I’m going to do something I don’t usually do on this site: I’m going to argue with liberals. This is because I’m a very secular person, even when it comes to politics. If there’s no evidence for what is said, or if what is said conflicts with the observable world, then I’m either not prone to believe it or I’m going to be against it.
And there’s a lot of conflict with the observable world in some recent posts at “I Blame the Patriarchy“.
The two posts in question are about things of a sexual nature, and the reason I’m discussing them is because the assessments provided are inaccurate and untrue, and honestly seem to verge on a kind of paranoia. It’s not that men don’t have an unfair advantage in our society–they do. It’s just that there are limits. The way these posts make it sound, there’s this secret commission of men somehow dictating people’s sexual behavior, and controlling what people are aroused by.
Mostly, it appears to be the result of making value judgments with a limited frame of information.
Article I
The first of the posts to which I’ll be offering a rebuttal is called Dad’s Yer Uncle. The subject is a Utah judge having multiple wives, and how polyamory is all a tool of men, and is about ownership of women. This post also makes mention of the subject of the second post I’ll address: BDSM. But I’ll save everything I have to say on that for later.
Here’s where I agree: In many cases, especially those involving so-called Christians, polygamy/polyamory/etc is indeed about the subjugation and ownership of women. In many other cases, it’s all about guys just wanting to have a bunch of women around to fuck.
But the post makes broad, all-encompassing statements and value judgments about the concept of polyamory and those who practice it, and as is often the case, these absolute, broad statements are inaccurate.
Women can also have multiple sex partners or lovers. The idea that it’s all a tool of men seems to imply something rather insulting about the sexual interests and drives of women. That is, that women do not enjoy sex (or would not enjoy it with more than one person), that they have no or little sex drive, and that they–given the assumption provided by the author that it’s all about ownership–cannot themselves muster the energy or drive to have the same dominating effect. It makes an absolute blanket statement about women that simply isn’t true, and serves as a rather insulting stereotype for women’s sexuality.
But this value judgment about polyamory is also inaccurate in that it seems unable to fully grasp the ideals and philosophy of the concept. Again, for many it’s about ownership, or sexual domination. But it’s, I am told, a fairly common realization for “most intelligent people who can think for themselves” that it’s capable to love more than one person without loving any of them in any decreased capacity.
This has actually been the subject of some recent conversations I’ve had. Last summer, Janet and I were discussing the idea. She likes playing devil’s advocate, and she hates it when I don’t have an open mind about things I don’t fully understand. The reason I’d been rejecting the concept is, I’ll admit, somewhat arbitrary: My dad cheated on my mom on one or two occasions, and the idea of affection for anyone outside the relationship left a bad residue on my brainmeats. I’ve been working to better understand the concept, though, and to get over my closed-mindedness. My only real objection now stems from the inevitable unfairness of the situation: One person would predictably end up with more lovers, and this would probably result in jealousy and feelings of exclusion and et cetera.
It is possible, if all parties involved are okay with the concept, for someone to love more than one person without loving any of them any less. It’s not a trade-off, and by loving one, you’re not loving the other less. What I’m talking about isn’t about sex, it’s about general, genuine affection, and it’s certainly in no way a tool of the patriarchy, or about ownership, or some other kind of unhealthy, misogynist attitude. It may only exist within a small fraction of polyamorous relationships, but it exists. (By the way, as clarification: It’s different from cheating (aforementioned) in that all parties involved are consenting to the activity.) I’m naturally a very monogamous person, but I’ve grown to understand the idea, and can see how it would work.
But the biggest problem with this piece is that the author seems to think (or, at least, it’s strongly implied) that a man’s affection and love are only covers for the ulterior motive of wanting to shove his penis into something, and that polyamory is only about wanting an “incubator-cunt”, and that any man who doesn’t have a standard, missionary-position relationship is a misogynist who wants only to subjugate and enslave everything with a uterus. And it implies that any women in such non-traditional relationships are mindless, choiceless drones who can only obey their cruel, penis-wielding masters. It’s almost as appalling a worldview as the one by which the writer seems to be revolted.
Article II
The subject of this post, entitled Do It Till You’re Satisfied, is BDSM and fetishism, and is apparently written in reaction to a debate which took place in the comments for the article discussed above.
What the author writes would really only make sense if there were no women at all who got off on BDSM activity. Easily observable evidence indicates such is clearly not the case. I can even provide an anecdotal example: Janet’s mom is a dominatrix, as a hobby. She’s a laser scientist with a PhD, a graduate of MIT, extremely intelligent, very feminist, has a loving relationship with her husband and children, and is perfectly normal and rational and sane. Every so often, she’ll have a male friend over, and she’ll dominate him. She doesn’t charge for it, and she doesn’t do it for the benefit of the guy–she does it because she enjoys it and is aroused by it. (Don’t worry, it’s not a secret and I’m not violating anyone’s privacy or anything.)
BDSM plays on the power structures in sexuality, and exaggerates them often to grotesquery. Sure, it can often be about breaking people down or reducing them to sex toys, but it works both ways. To believe that it’s only a man thing implies a belief that men are inherently the dominant party in any sexual relationship, and women are inherently submissive, and all BDSM does is throw that into relief. This makes an extremely inaccurate generalization about human sexuality.
To claim that BDSM is a wholly male-dominated thing shows a misunderstanding of the fetish, and of human sexuality and fetishism in general. One might as well claim that foot fetishism is a tool of the patriarchy, or balloon-popping fetishes, or messy fetishes, or the millions of others that exist. It’s an arbitrary judgment, and is obviously made from the perspective of someone unfamiliar with fetishism. It seems like the kind of thing a person would say after seeing nothing but a picture of a girl chained to a bed and getting flogged, and drawing the immediate conclusion–and writing it in pen–that BDSM only involves women in submissive positions being hurt against their will.
It also indicates that the author misunderstands fetishes to be choices. Fetishism is no more a choice than homosexuality. As a person who has one or two, I can assure you that I never made a choice in my life to be aroused in such a way, and I can’t just “turn it off”. I don’t know, maybe there’s some kind of camp I can attend where recovered fetishists can teach me the errors of my ways and get me to see the light.
One key principle the writer misses is that respectable BDSM is consentual. If it isn’t, it’s rape. And, of course, why would women consent to it if there was no enjoyment of any sort in it for them? The logic just doesn’t make sense.
This attitude is counterproductive to feminism, and in fact pretty insulting. It implies that fetishes are choices, and that women choose to be aroused by the things they do, and only do so because they’re not strong enough to resist the mighty, mind-controlling forces of men. It implies that women’s sex drives and desires are merely irresistable functions of those of men, and that they aren’t strong enough or intelligent enough to resist them, and that any women who are aroused by BDSM in any way are self-deluding idiots who don’t understand that they’re being tricked into worshipping penis.
Call me crazy, but I’m not seeing how any of this helps women at all, really.
Update: I just received a comment over there:
And Crowley, I can’t believe I’m actually going to WASTE MY FUCKING TIME replying to this “it’s innate� horseshit YET AGAIN, but both lefthandedness [sic] and pedophilia appear to be innate. Let’s all play happy-happy and approve of both!
Fucking HELL, I’m sock [sic] of this crap. Do you people even think before you open your mouths? It’s obvious even to a huge dorkwad that the innateness of something has nothing to do with whether it is a worthy activity or not. Go back to kindergarten and REREAD THE OLD POSTS before you make a complete ass out of yourself bringing something up that’s alreay been conclusively dealt with, okay?
This indicates to me that there’s a fundamental lack of understanding as to what the word “consentual” means among this group. To conflate consentual sexual activity between adults (key words: consentual, adults) is as insane as conflating homosexuality and bestiality. Thank you, Rick Santorum of the feminist movement. P.S. – Ever read A Handmaid’s Tale? Oh, didn’t think so.
I propose the following thought experiment for this “Blame the Patriarchy” crowd: Try looking at the world in terms of harm and benefit. Don’t apply your own crypto-Christian value judgments, just look at the world in terms of what does harm to people, and what does benefit. A woman who enjoys being spanked by a man, and a man who enjoys spanking her–both consenting adults. Who is harmed? But there sure is some benefit to be had for both, regardless of whatever neo-Freudian symbolism you try to apply, isn’t there? They’re both enjoying themselves and both consenting.
Pot callin’ the kettle black? ;p
I have to agree with your assesment though, whatever consentual adults what to do in the privacy of their home, I’m fine with it. I never even realized that most people think it’s ‘a guy thing’. I thought it was about half and half, with women enjoying being dominant just as much as men, on average. Sounds like the people over there have some VERY repressed sexual urges.
“Pot callin’ the kettle black?”
Hey–I can’t help it that you don’t understand that when I say “people in New York City”, I don’t mean ALL people in New York City. ;P
The difference is that I (usually–I do fuck this up from time to time) make generalizations that, when in context, should give an obvious indication that I’m not saying EVERONE DOES THIS. They’re saying ALL BDSM IS A TOOL OF THE PATRIARCHY. I try not to say “all”, when referring to humans, especially in groups. I used to do it somewhat frequently, but in the last couple years, I’ve been doing my best to avoid it, given the trillions of different factors and influenes and things that create differences.
The BDSM thread is what finally ended the probationary period for IBTP on my blog roll. I don’t read it anymore. Problems include: Pre-1970′s reasoning. Shouting down of discussion. The dynamics there are more like fundamentalist right wing blogs than lefty blogs. It’s too bad, as it showed a lot of promise and had such a catchy title and such humor in the posts. (Twisty puts the fun in ideological fundamentalism.)
I’m 100% in favor of looking at patriarchal constructs in life. I think it’s useful and I’m mighty happy at the latest crop of high profile feminist blogs. I hope we pwn the blogsphere soon, especially since so many lefty blogs are cluelessly sexist. However, I’m not in favor of being told I’m not a feminist if [fill in the blank] which seems to be a meme at IBTP, at least in the comments. Which are also annoyingly heterocentric when sex comes up, as it does all the time. Lesbians don’t exist. If they do something that seems too patriarchal, then they are filling the male role and therefore are men somehow? It doesn’t make sense. I would think that two women doing something naughty completely outside the male gaze would defy patriarchy, but no apparently not. How _Joy of Lesbian Sex_ -esque. Alas.
Also, re yer comment on my blog: sure, I’ll write.
Well, for my own reasons — although I love Twisty’s writings, I won’t endorse a strand of feminist thought that, at times, seems wholly focused on mischaracterizing other strands of thought. So, whatever IBTP happens to think, I’m not going to endorse anything called patriarchy blaming.
In fact, when I was in grad school ten years ago, hell even six years ago, the idea that patriarchy was even a legitimate concept was laughable. There have been way too many criticisms against the use of it, against eh all-or-nothing framework that I’m often surprised it gets tossed around so casually.
At any rate, when I work up enough steam and time, I’ve got a rant on this topic. I really think that, if you read the major propoents of Radical feminism, it’s intrinsic to this strand of thought to insist that we should spend our time denouncing “not really feminists.”
As I note in one post recently, ‘The personal is political” did NOT mean that your personal life is to be the subject of scrutiny to see if it’s politically correct enough. But, it quickly got taken up as such — even bell hooks was writing against its use as such as early as 1981.
see, I could blab on and on about this topic.
But thanks to Jabberwock for taking a stab at it. I gave up. I don’t have time for people who write silly thinks like “white” refers to purity in Japanese culture. gah.
Well, the way you said it, it was implied. “New Yorkers didn’t complain” is different than “Some New Yorkers didn’t complain”
Mmmmmm, lesbians…. *gragagagaga* *drools*
;p
Erm. Wattly: She said “outside the male gaze“. *COUGH*
Les: Awesome, I’ll e-mail you the info, and set up an account.
I only just discovered IBTP yesterday morning, actually. I don’t plan on making it a frequent read. You’re right: the writing’s good and the titles are humorous, but the things they believe really struck me as the same kind of things as the thinking in Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale” that contribute to the establishment of Gilead.
This neo-Freudian “EVERYTHING IS PENIS” attitude is paranoid, and does nothing to help feminism. It’s like a big, dong-oriented conspiracy theory, like there’s some giant, anthropomorphic penis somewhere with a control panel for reality, surrounded by armies of men and “unenlightened” women on their knees in a circle around it worshipping.
“Which are also annoyingly heterocentric when sex comes up, as it does all the time. Lesbians don’t exist.”
Heh. I don’t think it’s just a meme at IBTP, unfortunately.
“…it’s intrinsic to this strand of thought to insist that we should spend our time denouncing “not really feminists…â€?
It would never, has never, occurred to me to call any woman, much less a self-identified feminist,”not really feminist.” But I know what you’re saying, and it’s disturbing and sad, and I’m at a point where I’m trying to figure out what anybody thinks they will accomplish by telling people that they agree with 98% of the time that they can’t come to the party because the other 2% gives them the willies.
Damnit. I like Twisty. I like the pretty food pictures. I like the whole spinster aunt/gentlman farmer schtick. I have to stop clicking on the comments. Really, really.
I had a friend who was took a woman’s studies class in college. Man, that was the worst semester of my life. Just hearing about the crap they were ‘learning’ drove me nuts. Apparently, little known fact: all sex is rape. If a woman knocks a guy out, ties him up and gags him, and has her way with him, he’s still raping her. The whole semester was crap like that. It’s kinda sad, most of the people I know who identify as ‘feminists’ are complete loons.
I’ll be quiet.
what got so upsetting for me was the idea that nobody would cop to what they were REALLY trying to say. they gave with one hand (we all compromise with the patriarchy, we do the best we can, you can still be a feminist if you do some non-feminist or anti-feminist thing) and took with the other (this particular anti-feminist thing is by far the worst anti-feminist thing, the anti-feminist things we do are excusable, we’re not sick and damaged like you).
I did my best but feel I was not up to the task.
@ Jean
But I think that, just as you said I my blog in comments, the way this is framed as NOT heterocentric is that lesbians don’t escape the patriarchy any more than hets.
I know that’s what Stan Goff basically told me when I complained about the way critiques of ‘lezsex’ in hetporn — on th part of hets who, themselves, have misguided understandings of what lesbians actually do, fail to account for the fact that, well, when you critique assfucking in hetporn as not lesbian sex, you’re ingoring that fact that some lesbians engage in such activities.
I think you can certainly critique the ridiculousness of hetlez porn, but I also think that, if you’re heterosexual, then you have to tread respectfully and carefully. I’m not sure how productive it is to tell lesbians that anal sex — or any sex perceived of as ‘unequal’ — is only practiced b/c we’re ‘overdetermined by The Patriarchy.’
@ antiprincess
yeah, i think there is an element of that going on, but i do try to be fair. I mean, there are ways to address this issue. I just never see it get addressed — just handwaves that this isn’t the case. Which is fair I guess: attributing motives to others is tricky!
BL:
I get what you’re saying(er…writing). What I see happening is, for example, when that thread started devolving (somewhat jokingly) into talk of the Altar of Dick, the Mighty Phallocracy. Not accounting for lesbian sex in the initial analysis, nobody seemed to have an answer for it. As in, there’s some theoretical assumption that lesbian sex is being included, but somebody, like Les in that thread, has to quite specifically point at it for it to be brought into the discussion at all. It’s a tone of “Oh, yeah, lesbians…yeah, uh…almost forgot there, and uh…oh, yeah, dildos=Patriarchy. Yeah. That’s the ticket.” And that’s it. Of course, I think it’s icky in general to assume that anybody doesn’t understand what’s going in their own bedroom.
Crowley!
I mostly agree, but don’t make the mistake of confusing polyamory with polygamy. Polygamy refers to a specific practice of having numerous wives — i.e., bonded heterosexual relationships. For a polygamist’s wife to have sex with another man is adultery. Polygamy is more or less explicitly sexist and objectifying. Polyamory might, or it might not, but in common usage it usually excludes any kind of many-to-one situation like polygamy.
Also, I’m trying to figure this out.
“Here’s where I agree: In many cases, especially those involving so-called Christians, polygamy/polyamory/etc is indeed about the subjugation and ownership of women. In many other cases, it’s all about guys just wanting to have a bunch of women around to fuck.”
A guy wanting to have a bunch of women around to fuck is reducing the women to something to fuck, which is subjugating and owning them as objects. Especially if you’re forbidding them to do the same.
Just some info for y’all on Twisty and IBTP, seeing as from the comments most of you are relative newbies to the blog.
LESBIANS: despite whatever you may think of the heterosexism in some comments threads, Twisty usually wrangles that back on a semi-regular basis seeing as she is herself a lesbian.
PATRIARCHY: despite Twisty’s IBTP mantra, she herself is I’m pretty sure well aware that theoretical constructs have moved on somewhat. It’s still useful feminist rhetoric 101 for those who are only just starting to embrace the F-word, and the whole Twisty Faster persona is not entirely devoid of performance art ethos anyway.
BLOGWRANGLING: until about 6 months ago, IBTP was a low volume blog. Twisty is coping with the huge increase in readership at the same time as she is coping with being diagnosed with breast cancer, undergoing a mastectomy and weekly chemotherapy.
BDSM: for those so hurt by the blowtorch turned on BDSM, and that this somewhow implied a special place in the non-feminist hell for BDSM-practising women, you really need to read a few more of her rants. Twisty truly is an equal-opportunity ranter, and you are taking it way to hard.
From a fellow feminist corrupted by the Patriarchy
Djur: I meant that those two comprise the majority, and are negative and sexist, which is why I said I agreed. I wasn’t using the second sentence as a contrast to the first. Sorry I wasn’t clear about that.
Wait, does this mean you’re cool with it if we hit on Janet?
That’s not exactly right either. Polygamy can have multiple forms. Polygyny is what you’re talking about, where a man has multiple wives. Polyandry is the opposite, where a woman has multiple husbands. There there is also a third type of polygamy, termed group marriage, circle marriage, or polygynandry, where multiple men and multiple women form a marriage unit. Polyamory in the commonly used way would more closely resemble a group marriage (though marriage isn’t necessary). However, it can be mapped onto any of the types of polygamy, and falls under it’s definition.
The problem I have, really, is that the idea of “BDSM is The Patriarchy (even when it’s lesbians behind closed doors)” is misogynist.
Part of the idea, I guess, is that when anything has a dominant and submissive side, the dominant side is The Patriarchy. Why is domination male? The idea that it is sets up an inherently unfair situation for women no matter how you look at it, and creates a condition where women will never win. Even the women who display dominance aren’t breaking away from this perceived Patriarchy Conspiracy, they’re simply playing into the Patriarchy and are even worse for it because they’re apparently saps who don’t see that they’re just unwitting ignorants who are feeding The Penis. Even the most powerful women can’t win, because by winning, they’re just being tools of The Patriarchy somehow.
And to imply that domination is inherently male is to concede the battle right there. If domination is inherently male, then there’s no real point in resisting. It’s like trying to resist gravity. How can women win, if winning is domination and domination is male and male is The Patriarchy? Is there any way for women to win other than by “playing men”?
But what’s almost the most insulting about it is that it implies that women don’t have sex drives, or that their sex drives are entirely functions of those of men. Like, the idea is that there are two kinds of women: Women who are ignorant and don’t see that they’re tools of The Patriarchy and actually enjoy sex with men, and women who are “enlightened” and realize that, while they may enjoy sex, they should feel bad about doing so because enjoying it just makes them tools of The Patriarchy.
If you’re trying to escape the duality of dominance and submission, one of the first steps is to break away from viewing or describing the world in simple and inaccurate dualities.
Leth: Hehe.
Tigtog:
Twisty qua Twisty is delightful. I notice that she has to remind people that patriarchy blaming should be fun. Unfortunately, a lot of the commenters there disregard that caveat. And this is how a little Twisty snark turns into 200 hundred posts of argument about etymology and fuzzy handcuffs.