This was actually a comment I made over here, but I liked it, so...
...Yes, there is power in human sexuality period. Yes, women do have a power in their sexuality. Which is why, really, female sexuality, especially in its most potent or blatant forms is demonized. Women are, historically and what not, supposed to be the gatekeepers of morality. Men, apparently, cannot be trusted to think with both heads at the same time, and thus, it is the woman’s job to keep both herself and men on their “good” (aka non-sexual) behavior. There are many examples of this, from the age old virgin-whore dichotomy, which plays out endlessly in cheers for the good girl and slut shaming in media and in life, right on down to a Bill Cosby stand up routine where he, when speaking about sex education, tells his son to use a condom yet tells his daughter that it is her job to be the goalie and block the puck. Women throughout history, and still are, given the duty to be the gatekeepers of human morality, and when they don’t, while they are shamed for it, there is credence to the theory that their sexuality, in and of itself, is power…but they are punished for it. And society enforces this in a variety of ways:
Movies- the good girl makes it out okay, often with a happy ending. “The whore with a heart of gold” –who really is just a misguided good girl who needs a man to save her from herself- ala “Pretty Woman”- usually lives through the end credits, often happily as well…but the temptress, a woman who embraces her sexual power and uses it for her own means and in a variety of ways…well, she’s the first to get horribly killed.
Judeo-Christian religions- Good girls and redeemed bad girls (Mary, Mary Magdalene,) are held up as icons of woman, bad girls (Eve, Lilith)…not so.
Current views in society, which allow, even celebrate promiscuous males (stud, player) and shame females for the same behavior (slut, ho). Girls are still raised to be the gatekeepers, to be “good girls”, that their sexuality is often the most personal, private, and valuable thing they possess, so they must treat it with “respect” and only “share it” with someone special when they are “in love”…where as, boys will be boys…girls are taught to save their virginity, boys are mocked if theirs is intact past 16.
And why, perhaps, do you think the Patriarchy has gone to such great lengths to keep women the guardians of morality and shame those women who embrace their sexuality, flaunt it, display it, share it with many, sell it, advertise it, have fun with it? Especially if they do so of their own volition? Because they fear it. It’s fine when they control it, but out of their hands? It is a big X in a very long mathematical equation of power in gender relations. It also forces a great deal of men’s sexual responsibility back where it belongs-which is on the men. And they do not like that idea too much. That is why men can sleep around, are even expected to do so, and not only keep their jobs, but get promoted and have the nickname of “stud” around the water cooler and women are branded, punished, and shamed for the exact same behavior.
Men would not spend so much time trying to regulate female sexuality and the ideals there of and punish women who embrace it if they did not fear its power…especially if that power falls out of their purview.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
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Well, not all cultures controlled it. Those that did became orderly industrialized ones like the US. Those that didn't became impoverished STD and feral bastard-ridden like Africa, etc.
Now, there are subcultures in the US where women are loose and fancy-free. They're called "ghettoes" and are full of baby-makin' hoes, welfare, bastard anklebiters and crime. And as the mainstream follows this route...we are getting the very same results as well...
Anyhow, feminists rebelling against the "patriarchy" remind me of 5-yo's rebelling against paternalism. Only later in life do they realize how rules were meant for their own good, not to "oppress" them...
aww, racism, sexism, and "PLEASE LISTEN TO ME and do as you're told" all in ONE MRA post! Wow!
Cause we all just need you menz to tell us what to do and all...not.
What about the part about men taking responsibility for their own sexual behavior? Takes two people to make babies and all...
Or is that JUST to complicated for ya?
"Men would not spend so much time trying to regulate female sexuality and the ideals there of and punish women who embrace it if they did not fear its power…"
right on.
"Those that didn't became impoverished STD and feral bastard-ridden like Africa, etc.".
I can't explain to you how grossly wrong that is, and on how many levels, and that one of those levels is grammar/syntax.
I prefer to believe that somewhere in cyberspace, an infinite number of monkeys are hooked up to an infinite number of keyboards, and your comment came through as one of the nearly comprehensible ones.
Alright. So what IS its power?
mandos: ah, you see, i think that varies a great deal from woman to woman.
Yeah.
It was these working prostitutes who schooled me to things that every wife and every husband should know. Later on, it was chiefly the women who weren't prostitutes who taught me to be very distrustful of most women; there seemed to be a higher of code of ethics and sisterhood among those prostitutes than among the numerous ladies of the church...
Then let me rephrase it. What is there in it that it is categorically feared?
mandos:
well, a few potental answers there...
one, that whole child birth thing -which men can't do...
two, male sexuality and female sexuality are different, and people often fear the unknown...
three, if "unregulated", it is one less thing which can be used to control women, thus a loss of male power..always scary to the menz...
four, the thought that maybe, just maybe, left to our own devices, us women folk can be just as randy, raunchy, and physical as the fellas (how unladylike!)
One, the elephant in the room that is always saved for later.
Two, OK, really? In what way can you generalize this? In what way is male and female sexuality different that is not also true of any two individuals?
Three, are you not originally arguing that male power is expressed by controlling female sexuality? So it is controlling it in order to maintain male power to control it...?
Four seems derivative on the previous three.
mandos:
One, the elephant in the room that is always saved for later.
yeah, but I am not subtle and the elephant is RIGHT there.
Two, OK, really? In what way can you generalize this? In what way is male and female sexuality different that is not also true of any two individuals?
Any two individuals DO have differences, absolutely, but there are things like hormones, periods, so on so forth that make male/female sexuality a WEE bit different due to biology.
Three, are you not originally arguing that male power is expressed by controlling female sexuality? So it is controlling it in order to maintain male power to control it...?
Controlling it is male power. Loosing that control would be a loss of male power, and a lot of men find the loss of power something to fear.
Four seems derivative on the previous three.
Oh? Let's put it this way, men LIKE the idea of women being the moral guardians. I don't think any of us asked for the job. Many women, were it NOT for the shame and punishment attached to a woman being a sexual creature would probably be A LOT more sexual...and then who would look after male morality? They'd have to do it. They would have to be responsbile for their own business, with NO one else to blame. I think a lot of men fear that...need proof? See MRA comment at the top of the thread, and the way many men blame women for "getting themselves raped, getting themselves knocked up" when we know, in case one, it is not the womans fault, and in case two, it takes two...
Controlling it is male power. Loosing that control would be a loss of male power, and a lot of men find the loss of power something to fear.
This still seems kind of circular. Power for what? Do you mean to say that female sexuality is controlled for its own sake?
Mandos:
I am saying men attempt to control female sexuality in order to have power over females. They may think it is "for the females own good", but it is just another way for men to attempt to exert (and achieve) control and power over women.
While I agree with you the whole way through, there is still two points that i believe need to be made in this regard.
1. The Patriarchy (I still prefer to call this "The father") tells her girl to put on some clothes because he loves her, and do not want her to get raped. In eastern countries your assertion may be the truth, but it's most certainly not in the western.
2. While this is debatable, I think the cat is already out of the bag. You don't have to look very far to see young women in almost no clothes hanging out on the street.
When that's said, I can only talk biological urges from my own perspective.
When I personally feel like a woman is trying to gain power over me by using sex, I make a great point out of not taking the bait. But if she's really persistant, it can still be a challenge - yet it is possible at least to me.
I think a lot of men over/under-estimate themselves in this regard. Especially since most men would be too damn afraid to do anything if a naked girl knocked on their door at night, and threw herself in their arms.
And here is where i must address the men: The whole point about some men mistaking the signals is'nt going to work anymore, unless the man is damned drunk.
Furthermore, I believe a real man can accept his biological urges but still act in a contrary manner. But there IS exceptions, just like there's exceptions in all cases. And that's the risk most fathers do not want to run.
I think I want to bring your attention to a what i found to be a funny controversy on the whole sex-worker subject.
A few months ago some male magazines in my homecountry held some competitions, where the winner could win half an hour of anal sex with a prostitute. The headline was "Win a whore!", directly translated.
This stirred up the temper of a lot of anti-pornography feminists in the media, that demanded the contest stopped immediatly, and expressed their concerns about these prostitutes. They argued how evil it was to hold this sort of competition, and made the prostitutes out to be victims of males egoistical tendencies in the media.
The next day, the said prostitutes answered back however. What they basically said was: "Shut the fuck up! We are not victims, we pay our taxes, and we accepted this offer freely because we knew that it had good commercial value!".
I think there is a stupid tendency in our society to think of sex-workers as stupid little girls that are incapable of taking their own responsibilities, and I find this to be very wrong.
So in a lot of ways, there is a lot of misconceptions regarding this line of work, that I think everyon should think about. It's a subject that should be seen from all possible angles - and not this radical old sixties style view that it is "Objectification of women".
There is a lot more to it than just that.
Alpha has it backwards - the societies that prosper are the ones where female sexuality is not chained out of fear, but allowed to express itself freely - probably more correlation that causation, though. Those tend to be the freest societies with the most rights for all, open media, democratic governments, regulated but fairly loose capitalism. Where the best ideas and the most profitable ideas can percolate to the top enough of the time to beat out other societies that stifle this.
Let's put it this way, men LIKE the idea of women being the moral guardians.
Like men LIKE the idea of women being the emotional ones so they don't have to. One less thing to have to worry about; if you can't figure out what went wrong, obviously the woman wasn't doing her job! Like accepting your clothes will be clean, food will be available, and if you have children they will be quiet and well behaved, women as a moral guardian is one of the male privileges I personally wish to overturn.
1. The Patriarchy (I still prefer to call this "The father") tells her girl to put on some clothes because he loves her, and do not want her to get raped. In eastern countries your assertion may be the truth, but it's most certainly not in the western.
1) So mothers never tell people to put on clothes?
2) Rape is the ONLY reason you can think of for a parent to tell a child to put on clothing?
3) So that means any child who removes their clothing and runs around is asking for/should be raped?
4) So, rape just happens to happen when a woman has no clothes on? When I'm in the shower, I may just happen to get raped because I'm naked? No one else involved?
5) No one who is wearing clothing has ever been raped? So the 80 year old grandmothers in their beds wearing nightclothes, what happened wasn't rape because they're wearing clothing? The teenage girl in jeans and a sweater - what happened wasn't rape because she was wearing clothing?
6) Your words seem to imply males have some sort of imperative to rape any naked person they see. Could you please expand on the motivations for this and explain how this ISN'T insulting to men?
*blinks at it* oh my wordies. Ren, I think you may just about have the complete set now...
Deoridhe:
I only told why fathers do this. I will answer your questions anyway.
1: They do.
2: Nope. It may be cold outside too.
3: Nope. Do you think so?
4: Definetly. In fact your male cat may jump up and rape you.
5: If you believe that to be the case, then no problem.
6: I don't.
I'm not avoiding conflict here, in fact I would love to have a debate with you. But I'm neither a father, nor do I have a solid oppinion on this subject - and I find your attacks inane and unjust.
I might as well insinuate that you are a sick woman that hates men, if you insist on going to such extremes.
The best,
- Martin.
say, Martin? how do you say, "play Melancholy Baby" in Danish?
belledame222:
It would be a rather weird sentence to use, so I need the context.
Still, it is: "Spil melankoli baby".
What do you want it for anyway?
Confused,
- Martin.
Mandos: "Alright. So what IS its power?"
I don't think female sexuality is a "power" above and beyond male sexuality. Both have power, for whatever gender is attracted to a particular sexuality.
In our society, women's sexuality is fetishized more than men's. Women are reduced, to a larger degree, to body parts. And so women's sexuality is considered more powerful, but only because of conditioning, IMO. I think men's sexuality can be just as powerful; however, men are conditioned to view women's bodies as a prize to be won, and to see themselves as a sum of other things like economic power, physical strength, superior wisdom, etc.
I'm not avoiding conflict here, in fact I would love to have a debate with you. But I'm neither a father, nor do I have a solid oppinion on this subject - and I find your attacks inane and unjust.
...
Attacks?
Your response to a thread on the power of female sexuality was that fathers tell their daughters to wear clothing so that they don't get raped. I asked question to clarify your position, and you answered them flippantly. Then you characterize quesitons as attacks.
I think your actions here speak for themselves.
"...the societies that prosper are the ones where female sexuality is not chained out of fear, but allowed to express itself freely - probably more correlation that causation, though. Those tend to be the freest societies with the most rights for all, open media, democratic governments, regulated but fairly loose capitalism."
Such as Sweden. Man, I love Sweden.
Bloody excellent!!! :)
But, what about the media pretty much promoting one idea of (female) sexuality? I guess that's one method of controlling female sexuality, by directing it all into one place, and trying to make it as homogenous as possible.
Deoridhe:
The questions you asked were mocking, and full of hate.
I merely stated how things are.
If you want to ask questions, ask them in a real manner, and don't insinuate bullshit.
I respect women, but I don't respect anyone that treats me like I'm a narrowminded idiot.
If you ask honestly, I will answer honestly. But be reasonable.
- Martin.
where the winner could win half an hour of anal sex with a prostitute. The headline was "Win a whore!", directly translated.
What they basically said was: "Shut the fuck up! We are not victims, we pay our taxes, and we accepted this offer freely because we knew that it had good commercial value!".
It's so funny how feminists paint the patriarchy as some oppressive paternalists...yet they are the very same thing!
Denmark, eh? Wow. Well, I have been abroad and American guys have NO F'N IDEA what they're missing out there! Gorgeous women who LOVE men! As opposed to bitter, obese ones who hate men here (which you are getting just a slight taste of right now, Martin)!
This does bring up the interesting question of "what is power", though.
At it's most basic, imo, power is the ability to a) get what you want and b) make other people do things you want them too.
One of the models of Western society as I've analysed it is that overall men manage a and b, get credit for it, and are named as powerful. Be the power temporal, spiritual, etc..., overall the power that men historically have is direct.
Overall, from what I've seen, women manage a and b, the credit either goes to a male figure for "giving" a and b to them or the woman is labelled as "evil" in some manner, and the woman are named as either manipulative or bitches (used pejoratively). Overall, the approved power women have had is indirect and when they have direct power they are either minimized or demonized.
Conclusive, experimental studies have shown that when men and woman are given equal amounts of dialogue in a scene, the audience (male AND female) overwhelmingly has the perception that women are dominating the conversation. My experience has been that behavior valued in men, if expressed identically in a woman, is received very differently by both men and women. This is an indication of a profound disconnect between women and both people's opinion of them and their ability to effectively have direct power.
To take this beyond white men and women, while I haven't seen experiments which bring in skin color and ethnicity variables, I'm willing to generalize the initial study to say there likely is. As it stands, having several white males, a white female, a black male, a hispanic male, and an asian male is seen as "diversity".
Byrd: Um, let's see...I am neither obese, nor a man hater...neither is Trinity, nor D, Octo, or Belle. DBB and Mandos, I do beleive, are both male. Care to try again?
Ren - I said a slight taste.
There is undoubtedly an undercurrent of misandrist hostility that flows inside all your veins. Even Martin already noticed this:
I find your attacks inane and unjust
You may not as much since it's hard to notice something you've been immersed in for so long. To a foreigner outside the forest though - it's plain as day.
One that is noticeably absent overseas. Honestly, it's really shocking and refreshing to just go out and have girls be very friendly and talkative to you in pubs overseas without the defensiveness, cliquishness or chips on their shoulders found here. This is the honest truth and difference and I swear by it.
byrdeye,
Hehe, thanks man.
Thread lightly inhere, and don't tell people in the states. I'd rather keep the danish women myself!
I must say that many of the women I have met through this blog has been harsh on the edges, but pretty clever when I dug a little deeper.
Now blog on. You're 4 days behind.
- Martin.
Byrd: I'm a misanthrope. And I've been overseas.
byrdeye,
I know there's a lot of misandry.
I've managed to distance myself from this. I understand why any man would be angry, and I understand why women would be angry too.
So keep raging, I think it's a great read. I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon though.
However, I will not refrain from making quotes:
“The lady doth protest too much, me thinks”
- William Shakespeare
:)
Rock on,
- Martin
byrd, martin...get a room. now, if you have something ON TOPIC to say, great....otherwise...
Ren,
Easy, easy. I will.
“When an argument flares up, the wise man quenches it with silence”
- Martin.
Martin:
I merely stated how things are.
Ah, since you're so reality based, please provide your evidence for your initial claim, then.
In case you've forgotten, I'll reproduce it below.
Martin:
1. The Patriarchy (I still prefer to call this "The father") tells her girl to put on some clothes because he loves her, and do not want her to get raped. In eastern countries your assertion may be the truth, but it's most certainly not in the western.
Please account for the unspoken major axioms for your two syllogisms as well.
Ren: Can't put me on your list; I'm obese. Not a man-hater, though. Or a woman hater. Or a trans-hater. Or an any-category-in-general-hater. But I am fat.
I'm also a descendent of Danes, ironically enough. *snicker*
Deoridhe,
Okay, you asked for this.
I'm pissed off now. How the hell can you think that a father tells his daughter such things for any other reason than love?
Do you honestly think that he does it because he 'wants to assert power' over her?
Do you regard fathers as a reincarnation of darth vader?
And yes, I'm angry. And with good fucking reason.
- Martin.
Martin:
I'm pissed off now. How the hell can you think that a father tells his daughter such things for any other reason than love?
Do you honestly think that he does it because he 'wants to assert power' over her?
It was the rape part I was questioning, though I suppose I can understand you missing that since every single one of my initial questions for you had to do with rape and not love, so obviously I was talking about love.
I do question a father telling his daughter that if she is unclothed she will be raped, though. First of all, that makes bathing very difficult; you never know when you'll be washing your hair and suddenly - BAM, raped. Second of all, that implies her state of dress somehow causes her to be raped without the intervention of any other human being; "wear clothing or you'll get raped" is oddly unspecific about, you know, WHO is doing the raping. I'm also not a huge fan of telling people who were raped that if they had only worn clothing (even if they were wearing clothing when they were raped) they wouldn't have been.
And parents damn well BETTER assert their power over their children! That's what parenting is. Parenting is getting other people (in this case children) to do what you want them to, whether it's brushing their teeth or studying for classes. Sometimes this is taken to extremes we label "abusive". I would count teaching daughters that they control whether or not men will chose to rape them via their state of undress to be psychological abuse, personally.
You might want to step away from the computer and calm down, though. It looks like you're getting too emotional to read what I'm typing, and that makes discussion impossible.
I'm pissed off now. How the hell can you think that a father tells his daughter such things for any other reason than love?
And yes, I'm angry. And with good fucking reason.
A: All men are evil and Darth Vader incarnate, yes. Like I said, these women claim they don't hate men...but every other breath reveals otherwise.
When you are confronted by this hostile hate 24/7, you are forced to either man up and speak out for truth & justice...or cower down and show acceptance with silence.
You are soooo lucky you live in Denmark, my friend...oh so very lucky. Imagine if you had to deal with women like this in real life 24/7? Every minute issue gets overthought until pseudointellectual mental-masturbatory orgasm and blame spun onto men.
Women can't just enjoy the simple comfort and kindness of men - but must guilt-trip them into submission. So yes, you would be angry with good fucking reason like the rest of us! Count your lucky stars you don't live here!
Deoridhe,
It's okay.
Obviously a parent should'nt tell this to a young 5-year old girl. That would be outright ridiculous.
I've heard of the most evil parenting methods, especially a couple that insisted on telling their small children that if they did'nt brush their teeth every day, there would come spiders crawling out of them!
Obviously, this made these youngsters fucking scared of spiders. This counts for rapists too. There is a lot of people out there that expect them to wait on every streetcorner, when in reality it happens very rarely.
So yeah, I agree very much. But what you tell a rape-victim is very much dependent on the type of rape that occured, that is what I would do anyway.
Last of all: Shut the fuck up about my emotions. I can handle them fine by myself thank you.
Like I said, these women claim they don't hate men...but every other breath reveals otherwise.
Oh, don't worry, it's not men, Byrd. It's just you.
byrdeye,
This is an advice.
I know you are angry, and I can honestly see why. But hate brings us nowhere, reason is the only thing that works.
I know you were told to suppress your anger through your whole life - and finally being able to express it is seriously heaven for a while.
But we have to remain objective, or we get nowhere. And yes, I'm happy I live in Denmark. :)
No hard feelings dude,
- Martin
Okay, listen, here's the deal...
Cut this shit, okay? SOME MEN say things out of love. SOME say it for control. HOWEVER, if SOME MEN would take some freakin' responsibility and NOT rape women or assume that any and every woman dressed a certain way or whom was sexually inclinded wanted to fuck THEM, then NONE of this would be an issue now, would it???
For fuck sake how HARD is that to grasp???
Martin:
Last of all: Shut the fuck up about my emotions. I can handle them fine by myself thank you.
You brought them up. *shrugs*
Now that you've finished derailing for your entertaining strawman, care to return to supporting your syllogisms? I have to admit my surprise at how reluctant you are to do this, given you also state: "I merely stated how things are."
Renegade Evolution,
Have I said fucking otherwise?
I agree with you Ren. But that is not the solution, that is only the problem!
I think we should leave Ren alone for now, I would be pissed off too if people had conversations on my blog without approval, and I had to accept each and every comment.
If anyone wants to continue this discussion, then reply on my "Depression" blog. And lets make this the last post in here.
No hard feelings, and sorry Ren,
- Martin.
I am posting to get the theoretical last word because I am SEVEN.
*ninja*
You know, I was trying to be charitable and decide it might be a language or culture thing, but...not happening, I'm afraid.
"*blinks at it* oh my wordies. Ren, I think you may just about have the complete set now..."
indeed.
I think a lot of these readers would enjoy this article on Deena Metzger and Revamping the World at
http://www.dinahproject.com/articles_view_details.asp?id=98
thanks for that link.
yeah--the work i've been doing is pretty much about that, sexuality as spirituality.
i am a tad leery of--well, i should really check out more of her work.
just, sometimes, in the let's call it New Age/Pagan/"alternative spirituality" communities, there can be a tendency toward what's disparagingly called "white light Nazis."
combining sexuality with spirituality at all tends to counter that tendency somewhat, you'd think, but--
i do see sometimes people still carefully making the distinction between this spiritual, uplifting, yadda sexuality which is good; and the more down and dirty i-just-wanna-fuck stuff still doesn't really get off the stigmatization hook so much. i think we need both, really. maybe not each of us individually, but--i'd like it all on the table.
One of the other nasty shadows of the neopagan movement is racism. A lot of neopagan stuff draws heavily from reinterpretations of Indian spirituality and from reinterpretations of First Nation's spirituality from an anthro POV. The misuse of the term "Shaman," for example, or the glossing over of the very true and real difficulties that existing First Nations have while selling a 75$ authentic peace pipe. There's also a lot of abuse dressed up as therapy and sold for 5$ a pop to any scared person who comes along.
That being said, there's also a huge and vibrant community that, in my case at least, spans continents.
It's a real mixed bag, and a lot of the issues with money and power that come up in feminism I see reflected in neo-paganism, probably at least in part because a healthy subset of pagans consider themselves feminist and several pagan movements are outright feminist movements with a gloss of religion.
I have to say, my relationship with and opinion of power has been far more influenced by my religious leanings (Asatru) than by my political and social affiliations (liberal, feminist, etc...), at least in part because the runes and myths both deal with the issue of power fairly explicitly, whereas I've found most of my feminist, pagan, and liberal communities lack much open discourse, much less a framework within which to frame and address needs and costs.
Sex is also explicitly dealt with, from the marriages of convenience or purpose, to issues of loss. Sadly, though, we're missing a lot of the myths that might help flesh this out even further. I'm personally not comfortable with much exclusitory re: sex, at least in terms of individual taste, and I think the people I've met through neopaganism has extended that outward quite a bit.
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