(TW: Found on Reddit) Always Found The Similarities Between Some Feminists and Puritanians Interesting
(TW: Found on Reddit) Always Found The Similarities Between Some Feminists and Puritanians Interesting
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Here's the basic line of thought:
Men occupy a more powerful position in society due to the generally patriarchal structures. Women occupy a less powerful position than men, even when a particular women holds more overt power (e.g., a woman that's a CEO). As a result, sexual relationships between men and women always have a power imbalance; that imbalance of power means that women can never really be consenting, since there's always some form of 'threat' involved. A woman that believes she wants sex believes that way because society has conditioned her to be that way, rather than that being something she chose in a vacuum.
And theoretically, this is all true, kind of. But it also isn't, because that would mean that women can never have any agency over their own body or their own sexual choices. ...Unless they "choose" to be lesbian, which isn't actually a choice at all.
No, it's not all true, not even theoretically. The idea that women can't consent to sex is complete and utter horseshit, not to mention insanely sexist.
I mean it is true to an extent, it is just treating consent as an absolute and not a spectrum. Power imbalances absolutely impact where that needle is.
I've had lots of sex like "yes please". I've had sex where I was like "ill probably enjoy enjoy this" or "I genuinely don't really care one way or another and it will please my partner" (who I'm not vulnerable to in a societally enforced way) and all of them would fit the binary of consensual but are at various points on the spectrum.
The last example is an illustrative example where it would clearly fall at different points on the spectrum if I was more or less dependent on/vulnerable to my partner.
Sex negative feminism had some points that were correct to some extent, sex negative and sex positive feminism both synthesized into a more sex neutral position for a reason.
Okay, let's put it this way.
Let's say you're a woman, and you've been pulled over by a male cop. He's got you dead to rights on possession of cocaine with intent to distribute after spotting the bales of cocaine in your back seat. He's willing to just give you a ticket for a burned out tail light, but only if he can fuck you, right then and there. Can you, in that moment, morally and ethically consent to sex with him, when he has the legal authority to arrest you and ensure that your life is fucked forever if you do not consent? Most people would say no, that entire environment is coercive, so there's no way that, within that framework I've presented, that the woman could morally or ethically consent to sex in order to make her 'little problem' go away.
2nd wave feminism presented all male-female relationships in that way, although usually with a less blatant abuse of power going on. If you assume that patriarchy stacks the power deck in favor of men, then there's very little basis for women to ever consent to sex with a man, because she is never able to have an equal position of power within society from which to consent. But that's also a problem, because it abstracts people to the point where it's almost meaningless on an individual level.
Right, and that stance is complete and utter sexist horse shit for both genders. It's saying that women don't have any agency over their actions at any time, and that all straight men are guilty of raping their partners. It's also discounting the fact that women can and have raped men.
I'd be willing to bet that most people who believe this have some form of PTSD from the actions of a male, which would be a completely understandable viewpoint to have in that situation.
But, a viewpoint being understandable doesn't make it reasonable, valid, or healthy. If someone truly believes that no women can ever consent to intimacy with a man, they need to speak to a mental health professional.
It's no more valid of a viewpoint than saying all white people are racists.
Wouldn't that line of thinking imply that women don't have any agency about anything? Whatever they decide can be framed as a reaction to internalized fear.
Not to mention that gender roles also affect men.
Yeah it does and you couldn't really change it. As women would act based on internalized sexism and even if a man wants to respect the wish of a woman and give her 100% control, she would act in the sexist norms, which would signal to the men that women want those sexist norms. So men would continue to "enforce" those norms as women would fear to stop the men.
So sexism can't be solved; and then we can ask why bother trying to change it then?
Stupid line of thinking that is insulting to both, women and men. No means no, my friends. No means no. Respect your fellow humans.
I assume you're excluding all the men who prefer a femdom ? IDK if many women know this, but men's sexuality is often a LOT looser then Media lets on. There's plenty of men who'd absolutely love to be thrown around like a rag doll.
I didn't exclude them. And I want to make clear that I strongly believe women to be equal to men. Ofc there are men who want to be dominated.
But I was giving a critic to the idea that women wouldn't be able to freely consent due to some vague sense of possible abuse from a man. Because that would imply that e.g. if a man chains himself on a board and give a woman a cat o' nine tails, the woman couldn't freely choose to hit him as the man is still a source of some vague sense of possible abuse in the future as a consequence of her decision. Which isn't completely wrong, of course there are women to are in such a situation, but as a general condition, it heavily implies that women can't consent to anything, even to anything that would less the threat of abuse. Which is simply insulting to women, and invalidating any woman's opinion on these things, especially those who prefer something that it viewed as possibly abusive.
Like take people seriously, and support the creation of supportive structures for those who need them to get out of a situation where leaving is difficult.
Yes, I understand. And it's indeed a possible situation. But have you ever heard the phrase "they're more afraid of you then you are of them"? Women have more social power than they realize, and the fear is due to specifically manipulative female individuals abusing that social power, even to the extent of violence. So the fear of abuse is a mutual feeling. There will always be bad people. Just please use your power carefully and honestly and work together to reduce evil people. Imo, addressing social economical problems will help greatly reduce the tensions between genders, and the only way to do that is by communicating in the first place.
Sounds suspiciously like insanity to me.
A lot of 2nd wave feminism does sound weird now, yeah. But at the time--this would have been the 50s-70s or so--it was a novel way of viewing power dynamics and what consent meant.
But also they shame lesbians when we actually fuck because we’re “imitating male behavior”. Like, girl, I assure you that while some men offer to take turns performing oral this is far from us imitating them. We’re just horny
Wait wait wait, does that mean that being gay is the ultimate straight behaviour? Like, it's gay to like women, because only a man knows what a man wants? ;)
I've heard the argument based not on structural power but average physical capabilities and biological structures. [I'm going to use the terms meaning sex and not gender]. The man is most likely the person that can gain control during the act, and he doesn't risk being in pain as much as the woman. Therefore, the man holds more power and is more of a threat on average.
This is also technically true, and I don't think it is about consent but freedom. [I'll keep using the words for sex and not gender]. Sexuality becomes another form in which women can become subjugated, so it's a matter of precaution, I guess (especially since men are being socialized to be entitled or even violent, which is the other part of the picture).
I've also heard the extreme version of this argument saying that penetration is what I just described, always, without exception.
In both cases and in yours and in others, I don't think the meme is correct because the reasons are very different from puritanism.