Monday, December 04, 2006

This Feminist Likes It Rough

A Quickie from Noho -

Jessica over at Feministing posted about the myth that feminists don't like rough sex. The piece is filled with funny (and slightly unnerving and mostly unbelievable) quotes from two other authors. The discussion that followed in the comments was pretty interesting too.

I'm pretty sure that Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon are at the root of this cultural misconception about feminism -- or rather, I think that the simplification of their work as it's read is to blame. Interesting stuff.

3 comments:

figleaf said...

Hey Amanda,

I'm pretty sure it goes at least as far back as the "bread and roses" school of difference feminism. That would have predated Dworkin and McKinnon.

Come to think of it, the idea that healthy women, as fully-functioning human beings, are as tough as, well, all healthy human beings didn't really come into public consciousness till after those two had sort of peaked.

A lot of folks blame Queen Victoria for propagating the notion of women as frail creatures, but I've always believed she said those things with a sense of humor and everyone took her seriously. She had, what, 14 children in the days before anesthetic so she couldn't have been serious about the whole delicate-flower/faint-at-the-sight-of-blood thing. Kind of a shame, though, since we all fell kind of hard for it.

Take care,

figleaf

Anonymous said...

If you're still in NoHo, you should come to Great SEXpectations this week! Tues-Thurs @7:30pm in Seelye 109. I hope you can make it.

Love and latex,
Kate

Amanda said...

That Queen Victoria, what a kidder!

figleaf, I've never thought of the socialist-feminist movement as being particularly anti-sex, or opposed to any particular kind of (consensual) sex, but then again I don't know much about it as a movement. In fact, I'm not even positive that the Bread and Roses I'm thinking of (1960's Boston organization) is the same one you're referring to.

I was thinking, though, about the ways in which first wave feminism capitalized on stereotypes about women's "natural virtues" (chastity, the maternal instinct, what have you). When it comes down to it, modern assumptions about feminist ideology are to an extent an adaptation of that: pop-culture believes that feminists believe that women don't like (rough) sex.

geez. Shouldn't we be past that by now?