My friend Ben (of LOLPorn fame) came up with the phrase “conjugal enemies” during a conversation in which I attempted to describe old-skool romance novels to him—I think I was talking about Catherine Coulter’s ouevre in particular, especially the WTF factor of “he uses cream to ease the way of the rape, so it MUST be lurve!” However, I can’t be certain; at the time, I’d shotgunned five old-skool romances in a row as part of research for The Book, and my brain had been addled by all the punishing kisses, cynical smirks, pointless misunderstandings and non-consensual fuckin’.
Anyway: conjugal enemies? Hell yes. The protagonists in these old-skool novels couldn’t stand each other. The heroine’s loathing for the hero was writ large every few pages (at least, until the first orgasm, and then the loathing transferred to her own body as well), but they still couldn’t stop conjugatin’ all over the piece. This lack of control over their passions—even if it was passionate hatred—was often transformed into passionate love through a mysterious alchemical means I’m not entirely sure I’ve figured out yet. At some point in the book, the heroine suddenly sees the hero’s lack of control and little signs of tenderness (not raping her until she bleeds, not forcing her to meet his former mistress, allowing her the freedom to indulge in some unconventional-for-the-time activity like sailing or running a business or communing with the whales or whatever the fuck) as signs of affection, and she re-interprets her actions and reactions as being signs of True Luuuurrrrve as well. I don’t find these transformations convincing, but I know many other people do, and the different reading and interpretation process is fascinating to me.
This isn’t to say that adversarial relationships aren’t fun to read about, or that they can’t be used as convincing indicators of two people who resist falling in love with everything they have. When these relationships are more balanced, I tend to think of them as “loving adversaries”—circumstances or their own personalities don’t allow them to act on their attraction, so they spar and snipe as a way to act out some of their tensions in ways other than bonin’ each other six ways to Sunday. I recently watched His Girl Friday, and that was the term that immediately came to mind. Underneath the constant quipping and sparring and attempts to one-up each other between Walter and Hildy was a sense of attraction and true affection.
But there was more to it, too. I think what made it an adversarial relationship as opposed to one based on enmity was the way the two of them were portrayed as equals. Walter would try to pull a fast one on Hildy, but oftentimes, she’d be just one step ahead of the game and have blocked his move before he could complete it. Hildy, at least until the end, is a strong woman with enough power and experience to make her choices and moves count.
And that’s not something you can say about the old-skool heroine. Most old-skool novels make a point of systematically stripping power from the heroine—she’s young, she’s alone in the world, and most of the meaningful choices over when, how and to whom she wants to express her sexuality is denied her. The only true power she has is her hold over the hero, but she’s unaware of this until a significant part of the book is over; her constant expressions of hatred were a way for her to deny the hero his emotional hold over her. The power imbalance results in a much more virulent hatred instead of a more playful sparring, and it’s this hostility that raises my hackles and makes it difficult for me to accept the transformation from conjugal enemy to lover. Adversarial relationships, on the other hand, are not necessarily based on enmity, and I find the resulting clashes much more satisfying and believable to write about.
Interestingly enough, the old-skool romance and His Girl Friday end in much the same way: the heroine capitulates to the hero, and the resolution feels a bit limp as a consequence. Hildy’s transformation at the end of His Girl Friday is less than convincing for me because the writer made her pliant—almost wide-eyed and confused. It’s disappointing because Hildy has real power that she seems to cede over to Walter once she acknowledges that she still loves him. The old-skool heroine’s often abrupt about-face, while startling, is at least consistent with the worldview of the book—she gains power once she stops struggling against the hero and accepts him.
Not all romance novels end this way. One of the reasons why I love Midsummer Moon by Laura Kinsale so much, for example, is how Merlin and Ransom are locked in an adversarial relationship throughout much of the book, but you never lose sight of how much affection and love the two of them feel for each other. Ransom finally makes a significant power-grab when he takes what Merlin loves away from her (those of you who’ve read the book know what I’m talking about), but in the end, the power balance equalizes when he learns to love and live with Merlin as she is, not as he wants her to be.
Not all romance novels use the conjugal enemies/loving adversaries model; Patricia Gaffney’s best work, for example, as well as Barbara Samuel’s, don’t set up their conflicts that way. But it’s a fun way to set up a story, and like the Energizer Bunny, it’s easy to allow the conflict to go on and on and on. I also know that many people view the adversarial relationships between hero and heroine in old-skool romances than I do. What do you think about power structures and loving adversaries vs. conjugal enemies?
I mostly read modern-era and am just coming back to some romance after an extended hiatus. I loved Sugar Daddy by Lisa Klepas but Lora Leigh and Joey Hill kind of squick me out. I mean honestly. In my world if a guy I wanted to date kept a gym bag of ball gags and other stuff like that in his car I’d think he was seriously weird. As in a “what, you need all *that* in order to get it up?” kind of squicked. I realize that is probably prejudiced, but that’s just not the kind of thing I associate with a strong confident man.
In my world if a guy I wanted to date kept a gym bag of ball gags and other stuff like that in his car I’d think he was seriously weird.
Dude, I’d be *terrified* if a guy kept a gym bag full of ball gags in his car. There would be a snark-shaped cloud where I’d been standing if I saw that.
Nothing wrong with a little bondage, but seriously? One would think that that wouldn’t be something you carry around with you.
I guess I just can’t equate strong manly-man with carting around sexual hardware. I can’t remember what book I recently tried to read that was something about were cats and the woman is coming into her heat/season/whatever and the hero, who is a sheriff, gets a ball gag out of his supply closet so he can screw her in his office bathroom—so she can’t scream (mewl? Meow?) so loud people can hear. And I was, like, WTF?!!? I didn’t get any further on that one.
And I’m not making judgments on anybody who thinks that’s hawt. It’s just way the opposite for me.
And sorry, to bring it back more on topic. I’m not sure today’s BDSM stuff is any better than the old conjugal adversaries thing. Okay. The women are supposedly enjoying this all the way through as versus being afraid to admit they enjoy it. But again, my old fashioned view is that these are all about women being made slaves and submissives and being totally dominated by their men.
How is that any better/different than the punishing romances of old?
Oh, believe me, honey, I know. =/
I’m not speaking from experience, here, just from what I’ve read, so take this with a grain of salt. But. It is my understanding that in true dom/sub relationships, it’s the sub who *actually* had the control. The dom has to stop when the sub says stop, and nothing that happens can happen without the sub’s express permission (presumably this is worked out in advance). Safe words are sacred.
I haven’t read a lot of contemporary erotica, but what I find disturbing is that the trend seems to be almost exclusively male dom/female sub—if I’m mistaken on that front, I apologize. And I do agree that this is an unsettling trend, especially because it seems like the details of the D/s scene aren’t conveyed as they’re supposed to be? Or something?
I don’t know. I don’t have a problem with people who enjoy being dominated. I do have a problem with the idea that it’s always the women who want to be dominated. That’s absolutely not true, and to make it out that women only want to read about really Alpha men is really scary.
(IMHO, it takes a really strong man to agree to submit to a woman for a change, no?)
🙂 I swear I’m going to write a book or an article about those attitudes one of these days. They drive me nuts, and I think it’s a stereotype trend that is way, way overlooked. Especially as a feminist issue. (Choice: it means choosing to or choosing NOT to.)
I obviously failed at the nifty quoty thing that Mac did.
@Robinjn: I think they’re different because they’re consensual; there’s a safe word in place and the woman knows she can let herself into whatever her fantasy is but retain the control to make it stop when she’s not comfortable. I just finished Kushiel’s Justice—thanks y’all, now I’m Kushiel’s bitch, too—and I thought the way Imriel came to understand, over the two books, the difference between having your sexual wants manipulated without your consent and going willfully into a safe situation was really well-handled by the author.
I would love a rape warning on material (and an animal violence warning, for that matter). I know many women have rape fantasies, and I have no judgment for that. I’m a big supporter of women gratifying their sexual needs, and if that’s what gets you off, go you. However, I think having a rape fantasy at home with your vibrator or acting one out with a trusted partner is a whole different world from the actual rapes that go on in these novels. Giving your control up willingly and having it taken away are not the same thing, and I may be fine witht the former but the latter is not ever okay with me.
I’m not necessarily against erotica that helps people get into whatever their fantasy is (I’m not against, say, pony-play erotica on principle, but I won’t read it). I’d rather know that that’s what the novel is about, so I can by-pass it. In no universe can I believe a woman falling in love with her rapist, or find it hot when a woman’s choice is violently taken from her, so. . . that book’s never gonna be for me. I’d love to know before I waste my time and money with it.
I recall hearing recently that less femdom is being offered because it doesn’t sell. That would seem to indicate that the idea that woman only want to read about traditionally Alpha men may be sort of true. And I agree that’s unfortunate for a bunch of reasons.
Hm. That’s sad to hear. But I wonder…how is that marketed? I would never in a million years have predicted the rise in wererotica. But I think there’s a strong marketing force behind that. Does femdom lack the necessary marketing clout to MAKE it popular?
I mean, imagine the blurbs! “Have you ever wanted a man to fall on his knees at the sight of you?”
Joey Hill’s best BDSM work involves women who are dominant. The Vampire Queen series is about a female in the power position in the relationship—SPOILER—
there is switching at the end, but the power relationship that structured the h/h story is primary.
Also, Holding the Cards and Natural Law (my two faves—Natural Law is the better of the two) are both populated by Alpha men who submit. I like Joey Hill’s work because there is never the sense that either party in the BDSM relationship is participating against their will. She reveals the heavy emotional baggage that some of the parties bring to the lifestyle, but uses the resolution of the relationship to reconcile those issues with “baggage-free” participation in the life.
BTW, Jezebel summarizes a pretty amazing piece in the UK Guardian about the death of feminism—relevant given the longer comments above about f’ism and romance and backlash. I haven’t had time to read the full article.
Take a look: http://jezebel.com/5021074/is-feminism-doomed The c.omments are also interesting.
Heh. I’m sort of all over that thread. 😀
In reading all the responses from the women like me who like the old-skool, I think it’s interesting that we were all in our very young teens (in my case, starting at 11) when we were first exposed to it.
I think that could be a fascinating sociological study on the nature of what a young teen girl wants to fantasize about. But then, grown women must have been eating that up then, too, but I don’t see any of those here posting. (Small self-selected sampling, I know. Go with me here. 😉 ).
Or if you really want to think about it….did those early experiences when we were at a vulnerable, suggestible and dare I say it, experiencing the whole sexual feelings thing for the first time influence and inform our tastes?
If you’re a kid at an age when the hormones are raging and you’re discovering that whoa, your body, it has these urges, and a novel comes along that you probably aren’t supposed to be reading but you do, and geez, there’s SEX!! in there, and that first sex scene happens to be, oh, Brandon raping Heather in the Flame and the Flower….does that have long-term influence, especially when that type of scene was very typical at that time? I think it may.
Geez. No wonder I’m so screwed up.
Oh, I don’t even have to question that. I still love that super-alpha but now that I’m, you know, kofffortykoff, I’ve found myself having my alpha males get a little tired around my age and feeling the need to be stay-at-home dads while their alpha wives go off and do their alpha thing.
Yep. Which is why so often in relationships it’s a male dom/female sub, but in BDSM dungeons or sex clubs it’s often the reverse (the guy who gets off on pretending to be submissive, but he’s actually in charge), or so the women I know who are professional doms tell me.
And has anyone else noticed that a lot of the books marketed as BDSM break this most basic and sacred rule? That the bondage is often just a code word for rape (or forced seduction if you prefer)? I bought a few eBooks that were supposedly BDSM and was totally disturbed by the power dynamics. Maybe I’m just not reading the code words closely enough.
I’ve noticed this as well. I think a lot of BDSM erotica is written by people who not only aren’t part of the scene, but don’t know anyone who is & really didn’t do their research. Instead they’re projecting their ideas onto someone else’s kink because it’s currently more acceptable than the Old Skool.
Have you ever read any 1970’s pornographic novels for men? They are all about rape. It’s amazing they didn’t inspire more suicides.
There’s a lot of good BDSM erotica out there, and a lot of it is written from inside the community. But I think a lot of times BDSM is the way a lazy writer does “sexy” because you can write about all the props/situations (and if you stick enough of them in your book you’ll hit almost everyone’s kink so they’ll think your scenes were hot). You don’t really have to write the sex at all, just sketch in the scene and add some verbs.
There’s some amazingly hot erotica out there that has the BDSM props but focuses on the people and their emotions & responses to each other, but you have to read a lot of dreck to find it.
Has anybody read Florence King’s essay about writing a romance novel in the ‘70s? It’s hilarious, to start with, but it also has a lot to say about the editorial pressure in the romance market back then (and all the editors were men, just about.) Florence King was a snobby, literary, lesbian writer who had made some money writing gay porn and her editor said “write one of these Sweet Savage things, how hard can it be?” And then pushed her to take out any big words and add more rape scenes whenever the plot slowed down. I haven’t found the book ever but the description reminds me of Bertrice Small (who is awesome in a way that doesn’t really resemble the way good romance novels are awesome, more the way American Movie would have been awesome if the dude were making a costume porno with a cast of thousands.)
Anyone who has looked even in the most desultory way at the history of feminism (and I am not talking here about very recent progress, e.g. in the 1960s and later, but the 18th and 19th centuries) will know that there is a clear pattern of achievement and progress, followed by regression, followed by new efforts to regain the lost ground, and usually, to get a little further forward. It is NEVER going to be possible to relax about women’s rights – each generation has to fight at least some of the battles afresh. And there are new battles, of course, as societies change in other ways. Imagining that legal protection will work effectively is naive in the extreme; there are always ways around legal provisions (bye the bye, those of you who don’t know of Alan Sugar will not realise what an extreme example of the vile boss he is. He is, not, fortunately, typical).
Concern about the rights and social status and role of women has been born, lived, died and been reborn many times. Vigilance is required all the time, or we shall slide back again. If feminism is currently moribund, or even dead, in some quarters, we should not necessarily worry too much: it isn’t for the first time, and the resurrection won’t be for the first, or the last time, either. But there are some other bad signs, and this is one: the bondage/domination/submission issue.
Personal view here, so feel free to shout at me, but to me, it any kind of bondage/submission, however much it is play-acting, is archetypal fascist sex, characteristic of authoritarian regimes that suffer from major conflicts and dishonesty about sexuality, e.g. Victorian England; 1930s Germany. One of the things we achieved in the 1960s (I was in my 20s then) was egalitarian sex. Seriously. The moment you introduce a specifically unequal power dynamic – even if it is allegedly consensual and mutable and all those lovely comforting things – we are back into the old, old pattern, the one that was a formal concept in antiquity: that is, in a sexual relationship, one person is active, and one passive; one is the doer, the other the done-to. The active partner (always male in antiquity) had higher social status. The done-to (often female) was always of lower status. It doesn’t have to be that way, and to seek that situation deliberately is as retrogressive as it gets.
I am pretty horrified by the apparent current popularity of bondage fantasies amongst younger American readers. It does not augur well for the future. But then, nor do fantasies of werewolves and such. Tell me, those who read shape-shifting romances – do the were-cats sink their teeth into their partners’ necks during coitus? Do the partners of the werewolves have to endure the tie which in canids can last up to 20 minutes, during which withdrawal is impossible?
Just asking.
AgTigress: I’ve seen all of those senarios in ebooks (and way way more).
Archetypal fascist sex? This simple string of words alone seem to me to be one of the reasons that many younger women today feel that feminism is dead or best left behind. That kind of random judgment and cobbling together of disparate issues boggles my mind.
AgTigress: I think I can answer at least a little bit of your concern, even if I don’t share it. I think we’re coming from wholly different POVs as I was born in 63 and so fall squarely into that age group robin was talking about – I was 11 or 12 when I read my first romance – don’t remember who it was, but it was definitely a Savage Loving Lying Whirlwind thing, and that’s all I read for the next few years – even at 13, tho, I knew Rosemary Rodgers was twisted – but still, when I hit my twenties I thought – wait a minute! That’s rape! And I didn’t read romance again till my 30s, by which time rape was no longer such a popular plot device. And I do think that the “she gets to get laid without having to take responsibility for it” angle was THE main rationale, justification, whatever you want to call it, behind the old skool novels. Growing up in a religiously conservative household where you were not even supposed to be thinking about sex till you got married – if then – I’m sure that’s what I found so thrilling about the books.
But basically – I was in the first generation of women, I think, that came of age after (or as) egalitarian sexual relationships had become accepted as the norm – to the extent they ever will be – and after society, in its infinite collective wisdom, decided that it was, in fact, okay for women to have sex when, with whom and however they wanted.
In short, I’ve never considered myself a feminist because I’ve never had to. (Also had a wonderful father, never got involved in an abusive relationship, married a wonderful (Alpha) man, do whatever the hell I want to – basically I was born on third base and think I hit a triple).
You’re only 15-20 years older than me, but it’s a crucial 15—20 year period, you know? Women of your generation, from what I’ve seen, tend to look at everything – including social issues and personal relationships – through a political lens that I, and women younger than me, don’t.
All of which is to say, badly, that the BDSM currently popular in romantic and erotic fiction doesn’t bother me because I don’t remember a time when women weren’t allowed to control their sexuality on their own terms.
As to furry porn, as I like to think of it – I’m partial to werewolves meself (I’m writing one, AAMOF) – no. I’ve read no shapeshifting romances in which protagonists do it while one partner is in animal form. The sex, however, kinky, is always performed while human. I have read books where the bad guys shape shift during sex and kill their partners, but that’s always presented as something horrifying, not sexy. I could have missed something tho – Lord knows I don’t get to read as much as I want to.
But that’s not necessarily true. Look at medieval texts—who’s the aggressor in a lot of pornographic medieval and early modern work? The woman, because women were seen as sexually voracious devourers of men. The shift didn’t come until the end of the eighteenth century (if you listen to Foucault) or even a little later (I’d put it post-Napoleonic wars in England, but that’s just me).
EVERY generation is dishonest about sexuality. I’ve heard women who came of age in the 1960s talk about free love with real regret, because there were different systems of pressure there—ie, if love is free, you’ll have sex with me. If you don’t want to, that means you’re not liberated. (Even if the person in question just didn’t want to have sex with THAT dude.) And let’s not even get started on the “closet.”
I also think it’s a misconception to call Victorian England an authoritarian regime. Sure, it was problematic, and Victoria was very much a Hanoverian (no matter what her last name was), but at the same time, it was a fascinating time in terms of strides made for women’s rights, as well as backsliding.
But AgTigress is right in re: women’s rights. However, one of the real reasons I think we’re struggling right now is the rise of conservativism all over since the late ‘90s and, in the US in particular, since 9/11. War brings out conservative ideologies.
Holly, I’m sixteen years younger than you and very much consider myself a feminist.
I’ve had things handed to me—it’s been easy for me. I’m white, middle-class, and educated. But I also know that there are real risks for me as a woman, and I see my rights being chipped away day after day. I put up with harassment from my male students, and see my friends be treated with disdain by male faculty for their life choices.
It’s a mistake to assume that younger women won’t be feminists, and I personally believe it’s a mistake for any one, but especially any woman, to believe that feminism has nothing to offer her.
You really don’t remember?
Ever met someone who was raped? She didn’t get to control her sexuality on her own terms. Neither does the child who is a victim of sexual abuse. Or the woman brainwashed by her church/parents/friends into believing that if she had sex she was a slut, but if she didn’t, she was a frigid prude. (That one’s still real popular.)
Look AROUND! Look at the messages put out by the media! Who’s the focus of anti-teen pregnancy campaigns? Girls. Because girls are still seen as the gatekeepers, the ones who are supposed to keep their legs closed. Modesty campaigns focus on women—why? Because we mustn’t “tempt” men or cause them to “stumble.”
You go to college, and you’re bombarded with messages about having sex. You’re *supposed* to have sex in college. And if you don’t, well, what’s wrong with you? Why didn’t you? Why aren’t you spending your 20s bed-hopping, if you’re single?
Yeah, we can control our sexuality in the sense that, generally speaking, we’re able to say that we want to have sex and have it. But don’t ever for one second think that the entire world isn’t invested in keeping you “chaste” or making you sexually available.
Ahem. Climbing off of the soapbox now.
I have. It wasn’t presented as a rape thing. The sex started as human to human but if it was really the were sort of lost control of the change. It was only mentioned in passing, but the but it that was definitely the deal.
In terms of BDSM in erotica, I’m certainly that there are books that are good/accurate available. It’s just that there are many that aren’t and they can create a really skewed perspective on the scene for those who don’t have any other exposure.
As for the idea that BDSM=fascist sex I have to say that makes me very uncomfortable. It’s one thing to be uninterested in a particular set of sexual practices. It’s a whole other thing to tell people that their kink is fascist. That implies that women who engage in BDSM just don’t realize how awful it all is & how they’re being oppressed ot harming feminism or whatever. I think it’s a thin line between that as the misogynists saying that a woman needs a man because she can’t be trusted with her own decisions.
BDSM isn’t my personal thing, but the people that I know who are into it assure me that a good D/S relationship is very egalitarian. Both people have equal power, the power is just expressed in very different ways. None of them are weak-minded or lacking in self awareness, so I tend to believe them.
Oh yes, but that is viewpoint influenced by certain aspects of Christianity. I am not familiar with medieval pornography, but I am certainly very familiar with post-med (18th/19thC) examples of the genre. I wasn’t talking about that, but about pagan Classical antiquity. One of the reasons that homosexuality was not a major issue in Classical Greece or in Republican and Imperial Rome was because it was not the sex of the done-to partner that was important, but his or her status.
Don’t forget that we are speaking not only from different chronological viewpoints, but from different cultures, too.
This thing seriously needs an edit function for those of us who can’t type worth darn.
Okay, I see what you’re getting at, AgTigress, and I agree entirely re: Classical antiquity. I’m not as familiar with it as I’d like to be, but I am familiar with the general gist of gender relations (what a lot of ‘g’s) then. I just think that it’s important never to overlook that rapacious-female aspect of misogyny, because there is still a strain of it left alive, and it can contribute to unequal sexual relationships.
You know, as someone in her twenties I have a much different view of feminism. Every female of my acquaintance wouldn’t hesitate to say she supports equality between the sexes, but few would ever call themselves feminists.
In my experience feminists push so far beyond what they consider “the mold” as to be unpleasant. (keep in mind I speak only from personal experience, not in terms of every person) It seems impossible to have a conversation with them because they will not consider another view point. I do not appreciate being talked down to and told I don’t know what’s good for me just because I don’t agree with whatever they say.
I can be a REAL woman while still loving and appreciating the support a man can give me. I can wear make up and sexy clothes without needing to be lectured on how girls like me are responsible for men still objectifying us.
I don’t mind discussing a topic, but if that person just talks over me and won’t even listen to the point I’m trying to make I’ll ignore her. I’m not speaking of a single incident either. This has happened again and again with self-labeled feminists. That in-your-face-you-need-to-support-what-I-support attitude turns me off just as much as any woman hating man does.
I’m not saying that this is what feminism was meant to mean (or once meant), but I am firm in my opinion that in my experience this is the bastardized version it has become. It is very unpleasant.
This isn’t singular for women only. Guys go through the same pressure too.
—-This next comment isn’t directed at you snarkhunter, I’m just using your words as a jumping off point—-
Everytime I see women talk about how much pressure is on them and only them I seriously want to shake them. Men have pressure too. My husband didn’t have sex until he was 21 for his own personal reasons. Do you know how bad that is considered for a man? I understand that girls have conflicting pressure but so do guys. If a guy doesn’t have sex at an early age there must be something wrong with him. Female vigins are still very much so more accepted than any male. Women still have to fight for people (not just men: men AND other women) to see them as equal and not a madonna or whore, but we are not the only ones with issues, ya know?
Snark: you’re right re: control of sexuality. And I almost mentioned that but figured I was too long and rambling already. Certainly – even today, women are not as free to control their own sexuality as society pretends – I was thinking, very specifically, of the 70s and 80s versus the 60s and earlier – i.e., of the time it became acceptable – broadly and generally speaking – for a woman to have sexual relations outside of marriage. Now, even today there’s a double standard – even today, with the pressure women in college feel to have sex and hook up (do not get me started on the culture of “hooking up” and the way it has objectified women all over again), women who have a lot of sexual partners are still judged for it. It depends, a lot (and doesn’t everything) on specific culture and socio-economic position, but it’s still there.
And you’re right, that the woman who is raped has no control over her sexuality but that, unfortunately, has always been and will probably always be a fact in human society – as is violence. At least today, as opposed to 30 or even 20 years ago, it is far less common to see society, the media or the justice system questioning a woman’s decisions or lifestyle when she has been raped. (altho i do recall some douchebag judge doing just that a few years ago. I don’t recall where it was, but it was an appalling example of the “well, why was she dressed that way in that place” school of thought that we like to think died out in 1978.)
I think that today’s message to young girls that they HAVE to have sex is just as damaging as the former message that they must NOT have sex. In both cases, the girl is not supposed to just do whatever the hell she wants to do. And in both cases, the guy suffers no repercussions at all.
As to younger women calling themselves feminist – I know that many do. but many who actually are feminists wouldn’t dream of using the word in part, I’m afraid, because of in the past 15 years or so a lot of embarrassingly stupid shit has been written, said and done in the name of feminism. I realize that’s a whole nother thread. but I think AgTigress’ post, and Kalen’s reaction to it (a reaction I share) is a very good example of why many young people today think “feminist” has bad connotations. Facist sex? Really?
Oh – and very good point about the very prevalent view, throughout history, of woman as the voracious maneater. That’s why women were controlled so long in Western society, why they are still so tightly controlled in many Eastern and Islamic cultures – the woman is a sexual predator and a man is powerless against her, so you have to keep her locked up and covered up. Again – woman is the gatekeeper, man is just her helpless victim.
Although I don’t understand – and I’ll bet you do – where the victorians came up with the idea that the “good woman” has no sexual urges and her husband is actually doing her a favor by inflicting his needs on the not-good woman. It seems to fly in the face of previous centuries’ views on women (like the middle ages, or the renaissance, where it was assumed a woman would take all the lovin she could get if you turned her loose for a second.)
Well, I thought I would get people going there, and I did. 😀 Funny how people are so frightened of the word ‘fascist’. Why so sensitive?
One thing that must always be remembered about sex is the fantasy element, and this bears both on rape fantasies and on far more minor sexual fantasies, like the ‘sex-in-a-public-place’ or ‘sex-with-a-stranger’ ones, both of which are a major turn-ons for some women, because the emobody the concept of sexual desire so strong that it overrides convention and propriety, and in so doing, liberates. There are many reasons for this, and the fact that something works as a fantasy most emphatically does not mean that it would work for that particular fantasist in reality. On the contrary. I doubt whether any of the women who enjoyed books in which some thug masquerading as the hero forced himself on the hapless heroine would have felt any different from any of us about real rape.
I suppose the same is true of shape-shifting, but I don’t see much point if the were-whatever is in human form while he actually screws our swooning heroine. If you fancy a wolf, surely it is a wolf you fancy, not a man. You are all aware, I suppose, that sex shows in many times and places have involved women genuinely having sex with males of other species? Men having sex with females of other species is, of course, ordinary bucolic perversion, and too common to require comment.
Authoritarian regimes? Of COURSE Victorian Britain was authoritarian!! The rise of the middle classes, developing industry and technology, and the growth of empire altered many long-established balances within society, and increased the complexity of social hierarchies, but the overall effect by the mid-19th century was undoubtedly more repressive and stifling for most women than the situation in the reign of George III. I don’t think I said that Victoria was a bad monarch; that isn’t the issue at all. As always, extremes breed the opposite extremes, and so it was then, leading to major improvements for women by the last quarter of the 19thC. There are parallels between European countries, including Britain, in the 19thC, and the USA at this moment. I will not spell them out.
This is so true. My ex didn’t loose his virginity until fairly late for a bunch of personal reasons. His father asked more than once if he as gay.
One theory that really resonates with me is that in our society women still tend to be the “no sex class”—-a good girl doesn’t really like sex for its own sake. The flip side is that men are the “obligate sex class”. They want it all the time from pretty much every woman they meet. Anyone stepping too far outside those boundaries obviously has something really wrong with her/him.
I honestly think that misogyny isn’t really a good deal for most men any more than it is for women and than equality benefits all but the tiny number of men sitting on the very top of the current order. There are a lot of societal and religious factors that make the idea a really tough sell though.
Which is why men should be feminists! Or at least should recognize the fact that patriarchal structures are bad for EVERYONE.
::sigh:: You have no idea, Catherine, how bloody sick I am of hearing this. It makes me so, so tired.
May I make a few assumptions? First, you heard a lot of this from girls in college. They were probably women’s studies majors, and you found them very off-putting. They said you were catering to the patriarchy because you like to shave your legs. Some of them were lesbians; some of them clearly had issues with men, to point where they, themselves, were pretty sexist.
Am I close?
None of those things have one. single. goddamn. thing. to do with feminism. No, really. They don’t. I’m a feminist. I shave my legs every day, never leave the house without makeup, prefer skirts to pants, and if I ever find a guy I want to sleep with and marry, will probably do both. Men make me nervous, but I don’t hate or fear them as a body any more than I hate and fear women as a body. I want to have kids and I don’t get up in arms if someone opens a door for me. I smile and say “thank you,” and sometimes I hold a door open for other people, including men.
Still a feminist.
I understand that people have had bad experiences with feminists. You know what? So have I. I have also had bad experiences with other women about what it means to be a woman—does that mean I no longer call myself a woman? I run into more wackjob Christians than I care to count. Does that mean I no longer call myself a Christian? Let’s see, do I have the sexual parts that make me a woman? Yup. In my mind, am I female? Yup. Okay, so despite the fact that I’ve met some horrible women in my time, I’m still a woman. Now, do I believe that Jesus was the son of God and died for my sins? Yup. Hm. Still a Christian, then. Doesn’t mean I want to convert anyone, or that I think gays are going to hell. I don’t believe either. And yet I still own the word.
It’s exactly the same thing. No, really, it is.
I think it is fundamentally dishonest of people to espouse feminist beliefs without owning the word or at least acknowledging the real, hard work that feminists do, and that is CONSTANTLY devalued by radical misrepresentation and deliberate lies on the part of anti-feminists.
Yes, You Are. Sars is a goddess, and says it far better than I ever could.
I suspect we have different definitions of “authoritarian.” I was thinking of it more in terms of governments headed by a single, strong, overpowering figure who refused to relinquish any kind of control, while clamping down any kind of advance in human rights. There are authoritarian elements to Victoria’s reign, but on the whole, I would not characterize it as such.
Victorian Britain was extremely repressive to women, and yeah, the US is living in the neo-Victorian period (blech), but the popular image of Victorian Britain is wrong. I know you’re a historian and you probably know some of this, but one needs only to look at the literature to see how prevalent sex, for example, is in the discourse, and how women writers worked through, with, and around that discourse.
I don’t find “fascist” a scary word at all. I find it a tragically devalued word, a word that has almost lost all meaning in modern usage. “Fascist” is so often used as shorthand for “something or someone I really really detest and think you should detest as well.” that I confess I am DEsensitive to the word these days.
I think there are probably many good reasons why some women find the idea of a man (or a woman) who can turn into an animal exciting and interesting while having no desire to have sex with him or her while in that form.
I think it is so blindingly obvious that women who enjoy reading romance-novel rape would not find real-life rape enjoyable, and that many people would not really want to do what they fantasize about doing, that it’s kind of irrelevant to the discussion. If, as we agree, people don’t really want to do what they fantasize about doing, and women who read rape romances don’t really want to be raped – then why should you, or anyone, find it sad or objectionable or scary or offensive if they choose to read about that stuff?
The fact that you see no point in a shapeshifting romance that does not feature interspecies coitus is likewise kind of irrelevant. People like what people like.
And while men screwing livestock is probably as old as men screwing men and men screwing women, I really don’t know of any society in which it was ever considered ordinary or bucolic. And I hale from an area heavy on livestock,
I mean that, right there – the tone, the language, the humorlessness, the prissiness, the judgment, the schoolmarm outrage, the….that’s what Catherine was talking about.
I sort of thought AgTigress was trying to be funny in that last quote…