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[...] I was moved to write about this partly by Bitch | Lab’s post about classist implications of the insult “slut;” but it’s also just been hanging out in my head for a little over a year now. [...]
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Interesting. I admit I knee-jerked on reading that post out of context; I was making all sorts of assumptions based on certain sorts of writers I’d been reading on that subject of late.
Yeah, it’s definitely “crossing the line,” isn’t it. And the anger from other women at the “slut”–well, the anger in the name of feminism, as opposed to “siren stealing all the men”–yeah, I think there’s something to that. Here we are trying to do all this work and then you go and sell out. Again, note, the slut in question is denied agency.
per Paris Hilton: I can only speak for myself here, but my assessment of the woman’s mental capacities has nothing to do with her porn tapes. just so fuckin’ tired of vapid socialite quasi-celebrities.
…is that still going around at all, the whole lesbian-as-a-political-statement-as-opposed-to-actually-mostly-just-wa nting-to-fuck-other-women?
So much to comment on….
First..I now admit that I did do a bit of a knee-jerk response to MsKate’s statement…I let waaaay too much into it without the proper ironic context…and I said as much in the thread.
Second…absolutely point-on with the analysis on the thinly-veiled classist assumptions that underlie “slut baiting” amongst “radical feminists”. The only thing that I would add is that it seems to me that most of that class bias is directed towards as much the overly wealthy and especially privileged woman who can afford to escape the mores and sexual boundaries established within such a community, as it is towards the poorer, more working class communities. To that extent, it seems to be more of a reflection of “middle-class” restrictive sexual mores being superimposed upon a supposed moral superiority of such feminists over both the “elite” and the “rabble”.
As for the notion of “sluts who give it away for free at the expense of other women who work hard to retain sex as a bartering tool”…that is, in my view, the absolute fundamental foundation of all the anger towards overtly sexual women. The dominant media female culture — from Essence to Ms. to elle to Glamour and all inbetween — is filled with reams and reams of columns waxing excessively on the art of using sex as a bargining chip for everything from marriage and financial security to the next promotion to merely finding “the perfect mate”…and women who reject this game and simply enjoy sex just for the pleasure of it are depicted in no uncertain terms. It’s hardly surprising that even an oppositional movement like feminism would incorporate such an hierarchy into their thinking…even as they promote themselves as empowering all women. There’s also a distinct air of the capitalist notion of surplus value, too…as if a woman who used sex as a bargining chip for other needs would have a higher social or even economic value.
Also….in a majoritarian conservative society such as ours are, it is so much easier for a putatively radical movement to gain legitimacy by adopting at least one basic conservative belief system. For otherwise putative Leftists and liberals, “slut-baiting” and opposition to casual sex and “free love” is their entry way into the mainstream establishment..in the same way as populist baiting against “gang-bangers” and “illegal aliens” is used commonly by intellectuals to ingrate themselves within the overall Rightist climate. Since the targets of their scapegoating are already marked as beyond the pale, and denied the right to speak for themselves, it makes for easy pickings, and is useful for otherwise radical analysis to gain strongholds in the otherwise restricted political spectrum.
In short, Ariel Levy’s simply offering a new version of the same old tired mantra for reviving her brand of feminism: When in trouble, blame the sluts. Not too surprising, unfortunately, that it usually succeeds.
Anthony
BTW…one of the groupies from HustlingtheLeft.com got loose in that Pandagon thread right after my apology post and attempted to smack me down as an MRA thinkalike for defending Nina Hartley as a femnist..and he pulls no punches. Here’s his last paragraph:
Of course, my “stupidity” remark was directed at the MRAs (Men’s Rights Advocates), not toward such “real feminists”, and Susie Bright and Aura Bogado has nothing to do with my defending Mary Carey and other “sluts”….but why let the facts get in the way of a good smackdown. Ahhh, whatever, Jimmy….to each his own.
Anthony
@ Anthony
as for the crap that went on at Pandagon… well, first, thanks for being the coolest person. There aren’t a lot of people who so readily and cheerfully concede when they’ve misread something. You’re pretty remarkable in that regard. I think it was an easy mistake to make though, frankly, and I thought the people who called you stupid were pretty rude — but hey! I like Amanda’s policy of everyone carrying a six-shooter, myself. :)
As for Jimmy Ho: he appears to be an asshat.
You know what I really dislike? When men traffic in women’s issues in their little wars against other men — which is what he’s doing. He’d prefer to slander a feminist woman in order to get in a dig at you and to discredit sex-positive feminist thought and theory (theory here in the form of the Queer Studies and Theory that emerged in the wake of Rubin’s seminal article “Thinking Sex.”) This is a man who, as far as i’m concerned, is an enemy of feminist thought because he’s far too interested in tearing down a faction of feminist thought rather than engaging in constructive criticisms.
Unfortunately, all he did was poison the wells of discourse through innuendo (”as far as I know….” he says. What horseshit. Go find out for sure, fuckwad, or don’t say it at all.)
On the sexpos thing, though, I was thinking today that I rilly rilly need to sit down and see if I can’t work up an outline and pitch to get some money to write something on sex positive feminism as a book. I’ve had a few insights lately that I’d like to have time to weave into a book on the topic that would tie it all together — at least for alittle while — since naturally we’d unravel it all like Penelope unraveling Odysseus’s shroud.
More on that later.
Oh, Miz Bitch…Jimmy’s just par for the course..he’s just mad that I occasionally call his side out on their BS. What really fascinates me, though is that they are so obscessed with whacking folks like Susie Bright as enemies of feminism (Susie’s feminist history notwithstanding) for the crime of merely posting an interview in that magazine…and the interview wasn’t even that flattering to Flynt to begin with, either. Mostly, it’s really old wounds from most of the cultural feminist/radicallesbian wing from Susie’s days as founder/editor of the lesbian pro-sex mag On Our Backs…her viewpoints are considered a real threat to their hegemony, and rhetorically linking her with Larry Flynt serves to rationalize their vendettas and soothe their myopias.
Yeah, it’s real funny (strange mostly, but a bit hilarious, too) seeing men using antiporn/cultural feminist rhetoric to bash other feminists as a means of proving their “feminist” credentials. Kinda similar to White men playing the “mea culpa” card trying to “Mau Mau” themselves to please Black Nationalists….most likely, though, it’s just a outside attempt to sound revolutionary without changing a damn thing..to comfort one’s self about one’s privilege without changing a thing about that privilege.
If I had a million dollars, Miz Bitch, I’d gladly finance the making of that book…as long as I get an essay in there. I have a few ideas about the relationship of sex positivity and the Left that have been brewing in my brain that you could use. But as you said, that is for another time.
Anthony
BTW…here are some links for those of you who want to witness some of Bogado’s madness:
Aura Bogado: Hustling the Left (Her original ZNet essay smacking Susie Bright and others as traitors and “White elitists” for “defending” HUSTLER….includes some nice charges of not only racism and extreme misogyny thrown at Larry Flynt, but a bit of pedophilia as well)
A Response to Bogado (Susie Bright’s response to Bogado’s original article)
Reply to Susie Bright (Bogado’s rebuttal to Susie)
I am in the process of searching for an email response I typed to ZNet in response to Bogado’s comments that never got published..as soon as I find it, I will post it to either the SmackChron blog or to the Red Garter Club website..and to you through a link.
Anthony
OK…here is that email that I sent ZNet last year:
[...] I was moved to write about this partly by Bitch | Lab’s post about classist implications of the insult “slut;” but it’s also just been hanging out in my head for a little over a year now. [...]
All well put, but oddly orthogonal to my own view of sexual politics…. You are considering sexual power solely as a matter of “supply and demand”, essentially as the stock-in-trade of the oldest profession. But consider sexuality as an aspect of dominance, or pecking order, in its own right. Sex is well known as a means of power exchange I suspect that the effects of female sexual display, and of establishing initiative in sexual relations, represent a certain natural counterweight to the physical dominance of males in the broad scheme.
This provides an interesting connection between puritanism and patriarchy — that is, by enforcing modesty and chastity, the puritans are establishing control over this “female power”, which threatens their social and self-control, competes with their control over subordinates, and so on. (Note that in this evo-psych context, homosexuality “as such” is pretty much irrelevant.)
Looking back to the intrafemale tensions you were discussing, the “sluts” are wielding their sexual power for their own benefit, but in the process, they’re screwing up the economic-style arrangements of those women who are still subject to suppression. Thus, they naturally get disdained as “cheaters” against the latter system, specifically by those women who have the most investment in that system.
Whoops, looking back I see I missed some points on your writing, in that you do indeed question the “sexual economy” paradigm. Just skip on to the evo-psych stuff. ;-)
Oh yeah, and I agree with Belledame about Paris Hilton. She embodies that phrase, “better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak up and remove all doubt”.