But that's not what Morgan was talking about.
... which just made women the “moral custodians of male behavior,” as Carole S. Vance put it in her landmark anthology, “Pleasure and Danger.” Besides, the suppression of female desire, they argued, had long been a tool of the patriarchy. “The horrific effect of gender inequality may include not only brute violence,” she wrote, “but the internalized control of women’s impulses, poisoning desire at its very root with self-doubt and anxiety.”
Okay. I must break in to say that the word "internal" is driving me up the wall. Willis Aronowitz kicked Morgan to the curb over something she called the "internal shame machine." Then she cued up a "pro-sex feminist" who talked about "the internalized control of women’s impulses." Is this just another way to refer to psychology, some idea about fake feeling — something from the outside that somehow got inside (shame/control) — that hides the real feeling? Are we saying over and over again that women can't figure out what they want? Maybe like the "pro-sex feminists," Willis Aronowitz wanted to jump ahead to the premise that you've got to be pro-sex, and that's why she imagined that she'd disposed of Morgan.
To continue with the Willis Aronowitz text:
Fighting against this control and instead advocating pleasure, intimacy, curiosity and excitement were key to expanding women’s autonomy and their ability to live full lives. A lot has changed since then. Women’s right to sexual satisfaction is taken as much more of a given; most people are now aware of things like clitorises and vibrators.
Speaking of the "internal... machine"... the vibrator is the external machine. But come on, women in the 1970s were completely aware of clitorises and vibrators. And "[w]omen’s right to sexual satisfaction" was just as much of a "given" back then as it is now. Let's not delude ourselves about how much progress has been unfolding over time.
But extracting what we actually want from a mess of cultural and political influences can still sometimes feel like an impossible challenge.
Yes, that is the impression I'm getting. I want to see more carefully worked out ideas and more clear writing. I wish she'd just say I don't know what women want or even what I want. Why hedge it with words like "actually" and "still sometimes"?
How did I find myself in a marriage filled with bad sex?... I idolized Samantha from “Sex and the City,” and I also wished my sex was more meaningful.... ... I do believe that reaching for more sexual freedom, not less — the freedom to have whatever kind of sex we want, including, yes, casual sex and choking sex and porny sex — is still the only way we can hope to solve the problems of our current sexual landscape....
Well, there you have it. She is clinging to a premise she won't examine. She's a pro-sex feminist. Why is it "still the only way"? Because it simply must be? In my view, this is an admission that you are not a feminist. You have a more fundamental idea that determines where you are willing to go in the name of feminism.
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How does the joke go? "The sexual revolution is over. The men won."
#MeToo self-aborted spectacularly with bended knee and cannibalistic fervor. Exploiting false allegations of rape... rape-rape only accelerated its progress.
Yikes. No comment besides that- I have a headache.
When it comes to sexual freedom, i suggest less talk and more action.
Feminism and confusion are partners. You could not have one without the other.
"As the righteous energy of #MeToo fades into a more ambiguous debate,......."
Translation: Gee, there turned out to be far more democraticals caught up in this than we thought so we can't effectively weaponize this as a political issue as we had hoped so now we are going to have to muddy the waters a bit as we figure out how we can evolve our talking points and narratives to target republicans/conservatives/Trump more effectively.
That movement was hijacked from about day two. Not a whole lot of "righteous energy."
@Althouse ends: "You have a more fundamental idea that determines where you are willing to go in the name of feminism."
Here we reach a nexus touching on biological drives and reproductive imperatives (breed or die out), psychology, fads and trends, and political ideologies.
In past generations this entire discussion was either economically irrelevant (i.e., when you are working in a sweatshop or mine to have enough food who cares), or the self-indulgent anxieties of the idle rich, or prohibited by religious principles. Sigmund Freud's career and income focused on the idle rich, as no one else had the time or money to lay on his couch and tell him their inner thoughts for $$$$.
With umpteen generations of "feminism" and the sudden conservative interpretation of TERFs and biologically-identified gays and lesbians, we are at an inflection point. Return to the fundamentals of life, as biological function and making babies is all that matters for the species to continue.
Philosophers would likely call the discussion of feminism and female wants as epiphenomenal, as it's just hot air moving from mouths. Confused thinkers, confused thoughts. No guiding principles. No consistent moral standards. Self-contradictory principles (e.g., support bio women in sports or trans men who may well be fakers/predators). Chaos. Dead enders. No babies, but fun orgies while they last.
Time to clear the clutter and start fresh. This is how lefty movements end and how traditional belief systems spring back into dominance. I'd not be surprised by the reemergence of Christianity as the cultural guiding force, as it dominated Western culture for the last 1,500+ years and is plainly a sustainable ideology.
“… this new strain of feminism."
We will likely find that new strains will vary significantly in terms of transmissibility and severity.
"we, as women, placed greater trust in love, sensuality, humor, tenderness, commitment."
People knew what women were back then? They even knew what women wanted? And, like, women wanted something different than men? Some retroactive canceling is called for.
wasn't the problem with the PoundMeToo! movement, that the ONLY people in it were those that weren't pounded? Wouldn't it have been More Believable, it there had been (at least) one girl that said:
"They told me, if i sucked their cocks; i'd get the part.. If i kept sucking, i'd get an Oscar!"
Shouldn't SOME famous actress have come forward and said;
"i was a mediocre talent", but i sucked my way to the top!"
It's Hard to Believe, that all these producers were doing this; ALL THE TIME, and ALL the women said "NO!" If it NEVER worked, why keep trying?
Of course, i'm asking for a multi millionairess to admit that she's a cum sucking ho...
But; wouldn't (at least) SOME of them HAVE TO BE for this to have made any sense?
In FACT; wasn't it ALL these women (the BAD!) women), who came up with the idea?
i'm just saying; if no women did it; WHY would men think any would?
Amazing display of performative writing, aimed not at clearly communicating ideas but at engaging in the ceremony of doing so.
And the vagina gazing. Lots of vagina gazing.
It helps to remember that we are animals. Animals don't choose their species, they are what they are.
Choking sex ...oh my.
Seems like every week here a guy is arrested for choking his gf. "It was consensual" they always say. I hear anal sex is rather expected now, too. A guy gets bored with the same old thing.
We've come so far! And I'm glad I've aged out of this game.
I should probably stay out of this. Johnny Carson made jokes about the G spot many years ago. Come on guys, figure it out. There's got to be a way to help women achieve orgasm. Sam Kinison: all you women out there, I speak for all men, if there's something that you especially like, something that really gets you somewhere, you know from experience you'll like, TELL US! Nancy Mitford (OK, my eccentric tastes) in one of her novels on love, has a newly married young woman visiting her relatives. Her younger female cousins get her alone to ask what "it" is like. It's great, she says. But then: my husband really concentrates, he cares about whether I'm enjoying it or not. I gather many men can't really be bothered.
Substitute 'hypergamy' for 'sexual satisfaction', and things would get a lot clearer. The pro-sex feminists especially fall for the idea that the desire for freedom from social constraint originates between their legs rather than in their heads.
Trying to help out on the "what the hell is she saying" appeal, I'll bring in the "Spenser" series of mysteries written by Robert Parker between 1973 and 2010. Parker's detective, Spenser, lived in Boston and encountered all the social changes we have around us in 2022 as ideas being taught and lived out in Cambridge (Massachusetts) and Boston between 1973 and 2010. There, in back alleys of thought lurked Harvard and six or seven other colleges and universities with their associated English and social studies departments. Way back then, these were working to create our present dilemmas. You can't condense it all down to one sentence but a consistent theme of the series was the way in which people would get caught up in an idea promoted by a university person and try to embody this idea, socially or personally, some going beyond common sense and humanity in their efforts. This created the story. So often what the situation came down to was that, like Charley on the MTA in the song, these idealists "couldn't get off of that train." But it wasn't one more nickel they needed, it was a sense of the reality of others.
For those who have never heard this piece of classic music, "Charley and the MTA."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbtkL5_f6-4
Spenser is on Amazon. (Everything after 2010 is being written by Parker's ghost who isn't all there.)
As a man, this is the stuff that keeps the concept of feminism an enigma to me. Personally, I never saw feminism as an issue mostly about sex. The problem I saw with #MeToo was too much male leadership in business leading to improper conduct with women subordinates, but then that can be true if gender roles are reversed which makes it a real problem that needs a solution. But then #MeToo was mostly political and easily jettisoned if the egregious politician that slept with the help simply supported abortion. I don’t see abortion as a feminist ideal either. Why would you want the right to that as a symbol of freedom? Wouldn’t it be better more freeing to do what you want and not have to have an abortion? I get that abortion allows for mistakes or corrections to forced sex, which is why I support it in short terms, but why is it the holy grail of feminism to so many women?
1970 gf enters drug store and asks if they carry immersion heaters. "Oh we don't carry that kind of thing here."
Women don't know what they want owing to the natural cycle that can repeat forever
1. Woman sets quest for the man
2. Man being human screws it up
3. Woman shows man she's satisfied with him (he did go on the quest)
The quest-sending impulse can look like not knowing what you want.
If the woman skips (3) then it becomes nagging, a two cycle that can repeat until the divorce.
"Its subjective judgments about what women should know in their guts did nothing to acknowledge women’s realities and only added to their internal shame machines. A group known as pro-sex feminists warned against the dead-end politics of focusing only on sexual violence which just made women the “moral custodians of male behavior.”
"I feel the same way, sweetheart, but I've got an early day."
Since "rights" should not impose positive obligations on others, I don't see how anyone, male or female, has a "right to sexual satisfaction." You have a right to try to obtain it with a willing partner (pursuit of happiness?).
I also don't get the idea that the male patriarchy (whatever that is) has an interest in the "suppression of female desire." I suppose that happens in the Muslim world with their obsession with female genital mutilation, but that's not a thing in the civilized world. Most men are all in favor of female sexuality. Unless by "female desire" she means promiscuity or adultery. But I presume most females prefer that their male partners or spouses be faithful to them as well.
"You have a more fundamental idea that determines where you are willing to go in the name of feminism."
Are you suggesting that feminism is not a means to an end, it is an end in itself? Maybe biology does not agree.
Fifty Shades of Grey is not a male fantasy.
Woman is fickle
Like a feather in the wind,
She changes her voice — and her mind.
Always sweet,
Pretty face,
In tears or in laughter, — she is always lying.
Always miserable
Is he who trusts her,
He who confides in her — his unwary heart!
Yet one never feels
Fully happy
Who on that bosom — does not drink love!
Woman is fickle
Like a feather in the wind,
She changes her voice — and her mind,
And her mind,
And her mind!
La Donna È Mobile
I just happened to watch this and the fabulous quartet that follows it on Met Opera on Demand last night. The rest of "Rigoletto" is forgettable, but I'm trying to get "Aida" out of my head after several weeks. It's chockfull of great bits. Amneris is certainly mobile. One of the foreign singers claimed Aida is a strong woman, but she is pushed around by her lover, her father, and her rival until she kills herself needlessly.
What crap. I guess I’m grateful to our hostess (may I use that sexist locution?) for her careful —heroic— efforts to decipher the textual farrago and extract meaning; but I think it’s a lost cause. Too many half-smart people styling themselves as activists and authorities have gotten into the game for the past, oh, fifty years, and beaten things quite to death. Seems to me the main solution is simply the Golden Rule: treat your partner as you would want to be treated. But that’s not going to build lucrative careers as a grievance-hustling obscurantist, so never mind.
I could not read it, but Sigmund Freud’s quote: “What do women want?” has always covered it for me.
“ I idolized Samantha from “Sex and the City,” and I also wished my sex was more meaningful.”
She can’t admit that she has physical desires that her husband could not fulfill if he took lessons for a year.
You know what else internalizes stuff in people’s brain? Evolution. Just saying.
All that verbiage you quote is a second-degree violation of Drinkwater's Law of Intercultural Communication: Don't write to be understood; write so that you cannot be misunderstood. "
Second degree, because I'm giving the author(s) the benefit of the doubt and assuming they didn't plan that dumpster fire.
Imagine having to read that with incipient Alzheimer's. Trying to keep that straight will keep you as sharp as reading Anna Karenina.
"Choking sex"--I knew a crazy stripper who was into that. David Carradine could not be reached for comment.
Pro-sex feminism is a product of gay men in Hollywood who wrote their preferences into female characters like Samantha of Sex and the City. Women who reference a woman's desire by still using men's desires as the standard ... well, someday they'll figure it out, I hope.
That's why she throws out brick-like words and euphemisms. She actually has no idea what women genuinely want, so she can't speak specifically.
Owen, "Farrago", that is the word I was searching for. Readers should feel free to sub it in where I wrote "dumpster fire".
Btw, the store "Good Vibrations" opened in 74. There are today at least 4 branches in San Francisco.
And Hollywood continues to be a den of pedophiles and none of Epstein's clients have ever been questioned, let alone arrested.
Same as it ever was...
I just watched this video from a year ago where they go through recent articles of 1970s feminists, now in their 70s, confessing they lied and wrote propaganda for profits. The main a woman who wrote for Cosmo for 20 years and now confessing they purposely co-mingled women's economic equality with sexual politics to make money for Helen Gurley Brown.
The article above seems to be still trapped in that line of production.
https://youtu.be/V0ctNoHqZ8E
The main problem is believing there is some logical rationale behind this, and that if you look at it from the right angle, it will make sense. It's pure emotion and neuroticism. Continue on with the feminist journey. I'm going outside to do something productive, rewarding and real.
"Seems to me the main solution is simply the Golden Rule: treat your partner as you would want to be treated."
That rule is based upon the supposition that what others want is what you want. Which is not true in this case.
Fighting against this control and instead advocating pleasure, intimacy, curiosity and excitement
It's amazing just how stupid this line is
Because what Nona Willis Aronowitz is that women value emotional "pleasure, intimacy, curiosity and excitement", but the "pro-sex feminists" are only about physical "pleasure, intimacy, curiosity and excitement".
So when (generic) you toss out those words, without specifying emotional vs physical, you're showing a complete inability to understand the topic.
Either that, or an awareness that an honest discussion leads to your side losing
The controversy seems to hinge on the idea of sexual pleasure. Is it something that happens in a loving relationship with another human being, or is it something accessible in promiscuous or anonymous encounters?
Equal in rights and complementary in Nature/nature. There is no mystery in sex... choose wisely, ladies and germs.
Can the "righteous energy" of meetoo compete with BDE?
Further evidence that women should be seen and not read.
Do women really talk about feminism like this? The whole set of ideas are simply stupid. They can never get to one standard for things because people are very different. I'm watching the Extraordinary Attorney Woo series now and there is no way that she as an autistic person can live with rules that might be right for some others. Everything in behavior and expectations is on a sliding scale.
The thing that most offends me in the comments is discussion about women feeling shamed. Are women really so insecure that they can't set their own standards? This is why I never wanted to get close to a feminist. They seem to be losers with lots of problems.
"She actually has no idea what women genuinely want, so she can't speak specifically."
She knows what she wants, but can't admit it because to admit it would be to reject so many tenets of feminism and basic human kindness, for that matter, and she knows that too; instead she accuses an identifiable man, in print, of being bad at sex. Whether she was misled by the culture into wanting what she hints at wanting is anybody's guess.
It's like at the beginning of The Great Gatsby, when Nick Carroway describes being told stories with both TMI (not his words) and "obvious omissions."
I'm so glad I'm old and married. If I was a young man in this hellscape, I'd blow my brains out before I'd get anywhere near one of these broads.
In the first place I find extremely offensive the typical unconscious erasure of lesbians from discussions by feminists who want to talk about women and sex. Feminists call themselves defenders of women but their entire understanding of sex is centered on the politics of stereotypical male/female relationships and sexual relations.
I thought feminism was based on the idea that women are people deserving of equal rights, not an attempt to define how a woman's relationship with a man was supposed to work. If you, as a woman, are a person with integrity you will work out all your relationships based on your internal sense of self worth. Everything flows from that. If you don't have a sense of self worth, start working on that before you get into bed with anyone else. Your sexual desires are not going to do you any favors if you don't like yourself and can't express what you want.
The second notion which annoyed me was the ignorance that people are different when it comes to sex. Some people are more sexual and sensual than others. Some people are obsessed with having great physical sex while others can practice celibacy; some can enjoy sex without emotional connection while others can only have sex as part of a deep emotional connection. So how can any serious person prescribe "what a woman wants" when we are all such different individuals? I find it so insulting and ironic that "feminists" are suggesting that women should be clumped together as a group in order to tell women what they should want or to complain that women are being controlled by outside forces about their preferences.
Is there a problem for feminists to reconcile the animal and human and spiritual aspects of themselves? We have arrived at the point where some people believe that sex and reproduction can be completely separated, that we can deny our connection to the natural world. But you can never get away from the fundamental human need for love and connection. That's much more than physical sex so why even focus on physical sex?
Ann wrote, "She's a pro-sex feminist. Why is it 'still the only way?' Because it simply must be? In my view, this is an admission that you are not a feminist. You have a more fundamental idea that determines where you are willing to go in the name of feminism."
Exactly. I disagree with that idea that to be "free" or "equal" a woman must act like a man who has sex with no morality. That is so untrue and so harmful.
My grandmother had a vibrator in the 1950s.
"we, as women, placed greater trust in love, sensuality, humor, tenderness, commitment."
Commitment? Who initiates more divorces- men or women?
"I could not read it, but Sigmund Freud’s quote: “What do women want?” has always covered it for me."
I believe the question, which he claimed to have researched without success for decades, was "What does a woman want?". A small difference, but a telling one. It asks us, not to consider women, and their variously delightful and infuriating ways, but to consider a particular woman. Perhaps one you have known closely for years. Perhaps the mother of your children. Perhaps you can see her in the next room, engrossed in some minor task. What does she want? What does she want? What does she want?
We use "want" as a synonym for "desire". But its original meaning is "lack".
"My grandmother had a vibrator in the 1950s."
I hope she waited until the 1970s to tell you that.
“It's Hard to Believe, that all these producers were doing this; ALL THE TIME, and ALL the women said "NO!" If it NEVER worked, why keep trying?”
The problem is that women, probably more than men, lie about sex. Here it is very often due to the tension between women’s primary sexual strategy of pairing long term with the best male they can get long term, and their secondary sexual strategy of having sex with the best male genetically that they can, plus an eon old strategy of trading sex for security. #MeToo adds in the group dynamic of peer pressure to joint groups of supposed victims.
My partner grew up in Las Vegas. There was a lot of show biz there at the time (still a lot, but not as much). She learned about men trading opportunities for success for sex with aspiring women, when she was maybe 15. She was a dancer, and wanted to maybe be a showline dancer. Her moher, a choreographer of these shows, set up for an interview with a producer she worked with. He liked her dancing, then asked her for some T&A. Nope, not what she wanted to do. So when her modeling agency (Powers) wanted to move her to NYC to model, she said Hell No. Same thing - that career again most often required trading sex for the potential for success.
The guys do it because they can. There are always plenty of women, just as talented, willing to do the trade. If a guy wanted to meet with her in his room, or in his private office, she knew what that entailed. She said just yesterday that any girl who was asked up to either, and went there, knew what trade she was making. Whenever she was asked up to a guy’s room, she countered with meeting him in a lobby bar instead. It worked well to separate the guys after sex from the ones seriously interested in her talents. There are no innocents there, just liars, pretending to innocence they never had.
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