If there’s one anti-feminist strategy I find particularly tiresome, it’s the increasingly popular tactic of suggesting that the sexual revolution ended up accomplishing a very different goal from what it set out to do. Call it the “sexual revolution liberated men, but not women” thesis.
Amanda wades back into the ongoing discussion over the so-called “casual sex culture” with a typically fiery post. She’s responding to this post by Ace of Spades.
Lamenting the hook-up culture, Ace positions himself as a solicitous knight, concerned above all else with the well-being of young women (a sin, by the way, of which I am occasionally myself accused). Ace asks:
Are they happy?
They seem not to be, by and large. The guys, of course, are thrilled. The male fantasy has always been nearly anonymous, committment free sex as often and as with many partners as possible (witness gay men making this fantasy a reality, with women removed from the equation), and feminists have given men just that.
And Feministe and the rest can keep claiming that women ought to be happy with this awful state of affairs, but they’re not, and they won’t be, not until they finally learn to keep it in their pants long enough to discover if their next sexual conquest is even attracted to them.
That’s right — a guy will get so horny he’ll have sex with a woman he’s not even physically attracted to (let alone romantically interested in), if it’s late enough and there aren’t any prettier takers around.
If it were true that young women really didn’t want romance or love at all, this might perhaps be viewed as — if not a desirable state of affairs — at least one that was, in sexual terms at least, satisfying for women. But it’s not. The reason these young women spurn romance and call it “yucky” and make fun of those involved in relationships as “married” is because we are compelled to denigrate what we actually crave but cannot have…
The “feminism is the enemy of true womanhood” gazinga has been around for a century or so. The latest incarnation is what Ace is touting here, the notion that feminism has offered men unfettered access to women’s bodies and shamed women for trying to follow their “natural” and “innate” instinct to keep sex special and sacred. Many folks in the purity movement peddle this sort of reasoning, often hoping to claim for themselves the mantle of “True Feminists”, who really know what women want.
Mind you, I am no defender of “random hook-ups.” My faith tells me that we have a moral obligation to care for those with whom we are intimate. We are called to consider the physical, emotional and spiritual ramifications of our sexuality, just as we are called to consider the impact of our voting, spending, or eating patterns. I’m from the every single thing we do matters school. (I developed this out in a slightly larger essay two years ago: A Christian Male Pro-feminist Theology of Appetite.)
But while I share Ace’s concern (I assume his concern is genuine) for those who find “hook-up culture” unfulfilling and even painful, I’m exasperated by the most evidently anti-feminist element in his argument: his defense of the hoary old “myth of male weakness.” The myth suggests that the correct understanding of women’s role is that they are gatekeepers and guardians, defending their own bodies against the overwhelming, uncontrolled assault of the male libido. The myth makes clear that men, particularly younger men, are simply too weak, too vulnerable to testosterone surges and the imperious demands of the Y chromosome to exercise self-control. It’s a degrading understanding of what it means to be male, and it ought to make more men angry and indignant.
The myth of male weakness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy just as myths about female weakness do. If you tell a young woman that “girls can’t lift weights”, she might end up believing it. She might never pick up a barbell, never discover her very real physical strength. Her belief in the myth ended up making the myth real for her. And if you tell a young man, explicitly or implicitly, that his sexual urges are uncontrollable and that women are the ones who ought to set boundaries and limits, he’ll accept it. It will become true for him. He won’t do what he is capable of doing, what he is morally responsible for doing, simply because he chooses to believe that it’s not his job, his role.
Feminism teaches that women are also sexual creatures. Feminism exposes another myth, the one that suggests that women are only really interested in sex as a tool for emotional connection. While men and women are influenced in different ways by their bodies, lust is not the sole province of men and self-control not inherently stronger in women. To long for sex is part and parcel of the human condition; the capacity to control and channel that desire is given to all of us. I’ve been a teenage boy; I work with adolescent boys and girls in the throes of hormones. I do it day in and day out. And the more time I spend with them, the more I am convinced that the influence of biology is oversold if not altogether illusory, and the influence of socialization is wrongly denied, dismissed, and degraded.
There are many things I dislike about today’s sexualized culture. For one thing, I see that so many young people feel enormous pressure to be sexual before they are ready. I see many of them turning to alcohol to give themselves the liquid courage to do what they might not otherwise do. I see that subtle coercion, “slut-shaming”, and the ugly old double standard have not entirely disappeared. But feminism did not give birth to any of these things; indeed, organized feminism has sought for years to eradicate them.
For me, teaching young women about sex — from a feminist perspective — involves empowering them to say two simple words: “Yes” and “No.” If there are two sources of misery in our sexual lives, it’s in the form of the the frustration we endure when we say “no” to the things we long to say “yes” to, and in the pain we suffer when we say “yes” when we would much rather say “no.” A feminist understanding of sexuality is one in which a woman’s “yes” and a woman’s “no” come from the deepest part of herself, reflecting her true needs and desires. And feminists want a world where the “yes” is respected, not shamed; we want a world where the “no” is heard the first time, and honored from the start.
“If there’s one anti-feminist strategy I find particulary tiresome,… Call it the “sexual revolution liberated men, but not women” thesis.”
I’m not saying you’re wrong. But you’re aiming at the very weakest and easiest to defeat version of this argument, and presenting it in very unambiguous terms.
Some of feminism was on the side on the sexual revolution - some of it wasn’t. The purity movement’s reasoning has very deep roots within feminism. The old slogan used to be: “votes for women, chastity for men”. This isn’t a sort of pseudo-feminism, it’s a strand of thought internal to feminism.
It’s misleading to pretend feminism is on one side and anti-feminism on the other. Feminism’s on both sides, and anti-feminism is on one side pretending feminism is just on the other, and getting away with because that suits some feminists down to the ground. Plenty of feminists (Shelia Jeffreys is the most obvious example) would agree that the “sexual revolution liberated men, but not women” and be much harder to dismiss than Ace.
Not to get sidetracked, but I really hate the use of the word “random” to mean “more casual than I would prefer.” Nobody’s choice of partner is random.
Hear, hear. Though I’d say this applies to young men as well, which means destroying the myth of male weakness and telling young men that they don’t need elaborate moral justifications to say “no” to sex they don’t want.
Instead, what we have in sex education these days is what I call “Just Say No Means No” - we teach a very simplistic and legalistic model of consent, combined with a lot of shaming and scare tactics aimed at keeping teenagers from having sex. In short, we emphasize that a “no” must be respected, but we never teach anyone how to say “yes.” And if we don’t teach “yes,” how much do we really respect “no”?
It’s right to think of multiple feminisms. And that’s what blogging is about, I think: trying to make a case that feminism, at its best, should move more openly towards one particular set of positions. Those of us who are feminist bloggers are in a “hearts and minds” battle with our fellow feminists as well as the world at large; it’s often friendly debate rather than open struggle.
Jeff. the “random” was originally in quotation marks because it’s a standard term of opprobrium used in this discussion; I ought to have done a better job of disassociating myself from it.
see that subtle coercion, “slut-shaming”, and the ugly old double standard have not entirely disappeared.
That’s the understatement of some recent considerable chunk of time.
I am fond of understatement from time to time…
Hugo - have you ever read this post? It’s over a year old, but it’s one that I think more people ought to read than have.
Warning: NSFW
http://www.thetalentshow.org/archives/001863.html
Oh Hugo this is a wonderful post. So many solid, concise summaries of issues I’ve been struggling to articulate, and a few more that have just hit me on the back of the head.
Since I haven’t had coffee yet I’d just like to give one thing back. You said “For me, teaching young women about sex — from a feminist perspective — involves empowering them to say two simple words: ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’”
In the face of your excellent point about the traps of the myths of male (moral) weakness and women’s (physical) weakness I’d just like to stress how important it is to teach young *men* about the empowerment of saying “yes” and “no” as well.
I wrote a post yesterday about the messages men and, especially, women tell themselves about men’s eager willingness to have sex with anything that moves and… I dunno. We need to start teaching the same thing to young men.
(Ever get the suspicion that men like Ace are just turning *personal* remorse over sexual misdeeds into projections about young *women?*)
Thanks for the extra momentum.
figleaf
This “myth of male weakness” is thoroughly anti-male, as I’ve pointed out before. It’s hard to imagine something more condescending that to be told that I’m a raving animalistic ogre and that I cannot go 24 hours without getting my freak on. You’re right: it’s a double standard, and, as I ALSO have pointed out before, double standards typically hurt both sides.
boy genteel
Men’s Rights + Women’s Rights = HUMAN Rights
One of the areas I see where the myth of male weakness is perpetrated constantly is in the teen melodramas: on broadcast TV, on cable, in any movie you want to name and it drives me insane. This trope pops up anywhere they try to depict the agressive and conscience-free young males in pursuit of the hot teenage girl, where the male is uninterested in any element of a relationship. They just wanted sex and nothing more.
I saw a study some while ago (sorry, don’t have the cite) where they examined teenager males and females and how both sexes see relationships. Contrary to popular myth, the sizeable majority of males were interested in having relationships with their partners. They weren’t simply interested in having sex and walking away. They expressed love for their partners and found breakups to be emotionally painful. That certainly reflects my own teenage years.
It’ll be a long time before we get to teaching kids Yes and No, I’m afraid. We’re too busy teaching males how to not deny themselves any appetite and females how to deny themselves all appetites.
This is an incredibly important set of topics. I have a whole series of interlocking responses.
I think you are right about this idea about men being a tired old lie. In some ways it’s part of the fundamental “patriarchal” lie, isn’t it? In our culture, it’s the “runaway train of hormones.” I have never found it to be true of myself and I don’t see it in the men I know.
This issue does some serious border crossing. Jeff brings up an excellent point about the sex education given kids. People do what they can in an atmosphere where no one is really allowed to talk about real human experience. But let’s not bend over backwards to blame it all on the anti-feminists. In fact there are those who become anti-feminists, not of the usual kind, because they resent the ways in which “legalistic models of consent” articulate with “the runaway train theory of male sexual desire” and produce male sexual shame, a shame which goes so deep among some of them that they are impeded, sometimes for years, in making any kind of advance to a woman. This story, which is not mine by the way, seems to recur and recur and recur among young men who post to feminist sites on the internet. I feel they have been harmed, many of them attribute that harm to feminism (though many don’t), and upon reading Janet Halley’s book Split Decisions I am not sure that what Halley calls “governance feminism” comes out of this one with entirely clean hands. Particularly of course since such “governance feminism” articulates with culturally conservative mores which make honest talk about sexuality impossible in most school settings, even colleges.
By the way, Janet Halley does not think “dirty hands” are a bad thing, and neither do I. The problems which caused “governance feminism” needed to be addressed, and strongly, and still do. Her point is that all action has a number of consequences, some of which will be bad for some people, some unintended. But she believes that activists in social change have to accept that what they do can harm some people, even if that is unavoidable. This kind of “taking responsibility” does however imply, in my opinion, that if small steps can be taken to mitigate that harm, without compromising the central thrust of reform, these steps should be taken. In this case these steps should lead towards giving young heterosexual men the affirmation they need to flirt and make their romantic or sexual desires known to women, in respectful ways which still articulate with the customs of their peers, without feeling that they are somehow monstrous by doing so.
My own view of sexual desire is a very different one. It comes out of the idea that we are always in relation, that consciously and unconsciously we are perpetually in mutual feedback relationship, that we are always therefore communicating. It comes out of the idea that for those of us for whom “not raping is the default setting” — and yes, I think that’s most of us — this is because we actively desire the desire of the other, and therefore we stop short when it is clear that the other’s desire for us is not there. The main thing that I think interferes with this is projection, so we do have to make sure we are engaging with the other who is there and not with the mirror of our own wishes. (Although ironically it is probably the so-called “mirror neurons” which are really empathy neurons, which enable us to do this.) But I think in many cases our desire itself is healthier than our conscious beliefs (whether one wants to call them “rape myths” or not) — look at all the men who consciously believe in so-called rape myths but still manage to be quite respectful and consensual in real life. This is because for them their desire is more consensual and reciprocal than their view of sex is! And I think this may be surprisingly common.
There is also an element of irresponsibilty in the “men are weak” argument. Or more exactly, there is an approved lack of responsibility for ones actions. If the woman/girl is responsible for setting the boundries, the man/boy is not responsible for anything, including crossing them because the argument can be made that she didn’t set them clearly.
Thanks for some great feedback from all of you… and yes, Figleaf, I’m very clear that teaching boys to honor their own authentic “yes” and “no” is vitally important.
I actually want to amend what I say above to say clearly, on behalf of decent men for whom “”not raping is the default setting,” that “we actively desire the active desire of the other.”
I really believe this, that the desire of decent men is not for passive partners.
Of course that means that I believe that, in the case of societies where it is thought that women, or that “good” women, are passive and/or do not normatively want sex, the desire of men too is in a way seriously frustrated in such societies. A lot of the dysfunctional beliefs (some of which are termed “rape myths”) we have about sex come from the dynamics which arise out of those normative beliefs. I really believe they do not arise from men’s desires, but from the crumbs those desires get under “patriarchy,” if you mean by patriarchy a specific historical culture of sexuality that I hope we are emerging from, if slowly. But which some religious types of “purity” education are trying to reinstitute.
“Figleaf, I’m very clear that teaching boys to honor their own authentic ‘yes’ and /no’ is vitally important.”
Thank you, Hugo!
figleaf
majikmoma, thanks for that link. A marvelous post I’d have liked to have read back then…
Hugo, good post, but I think you give Ace too much credit. His post really boils down to “Uppity bitches be stealin’ my flava!”
Hugo, I don’t see where anybody is promoting the “myth of male weakness”. He’s sayi ng that men are into sex, and think that hookups are teh kewl, but I dont see anywhere where he discusses mens inability to control their passions.
Joe Smith, how about
“a guy will get so horny he’ll have sex with a woman he’s not even physically attracted to (let alone romantically interested in)”
If this isn’t impying that men tend to be in thrall to their ‘passions’ then I don’t know what is. I think this is a patronising way to describe men, but also in the context of his post, a complete double standard - it’s precisely the behaviour he’s calling women out on, except he doesn’t think that women can be in thrall to their ‘passions’ so the reason they do it is because they secretly crave romance and love.
This is an interesting post, and all the people commenting have made interesting points too. Humbition, you say:
“Of course that means that I believe that, in the case of societies where it is thought that women, or that “good” women, are passive and/or do not normatively want sex, the desire of men too is in a way seriously frustrated in such societies. A lot of the dysfunctional beliefs (some of which are termed “rape myths”) we have about sex come from the dynamics which arise out of those normative beliefs. I really believe they do not arise from men’s desires, but from the crumbs those desires get under “patriarchy,” if you mean by patriarchy a specific historical culture of sexuality that I hope we are emerging from, if slowly. But which some religious types of “purity” education are trying to reinstitute.”
I’ve been thinking about this too, the effect that these normative beliefs have on the way we construct our own narratives of desire, the complex way individuals assimilate their sexual identities…yes, biology has something to do with it, but I agree with Hugo that it is definitely not the whole story. One clue for me IS the way puberty is such an anxious time of ‘wanting to fit in’, the way the policing of such norms gets so vicious because everyone seems to be worried that they are the ‘deviants’ etc. If desire, sexual identity and gender were rigidly natural and determined then I don’t think the teenage years, where we are growing into our adult selves and bodies, would be such a flashpoint. For so many it is a veritable cauldron of worry and approval seeking, self-doubt and questioning etc.
School taught me that adolescence is hard because our bodies need time to adjust to the hormones: whilst I can understand this as a partial explanation, I think it is very inadequate to blame hormones for everything. Hormones might give you the ‘feelings’ but in a lot of ways, teenagers look to society for cues as to what those feelings might mean.
To pick up also on what you said, humbition, regarding the return to ‘purity’ education, I have just posted on this:
http://www.therebelution.com/modestysurvey/
which is a Christian survey posited (it seems) almost entirely on the idea of male weakness. While Christianity is definitely not the only ‘culprit’ in terms of perpetuating this myth, it has got to be one of the main ones. Maybe I should say, rather, some Christians, since I’m not entirely convinced that this is what the Bible teaches. I’m not too up on early Christian history, but I was wondering how this idea got started in the first place. I will have to check Hugo’s archives to see if he has written anything on it.
Actually, Hugo, I have just found this post of yours
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2006/07/13/a-good-bishop-gets-it-dead-wrong-more-on-womens-clothing-male-desire-and-gods-gift-of-self-control/
which covers the same sort of ground, though actually Nancy Leigh DeMoss is quoted endorsing the aims of the Modesty Project by invoking 1 Corintians 6:19 which to me is kind of offensive.
But this is getting OT so I’ll leave you there!
DJW - yeah, it’s one of my favorites. I wish it was something that was taught in sex-ed classes. Actually, I guess my issue is that what they teach in sex-ed should really be part of biology classes, and what we need is relationship-ed, as in, how to navigate all these god damn feelings education. At least, it has been my experience that most people can figure out how to fuck, but not so much how to figure out when/why to fuck in a way that is positive for all the participants. Especially not in our culture.
“If this isn’t impying that men tend to be in thrall to their ‘passions’ then I don’t know what is. I think this is a patronising way to describe men, but also in the context of his post, a complete double standard - it’s precisely the behaviour he’s calling women out on, except he doesn’t think that women can be in thrall to their ‘passions’ so the reason they do it is because they secretly crave romance and love.”
Yes, this is precisely why I say — and I think Hugo agrees, to an extent — that the “male weakness” concept screws over everyone. It’s highly patronizing to men to suggest that they’re lascivious ogres who simply cannot control themselves, and it’s unfair to women to place the whole problem — if you think it’s a problem — of promiscuity at their doorstep, suggesting that they, as women, really only have sex to gain acceptance or because they were pestered into doing so.
Hugo,
I tend to see this differently than you, but I’m wondering if my formulation would be as problematic to you as the one you quote.
I would tend to put it in these terms:
Men and women should be encouraged to care for themselves. That includes protecting oneself from predators. Since there are male predators, women should learn how to avoid being preyed on by them (and vice versa for men.) A society where predators aren’t rewarded will tend to develop less predators–a good thing–but the point isn’t developing less predators, it’s avoiding being preyed on.
James is correct. The First Wave was full of people who came out of the temperance movement and believed that women were naturally pure creatures constantly assailed by men’s hateful libidos. The Second Wave not so much, obviously, but the disagreement between woman as equal to man and woman as pure being exists to this day within the movement.
However, your basic point is valid. Both stereotypes - woman as virgin saint and man as ravening beast - are harmful to everyone.
I find it depressing how many young people of both genders seem to find the idea of women actually wanting sex - for themselves, not to make someone else happy - mystifying. We still have a lot of work to do there.
SamChevre, you write: but the point isn’t developing less predators, it’s avoiding being preyed on.
My brother, that sounds a lot like focusing more on the symptoms than the disease.
A society where predators aren’t rewarded will tend to develop less predators
A society where predation is discouraged and predators are punished will also tend to develop less predators. Probably, I’d wager, even fewer predators than a society where failing to protect oneself sufficiently is phrased as “rewarding” predators.
SamChevre
Surely the whole thing of being a predator means you hunt and your prey is not an easy catch - ergo prey are/is by nature either passive or protective of itself in one way or another. You wouldn’t protect a bunch of sheep from a predatory wolf by telling them to stop being sheep, surely - sorry about the corny wolf/sheep metaphor, I’ve worked hard today!
hhhhmmm - I have experienced men who think they have to have sex frequently no matter what and get themselves into a right tizzy if they dont. I have also felt my own libido raging - and then the swell subsides of its own accord, but I can be very happy without it. Much, much happier than I have been with a man who believes he has to demand sex.
I have also experienced men who are more aware of themselves physiologically and know they dont have to demand or expect sex.
The women I’ve known who think or act like they cant live without sex and demand/expect it are usually trying to escape something - do you think men are the same? maybe they’re unsatisfied in some other way