Contradictory Thoughts about Politics and Sex
I hope this isn’t an a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. What I am hoping is that there is some important distinction to be made here that will help me see why it is that at different times and in different contexts I hold contradictory views about politics and sexuality. (Some people may revel in contradictions but I’m a philosopher. I’m not allowed. I took an oath.) Some historical context may be necessary. I became a feminist, and then a lesbian, in the mid-80s. The order there matters since it was feminism that gave teeth to my choice to come out. But that same feminism, and some of those same feminists, were not quite so supportive when some of my choices strayed from the true lesbian-feminist path. I was never such a big fan of the androgynous dyke look. I didn’t like incense or candles and I didn’t think foot massages counted as sex. More explanation: There were at that point many women in my circle, or should I say womyn and cyrcle, who were political lesbians, that is, lesbians, not because they were attracted to women, or wanted to have sex with women, but because it was the right political choice. Hence, actual sex with actual women wasn’t on. Instead, they gave foot massages and so I called them the "foot massage lesbians." This was partly retaliatory since they accused those of us who were attracted to women and wanted to have sex as suffering from internalized oppression. If we flirted we were "replicating the male gaze." (I am not making this up.) Our goal ought to be, they thought, eroticizing equality. Bah. Now I write this with the confidence that comes with age. I was right and they were wrong. But at the time it didn’t feel that way. I questioned the socialization behind many of my desires and earnestly tried to root those that didn’t pass my feminist scruples out of my system. Repeat after me: Butch-femme role models replicate patriarchal systems of gender oppression. Inner doubting voice: But butches are so hot. Repeat after me: BDSM eroticizes women’s oppression. Inner doubting voice: Hmmm, it doesn’t feel like she’s oppressing me. And I’m embarrassed to say that I probably shared the pc view enough to espouse it to others. Mea culpa. I’m sorry. But after a time, my testing of the patience and boundaries of the lesbian community strayed too far. I slept with men, called myself a bisexual, and threw the notion of sexual purity away. I decided that what felt good was good and decided politics could live in one part of my brain and sex the other. And part of me is still a sexual libertarian of this sort of stripe. If it feels good, do it. Whatever goes on between one or two or more consenting adults, is fine by me. It’s not my kink but I respect your kink. Safe, sane, consensual…that’s what matters….yada yada yada. There is no point having your politics interrogate your desires. Life is short. Be brave. Have fun. And now there are range of issues that keep the radical lesbian feminists on one side of the room and me on the other: disagreements about the worth of traditional feminine virtue, about the evils of essentialism, about pornography and sex, and most importantly, about the immutability of sex and about our understandings of transsexuality.
But here’s the other voice. Sometimes I want to say that sexual desire is political, that it’s not merely to be tolerated in private, but rather deserving of being celebrated in public. I want to claim the political importance of sex positive feminism. It’s not just that queer is who I am and there is no point trying to change it. Rather, we need out, loud, and proud parades for a wide range of people who don’t fit into neat and tidy conventional understandings of sexuality. in this mood, I am not just asking that feminism tolerate my tastes in pornography but that feminist theory be informed by them. I don’t want politics to interrogate our sexuality. Instead, I want our sexualities to interrogate politics. So the first view says, sex and politics are best kept apart. The second view says sex first, then politics. While these views don’t fit well together, they are both enemies of the view I tried on briefly in the mid-80s which said that politics ought to restrain our desire. And I’m still curious about the foot massage set. Did they ever manage to move beyond feet?
