arf:
What I'm asking is whether you think that BDSM and rape are both part of one continuum of 'patriarchical sexual behaviour' or you think that the two are different by their very nature?
*cough*
sorry, i just checked in and havent thought about how to answer. its my birthday this weekend 
they are both on the continuum of patriarchal sexual behaviour, as is all sexual behaviour, because, um, we all grew up in a patriarchy.
but
they are different by their very nature, in that one is consensual, and one is not.
what do you think? do you think it's possible to engage in any sexual behaviour that is not influenced by our indoctrination into the patrarchal system? is sexual practice "out of bounds" for political analysis? is analysis or critique the same as condemnation?
interested in how this discussion develops but im off to enjoy turning thirty, so forgive me if i dont respond to any further questions immediately.
alas the problem, we can't escape our socialisation and all our desire is historically and culturally contingent but that does not mean it can be just flattened into patriarchial in the same way that not being able to stand outside capitalism or have "pure and natural" desires does not reduce every social interaction to being capitalist in nature. Just like capitalism patriarchy is not a closed system, it is contradicatory and filled with fissures, especially under contemporary capitalism.
p.s. if all sex is patriarchial by default you run the risk of conflating rape with consentual sex as there can be "no meaningful consent under patriarchy".
well that is why it is important that we discuss consent with each other and with our sexual partners. thats what makes it meaningful, that we discuss it honestly with each other. bdsm practitioners understand this, hence safe words.
well that is why it is important that we discuss consent with each other and with our sexual partners. thats what makes it meaningful, that we discuss it honestly with each other. bdsm practitioners understand this, hence safe words.
And radical feminism is necessary for that how?
Come on your really using a castrated (oh the irony) version of radical feminism here. Historically radical feminists have been opposed to BDSm and other "patriarchial forms of sexuality" including penetrative sex. Furthermore they rejected such notions of consent between sexual partners because consent was meaningless under patriarchy, hence whether or not a woman consented or enjoyed being tied up and spanked was neither here not there and it was the role of radical feminists to fight this.
as usual, you havent got a clue what you're talking about.
consent was meaningless under patriarchy
i have a feeling that you're referring to a very specific instance, where marital rape was legally impossible, therefore consent was a (legally) meaningless term within marriage.
as usual, you havent got a clue what you're talking about.Quote:
consent was meaningless under patriarchyi have a feeling that you're referring to a very specific instance, where marital rape was legally impossible, therefore consent was a (legally) meaningless term within marriage.
eh no.
the quote your referring to is different and is in relation to marriage.
All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman.
Which is quite stupid in itself as it is taking a legallistic view of the matter ie if consent isn't needed by law then whether or not a woman consents is meaningless, I'm guessing however that it's not meaningless to the individual women.
Arf can you help explain the historical antipathy that radical feminism has displayed to even consentual BDSM?
Michael Moorcock: After Right-Wing Women and Ice and Fire you wrote Intercourse. Another book which helped me clarify confusions about my own sexual relationships. You argue that attitudes to conventional sexual intercourse enshrine and perpetuate sexual inequality. Several reviewers accused you of saying that all intercourse was rape. I haven’t found a hint of that anywhere in the book. Is that what you are saying?
Andrea Dworkin: No, I wasn’t saying that and I didn’t say that, then or ever. There is a long section in Right-Wing Women on intercourse in marriage. My point was that as long as the law allows statutory exemption for a husband from rape charges, no married woman has legal protection from rape. I also argued, based on a reading of our laws, that marriage mandated intercourse—it was compulsory, part of the marriage contract. Under the circumstances, I said, it was impossible to view sexual intercourse in marriage as the free act of a free woman. I said that when we look at sexual liberation and the law, we need to look not only at which sexual acts are forbidden, but which are compelled.
The whole issue of intercourse as this culture’s penultimate expression of male dominance became more and more interesting to me. In Intercourse I decided to approach the subject as a social practice, material reality. This may be my history, but I think the social explanation of the all sex is rape slander is different and probably simple. Most men and a good number of women experience sexual pleasure in inequality. Since the paradigm for sex has been one of conquest, possession, and violation, I think many men believe they need an unfair advantage, which at its extreme would be called rape. I don’t think they need it. I think both intercourse and sexual pleasure can and will survive equality.
It’s important to say, too, that the pornographers, especially Playboy, have published the all sex is rape slander repeatedly over the years, and it’s been taken up by others like Time who, when challenged, cannot cite a source in my work.
from here
Arf can you help explain the historical antipathy that radical feminism has displayed to even consentual BDSM?
for future reference, it's "consensual".
why dont you have a look around yourself revol? bear in mind that there is just as much (if not more) written about radical feminism that is false than is true, as is also true about anarchism or communism. if you are genuinely interested in radical feminism, why don't you do your own homework? why dont you spend some time reading radical feminists?
until you've done that, how about you stop pretending that you have the vaguest clue about it? there are subjects on which you are apparently educated that i wouldn't have a clue about, and i would never assume to join in those discussions chanting "its shit, prove it, its shit, i dont accept that" in the way you keep doing. why do you need to be seen to be right about everything? why cant you accept that you are not intellectually superior to everyone else on every subject? why do you think you have nothing left to learn, or to question?
Arf I'm well aware of that quote you just posted.
Did I mention "all sex is rape"? Haven't we already went over the what wasn't and was said in regards to this years ago? Haven't we went over how Dworkin liked to flirt with sweeping statements but always left a small cavaet?
No I pointed out that the basis of all radical feminism is that consent cannot be meaningful under patriarchial relations (a point I agree with to some degree) and that with this it lead people like Dworking and Mackinnon to push for a ban on pornography. It is also the rationale behind much of radical feminisms dogmatic attitude to BDSM.
Arf, without getting into a 'who said what?' discussion, revol68 is right in that in the past, radical feminists have been incredibly hostile to anything that smacked (ouch) of bdsm, as well as this big tendency to place all sexual relations on some kind of patriarchal/rape continuum. Now you might not be aware of all this because, as you say, you're not yet 30. But some of us were around in the early 80s when this kind of dogma was at its peak. And it was friggin awful. I'm happy to see you have not rejected notions of consensuality however, unlike many of your radical feminist predecessors.
Dworking and Mackinnon to push for a ban on pornography
it's Dworkin and no they didnt. read more here
the basis of all radical feminism..
radical feminism is not a single issue political position
Quote:
Dworking and Mackinnon to push for a ban on pornographyit's Dworkin and no they didnt. read more here
Quote:
the basis of all radical feminism..radical feminism is not a single issue political position
it was both Dworkin and Mackinnon that helped draft the anti porn ordinance, MacKinnon is a world famous lawyer, Dworkin was just a sensationalist sloganeering twat with a fine line in turgid writing. I mean who the fuck would let someone like Dworkin draft legal documents, it'd be like letting Baudrillard draft your employment contract!
The meaningless of consent within patriarchial society is not a single political position, it is a central theorectical assumption that grounds it's concrete politics! Like Marxism and class.
BTW no matter what way you try and twist it, MacKinnon and Dworkin did try to ban pornography, you only have to read their definition of it and the mechanisms they wished to put in place whereby any women anywhere could file against anything that was deemed to degrade, incite violence or objectify women. Infact the definition was so wide and total that nearly every piece of classical literature would have been open to prosecution.
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If anyone was scared in that exchange it was me.