» Towards my personal Sex-Positive Feminist 101 Clarisse Thorn. There’s an aphorism from the early 1900s literary critic André Maurois: “The difficult part in an argument is not to defend one’s opinion but to know it.” Even though I identify as an activist and genuinely want to make a real impact on the world based on my beliefs … I often think that much of my blogging has been more an attempt to figure out what I believe, than to tell people what I believe. And sometimes, I fall into the trap of wanting to be consistent more than I want to understand what I really believe — or more than I want to empathize with other people — or more than I want to be correct. We all gotta watch out for that. But I’m getting too philosophical here.
However, lately I’ve been thinking that I really want to write about some basic ideas that inform my thoughts on sex-positive feminism. This got really long, and I reserve the right to edit for clarity or sensitivity. Some Central Sex-Positive Feminist Ideas, according to Clarisse Thorn … Casual sex has changed. Or. Rescripting sex. Life has scripts. Little socially-agreed plays that we enact rather than trying to figure out all our interactions from scratch every time.
Many of them are very simple. There's the script you follow when you're checking out at a store ("have a nice day"), the script for talking to someone who's sad ("I'm so sorry"), and of course the script for talking to a dog ("WHOOZAGOODBOY"). And there's scripts for sex. Unfortunately, the most common script out there sucks. Script: Consent Roulette Active partner (generally male) and receptive partner (generally female) are alone together. The above script is, let me be clear, not rape. And it's "roulette" because it makes consent all about luck. This isn't just a first-time-sex script, either. A big problem with getting people to break that script is that they think you're trying to get them to do this one. Hypothetical Script: Robot Lawyers Consenting To One (1) Act Of Intercourse Active partner and receptive partner are alone together. Non-feminist 'more hostile' towards men than feminists, study finds.
By Jess McCabe // 31 July 2009, 17:26 One of the hoary stereotypes about feminists is that we are 'man-haters'. I suspect that most feminists are more likely to roll their eyes at this sort of thing - I find it hard to take too seriously, although of course these stereotypes don't spring out of no-where, and they're often a type of silencing technique.
(They're also quite interesting in what they can tell us, I think. For example, an explanation for the man-hating myth could be that our culture is so overly focused on men, and male-privilege is so deeply entrenched, that when feminists criticise the status quo it's read as being anti-men rather than addressing the marginalisation and oppression of women.) Anyway, some researchers at the University of Houston decided to investigate whether it's really true that feminists hate men. What they found was that feminists reported less hostility towards men than non-feminists. The study's take on this: Permalink. How Male Sexual Entitlement Hurts Everyone. Male sexual entitlement is the belief that men are owed sex on account of their maleness. Society normalizes this message. It’s a message that’s embedded in a lot of casual phrases about sex, including ones about men being “friend zoned” for being “nice guys”, women “giving up” sex, and men “getting pussy.”
But the truth is, no one is ever owed sex – not when they’re nice, not when they’re domineering, not when they’re manipulative, not when they’re attractive, and definitely not just because they’re a man. If you really want to wipe out rape culture (the attitude that sex without consent is OK within certain circumstances), you need to understand how male sexual entitlement negatively impacts everyone, men included. Why Does Sexual Entitlement Happen? Because we think it’s normal. It’s embedded in the way promiscuous men are idolized in Bond movies while promiscuous women get called sluts. Female sexual pleasure in of itself and female consent aren’t really a part of the picture. Something I Want Men To Know Before Flirting With Women. There’s been an important shift in several different communities and scenes lately. In the kink world, in atheism circles, among feminist folks and their allies, in pagan communities, I’ve been seeing more people than ever before talking about the effects of sexual coercion, assault, harassment, unwanted attention, and other related topics.
Of course, none of this is particularly new and women have been talking about it for years. But what’s different is the nature of the dialogue. More men who want to be allies to women are speaking up, and thanks to the potential of the internet and social networking, more people are seeing the patterns than ever before. There are plenty of folks with lots of great stuff to say, and I don’t feel the need to repeat their words here. Instead, I want to address something that I wish I’d understood much earlier than I did. More important, though, is that getting upset when someone assumes ill intentions on your part doesn’t help. 7 Ways to Create a Sex-Positive Critique of Porn. One of the most common responses to the anti-porn critiques of pornography is that they’re sex-negative and all too often, that ends up creating a “no we’re not/yes you are” argument.
And yet, whenever I read the anti-porn side of things, I’m struck by how often sex-negativity is woven into their claims, although in all fairness, that’s not always the case. I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was that bothered me by the way that Gail Dines keeps talking about gagfactor.com, a website that focuses on men facefucking women. And then it hit me- there are two parts to it. First, Dines is trying to foment a moral panic. I can explain the first point better if I start with the second one. So what that means is that some people really enjoy being facefucked. For the people who enjoy it, there are lots of possible reasons. Now, I have a lot of problems with gagfactor.com and, in fact, I share some of Dines’ concerns.
So why do I think that Dines’ strategies are sex-negative? What Does Feminist Porn Look Like? Does Calling Out Sexual Entitlement Demonize Male Sexuality? I won’t keep you in suspense: My answer is going to be no. But this question is an important one to address in light of how male sexuality is discussed in feminist spaces, especially when it comes to confronting rape culture.
I’ve written on the topic of male sexual entitlement for Everyday Feminism before and found that some read that article as an attack on men and male sexuality in general. It reminds me of all of the times that women have been chastised for calling out gratuitously contorted women in visual media with excuses like “men like seeing attractive women” and “sex sells!” It reminds me that, in our culture, pointing out the objectification of women is more likely to be seen as an affront to sexual norms than recognition of something problematic. Of course all people can be sexually entitled. However, male sexual entitlement is being reinforced through the media, language, and cultural attitudes towards women. What Male Sexual Entitlement Looks Like That’s sexual entitlement. Guest Blogger Starling: Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced | Shapely Prose. Phaedra Starling is the pen name of a romance novelist and licensed private investigator living in small New York City apartment with two large dogs.
She practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu and makes world-class apricot muffins. Gentlemen. Thank you for reading. Let me start out by assuring you that I understand you are a good sort of person. So far, so good. Now, you want to become acquainted with a woman you see in public. “But wait! Well, no. So when you, a stranger, approach me, I have to ask myself: Will this man rape me? Do you think I’m overreacting? I don’t. When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. Fortunately, you’re a good guy. To begin with, you must accept that I set my own risk tolerance. The second important point: you must be aware of what signals you are sending by your appearance and the environment. This means that some men should never approach strange women in public.
Are you wearing a tee-shirt making a rape joke? Pay attention to the environment. Yeah.