I have been an active part of the sex positive-queerfeminist community for nearly 5 years and have hung out in sex positive queerfeminist-spaces in Sweden, Copenhagen, Berlin, San Francisco and to some extent in New York and Delhi (though the queer scene in Delhi didn’t stress me out at all in the way that many other queer scenes have).
Lately there have been more and more discussions on femme-activism and dismantling of patriarchy within queerfeminist-spaces. However, there is still a long way to go. Masculinity is still deemed as more attractive – in female-bodies and perhaps even more in male-bodies (and let’s not even get to how the situation is in the gay male world). When femmes are considered attractive it often results in objectification and I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been sexually harrased – also in queerfeminist-spaces. And in Berlin I find that as a femme I’m way too often eroticized in an exoticized way because I’m the only male-bodied femme in the building.
One of the reasons I am so attracted to femmes today is because I seek people who can be my equals and I often equate masculinity, especially in cismale’s, both with power and patriarchy and with being a bit boring, stupid, foolish, clumsy and not so emotionally rich. This is most definitely a problematic generalization – just because someone seems masculine in attitudes and attributes doesn’t mean they are patriarchal assholes, but when it comes to counteracting oppression, opening up to priviledged masculine guys is not my number one priority, especially since part of my aversion towards masculinity has to do with the sexual assault and harassment I’ve met from more masculine guys. Instead I want to work more against how femininity is downplayed and viewed as less attractive than masculinity in male-bodies – more or less across the board, from straight to gay. I want to counteract this both in how I present myself and in how my desire is expressed. I like being near people who can understand and relate to my experiences which a masculine gay cis-guy seldom can, because he usually experiences loads of both cis and straight privilege in ways that I don’t. In general we have to discuss more how different forms of gender expression affect the type of oppression we meet – it’s not like everybody in the queer-movement meets the same type of oppression… And the amount of sexual harassment one meets as a male-bodied femme is definitely not discussed enough - I've totally lost track of how many times guys have groped me.
There are many questions relating to femininty and masculinity that we have to ask ourselves: Why are there so many more transmen than transwomen in queer-communities and why do queer-communities often see transmen as sexy while transwomen rarely are seen as sexy? What is ok for a woman or transguy to say or do to a woman or femme of any gender that would be called out as sexism if it was a cis-guy doing it to a cis-woman? When does butch or transmale-masculinity reproduce cismale-masculine patriarchy? Or for that matter when can femmes get away with a patriarchal masculine-behaviour just because they/we have feminine attributes? In general I believe that feminism has to be more about how we want people in general to behave and treat each other and less about how men should behave and how women should behave.
For further discussion please comment here or e-mail me (contact info in my blogger profile)!
For many reasons I have never felt entirely at home, some of the reasons are only personal, but some of the reasons are both personal and political. The latter are my focus point in this essay/manifesto. Since I am very verbose I have decided to split it up in 5 parts, so as to not throw 12 pages of text out at once:
1. Lookism
2. Sex positive spaces not being inclusive enough for survivors of sexual assault.
3. Criticism of power dynamics within sexuality
4. Femininity and Masculinity and patriarchy
5. Many different ways of interacting with our bodies and our emotions.
My critique of sex positive-culture is done with love, because it is a movement I am invested in and in many ways love – at the same time if certain things do not change I do not think I will continue to invest in it. I believe in the radical possibilities of pleasure, I do also believe that the issue is complex and extra hard for some of us given our experiences. I recognize that thought processes, ideas and action always come with flaws, often even more so when done in a collective movement. The more people involved in a discussion the harder it is to muster the reflection and nuances of an inner dialogue or an open and intimate dialogue between two people. This is one of the reasons why I have moved more and more away from larger group processes and more and more into revolution through introvert processes of writing and art, and living my life through an intimate relationship with myself and a few others. However I do also recognize that collective social movements are essential for creating change in the world and therefore extremely necessary – and they need to be critiqued, with love, in order to not grow into non-reflective and stupid mobs that move in a straight line formed by knee jerk-reactions. So, it is from this perspective I am critiqueing parts of the sexpositive queerfeminist movement (globally with maybe extra focus on San Francisco, umm Lookism for example, in some parts and extra focus on Berlin, umm femme-phobia for example, in some parts), a movement I love and a politic which I very much identify with.
Part 1: Lookism
I first heard of the term lookism when I was in Berlin three years ago. I was introduced through a poster with a picture of Snow White with an AK 47 and lyrics from Bikini Kill: ”Mirror Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? I don’t I don’t really care, like it doesn’t fucking matter at all”. Since than I have been irritated with how often people comment on and evaluate appearances and bodies in sex positive queerfeminist-spaces. ”Oh my god this and that person is sooo hot and sexy” etc. etc. Sure, we aren’t calling people ugly, but that’s just like facebook doesn’t have an unlike button, but getting 0 likes means…
In general gender standards and gender norms are getting criticized in sex positive queerfeminist spaces, but not beauty standards and norms, except for fat-phobia, and while it’s great that one form of lookism is being criticized (and not even fat-phobia is addressed nearly enough) there is so much more to the issue than that, beauty standards are not just about body size.
Antilookism is one of many strategies of resistance in failing to become the ideal capitalist person. Lookism is classism. It is fat-phobia. It is racism. It is ageism, ableism, sexism, heteronormativity, cisism – all these power dynamics wrapped up in one telling us who is hot and not. The ideal appearance is to be white (there is a whole industry dedicated to products that make people of color more white), young, heterosexual, able-bodied and upper middle class. Power. In the song ”Pretty on the inside” Courtney Love screamed, ”There is no power like the pretty power” and she has a point. Being beautiful is considered very important in todays society. For women it is often considered to be the most important thing. We categorize people as pretty and ugly and we give people attention according to how attractive their appearance is considered. If you are seen as conventionally beautiful you have an easier time getting good jobs (A study shows that people who are considered ”good-looking” make 5-10 percent more money than people who aren’t considered ”good-looking”), more friends, more relationship-choices and more sex. Being ”good-looking” increases your market worth considerably. It gives you power, although oppressed groups, such as women, people of color, femmes of all genders etc, run the risk of being objectified or exotisized and therefore punished for their beauty. If somebody is put up on a pedestal for their body it can be hard for them to get attention for anything other than their looks.
This ties very well in to how I feel a queerfeminist sexpositive intersectional and anticapitalist movement should be working. Unfourtanetely we do not speak much about lookism, instead we are often times just as busy as the rest of society in speaking about who is good-looking and hot. Because sexpositivism is about being positive to the body and it’s capacity to experience pleasure. But in order to be truly radical it has to be positive to ALL bodies and not distribute attraction and attention in accordance to the status quo of what a sexy body and a beautiful face is. Otherwise it is shallow and objectifying – not radical politics – and there is a big difference between the two! We have to stop evalutating and rating peoples looks and bodies. Why can’t our bodies just be bodies – neither pretty nor ugly? And why can’t physical desire be felt towards a persons insides more than their bodies, and when, for example, looking for casual sex, can’t we just be happy to find another desiring individual instead of rating looks?
Always striving to become more and more beautiful is to accept the status climbing of capitalism. And everybody will fail. After 30 our appearance-capital goes down. We can do everything in our power to keep it up through botox, creams and face lifts – but in the end we will all lose. And we are afraid of getting older because we won’t be as pretty. Says who? That smooth skin is more beautiful than wrinkles is socially constructed. Every single beauty standard is socially constructed. Us feminists are usually very good at criticizing gender as a social construction and we must start criticizing the beauty standards just as much – from youth to skininess to big eyes, little nose and no pimples. And a queerfeminist and anticapitalist sexpositivism must show that sexiness has nothing to do with beauty standards. That peoples bodies are not to be rated differently and categorized in pretty and ugly, attractive and unattractive. No body is more beautiful than another and age is not a ranking system where 18-30 always wins the beauty pageant.
The queerfeminist movement has done some criticizing of beauty standards, fat positive-activism is for example extremely important. At the same time we often cling to the importance of being viewed as beautiful. Ofcourse it is great if this beauty is beyond the beauty standard – but why should beauty be viewed as important at all? Does being pretty make us better people? It gives us more power and status – yes – but should we really be looking for power and status through our looks? Should we be looking for power and status at all?
I also want to tie in this issue to femme-activism, because saying that queerfemmes are the queers that focus the most on their appearances is an extreme over-simplification. If you wear a suit and tie nobody will accuse you of being fixated with your looks, but in a dress you always run that risk! And to be honest, in the queer world andro-masculine attributes, looks and bodies are seen as the most desirable. Being femme lowers the capital your looks bare with them. When us femmes put on our make-up and dresses we are failing to be conventionally queer-hot, even if that isn’t necessarily the intention. Being femme doesn’t give you more status, but we keep on fighting, because a world and an activist movement that upgrades the masculine and downplays the feminine is a patriarchal world/movement. We are not interested in being successful according to the status quo. Masculinities are given loads of status, should they really be allowed to both be seen as the hottest and get credit for being the least fixated with looks? Having a style that looks like you don’t care about your appearance is usually also a conscious style – and anti-lookism doesn’t mean we can’t be creative with our appearances, it just means we have to stop evaluating appearances in a hierarchy.
Ultimately the issue of lookism is about what we want to value as important in society. Is it our looks? Is it our shells – shells that (usually) are something we are born with. Shells that we are taught to do everything we can to improve upon, a huge cause for stress. Shells that say nothing about our inner-worlds, our personality, but a whole lot about our priviledges and oppression that should be erradicated. Do we want to give people attention mostly for their exteriors or for their interiors – their empathy, their intelligence, their energy, their solidarity, their caring, their fiery dedication to the creation of a better world? Why is it so important for us to be seen as beautiful? Why should we rate peoples looks? How hard are we working on the deconstruction of beauty standards and norms? How much are we objecitifying? To put it poetically: We are taught to drown in reflections in shallow puddles, but instead maybe we should be exploring the depths of the ocean.
An important starting point is the usage of language - trying to stop using a lookist language - this is an important starting point for social change, as Foucault would say! Anti-lookism is not about being anti-sex or anti-desire it is being body positive – ALL bodies – not rating them and especially not rating them in a hierarchy. The stress about looks that are so frequent in lifestyle magazines, tabloids and womens/mens magazines should be eliminated from our circles. I would like to burn these magazines, together with self help-books, financial magazines and other publications that tell us that the problem exists in ourselves, not in the system. That we all can become rich, happy and gorgeous if we just change our point of view. But we didn’t write the rules to begin with. The rules state that 1 % succeed at the cost of the failure of 99 %. Why should we waste our time reforming, rewriting these rules so they fit us a little bit better? Instead we should clear the whole board and create something new. A new world – A magical world – A just world – A free world – From each according to their abilities and passions, to each according to their needs and desires – A world full of pleasure, where our faces and our bodies do not give us status, power or attention. Or to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. – A world where we are not judged by hot or not, but by the content of our character.
Read More:
King Kong-Theory - Virginie Despentes
The power of looks - Bonnie Berry
Anti-lookism activist group in Berlin - http://www.lookism.info/BACKUP/eng/index2.html
Part 2: Sex positive spaces are not inclusive enough for survivors of sexual assault
Sex positivity and sex positive-culture have the potential to be extremely important and empowering spaces for healing from sexual assault. In a society that says that sexual assault means you can not have a positive sexuality for the rest of your life, sex positivity can offer a different pathway, an empowering pathway and break the taboos of opening up about the experience. When we start to talk about it we can start to heal and discuss the many different ways of handling it. But sex positive spaces in general have failed to be this type of space.
A big part of sex positivity is breaking taboos and shame around sexuality – being able to speak openly about sexual experiences, even the ones that are outside of the norm – BDSM, Group sex, anonymous sex etc. We can attend workshops where we can experiment with expanding our horizons and it is made clear that Consent is important and that it is ok to leave if you feel triggered etc. This makes the spaces safer. But there is something missing. In all the years I have been active in sex positive-culture I have never encountered a workshop for survivors of sexual assault, I’ve never heard a discussion on how sexual avversion and sexual compulsion are frequent coping mechanisms and how you can get out of it, I’ve never once encountered even a discussion at all on healing from sexual assault from a sex positive perspective. It’s so quiet about it, that it would make you think it never happened.. The experience is silenced and this means those survivors of sexual assault who have issues to work through (many of us) feel excluded, like ”The Other”, a freak among the freaks – less liberated, less sex positive – than those who seemingly have no issues. Who love BDSM, Group sex, anonymous sex and going to sex parties. But having negative sexual experiences does not make us sex negative. And instead of being inspired by being in sex positive-spaces I have often felt excluded, uncomfortable, stressed out, pressured, too complicated, boring, not sure-footed enough in my sexuality to be sexy, AND what is worse, that if I talked about why I felt this way, and was open about my experiences I would be raining on the parade, a party pooper – and that by being open about my experiences as a survivor of rape, assaults and so much sexual harrasment, I would make people afraid of starting a sexual relationship with me. It would be a turn off, I would be considered too complex, seeing as everyone else in queer sex positive-spaces seem to have such a simple relationship to their sexuality. And if one feels left-out as a queer sexual assault survivor in a queer community, will you be able to find any community at all?
A few months ago I finally encountered the first (only?) books I’ve ever heard of that combine sexpositivity with discussions on sexual assault: ”King Kong-Theory” by Virginie Despentes AND especially ”Healing sex” by Staci Haines. While King Kong-Theory deals (amongst many wonderful things) more with the right to be a noisy victim, Healing sex talks more about how sexuality, somatics and sex positivity can and should be an empowering part of healing from sexual assault. At the same time she addresses how sexual assault is not discussed in sex positive-spaces. The discussion is ”consent is important”, but it rarely goes any deeper than that. As much fantastic knowledge as there is on sexuality within sex positive-spaces, there is almost none on sexual assault. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that many people in the sex positive feminist community have supported Julian Assange, despite the existing feminist problem that women (and people of all genders really) are not believed when they say that they’ve been assaulted. Being a revolutionary computer hacker and being a rapist isn’t an anomaly.
My goal is for sex positive-spaces to become inclusive, inspirational and growing-in-your-own-tempo spaces, for survivors of sexual assault and, really, for everybody who feels they have a lot of healing to do in their sexuality. My goal is for sex positive feminism to provide a sanctuary for survivors who have been told that their life in general and especially their sexuality is over. My goal is for sex positive-spaces to expand the discussion of ”sex is not holy” to including a discussion on why sexual assault doesn’t mean your worth, your everything has been stolen from you. We have a lot of work to do. And we have to ask ourselves how we talk about sex, what assumptions are made and why we are talking about sex in the way we do.
We live in a capitalist society where we are taught to flaunt our successes and keep a happy face, while hiding our failures and negative experiences. Spend an hour scrolling through your facebook feed and you’ll understand we’re always busy reproducing this picture of us as happy and successful, making everyone feel further alone with their unhappiness and failures – although they are just as abundant as the successes – everyone just feels the dumb need to hide them… And in sex positive queerfeminist-spaces the discussions are usually: I love BDSM , I love group sex, I love sex parties, I love fisting - Not I’m insecure about my sexuality because I’ve been raped but I want to experiment slowly to find a path to healing and a space for sexuality to become an empowering and positive part of my life instead of one associated with pain and trauma. And to be truthful – while it’s lovely that people can be vocal about their love of fisting, BDSM etc. – when it’s the only way we’re discussing sex, sex positive culture turns into a very exclusive elitist place for the few. For those who are healing from trauma or from sex negative culture in general (and that is A LOT of us) it is more inspiring to hear about journeys. People who continually talk as if they’ve always just loved group sex and BDSM tend to instead make other people feel left out, boring or stressed-"why can't I be like them"? And if everyone is talking about how happy and healthy their sex life/drive is while you are dealing with triggers and dissociation and all kinds of issues - you may be happy for them (or understandably jealous and/or envious that things seem to come so easy for them), but the problem is you are not in a space that encourages you to make your voice heard.
Sex positive-culture must break taboos surrounding sexuality - when we are not talking about something it still resides in a place of shame. But to be honest, as much shame and taboos as there are surrounding BDSM and Anonymous sex, the shame and taboos surrounding sexual assault are larger and need to be worked on atleast as much in sex positive culture. Because right now everything BUT negative experiences are being discussed, when really there should be no taboos. I think that’s the road to a true sex positive world, instead of celebrating the positive experiences while putting a lid on the negative experiences. Openness and honesty always wins the race and one-dimensional must be replaced with multi-dimensional.
It is sometimes taken for granted that everybody already is, wants to become or has the same possibilities to have the sexual lifestyle that matches ”the sexpositive norm”, which means that the position of privilege works as the starting point. I would instead like to see a sex positive space where all experiences can come forth - the fears, the anxietys, the assaults, the overcomings, the pleasures, the exhilarations – the heights, the lows and most of all the depths. I want to hear more about journeys. I get much more inspired by hearing about somebodies journey to a sexuality that they are comfortable and thriving in – the hindrances, the assaults, the fears, the anxieties – The Realness that makes us human beings – it brings another depth to it – a depth that I much too often feel is lacking within sex positive spaces. It would mean that we would be creating a more mature, broadly political discussion and inclusive space in which sex positivity could flourish beyond where it is today – into a lair where we dare to expose ourselves to the beautiful power of vulnerability – and travel beyond ”the person who's fucked the most is the coolest”.
How often do we allow ourselves to be emotional and vulnerable in sex positive queer spaces? How often do we put our fears, emotions, negative experiences, neurosis etc. on display – or how often are we expected to just smile and uninhibitedly speak about our sexual escapades in a completely emotionally detached way - in order to be crowned the coolest most sex positive-queer? Why are we following the capitalist discourse of positive experiences=public, negative experiences=private?
And from there we have to start discussing common coping mechanisms, without essentializing and saying that every survivor of sexual assault has to go through the same processes. We have to discuss dissociation, triggers, PTSD – like how I once realized that I had an easier time relaxing and falling asleep beside someone who had basically tried to rape me than next to someone who I had sex with, because I was used to sex as trauma, but not sex as pleasure.
Sexual avversion is a common coping mechanism – and I’ve had a long period of that behind me – and it made me feel totally alienated and stressed in sex positive-spaces and I didn’t feel like I had a forum where I could discuss it. Sexual compulsion is just as common as a coping strategy, and I’ve had shorter periods of this as well. This isn’t discussed much in sex positive-spaces, instead sex is often discussed in terms of: ”Sex is fantastic, it’s fun, the more sex you have the better”. I understand why sex is being discussed in this way, because we live in a slut-shaming world, where having sex a lot and with a lot of people, especially if you are a woman, is seen as most definitely self-destructive. We must show that it doesn’t have to be that way, that it can be about opening up to desire and pleasure. But at the same time we can not deny that it can be that way. It’s common for survivors of sexual assault to go into a self-destructive and emotionally detached mode of compulsive sexuality where you see yourself as only good for one thing: Sex - not as a whole human being. After all, that was what the abusers message was to us. And since sex positive culture rarely discusses feelings around sex and tends more to just say that SEX IS FANTASTIC – we get a space where compulsive sexuality isn’t discussed or problematized, but instead easily can become something that is celebrated. We should never judge anybody’s sexual behaviour, but by having an open, multi-dimensional discussion on all the complex (especially complex for many survivors of sexual assault) different aspects of sexuality we can create an atmosphere where people can heal and get their anxieties of off their shoulders.
We need specific sex positive spaces and workshops for survivors of sexual assault. I think one of the reasons this hasn’t been happening is that many survivors of sexual assault haven’t felt that sex positive-spaces are welcoming spaces for talking about traumas and therefore just hasn’t been for us. I wrote this text because I strongly believe that sexpositivity that includes experiences and problems that many survivors of sexual assault have, has the potential to become a fantastic and welcoming place for sexual healing and empowerment, where survivors (And many other people!) feel that we get the support and inspiration we need in order to find a sexuality that feels good, life-affirming and positive for us – no matter if that means BDSM, fisting, anonymous sex, group sex, sex with a person we have a strong emotional connection with – or all or none of the above.
More info:
Healing Sex - Staci Haines
King Kong-Theory - Virginie Despentes
For many reasons I have never felt entirely at home, some of the reasons are only personal, but some of the reasons are both personal and political. The latter are my focus point in this essay/manifesto. Since I am very verbose I have decided to split it up in 5 parts, so as to not throw 12 pages of text out at once:
1. Lookism
2. Sex positive spaces not being inclusive enough for survivors of sexual assault.
3. Criticism of power dynamics within sexuality
4. Femininity and Masculinity and patriarchy
5. Many different ways of interacting with our bodies and our emotions.
My critique of sex positive-culture is done with love, because it is a movement I am invested in and in many ways love – at the same time if certain things do not change I do not think I will continue to invest in it. I believe in the radical possibilities of pleasure, I do also believe that the issue is complex and extra hard for some of us given our experiences. I recognize that thought processes, ideas and action always come with flaws, often even more so when done in a collective movement. The more people involved in a discussion the harder it is to muster the reflection and nuances of an inner dialogue or an open and intimate dialogue between two people. This is one of the reasons why I have moved more and more away from larger group processes and more and more into revolution through introvert processes of writing and art, and living my life through an intimate relationship with myself and a few others. However I do also recognize that collective social movements are essential for creating change in the world and therefore extremely necessary – and they need to be critiqued, with love, in order to not grow into non-reflective and stupid mobs that move in a straight line formed by knee jerk-reactions. So, it is from this perspective I am critiqueing parts of the sexpositive queerfeminist movement (globally with maybe extra focus on San Francisco, umm Lookism for example, in some parts and extra focus on Berlin, umm femme-phobia for example, in some parts), a movement I love and a politic which I very much identify with.
Part 1: Lookism
I first heard of the term lookism when I was in Berlin three years ago. I was introduced through a poster with a picture of Snow White with an AK 47 and lyrics from Bikini Kill: ”Mirror Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? I don’t I don’t really care, like it doesn’t fucking matter at all”. Since than I have been irritated with how often people comment on and evaluate appearances and bodies in sex positive queerfeminist-spaces. ”Oh my god this and that person is sooo hot and sexy” etc. etc. Sure, we aren’t calling people ugly, but that’s just like facebook doesn’t have an unlike button, but getting 0 likes means…
In general gender standards and gender norms are getting criticized in sex positive queerfeminist spaces, but not beauty standards and norms, except for fat-phobia, and while it’s great that one form of lookism is being criticized (and not even fat-phobia is addressed nearly enough) there is so much more to the issue than that, beauty standards are not just about body size.
Antilookism is one of many strategies of resistance in failing to become the ideal capitalist person. Lookism is classism. It is fat-phobia. It is racism. It is ageism, ableism, sexism, heteronormativity, cisism – all these power dynamics wrapped up in one telling us who is hot and not. The ideal appearance is to be white (there is a whole industry dedicated to products that make people of color more white), young, heterosexual, able-bodied and upper middle class. Power. In the song ”Pretty on the inside” Courtney Love screamed, ”There is no power like the pretty power” and she has a point. Being beautiful is considered very important in todays society. For women it is often considered to be the most important thing. We categorize people as pretty and ugly and we give people attention according to how attractive their appearance is considered. If you are seen as conventionally beautiful you have an easier time getting good jobs (A study shows that people who are considered ”good-looking” make 5-10 percent more money than people who aren’t considered ”good-looking”), more friends, more relationship-choices and more sex. Being ”good-looking” increases your market worth considerably. It gives you power, although oppressed groups, such as women, people of color, femmes of all genders etc, run the risk of being objectified or exotisized and therefore punished for their beauty. If somebody is put up on a pedestal for their body it can be hard for them to get attention for anything other than their looks.
This ties very well in to how I feel a queerfeminist sexpositive intersectional and anticapitalist movement should be working. Unfourtanetely we do not speak much about lookism, instead we are often times just as busy as the rest of society in speaking about who is good-looking and hot. Because sexpositivism is about being positive to the body and it’s capacity to experience pleasure. But in order to be truly radical it has to be positive to ALL bodies and not distribute attraction and attention in accordance to the status quo of what a sexy body and a beautiful face is. Otherwise it is shallow and objectifying – not radical politics – and there is a big difference between the two! We have to stop evalutating and rating peoples looks and bodies. Why can’t our bodies just be bodies – neither pretty nor ugly? And why can’t physical desire be felt towards a persons insides more than their bodies, and when, for example, looking for casual sex, can’t we just be happy to find another desiring individual instead of rating looks?
Always striving to become more and more beautiful is to accept the status climbing of capitalism. And everybody will fail. After 30 our appearance-capital goes down. We can do everything in our power to keep it up through botox, creams and face lifts – but in the end we will all lose. And we are afraid of getting older because we won’t be as pretty. Says who? That smooth skin is more beautiful than wrinkles is socially constructed. Every single beauty standard is socially constructed. Us feminists are usually very good at criticizing gender as a social construction and we must start criticizing the beauty standards just as much – from youth to skininess to big eyes, little nose and no pimples. And a queerfeminist and anticapitalist sexpositivism must show that sexiness has nothing to do with beauty standards. That peoples bodies are not to be rated differently and categorized in pretty and ugly, attractive and unattractive. No body is more beautiful than another and age is not a ranking system where 18-30 always wins the beauty pageant.
The queerfeminist movement has done some criticizing of beauty standards, fat positive-activism is for example extremely important. At the same time we often cling to the importance of being viewed as beautiful. Ofcourse it is great if this beauty is beyond the beauty standard – but why should beauty be viewed as important at all? Does being pretty make us better people? It gives us more power and status – yes – but should we really be looking for power and status through our looks? Should we be looking for power and status at all?
I also want to tie in this issue to femme-activism, because saying that queerfemmes are the queers that focus the most on their appearances is an extreme over-simplification. If you wear a suit and tie nobody will accuse you of being fixated with your looks, but in a dress you always run that risk! And to be honest, in the queer world andro-masculine attributes, looks and bodies are seen as the most desirable. Being femme lowers the capital your looks bare with them. When us femmes put on our make-up and dresses we are failing to be conventionally queer-hot, even if that isn’t necessarily the intention. Being femme doesn’t give you more status, but we keep on fighting, because a world and an activist movement that upgrades the masculine and downplays the feminine is a patriarchal world/movement. We are not interested in being successful according to the status quo. Masculinities are given loads of status, should they really be allowed to both be seen as the hottest and get credit for being the least fixated with looks? Having a style that looks like you don’t care about your appearance is usually also a conscious style – and anti-lookism doesn’t mean we can’t be creative with our appearances, it just means we have to stop evaluating appearances in a hierarchy.
Ultimately the issue of lookism is about what we want to value as important in society. Is it our looks? Is it our shells – shells that (usually) are something we are born with. Shells that we are taught to do everything we can to improve upon, a huge cause for stress. Shells that say nothing about our inner-worlds, our personality, but a whole lot about our priviledges and oppression that should be erradicated. Do we want to give people attention mostly for their exteriors or for their interiors – their empathy, their intelligence, their energy, their solidarity, their caring, their fiery dedication to the creation of a better world? Why is it so important for us to be seen as beautiful? Why should we rate peoples looks? How hard are we working on the deconstruction of beauty standards and norms? How much are we objecitifying? To put it poetically: We are taught to drown in reflections in shallow puddles, but instead maybe we should be exploring the depths of the ocean.
An important starting point is the usage of language - trying to stop using a lookist language - this is an important starting point for social change, as Foucault would say! Anti-lookism is not about being anti-sex or anti-desire it is being body positive – ALL bodies – not rating them and especially not rating them in a hierarchy. The stress about looks that are so frequent in lifestyle magazines, tabloids and womens/mens magazines should be eliminated from our circles. I would like to burn these magazines, together with self help-books, financial magazines and other publications that tell us that the problem exists in ourselves, not in the system. That we all can become rich, happy and gorgeous if we just change our point of view. But we didn’t write the rules to begin with. The rules state that 1 % succeed at the cost of the failure of 99 %. Why should we waste our time reforming, rewriting these rules so they fit us a little bit better? Instead we should clear the whole board and create something new. A new world – A magical world – A just world – A free world – From each according to their abilities and passions, to each according to their needs and desires – A world full of pleasure, where our faces and our bodies do not give us status, power or attention. Or to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. – A world where we are not judged by hot or not, but by the content of our character.
Read More:
King Kong-Theory - Virginie Despentes
The power of looks - Bonnie Berry
Anti-lookism activist group in Berlin - http://www.lookism.info/BACKUP/eng/index2.html
Sex positivity and sex positive-culture have the potential to be extremely important and empowering spaces for healing from sexual assault. In a society that says that sexual assault means you can not have a positive sexuality for the rest of your life, sex positivity can offer a different pathway, an empowering pathway and break the taboos of opening up about the experience. When we start to talk about it we can start to heal and discuss the many different ways of handling it. But sex positive spaces in general have failed to be this type of space.
A big part of sex positivity is breaking taboos and shame around sexuality – being able to speak openly about sexual experiences, even the ones that are outside of the norm – BDSM, Group sex, anonymous sex etc. We can attend workshops where we can experiment with expanding our horizons and it is made clear that Consent is important and that it is ok to leave if you feel triggered etc. This makes the spaces safer. But there is something missing. In all the years I have been active in sex positive-culture I have never encountered a workshop for survivors of sexual assault, I’ve never heard a discussion on how sexual avversion and sexual compulsion are frequent coping mechanisms and how you can get out of it, I’ve never once encountered even a discussion at all on healing from sexual assault from a sex positive perspective. It’s so quiet about it, that it would make you think it never happened.. The experience is silenced and this means those survivors of sexual assault who have issues to work through (many of us) feel excluded, like ”The Other”, a freak among the freaks – less liberated, less sex positive – than those who seemingly have no issues. Who love BDSM, Group sex, anonymous sex and going to sex parties. But having negative sexual experiences does not make us sex negative. And instead of being inspired by being in sex positive-spaces I have often felt excluded, uncomfortable, stressed out, pressured, too complicated, boring, not sure-footed enough in my sexuality to be sexy, AND what is worse, that if I talked about why I felt this way, and was open about my experiences I would be raining on the parade, a party pooper – and that by being open about my experiences as a survivor of rape, assaults and so much sexual harrasment, I would make people afraid of starting a sexual relationship with me. It would be a turn off, I would be considered too complex, seeing as everyone else in queer sex positive-spaces seem to have such a simple relationship to their sexuality. And if one feels left-out as a queer sexual assault survivor in a queer community, will you be able to find any community at all?
A few months ago I finally encountered the first (only?) books I’ve ever heard of that combine sexpositivity with discussions on sexual assault: ”King Kong-Theory” by Virginie Despentes AND especially ”Healing sex” by Staci Haines. While King Kong-Theory deals (amongst many wonderful things) more with the right to be a noisy victim, Healing sex talks more about how sexuality, somatics and sex positivity can and should be an empowering part of healing from sexual assault. At the same time she addresses how sexual assault is not discussed in sex positive-spaces. The discussion is ”consent is important”, but it rarely goes any deeper than that. As much fantastic knowledge as there is on sexuality within sex positive-spaces, there is almost none on sexual assault. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that many people in the sex positive feminist community have supported Julian Assange, despite the existing feminist problem that women (and people of all genders really) are not believed when they say that they’ve been assaulted. Being a revolutionary computer hacker and being a rapist isn’t an anomaly.
My goal is for sex positive-spaces to become inclusive, inspirational and growing-in-your-own-tempo spaces, for survivors of sexual assault and, really, for everybody who feels they have a lot of healing to do in their sexuality. My goal is for sex positive feminism to provide a sanctuary for survivors who have been told that their life in general and especially their sexuality is over. My goal is for sex positive-spaces to expand the discussion of ”sex is not holy” to including a discussion on why sexual assault doesn’t mean your worth, your everything has been stolen from you. We have a lot of work to do. And we have to ask ourselves how we talk about sex, what assumptions are made and why we are talking about sex in the way we do.
We live in a capitalist society where we are taught to flaunt our successes and keep a happy face, while hiding our failures and negative experiences. Spend an hour scrolling through your facebook feed and you’ll understand we’re always busy reproducing this picture of us as happy and successful, making everyone feel further alone with their unhappiness and failures – although they are just as abundant as the successes – everyone just feels the dumb need to hide them… And in sex positive queerfeminist-spaces the discussions are usually: I love BDSM , I love group sex, I love sex parties, I love fisting - Not I’m insecure about my sexuality because I’ve been raped but I want to experiment slowly to find a path to healing and a space for sexuality to become an empowering and positive part of my life instead of one associated with pain and trauma. And to be truthful – while it’s lovely that people can be vocal about their love of fisting, BDSM etc. – when it’s the only way we’re discussing sex, sex positive culture turns into a very exclusive elitist place for the few. For those who are healing from trauma or from sex negative culture in general (and that is A LOT of us) it is more inspiring to hear about journeys. People who continually talk as if they’ve always just loved group sex and BDSM tend to instead make other people feel left out, boring or stressed-"why can't I be like them"? And if everyone is talking about how happy and healthy their sex life/drive is while you are dealing with triggers and dissociation and all kinds of issues - you may be happy for them (or understandably jealous and/or envious that things seem to come so easy for them), but the problem is you are not in a space that encourages you to make your voice heard.
Sex positive-culture must break taboos surrounding sexuality - when we are not talking about something it still resides in a place of shame. But to be honest, as much shame and taboos as there are surrounding BDSM and Anonymous sex, the shame and taboos surrounding sexual assault are larger and need to be worked on atleast as much in sex positive culture. Because right now everything BUT negative experiences are being discussed, when really there should be no taboos. I think that’s the road to a true sex positive world, instead of celebrating the positive experiences while putting a lid on the negative experiences. Openness and honesty always wins the race and one-dimensional must be replaced with multi-dimensional.
It is sometimes taken for granted that everybody already is, wants to become or has the same possibilities to have the sexual lifestyle that matches ”the sexpositive norm”, which means that the position of privilege works as the starting point. I would instead like to see a sex positive space where all experiences can come forth - the fears, the anxietys, the assaults, the overcomings, the pleasures, the exhilarations – the heights, the lows and most of all the depths. I want to hear more about journeys. I get much more inspired by hearing about somebodies journey to a sexuality that they are comfortable and thriving in – the hindrances, the assaults, the fears, the anxieties – The Realness that makes us human beings – it brings another depth to it – a depth that I much too often feel is lacking within sex positive spaces. It would mean that we would be creating a more mature, broadly political discussion and inclusive space in which sex positivity could flourish beyond where it is today – into a lair where we dare to expose ourselves to the beautiful power of vulnerability – and travel beyond ”the person who's fucked the most is the coolest”.
How often do we allow ourselves to be emotional and vulnerable in sex positive queer spaces? How often do we put our fears, emotions, negative experiences, neurosis etc. on display – or how often are we expected to just smile and uninhibitedly speak about our sexual escapades in a completely emotionally detached way - in order to be crowned the coolest most sex positive-queer? Why are we following the capitalist discourse of positive experiences=public, negative experiences=private?
And from there we have to start discussing common coping mechanisms, without essentializing and saying that every survivor of sexual assault has to go through the same processes. We have to discuss dissociation, triggers, PTSD – like how I once realized that I had an easier time relaxing and falling asleep beside someone who had basically tried to rape me than next to someone who I had sex with, because I was used to sex as trauma, but not sex as pleasure.
Sexual avversion is a common coping mechanism – and I’ve had a long period of that behind me – and it made me feel totally alienated and stressed in sex positive-spaces and I didn’t feel like I had a forum where I could discuss it. Sexual compulsion is just as common as a coping strategy, and I’ve had shorter periods of this as well. This isn’t discussed much in sex positive-spaces, instead sex is often discussed in terms of: ”Sex is fantastic, it’s fun, the more sex you have the better”. I understand why sex is being discussed in this way, because we live in a slut-shaming world, where having sex a lot and with a lot of people, especially if you are a woman, is seen as most definitely self-destructive. We must show that it doesn’t have to be that way, that it can be about opening up to desire and pleasure. But at the same time we can not deny that it can be that way. It’s common for survivors of sexual assault to go into a self-destructive and emotionally detached mode of compulsive sexuality where you see yourself as only good for one thing: Sex - not as a whole human being. After all, that was what the abusers message was to us. And since sex positive culture rarely discusses feelings around sex and tends more to just say that SEX IS FANTASTIC – we get a space where compulsive sexuality isn’t discussed or problematized, but instead easily can become something that is celebrated. We should never judge anybody’s sexual behaviour, but by having an open, multi-dimensional discussion on all the complex (especially complex for many survivors of sexual assault) different aspects of sexuality we can create an atmosphere where people can heal and get their anxieties of off their shoulders.
We need specific sex positive spaces and workshops for survivors of sexual assault. I think one of the reasons this hasn’t been happening is that many survivors of sexual assault haven’t felt that sex positive-spaces are welcoming spaces for talking about traumas and therefore just hasn’t been for us. I wrote this text because I strongly believe that sexpositivity that includes experiences and problems that many survivors of sexual assault have, has the potential to become a fantastic and welcoming place for sexual healing and empowerment, where survivors (And many other people!) feel that we get the support and inspiration we need in order to find a sexuality that feels good, life-affirming and positive for us – no matter if that means BDSM, fisting, anonymous sex, group sex, sex with a person we have a strong emotional connection with – or all or none of the above.
More info:
Healing Sex - Staci Haines
King Kong-Theory - Virginie Despentes
Part 3: Criticism of power dynamics within sexuality
The sex positive feminist Gayle Rubin is one of my favorite academics. She put forth a very telling definition of sex negativity that I use as a compass and as a vital argument against sex negative-culture. Sex negativity is when we criticize power dynamics within sexuality more than power dynamics outside of sexuality. A good example of this is how many discussions on porn are. Mainstream porn is correctly called out as commercial and often deeply patriarchal and body fascist. Now, because we live in a sex negative culture the problem is seen as porn itself – it is deemed dirty to watch and get turned on by seeing other people have sex in front of a camera – and the solution is therefore: No Porn. Now nobody would ever say: ”Since most movies (non-porn) are commercial and often deeply patriarchal and body fascist we should stop making movies altogether”. No, instead we value the need for feminist movies and celebrate feminist movies. We should be doing the same with pornography.
The problem with sex positive queerfeminist culture is I believe we are spending too much time being defensive and reacting to sex negative culture – a sex negative culture that criticizes, scrutinizes and stigmatizes power dynamics within sex – and too little time creating our own sex positive queerfeminist discourse around these issues. Instead of being a space that creates new frontiers and a different way of criticizing power dynamics within sexuality, we can sometimes forget to criticize the power dynamics altogether. This is the reason why some people’s view of sex positive queerfeminism is that ”Anything goes” when it comes to sexuality – and if anything goes, than we are leaving the terrain of feminism and diving into the terrain of neoliberalism. Just because sex negative culture criticizes structures within sexuality more than other structures doesn’t mean we should be defending, ligitimizing or trivializing those structures. It doesn’t mean that we should be criticizing structures within sexuality LESS than structures in the rest of society.
Todays society victimizes and stigmatizes sex workers. Now, a reactionary knee-jerk response to that is to instead scream ”No, sex workers are empowered and strong”. Creating a new, nuanced and reflective discussion on sex work is to instead acknowledge complexities and power dynamics, while also putting forth agency, empowernment and strength as well as acknowledging weakness, problems and being honest with how the mainstream sex industry, just as many industries in todays society, is part of a sexist, ageist, capitalist, racist and lookist society. When we say that these power dynamics also exist in many other parts of society, it is not to ligitimize them, it is to put them in a broader context, so that we can fight them without blending them with sex negativity. I do not understand how society can think it’s so terrible to buy/sell sex, which is something many human beings feel they need, while buying/selling products that we don’t need and that destroy the environment is completely legitimate. We have to call out that hypocrisy. But we also have to ask ourselves other questions. Why is it mostly men who buy sex? Do we want more women to start buying sex? Why/Why not? Almost only male-clients does mean that there is patriarchy going on. The power dynamic is obvious but it is hardly linear as in clients=oppressors, workers=victims or that sex buyers are taking something holy and precious from sex workers.
It is also important for me to say that I am speaking from the perspective of somebody who has been a sex worker themself. I have worked mostly as a stripper, but also sold sex a few times. Stripping was a positive experience for me, selling sex was a negative experience. In sex positive spaces I’ve almost felt bad talking about my negative experiences with selling sex and felt like ”thank goodness that I have positive experiences with stripping” – otherwise I’d be seen as sex negative. It’s like society in general won’t listen to, or believe, people who have positive experiences with sex work, while sex positive-culture sometimes risks just flipping the coin.
And this brings us to the next taboo: Speaking about experiences of sexual assault and sex work or BDSM in the same sentence. Sex negative culture has taught us that most people who do BDSM or sex work are victims of sexual assault who are acting out their abuse as a means of being self-destructive. In sex positive culture it is often taboo to mention sex work or BDSM and sexual assault in the same sentence – the defensiveness garners the response No, No, No we (BDSM and/or sex workers) have not been sexually assaulted and if you have, be silent about it, so as not to blend the issues with eachother. In the best case scenario the sex positive-discourse says that BDSM and/or sex work can, contrary to popular belief, be part of a healing process from sexual assault. And yes it can, especially BDSM, but it can also be the exact opposite and I don’t want my complex healing process to be used in an oversimplified agenda in either direction. My personal experience is that stripping was wonderful for my healing process, BDSM has that potential as well, but selling sex set me aback and had I continued doing it, it would have been waaaay self-destructive. Luckily I had a friend who was sex positive but understood the nuances and complexities and was able to talk me out of continuing. Had I had a discussion with someone who was sex negative I would probably just have been defensive. ”Healing Sex” by Staci Haines is the first book that I’ve read that deals with BDSM and sex work in relation to sexual assault in a nuanced, complex and non-judgemental way. Finally.
What I’m looking for is a discussion on sex that is allowed to be complex and not black-and-white - that is not a knee jerk-reaction to a sex negative world that victimizes, stigmatizes and villianizes sex workers – but that creates something new altogether. One of the best articles I’ve read on sex work was by somebody who talked about her negative experiences as a sex worker and therefore called for the importance of sex workers rights and the legalization of sex work. She was specific about this being her personal experience and that is the thing – I want the discussion to be broad, because there are as many different experiences as there are sex workers. And the structures can not be ignored, because the structures in sex work mirror the structures in the rest of society, both when it comes to clients and workers. You don’t see many 70-year old strippers. I would love to see a society with strippers of all ages, genders, body-sizes, gender expressions. We are not there yet. I usually say that the modelling industry is more lookist, ageist, capitalist and sexist than the sex industry, but that isn’t to legitimize the power dynamics within the mainstream sex industry – it is to destigimatize them and fight them on a battle ground where they have the same playing field as the fight against power dynamics in other parts of society. Within sexuality, stripping, pornography we can create body positive queerfeminist spaces. However it is mostly within the mainstream sex industry that we are able to make a living – and the mainstream sex industry is not a radical political space, it is not feminist, it is not queer (Although sometimes gay) and it is not anti-capitalist. This is the case for so many jobs, but we still have to acknowledge these things and many other things. Like objectification – 2nd wave feminism called out most everything that had to do with sex and (Female) bodies as objectification, sex positive queerfeminism barely ever discusses objectification and lookism. We have to define for ourselves what the difference is between objectification and lookism on one side and radical political norm-shattering body positivism on the other.
As sex positive queerfeminists we have to discuss issues like how far from everybody are able to do different forms of sex work and feel good about it. This needs to be brought up without judgement and without the whole patriarchal and capitalist notion of those who are able to do it=strong and strength=good, where as those who are not able to do it=weak and weakness=bad. We have different experiences in our baggage and this effects us. We have different class backgrounds and economic conditions and this effects our ability to choose/choose not to do sex work and this choice also effects how we feel about it (but this isn’t simple either. It’s not as simple as sex workers with working class backgrounds=victims, while sex workers with middle class backgrounds=empowered – but there are structures (regarding racism and cisism etc. as well) and these can not be ignored). We have to acknowledge that sex work is a very precarious line of work (because of sex negativity, stigmatization, capitalism, not enough rights etc.) and therefore there is a need for emotional support. We have to able to talk about negative experiences without judgement, we have to also be able to ask for help to leave sex work without being judged for it. We have to keep in mind that Glorification and Victimization are not the only two possible ways of discussing sex work.
Another issue that is important to discuss is ”coolness” within radical queer-spaces. There are many things that can be deemed as ”cool” within these spaces, BDSM is one, fucking a lot of people is another and being a sex worker is also something that can make you be viewed as the coolest, most radical, most emancipated Queer. What happens with this type of coolness and hierarchies? It means that some people get peer-pressured into having a lot of sex and/or doing sex work in order to be deemed ”cool”. This is a problem because sex work is not cool, it is work and a means of income that works well for some and less well for others – it should neither be glorified nor stigmatized nor victimized nor villianized. We, and this is something I’m going to get back to in part 5 om my series, have to get rid of coolness all together. Doing BDSM doesn’t make you cooler or necessarily more emancipated than somebody who doesn’t do BDSM. Having had sex with 100 people doesn’t make you cooler or necessarily more emancipated than somebody who has had sex with 5 people. To be honest, of the around 30+ people I’ve had sex with, probably only around 5 or 6 of the times was it with people and in situations where I really wanted to have sex. This has partially to do with a history of sexual assault, but not only, nearly half of my experiences came before the first time I was assaulted. To be emancipated is to really listen to your body and mind when having sex and in that case I would have been more emancipated if I’d only had sex with 5-6 people. But had I told people within radical queer-communities that I’ve had sex with 5 people I would probably be ridiculed in different ways or been asked Whyyyyy I’ve had sex with so few people? I’d definitely be viewed as ”un-cool”. So thank goodness that I can say that I’ve had sex with 30+ people so that I don’t have to meet that type of judgement… Or, Queer-culture has got to reflect and change - we don't need coolness, norms and hierarchies.
Links:
Part 4: Masculinities and femininities and patriarchy
Lately there have been more and more discussions on femme-activism and dismantling of patriarchy within queerfeminist-spaces. However, there is still a long way to go. Masculinity is still deemed as more attractive – in female-bodies and perhaps even more in male-bodies (and let’s not even get to how the situation is in the gay male world). When femmes are considered attractive it often results in objectification and I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been sexually harrased – also in queerfeminist-spaces. And in Berlin I find that as a femme I’m way too often eroticized in an exoticized way because I’m the only male-bodied femme in the building.
As a femme people have a hard time seeing me as both smart and attractive – it’s usually either or. And I am certain that my emotional intensity is punished much more because I am femme. As a femme, especially as a femme who takes up a lot of space with their presence, I feel like a lot of guys wrap me up in a fantasy, but as soon as they see that I am emotionally and intellectually evolved and complex, their sexual attraction to me dies down. I’m not their fantasy anymore, I’m an emotionally complex person who isn’t happy all the time and this wasn’t what they bargained for or the fun, wild and crazy no-inhibitions/limits person they fantasized about. I doubt this whole thing is only about femmeness, it probably has a lot to do with my openness about the sexual trauma I’ve been through – a lot of guys have a hard time touching the subject. But the fact that they have trouble dealing with that and the emotions surrounding that also has a lot to do with patriarchy...
The last few years I have mainly been attracted to other femmes, but have noticed that even in queer spaces we still have a binarial norm that femmes should be more attracted to masculinity and vice versa. Butch-femme attraction is most definitely not a problem in itself – but the norm, the structure is a problem and the norm must be questioned and deconstructed.
In my early teens I was most definitely more attracted to masculine guys – the bulging muscles and everything. In my late teens-early 20's I started being attracted mostly to guys who looked "bohemian" and like they didn’t care that much about their appearance/looks, but than I realized 1. Most of them fucking DO care about appearance/looks and others appearances/looks. 2. I was just giving masculinity another free-ride – calling out femmes as being preoccupied with their appearances while believing that more masculine bohemian guys, who were considered more attractive than femmes anyways, were free from lookism.
One of the reasons I am so attracted to femmes today is because I seek people who can be my equals and I often equate masculinity, especially in cismale’s, both with power and patriarchy and with being a bit boring, stupid, foolish, clumsy and not so emotionally rich. This is most definitely a problematic generalization – just because someone seems masculine in attitudes and attributes doesn’t mean they are patriarchal assholes, but when it comes to counteracting oppression, opening up to priviledged masculine guys is not my number one priority, especially since part of my aversion towards masculinity has to do with the sexual assault and harassment I’ve met from more masculine guys. Instead I want to work more against how femininity is downplayed and viewed as less attractive than masculinity in male-bodies – more or less across the board, from straight to gay. I want to counteract this both in how I present myself and in how my desire is expressed. I like being near people who can understand and relate to my experiences which a masculine gay cis-guy seldom can, because he usually experiences loads of both cis and straight privilege in ways that I don’t. In general we have to discuss more how different forms of gender expression affect the type of oppression we meet – it’s not like everybody in the queer-movement meets the same type of oppression… And the amount of sexual harassment one meets as a male-bodied femme is definitely not discussed enough - I've totally lost track of how many times guys have groped me.
There are many questions relating to femininty and masculinity that we have to ask ourselves: Why are there so many more transmen than transwomen in queer-communities and why do queer-communities often see transmen as sexy while transwomen rarely are seen as sexy? What is ok for a woman or transguy to say or do to a woman or femme of any gender that would be called out as sexism if it was a cis-guy doing it to a cis-woman? When does butch or transmale-masculinity reproduce cismale-masculine patriarchy? Or for that matter when can femmes get away with a patriarchal masculine-behaviour just because they/we have feminine attributes? In general I believe that feminism has to be more about how we want people in general to behave and treat each other and less about how men should behave and how women should behave.
I quite honestly have a problem with masculine behaviour no matter which body it is coming from (at the end of the day it’s about attitudes not attributes and at the same time at the end of the day things aren’t black and white as in everything masculine=bad, everything feminine=good) – the physically aggressive responses that instill fear. And the emotional abuse of trying to reach somebody emotionally who meets you with a stone face is unfathomable. Unfourtantely this is an incredibly common story within relationships in queer communities, especially in relationships involving an emotional femme and a less emotional more masculine person. We’re all so free and poly and can have sex with who we want – but too many are using this as an excuse to not communicate, shut off emotionally and punish people who are emotional, punish people who experience precarity. Once again those who are emotional and intense are told that our way of reacting is wrong, while those who are emotionally distant get away with most everything all in the name of ”radicalism”. The emotionally distant are ”cool” and "radically correct", the emotionally intense are ”too much” - once again "rational masculinity" wins out against "emotional femininity".
Anger is a much more accepted and revered emotion in radical spaces than sadness. This also has to do with patriarchal and capitalist norms around masculinity and femininity, as well as productivity and what privileged experiences and positions make it easier to be ”strong”. And where does our categorization and hierarchization of ”strength” and ”weakness” come from? – More on these issues in Part 5 ;-)
Links:
Marginalization among the marginalized: gay men's anti-effeminacy attitudes.
Part 5: We have many different ways of interacting with our bodies and our emotions
In queer sex positive-spaces you can often meet the expectation and assumption that we all interact in the same way with our bodies – and there is most definitely hierarchy involved. The notion that the coolest, most radical, sex positive queer is one who loves BDSM, casual sex at sex parties and is a sex worker IS a problem and it is not that casual sex, BDSM or sex work are problems, quite the contrary, if you like it, great - the problem is the hierarchy. There is not one way of being sex positive.
Some people are asexual, some people only like having sex with people they have an emotional connection with, some people like to fuck a new person every day - all of this is fine as long as it is done in a respectful manner. We can not create a hierarchy around these issues, where one way of interacting with your body makes you ”The most liberated”, while other experiences are erased. For me sex positivity is to feel no shame or pressure around sexuality no matter how much or how little sex you choose to have. Neither should anyone feel that there’s something wrong with them if they aren’t interested in exploring advanced sexual techniques. It doesn’t have to meen that they’re repressed, it can just mean that it’s not something they prioritize in their life.
Sex is not per se something liberating, it is liberating when it actually feels liberating. Having a lot of sex with a lot of people is not always something positive. It can just as well be about a self-destructive compulsive addiction to approval or adrenaline kicks, trying to do what is considered ”cool” within the community - or an emotionally detached way of deflecting the vulnerability that often is necessary in order to deal with trauma (Especially sexual and emotional trauma). Having sex with a lot of people can mean different things to different people in different periods of their life. Having a lot of sex with a lot of people far from always constitutes a destructive compulsive relationship to sex, for some it can be fantastic and liberating - however how the hell are we going to be able to distinguish the difference for ourselves if the topic is never discussed?
I think many people within sex positive-spaces have an understanding of this, but these discussions are being had in private, not in public – because we are conditioned by capitalist society to hold in our woes, and flaunt our wows. We are all too fucking afraid of being uncool when speaking up about our woe’s, therefore cementing a situation where we all feel pretty alone with our woe’s, because all we are seeing and hearing about is the wow’s, which never is the whole story. We owe eachother honesty, the truth and the whole story. It’s time to Kill Coolness - Murder it viciously with our bare hands. It’s what the (Audre) Lorde would have wanted and always preached beautifully about.
The problem is Hierarchy and Hierarchy creates pressure, something that is extra dangerous in a society that already has so many pressures surrounding sexuality. Sex positivity is very easily coopted by and confused with compulsory sexuality - a context where people feel pressure to have a lot of sex and advanced sex with a lot of people, not because they want to, but since it is considered ”cool”. I think in general queers are extra sensitive to ”fitting in” since a large portion of us have a history of being bullied and not fitting in – and that is one of the reasons why queer culture has an extra large responsibility to be friendly, inclusive and free from coolness. Cuz if you’re a queer freak and don’t even fit in the queer community – where are you going to turn if you feel the need for community?
So, discussions have to be broader and we can’t have a situation where there is only one way of interacting with ones body that is proudly shown within queer circles. There are so many things that need to be brought up. Like how masturbating is not less cool than having group sex. Like how asexuality is a way of interacting with ones body that is just as fine as having lots of sex. Like how there can be 100 reasons why one is uncomfortable with having group sex or sex with strangers that has nothing to do with being prude, conservative, boring or sex negative. Like how sexual trauma shouldn’t be an issue that is hidden under the rug – to be dealt with privately, while publicly all you hear about is how healthy and happy everyone elses sex lives/sex drives seems to be. If it seems so simple for everyone else, it makes you think you just must be too complex and complicated and insecure to be in this space. It just isn’t a space made for opening up about insecurities.
The point of this is: We all have totally different boundaries and needs and wants and all of these are just as wonderful as the other. We are the only ones who can define what makes us satisfied and what we are interested or not interested in exploring. And we need to be free to talk about our negative experiences and traumas in order to create a truly liberating and healing space.
I feel the need for radical emotional politics within sexpositive queer spaces. It would broaden many discussions. As I mentioned earlier a large portion of people in the queer-community were bullied in school and many also come from precarious family situations. The fact that we are barely talking about mental health issues in these communities is terrible, because it is very much needed. Statistics show that LGBTQ-people as a group have a lot of mental health issues. We need to talk about our feelings and we need to talk about sex /relationships and feelings and not just assume that we’re happy and ok with everything.
Capitalist society keeps us busy with showing off a positive image of ourselves – it makes us marketable, well-liked and popular. Spiritually I do believe that only being allowed to be open about positive things is killing us – twitter, facebook, instragram – we’re always busy reproducing this picture of us as happy and successful, making everyone feel further alone with their unhappiness and failures – although they are just as abundant as the successes. Everyone just feels the dumb need to hide them.
On the emotional spectrum, sadness is the most taboo – the emotion people have the hardest to deal with – the emotion that capitalism wishes we never felt cuz it’s not productive. Within radical spaces I do believe one is aloud to show anger, but sadness - No. This has a lot to do with patriarchy and capitalism as well. Anger is considerd ”masculine” and seen to symbolize ”strength” and patriarchalcapitalism revears strength. While sadness is considered feminine and seen to symbolize ”weakness” and ”weakness” is looked down upon. We need to be given space to embrace the full emotional spectrum, no emotion is wrong in itself as long as it isn't used to mistreat or injure someone else.
Within queer sex positive-spaces I believe we aren’t allowed much space for sadness, some space for anger (at the system), but mostly we are expected to act happy, especially when it comes to sexuality. I’ve had many periods where I’ve been far from happy all the time, especially when it comes to sexuality – because of trauma. The inbalance is obvious. I’m hardly alone in this, but in sex positive queer spaces I’ve felt alone.
People also have different ways of relating to their sexuality. Because of emotions or integrity when it comes to their body they can have trouble having casual sex. People also have different ways of relating to relationships. Poly/relationship anarchy can be great for some and a problem for others. This doesn’t necessarily have to do with who is the most radical. And poly without really good communication is not radical, instead it becomes all about power – where the person who has a more ”masculine” way of emoting often gains power over the person who has a more ”feminine” way of emoting. The masculine rational one who thinks their partner(/s) is constantly over-reacting, over-sensitive, being too emotional and wants to talk about everythiiiing. And if you’re emotional and/or have experiences with trauma that make it harder for you to trust people – poly can be a step that is 10 times harder for you than for other people. We need to acknowledge this. I am speaking from the perspective of a person who is dedicated to poly but who is also super emotional and has experiences with trauma. I can understand that many have the need for monogamy in periods of time for trust and safety-issues. This should not be judged.
And to finish off this series: Sex is just one of many aspects that make us humans. A few squares on the 64 squares of the chess-board of life – and therefore the sex positive movement has to be broader in order to be a radical social justice movement. It can’t just talk about orgasms, BDSM, fantasies and pleasure, it also has to talk about structures, oppression, emotional politics, healing from sexual assault and lookism relating to all the ism’s that tell us what a desirable body looks like.
If the sex positive revolution is focused on fucking as much as possible it’s not my revolution – it’s more like mainstream gay party and cruising culture. The over-simplified ”Everytime we fuck we win” of the Queer Nation Manifesto should be replaced with ”If we, despite all the bullshit going on in the world, are able to have a positive relationship with our body and it’s ability to experience pleasure, while respecting our limits and integrities and not feeling pressure to fuck/not fuck a lot nor shame if we do/do not fuck a lot, we win”. It may not be as good of a punch-line, but most of our realities are too complex to be constrained by punch-lines.
Queerfeminist sexpositivity must be very political, deconstruct and build something new – celebrating pleasure while simultaneously acknowledging and discussing openly all the complexities, problems, different journeys and different ways of interacting with ones body. If these two things can not be done at the same time, than I simply do not want to be a part of the movement. At the moment there is too much lookism, too little radical reflection and too few discussions on less privileged experiences (as if it would interfere with a playground for privileged experiences). We all have different experiences and different positions and it is privileged arrogance to assume that we are all on a level playing field. The sex positive-movement is sometimes on auto-pilot, especially in queer mecca-cities like San Francisco and Berlin (and I’m annoyed with a lot of things in both of these cities, especially SF) – and there needs to be more constructive criticism and self-critical discussion. I hope that what I’ve written can be a part of that. We can not be just positive, we must be able to combine the positivity with being critical.
Links:
Tumblr-post "Sex positivity is rape culture in disguise" (though I don't agree with the title or with everything in the post, the author makes some interesting points)
For further discussion please comment here or e-mail me (contact info in my blogger profile)!
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