In last week's Newsweek cover story, "Spanking Goes Mainstream," author Katie Roiphe set the blogosphere atwitter with her commentary on the cultural trend of bright young women willingly engaged in BDSM relationships: 50 Shades of Grey, Lena Dunham's HBO series Girls --even the wedding night of teen heart throbs Bella and Edward in the third Twilight movie. Roiphe pointed to the paradox that our postmodern freedoms are leading to an embrace of sexual subordination. Because Roiphe's modernist assertions of individual responsibility often clash with postmodern feminists' more nuanced understanding of how cultural and social forces shape us, her analysis was largely dismissed as just another of her potshots against contemporary feminism. But she's picking up something about female agency that I've had on my radar for a while, something women need to think about deeply: Why, when the women's movement aimed to liberate us from being sexually objectified and degraded in a male-dominant culture, are so many women objectifying and degrading themselves?
Feminists get their knickers in a twist, as they say in the UK, whenever anyone dares to question a women's right to choose whatever she wants to choose -- particularly in the bedroom. Culturally mandated chastity, modesty and marriage were the means of controlling women's reproductive lives and their sexuality between the 17th and early 20th centuries. The "Sexual Revolution" of the 1960s and the second wave of the women's movement were deeply intertwined, and for complex reasons, sexual freedom became the sine qua non of women's liberation. I show how free I am by flaunting the taboos that cloistered women's sexuality for hundreds of years. The funny thing is that this form of sexual-transgression-as-liberation has been going on now for fifty years, with each upcoming generation feeling that they have discovered something new. Choice is, of course, the expression of human agency; and it's only right that women choose their own path to sexual pleasure. But at this point, I would argue that our continued focus on sexual agency is a distraction.
Choice is a most precious capacity. It makes us human. It's not simply about preferences -- soup or salad, flats or heels, top or bottom. Human agency, expressed through our creative engagement with choice, is how we expand the measure of freedom that we have as human beings. Through it, we can define new potentials and pathways in culture. The capacity for creative agency through choice is what has enabled human beings to thrive and will be the only thing that will enable life to develop further here on Earth. Expressing sexual agency -- doing whatever the f--- we want to do -- has little to do with stretching our capacities toward anything new or significant. It should be a given, exercised in our personal lives, rather than some badge of courage. There's nothing new there.
That's the trouble with the ways that so many women are expressing their agency: It's still wrapped up in the old roles of subordination and support. Sure, we can if we want to -- but talk about shades of grey! We may be able to wrench a few hollow laughs or cheap thrills out of those old, um, positions. But what about living in color? Wouldn't you think, after all that women have fought for, we should begin a bigger conversation about how to exercise creative agency to change our lives and the world around us? Aren't there more exciting, vivid and meaningful roles for us to play than the sub to some twisted guy?
Self-objectification isn't a powerful choice to make, but the effect of trying to be seen and get attention in a mediated and pornified culture. A Ms. Magazine article by Dr. Caroline Heldman a few years back noted that psychologists were beginning to see extreme cases of self-objectification in young women in ways that impaired their motor skills. In other words, young women are so self-consciously watching themselves and managing their appearance that they don't have enough free attention to drive a car! In the film Miss Representation, Heldman explains that young women who are high self-objectifiers have little to no political agency. They are not engaged in the political process. We become Other to ourselves, constantly orienting to an Other's intrusive gaze. Of course this is the effect of media culture -- but we aren't simply pawns to it, victims to a world of images that increasingly portrays women as porn stars or unworthy. As Ashley Judd wrote recently in a powerful essay against a media attack on her appearance:
I do not want to give my power, my self-esteem, or my autonomy, to any person, place, or thing outside myself. I thus abstain from all media about myself. The only thing that matters is how I feel about myself, my personal integrity, and my relationship with my Creator. Of course, it's wonderful to be held in esteem and fond regard by family, friends, and community, but a central part of my spiritual practice is letting go of otheration.
Letting go of otheration is a choice of creative agency that holds the potential to liberate us in ways we cannot now imagine.
Likewise, the move to self-degradation is not a powerful, liberated choice, but another enactment of our subordination. Whether the gross out scenes in the otherwise funny Bridesmaids or the sexual humiliation in Girls, there is nothing really new or fabulously transgressive about women willingly degrading themselves for laughs or the vain hope for attention. Think: Gracie Allen or Lucille Ball. But this cuts deeper than the bubblehead or ambitious ditz. Girls is simultaneously heralded for being an inventive black comedy and for its honesty. So what does that mean about the lives of the young women that it fictionalizes? We've gone from grey to black -- and neither is an option worth staking one's life on. We're looking for laughs and thrills inside the subordination that women have always inhabited -- but now we women are making our beds there instead of being forced by some powerful perp.
Liberating our agency from the deep grooves cut in our consciousness from the thousands of years in which women have been attuned to the needs and desire of the dominant sex isn't easy. But it's possible -- there are beginning to be more and more examples. We're going to have to want to be different, to aspire to a different narrative than the sex and service that are beneath the glossy covers of the romance story. The feminist movement brought us to the point where we are free to make choices at all levels of our lives -- but hasn't yet destroyed the dominant narrative and dynamics of culture-as-it-has-been. But now, through that choice, a deeper liberation of our creative agency and autonomy is possible. Exercising our capacity for choice beyond who we have known ourselves to be as women is how we will be able to leave behind the "fifty shades of grey" in the landscape of objectification and subordination and take on the real task of building the foundation of a new culture.
Check out Dr. Elizabeth Debold in EnlightenNext's upcoming virtual workshop, May 19 & 20, "Sex, Power, and Leadership for Women."
Follow Elizabeth Debold on Twitter: www.twitter.com/evolvewomen
Birute Regine: 50 Shades of F***ed Up
I was around in the 60s when the sexual impulse went wild. Initially the freedom was intoxicating. I lived in a community in which the men, especially, were encouraged to have multiple partners.There wasn't much awareness/choice on the part of most of the women. We allowed (if only unconsciously) ourselves to be swept up in the groupthink and, in the long run, paid the price. As a result, many women were deeply hurt and have yet to recover from what was, in retrospect, sexual abuse--of one another and ourselves.Because of that, shame still resides in many of us. I see this latest wave of sexual freedom as lacking self-esteem, devaluing ourselves as autonomous individuals. It is another manifestation of culture's addiction to intensity, if only briefly feeling good/high. Where is concern for ourselves and others? Will those who participate look back years from now and feel good about their lives, that they've contributed something worthwhile--or does that even matter? It matters to me and other women matter to me. Let's be able to stand tall, use this wonderful capacity of choice to support one another in our creativity and use our intelligence wisely.
Their are many women who like to be submissive, dominant, vanilla, & everything in between and as long as they are the ones making the decision the only question should be who is going to fulfill those desire for her. rather than judging her for having those desires or somehow making her desires a statement about the society, men yada yada yada.
Let's focus on supporting women's sexually fulfillment, specifically about what "she" wants and the choices she can make regarding her own body and mind- whether you agree with it or not.
To include men on the discussion- teach them how to how to respectfully step up to the challenge by listening to the sexual desires of women and learning how best satisfy them.
Sounds about right.
http://lifewise.canoe.ca/SexRomance/SexFiles/2012/04/24/19672836.html
And I don't understand why some women are scolding and shaming women into what they should do or not do in the privacy of their own bedroom. Lord forbid I offend a feminist over my choice in reading material and my preference in activities done in the bedroom. It also might shock some people, but reading material with similar themes to 50 Shades of Grey has always been there. The only difference is that 50 Shades of Grey had more 'representation' by women groups and more media appearances and acknowledgement.
And I really don't understand why some women are scolding and shaming other women about what they should or should not do in the bedroom. Lord forbid I offend some feminist with my choice in reading material and preferences over bedroom activity! And this might come as a shock to all, but reading material like this has always been there, the only difference is that 50 Shades of Grey had more social advertising within groups of women, which eventually led to the media learning about it.
Women you are indeed free. But you must free your minds! If the same demands were placed on us men, most of us would have a cow! So long as you women are compliant with this nonsense, men will continue to demand it.
I feel what Ashley Judd is saying deeply. (Yes Bella, emotions). As a Black man, I often ask why in heaven's name MLK, my parents, and others struggled and sacrificed only to have young Black men kill each other, drop out of school, and fill the prisons? That is not for what they fought. This is not what the feminist of the past have fought and continue to fight.
I love a woman for whom she is, period. I don't care if she is large, small, A cup, B cup, whatever. It is the tenderness of her body, soul and female essence that I love so much. Yes the sex too. The hair, the walk, her beliefs. All of this matters! We all have imperfections.
Just today I was speaking to the pharmacist. While of average looks, the lady was so intelligent (she was Polish Bella). My guess she was in her late 30s to early 40s. Oh she was a romantic too. She came to America at age 13. She said she find it so difficult to relate to many America women. She said they were so petty about silly things and were too critical of one another.
You're going too radical feminist. This is not a battle for sexual power between the genders. Men are not forcing women to do anything and the only leverage men have is the same leverage that women have. Their is not power disparity nor a cultural expectation that either one's pleasure is more important than the other. If there was such a disparity it would favor women who by default have more sexual power since men are expected to submit themselves for women's approval when they initiate relations.
However, this systemic culture is putting pressure on women to do this stuff. I have a former employee who told me the story about this guy she was dating. Right after sex, he jumps on her laptop to watch porn...
Finally, I certainly have to agree with you women do have more sexual power than men. But do not overlook the significance of influence. There is power and then their is influence.
But fantasy isn't real life. The increased pornification of our culture tricks men into believing that all sex should be like it is in porn. Real life women who don't enjoy the things that actresses in pornography are paid to "enjoy" are now frigid, boring, or hate sex. Women who don't remove all of their public hair are "gross," etc. Women are guilted by their partners about this stuff all the time.
That guilt causes women to "pornify" themselves to try and keep their partners from cheating on or leaving them. They feign interest in sexual acts they don't enjoy, fake orgasms, shave and wax their pubic hair even though it's uncomfortable, etc. No one has a gun to her head, but a woman who feels she has to make a choice between consenting to sex acts she doesn't enjoy and losing the man she loves? That's what Terence meant by "So long as you are compliant with this nonsense, men will continue to demand it."
She was right, of course.
And of course, having left at 13, she's had little to no experience with average Polish women, who, I'd wager, are really no different en masse.
That said, Polish history, the weird combination of communism and Catholicism, and the on-going, centuries-long struggle for freedom, has shaped the relations between the sexes somewhat differently. Long years without rapacious capitalism helped, too, but this is changing, I hear.
Women and men are less antagonistic toward each other, in general. Sure, sexism exists, but "deep down" people know and understand that we are doomed to co-existence and should do our best to make it bearable. The respect for, almost a cult of, motherhood, supported by a very generous maternity leave, and generally strong support of family and its needs, also go a long way toward fostering more amicable and less selfish relations between the sexes.
And then there is the incurable romanticism. :)
I just read the Ashley Judd piece. Powerful it is indeed. Now that is what I call a woman.
Ladies, read the Ashley Judd's essay. She is telling you how to get to higher ground. I have stated many times on HP that the proliferation of porn has been detrimental to women.
Here is a quote from her piece I found very powerful and moving:
"Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it."
The point is to recognize that patriarchy is a SYSTEM. This very system which men and women participate is far more destructive to women, especially young women. As much as many women deny it, some of the "work done" is for the pleasure of men.
I believe the fascination with the bald vulva is rooted in porn as is the anal sex rage as well as other sexual acts. I have a builder friend who is telling me that over 40% of new homes have dance poles installed in the basements. Married women are performing to keep their husbands out of the "gentleman's" clubs.
By the way, today a lot of men are submissive to women in their sexual orientation, and accept rituals of subordination a la 50 Shades--just that the woman is the boss and holds the whip. How does this fit your behind-the-times (by 50 years, I'd venture) interpretation of modern life?
Misandrist feminists don't want women to enjoy any kind of sexuality that men might like, so they try to shame and control other women.
The Matriarchy at work.
Modern feminism...on display for what it really is...
Feminists should live up to what they CLAIM to be and CLAIM to want.
Instead of hypocritical telling women how to live, what to want, etc. just as the patriarchy they decry so much used to do.
Instead of hypocritically shaming them to try to control their behavior.
And just FYI - you are insulting all of the women who want the things you don't want them to want when you imply that they have no thoughts or free will of their own.
Try accepting women have responsibility for themselves and feminist need to stop telling women who they are and are not allowed to be while preaching liberation.
Fifty shades- is another matter all together - nothing really to do with submission/ domination. In the end (3 books) I think it was more about equality in relationships, vulnerability, trust, tolerance. Not confrontation between the sexes. The story shows I feel that it works very much both ways today. You would need to read the story because here the hero was the broken one - despite every outward appearance to the contrary- one major message of the story perhaps and it echoes your point exactly. We DO judge by appearances and we get it very wrong.
I wonder if women widely like the story because it suggests the importance of building self esteem through tolerance and understanding in relationships- recognizing the mixed messages we get, not prejudging, but understanding; mutually building our partners up.
Kinky sex, BSDM is a a choice and no one should throw stones or make any judgement.