In conversation with a long-time acquaintance a while back, I mentioned some of my concerns and reservations about lesbian sex shows, lesbian pornography, and so forth. My acquaintance responded, But don't you think it's a mistake to restrict sexual expression? I mean, it seems like sex is in trouble these days generally, with the Right to Lifers and the gag rule and the Moral Majority.
Male sexuality is not now and has never been in trouble. No matter
what the conditions or the risks, men have always found something
or someone to fuck. For women, however, in the words of T. H. White,
everything not forbidden is compulsory.
In eras when women are supposed to be virginal they are called insane
if they masturbate; in eras when they are supposed to be whores, they
are pressured to think themselves defective or insane if they don't
have sex all the time.
Neither of these scenarios removes from women the obligation to service male sexual demands. The nature of those demands, and the attitude required of the woman, vary over time; but the essential fact remains - the fundamental things apply. This is why I believe that the only possible sexual liberation for women has to begin with freedom from sex as we know it, freedom from the obligation to please and serve others sexually, freedom from sexual awareness and abuse forced on women from the earliest age.
Who knows what women would choose or do in an atmosphere of real freedom? How many would choose women, how many would choose celibacy, how many would be bisexual, how many monogamous, how many would bear children? Most of us have never had enough freedom to know what it means to choose.
The sexual liberation rhetoric of the sixties, and its latest incarnation today, offer women only menu choices: we can be into this or that kind of trendy sex, we can prefer this or that position or practise, we can buy this or that porn video, but we still have to shop at Daddy's Store and we still have to accept the idea (the capitalist idea, the patriarchal idea) that sex is something we buy or something we sell, a consumer choice. Real freedom of choice would mean freedom to tear up the menu, not merely to select from it.
A couple of years ago I heard the story of a writer friend who submitted a manuscript for publication by a lesbian press. It was considered, but the editor told her she would have to write in a couple of explicit sex scenes before they would accept it. She refused, and it was not published. (I have been asked not to identify the women involved, and so am unable to provide more details.)
Is sexual expression in trouble, when you can't get a piece of lesbian fiction published without it? We have a word, censorship, which describes the suppression or alteration of the artist's work by governmental edict intended to prohibit the expression of certain ideas. We have no word for what happened to the writer who refused to splice gratuitous sex scenes into her work. We have no word for the mandatory inclusion of the predictable, invariant Sweaty Sex Scene in nearly every contemporary film intended for adults, nor for the daily, unavoidable overload of sexual images used to sell other kinds of products. It is a sort of reverse censorship, imposed by market analysts who don't believe anything will sell unless coated with sex. Liberation it is not.
Sexual liberation rhetoric fails here, in its bland refusal to look at the motives of the amateur barristers who argue in its arena. The fact that sexual content is imposed on authors, readers, and viewers by marketing considerations is conveniently ignored when we discuss artistic freedom. The fact that porn sells, and that fortunes are made in it, is somehow irrelevant to the noble arguments for First Amendment rights in which pornographers and their customers excel. The fact that men get off on purchasing demeaning images of women, which cater to hostile and bigoted notions of woman's place and nature, is somehow irrelevant to the impassioned pleas of those same men for artistic freedom and sexual liberty for all. The self-interest which catches our eye immediately when we discuss the tax-exempt status of TV evangelists becomes invisible as soon as we talk about the sex trade.
Why do many feminists oppose pornography and prostitution? Not because they stand to make millions from selling a competing product (they can't even get air time), not because they get a secret delight from interfering in other people's private business - but because of basic concerns about who benefits, who is used, who loses, who is hurt. These are the same reasons which any progressive would use to justify boycotting or confronting any other major corporate endeavour. They are not the reasons of the radical right (God disapproves, it's un-American). In examining the rights and wrongs of the debate about commercialised sex, pornography and sadomasochism among lesbians, we have to look hard at the motives of the debaters.
Is sex in trouble? Justice and fairness are in trouble, and feminism is in trouble, and women are in trouble. When these issues are on the table, can we afford to say that sex (whatever that means) is the only real issue, can we mark it Sacred and take a simple stance to oppose all interference with it? Will that ensure our freedom?
What will that do for women and children? Suppose we took a different stance, and called the bodies and dignity of women and children Sacred, and opposed all exploitation of and interference with them? Why is it that women, women who call themselves feminists, lesbians who of all people should have the least faith in Big Daddy, are more anxious and willing to stand up and defend sex than to stand up and defend women ? Why does the freedom to choose from a familiar menu of sexual alternatives mean more to us than the freedom of all women to live our lives in safety and security?
How did we get here? Where on earth can we go from here?