My next book - it's happening!

I'm very pleased and excited to confirm that McFarland have agreed to publish my second book, working title To Deprave and Corrupt: Britain's Battle with Obscenity. I'm about halfway through writing it and the deadline is mid-November 2017. 

So, what the dickens is this new book all about?

Well, 2017 marks the 160th anniversary of The Obscene Publications Act, which amazingly, still controls freedom of expression in the UK. The Act defined obscenity as anything “with the tendency to deprave and corrupt,” yet no one has ever been able to agree on what this actually means...

In the 1600s, you could be thrown in the stocks for criticising the king or the Church, but the law was less bothered about smutty literature. Occasional prosecutions for publishing risque books occurred, but generally the term "pervert" was synonymous with "atheist" until relatively recently. It wasn't until 1857 that an actual law on obscenity came into play, but this didn't stop erotica flourishing during the Victorian era - sample book titles included Lady Bumtickler's Revels and The Story of a Dildo!

The trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1960 is a well-known example of literature winning out against obscenity law, but there is no book that tells the story of what led up to this landmark case, or what came after it - hence me deciding to create it. The modern version of the Obscene Publications Act came into force in 1959, yet it still governs what we can and can't see on TV, film, online, in magazines, books or on the radio. You might well ask; how can such an old law still be relevant?!

Through interviews with porn performers, online safety specialists, magazine editors and free speech advocates, I'll look at how we've arrived at our current situation--which is much more censor-happy than most people realise--and what needs to change. 

The chapter titles/topics include:

1. The Current Situation: Why face-sitting is currently banned in UK porn

2. Then and Now: From mid-17th century heretics to the Victorians

3. Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Children?! Justifying censorship in the name of innocence

4: A Very Great Mischief: How lesbians have been erased from British law and history

5: 20th Century Smut: How Britain continued to lag behind Europe in sexual freedom

6: Women Don’t Want That Sort of Thing: The gendering of obscenity law

7: That Special Relationship: Britain and America's parallel journeys

8: Shoving it Down Our Throats: The demonising of gay men by conservatives and Conservatives

9: Privilege and Platforms: Obscenity in the Modern World

I think this is a story which really needs telling in an accessible manner, not least because of its implications for free speech and the regulation of sexuality. I can't wait for it to be released and hope you are as excited as I am!

Thinking Kink: Is Britney's 'Work Bitch' Video Just More 'Kink-Jacking'?

When I wrote the ‘Thinking Kink’ blog series for Bitch Magazine back in summer 2012, I found myself talking a lot about how "'vanilla' entertainers hijack BDSM imagery to make a quick buck”. Whether it was 30 Seconds to Mars’s Hurricane video implying that there's so much vanilla sex in music videos that only kink can make a video 'edgy' now, or Rihanna’s much-mentioned ‘S & M’ video, it was clear that one thing myself and some amongst the kink community are mighty tired of is a phenomenon I like to call ‘kink-jacking’. As Cliff Pervocracy put it, “The process of discovering you’re kinky…is long and difficult. I hate to see a vanilla entertainer reduce that to some black vinyl and dog chains”.

At first glance, I do feel that’s exactly what Britney Spears is doing in her latest video, ‘Work Bitch’. Slim, long-haired cisgendered women in PVC leotards, eye masks and spike heels? Check. Plenty of girl-on-girl dominating so that no man has to feel threatened and can instead just enjoy the faux-lesbian spectacle put on solely for him? Check. The commercialisation of kink in the form of the inexplicable Pill-speaker bit gag? Check. (Oh, and seriously, what the F is with the inexplicable fake British accent?!)

However, I’m aware of the need to not enact the same kind of presumptuous condemnation that people foisted upon Rihanna for daring to toy with imagery of violent sexual practices when she herself had been a victim of domestic abuse, or perpetuate the patronising idea that women in music videos have no control of their image. Rather than reading the imperative ‘You better get to work, bitch’ as internalised misogyny, we could read it as being declared in the same camp, arch style as RuPaul said it in her ‘Supermodel’ video. Rather than assume that the women of color Britney leads on leashes in her video are unwitting victims of dubious racial tropes, we could remind ourselves that Ciara chose to replicate this image herself in the ‘Love Sex Magic’ video.  While assuming that Britney herself must be nothing more than a marketing man’s plaything, we often forget that it was she who had the idea for the schoolgirl outfit in her very first music video, and therefore may have had more input into her heavily sexualised image than we care to remember.

That said, it remains depressing that the dominant model of sexiness (premised around being slim, white, long-haired, scantily-clad and subject to the male gaze), is still the only thing artists or their teams can think of to resort to when they need to be ‘edgy’. When the most rebellious thing a female artist can do is to remain fully clothed (watch Lorde’s 'Royals' video and try to name another current pop video where a fully clothed woman sings alongside shots of scantily clad men – I guarantee you’ll struggle), you do wonder why the need to ‘express oneself’ always comes down to the need to writhe, pant and pout. Britney’s done so much of the latter in her videos that it stands to reason she would eventually run out of tricks and need to do something new – enter the whips and chains. Yet the way it’s framed doesn’t feel edgy or subversive, it actually feels entirely safe. No men are depicted as submissive in the video, so male dominance isn’t challenged in any way. Instead, a privileged white woman spanks and disciplines her presumably less well-paid dancers.

Now, we might be equally unhappy were Britney portrayed as the submissive in the video,  and maybe that's because we're already tired of the perpetually submissive act from a woman who sang 'I Was Born To Make You Happy'. And maybe that's unfair, because feminism's all about choice, right? - even if that choice is to wear little, say even less and do whatever's going to sell records. But really, why is it so much to ask to see a slightly more nuanced depiction of kink, such as that seen in Madonna’s Human Nature video, where she constantly switches between dominant and submissive roles within a group of men and women. As BDSM educator and feminist porn director Tristan Taormino puts it - "Images of dominance and submission are not anti-feminist in and of themselves, but one of the reasons feminists critique them is because consent is not always explicit and because of the repetition of men dominating women, making it the main type of power exchange we see in [the] mainstream. . ." In a world where female power still feels so precarious, the repeated glorifying of female submission gets very tiresome very quickly, even to those - such as this very author - who enjoy and practice it.

As for the Pill speaker bit-gag, well. The audacious product placement aside, kinksters who get off on being human furniture or treating others as such, might find that particular idea very hot – being turned into a human stereo is not a particularly outrageous idea for many whose kinks include being treated as an object. But the commercialisation of kink does just seem to be another way of wresting it away from those for whom this is a major lifestyle choice - one which has often cost them a great deal to follow - and putting it in the hands of marketing men. Being full-on kinky can be bloody expensive - have you seen the price of a latex outfit, a spanking bench or a fucking machine?! And those who have a vested interest in making us feel that our lifestyles are not sufficiently shiny or sexy will do all they can to try and make us buy more things, as anyone who has walked into Ann Summers and see their 'Shades of Grey' bondage range can attest to. To be blunt, if you really want to gag someone, you can do it without spending a penny (why not use their own underwear?!), and was this bit gag included to actually advance knowledge of kink, or just to objectify the woman wearing it and do some free advertising at the same time? I think you can guess.

Ultimately, I guess Britney is doing what she can within the very narrow parameters she has been provided, and fair play to her. I'm sure she and her dancers peeled off all the PVC with relief after a hot day writhing around in the desert, and probably went home and put their tracksuit bottoms on, kinky sex being the last thing on their minds. Meanwhile, kinky people all over the world played happily in private or semi-public, displaying body shapes, races and gender identities from all across the spectrum, wearing outfits ranging from jeans and trainers to steel-boned corsets to nothing but clingfilm, and experimenting with power dynamics crossing every boundary imaginable. And that's how you can tell when kink-jacking, rather than a genuine and considered tribute to BDSM, is taking place - it's when none of that beautiful variety is represented.

Musings on polyamory

** PLEASE NOTE - this is not intended as an endorsement or criticism/condemnation of any particular lifestyle, be it monogamous, polyamorous, celibate or 'other'. It's just me thinking out loud **

I'm currently reading The Ethical Slut, one of the most famous books written on polyamory (open relationships, having multiple partners, whatever you want to call it) and often signposted as the Bible for poly people. So far I'm not overly enamoured with the book, for several reasons. One, it's couched in a lot of self-help language, which I suppose I should have expected seeing as one of its authors is a therapist. But the constant affirmation exercises wear a little thin after the first few, and after 5 or so I felt like bawling 'Look, I'm never going to DO any of these, can you just please tell me the answers to my questions and stop wasting my time with these BS 'self-love' exercises!'. And what are my questions? Well, I suppose they're the same questions that most people considering polyamory ask, and most of them revolve around jealousy. Like:
 

How do you not get jealous? How do you stop your partner getting jealous? Isn't it natural to be jealous? Isn't jealousy a sign you shouldn't be poly? Doesn't the fact most people still want to be monogamous, despite the fact we're so crap at it, imply that human beings do have a need to be #1 to someone?
 

And despite being 54% of the way through the book (so my Kindle informs me), I don't feel like the authors have actually addressed those questions, or at least done so in a way that's helpful to me. There's been a lot of talk on loving yourself (and not like that, fnar), but not much exploration of the questions and fears surrounding polyamory. So far the authors' solutions seem to be:

- Talk to your partner (never bad advice, but do any of us really need to buy a book to know that's what we should do whenever we have relationship issues?)

- Make sure your self-esteem is really strong by doing loads of exercises saying why you're great

- Let go of social expectations around monogamy

 

The latter is a pretty tall order, and one that I'd therefore I'd like to see explained further. Although the aforementioned expectations are so deep rooted and so powerful that it would take volumes of books to unpick them all, I'm irritated that this book isn't dealing with them in any more than a superficial manner. Because that's what I, and I suspect most of us, really want to know. Are my poly tendencies merely evidence that I'm wired differently from the dominant model of sexuality, and my difficulty expressing them evidence of just how aggressively the hegemonic model is reinforced? Or are they evidence that I'm weak, greedy or bad at relationships?
 

Those of us who have a vested interest in coming to terms with our poly tendencies are obviously going to prefer the former explanation, but have we truly considered the possibility of the latter? This is what I'd like to hear more of in a book exploring polyamory - not just the authors glossing over the issues by saying 'Some people disapprove of polyamory, screw them and their repressive beliefs, go for what you want'. And yes, that might be all the encouragement some people need, but as a cautious, analytical person who seeks pleasure but not unquestioning hedonism, it's not enough for me.

 

The consensus I seem to keep reading when I research polyamory is that jealousy is not itself a sign that poly relationships are wrong. Instead, jealousy is a 'symptom, not a cause' - usually originating from lousy self-esteem. While there may be a lot of truth in that, I'm not sure that covers the whole gamut of reasons for feeling jealous. If, as a child, you felt jealous of your sibling because your mum was cuddling him/her and not you, perhaps it was because you secretly feared your mum didn't love you because you were an inadequate person. But perhaps, actually, you just wanted a cuddle then and there because it felt damn nice, and you were annoyed someone else was benefiting from the thing you wanted. We're humans - we're greedy and selfish, and we want the things that we want, NOW. We're happy when we get them, and we're unhappy when we don't. Couldn't the explanation just be that simple?

 

The book mentions the 'starvation economy' that the monogamous hegemony teaches us to believe in, whereby we believe that love given from our partners to another is love lost to us. This keeps us in a state of panic that love is going to 'run out', like a finite resource, when obviously that's nonsense, because most of us have more than one close friend who we love, and most people have more than one child and would (hopefully!) say they love them all equally. And yet, that analogy just doesn't feel like it quite holds for relationships. This may indeed be because of socially reinforced tropes - no one expects a parent to 'run out' of love by the time they have to kid # 4, yet all adults ARE expected to be emotionally, mentally and physically fulfilled by one person, and taught to feel monstrous when we can't manage that. Which seems a little effed up, to say the least. However, I still think it's kind of naïve to believe there isn't at least some kind of starvation economy at work. It's a simple matter of maths to work out that you can't give the same amount of attention, affection (and yes, OK, sex) to 10 lovers as you could to 5. Or to 4 lovers as you can to 2. And yes, I know I'm translating 'love', a supposedly infinite resource, into 'time', an obviously finite one. But I'm a realist, who doesn't believe that intimacy, fun and affection can be maintained invisibly. They require time, energy and organisation - otherwise they die.
 

But sometimes they die anyway, and that's the issue upon which I always hit a bit of a wall. Because one of my reasons for thinking I should be poly - and perhaps this is a bad reason, and evidence that I'm doing it all wrong - is that I have always ended up bored and dissatisfied in monogamous relationships. I've never cheated, but I've certainly felt like it, and felt deeply tempted to do so by my attraction to other people. Proponents of monogamy would tell me that's natural, that I just have to work past those feelings, that it's an inevitable part of being in a couple which you just have to deal with. Proponents of polyamory would say the opposite, that it's evidence of how monogamy limits us and leads us to feel ashamed and a failure just because of our own natural attraction to others. In my case, it's usually been evidence that I should leave that particular person because things aren't working, not that I should stay with them and open our relationship up - so that's not an amazingly helpful answer.

 

Now I'm wondering how one stops that dissatisfying situation recurring. Is the answer just to avoid emotional commitments and stay casual (something that's extremely difficult to do, as the more time you spend with someone the more you will inevitably come to mean to each other, unless you conduct your relationship on an extremely cold basis where you never exchange any personal information or even have a chat over a cup of tea, and I can't be that switched-off/disciplined), or is it to allow whatever feelings to come up, and enjoy them while you can? The fact that I've always ended up disappointed by whoever I've paired up with in relationships implies to me that being poly could just be another way of getting disappointed by more people, more regularly! I know having multiple relationships could be a cushion - one let-down might not hurt so much if you are already successfully engaging with someone else - but ultimately it seems that time and boredom is going to knock down all your spinning plates eventually, it's just a matter of when. And in that light, polyamory just seems like a way of distributing the problems with monogamy across more than one person.

 

That's the paradoxical thing though. We have this need to matter to someone and to care about them, and then when it happens, we get bored with it. And then we look for the next person we want to matter to and care about, to make it feel new. I'm not sure that a model of sexuality that indulges this fickleness of humans is such a great thing. That's not a shout in monogamy's favour, but it's certainly a question about the limitations of polyamory to overcome our essential nature, which I do believe is ultimately selfish.

 

And that's what the book ultimately seems to shy away from - asking the question, why DO we want more than one lover? Why do we think we even deserve this? What makes us think that this is an impulse that should be indulged, rather than questioned? How can we be sure it's not just our short attention spans, insecurity and crapness at being alone that's making us think we need multiple partners? This is not judgment of anyone who is poly, but my own questions that I'm demanding of myself. Because I know that insecurity and crapness at being alone have, in the past, made me stay in monogamous relationships when I should've got out, and I don't want these same flaws to be the things that drive me to polyamory thinking it's a solution.

Post-script - poly feminist blogger Charlie Hale took the time to give their answers to some of the questions raised above, here. Well worth a read.

 

Sex, Disability and Sex Work

I got to thinking about the intersection of disability, sex and sex work after reading this excellent Guardian feature by Frances Ryan. It was good to read a considered, non-hysterical look at the often-glossed-over issue of disabled sexuality, and hear from those who are experiencing the issues first-hand. The part I wish had perhaps been expanded on was where Ryan acknowledges that the discussions about sex being a 'need' which disabled people have the right to fulfil, "is language that is rarely used in reference to women with disabilities".

This, to me, is one of the areas that I've always had most issue with when it comes to defences of sex work. My thinking on sex work is, I'd like to say, evolving - although unfortunately so far it's only evolved to a point where I often feel completely caught in the middle between abolitionist and sex positive feminists - but I do find the argument about sex workers providing a valuable service to disabled people a little troubling. Leaving aside the fact that sex workers also service plenty of able-bodied men who presumably have much less trouble finding sexual partners but for some reason choose to pay for sex instead, the notion that sex work is valuable because it provides "disabled clients who would otherwise never experience the joy of skin to skin contact" rankles with me. First off, it's patronising. As Mik Scarlet points out in Frances Ryan's article, "It's like the world telling you that disabled people are so unsexy that the only way they can have sex is to pay for it". And secondly, it's inaccurate. What the statement really seems to refer to is disabled men.

Although the Guardian article is illustrated by a picture of the late Helen O' Toole holding a sign saying 'disabled and horny', the article doesn't actually quote or speak to any disabled women who have paid for sexual services (or managed a sex life without paying for it). In a Twitter exchange, the author of blog A Glasgow Sex Worker suggested to me that these women are certainly out there, they're just not seeking sexual services as much, or speaking out about it as willingly, as disabled men because of stigma. Women aren't supposed to need to pay for sex, the stereotype goes - we're the ones with the prized 'pussy' and therefore are in a much stronger position than those needy, testosterone-addled men. Therefore there's the inevitable feeling of 'Am I a sad cow if I have to pay someone to fuck me?' - and I'm not being disrespectful here to any men or women who feel that way, because that's exactly how I felt when I was 18 and genuinely believed I was so fat, ugly and hideous that my options were either to die a virgin or pay a male prostitute. I'm not disabled and have long since realised that my barriers to a sex life were much less insurmountable than I thought there were. But my point is, I can well believe that there might be women out there considering the option of paying someone to pleasure them, but not wanting to admit to it. I'd also wager that's a more realistic explanation than the patronising idea that women 'just don't need sex as much' as men, or that we can 'go without' more easily. As Lesley Chenoweth writes, disabled women are at particular risk of being painted as 'asexual', and this is a destructive assumption of the kind feminists have long battled.

Still, it's interesting that only 19% of disabled women said they would see a trained sex worker, compared with 63% of men (Disability Now survey, 2005). It's suggested that disabled women - who are indeed much more vulnerable to violence and abuse compared with the rest of the female population - would not trust a male sex worker not to abuse them. This wariness is understandable, especially when the dominant social myth is that "women with disabilities are so unattractive they should be grateful for any sexual advances made to them". But this leaves us with the kind of asymmetry which is one of my main remaining objections to the sex industry - that it exists for the benefit of men and their sexual needs (which MUST unquestioningly be met), while women just have to sit by the sidelines, horny and frustrated, their needs ignored.

My viewpoint may be superfluous to the debate - after all, I'm not a sex worker, or disabled. But I have been a care worker for nearly 7 years, and worked up close and personal with a lot of disabled people of all ages, abilities and proclivities. I've had the face-reddening tasks of trying to stop autistic teenage boys publicly masturbating, dodging accidental erections whilst trying to put a catheter sheath on men with paralysis, and asking a woman with cerebral palsy exactly how she planned to use a vibrator if she did get her wish of going to an Ann Summers party. I've seen paraplegics who are married with children, and ones who live alone, seeing no one from one day to the next. I've seen people's engagements and marriages buckle under the strain of a serious accident or illness, leaving the disabled person with the double blow of being injured and being abandoned by their lover. I know a woman in a wheelchair who uses internet dating and remains hopeful despite telling me 'I know 99% of men are put off by the wheelchair". I've seen the isolation and frustration disabled people go through just struggling to access the basics of everyday life, let alone the 'luxuries' of a social life. And I can painfully empathise with the desire for love, for sex, for contact, for cuddles. But I'm still not convinced it's something that should be paid for, and I'm not convinced that the need for it automatically legitimises sex work. If the benefit of sex work to women, and the acknowledgement of female sexuality, desires and needs, were more apparent to me, I might be less sceptical. But there's something about justifying sex work on the grounds of serving disabled people that just smacks to me of prioritising men while women are yet again invisibilised, and that's hardly helpful to an already marginalised group.

All that said, until we live in a society that's capable of acknowledging that women get horny and frustrated just as men do, that they seek release through masturbation and sex just as men do, and that sex isn't just something women 'endure' or 'have done to them' but actively pursue, participate in and enjoy, perhaps it's unrealistic to expect disabled women to be on the front line of smashing stereotypes about female sexuality. I'd also be interested to hear what abolitionist feminists think of the woman in a wheelchair who hires a man to pleasure her, (or pays her care worker to hold her vibrator for her...) - is she just as much part of the patriarchal machine that has reduced sex to a commodity as the man who goes to a sex worker? Or do we need to stop seeing sex as such a sacred cow that must never be paid for, and start seeing it more as (in some cases, at least), a therapeutic service? Is a trained masseur, dancer or farmer 'degraded' because they use their body in their work?

Many questions. Many more possible answers. I wish I had more of them. All I know is I'm on board with Mik Scarlet when he says "I want a world that sees disabled people as sexual and valid prospective partners".

 

Consent, and what it isn't

I saw this poster whilst walking around Brighton a few weeks ago, and thought it deserved sharing:

Girls - not diverse, not feminist and not empowering.

(This piece, originally posted here, also appears over at Independent Voices)

I didn’t understand the fuss about the TV series Girls while I was living in the States, and now it’s come over to my home country I’m still kind of baffled. The amount of attention that this programme gets seems only to demonstrate how tragically grateful women are still expected to be to see a TV show with four female leads. The very fact that it’s still seen as some kind of novelty, forty-plus years after women demanded that half the population be treated with the same respect as the other half, only shows how retrogressive our media culture remains.

Of course, it’s great that at such a young age, writing talent Lena Dunham has achieved such visibility and success. And yes, it’s great that she’s an ordinary looking, normally shaped young woman and isn’t afraid to use her looks as part of her art. It is about time we saw some sex scenes that contained normal female bodies rather than baby-oiled emaciated mockeries of femininity. But those are about all the feminist victories we can claim from Girls. Its lack of racial diversity has already been well discussed – what’s there to celebrate for feminism when black, Hispanic or Asian women are totally written out of a series that’s supposedly set in one of the most diverse cities on earth? But also, what’s there to celebrate for feminism when a show depicts four entirely self-interested young women and a lead character having the most depressing, disempowered sexual relationships imaginable?

I remember back in the heady days of the mid-90s – yes, I’m old enough to remember it clearly folks – when an exasperated journalist hit the nail on the head by describing what was most galling about the Spice Girls and their faux feminism, namely ‘their acceptance of partial identities, which only make up a whole woman when you put them together’. And media culture has continued to demand that women accept this caricaturing ever since. When Sex and The City was at its height in the early 2000s, it was pop culture’s favourite game to ask women to pigeonhole themselves as either wild sexpot Samantha, dewy-eyed romantic Charlotte, fierce cynic Miranda or everywoman (with a budget to spend $500 a whack on a pair of shoes, natch) Carrie. So it's hardly surprising Girls has been compared to SATC, when here we have again wild sexpot Jessa, dewy-eyed romantic Shoshanna – or rather, too naive and caricatured to be realistic Shoshanna -, strait-laced career girl Marnie and slovenly, directionless Hannah. God forbid our media ever depicts a woman as complex, nuanced and defying simple categorisation.

I suppose we could be grateful that there’s a little more realism in Girls – we actually see the characters having money troubles and pregnancy scares rather than effortlessly gliding through the expensive city without a care in the world. Hannah’s exploitation in an unpaid internship will strike a chord with many of us - I did do an unpaid internship, and although I didn’t feel exploited at all and loved it, it does rankle with me that my generation is expected to ‘pay their dues’ by doing unpaid work when our parents were never asked to do the same. However, our gratitude that someone is showing a few chinks of truth about my generation doesn’t make Girls feminist, or ground breaking, or a sign of progress in media culture. 

As a commenter on Bitch put it, “I can't figure out a single thing that Dunham does that is feminist, or that her characters do that are feminist, besides being female. Which is not good enough.” The character Hannah has a sexual relationship that comes across as disempowered and degrading, involving discomfiting scenes such as her partner ‘joking’ that he is going to anally penetrate her without her consent, and later describing his fantasy (as she silently cringes) that Hannah is an 11 year-old who he is going to send home ‘covered in come’. I’ve described in more detail how these disturbing interactions have been dismissed as mild BDSM, which they are most certainly not, and while I appreciate that there are women out there enduring cringeworthy sex, the fact this is seen as adding comedy value to the show speaks volumes. A UK TV critic described Episode 1’s sex scenes as “two of the most excruciatingly uncomfortable couplings I've seen on the small screen.” But no one seems interested in examining what this means, that in 2012 it’s still seen as ‘funny’ or ‘revealing’ that women have nasty, coercive, humiliating sex where they don’t feel empowered to speak up. 

Watching Tiny Furniture, Dunham’s earlier feature film, implies that these kind of sexual encounters are something Dunham or those close to her have endured, and yet that often passes without comment. Hannah’s lax attitude to sexual health in Girls may also be unfortunately reflective of too many girls’ ignorant approach to STDs, but again I don’t see why showing this on the small screen is progressive or helpful in any way.

I suppose the point about Girls is that just as male characters are free to be idiotic, irresponsible, dim and lazy, female characters should be extended the same courtesy. However, the fact we’re still expected to jump for joy just to see four young white leads on our screen shows we’re nowhere near that point. And if we do get to that point, I will not be watching a plump young woman having disempowered, demeaning sex and claiming it as a feminist victory. I’ll be watching My So-Called Life and dreaming of real girls.

Thoughts on feminism and the politics of kink

There was a very interesting post on Feministing where Natalie Zina Walschots responded to a previous post which, while defending women's right to be kinky and submissive in the bedroom, still appears to support the idea that women only find submission erotic because we've been socially conditioned to do so. Walschots refutes this, saying "In these cases, the statement that submission is an extension of socialization is inadequate, and is similar to saying that someone becomes gay or straight because of the way they are socialized. There is so much more to it than that for someone who profoundly identifies as submissive."

It's a seductive argument. It's one I've heard before, and it's one that makes me feel better about the feminist guilt I sometimes feel for enjoying submission in the bedroom. However, unfortunately I'm not sure the comparison always holds up. Most of us (who aren't under the power of religious propaganda or other types of homophobia) accept that your sexual identity - in terms of who you're attracted to, at least - is part of your nature, and not something society can create for you. Most of us accept that society can't and doesn't 'make' anyone gay or straight. When it comes to kink, however, if your preference bears any resemblance to oppressive social structures - i.e. the demand for male dominance and female submission - you're accused of having been 'socialised' into finding that attractive.

I agree that it's massively offensive, hateful and simply untrue to posit that there is a 'cure' for gayness, or that any gay person should seek to alter their sexuality. But there are feminists who would say that that's exactly what I should be doing about my kinky side. Feminists arguing against prostitution and porn in books such as Not For Sale accuse any woman who has a sexual fantasy involving violence of being complicit in violence against other women. In this book it actually says, with a deeply moralistic tone, "too bad for the women and girls whose pain, death and humiliation are the impetus for orgasm... the sex radical wants her porn and her orgasm is more important than anything or anyone else". Nice. So my orgasms and the fantasies that contribute to them are now subject to the investigations of the feminist sex police?

There are scathing put-downs to this notion in the words of feminist and S&M-defender Gayle Rubin who says "I find the idea that I've been brainwashed infuriating and ludicrous." She goes on to note that those who condemn other's sexual tastes are operating under the mistaken idea "that there is one best way to do sex." Yup - anyone who glances through Cosmo, Company or Glamour magazine will definitely be inundated with articles supporting the view there is a 'right way' to have sex, that there is a universal concept of 'good sex' and if you're not adhering to it, you're at best, unfulfilled, and at worst, shirking some duty to your true self. And as Rubin notes, the result of this kind of thinking - whether it comes from the editors of a woman's magazine, or feminists, is the implication "that any woman who might actually enjoy [BDSM practices] must have something wrong with her."

This is exactly where I sometimes feel alienated from the sisterhood, to the point where I once left a feminist conference early because I did not want to listen to a presentation from anti-porn feminists. I knew it was only going to make me feel at odds with other feminists, complicit in the oppression of other women for having looked at and enjoyed BDSM porn, and worst of all, somehow 'sick' or 'warped'. If feminism really is a 'discussion, not a rulebook' as the fabulous young feminist Tavi Gevinson puts it, then why does it feel like so many feminists have set the rulebook on what Acceptable, Pro-Feminist sex should look like?

That's why it bothers me when, even in a piece purportedly supporting the right for women to be submissive, the author still says “I am in no way surprised that many women, who have been socialized in a culture in which male sexuality is linked to domination and in which women are taught their sexual power comes from being wanted, have fantasies of submission.” It appears that while reluctant to outright condemn female submissives, the author believes the person participating in such a fantasy still has to accept that their desires are a mere result of anti-woman conditioning. How the hell is a feminist supposed to reconcile those two notions and still have a satisyfing, guilt-free sex life?

Fortunately, other commenters are already on the case:

One says: "This line is problematic because it suggests that submissive desires and identity are a result of internalized patriarchy. I think a lot of those who identify as submissive would vigorously disagree, and actually find this assertion (which I admit is not uncommon) extremely patronizing."

Another points out that "women who are “professional” or for various reasons feel empowered and are feminists might be more interested/able/comfortable engaging in submission play because ... their status in the rest of their lives is not in question".

And my own PS would be -  my reasons for liking submission is not because I derive pleasure from being 'wanted'. I can feel 'wanted' in many ways, including entirely non-sexual ones, and that's all very nice, but it's certainly not essential to my self-esteem. I do not derive pleasure from being a 'passive object' - because as anyone involved in BDSM will tell you, no one in the community, submissive or dominant or switch, is truly passive - we've all made considered choices to participate in very specific scenarios. I simply like playing the sub because it makes me HORNY.

Also I think it's worth remembering that women don't generally 'become' submissives, or participate in the BDSM community, unless they already have a strong sexual leaning that way. It may certainly be easier to admit to it because of a society that approves female submission, but that's not the same as saying a sexist society causes us to find submission erotic. It's also worth noting that society's love of male dominance also makes it harder for male submissives to come out as wanting to be dominated, so they may hide their preferences in the shadows. Hence Katie Roiphe and everyone else's assumption that the world is being overrun by female submissives. Also, what so many people fail to recognise about BDSM, is that while the acts involved in it might look a lot like what society tells us is 'right', it actually rests on premises entirely at odds with a patriarchal society's demands for male dominance and female submission. If you're in a sexual scenario that demands your sexual submission without you having to consented to it or chosen it, that's not BDSM - that's just sexual abuse. BDSM puts the right to choose, the right to change your mind, the right to say no and the right to have your sexual tastes respected and met, front and center. Since when did patriarchy care about any of those things? Some might even say BDSM enshrines consent and safety far more effectively - especially for heterosexual women - than the sexual culture of the vanilla mainstream.

But there'll always be those who tell me I'm fooling myself. I remember a comment thread on a radical feminist website where one commentator stated that BDSM was attractive to some women because it was their only way of seeking some degree of safety away from the coercive, misogynistic culture of heterosexual vanilla relationships. This, in the commenters' eyes, didn't make kink any more respectable - it was simply the lesser of two evils. According to this way of thinking, a woman is participating in her own violation whatever she does - whether it's in a satin-sheeted bed surrounded by roses, soft music and candlelight, or on a hard floor surrounded by gags, cuffs and whips. In the latter scenario she might have the safety of a 'safe word' and 'ground rules' but according to the radfems, she's still just eroticising her own subordination. I feel that one can only think this if one believes all sex is inherently degrading to women, and unless you're a hardcore Andrea Dworkin fan, then like me, you probably don't agree with that.

 

Still, the questions remain: Can any of us ever step outside of the society that has shaped us long enough to examine what's really contributed to our tastes and preferences? And more importantly, should we have to? If, as a feminist, I baulk at how breast implants or posing for Page 3 are labelled 'empowering', do I also have a duty to question myself for finding submission a turn-on? I don't know. I do know that what makes me hot and what makes me orgasm feels far too instinctive, private and individual to be a sole result of what's on TV, the internet, magazines or music videos. I do know that the feeling of being 'naughty', going 'against the rules' and betraying norms is a great contributor to eroticism, hence the thrill of being a submissive female comes partly from the feeling of transgression. I know that as a person who spends a great deal of her life being fiercely in control, unwilling to delegate, and mistrustful of others, handing over power in the bedroom is cathartic, exhilarating and freeing. It's also simply a bloody great turn-on.

For today, I'll leave the last word to Gayle Rubin.

"People who have different sexual preferences are not sick, stupid, warped, brainwashed, under duress, dupes of the patriarchy ... The habit of explaining away sexual variation by putting it down needs to be broken."