a cock), so this discussion is v. interesting.
Obviously, a huge number of women don’t get orgasms from PIV alone, which has led to this myth that women are inherently a lot more difficult to stimulate sexually and bring to orgasm than men. Of course women take five (or ten, twenty, a hundred) times longer to come than a man when they’re engaging in a sexual activity thats sole purpose is to give men pleasure (and maybe make teh babies, not that many men are fucking for that purpose most of the time). When I met my girlfriend, it was a revalation, having thought I was doomed to spend my life in sexual relationships where I just lie there and wait for them to finish. Bleh! It took me a while to get out of the habit of apologising for “taking so long” and being “so much effort”, which was the usual result of my “It’s just sex!!111!!” encounters with various men as a student.
As for that blog piece you linked, I spent 20 seconds reading it from beginning to end and 5 minutes wondering if my web browser had somehow eaten the remaining 80% of it, before I realised that that was it, that’s the depth of reasoning they can come up with. And seriously, some of those commenters deserve an award for misuse of the word “misogynist” (not to mention wildly missing the point), because they’re just making it up as they go along, aren’t they? When you’re a fun-fem, anything goes. Because words have no intrinsic meanings whatsoever, do they? A table is a kangaroo, as long as you *feel* like it is. Ditto radfems being misogynists for not accepting whatever ill thought out shit the peanut gallery of part-time “choice” feminists come up with. Fuck that. I’d laugh and laugh if only these people weren’t masquerading as feminists.
i laugh at them anyway, because while they are LOLLing at my “unintentional humor” they are showing everyone who actually read and *understood* the article that *they* dont understand what they just read. if thats not unintentionally humorous, then i dont know what is. what does bother me though, and is not funny at all, is that the peanut gallery is not only masquerading as feminists, but their ideology (if you can even call it that) is masquerding as feminism. and its not. how are the young people (or anyone really) supposed to know whether they want to be a feminist or not, when they dont even know what one is? i will post a video shortly that was produced (i think) by the feminist majority, that allegedly shows “what a feminist looks like.” and yes, according to them, a feminist is anyone who CALLS THEMSELVES ONE. lisa loeb states that wearing high heels and a mini skirt doesnt make her any less of a feminist. oh really lisa? spending your hard earned cash on painful female rituals to make yourself more fuckable to men…who care about you (and women as a sexual class) precisely enough to place you directly in harms way by fucking you…is feminist now? come on. typical and understandable, yes. feminist…no.
Does anyone expect black people to make themselves acceptable to racists? Well the answer is yes, a lot of people do. Similarly a lot of people expect women to make themselves acceptable to their oppressors, so as not to frighten the horses.
The question I’d ask Lisa Loeb, whoever she may be, is this. If you wear high heels and a miniskirt, do you think that affects other women? “No, of course not,” I imagine she would reply, “it’s my CHOICE to do this.”
And it may be, Lisa may just spontaneously want to wear high heels and a miniskirt. The point is she then gives leverage to those who demand all women are similarly attired. And maybe a woman who doesn’t want to wear high heels and a miniskirt may wear them anyway, because someone points and says ‘well that woman is doing it’. Maybe Lisa may receive promotion at work because she wears the ‘right’ clothes. So a woman who wants to make a living may also feel obliged to wear ‘feminine’ attire, even though she’d rather have a shaved head and wear baggy jeans and DMs. Fantasy? Not really, Lisa, it’s reality.
As I said elsewhere, it’s a question of critical mass. One reason I have so much shit at work is because I work in a place where a lot of people are in a very limited specialist field. So they are afraid to make waves, and enforce their employment rights. And my employers take full advantage of this, and know they can get away with shit, because the majority will not resist.
What was that saying again? Ah yes. *United we stand, divided we fall*.
I don’t give a shit who calls themselves a feminist by the way. It’s such a devalued word, I don’t think it’s one I’d apply to myself.
On ‘trusting women to make decisions and live with consequences’: this too often turns into an abdication of responsibility on the part of the ‘truster’ (for want of a better word). The best friends anyone can have are those who say ‘look, I don’t think what you’re doing is good for you, and if you ever want to talk, and if you ever need help I’m right here’, NOT those who say ‘so long as you want to (or *say* you want to) it’s fine’. Not those who lie through their teeth, and then when things fall to shit say ‘well it was your choice’. This is all fundamentally unhelpful stuff.
Why are we all meant to turn off our critical faculties when it comes to sex and ‘choice’? Why aren’t we allowed to use the facts we have learned from our own lives?
Judge not lest ye be judged. Fine. I will judge and I expect others to judge me in return. Judgement is necessary, and is not synonymous with moral condemnation or superiority. We judge things people do, and the things men do to women, because we care about women. We are all in need of the judgement of others on occasion.
Reaching out to other women involves implicit ‘judgement’, or, to use a less loaded term, evaluation. It involves saying (when it is true) ‘I’ve been there’ or if not, simply, ‘I’m here.’
It also assumes that there is a *choice* in the first place. Which is the slightly more problematic aspect for me. Apparent *choice* frequently turns out to be the lesser of two evils examined close up.
Re women “living with consequences” well that’s all women ever seem to do isn’t it? Men live, and women live with the consequences.
Fucking shit. If its not the fucking religious zealots telling us we have to bear the “consequences” of forced pregnancy and childbirth, its the fucking fun fems and liberals saying *almost* the exact same fucking thing. I mean really. How is this tired, misogynıst narrative any different, just because some teenager in a fucking miniskirt (aka a fun fem…ok maybe a twenty something) says madatory piv, and all its consequences, are just life, for women? Noone, and I mean no. One. Is saying anything about the consequences of piv to men. Oh yeah. Because there are none. Which is exactly what they like about it. That, and placing women in harms way. It’s all very sexxxay, isn’t it? If you are a man.
it’s such a double-duty thing. they love it, consequence-laden for the ladeez. win-win! what would we get up to without consequences? exactly the type of dialogue &activities radfems do, right. the tragedy is that the quality of “feminism” today precludes women conceptualizing life without PIV or relationships with men. yay raunch America. it IS like comparing junk food to real food. the crap that passes for sex and relationships is basically packaged waste that just hurts or serves to keep women from being lonely.
being lonely can produce some subversive-ass realizations.
Coincidentally undercover punk has a link up to someone who is talking about sideshow freaks “consensually choosing” to participate in sideshows. When will it get through that an apparent *choice* is nothing of the sort if your choice is composed of a)very shit option and b)slightly less shit option.
Never, I suspect.
choice is often confused with freedom. one can have ‘choice’ in dire circumstances. A rock and a hard place, as the saying goes.
also, one has to know that one has a ‘choice’. women are not always in that position to know that there are alternatives (if indeed there are any).
the statements ‘it’s just sex’ or ‘it’s just life’ send a chill down my spine. i’ve heard them before. i’ve said them before. and it should have been a massive red flag to anyone who was paying attention.
i think this is one of those occasions when the *consequences* of certain sentiments, the consideration of what they actually *do* in the world, needs to be looked at, rather than concentrating on an author’s intentions/ stated intentions.
this is the angle i’m coming from, as i’m very haphazardly thinking this through, and trying to work out what my instinctive anger and distaste is all about. what that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach is trying to tell me.
Oh I see Natalia Antonova does in fact have personal responsibility because she does her own shopping. Not quite what I meant, but nice try.
Here’s a clue: No man is an island, entire unto himself. You get the drift. Applies to females too.
Scepticism, and knowing thine enemy, and knowing when to stop banging your head against a brick wall, are all good things. I’m all for realism. Seeing someone else banging their head against a brick wall, and saying *but they chose to do it and they understand the consequences* probably isn’t. Especially if they’re standing next to an open door. The least you could do is point out the open door.
That’s enough metaphors, ed.
But if you really want me to spell it out for you Natalia, what I am asking you to take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for is encouraging others to believe that there is no alternative to being crapped upon from a great height. And just saying relationships are shit doesn’t get you out of that one. You’re still failing to mention that actually there IS an alternative. If they then protest but ‘No, no really I LIKE being crapped on’, you’ve done as much as you can do.
If you really do choose to have sex with men, fair enough. Just don’t tell everyone else it’s inevitable, and hey what can you do, it’s just life. There IS an alternative.
Re using the word “feminist” I am becoming less and less inclined to use it too. Because apparently it incites blogwars about who’s really a feminist and who’s not (natalia linked to me again and I threw the pingback directly into the trash. Nice try natalia.) Really, and ultimately, its about what’s bullshit and whats not.
I’m not giving up ‘feminist’. They can’t have it.
I will not let them take my language, and I will not use their euphemisms either.
It does feel like a concession, no doubt about it. But calling “other feminists” out on their shit only makes sense if the other people you are talking about are feminists to begin with. This shit stinks to high heaven. It’s bullshit. It’s not just a matter of tweaking their ideology, any more than the mras can be saved by a slight adjustment in perspective. It tough to know what to do here really. Im kind of stumped.
Great discussion. I just seeded it to Newsvine:
http://an-uncommon-scold.newsvine.com/_news/2010/04/17/4170286-its-just-penis-in-vagina1111
Well women’s liberation was what it used to be called. And is more accurate as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks loretta. I can’t wait to see what those asshats at newsvine think about some feminazi trashing their precious piv. If it makes anyone feel better though, the whole reason I started this blog in the first place is because I was banned from newsvine for a week for taking their liberal dickwad boysclub to the mat. The word dickcheese was used. And femonade was born. So thanks newsvine!!!!11!1 see the “on newsvine” tab for more on that. Fucking liberal dickwads.
I’m not sure how much play it will get. I just posted a jesus with a penis on the cross story. No doubt that’ll get more play than anything else I’ll post this weekend. SEems that a female artist “didn’t know” she’d included a “pee-pee” and the priests didn’t notice it either before it was hung in the chapel. In the words of one blogger, No wonder he’s got the nickname JC Superstar.
But I’d rather see this article draw the attention. The points everyone are making here are important and should be shared as widely as possible. I wish I had more time to comment, but I’m really behind in my writing already.
Let’s hope if they come to read about JC’s genitals they stay to debate this post.
if anyone is interested in joining and participating over at newsvine, loretta has a great column there and handles the commenters well. she writes for the “lurkers” and has a huge following of women, mostly older women who are hearing some of this stuff for the first time. the mansplanations and asshattery from teh menz is responded to, again, for HER readers, and HER lurkers. its not something i was ever interested in doing when i was there: i wanted to nuke all their asses and did so hundreds of times. but none of it got through. this is evidenced in the comments section of the link she posted, where she links back to this article. one such asshat says “so you have a problem with the definition of sex???!!!??” and cuts and pastes the dictionary definition of “sex” to prove that sex is, indeed, PIV. he says that my posts are “incoherent rants” and that i need to be on meds. VERY typical newsvine stuff.
if nothing else, its a good chance to see loretta in action, where she absolutely calmly takes their asses down, leaving documentary evidence of it that will be in print for years to come, and meanwhile teh menz barely know what hit them. i think loretta is providing a great service to the women of newsvine. its not something that i was ever able to do. the conversations that happen HERE and a precious few other radfem blogs are what i enjoy, where the cursing isnt censored…and where either we all need to be on meds, or none of us do.
No actual arguments then?
haha nope. as usual. personal insults, cut and paste from wiki and/or the urban dictionary, and lots and lots of mansplaining, and “what about teh menzzzz??!!!1!” one guy ACTUALLY SAID “but what about how men think???” yeah, “how men think” is the whole fucking problem thats being addressed. they think that if we arent praising and deferring to how men think, that we arent addressing it. ha. criticism doesnt count, because its “one-sided” and “man-bashing.” god i fucking hate newsvine. that its exactly how ALL MEN THINK about women, and about feminists, really bothers me, alot. i mean, its terrifying really. this is absolutely the status quo. limiting myself to the feminist blogosphere almost exclusively these days, its easy to forget that these men exist. wait, no its not. THEY EXIST, THEREFORE THE RADFEM BLOGS EXIST. duh.
its the intelligence of my readers and other radfem bloggers that makes me think that there are some intelligent people left in this world, which is true. but its such a teeny tiny minority. sheesh. feminism 101 is too complicated for these asshats. and thats because they literally dont want to know.
SEPARATISM!
That was what I used to say all the time, “got any actual arguments”. And no of course they didn’t have any actual arguments, so they just tried sending me some link to a porn site or whatever (I never got to the actual bottom of what it was because I deleted it, but as ever, if stuff goes into spam, even if it looks harmless, leave it there, it obviously had code attached). It’s actually fucking pathetic but also very typical. We can’t argue with you, so we’re just going to threaten you instead.
Which I take as their way of saying “you’re right”.
omg those comments are making me SO ANGRY. another one just said i needed a CT scan, because i am spouting things that neither men NOR MOST WOMEN agree with. people, this is what the mental health field has been based on for thousands of years. they arent wrong to say that someone who says things that other people disagree with needs a CT scan or medication, because thats what passes as a mental illness in many cultures. the definiton of “psychotic delusion” includes the qualifier “that the majority of people IN THAT CULTURE DO NOT EXPERIENCE”. i am not even fucking kidding. because that takes religious people off the mental health police’s radar. and because many if not most doctors, scientists, judges and police are religious and have always been religious themselves, historically speaking. THEIR delusions are ok.
its so “unintentionally funny” it makes me want to kill someone. UP is right. seperatism, indeed. i broke up with newsvine for a reason.
PS. i have a new post up. enjoy!
FCM, I was reading your archive and found this:
“if you happened upon a man and woman kissing, and he was pleasuring her with a non-phallic looking vibrator […] would you even wonder for one second whether it was consensual? at what point do you begin to wonder what you are seeing, and wondering whether its consensual or not? … what seems to get me wondering is obvious contextual stuff like time and place…but DEFINITELY penetration with an object or a penis would take me from ‘ok i know what this is’ to ‘idont know what i am watching here.’ i think the fact that rape and PIV LOOK THE SAME in many ways needs to be discussed.”
Anecdote: A week or so ago I was riding the subway home, late at night. Normally this is a reasonably safe experience, at least as safe as being a female at large in this society is. However, as we passed through one station (the Montrose station, I think, on the L train in Brooklyn, for any other NYers), I saw out the window — a man thrusting away atop a struggling woman! Upon further horrified inspection, I saw that he was holding her down by the wrists!
Other passengers on the train observed this as well. So did other people -on the platform.- Everyone was steering clear!
I freaked the fuck out and started screaming, “ARE YOU ALL FUCKING BLIND? THAT IS NOT OKAY!”
One dude, opposite me, wearing tats and big ear gauges, informed me, “It’s cool, they’re not really fucking,” and pointed out that someone was videotaping this. (Apparently they were filming a rape scene for an indie film, hoo fucking ray, another film with a rape scene, how edgy.)
I turned to the dude and said, “I don’t give a shit about fucking, asshole. I care about rape.”
He gave me a blank look. I informed him that, lo and behold, a woman got raped on a platform in Greenpoint a year or two ago. A train full of people and two conductors, as well as the man inside the MTA ticket booth, all witnessed it and did NOTHING. Surprisingly, the last I checked, this rapist was never caught.
Of course, Mr Tats and Gauges* was not interested in hearing this. To him, I was just another screaming prudish crazy lady on the train. But at my stop, a fellow female came up to me and said she thought I had been “brave.” Whoop de doo. It still wouldn’t have stopped a rape.
The point of this anecdote is, “sex” in this culture (aka PIV, and very often violent PIV involving female resistance) looks so much like rape that people think RAPE IS “SEX”.
And the people who say, “OMG, STOP THAT RAPE!” are considered as “crazy” as the people who reek of piss and scream racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic crap on the trains at night.
This is problematic and terrifying, and it must stop.
*I too have gauged ears, and a tattoo that is typically covered by my clothing; I happen to be a radical, but I have these body-art things because I like the aesthetic on me and not because I think they make me radical. I also used to know a hardcore Christian dude who can practically fit a hand through his earlobe and is covered in ink. Books and covers and all.
However, I feel this dude on the subway was one of the po-mo dudes who probably likes burlesque because “it’s empowering” and does body mod to show he’s “way progressive.” Which makes his total, unquestioning acceptance of rape all the more ironic, but also totally unsurprising.
he probably thinks burlesque is tame actually. and it is tame in fact, compared to most other shit thats out there, and that he probably watches regularly (along with most of teh menz) and that has the affect of completely desensitizing him, AND removing “consent” and certainly female “desire” and female pleasure from the sexual equasion entirely. so yes, “sex” and rape look exactly the fucking same, and how dare you prudish feminazis get in the way of either one of them. right?
it bothers me very much that LITERALLY, the only thing seperating “sex” and rape in most peoples judgement is something buried deep within the female mind called “consent.” she doesnt even have to EXPRESS this alleged consent. if she has somehow convinced herself that she is going to “allow” PIV for whatever reason, that is what seperates a “normal man” from a rapist. what about mens behavior or something within the male mind seperating normal men from men who rape? why is it womens perception of whats going on that changes the nature of whats happening, and what the men are doing? is this some bad trip we are all living in? because it seems like it. its so fucked up, it really is.
Yeah, I picked ‘burlesque’ because it’s tame and I don’t have to go straight to how he and other dudes like him are into XXX-hardcore (but with ‘alt’ girls, aka girls who have some extra metal and ink to go with all that silicone) and, I don’t know, copraphilia.
(I’m Facebook friends with a dude who’s friends with a bunch of such people, and they continually send him invites to shit like ‘LESBIAN BDSM BURLESQUE’ shows and ‘radical’ swinger parties. Key parties for anarchists who like ‘lesbian’ BDSM burlesque, oh boy. Where do I sign up for the manarchist revolution, dudes?! Oh, wait, you mean it already started … and this is it? Color me underwhelmed.)
I get most pissed at radical dudes who do this shit, because they are the ones who are supposed to know better. They don’t, but they like to pretend they are, and moreover that they already do — thus I, and other women who complain, must not be truly radical! Handy, that.
They’re throwing a supposed “revolution”, and tried-and-true revolutionaries (like me and all the other females I know in the ‘movement’) aren’t invited to participate except as the entertainment. Fuck them. If anyone else wants to stick around for their BDSM burlesque, fine, but I’m taking my battle tactics elsewhere.
Also, yes, all conversations of rape center around the WOMAN’s perception. Not the man’s. I know when I was raped (the most recent time), he said, “Well, I didn’t think I was raping you, so it’s not rape.” News flash, assholes — all assholes who rape. You aren’t the only important one here. The other half of this equation is important too, and you can’t erase her experiences just because you say YOURS were different.
(One other dude even tried to say -I- raped -him.- Because apparently he was blacked out drunk when he, a much larger person than I am, was pinning me down and bruising my cervix! If he’d been sober, he wouldn’t have wanted to “have sex” with me at all. So -I- really took advantage of -him-, don’t you see? Gag me.)
The side who goes to war never experiences war as war, either. In Vietnam, the “Vietnam” War is called “the American War.” Because guess who started it, but then guess who gets all the blame?
Really, though, the woman’s perspective isn’t considered, at all, especially if she says she *was* raped. It’s so disingenuous. Because even if the guy would have fucked her, regardless, and even if he is a predator in every way, men who harbor a rape mentality aren’t considered rapists, when the woman allows it. What. The. Fuck.
We’re supposed to fight, but not too much or he might get angrier.
We’re supposed to protect and defend ourselves, but not too much or he might get angrier.
We’re supposed to watch our own backs, but not too much or we might invite injury onto ourselves.
We’re supposed to dress conservatively, but not too conservatively or we’re inviting violence on ourselves that way.
It’s like the essay about women “raped by elves.” All of the narratives about women and rape ever so handily erase the presence of the one person without whom there WOULD BE NO RAPE — the fucking RAPIST.
To hear tell, all us womenfolk are just going around raping ourselves. Or getting raped by elves. Men are … where?
Re teh progressive menz, just forget about them, seriously. There is no hope for those clowns, at all. Personally, the only men i can even fucking stand anymore are the moderately religious ones, if you can believe that. Bc they have some fucking humility, and don’t think they know every fucking thing.
And they don’t pretend to be anything they’re not. I mean really. They are going to be moderately conservative, and they are going to be moderately misogynist. Fine, I can deal with that. At least they aren’t liars, or delusional. Except for the whole sky daddy thing.
I’ve been totally socially isolated for the past six months. Just haven’t been going outside much, and have been avoiding people when I do. Haven’t spoken to any of my “friends” for about two months either. Have been a lone separatist.
Of course, this behavior is getting me thrown out of my house (po-mo fun-fem roommate doesn’t really understand why I don’t wish to talk to men and she feels I am “antisocial” — no shit, sister), so I’m having to “get out there” and talk to people again. At this point, I just need a roof over my head, and soon, and am depending on the kindness of people I don’t know to make sure I don’t end up on the street (again).
A lot of the places I am looking at (large collective houses) have dudes there. I’d rather not live anywhere near dudes, but as I mentioned — I just plain need an apartment or I’m SOL on the first of the month. So I’ve been speaking to radical dudes again, hoping against hope maybe ONE of them isn’t going to set off “rapist” alarm bells in my head (because clearly I am not going to live with a rapist) … and that one of them who doesn’t (some of them are “merely” mansplainers and not outright rapists, aren’t I lucky), won’t decide to deny me housing just because I very obviously do not “do” PIV.
The latter has happened twice now. I can tell when I’m being denied just because the prick knows he won’t prong me, and while if they’re gonna be like that I’m glad I don’t have to be there (no, no, no rape-for-rent, I will cut a fucker’s dick off) — it further illustrates how men have control over even the tiniest aspects of life and PIV isn’t “just sex”. Much less “just life.”
It’s twisted.
Your feminist roommate is kicking you out because you won’t socialize with men?? Wtf. In case anyone was unsure, this about sums up what fun feminism, and fun fems, are all about.
Quote: “I think you may be mentally ill, and I’m frightened of you.”
Because I won’t talk to men, and I have rape trauma that manifests in my sitting silently in my room a lot. TERRIFYING, no?
But, you see, I’m blaming Teh Mens! When I should be (she says!) blaming myself.
Other quote: “I think you’re putting the blame in the wrong place here. Who are you trying to blame for -your- problems?”
Yep. Fun-feminism. We’ve come a damn long way.