"... out of this predicament, but feminism, Srinivasan* believes, bears some blame for getting us into it in the first place. Female desire isn’t seen as an appropriate subject for feminist critique. Sex positivity rules the day: whatever a woman claims she wants is, by definition, a good thing, an expression of female agency, so long as it takes place within the bounds of consent. 'Sex is no longer morally problematic or unproblematic,' Srinivasan writes. 'It is instead merely wanted or unwanted.'... Sex is a useful thing to have on your side, but, Srinivasan believes, it comes at a cost. 'The important thing now, it is broadly thought, is to take women at their word,' she writes. 'If a woman says she enjoys working in porn, or being paid to have sex with men, or engaging in rape fantasies, or wearing stilettos—and even that she doesn’t just enjoy these things but finds them emancipatory, part of her feminist praxis—then we are required, many feminists think, to trust her.' She herself doesn’t seem to think so—her tone here is laced with skepticism, even sarcasm—but she stops short of saying that directly."
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* Srinivasan is Amia Srinivasan, an Oxford philosophy professor whose book of essays is called
"The Right to Sex."
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20 comments:
Or you could just get married.
Does nature enter at all into the intellectual discussion by feminists on feminism or sex?
Just wondering how one intellectually dissects and deconstructs actual chemistry between two people. Or why they would have to?
'The important thing now, it is broadly thought, is to take women at their word,'
she writes. 'If a woman says she enjoys...
Of course, The Problem IS: a Woman's word can Retroactively Change...Then where are we?
Traci Lords said 'it was All Her Idea', and she Loved it...
Until she said that she was forced, and she hated it
You might be interested in her discussion with Tyler Cowen recently...
https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/amia-srinivasan/
I found her insufferable and annoying.
first of all - how can any desire be neutral ?
desire is the initial move against neutrality.
unless you confound psychology and morality as a philosopher
I enjoyed her conversation with Tyler Cowen. He asked a lot of very good questions. Time well spent, as is usual with Cowen's interviews.
I smiled when I realized I had listened to Amia and Balaji in the same week. It's a Srinivasan wave!
If Women have agency, then they share responsibility for their predickamint. For some of the feminist influencers, that's going to be tough to swallow.
I'm pretty sure that I'm glad that I didn't grok any of that.
and even that she doesn’t just enjoy these things but finds them emancipatory, part of her feminist praxis—then we are required, many feminists think, to trust her.
It's an old problem. How do you solve a problem like Maria? I feel a song coming on...
Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay and listen to all you say?
How do you keep a wave upon the sand?
Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam, in your hand?
If only there were some way to put an end to human freedom! To constrain freedom, in any case, so that women were only free to do the things we approve of.
Woman decides women can't be trusted to to make decisions about being a woman.
Feminism approaches its Event Horizon.
I am Laslo.
Female desire isn’t seen as an appropriate subject for feminist critique. Sex positivity rules the day: whatever a woman claims she wants is, by definition, a good thing, an expression of female agency, so long as it takes place within the bounds of consent.
No woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever.
It was abundantly clear from the beginning, but is even undeniably amongst even the most radical of feminists, that the people and institutions and philosophies that they have worked to destroy were right all along.
I don't want to steal rhhardin's thunder here. I am sure he is on it.
Women need to learn that freedom comes with responsibility. What you do affects everyone around you. If you destroy societal systems because they make you feel bad it will turn out poorly for you.
But we have seen the Feminist Movement kiss Clinton's feet. He was a known rapist. We know the modern feminist movement doesn't actually care about the well being of Women.
Most intelligent women know that they have to bear their freedom responsibly.
The dumb ones vote for democrats.
Tyler Cowen did a Conversations with Tyler with her recently, that brought forth a lot of criticism of her.
So much so that he felt obliged to criticize the criticizers.
'The important thing now, it is broadly thought, is to take women at their word,' she writes. 'If a woman says she enjoys working in porn, or being paid to have sex with men, or engaging in rape fantasies, or wearing stilettos—and even that she doesn’t just enjoy these things but finds them emancipatory, part of her feminist praxis—then we are required, many feminists think, to trust her.' She herself doesn’t seem to think so—her tone here is laced with skepticism, even sarcasm—but she stops short of saying that directly."
So, she's finally figured out that the point of "slut shaming" is that it keeps the other women from being forced to be sluts? That the "patriarchy" was right, and the "feminists" are wrong?
Note: "Dating" is a competitive endeavor. If the majority of women do not want to have sex on the first or second data, but a minority do, if "slut shaming" is in effect then the minority are restrained from their desires, while the majority get theirs.
If slut shaming isn't in effect, then the minority get laid and enjoy it. And get the most dates with the "best" guys. And then the majority are forced to screw around, too, in order to get dates, because the vast majority of guys really just want to get laid, and given a choice they're go with the sluts. So the rest of the women are forced to either give in to early sex, or not get many dates.
It's a collective action problem.
That evil, mean male partriachy "forced" women to not have sex on early dates, because men ... because women were the actual enforcers, and blaming this on the patriarchy was what the smart sluts (as in, that percentage of he sluts who were smart, not a claim that all the luts were smart) did to con the stupid no-sluts into building a system that left them screwed over.
Literally.
But's it's all the men's fault, because to be a feminist was to claim that women had no agency
Don’t know who originally formulated this one, probably a mid-century columnist: nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. Too much fraternizing with the enemy.
Gahrie said...
No woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever.
Slight Correction:
No woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever...
Unless, that is; she WANTS to be made to feel bad about, or responsible for it.
Laslo for the win.
A different blogger--very different--cited Prof Srinavasan as a feminist scholar doing important brain work on the subject of pornography.
As it turns out, and I could be wrong as I only sampled her writings, she doesn't much care for men looking at dirty pictures and thinks something should be done about it.
Fuck that bitch.
Without even a scintilla of a reference to the topic at hand, I'd suggest that humans can do horrible things and simultaneously believe deeply that these actions are intrinsically beneficial, morally good, ethically correct, and so on - despite historical evidence, rational conclusions, demonstrable cases and other proofs that the actions are indeed horrible.
People are built that way, apparently.
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