"to offer men sex"

The Sunday Times offers a profile of Catharine MacKinnon, whose new book is called Are Women Human? closes with these lines:

Feminist critics such as Katie Roiphe and Naomi Wolf complain that MacKinnon treats women as perpetual victims. “She’s quite clever and she’s a mesmerising speaker, but all roads lead to one place for her, the degradation of women,” says Roiphe.

She adds that MacKinnon has a “vivid pornographic imagination” in that “she looks at normal sexual life and sees exploitation where there is none. She doesn’t want to face the fact that a lot of women have fantasies that she thinks are exploitative”.

MacKinnon has seen the women’s movement go from flower power and free love to “reclaim the streets” demos against violence, only to find that women have gone on to offer men sex of the most explicit kind in the name of equality. As an article in The Wall Street Journal put it: “How did feminists end up in bed with (Playboy boss) Hugh Hefner?”

The answer is, not all of them did.

It's so telling to me that we get this very Ariel Levy-esque line women have gone on to offer men sex of the most explicit kind in the name of equality. Sounds all pro-woman and right-on, doesn't it? But look a little closer. "Offer men sex?" Women who sleep with men, I ask you, do you offer men sex, or do you, I don't know, choose to have sex with them? There is a world of difference in these two attitudes, and, in fact, I think the idea that women are the only arbiters of when sex will happen further fuels the battle of the sexes. It means that women have something men want and can negotiate it. It also means that women don't want to have sex for any reasons of their own; it's always a power game of what they can get for it. And by "get," I don't mean orgasms or pleasure or enjoyment or anything like that. When you say that "women offer men sex," you sound a lot more like Dr. Laura than Dr. Ruth. A whole huge set of assumptions goes into a line like that, ones I find not all that surprising in this case, but disturbing nonetheless.

The article starts with mentioning MacKinnon's obsession with People magazine. I think Angelina Jolie would be a good celebrity of example of a woman who doesn't "offer men sex" but engages with men, and, if Jenny Shimizu is to be believed, women, equally, not apologizing for her lust. It's not as simple a debate as victimized vs. empowered, though it seems like we're supposed to think that. It's not that casual sex is a cure-all or may not come with its own problems, misperceptions and dramas, but is the answer to say that women should never have, want, or be allowed to partake in casual sex? Everyone is so quick to dismiss so many things, from bikini waxing to casual sex to posing nude as signs of the end of the feminist world as we know it, which is ironic not only because the masses are not with them on that (witness the hundreds of women clamoring to be part of Playboy's Women of MySpace issue for example), but because they do what they claim the patriarchy does: turning women's sexual choices into a stand-in for their status outside the realm of sexuality. Basically, they are saying that if you want to be, say, the first female President of the United States, don't then betray your gender by getting your pubic hair removed. How ludicrous is that? My whole point with this is really: why can't women do both?

And why is it always on women to police sex? What about men and their roles/desires? Though I guess those don't really matter, right? They just want sex, any sex, however they can con us into "offering" it up to them. It's so reductive and denies everyone's right to a fulfilling, if perhaps complex, sexual life, which, to me, includes fantasy, pleasure, and exploration. It means, at some point, turning off all the voices the dominant and alternative cultures bring to bear and figuring out what you, as an individual, and then, your individual self plus your partner(s)'s individual self, wants. That is not something you will find in a book or a movie or a simple set of advice (though those may offer some ideas), but there is no single "right" way to have sex. There's no one thing we should all want or try to do to be fulfilled.

They also posit this idea that men want all women to look and act a single way, in bed and out, which is flat-out ludicrous. Men have as varied tastes, interests, and fantasies as women, and for every guy who wants a skinny, big-boobed blonde, there's someone (okay, my ratio may be off, but it's not anywhere near as dire as these libidophobes, to steal Nicholas Kristof's word) out there into brunette BBW. Same with submissive vs. dominant women; it's the biggest fucking myth that men are into submissive chicks. Sure, many are, but where in our culture are the submissive men? When I've encountered them, it's like they are just waiting for someone to give them permission to give it up, to let go, to let someone else take over. They're fun, cause they can usually take a lot, and for me personally those times have been so hot because they don't "have to" submit; there's no cultural forces at work telling them it's "cool" to let a woman spank them or manipulate them. That must come from some other place, which I can't really pinpoint, and don't need to, but I don't think you can truly look at "raunch culture" without asking about all the people who don't fit into those worlds at all. It's not just that women are painted as victims; we're painted as people who will never be able to desire anything authentically until we live in some mythical, utopian perfect world. And woe unto anyone trying to grapple with that and create a more open climate for sexual dialogue, or women-made porn, or anything that might seek to change these supposedly oppressive conditions.

Am I saying the sexual landscape is perfect? No. Are there double standards at work between men and women when it comes to sex? Of course. But the answer isn't simply to retreat, to say, "okay, men, sex is yours, we'll take . . . money. Makeup. High-powered jobs. We'll take everything else and leave you and your dicks to their ranchy ways." I don't get that attitude and find it really sad, but the good news is I think most women are not in that camp of wanting to live in a world where they "offer men sex." I think they'd much rather have sex with a partner than engage in some highly nuanced quid pro quo transaction.