Community and Bitching about feminism

Waking Vixen and I think alike - I am a fan of all the women she's into as well. That's one of the things that I'm ever so grateful for, that sense of community. It doesn't mean we all have to agree with each other all the time, but it's a sense of believing in similar ways about sex and feminism and equality. I feel like that could come off sounding cliquish, like "oh, I know these women, they're so cool," and I don't mean it that way at all, though I will say that the accessibility to me, when I was a lonely and confused law student, of women like Lisa Palac and Susie Bright and Tristan Taormino and Sallie Tisdale, both through their writing and communications, was invaluable to me.

In related news, the latest (and 10th anniversary) issue of Bitch has some fabulous pieces in it. I was shocked but honored to find my name in Rachel Fudge's "Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Feminism But Were Afraid To Ask." Under "pro-sex feminism," she writes, "Proponents run the gamut from theorists like bell hooks and Patrick Califia to erotica-and-criticism writers like Susie Bright and Rachel Kramer Bussel to performance artists like Annie Sprinkle." And Tad Friend's clearly infamous 1994 Esquire piece gets mentioned in Fudge's article and in Andi Zeisler's interview with Susie Bright. Fudge writes under the same entry:

Derogatory terms: "Do-me feminism," coined by Esquire in 1994, in startled response to the supposed emergence of photogenic, unabashedly sexual feminists like Susie Bright, Elizabeth Wurtzel, and Naomi Wolf; sexually suggestive femlae musicians like Liz Phair and Courtney Love; and professional sex educators like Tristan Taormino and Nina Hartley. Also: "Lipstick feminism."

I loved the entire interview with Susie, especially her response to a question about the Esquire piece:

That article had nothing to do with representing how I felt. If I'd been interviewed in a more realistic way, you would have heard my exasperation. I would have said, "Sexually liberated people have always been more fun to go to bed with, in the ense that they have a tolerance and a curiosity and a sense of regard for the other person." Of course a gender-liberated woman is going to be sexually intriguing. That aspect of what we were saying didn't come out [in the piece], even though that is what we were all about.

I finally got to read the Esquire piece and it's clearly such a product of its time. So many of those women have moved on to do more complex work, have emerged from the sex ghetto bubble, and it's clear that "do-me feminism" or any of those monikers (Anna Quindlen called it "babe feminism") fail to capture the bigger picture. They put all the emphasis on do-me and none of it on feminism, when it's not an either/or proposition. I think the main problem is when any one woman, or even a small group, are taken to represent an entire group or class. Then it's easy to point fingers and say, "Look, she's saying the key to equality is through fucking," when really, I think what at least I'm saying is that part of the key to true equality is sexual equality. Sexual agency, autonomy, openness and freedom. Not "equality" like some backwards Antioch College rules, or like banning BDSM, or anything like that. But an equality where everyone can identify as whatever gender they feel is right for them, where gender roles are not so rigid, especially in the bedroom, as to dictate our sexual practices, and where we can freely express ourselves both in sex and in the world. But also the notion that sexual freedom and equality are only one part of a larger struggle for equality. That's what I think the Tad Friend angle misses. That "pro-sex feminism" is part of a larger whole.

I think this connects to so many aspects of what's going on sexually in our culture. Women, like, say, Sara DeKeuster, Jessica Cutler, Monica Lewinsky, etc., are often the culprits, the ones who take the fall, but it's not just and has never been just about women. Whole swaths of our culture are left out and misrepresented by extremely tired sexual stereotypes and that's what I'm primarily interested in exploring.