17. Synthesis
"METAFEMINIST SYNCHRONICITIES -- Metafeminism attempts to synthesize the breakdown of global systems with the energy of feminist vision as a relevant solution toward change; the realization dawns that this is precisely what has been intuited, longed for, and feared by the species for millenia."
-- Robin Morgan, The Anatomy of Freedom 1
Feminism can be discussed as divided into radical and reformist branches. Radical feminism is more or less of the sort that I have been writing about, that is, it deals with large-scale changes that would result in an entirely different society from the one we live in now. Reformist, or moderate feminism is the sort represented by NOW (National Organization for Women) as an example of participants, and the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) as a typical goal.
And yet, in many ways the division does not exist as a functional split between two groups of feminists. The radical feminist more often than not supports every positive step of the long journey from what is to the way she would like things to be; and few moderate feminists concerned with reforming the existing system completely ignore the voice of more comprehensive feminists as they continue to cast light on new issues and challenge all aspects of patriarchal society.
I'm not saying the distinction is irrelevant or artificial. The radical feminist knows that the place where laws and institutions really exist is in our collective mind, where we accept their legitimacy and operate accordingly...and in order for that to be changed, the attitudes and concepts that gave rise to the whole mess must change. Until they do, traditional thought will keep the mess operating. Theory must herald and outline change, contending with the current state of things with visions of how it could be instead. Radical feminism demonstrates this with the strong emphasis on communication on many different levels. That's how it's done: flood the orthodox territory with the psychology of alternate thought. Proximity forces comparison, and patriarchy cannot endure long in that light.
However, to remain effective, theory and philosophy must be accompanied by actual changes, or people ultimately stop taking it seriously. Long journeys consist of many single steps, few of which, taken alone, appear radical. Feminists have made a vivid impact by freely mixing the visionary with the practical, deliberately making issues of the fabric of our lifestlyes where theory can be validated by experiment and practice, now, individually, today:
"Linger on the details the part that reflects the change;
There lies revolution! Our everyday lives, the changes inside become a political song!"
-- Holly Near, "You Bet" 2
The effort to transform our society is underway. Abstract concepts are accompanied by perpetual attempts to put them into practice. Gradually, in an organic, growing-up way, our institutions are changing, options and alternatives are appearing, with feminists often to be found on the leading edge in the experimentation and conceptualization of life-loving replacements for patriarchal forms.
* * *
The general theoretical feminism I have been working from, and even to an extent the specific line of thought (perhaps I should say sphere of thought) from which I have been writing is not new. Pinpointing the psychology of masculinity and the male sex role, and even more especially the sexual psychology of the male in patriarchal society as constituting the root of the overall problem has been almost an orthodoxy of radical feminism ever since Kate Millett's Sexual Politics. 3 In supplementary fashion, the knitting of feminist theory with therapeutic counseling issues, especially within the framework of the psychiatric inmates' liberation movement (also known as the anti- psychiatric movement) is not special to me and this book; in fact, Kate Millett, according to the Summer l985 edition of "Madness Network News"4, is writing a new book on the subject, tentatively titled The Loony Bin Trip.
What I have brought is the distinctively male perspective on the question, and discussed it in that very same context. As I move on to discuss and propose changes in lifestyles and how males can help put the conclusion of these ideas into practical effect, then, it makes sense to do so in the same context.
Admittedly, in l986, the continued existence of that context itself is in question. The fate of feminism as a current phenomenon is in public doubt. I have heard the second wave of feminism spoken of as having occurred "in the late sixties and ending in the late seventies". Undeniably, the character of American social movements has changed markedly to a more conservative atmosphere, and the sense of constant daily changes in social institutions is no longer vividly present.
Nevertheless, feminism is still discernably alive and kicking too fervently to be mistaken for a corpse. Todays' feminists are publicly contending with the pornography industry, whose portrayals of human sexuality are persistently misogynistic and hatefully subject-object, as well as proposing legislation to provide equal wages for work of comparable worth (a tactic designed to cope with the wage ghetto of the "pink-collar" fields). The radical feminist Sonia Johnson ran for president in l984 on the Citizens' Party ticket, spreading radical feminist concepts in the process. And the Robin Morgan quote headlining this chapter comes from her l982 book of radical visions for today and tomorrow. Some of these activities directly tie in with the particular concern I've highlighted, the institution of male (hetero)sexuality; others, although ultimately tied in because of the global holistic nature of the problem, are more distant from that specific cause.
Because I am writing about the need for male involvement in the movement to an extent that doesn't really exist yet, I can't do more than give a general overview of some of the trends in lifestyle and in the activities of the feminist movement that have the most direct bearing on subject-object dynamics of heterosexuality, and which would make appropriate areas in which for individual males to become directly and personally involved in the process of synthesizing alternatives to patriarchal form. To that end, I'm going to begin with a look at the social/legal institutions and structures of family, reproduction, the household, marriage, and how the sexual relationship of man and woman is controlled and molded by those forms; then, I'll move in closer to the specific issue by taking a look at consumer imagery, how sexuality is portrayed for the male market and how we, as the intended consumers, can change our role in that; and, finally, against that backdrop, a look at the core of what this book has been about: the potential impact of creating a positive and heterosexually eligible image of the male rejecting conformity to the patriarchal personality model, i.e., the "sissy".
* * *
Sexism today continues to stress parenthood as the only "normal" adult lifestyle, driving us towards a projected population of l0 billion by the year 2030 and 30 billion by 2100..5...that's less than 115 years, folks...
Meanwhile, children are still the possessions of their parents, who alone are totally responsible for providing for all the needs of their children, a form not suited to parent or child. The notion that children need taking care of in this sense is absurd, yet persists.
The needs of children are no different from the needs of anyone else -- food and shelter, freedom, and meaningful interpersonal contact. The difference lies in the inability of young children to reciprocate as effectively in the constant give-and-take without which any of us would be in poor shape. But we take it to an extreme. In a cooperative community, the average eight-year-old can participate, and the most valuable contribution might well be watching the five-year-olds, and I've even seen two-year-olds quite capably and tenderly holding infants and feeding them.
No one over ten suffers greatly from lack of age as far as being a potentially enthusiastic and cooperative adult-level coworker, but our society places children in such pathetically dependent positions that, instead of quickly learning the skills and crafts that would make them welcome in other households or even able to live on their own, they sulk around with all the enthusiasm towards housework and tasks that you would expect from a person owned and largely kept in the social puddle of the nuclear family.
Why learn to do these things? You aren't going to be kicked out, nor shall you leave, and there's nowhere to go...but start doing work, and it'll be expected of you.
We adults value our skills because they make us independent, and when we voluntarily cooperate, we do so because we are equal and free.
The liberation of children from the oppressive institutionalized position of childhood is not something that appears likely to arrive in the near future; if children's lib is ever to occur as a dynamic movement, its time is yet to come, and I'm not predicting its widespread appearance in the next decade. However, there is a slow creep in the direction of personal freedom for children. On the one hand, the media has played a major role in, first, smoothing out age differences by exposing both children and adults to uniform programming, and, secondly, by increasingly portraying children as sophisticated and adultlike (though admittedly within the cultural context of "normal" adult behavior, especially with regards to gender roles). Meanwhile, there is now an increased consciousness throughout our society about child abuse, sexual and otherwise; Pat Benatar's hit song "Hell is for Children"6 marks this increased awareness. It has been a long road to the conclusion that children have a right to their own physical integrity, and we have not reached the end of that road; nor is that anything but a beginning. But it is progress.
* * *
Fifteen years ago, one of the more popularized innovations in lifestyle was the commune, and many young people dissatisfied with the predominant culture came to live in them and explore alternative lifestyles as countercultural communities. Many of these experimenters were feminists, exploring new concepts of organizational structure, learning to live independent of men and, in particular, devising new ways of accomplishing the necessary portions of women's traditional role without tying women to that role.
It would seem to a casual first glance that those days are gone, but actually, though no longer heavily publicized, many communes continue to function and thrive. I lived briefly on one myself in l980.
Sitting quietly in the background, our communes are still places where alternative modes of social organization are being developed and refined, and one of the areas where a lot of viable answers have been found is in the area of child care.
Children and the state of parenthood is a feminist issue, and the old forms, based on a woman spending a vast portion of her time and energy on tending to her children while her husband earned money, obviously need replacing. Having men take on part, half, or all of that role does not really solve the problem, since it preserves the old form.
Within the collective framework, mothers and fathers practicing communal living have learned to spread responsibility for all the children among the entire community, including the childless members. In this way, they have become each other's extended family.
This also has the fortunate effect of providing the children with more associates and contacts. A consciousness of the personhood of the twelve year old boy or the seven year old girl not only encourages them to value their own ideas and ability to participate in their social world, but also causes them to begin taking an interest in providing cooperative service and learning skills to make themselves independent.
Not surprisingly, then, when the adults are not constantly and tightly bound with immediate and unshared responsibility for their children, the times of being with a young person cease to be tasks and burdens and become mutual social occasions.
* * *
To be a feminist can mean holding feminist tenets as important in your life as an individual, or participating in politically feminist organizations, but for those to whom feminism is potentially and preferably a complete lifestyle, the answer is to be a part of some kind of community, where individuals can share their feminism as members of a culture.
This is where communes come in. Most simply, rent is expensive, and it's nice to have someone who thinks and feels like you do to share living quarters. This is the first step towards the collective community, and thousands of people engage in it without considering themselves to be living as part of a commune.
But sometimes, expecially when you find yourself closely bonded with five or six (or more) people with whom you share unorthodox ideas for how to interrelate, you may begin thinking of terms of all combining resources to establish a common residency and live together. Now you've definitely got a commune.
One option, fairly popular on the south and on the west coast, is to split the rent on one of those huge old relics from the days when parents had five or six children and an aunt or grandparent or two living with them, and choose for each person an individual space while maintaining other areas as everyone's domain. Generally, the ones that are up for grabs are standing available due to being in a poor state of repair, but that is not necessarily a terrible thing: you can always go to the library and learn how to fix it up, you have a free labor pool on hand, and a little dilapidation helps keep the rent down.
In my own experiences, the only real problem was a little too much togetherness, with individuality getting its first limitation in the kitchen -- dining and food storage facilities in these houses were never designed for Terry (who eats three big omnivorous meals per day) to live with Joan (the wholesome organic vegetarian natural-foods no-preservatives type) and Arlene (who snick-snacks twenty-four hours a day and likes to keep a six-pack of imported beer on hand). There's never enough room to store separate supplies of cooking and serving utensils, and invariably someone's already using the stove when the notion to cook strikes. Sooner or later, someone counts eleven species of green and grey furry things growing on unclaimed leftovers in the fridge, finds that someone used all their yeast and didn't replace it, finds the necessary skillet under fourteen pounds of undone dishes with a layer of burnt omelet clinging to it, discovers that someone used their favorite razor-sharp knife to chop frozen meat off the bone...and contemplates cannibalism.
Still, communal living ain't a bad way to go. With a little more advance planning and development of the idea of biologically unrelated people sharing space like a family, a new common social form may develop.
Betty Friedan, for example, proposes that actual structural designs be developed for intentional collective living facilities which would solve much of the problem by providing better privacy, more practical divisions into yours/mine/ours realms, and communal facilities large enough and practically placed to permit individualists to live cooperatively in both senses of the word. The time has come, she argues, for feminist thinking to permeate the construction and architectural fields; dreamhouses need to be designed for lifestyles other than the single person, couple or nuclear family 7.
The commune is not by any means extinct. It is too practical to be extinct! Fascinated? The best way to get started is find a group of similarly-minded people that tends to hang out on an ongoing basis in some coffeehouse sort of place, an informal business establishment that has the right atmosphere for grabbing a chair and pulling up to an already occupied table. On any given night, you may see twenty percent of a network of folks who know each other, think of the place as theirs, have many of the others' phone numbers, often visit each other's homes, and so forth.
Talk a lot. Get to know everyone. When you find that you are part of a network of friends that seem like family to you and to each other, start talking about present and ideal living arrangements. Sometimes it takes a commitment of months or years to make arrangements.
In larger communities, or anywhere that the above suggestions just don't seem practical, check the press. Look in your favorite periodical or newspaper for the personal/situations ads, maybe run a classified ad and begin corresponding with people who say they're interested in the idea.
In some regions, there may even be referral services for people looking for the right commune, expecially in California, Oregon, Washington, and to a lesser extent all throughout the west.
Check bookstores and organic food co-ops. Any place with lots of personal notices on the wall is a good possibility. Try colleges. Little stores around colleges often have notices of this sort.
Finally, if you think you might be interested in an already existing commune, go buy a copy of Mother Jones Magazine and look for ads from the various inter-communal referral services, such as the Federation of
Egalitarian Communes.
* * *
The biggest active threat to feminism and its goals lies with the attempts to make abortion illegal again. Forces claiming to be acting on behalf of the sanctity of human life have managed to present their efforts as morally virtuous, while condemning abortion as a form of cold-blooded murder. Despite the fact that their parallel campaign against birth control centers and the dispensing of birth control information makes it apparent that their real interest lies in limiting women's reproductive freedom, their propaganda has made a powerful impression.
Since abortion is such an important and controversial issue, public policy depends on public sentiment, and all feminists (male and female alike) should be prepared to discuss the matter.
When the "right-to-life" movement first began making a real impact, feminists tended to respond that abortion is a woman's natural right and leave it at that. Possibly the danger of the "murder" argument was underestimated, because abortion is too complicated a matter to dismiss in a cavalier manner. At this point, I think it is important to answer that charge more completely. Here are some excerpts from my nomination for the best reply to the "abortion equals murder" argument, "A Defense of Abortion" by Judith Jarvis Thomson:
"Most opposition to abortion relies on the premise that the fetus is a human being...from the moment of conception...
Many of those who defend abortion rely on the premise that the fetus is not a person, but only a bit of tissue that will become a person at birth...I suggest that the step they take is neither easy nor obvious, that it calls for closer examination...
I propose, then, that we grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception...
[Now] let me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist...[who has] a fatal kidney ailment...and last night [his] circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisions from his blood as well as your own...[and] to unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months...Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation?
...If the room is stuffy, and I therefore open a window to air it, and a burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say, 'Ah, now he can stay, she's given him a right to the use of her house -- for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars burgle.'...
The right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly...
It seems to me that the argument we are looking at can establish at most that there are some cases in which the unborn person has a right to use of its mother's body...at any rate, the argument certainly does not establish that all abortion is unjust killing." 8
The Thomson argument is a classic reprinted in one of my women's studies textbooks.
* * *
Many social theorists, including both feminists and defenders of patriarchy, have postulated a direct relationship between the development of sexual inequality and the fact of women's reproductive biology. In other words, they have said that, since women (and only women) become pregnant and give birth, and since being pregnant hampers a woman and makes her much less independent, patriarchy was inevitable. Feminists who have thought along these lines have cited modern birth control methods as the necessary prerequisite for women's equality; patriarchalists decry those same methods as inherently evil skills and practices, insisting that women's natural sexual role is one of reproduction.
I ascribe to an alternate theory of how things came about. In chapter ten, I described a sexual and economic situation wherein primitive womankind not only had access to various means of birth control, but also were not yet immersed in the monetary economic system which, when it did develop, made it necessary for each person to earn money or to be the dependent of someone else who could do so. No doubt we always had a set of ideas about what does and what does not constitute worthwhile contributions to the community, but only with the arrival of patriarchy comes the strange notion that a woman in advances stages of pregnancy is unproductive and unentitled to share in the commodites of the group.
Now, however, the issue of reproductive freedom is undeniably woven into the conflict between patriarchy and feminism.
If our society were not dominated and controlled by patriarchal values and priorities, I'm sure that a vast amount of research would be invested in the development of safe, reliable, and convenient birth control. Instead, our government seems much more inclined to help curtail or eliminate women's modern reproductive freedom.
The abortion issue is central to this, of course. If women run the risk of an un-abortable preganancy if they sex, then sex becomes unnaturally perverted into something which is, indeed, a subject-object relationship between men and women. Even if precautionary birth control remained available, the inertia of change in the sexual environment would be strongly affected. That seems to be the hidden agenda of the anti-choice "pro-life" movement. Can they do it?
Feminism operates on so many different levels simultaneously that it is easy to look at one part of the picture without taking into account what may be taking place elsewhere. In the years since abortion was last an inaccessible, illegal thing, women have come a long way towards a sophisticated understanding (and therefore control) of their bodies. Feminist women's health centers have taught hundreds of women how to examine themselves with simple tools such as a hand mirror and a speculum. A speculum is a device used to spread the vaginal walls for easy observation of the cervix. It is also, as one woman pointed out to me, used by gynecologists to gain easy access to the cervix so as to dilate it with rods or medicinal dilatory agents. Most first-trimester abortions, she went on to say, are simple and safe procedures performed in clinics or doctor's offices, and, were it not for the American Medical Association's legal monopoly of the trade, a good trained midwife could perform dilation-and-saline abortions as easily and safely as she could attend childbirths. She added, "If the government ignores the wishes of the public and passes them [laws making abortion illegal], it won't go back to the way it was. It won't be coat hangers and knitting needles. We know how to take care of ourselves without their help, if necessary."
Meanwhile, there is room for more male participation in the organizations and actions to keep abortion rights legally sanctified; this would include working with groups such as NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) as well as more grass-roots radical involvement, such as counter-picketing anti-abortion demonstrators, who often block or impede access to birth control and abortion services centers, such as Planned Parenthood.
* * *
The social conservatives have long bewailed the modern untying of sexuality from reproduction, but arguments to the effect that separating the co-parenting relationship from the sexual/emotional coupling relationship would somehow devalue them are myopic and unrealistic; the circumstances of divorce and child "custody" make it clear that the tradition of weaving these relationships into one bond does not make them work better, last longer, or afford its participants more satisfaction. Socially convenient though it might be for a coupling to last for a lifetime, you can't count on it. It used to be that men had a fair degree of freedom to pursue personal relationships outside of marriage with little fear of repercussion, whereas women simply had far less freedom to express their sexuality, period. These things, plus the legal difficulties that used to be involved in obtaining a divorce, made divorce less of a commonplace thing than it is now. I don't see the need to look for further reasons to explain the "soaring divorce rate".
When it comes right down to it, it seems to me that the condition of being legally bound to someone, the marital artifice which causes partners to take each other for granted, would take the vivid sparkle out of the picture by removing the sense of high-stakes emotional gambling, and, while those involved may have entered into marriage to escape the unmarried assumptions of "this isn't for keeps or anything", this drab and tingle-less alternative may leave something to be, if you'll pardon the expression, desired. Given the freedom to do so (a recent development), it appears that many folks will split up and search elsewhere rather than be part of a stagnant, bored relationship dragging itself off into the sunset.
Men have been criticized for avoiding commitment and therefore being immature and irresponsible in their relationships, and, as Barbara Ehrenreich points out in The Hearts of Men 9, one of the interesting factors that precipitated the feminist revolution was a popular male disavowal of the male "breadwinner"/husband role. I suggest that a thoughtful examination of the issue will make it apparent that a strong male preference for "shacking up", that is, living with one's lover without the presence of coercive and state-defined legal obligations and definitions, is no more irresponsible than a feminist woman's disavowal of the orthodox wife/mother role. Furthermore, I will say that, since the roles are complementary to each other, the revolutionary motions away from these respective roles must also be complementary. In a society without feminism, it would be unfair for men to expect women to condone their avoidance of marriage; from feminists, it makes all kinds of sense. Interestingly enough, the last two decades of feminism have brought with them a noticable shift in perceptions of marriage; people are now much more likely to think of the men as being the ones who want marriage, and of women (especially feminists) being the ones to look for alternatives.
Of course, marriage tends to include the co-parenting relationship. Since the dependent status of children is a reality that is not likely to be eliminated in the immediate future, perhaps the co-parenting relationship should be contractually formalized, with each potential parent acknowledging responsibility for their offspring and promising to try, whenever possible, to cooperate in the child-raising venture; perhaps it is here that the institution of marriage still contains some social validity.
For a long, long time, though, baby-making has been viewed as the purpose, rather than the result, of falling in love with someone you are sexually attracted to, and coupling, emotionally and physically. In the grossest biological sense, I suppose that's true, but as conscious individuals we generally don't fall in love and find ourselves sexually attracted because we want to have babies!
What promise, then, can you honestly make to the one you love and sex with? To always love them in this way? To never have these feelings for someone else? Oh, great! Then it is your duty -- I am supposed to feel this way about so-and-so; I am not supposed to feel this way about this other. Supposed to feel? Supposed to feel? C'mon! Pursue that route and what you most likely will feel is guilt, resentment, frustration, distrust, fear...
Well, you could promise never to sex with anyone else, I suppose. Drag out that branding iron! You, because I love you, I ask that you promise that if you feel inclined to sex with someone else...you won't? Ooh! Distrust, possessiveness, resentment, loss of sexual appetite...
I don't mean to imply that monogamy or faithfulness is unnatural, or that the desire to be your lover's exclusive sexing partner is necessarily over-selfish. It has been my experience that being in love with one person tends to cause fidelity of its own accord. The point is, it occurs naturally as the result of what is felt, and to seek to inspire those feelings through commitments, legal or just informally promised, is much more inclined to backfire, because it does not involve emotional trust. And who among us can promise what we are going to feel, or feel like doing, tomorrow? Or next month? Especially those feelings!
So what's left? What can you promise? Nothing. Not a damn thing. All you can really do is say, if such is the case, "I love you now, intensely, deeply, and right now I feel as if I could spend the rest of my time with you."
Anything else will only bring pain.
* * *
There is one very basic fact about human life that we don't like. Namely, there is no way you are ever really going to know if anyone ever, at any timne, to any degree...loves you.
You can think someone does, you can hope someone does, or you can worry that they don't, but you can never be as certain as your vulnerability makes you want to be. For that matter, you may find that you can't even be certain you know how you feel.
You can worry that it isn't mutual and that you might get hurt, but you can't find out otherwise except by taking the risk. To truly love someone you have to make yourself vulnerable to maybe getting sliced to ribbons.
Love is not safe.
If you are too scared of the risk to accept the experience of falling deeply in love, you won't; but all the attempts to find out if it's mutual first, or to extract some kind of understanding that will make it safe are in vain.
All you can do is take a deep breath, close your eyes, and jump. Scary, isn't it?
* * *
"Cover stories, movie reviews, and television specials now analyzing...[the] 'male sex symbol' phenomenon tend to divide into two schools of thought.
The liberal one announces a role reversal. Strong women are assumed to be turning men into sex objects...(the subtext here is: 'Feminism has peaked and just imitated men anyway.'). But conservative critics see this new sexual interest as proof positive that women are rejecting equality. After all, sex requires female submission, so feminism has to be anti-male and antisex...
...If women aren't being submissive, then they must be dominant (says the left); if men are to function sexually, they must be dominant (says the right); but whoever it is, someone must be dominant (they both agree).
As a result, most readers of cultural tea leaves are missing the real news: the sexual paradigm is changing...
In fact, women's interest in sexual men is coming out of the closet now precisely because we no longer assume they will expect us to be submissive...or dominant...Yet it's obvious that women...have more motive to change, and that there will be, for some time to come, more women with changed hopes than there are men to share them."
-- Gloria Steinem, "Why Richard Gere?" 10
Certainly, some things are changing. Among men, I've noticed the biggest difference lies in what men expect (and desire) from women, in other words, our cultural concepts of desirable femininity. In the course of my conversations with various men my age I've noticed that the old feminist complaint that all men want women to be passive, docile, delicately-willed, and so forth would no longer apply. I would say that the modern male expectation of women includes a "fieriness" or spirit, a physical pride and self-awareness like unto that of basketball players (grabbing that rebound and gone down the court to score another quick basket; she moves, and her hair flies all over her forehead, damp with sweat, she whirls,...visions of a girl-body in action, excited and laughing...) and possessed of an equally quick and clever mind. Where once there was apparently a high value placed on female sexual inexperience, I'd say that today's woman is expected to be relationship-experienced and actively sexual (but casual and anonyomous sex is still regarded as okay, even obligatory, for men, whereas women are only supposed to have boyfriends, relationships, and affairs).
In this respect, I do not differ from other fellows of roughly my own age. I find that my taste in female attractiveness is not markedly different except for an intellectual preference for thoughtful, introspective philosopher- types.
This has to alter the face of heterosexuality; it has done so, and is doing so now, a little bit at a time. Take notice: the old belief that assertive women are unsexy to men (an idea once commonly held by feminists and their enemies as they blamed each other for that situation) is almost a dusty relic, if we concentrate on personality and behavior; even outspokenly political feminist women who openly insist that men measure up to their standards of liberated attitudes and sexual equality are quite likely to be regarded by some men as wild and excitingly feminine.
The area where change is lagging behind is the other side of the road, that is, sexy masculinity, the things that are socially presented and perceived as affirmatively, attractively sexy in the way of personality and behavior in a man. As a generation, we still harbor sexist ideas concerning the way that men and women should be, especially in order to be considered sexy; expectations of males and females are not mirror-images of each other. The old ideas about masculinity, although challenged by women, have never been thoroughly analyzed and criticized from within, by males.
The masculinity of today tends to be a curiously random graft of the old concepts of what it means to be a man plus the newer female concepts of what women want from a man, all lacquered over with the obligatory male swaggering group-assurance that says we never have to ask difficult questions about who we think we are as a sex, how we are hurt by concepts and expectations that we don't like, and how we would like to be visualized by our society (including each other). Picture an old attic filled with all sorts of clutter, some new, some that has been stored there for ages, none of it any more organized than attics tend to be. Everywhere, there are unlit corners with vague shapes and silhouettes of things that are not easily recognized for what they are. This is what the male sex role is like. We could spend several rainy afternoons poking around up here, checking out the old costumes and opening the dust-covered trunks.
* * *
The Cult of Masculine Obscenity is composed of an obverse side which celebrates sex as the epitome of filth and a reverse side which deplores sex the the epitome of filth, with both sides agreeing that sex is filthy. The graphic embodiment of the Obscenity Cult lies with pornography and the battles between the pornographers and the bluenose censors and moral-majoritarians.
Feminists have had a rough time making themselves heard on the issue without being erroneously depicted as belonging to one of the two sides of the Cult. How do you distinguish between celebrations of sexuality and erotica on the one hand, which portray sex as beautiful, loving, spiritual, powerful, and so forth, and pornography, which drags sex through the sewer and identifies rape with sex, and sexual vulnerability with femaleness (and masochism)? Feminists are divided between those who support ordinances which would make misogynistic (womanhating) and gynocidal (womankilling) depictations of explicit sex grounds for lawsuit (from women as the injured party), and those who worry that such laws open the floodgates for censorship and the eradication of all explicit representations of sex.
Men, meanwhile, seem oblivious to the notion that pornography is insulting and degrading to themselves. Pornography tells the world around us that what male sexuality is about -- what turns men on -- is fucking and screwing and raping, as often, as anonymously, and as casually as possible. Pornography makes "Johns" of men, as they lay down their dollars to obtain the female commodity. Like prostitution, pornography says that sex is something that women have and that men want. We, not the women, are the market. A boycott of pornography from us, not from the women, could be effective in changing these sickening portrayals of human sexuality. Why shouldn't we insist on good healthy erotica instead?
But men are silent about their own personal erotic tastes, and merely accept and mimic the cultural programming for male sexual appetite, buying whatever magazines or videotapes that are presented as sex, soliciting whatever is offered as commodity by the fuckvendors.
The bare existence of male strippers and such doesn't change the scene: for the most part, sex is not sold to women as it is to men. Pornography and female prostitutes service the male market.
And men, by and large, have not said a word about being bothered by the notion that we are not brought up to view ourselves as equally desirable.
* * *
As long as heterosexuality is tied to sexism, dividing men and women into polarized camps, arbitrarily forcing boys into "butch" drag and girls into "femme" garb, sexism is in no danger; sexism could remain firmly ensconced on its patriarchal throne long after the local gay rights groups become as respectable as the League of Women Voters. Yet, despite well-placed thrusts at the collective mind's image of heterosexuality, showing subject- object portrayals such as pornography for what they are, despite the positive changes that Gloria Steinem mentions, we still don't have enough viable and visible social images of a coed alternative to the patriarchal form of heterosexuality.
Some lesbianism is and has been a revolution among women rejecting their cages and the bait inside them, pursuing a lesbian lifestyle as a militant statement about sexism and masculinized men and heterosexuality, often making it plain that it was a choice, one where a free and intimate sexual relationship with another woman was chosen over a sexist and nonintimate heterosexuality even in spite of rather than because of basic innate physical attraction and orientation (is it something you are, or is it something you do?):
"Davy sleeps nearby. You've heard about blue-eyed blonds, haven't you? I passed into his room barefoot and watched him sleep, unconscious, the golden veils of his eyelashes shadowing his cheeks, one arm thrown out into the streak of light falling on him from the hall. It takes a lot to wake him (you can almost mount Davy in his sleep) but I was too shaken to start right away, and only squatted down by the mattress he sleeps on, tracing with my fingertips the patterns the hair made on his chest; broad up high, over the muscles, then narrowing towards his delicate belly (which rose and fell with his breathing), the line of hair to below the navel, and then that suddenly stiff blossoming of the public hair in which his relaxed genitals nestled gently, like a rosebud.
I told you I was an old-fashioned girl...
'Stay, Davy'. This is one of the key words that the house 'understands'; the central computer will transmit a pattern of signals to the implants in his brain and he will stretch out obediantly... none of the behavior is organically controlled anymore...
Once I felt the pressure of her hipbone along my belly, and being very muddled and high, thought: she's got an erection. Dreadful. Dreadful embarrassment. One of us had to be male and it certainly wasn't me. Now they tell me it's because I'm a lesbian, I mean that's why I'm dissatisfied with things. That's not true. It's because I'm a tall, blonde, blue-eyed lesbian.
Does it count if it's your best friend? Does it count if it's her mind you love through her body? Does it count if you love men's bodies but hate men's minds? Does it count if you still love yourself?
Later we got better."
-- Joanna Russ, The Female Man 11
For that matter, somewhere in this world there may be a man who declares that his physical preference would be for female bodies, but that because of his dislike for the way things are set up, he lives as a gay man. If so, it doesn't constitute a phenomenon, and he hasn't yet impressed his position on the world; men who consciously choose a gay lifestyle as a revolutionary boycott of sexist coed relationships are unheard of...yet would the decision necessarily have to be a conscious one?
I have spoken with gay acquaintances who make it plain from their jokes and comments that they equate femaleness with orthodox femininity, and are both contemptuous of and condescending towards these prissy, prettified, trivial, shallow, manipulative, and covertly chauvinistic sexist women they visualize when they think of heterosexuality. One need not have a strong consciousness of sexism as a phenomenon to develop an antipathy towards it as manifested in a person of the opposite sex.
Yet political lesbianism carries with it more of a built-in confrontation with sexism, because of two women sexing with each other, at least one of them must be doing things that sexism says isn't part of female sexual nature. You can't take two passive objects who are turned on only by being seduced, invaded, acted upon, and dominated, put them together, and come up with a sexually active couple. Think about it.
I've heard lesbians claim that people are always wondering what lesbians do under the covers. Perhaps they aren't really that incapable of imagining what one woman might do, anatomically speaking, that would be pleasant to another so much as they are unable to visualize women actively seeking their own and each other's involvement, enjoyment, and release. I think the pornographic obsession with lesbianism as a theme is due to the same thing.
Meanwhile, for males, homosexuality as homosexuality, in the political sense, tends to lack that radical bite -- gay men are often seen as men having a great sexual appetite and a crudely promiscuous and unpicky way of dealing with it (common grounds for indignation! we males are all regarded as sluts!), in other words being in a sense quite "masculine", only even more so than straight men who do not have the same easy access to sexual partners. Of course, someone has to be at least partially susceptible (reactive) to being advanced upon, placed in the commodity position, and so forth, which isn't "masculine"; but it's still his sexual appetite that makes him susceptible. This has a lot to do with the vilification and blatant contempt which straight males tend to direct towards gay men: it's defensiveness, since what red-blooded man might not fear having an appetite and desire for orgasm strong enough to make it difficult to "defend his virtue" in the face of another's sexual aggression? He has, after all, been greatly encouraged to think of himself as a beast of uncontrollable and insupressible lusts, and to give them expression whenever possible even if it means doing things that are called "bad". At the same time, he isn't comfortable with being on the receiving end of sexual aggression from someone he doesn't want to sex with, which is, all by itself, considered to be a feminine predicament.
But the real revolutionary corollary to Joanna Russ's form of feminism is chastity. Not churchy-sacrificial chastity where you willfully choose not to ever have sex, but simple refusal to play into the appetite-symbol role, to not overtly seek sex, but rather to wait for a mutual drawing together where the woman involved could not be involved unless she's willing to leave behind her sexist halo, to meet him at least halfway at every stage from the glance and the hello to the final conclusion. A much greater degree of "passivity", when practiced by women, can still allow them to be sexually active.
For men it's radical: "we insist on equality in our sexual relationships and we'll not reach out for substitutes!" Be forewarned: sexist expectations are pervasive, and to practice this tactic of refusing to beg and lunge (and perhaps make a nuisance of yourself) is often to encourage women to think you have no sexual interest in them...and instead of checking out your mind, personality, and body to see if you attract them, they only choose from among men who have, in some way, already said "I want you".
Those are the rules I play by. I like to think I am not a drip or an ugly-looking fellow, but, quite frankly, my stance has brought me a prolonged and rarely interrupted chastity. I've heard other men declare that women always come to them, that they do as I do with a lot more success. Maybe they do; I'm an eccentric and asocial loner, oversensitive in some ways and cold-bloodedly cruel in my bitterness when the wrong buttons are pushed. At any rate, as an improvement on the ugliness that comes from the "appetite symbol" part of the male role, I recommend this course, plus a bit of noisy speaking out about our unorthodox-male pride in not begging and in not bothering the disinterested who don't appreciate what we have to offer.
Oh, they'll say, that's impossible, they're men, they can't do without it, men have needs, they can't control themselves, that's why they're such obscene devils only after one thing, how can a bunch of men just yawn and quit, I bet they cheat, I bet they jack off all the time, I bet they're queer, I bet they can't last, well, if they think they can fight their hormones, I mean really, demanding that women treat them like they're hot stuff, well, they can wait until hell freezes over, that's sickening, you know, that's revolting, someone should go tell them that women are pretty, what's the world coming to, et cetera, ad lib, ad nauseum (I already heard it)......
A boycott of subject-object heterosexual dynamics hits the entire patriarchy right where it counts. Back off from the entire picture. See the incredibly wide scope and compass of sexism and the mess it makes of so much of life. Follow those branches back to the trunk of the twisted tree, the area of interpersonal relationships, emotional and sexual interactions. Now trace that trunk downward to the root of the problem and stare subject-object sexual dynamics and the sexual double standard in the face. Here is the Enemy. Here is the poisonous and self-perpetuating evil that feeds on the absence of communication and distrust, spreading itself and growing strong by creating further distrust and keeping men and women from understanding each other in the original vicious cycle of reaction and counterreaction and fear-fueled manipulation.
Radical liberationists of either gender are not going to play by the rules of subject-object sexual dynamics. The true liberationist man is too sensitive a creature to be grabbing and lunging and bullying women to obtain whatever he can, is too vain and proud to plead and beg, and besides, would never be satisfied without being shown that he, too, is giving a warmth and delight which a woman wants and which would make him the desirable source of emotional and erotic fulfillment from her point of view.
I'm calling an aggression strike. Like my feminist sisters, I have reached the point where I prefer speaking out and confronting sexism to seeking an active consummation of my heterosexual impulses. My priority concern with women is communicating and working together to eliminate patriarchy; I'm joining forces with those who don't assume innate psychological and behavioral differences between males and females; I declare myself to be a coed feminist and I dedicate my life to the assault on subject-object dynamics, sexism, and patriarchal form.
But am I going to fall into the binary-thinking pattern and set actively consummated heterosexuality and radical feminism as mutually exclusive lifestyles?
Of course not. I'm only being realistic about the existing heterosexual environment; I'm not going to let the endless search for that consummation eat up all my energies. I've got other places to invest my emotions.
But that still leaves a question unanswered.
* * *
People are going to be heterosexual. Neither homosexual options or chastity are going to appeal to everybody, and as long as the only available form -- person to person or in the imagery and definitions of our collective social mind -- is a sexist one, that is the one people will opt for.
I spoke of a new feminist dance, the patterns of oscillating waves of micro-advance, micro-retreat, which accepts in both sexes the naturalness of sexual desire and the understandable human sexual wariness and vulnerability. Moving outward from there, there is the growth of necessary new social forms with their altered, egalitarian expectations; moving inwards, there is less and less personality polarization into mutually incomprehensible masculinized and feminized selves; and all of these are slowly working to create a new heterosexual feminist alternative to patriarchy's version of the relations between the sexes.
In these, though they may seem to certain concerned individuals to be inadequately minor changes, I think we have the foundations for coed feminist theory. The concept of coed feminism is becoming visible now; it's fuzzy, but it is slowly coming into focus in our communal ushood imagery.
But theory and philosophy must eventually be accompanied by practice. And the people best positioned to practice it will be those most familiar with feminist thinking trends and values and priorities, while least sculpted into personality/behavior conformity on the inside. The future of feminism for women should not and hopefully will not be one in which heterosexual expression for a woman would mean giving her best energies over to the enemy. The appearance of truly liberated feminist men would herald the possibility of a new alternative to either orthodox patriarchal heterosexuality or the absence of heterosexuality, and if so its practice will affect others. Proximity will force comparison, and sexism will not endure in that light.
But first radical feminism must open itself to the possibility of sexual integration.
And the verdict of the Amazon's court has not yet been reached.
Table of Contents
Forward to Next Section