Nearly three weeks ago, Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti announced a call for submissions for their new anthology project: Yes Means Yes. The blurb:
Imagine a world where women enjoy sex on their own terms and aren’t shamed for it. Imagine a world where men treat their sexual partners as collaborators, not conquests. Imagine a world where rape is rare and swiftly punished.
Welcome to the world of “Yes Means Yes”.
“Yes Means Yes!” will fly in the face of the conventional feminist wisdom that rape has nothing to do with sex. We are looking to collect sharp and insightful essays, from voices both established and new, that demonstrate how empowering female sexual pleasure is the key to dismantling rape culture.
Even in the midst of the holiday frenzy, the by-now customary brouhaha erupted across the feminist and progressive blogosphere. Busy as I was with family and tree obligations, I didn’t catch up on most of the controversy until yesterday. Theriomorph’s post has some of the most cogent criticisms of the YMY project, and includes links to other bloggers who have taken issue it.
The criticisms are many, but seem to fall into a couple of clear categories:
1. Yes Means Yes! defines “rape culture” too narrowly. It takes the “acquaintance rape” scenario and expands it to include every other aspect of sexual assault. How, the critics wonder, can “empowering female sexual pleasure” do anything about the guy with a knife lurking in the bushes, or about the international trafficking of women? Theriomorph got off the best zinger in this regard: An upper middle class 18-30 year old white woman’s screaming orgasm is not going to end rape.
2. The YMY call for submissions is unnecessarily divisive. To some, promising to “fly in the face of conventional feminist wisdom” sounds like a thinly-disguised effort to stir up the old “anti-sex Second Wave vs. pro-sex Third Wave” argument. Given that in 2007, it’s difficult to label anything as “conventional feminist wisdom” (given the breadth and diversity of the movement), it suggests to some that the editors of YMY are erecting a straw-woman to knock down.
Let me say that I do intend to submit an essay for possible inclusion in the Yes Means Yes! anthology. I intend to re-work and expand my “Not just consent, but enthusiasm” post. I’ll focus on how those of us who work with young people can design and implement workshops and programs that focus on the “enthusiasm” and “joy” model. I’ll be writing most of the piece in February, just before the March 1 deadline for submissions. So I’m posting now as a potential contributor, which no doubt partly colors what I have to say.
That said, I have never met Jessica Valenti. We’ve spoken on the phone and exchanged e-mails, but that’s it. (I look forward to meeting her — and a lot of other good folks — at WAM 2008). But I’m convinced that at least some of the outrage directed at Yes Means Yes! is rooted in a knee-jerk antipathy towards her. Indeed, many of the harsh words about the YMY project are directed towards her and not towards her co-editor, Jaclyn Friedman. The resentment Jessica inspires in one corner of the blogosphere is stunning. And while some of the criticisms of her various projects may be fair, it seems clear that much of what is being said about her current anthology is rooted as much in envy and personal animus as it is in legitimate qualms about her approach.
Jessica has, it seems, ceased to be a person and become a symbol. Her writing at Feministing and in her books have given her a high profile, and through no intent or design of her own, she has become representative of what a great many people dislike about a certain kind of contemporary feminism. In the eyes of some of her most bilious critics, Valenti is the embodiment of superficial, orgasm-obsessed, clueless, vapid, white feminist privilege. The lengthy, painful discussions of Full Frontal Feminism that raged in both May and November mixed legitimate criticisms of the popular — and as my students will attest, deeply important and useful — book with ugly personal invective. And the hangover from those arguments seems to have colored the conversation about an anthology that hasn’t even been put together yet.
At the same time, I too have some problems with the call for submissions. Rape, after all, isn’t only a huge problem — it’s a multi-faceted one. Some men rape without being cognizant that they are raping, just as some women have sexual experiences that they have trouble labeling as rape. Other men rape with the clear intent of degrading women. Some women are raped as punishment for the transgressions of their relatives, or raped because they were on the losing side in war. Clearly, “empowering female sexual pleasure” isn’t a viable universal strategy for ending all forms of rape. It’s a very powerful strategy, however, for ending one particularly insidious kind of rape that is widespread in our own culture. The small mistake in the call for submissions lay in not clearly distinguishing which aspect of rape culture the book was intended to address.
And yeah, I’m not crazy about the “fly in the face of conventional feminist wisdom” line either. Sometimes rape is about sex, and sometimes it isn’t, and almost anyone who does anti-violence work knows that. Very few contemporary feminists (I can’t think of any, actually) argue that rape is never, ever about sex. Yes Means Yes! has the potential to make a major contribution to the discussion about consent, pleasure, and agency; it doesn’t have to position itself as radically revisionist in order to do so.
If this anthology emerges as I hope it will (with or without a Hugo Schwyzer contribution within its pages), it’s going to be less a theoretical compilation than a practical tool. I’d love to have a book I could give to high-school and college-aged men and women, a book that helped them navigate through the sea of confusing messages about what sex is and what it isn’t, a book that honestly addressed what it means to say “Yes”, “No”, and “Not Yet.” More importantly, I’m hoping that this book will, in some small way, help inspire (and yes, empower) young men and women to say both “Yes!” and “No!” with greater certainty and conviction. I can’t know yet if the YMY anthology will prove to be such a tool. The project has promise, however, and I hope that the current debate will only serve to generate a greater number of submissions.
Hi Hugo,
Thanks for the link, and this thoughtful post. I agree with much of what you raise here, and as ever, the complexities of the arguments and discomfort are difficult to represent in a short blog post or comment.
Yes, it could. And, I would argue after many years of doing violence prevention work with, among others, precisely the target audience of this book: having that useful, necessary conversation and toolkit also doesn’t have to mean positioning the book as “the key to dismantling rape culture.”
This global language makes invisible the experience of the vast majority of rape survivors on this planet, who never get the opportunity to consent or not. ‘Framing’ the book so globally made the call for submissions a direct insult and a repetition of privileged assumptions which do a lot of damage (and as is always true in the dynamics of oppression and work for social justice, intentions matter less than effects).
The specific arguments about the language of the call are an important reflection of much larger (and, frankly, more important) issues than this particular book. I hope the arguments create a learning opportunity; that people read them, and listen carefully to the criticisms.
I want to say something about what you raise here about the reaction to Jessica.
Yes it is, and it gives me a stomach ache when any woman identifying as a feminist in public is held up for ridicule and spite (which nearly every one of us is). The fact is, though, we can criticize (critically examine with judicious accuracy) someone’s approach without attacking them personally, and if there is a pattern in their work of omitting the experience of less privileged people while still claiming universality for one’s own narrow point of view, it is entirely appropriate to call it. I admire Jessica’s self-evident hard work to build an arena in which young feminists can have some voice, and I hope she’s listening to the criticisms and incorporating the useful feedback into her future efforts.
They are. In this context, I have seen and appreciated Jaclyn Freidman’s very receptive responses to the criticisms in a couple of places. However:
Please be careful, here. I don’t think this was your intent, but the implications of this carry shades of recent ‘you’re all just jealous of my book deal’ as ultimate (inaccurate) defocusing tool, and also shades of standard divide & conquer stuff.
I think we need to be careful not to buy in to talking about feminist efforts and social justice in this way, for many reasons – not least of which is that it is a profound underestimation of both the work in question and the people making the criticisms to approach the discussion as if what was *really* going on was catfights. It’s dismissive, patronizing, presumptuous, and a very effective way to disembowel the real conversation.
The discussion about the language of the call for submissions and the claims made for the book is legitimate & important.
So is the intended work of the book. Appreciated your linked post ‘Not just consent but enthusiasm’ – especially this:
I insist that we are capable, as forebrain-bearing creatures, of having both conversations without conflating them inappropriately for marketing or other purposes – because that conflation also carries huge consequences to ‘the body and the heart and the mind and the soul.’
Hi Theriomorph; thank you for a very perceptive and interesting response to my post. Let me be clear that I think that personal animus towards Jessica and legitimate criticism of her writing are two separate things, and most of her critics manage to avoid the former while offering the latter. But a vocal few have been truly ugly and mean-spirited, and their voices have become intertwined with those who have made some thoughtful suggestions as to how Jessica’s work might be more inclusive.
As for the remark about marketing, I agree. At the same time, feminist missiology has to operate on multiple levels. We need our radicals and our moderates, our popularizers and our theorists. We need to package our most important ideas for the mass market in a way that the mass market will find palatable.
I’d rather 97% of the people get 3% of feminism than have 3% get 97%, if that makes sense.
Yes, it could. And, I would argue after many years of doing violence prevention work with, among others, precisely the target audience of this book: having that useful, necessary conversation and toolkit also doesn’t have to mean positioning the book as “the key to dismantling rape culture.”
So, if the word “the” was changed to “a”, then there wouldn’t be much of a hook for this, it seems. I can agree that “a” was a better word than “the” for that particular phrase. I can see why philosophers get so anal retentive about the exact meaning of words like “the” and “a”.
And for anyone thinking I’m being sarcastic, I’m not. Press releases like the one calling for the submissions of these books are written on the fly and without nearly the thought required of anything that’s going to be endlessly dissected in the blogs.
Hugo, I nearly always enjoy your blog, but this post made me feel like I was digesting fire.
Feminism has a long and unfortunate history of fighting only for the interests of a very small group of women while claiming to be a universal movement. There isn’t really anything wrong with working for (or writing about) relatively privileged Western white women, especially when you are one yourself — that’s a worthy cause. The most serious problem is the lie, the false advertising, because it erases the struggles and needs and efforts of out-group women.
I’m a middle class, white, US-American woman; I face certain set of challenges because of that. But these are not the challenges of every woman, and to pretend they are is no trivial offense in my book.
It’s fine to write a book about feminism that gives an incomplete picture; it’s not okay to bill that book as “full frontal.” It’s awesome to attack a certain dynamic that leads to a certain subset of rapes; it’s not okay to pretend that doing that is going to reduce all kinds of rape, or that that kind of rape is the only kind, that your kind of woman is the only kind out there. It’s not just not okay — it’s racist, classist, heterosexist, ablist and antithetical any feminism I want to be a part of.
When someone does that, she kicks me, for one, out of her movement. And I refuse to be kicked out of this movement. So I need people to kindly cut that out.
I only today have discovered this controversy, and am surprised to find myself agreeing with basically everything everyone is saying on every side. Tbook was way oversold, and tone-deaf me, I just ignored that overselling and thought that what the concept could realistically be was really cool. On the other hand, duh, don’t be so tone-deaf Sara, this kind of overselling is pervasive and dismissive and important to avoid. I guess if I were Friedman or Valenti, I’d want to put out an apology/retraction/rewrite, because the call for submissions would be a lame place for this project to end.
You know, when I read the call for submissions I thought it might stir people up, but I thought the stirring up would be about who got included and who didn’t.
I think the idea is kind of tame, actually. There’s already plenty of feminist erotica, sex-pos feminism, and discussion about consent. I suppose it could be reworked, but I just don’t see it as something we need to be doing as feminists. I see it as a marketing tool to sell more books. I see it as the current hot way to sell feminism to people who don’t want to buy it.
Besides, I am not turning over my work to group of people who don’t ‘get it’ without compensation. I’d rather not be included in a collection of work from Valenti, if you know what I mean. She’s gone out of her way to misinterpret me and ignore the issues I’m passionate about. I mean please, Jessica can’t even write about masturbation on Feministing and we’re supposed to believe she’s going to be a good editor for a book about positive sexuality and consent. Ugh.
The resentment Jessica inspires is not limited to one corner of the blogosphere. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s done great things for feminism. But I think her feminism is far too narrow.
Moreover, I don’t see anything in the press release about compensation. The editors are the ones who are going to profit and they’re not going to do the bulk of the work.
“Press releases like the one calling for the submissions of these books are written on the fly and without nearly the thought required of anything that’s going to be endlessly dissected in the blogs.”
The problem, Amanda, is that the book’s theory was decided before any of the book content was established. It’s like they’re saying here’s our hypothesis, now, my little servants, do my research and make me look good.
It’s a top-down approach. Instead of gathering pieces of what current feminists are writing about and tailoring an anthology based on that, it’s imposing a structure and topic upon writers. Now, that’s all well and good, we can all create whatever books we want to, but it’s going to mean that the resulting book is a VERY limited representation of feminism and feminists, yet it’s most certainly going to be marketed as THE current representation of feminism and feminists.
Hastily written press releases are evidence of a hastily and poorly thought-out project, not an excuse that let’s privilege off the hook.
…rooted as much in envy….
Hugo, I would not have thought you the sort of person who tends to accuse critics (of anybody) of player-hating.
I’ve been thinking about what you said here, Hugo, and grappling with it. What I came up with is long, so I’ll put it at my place on Sunday (posting day for me), but for now: I understand this point of view on the level of theory. Deeply. But what (and who) it omits in practice, I don’t accept. It begs the question: who determines our most important ideas?
Appreciate the conversation.
Hugo, you have spoken and exchanged e-mails with Jessica Valenti, but did you made her aware of your thoughts on the issue? Will she read this post? Imo telling her about your post is important since a) it clearly isn’t rooted in “in envy and personal animus” b) it’s from a future contributor to the anthology (which is a great idea, will you put a final draft of your post here? Your readers would love it) c) Sure she has heard the criticisms, but since she hasn’t done anything about them yet, from what I have understood, and since your post sums most of things so beautifully, I think making her aware of it is necessary.
Imo, it’s a MUST to put in the introduction to the anthology which type/s of rape it tries to diminish (to tell just a few, clearly not international trafficking of women, war victims, the guy who rapes to get revenge or “the guy with a knife lurking in the bushes”, which from what I heard isn’t how most of rapes happen). If Jessica won’t agree to do it (and I can’t see any reason why not), I think it would be a good idea to put a couple of sentences about it in the beginning of your contribution, like “we all know about the wide-spread problem of acquaintance & date rape in our culture…”. This sentence isn’t worded in the best way, but you understand the idea.
Unlike Elaine Vigneault I think plenty of discussion about consent, which already exists, doesn’t make the idea worse. She called it “the current hot way to sell feminism to people who don’t want to buy it”, why is it bad? May be I am slightly naive, but imo if it influences even a minority of people reading it, the project will be worth the work. Only yesterday I read a great post (can’t find a link now) about the need to bring to public important issues and that a good new book will include recommendations of good works already written for further reading. A bit like moving from Full Frontal Feminism to Naomi Wolf and other feminist works. Why can’t this book do that too?
I have also read those 2 interesting posts on the subject:
http://witchywoo.wordpress.com/2007/12/25/witchy-woo-is-breaking-the-rules/#comments
http://jadedhippy.blogspot.com/2007/12/enthusiastic-consent-could-change-our.html
Hugo, the differences between Jessica Valenti and Jaclyn Friedman also manifest in how they’ve responded to criticism. Jessica Valenti has point-blank ignored it. Jaclyn Friedman has respectfully engaged in dialogue and responded to criticism.
Before you appropriate the words of some more of your students, you might want to think about what it means that you’re using a tone argument to trivialise what women of colour — who aren’t under your authority — say. It kinda undermines your credibility.
Moreover, there are bloggers who never said anything about Full Frontal Feminism who have made criticisms of the framing and wording of the Yes Means Yes call for papers. This is some dark divide-and-conquer magic you’re messing with — are you sure you’re capable of handling its consequences?
Out of curiosity, could you let us know who these “most bilious critics” are and what corner of the blogosphere you’re referring to?
Also, I see that you summarize two arguments that are being made about the anthology’s premise, but could you provide more links to where they’re being made?
Hugo, it surprises me that you do not appear to see how the historical exclusion of women of colour might produce a great deal of anger; how the victims of that exclusion might consider an expression of that anger reflected their experience better than a “thoughtful” suggestion. You impress on us the importance of emotion on one hand, while apparently dismissing it on the other. You can’t have it both ways.
Okay, my post with further thoughts is up.
who determines ‘our most important ideas?’ on marketing, propaganda, anti-racism, and conversations about social justice.
I hope this conversation continues beyond the trigger of the call for submissions, because it’s a much larger issue than that.
Fire Fly, while I haven’t been engaging online, I’m most definitely not ignoring the criticisms. When questions and concerns arose about the language of the call for submissions, Jaclyn and I jointly decided that she should be the public spokesperson for the book and would handle the criticisms and talking with folks online. That said, please know that I’m reading and taking to heart all of the criticisms that I’ve seen online and both Jaclyn and I are strategizing ways to include those criticisms and letting them shape a revised call for submissions.
Well, Jessica, you have to admit that it does seem like you’re ignoring criticism when you don’t engage with it. I mean, it goes to accountability when you respond to criticism.
both Jaclyn and I are strategizing ways to include those criticisms and letting them shape a revised call for submissions
This kinda contradicts what Jaclyn said at my blog, which was that the CFP was a done deal, but that critical voices would be incorporated into the anthology itself.
Fire Fly, it’s true when I posted that I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to re-write the call, but it turns out that we are and we have and we’ll be releasing it shortly.