Hi there, new readers.
Since my humble lil’ blog stats have quadrupled in the last couple of days, thanks mostly to Twisty, I suppose I should introduce myself again. So, Hi! I’m Sarah.
If you actually care, there are lots of posts that explain where I’m coming from. If you don’t, you could refer to the title here, which a recent commenter called me.
“Naive,” because, well, as you probably heard, there’s a picture of my ass in a pair of boyshorts below. Hustler brand boyshorts. Never mind that it’s not a thong and you pretty much see no skin, I’m “naive” for posting it.
Well, here’s the thing. First off, I’m probably older than you think. Been around the block a few times. Been a freelance writer for quite a few years (written for BUST and SuicideGirls.com, two places you probably hate if you’re coming from Twisty’s, but I don’t particularly care), and I currently teach classes at a university. Yeah, I’m one of those overeducated types who think it’s “empowerfulizing” to show my ass to a group of strangers, right?
Wrong.
I didn’t put that picture up to empower myself. If I’m seeking validation on my ass, all I have to do is walk down the damn street–I’ll get catcalled plenty, and it’ll remind me that women get sexualized whether we like it or not.
I do, lately, take a certain pleasure in wearing items of clothing that my controlling ex-fiance might have called “slutty” if he hadn’t known I’d punch him in the mouth for using that term around me. While it’s not necessarily “empowering,” it sure is nice to know that no one except for some radical feminist bloggers whom I usually don’t read will be shaming me for my choice in clothing.
(I also find it funny that one commenter said “when guys approve, it’s a great guage[sic] of whether or not something is feminist at all.” By that token, me wearing a low-cut shirt and short shorts is indeed feminist, since my ex would heartily have disapproved. But what happens when teh mens agree with the radical feminists? Because you know, I’m pretty sure James Dobson would agree that strippers and sex workers are terrible people…so doesn’t that mean you’re pleasing the patriarchy too?
Twisty’s right that you can’t avoid the patriarchy. So I choose to not give it even more control over my life by trying to do everything the opposite of what men want.
I certainly don’t give it any more power over my life by letting disputes over what it wants lead me into tearing down other women for how they look or how they choose to perform their sexuality (more on how sexuality is inherently performative later, with added intellectual thoughts on blowjobs! I promise!). And I definitely don’t let it limit my pleasures.
To quote Lydia Lunch, “I do exactly what I wanna do.”
What I wanted to do with that picture, below, was to tell a group of people being judgmental exactly what I thought of their judgments. I’m not “naive” and I didn’t think it was going to make a bunch of people go “Oh! Now I see! Porn is great!” or anything like that. So, annoying? Yeah, that was kind of the point.
The point was also to illustrate that you never know what people are hiding under their clothes. I’m not a sex worker, never have been. I have been assorted other things, including bicycle mechanic and teacher at a nonprofit literacy program. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that when I came to feminism, it led me to stop judging other women, not to find a new way to do it.
In “Cunt,” Inga Muscio talks about her project to make her stop hating on other women: reading autobiographies, or at least biographies. I’ve done a good bit of that, too. It can be fascinating. I read Poppy Z. Brite’s biography of Courtney Love, and Traci Lords’ autobiography, plus Antonia Fraser’s excellent volumes on Marie Antoinette and the queens of Henry VIII, just to name a few faves.
It opens you up to understanding other women as women. To stopping before you pass judgment.
So, naive about showing my ass on my blog? I’ll let you in on a little secret: I did think twice about putting it up there. This blog is under my real name, and is hosted on the same site with my professional resume and portfolio (which are in desperate need of updates…). But you know, I decided I wasn’t going to let people’s decisions of what is ‘appropriate’ and ‘obscene’ or ‘derive[s] a lot of your identity from your conformance to patriarchal expectations.’
That last commenter continued, ‘And if you talk about it in public, you are necessarily inviting people to “judge” you.’
No, actually I’m not. I was inviting you to kiss my ass. But you can judge me all you want. I’ll let through any comments you want to throw at me on this post right here. Call me a slut, a whore, a patriarchy-pleaser, a naive young dimwit. Hell, bring out some racialized and ableist language if you want. It’s not going to hurt me any. Do you think it’s the first time I’ve heard it? And it won’t say anything about me. It’ll just say something about you, and where you derive your validation from: tearing other women down.
But I sure made y’all look, didn’t I?
Winner: “Poor deluded little thing” -’Donna’ at Twisty’s.
aw, head patting, how sweet!
Heh, at least you’ve not been called Ms Plastic Tits yet…well, actually, poor deluded little thing is worse, but shit, that’s thrown at all of us all the time…
oh well, i guess they just have to kiss your hustler-clad ass, eh?
Interesting how they always assume anyone who disagrees is really young…um, people? I’m going to be 35 in about 6 weeks.
I’m not seeing the logic in just doing the opposite of whatever you think men want either. That’s still making men central to how you run your life. Personally I’d rather just do what I want and to hell with what men do or don’t want.
Someone made a comment about how anti-feminist things are often male-approved. That doesn’t mean that all radical feminists actively do the opposte of what men want. Can’t imagine why you’re all interpreting it that way.
The implication in the original post is that burlesque is bad because it reproduces and performs a sexuality that is close to if not exactly like the “dominant” male-preferred sexuality.
Thusly, when someone said that “if guys approve it’s a great guage[sic] of whether or not something is feminist at all,” that kind of implies that for it to be feminist, men must not approve of it, doesn’t it?
But as I noted below, men are not a monolith. Sometimes men approve of the same things as Twisty does, and disapprove of the same things that Twisty does. Sometimes men approve of the same things that I do. Hell, sometimes they’re even the same men.
So to use male approval as a barometer for something being feminist or not is still making it all about male approval.
I wasn’t making any assumptions about what radical feminists do. I was drawing out the assumption that this poster made about what is and is not feminist. I don’t give a rat’s ass what radical feminists do in their spare time as long as they do it with consenting adults. That’s the difference between me and people like Twisty.
Twisty didn’t say burlesque is “bad”. She said it’s not feminist. Twisty is not policing or shaming other people. She is pointing out that when women engage in self-pornification it is not “feminist”. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It really seems like you’re finding reasons to be against her.
No, she did not use the word “bad.”
She used the phrase “Are you fucking kidding me?” and accused them of promoting “rape culture.”
She said, in the comments: “I think the radical feminist cares when the expression of the sexuality in question is indistinguishable from traditional male porn fantasy. That’s because traditional male porn fantasy is the fetishization of misogyny. Radical feminists are generally against the fetishization of misogyny.”
If you’ll notice, I also quoted and responded to specific commenters. There’s no need to come here to defend Twisty’s honor.
I was repeatedly accused over there of “missing the point.” I might level the same critique at people who’ve come here and made their comments all about me bashing Twisty. I personally don’t know Twisty from the next person walking down the street, and have made it a point not to make assumptions about her or any of the other commenters over there, other than that many people there seemed to take an awful lot of joy in poking fun at women who dress and look a certain way.
What I don’t get is when “fun” became an epithet. What’s wrong with fun? How is fun a capitulation to the patriarchy? I am being completely serious here. I realize the way Twisty’s using “fun feminism” isn’t actually saying that, but I think it’s kind of symptomatic.
What I don’t like about it is that “fun” seems to equate with some to “stupid.” Like those of us who don’t agree that feminism is always a miserable slog and that it means dedicating your life to arduous, painful work and being hated by everyone around you are just not quite smart enough to have figured things out by now.
Shit, sometimes feminism IS fun, and I don’t mean burlesque dancing or anything else. Sometimes explaining something to someone and seeing that light go on behind their eyes, when they suddenly realize that you’ve got a point is really, really cool. Sometimes getting together with a bunch of women that you’ve met from the feminist blogosphere to talk issues and support each other is amazing. It doesn’t have to be miserable.
“What I don’t get is when “fun” became an epithet. What’s wrong with fun? How is fun a capitulation to the patriarchy?”
I think the idea is supposed to be that the patriarchy “saw” women getting into feminism, and decided to create a non-threatening, comfortable-seeming version of it as a diversion.
But why Hustler? Why wear the logo of a massive business who’s most famious image is a woman being passed through a meat grinder? As far as individuality goes, you may as well have the Golden Arches stamped accross your backside.
And is Hustler any worse than the Gap? Or Victoria’s Secret? Or any other major chain store that sells clothing? (well, obviously yes, if you have a problem with porn. I don’t, so no.)
I wasn’t trying to be individual. Again, everyone seems to, if I may say so, “miss the point.”
Honestly, I posted that picture because it would piss a bunch of people off. I bought Hustler panties years ago when I visited LA partly because it seemed like a silly porny cock rock LA thing to do, and partly because while I don’t really care for Larry Flynt’s taste in porn, I do have a deep respect for his defense of free speech in Flynt v. Falwell.
Not that I owe anyone a defense of why I own one pair of underwear or another, really.
And I may be wrong about the meat grinder image, but I believe it was his (misguided) attempt at saying he wasn’t going to treat women like that anymore during his Christian phase. But don’t quote me on that, because I’m just throwing out what I remember from the movie. I have read his book, though, and I know that he donates money to fund Greg Palast’s investigations, among other things.
Porn companies like Hustler and Playboy love to whitewash themselves by donating money to charity, it doesn’t justify their business in any way, unless you are going to suggest that every woman who appeared in their pornography ever did so absolutely of her free will with no coercion what so ever.
And as for your explanation of the meat grinder image, I’m not even renting that one - the image of a woman being passed through a meat grinder is still there! What do you thing all the men who bought Hustler to wank to thought of it?
I still don’t see exactly what you were trying to prove with the image, beyond pissing off horrible radical feminists who are telling you what to do (when we’re not, having an opinion does not equal having control, if no one was allowed to question or challenge anything nothing would change).
The idea that radical feminists see feminism as only ‘doing whatever men don’t like’ is patently untrue - although male approval can be a fairly useful gauge on some occasions.
It’s called patriarchy because it’s a game women can never win, you can never be the perfect virgin/wife/mother, and the only other alternative available under the patriarchy is to be a whore, which also makes you disposable, and to blame for men’s violence against you (and it is men committing the actual violence, not radical feminists!). Men, as the dominate group, like to have those two sets of women available to them, so choosing either is still doing what men like, even if there is an individual man somewhere who only approves of one.
Andrea Dworkin made the distinction between ‘moralising’ (being good, doing as you’re told), which is encouraged in women, and ‘moral intelligence’ (really examining things and coming to independent conclusions), which is not encouraged in women.
Simply reversing ‘moralising’ attitudes doesn’t give you moral intelligence.
But you see, by telling women that they’re bad or unfeminist for doing things, you’re still putting them in a position where they can’t win.
So I deliberately put myself in a position to take the insults. And it is completely condescending of you to imply that you have examined enough, and I haven’t. If you want to go read back the past four years on this blog and even more in my personal life and writings, you can see how much I’ve examined.
And I could use your last sentence back against you, and more especially, against Ginmar and others on Twisty’s thread who seemed to think that Renegade Evolution’s broken nose was something she deserved because she has an “empowerfulling” career as a stripper.
a nose, which was never broken due to my job in any way, for the record. And the mere phrase “moral intelligence”? Shudder.
Also, really, I don’t see how radical feminists are *not* letting the patriarchy dictate their every move any less than “fun feminists”…when every day, morning-noon-night is the pat does, so we do, the pat says, so we say, well, the pat is still controlling everything.
Oh, and I’ve never actually been threatened by a man. I have actually been threatened by radical feminists. I’ve also been called a whole lot of names, had them attempt to deny my some pretty cool opportunities, and throw around a whole lot of lies and slander (like the nose thing), so yeah…not terribly impressed with radical feminists in a generalized way. I mean, a great way to show that you care about women, especially those in the sex industry, is to treat them worse than any pornographer ever has. Really does a lot for the cause and all.
“What I wanted to do with that picture, below, was to tell a group of people being judgmental exactly what I thought of their judgments.”
- Which is exactly why my tits went up - just a big fat fuck you. I blog under my real name too, and the people who were most likely to be “concerned” at this weren’t greatly interested.
Um, Kali? Are you trying to tell Sarah exactly how she ought to have done it?! Christ….
You know, if you don’t see what Sarah was trying to do with that image after she’s spelled it out to you, I think that says more about you than it does about her.
I’m not trying to tell any one how to do anything, I just cannot understand how any kind of feminist would be buying Hustler merchandise, full stop.
Ren, I haven’t said anything about your nose, and I wouldn’t because I don’t know you.
kali, just pointing out some folks tactics.
You don’t know me, yet you feel perfectly justified in talking about my choice in undies.
I mean, I think I honestly gave it the good college try, explaining myself here. If you still don’t get it, well, agree to disagree? I mean, I don’t see how any kind of feminist could get in bed (yes, I chose those words deliberately) with the religious right on anti-porn measures, but I don’t try to take away Andrea Dworkin’s right to the word.