Is sexual expression and feminism incompatible?
I’ve had comments up on my blog for less than a month, and for the most part, I haven’t had any encounters with Internet fuckwads. Sure, some people disagree with what I have to say, but there are hardly any personal attacks (a huge improvement from my Sex and the Ivy days). A few recent exceptions have popped up on my semi-nude photo post:
You are such a disgusting whore. Thanks for perpetuating the stereotypes women fight so hard to combat. [link]
I pretty much dismissed this comment immediately since the commenter’s handle was “feminist” and yet she doesn’t make it past one sentence before calling me a “disgusting whore”. Kind of discrediting.
But today, I received this comment:
Why don’t you check out Meghan Asha, Mary Rambin, and Julia Allison’s venture. Those women, without taking off their clothes and posting naked pictures of themselves, are powerful, beautiful, strong women. They are women who do justice to feminism. Not you. Perpetuating the sexual objectification of women isn’t going in the right direction. [link]
To which I responded, “You realize that a large component of the third wave of feminism involved reclaiming women’s sexuality for ourselves, instead of allowing it to be controlled, commodified, or restricted by society, right? Being asexual is not a prerequisite for being a feminist.” She replied:
Yes, yes. We ALL know that you are of the “Sex-Positive” school of feminism. BUT reclaiming one’s own sexuality doesn’t presuppose exhibitionism. IMO, the naked photos you post of yourself may be well-intentioned, but that intent is lost when all you’re doing is “feeding the machine”. Whatev. Good luck with what you are TRYING to do. [link]
I suppose it’s fitting that on Gloria Steinem’s birthday, I’m writing about a recurring disagreement in feminist discourse. Here we go.
What this commenter calls “exhibitionism”, I think is better described as “sexual expression” (because frankly, a photo of me in a bra and panties hardly counts as exhibitionism and is a hell of a lot less personal than some of the things I’ve written). Her complaint is nothing new. Some people — plenty of them women — believe I shouldn’t be as overtly sexual because I may inadvertently “feed the machine” in the process. Well, you know what? Trying to be less sexually expressive in hopes of putting an end to sexual objectification is a lot like promoting censorship in hopes of putting an end to violent pornography. Unless you live in Canada, it ain’t gonna fly, and things didn’t exactly go so peachy there either. Should I be concerned that some chick-hating sex maniac out there might be beating off to my image while thinking, “Oooh, what a hot little Asian slut!”? Maybe. But I could also avoid making the extremely sexist assumption that my male readers are all unenlightened cavemen eager to objectify me.
Even Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, which criticized the rise of raunch culture (i.e. “the machine”) in America, told Susie Bright, “The whole point of sex radicals is to explore new and different and more creative ways to represent— and to have— sex.” And yes, in case you’re wondering, I do consider myself a sex radical. What concerns Levy are not women who are openly and publicly sexually expressive (like the triple threat Bright) but women “who weren’t prioritizing their own desires [and] were only automatically re-enacting what they saw around them.” In other words, intent matters. The major problem with the MacKinnon school of thought is that it ignores individual agency. To MacKinnon and even Steinem, there’s no difference between Tristan Taormino and Hugh Hefner, and that’s frankly just an outdated world view. The proliferation of queer and made-for-women pornography has changed the industry dramatically. Heterosexual men may still be the largest consumers of porn, but there’s a growing space where previously unrepresented groups are exploring their sexuality through both consumption and production of sexually explicit material. To put all porn in the same category is incredibly simplistic. It’s about as simplistic as implying that any provocative photo of a woman is anti-feminist, while ignoring the fact that my photo was posted on a blog owned, written, and read by women (as well as plenty of radical non-female thinkers).
And here’s the bottomline: I don’t think anyone would chastise me if I were a dude who posted a photo of myself in boxers, and yet, sexual objectification of men also happens frequently. Would anyone expect for a guy to censor himself for the benefit of all guys? Don’t think so. So why should I, as a woman who actually is in control of my sexuality, take one for the team and shut the hell up? Isn’t that a double standard? When it comes down to it, I simply don’t believe that the way to achieve gender equality is by restricting those who are ballsy enough to own their sexuality and express it (in whatever medium). My blog and Girls Gone Wild are worlds apart, and at least in the environment where I live and learn, I get neither a gold star nor a trucker hat for flashing my breasts. What I do get is a lot of judgment, slut-shaming, and the assurance that I will never land the corporate gig expected of a Harvard graduate. So why do I feel compelled to blog? Not because I’m some passive victim of the male gaze but because I want people to stop thinking about female sexuality in such a limited manner. And if I can accomplish that, then occasional objectification is a very small price to pay.
