Can't stop won't stop: Defending sex yet again

Yet another article about modern feminism and Female Chauvinist Pigs

The issue that will not freaking die. I really am writing a book, I just got distracted by hot porn stars and deadlines and things. But this is so freaking ridiculous already. ANYTHING we are coerced into is not going to be "liberating" to everyone, but words like "liberating" are being tossed around (not to mention feminism) in a highly disturbing way. We have Levy, Shalit and Ossorio being interviewed by The Christian Broadcasting Network. Let me just go out on a limb and say that I don't think they really care about the history of feminism, modern feminism, or any of the nuances that, say, Rachel Fudge wrote about in Bitch.

I am in no way saying every woman should be like me. Everybody should do what feels right to them, and I realize it's tricky figuring out what that is - for many of us, that may take a lifetime. But how are we increasing women's choices around their sexuality when we continue to castigate those of us who opt to take off our shirts on occasion as basically sellout sluts? I do take it personally, and feel like Levy distorts her definition of feminism to claim that sex is the only arena where anyone is fighting for anything. Is it possible that what we do sexually is not the be all and end all of our politics?

Of course sex is political. Highly so. It's also highly personal and informed by so many factors. I'm not going to say those factors are beyond are control, but many people like playing with, fucking with, those factors, like doing the opposite of what they're "supposed to." So if I get off on someone calling me a filthy whore or whatever, if some certain key words trigger my body and turn me on, yes, that's worth examining, but at the end of the day, I feel like these women are saying that instead I should only get turned on by someone saying "you're so sweet and nice and girlie" and that just doesn't do it for me. I don't think the minutiae of my or your sex life is necessarily the next frontier for feminist activism, but I feel like I'm being told I'm a traitor to some mythical cause and I'm not gonna shut up about it.

Modern feminism grounded itself in the idea that there were no differences between the sexes, and that the only problem the movement seemed to have with men's sexual promiscuity was not the immorality, but the fact that women couldn't get by with the same kind of behavior.

Levy accuses modern feminism of "getting in bed" with the likes of Hugh Hefner and embracing the playboy mentality, a culture mostly espoused by adolescent boys and men who never grew up. And, in the process, it degraded -- rather than elevated -- women in society.

“When I was growing up, Hugh Hefner, Playboy, and all of that was tacky,” Levy recalled. “It was something sort of trashy and tacky, and if somebody was engaged with it, it was something private that you were ashamed of. And it was certainly never considered feminist. I think it's a real perversion that we've come and now said that not only is it hip and popular, but it's good for women -- and I think that's insane."

What's up with this wistful nostalgia for shame? For prudery? For feeling uncomfortable about our bodies and desires? I feel like my generation, my people, my "sexerati" if you will are helping to finish the sexual revolution that was started in the 60's, the one that got a lot of men off but not quite as many women. That is not to say that I want to be just like a man or that we have to emulate male sexual values or rules or roles, but why can't we have the freedom to explore for ourselves? When Lisa Palac said, "Degrade me when I ask you to," that marked a cultural shift because she could admit to getting off on submission, within highly controlled circumstances, organized by her. How do I say this so people understand? I don't "get off" on Joe Schmo saying I'm "Cunt of the Year" (direct quite from an email I got yesterday). I don't want everyone in the world to call me a filthy whore. But if, say, a very hot guy who I know gets me and likes me and I'm in bed with wants to say that, that just might make me come. It's the kind of thing that doesn't translate all that well into blog, or print, which is why the Palac quote got so turned around. If you're not there, in the moment, in the person's head and body, how do you get the eroticism across? That's my challenge, and I hope I'm up to it. It's what I try to do in my erotica - to create a bigger picture so our sex lives can't be so segmented from the rest of our lives.

Author Wendy Shallit blames modern feminism's rejection of modesty for today's brazen sexuality among many young women.

Shallit explained, "There's no transcendent femininity anymore -- modesty, dignity, reserve. All of these virtues that were thought to be metaphysical female virtues we said were evil, and we got rid of them. And what we're left with is this temporal, physical feminine -- breasts, lipstick, and everything all hanging out."

It's just not so freaking either/or, modest or slut, good or evil. It's not. End of story. I get so angry because it's these women who can't see the rest of their fellow women as full, complex human beings, who hold down jobs and have lives and thoughts and families and responsibilities, yet also have desires that go much deeper than simply being worshipped on a freaking pedestal.