There has been a lot of discussion over the last few weeks on social media about what I will loosely term “separatism” in the feminist community. I cannot put the arguments for it better than in this thread. It does raise an interesting question: (how) is it possible to be a real feminist while being in, or wanting, a heterosexual relationship or partaking in - or even enjoying! - sex with men?
I am a materialist above all else, so I start this piece from three materialist premises. Firstly, heterosexual sex is necessary for the propagation of the species (even if you don’t think that is desirable). Secondly, heterosexuality is the commonest sexuality, and heterosexual sex is something that many people appear to enjoy.
Finally, human sexuality is innate, not a matter of choice, albeit that heteronormativity influences us all, women maybe most of all. Heterosexuality is almost constantly culturally reinforced, and many women may only realise later in life that they are sexually attracted to women. For most women, heterosexuality isn’t something they chose.
By the way, if your theory of feminism means that the species should die out, I think it is worth rethinking.
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One of the most profound moments of my awakening feminism was realising that my safety was always contingent on the goodwill of the men around me. Most men are far stronger than most women; most women have grown up with a subliminal awareness of that, which affects how they behave when near men - we are conditioned to act in a way that appeases men. Few relationships between men and women can avoid this imbalance entirely. The impact on how women conduct themselves in relationships is contributed to by the knowledge that leaving a man is dangerous, which is backed up every year in the femicide census by the number of women murdered by ex-partners.
Is this compatible with having a loving and equal, non-patriarchal partnership? This is probably the most difficult aspect to negotiate in a feminist heterosexual relationship. Doing so requires that both parties are aware of the existence of the imbalance, freely enter into the relationship (and have the right to end it) and take steps to address the imbalance.
These steps could include giving women greater financial control, specifically retaining boundaries (maybe including separate homes), friendships and family connections outside the relationship and a variety of other things that address the social consequences of the imbalance. It also requires the woman to freely consent to the relationship - and by freely, I mean that society places no pressure on women to partner up. And, of course, none of it will protect women from partners who, despite due diligence, turn out to be more violent than they seemed.
Does the fact that there are physical risks remaining mean, though, that women cannot be feminists and engage in relationships with men? I would argue no; women have agency. To deny a heterosexual woman the opportunity of a fulfilling relationship which she wants or to require her to hand in her feminist badge because there is a risk of harm of which she is aware but which cannot be entirely eliminated does not seem feminist. We make assessments of risk all the time, because we are fully autonomous humans.
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Can you have feminist sex with a man? Heterosexual sex is taken to mean, very often, penetrative sex, in which the woman’s body receives the man’s incursion. This is seen as an act of submission. Male orgasm is considered the end point of sexual encounters in many cultures. Male dominance sexually is emphasised in much pornography, with coercion, spitting, choking and rape being commonly fetishised. These can be addressed.
It would be a very poor relationship in which sex consisted only of P in V intercourse, or indeed only P in anything. Good sex is possible between men and women - women are not just holes for men to masturbate into. We have sexual agency. It is feminist to put your needs first in a relationship, to say if they are not being met, and to insist that they are. This includes asking for sex in which the man does not attain an orgasm. If this idea seems far-fetched, remember that sex often has not included women’s orgasm, and apparently, that still counts as sex.
Alongside attaining a better sexual experience for women, non-penetrative sex can help to retrain men from their beliefs about what good sex is like. Many men think that staying power in penetrative sex is the goal, while not realising that most women cannot achieve orgasm that way, even if they enjoy it, and many might rather be getting on with something else.
Training men about this, in turn, might allow men to feel less pressure to perform in a particular way. As a feminist, I probably shouldn’t care, but it might soften the blow, as it were, so there we are.
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Another issue related to sex impacts women both physically and socially. It is a biological fact that only women get pregnant (no, really) and can only do so with the input of a man (might as well get that controversy out there, too). It is a social construct that women disproportionately bear the costs - emotional, financial and social. These consequences are hard to avoid if pregnancy happens. So it stands to reason that women (at least, fertile women of childbearing age) need access to safe, reliable contraception to have a sexual relationship with a man and access to abortion on demand in the event that she finds that she is pregnant. These are not currently available in all countries - abortion in the UK is prima facie a criminal act, for instance - and are under threat in the USA. A woman in a trusting relationship might depend on her partner having had, for instance, a vasectomy.
This brings us neatly to the socially constructed aspects of heterosexual relationships.
I will park most of the issues around women’s reproductive capacity as an engine of economic growth - I will deal with these next week. However, the expectation of chastity in women, linked to patrilineal descent of wealth, is separately relevant. This is closely linked to, but not limited to, marriage as an institution. Chastity is expected of women in almost all patriarchal societies and is enforced more or less across almost the entire world. Marriage, in almost every case, brings the legal obligation of chastity, a submission of sexual freedom. Can one be married and be a feminist?
Well. Andrea Dworkin was married. If it is good enough for her, it is good enough for me, is my flippant answer. My more considered answer is this.
I live in a patriarchal society and for the reasons that I have set out above, I feel free, as a feminist, to be in a heterosexual relationship. I have been married and have children by that marriage. In marrying, I adopted a heuristic that offered me the closest thing I have to feminism. It is probably easier to understand this in the context of a first marriage, where children are contemplated.
I cannot help but live in a patriarchal society - there is no other materially available to me at this time. I wanted children. Once I had those children, if the relationship ended, a legal contract that enabled me to obtain financial support for them and a framework for co-parenting was most easily available by the divorce mechanism. In the UK, where I live, unmarried mothers have few rights to enforce proper financial support from the fathers of their children and are very vulnerable. It is not “unfeminist” to live by and use the rules of unavoidable patriarchy in ways that allow you the best outcomes. This is not the situation I would like - it is a local optimum because no better one is in view.
It stands to reason, of course, that a prerequisite of any marriage that might be described as a feminist one would allow non-fault divorce - this is under threat in the USA and not available in all countries. It also stands to reason that the marriage must be entered into freely, again not a given in some communities, and with a clear view of the obligations of each party in the event that it ends. No obligation should be placed on the woman to which she does not freely consent and no additional obligation be imposed beyond that which is personal to her and would arise in an unmarried, cohabiting relationship.
Think like a feminist, and if you wish, marry like one.
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I hope you have enjoyed this canter through a huge topic. Next week: how women’s reproductive capacity is used by patriarchy to drive economic growth and how future demographics might help us escape this.
This attitude, the whole “only lesbians can be feminists” thing, drove me away from any type of feminist discussion in the first place. Good to see a rational take.
It put me off a little too. But I decided to debate those extremist lesbian feminists if I came across it, because I'm sure their decisions were unduly influenced by the outrageous homophobia they face on a regular basis. I think basic solidarity with oppressed women overrides objection to their eccentricities.