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Sex-Positive Feminism

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I disagree because she write here
"By definition, as the God who does not exist made her she is intended to have lesser privacy, a lesser integrity of the body, a lesser sense of self, since her body can be physically occupied and in occupation taken over."
And then she goes on to talk about how women dream of an intercourse in which they are equal and then goes back to discussing how men have written about intercourse:
"They also do not amount to much in real life with real men. There is, instead, the cold *******, duty-bound or promiscuous; the romantic obsession in which eventual abandonment turns the vagina into the wound Freud claimed it was; intimacy with men who dread women, coital dread-as Kafka wrote in his diary "coitus as punishment for the happiness of being together."
Basically what she is saying is that men have said that that is the natural use of a woman's body, that that is how "the God that does not exist made her."
In Intercourse, she intertwines paragraphs about what she views society to view things as, with paragraphs of her own voice. The tone of the chapter seems to be that the physical realities of intercourse put women at a disadvantage in terms of how society ends up viewing her, and explores various ways to try to salvage that situation, but takes a somewhat pessimistic tone that any of those ways are successful. It's not that she proposes biological determinism, but rather that she points out that, especially through male eyes, the physical way it works has led so much of society to view women as inferior, but keeps a fairly pessimistic tone about how to fix it.

She starts off in Chapter 7 by painting that view of how society views intercourse. She first describes intercourse in a very negative way, but then presents some of what she calls kinder societal explanations of sex that are not so negative, but kind of dismisses them.

Then she points out facts, where she seems to be her own voice, and most appear to be true. Facts such as: many women do not report orgasm from intercourse, that women must take ownership of their orgasm and stimulation for liberation, that women want a more complete body sexual intimacy than intercourse alone provides, that intercourse often expresses domination by men.

She then talks about how women have tried to make it work, for love of the man. She then quotes Ellen Key and Shere Hite, in their attempts to re-define intercourse using more equal terminology. Dworkin had previously touched on this in Chapter 5, where she pointed out examples of how intercourse is viewed by men as being controlled by the man even though it could be said that she surrounds him, and other language that would phrase her in the more dominant position. Dworkin takes a sympathetic look at these views by Key and Hite, holds them up as reasonable, but then says they don't amount to much in real life with real men.

She continues with similar points, repeating and solidifying much of the same, using her words and also using sarcasm, saying that men think they know all there is to know about sex, describes things from a common male point of view of not thinking about the woman too much, etc.

Dworkin then goes onto describe female-supremecist models for intercourse, quoting Victoria Woodhull in particular. Dworkin seems to take a mixed view, saying that they seem to evade some fundamental questions but acknowledge others. Dworkin reiterates that intercourse is a very vulnerable act for the woman, and describes Woodhull's view which Dworkin seems to support- that not only should intercourse only occur when the woman gives consent, but that intercourse should only occur women the woman initiates it. Dworkin praises this model for a bit, about how it takes the somewhat imbalanced act and balances it more, but then becomes critical again.

She states that male-dominant gender hierarchy seems immune to reform based on changes in sexual styles, like Woodhull's model. And she says it may be because the physical act of intercourse is itself immune to reform, being a physical act. (In other words, the physical act itself is described as somewhat fundamentally unbalanced, ripe for abuse, and that social models to try to balance it out, while maybe okay in theory, just aren't as reliable or robust as the consistency of the physical act itself). That's when she talks about how, in practice, women tend to eroticize powerlessness. Then, interestingly, she describes new reproductive technologies, which might otherwise be argued to give power to women, to reduce the dangers of intercourse, to instead be more ways for men to scrutinize and control women.

Then she asks all these open-ended questions. Can intercourse exist without objectification? What would it look like if it did? Questions like that. She goes once more into the description where intercourse is objectification, where women turn themselves into an object for men. She describes how women often collaborate with men to oppress women, out of love for them. She then says that women take the burden of objectifying and submitting themselves, and calling it freedom. She says, "When those who dominate you get you to take the initiative in your own human destruction, you have lost more than any oppressed people yet has ever gotten back. Whatever intercourse is, it is not freedom; and if it cannot exist without objectification, it never will be. Instead occupied women will be collaborators, more base in their collaboration than other collaborators have ever been: experiencing pleasure in their own inferiority; calling intercourse freedom. It is a tragedy beyond the power of language to convey when what has been imposed on women by force becomes a standard of freedom for women: and all the women say it is so."

In the final part of the chapter, she states that if intercourse is going to be about equality, it'll have to exist in some way that has not yet been seen. She says that intercourse under the current oppressive society is damaging to freedom, and warns against taking pleasure in submission because the cost is too great.

So overall, in that chapter, she takes a pretty negative view of intercourse due the physical nature of it, explores multiple ways to try to salvage it and make it more equitable but is critical of their success in the real world, and then leaves the chapter somewhat open-ended but not exactly optimistic.

Do you think that's a fair description of the chapter?

Throughout the rest of the book, which I've not read as closely, she talks more about various views in literature and religion towards women and sex and less about intercourse itself, like she did in this chapter. Even by the end of the book, I don't see where she has given thorough examples or descriptions of how to improve intercourse, how it can exist positively, though she doesn't go so far as to assert that it can't exist in a positive way. It's mostly a negative view towards it, with only speculative positions that maybe in a less patriarchal world, it can work in a way that hasn't been seen. Would you describe that as accurate, or does she indeed provide more positive examples somewhere in the book?

I think much of the work is good, but that there is a pessimism about intercourse (and less so about sexuality in general) that isn't resolved in any positive or uplifting way. I can see how a legitimate response would want to provide a different and more positive view of men, sexuality, and intercourse in particular.
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Lyn, perhaps I should caution you this post will largely be an experiment to see if I can adequately express something as potentially subtle as the psychology of aesthetics while short on sleep and easily distracted by the beautiful day outside my cottage. :)

Did you accurately represent my position? I think you did an impressive job representing it while working from memory. I only have three quibbles. The first is truly trivial: I don't believe we need to enjoy creating art for it to be art. So, a stripper could be creating art without necessarily enjoying the process.

You must think me an idiot by now to have mentioned something so trivial, but my next quibble is somewhat more substantial: I harbor within my beating breast a broad sense of what is art. Consequently, it doesn't matter whether a stripper is expressing herself (I will use "her" in this context, but I mean both women and men) authentically (such as when being true to herself) or inauthentically (such as when pandering to the audience without being true to herself). I either case, I view the expression as "art". The latter, however, might not have the same consequences for the audience as the former.

My third quibble is more of an elaboration. I believe stripping can be an art even if it expresses more than a person's (or an audience's) sexuality. For instance, it is conceivable to me that a stripper might wish to express her contempt for the audience (I think I've seen that done a few times). Such expression is to me just as much of an art as it would be if she were expressing her sexuality.

By the way, for the sake of avoiding the likelihood of a much, much longer post, I am avoiding any attempt to formally define what I mean by "art". I hope you fully appreciate how much dull boredom I am saving you from.

I will now attempt to address your second question, Lyn, which, if you don't mind, I will reformulate in two sentences as, "What, if anything, can a viewer experience from watching an authentic act of stripping as compared to watching an inauthentic act of stripping? And what, if anything, can a stripper experience while performing authentically as compared to inauthentically?"

I think your question pleasantly requires us to get into the psychology of aesthetics, a subject in which I by no means consider myself competent. But I'll give it a shot anyways because my incompetence is fortunately matched by my sense of adventure.

Perhaps we can begin by briefly noting an effect that authenticity (in other people) can have on us in general. I think, among other less relevant effects of our experiencing authenticity in another person, their authenticity has the potential to inspire and encourage us to be more authentic ourselves. And we might even subjectively experience that as liberating. "Liberating" as an emotional response: We feel freer, less restricted, more likely to achieve our potentials, etc.

Once again, I will spare you the details of why I think experiencing authenticity in another person can both inspire us to greater authenticity in ourselves, and induce in us feelings of liberation. But I will mention that what I've laid out here has been my own experience, as well as the experience of a very few other people that I've managed to discuss this subject with (Yet, my experience is fairly compelling evidence to me, but I wouldn't expect it to be necessarily compelling to anyone else).

Now, if the above is more or less the case, then I think we can apply it to the specific case of what an audience might experience while watching a stripper perform authentically. Briefly, the audience can then experience inspiration and encouragement to be more authentic themselves, as well as experience feelings of liberation. And, assuming the theme of the stripper's authentic performance is her sexuality, I would expect the audience can experience inspiration and encouragement to be more sexually authentic, and feelings of sexual liberation.

Please note that I've been saying "can" rather than "will". I have only guesses to go on when estimating the proportion of people in a given audience who will experience these things. My hunch is it's generally low, that few people typically come away from a strip club feeling liberated and encouraged to be more sexually authentic. In part, that's because I think most of the audience is there simply to be sexually titillated. But if that happens to be true, I don't think it invalidates the experience of some people, such as myself and a few of my friends, in finding in the experience the things we've been discussing. Would a great painting be any less a painting if only one in a hundred people could appreciate it as such? I myself think not. Other people's mileage may vary.

To me, the things we've discussed cannot be -- or at the very least, are unlikely to be -- experienced when watching a stripper perform inauthentically. I don't recall ever having experienced them myself in those circumstances.

As an aside, I do not believe the above entirely exhausts what an audience can get out of stripping. Among other things, I think they can experience the beauty of the stripper herself, and all the emotions of pleasure and well-being that we typically experience when confronted with beauty; I they can find themselves in the end more greatly reconciled, if only for a while to themselves and to living in this world; and other things. If there's a difference between these things and the things derived form experiencing authenticity, it's that these things we seem able to experience even if the stripper's performance is not notably authentic.

Last, what does the stripper herself get out of performing authentically versus performing inauthentically? I'm largely going to plead ignorance here. I have myself never been a stripper. In the past, I've had strippers who were causal friends of mine, and there's even a former stripper in my "adopted" family, but I recall discussing stripping in this light with only one stripper, and she was someone who so greatly impressed me with her general authenticity (I never saw her strip, I am referring to her authenticity in all my experiences of her) that I'm almost inclined to think she could even run for high political office without betraying herself! To her, being as authentic as one reasonably can seems to come natural, and her attitude towards being authentic while performing can more or less be summed up as, "Well, of course!".

Of course, I would fully expect any general benefits that come from living authentically to extend extend to performing authentically as a stripper.

It just occurred to me that you might be interested to know I myself cannot recall anything else I've experienced in my life from which I can derive the same mix of benefits as from watching the rare stripper deliver not a merely authentic performance, but deliver an authentic performance that is good art. There are a few experiences like it, but nothing entirely like it. Consequently, I think -- and maybe no one else would agree with me -- that stripping has the potential not only to be good art, but also to be an unique art, as opposed to a merely distinct art.

Lyn, my apologies for being so long winded. I've thought so long on this subject that it is easy for me to go on and on without thinking I've exhausted all that could be said about it. But I've really bent your ear here and I apologize for that.
Thanks for the detailed description.

I've not been to a strip club. Most of my male friends have been to a strip club at least once.

In college, there were some guy friends that decided as a group to go to a strip club; some of them had been to one before and some had not. After going, some of them were really objectifying the strippers as they talked about their experience (even in mixed company), saying things like how some of them were too old and unattractive, how maybe they went on the wrong night of the week when the less-pretty ones are there, etc. These were otherwise nice people that treat people respectively and that I was acquainted with, talking about strippers like they were crappy products; it was disheartening to hear it. It makes me skeptical of how stripping could be positive in practice.

I've found your descriptions of stripping and strip clubs interesting, because any other views I hear about it are the opposite.
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Possibly, but I think the response was more distinct to the political movement to ban pornography and to shut down strip clubs. The writings and subsequent misquotes only fueled the fire, I think.

I agree with the end of that quote too.

It might be simplistic, but I can see the parallels there. The sexual revolution, the pill, and Roe vs. Wade ushered in the new idea...a very new idea in U.S. culture....that women have reproductive and sexual autonomy. I think there's many more nuances of how the porn industry began to gain mainstream acceptance, how advancements of technology allowed greater access to sexual resources/information/art/erotica, and how women's changing roles from strictly homemaker to entering the boardroom, helped to shape the overall views on how women see their reproductive organs. Are they sacred? Are they a means to maintain marital fidelity? Are they toys? Are they nothing more than highly sensitive parts of an overall woman's body? Women are still alive today who rarely ever asked these questions, but now with the Information Age and the internet being as ubiquitous as it is, the converations has suddenly opened up a Pandoras Box, so to speak.

IOW, we're still trying to sort this out within a couple of generations where it was extremely simple before: "The uterus is a vessel for childbearing, use it as such." and "Your thoughts are not as important as your husbands, so give him what he wants and listen to his needs first and foremost."

Heaven forbid a female orgasm was thought of as a good and normal part of the equation of sexual experience back then. ;)

As with the very name of "feminist", I personally let the person decide whether or not he or she is sex-positive. For me, I define the boundary as supporting whether or not women utilizing their sexuality in economic decisions is in their best interest.

I think so. Safe and legal access is the deciding factor, not whether or not one would engage in it personally. Like abortion, one can be personally against ever making a decision to terminate a pregnancy for herself, but can be politically pro-choice for keeping abortion rights intact. I see the same thing for businesses based off of sex.
It's interesting to see you describe it. I tend to support all consensual personal sexual expression but tend to take a more pessimistic view of sex industries: stripping, pornography, and prostitution (in an increasingly more negative way as it goes down the list, with stripping being the least and prostitution being the most). But I tend to want most things to be legal, and have seen mixed arguments about how legalization and regulation can help or hurt the women involved, so I haven't supported ideas for banning of those things.

In your view, to what extent are stripping, pornography, and prostitution things that can be considered positive in some way rather than just things that should be tolerated in a libertarian sense or considered unfortunately necessary for some people? For me, I'm mostly just on the toleration level; seeing little or no personal value in them but not wanting to make those things illegal.

Depending on the risk factor, specifically kinky/risky/dangerous sexual acts might if a level of responsibility isn't matched with the risk. For instance, a couple might wish to engage in polyamory or to enter into making amateur porn with other people, and to allow as part of their contracts (whether verbal or written), unprotected sex. If they don't have regular blood testing done to verify whether or not they carry any STD's with them, I think such activities pose a greater risk to society.

Dominance and submission, IMO, has been insisted on by entire religious and political institutions in abusive ways. The very nature of the dom/sub relationship as this subculture has become more mainstream is that the sub has all the power to define boundaries for the activities of the couple or group. In the past, when a culture has demanded that an entire gender dominate another entire gender, and when that dominant gender has the decision-making power to make the boundaries, it de-humanizes the submissive gender entirely. The sub has no say whatsoever in this abusive system (which is what the current patriarchal system demands).

In consensual dom/sub relationships, I see it as the dom who gets to push, prod, tickle, and basically take the lead in anything and everything possible, but the sub has the power to say, "stop"...never the dom. This dynamic re-defines what people tend to think of as what domination actually means and what submission actually means. In a patriarchal paradigm, men (the dominant gender) not only takes the lead in all household, business, and political activities, but also decides how women (the submissive gender) place their own personal boundaries...and men have no accountability to their actions to the women since they decide what personal boundaries the women have. They could always move the goalposts however and whenever it is convenient for them to do so.

Consensual dom/sub sexual and personal relationships give the sub all the power for setting boundaries, while giving the dom all the power for making things happen. Gender means nothing in these consensual power-shifting in relationships.

Personally, for me, I see dom/sub contract negotiations as ultimately liberating, authentic, and empowering for all involved.
When you say that dom/sub activities are liberating and empowering, what exactly do you mean? Do you think it's possible to simultaneously be authentic about the desire to do something and for that something to not necessarily be the right thing to do? If dom/sub activities are enjoyed by the partners, but it's sort of a fictional re-creation of real-life harmful realities in society, do you think that sort of glorifies and celebrates harm, or do you think that it's something that can be positive in its own right? I guess the question is, can you describe how those sorts of activities could be liberating or empowering?

In practice, I tend to view those things as neutral- not really harmful or all that empowering or liberating, so I'd be curious about your perspective on that.
 

Poeticus

| abhyAvartin |
Namaste,

What are your views on Dworkin? Is she really a man-hater? That is what I keep finding on google search. :( I don't hate her; why she hate me? Man, so not fair :(.
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
मैत्रावरुणिः;3447423 said:
Namaste,

What are your views on Dworkin? Is she really a man-hater? That is what I keep finding on google search. :( I don't hate her; why she hate me? Man, so not fair :(.
Who are you directing this to?

She doesn't hate men. She lived with one for most of her life in a partnership, actually.
 

MysticSang'ha

Big Squishy Hugger
Premium Member
It's interesting to see you describe it. I tend to support all consensual personal sexual expression but tend to take a more pessimistic view of sex industries: stripping, pornography, and prostitution (in an increasingly more negative way as it goes down the list, with stripping being the least and prostitution being the most). But I tend to want most things to be legal, and have seen mixed arguments about how legalization and regulation can help or hurt the women involved, so I haven't supported ideas for banning of those things.

In your view, to what extent are stripping, pornography, and prostitution things that can be considered positive in some way rather than just things that should be tolerated in a libertarian sense or considered unfortunately necessary for some people? For me, I'm mostly just on the toleration level; seeing little or no personal value in them but not wanting to make those things illegal.

I think with less stigma and more open investment, we can find a market and we can find recreation with higher-quality artistry and skilled crafters in each facet of the industry. As it stands, because of the stigma surrounding the sex industry, much of it is inundated with low-quality work by unskilled workers just trying to either make a buck or trying to survive a harsh existence. I think with greater support for the industry, we can raise standards rather than just having it around to tolerate.

When you say that dom/sub activities are liberating and empowering, what exactly do you mean? Do you think it's possible to simultaneously be authentic about the desire to do something and for that something to not necessarily be the right thing to do? If dom/sub activities are enjoyed by the partners, but it's sort of a fictional re-creation of real-life harmful realities in society, do you think that sort of glorifies and celebrates harm, or do you think that it's something that can be positive in its own right? I guess the question is, can you describe how those sorts of activities could be liberating or empowering?

In practice, I tend to view those things as neutral- not really harmful or all that empowering or liberating, so I'd be curious about your perspective on that.

I think power hierarchies are as honest as egalitarian relationships/group dynamics. A good number of situations in relationships (in particular) do well when there is an equal partnership, and that dynamic ought to be honored. However, I see a good number of situations in relationships do well when there is a clarity in leadership between the two involved.

Here's an example....when my husband and I got together, we discovered very quickly that I was much more experienced and knowledgable in the kitchen and with food preparation. Until hubbie became more comfortable exploring a culinary side in his interests (something he became interested in since last year), we both saw it in our collective best interest that I took the lead in deciding what and how the family dined and ate. He rarely showed an interest in taking initiative with food preparation until last year. Now we are more egalitarian in our decision making than we were before.

I don't see recreating dominant/submissive activities in the bedroom as recreating what is harmful. Everything in healthy relationships is based on consent. So, any kind of pleasure, pain, teasing, etc is based on what both partners agree to, and the submissive partner has the final say on what is acceptable and what is a no-no. Dom/sub activities in and out of the bedroom IMO offer a very specific spelled-out parameter of reward/punishment when both partners are looking to get things done. But it's also a way of maintaining accountability. Subs are accountable for doing what the dom wants, but only if it's within bounds of what the sub feels comfortable doing.

To be clear, I don't think all facets of any relationship that introduce dom/sub power structures to be all-or-nothing. For me, I have found myself comfortable letting hubbie take the lead in many situations, but not all. Hubbie feels very comfortable letting me take the lead in many other situations. And as the years have passed, certain situations have changed hands and the power dynamic shifts - running the kitchen is a great example.

So coming back to sex and sexuality when it comes to dom/sub power dynamics. It's another facet to an intimate relationship, where partners can explore which activities are best left to one partner to take the lead and to take both outside routine and try new things, and where it's best left for one partner to decide what is the safe word.

When it comes to sado-masochism, I find pain and pleasure to be two sides of the same coin. I find this to be another conversation, but they seem to go hand in hand in dom/sub play in the bedroom, given that pain and pleasure elicit heightened sexual responses that can mimic the various phases of orgasm. Using various degrees of tactile, auditory, visual, mental, emotional, etc. stimulus can either take a sub to an edge of pain, or pleasure, or both. But the purpose is to elicit a very heightened response unless it's too overwhelming to the sub, and can say the safe word to stop.
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I think with less stigma and more open investment, we can find a market and we can find recreation with higher-quality artistry and skilled crafters in each facet of the industry. As it stands, because of the stigma surrounding the sex industry, much of it is inundated with low-quality work by unskilled workers just trying to either make a buck or trying to survive a harsh existence. I think with greater support for the industry, we can raise standards rather than just having it around to tolerate.
I can imagine higher-quality performances that do involve nudity, for a market that enjoys that.

For porn, I don't have much against it in theory but in practice I think it's dangerous to the workers and then harmful to those that watch most types of porn. I can imagine certain types of porn that would be more realistic and respectful, even educational, but I don't know how popular that would be.

I find it harder to imagine positive, rather than just tolerated, prostitution. If a person, typically a man, desires to pay for sex, the question is why can't he find someone to have sex with casually if that's what he's mainly after? Is there such a thing as a person with positive qualities that buys sex? So I'm a bit at a loss for how such a thing could be positive rather than just tolerated. The only area I could maybe think of would be a market for people that probably can't get sex due to a permanent issue but that still have strong desires for it, which is kind of a depressing notion but maybe helpful in certain ways?

I think power hierarchies are as honest as egalitarian relationships/group dynamics. A good number of situations in relationships (in particular) do well when there is an equal partnership, and that dynamic ought to be honored. However, I see a good number of situations in relationships do well when there is a clarity in leadership between the two involved.

Here's an example....when my husband and I got together, we discovered very quickly that I was much more experienced and knowledgable in the kitchen and with food preparation. Until hubbie became more comfortable exploring a culinary side in his interests (something he became interested in since last year), we both saw it in our collective best interest that I took the lead in deciding what and how the family dined and ate. He rarely showed an interest in taking initiative with food preparation until last year. Now we are more egalitarian in our decision making than we were before.

I don't see recreating dominant/submissive activities in the bedroom as recreating what is harmful. Everything in healthy relationships is based on consent. So, any kind of pleasure, pain, teasing, etc is based on what both partners agree to, and the submissive partner has the final say on what is acceptable and what is a no-no. Dom/sub activities in and out of the bedroom IMO offer a very specific spelled-out parameter of reward/punishment when both partners are looking to get things done. But it's also a way of maintaining accountability. Subs are accountable for doing what the dom wants, but only if it's within bounds of what the sub feels comfortable doing.

To be clear, I don't think all facets of any relationship that introduce dom/sub power structures to be all-or-nothing. For me, I have found myself comfortable letting hubbie take the lead in many situations, but not all. Hubbie feels very comfortable letting me take the lead in many other situations. And as the years have passed, certain situations have changed hands and the power dynamic shifts - running the kitchen is a great example.

So coming back to sex and sexuality when it comes to dom/sub power dynamics. It's another facet to an intimate relationship, where partners can explore which activities are best left to one partner to take the lead and to take both outside routine and try new things, and where it's best left for one partner to decide what is the safe word.

When it comes to sado-masochism, I find pain and pleasure to be two sides of the same coin. I find this to be another conversation, but they seem to go hand in hand in dom/sub play in the bedroom, given that pain and pleasure elicit heightened sexual responses that can mimic the various phases of orgasm. Using various degrees of tactile, auditory, visual, mental, emotional, etc. stimulus can either take a sub to an edge of pain, or pleasure, or both. But the purpose is to elicit a very heightened response unless it's too overwhelming to the sub, and can say the safe word to stop.
I tend to view social hierarchies and playful sexual hierarchies as different, categorically.

For social hierarchies, I think it certainly makes sense to divide up areas where one partner takes a lead due to having more knowledge or interest. For example, in my life I do the food and the money, while he does the car maintenance and much of the home cleaning.

Sexual hierarchies seem like a whole different category than that, with role playing or other types of hierarchies. There are some things that I don't particularly agree with or have a hard time understanding, but overall, I think exploration is healthy and that activities of consensual partners should generally be respected.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Thanks for the detailed description.

Thanks for the frubal! :)

I've not been to a strip club.
Don't go! That might seem strange coming from me, but don't go. Not unless you go to the best club in town, and not unless you're prepared to sit through a lot of trash performances in order to get to the few that might interest you.

In college, there were some guy friends that decided as a group to go to a strip club; some of them had been to one before and some had not. After going, some of them were really objectifying the strippers as they talked about their experience (even in mixed company), saying things like how some of them were too old and unattractive, how maybe they went on the wrong night of the week when the less-pretty ones are there, etc. These were otherwise nice people that treat people respectively and that I was acquainted with, talking about strippers like they were crappy products; it was disheartening to hear it. It makes me skeptical of how stripping could be positive in practice.
Sadly, I think your college friends are much more representative of the typical audience for stripping than I am. But on the positive side, I've been to clubs with by my count, seven different people, including two women. Both women, independently of each other, described their experience as "liberating" (and I am positive that I didn't prompt them to use that word, because I learned to use that word from them!).

The five men seem to me more varied in their attitude. I've only gotten into a long and detailed discourse about it with one of them, but two of them at least say they mostly agree with me on the few things I've discussed with them. After thinking about it a bit this evening, I've decided I'm not as sure as I once thought I was about the opinions of the remaining two.

Now the person I've discussed stripping with at length is the person who got me interested in it in the first place. When I was 18, I went to a club with a friend and both of us were so turned off by the performances that he never went back to one, and I went over 25 years without going back. Not until my artist friend heard my story and decided he wanted to see if I would reconsider. He took me to three or four clubs here in town and in Denver, and suggested to me how to look at the women. That is, he would point out weird ways of looking -- such as "think of both the space they occupy and the negative space around them. Watch how the shapes change. Isn't this a little like kinetic sculpture?" It was his somewhat clumsy way of encouraging me to view stripping as an art. He's a sculptor, by the way.

I thought for a while that he and I saw things almost identically. Then we got into a long and detailed discussion of it one day, and I realized we approached it in ways that I at least believe are basically different.

When he goes to a strip club, he told me, he often as not ends up feeling sexually frustrated. When I questioned him about that he told me that watching the women makes him want to have sex with them, and because he cannot have sex with them, he gets frustrated (eventually, he ceased going to clubs because of this).

As it turns out, that's different from my approach, and I believe, crucially different. When I watch strippers I never cultivate, nurse, or try to sustain such thoughts. Usually I don't have many of them, but if I do, I don't try to stop myself from having them. Instead, I just let them go without dwelling on them. I'm there primarily for the aesthetic experience, not the fantasy experience.

So far as I know, none of my friends sexually objectifies the women, although the two I don't really know about might, and I just don't know it. At least, no one talks like they sexually objectify them.

I don't seek out friendships with strippers, but oddly enough I have had over the years more stripper friends than I've had audience friends. Strangely, I've only once seen one of those friends perform in a club. So to some extent, my views of what the typical audience is like are much more derived from what my stripper friends tell me their audiences are like, than from what I know of my audience friends.

Everyone of my stripper friends is contemptuous of her audience, from mildly contemptuous to thoroughly contemptuous. My friend Jennifer has told me, for instance, she's never met a man in strip club she had any respect for, and was scandalized to hear I've been to clubs. While my friend Vanessa is on the opposite end of the spectrum: She judges more individually than Jennifer and respects some but is at least mildly contemptuous of others.

Although none of these women has told me in so many words that the root reason for their varying levels of contempt is that they hate being sexually objectified, I have rightly or wrongly gathered as much from reading between the lines of what they have told me. But Vanessa now and then gets into conversations about the artistic values of stripping with her customers, and seems to respect at least some of them, so maybe whether a woman working as a stripper ends up mildly contemptuous or mainly contemptuous has at least as much to do with how she engages and interacts with her audience as it does with the audience itself.
 
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Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
I'd like to add to my last post:

Now, I once met a woman in a strip club, Ella, who stood out because she was a very self-confident woman in her mid 30s while all the other women around her were in their late teens or twenties. I got to talking with Ella and we conversed for about an hour (I wonder how much money that must have cost her!). Ella had a very positive notion of stripping. She said she did it for herself, to satisfy her emotional need for attention. As she put it, she was a nurse in her other life and had to selflessly give all day long. But as a stripper she could make everything about her.

What little she said about her customers was said as if she was often amused by them. Last, she gave me every impression of being the most self-confident stripper I'd ever met, either in a club or outside of one, with the possible exception of Vanessa.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
I find it harder to imagine positive, rather than just tolerated, prostitution. If a person, typically a man, desires to pay for sex, the question is why can't he find someone to have sex with casually if that's what he's mainly after? Is there such a thing as a person with positive qualities that buys sex? So I'm a bit at a loss for how such a thing could be positive rather than just tolerated. The only area I could maybe think of would be a market for people that probably can't get sex due to a permanent issue but that still have strong desires for it, which is kind of a depressing notion but maybe helpful in certain ways?

Might I suggest that part of the demand for prostitutes comes from men who have a strong desire for casual sex made as casual as possible by the brevity of the relationships they prefer to engage in, and also by a demand for variety in sex partners? I don't know if there's a real link between those two demands and demands for prostitutes, but I do know that so many men with whom I have spoken about casual sex and/or variety in sex partners seem to mean by casual sex one night stands, or at most, very brief flings, etc., rather than something along the lines of "meaningless sex with the same person".
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
I think with less stigma and more open investment, we can find a market and we can find recreation with higher-quality artistry and skilled crafters in each facet of the industry. As it stands, because of the stigma surrounding the sex industry, much of it is inundated with low-quality work by unskilled workers just trying to either make a buck or trying to survive a harsh existence. I think with greater support for the industry, we can raise standards rather than just having it around to tolerate.

At least some days, I'm as optimistic as you are, Heather, about raising the quality of the stripping industry (I don't care at the moment to address raising the quality of the porn and prostitution industries). You and I have spoken over the phone about my fantasies of doing that, if you'll recall. So I agree with you here.

I'd like to add, though, that I think we need to find ways to raise the expectations of the audience for stripping, too. I'm clueless about the specifics of how to do that, but doing it would not be the first, nor the last, instance in which attitudes have been changed on a wholesale level.

Those are my opinions some days. On other days. I'm much less visionary and despair of it all.

EDIT: :D I just had a thought for you, Heather. Let's open a club and require all male patrons to wear ties. We can have a few ties at the door for anyone who shows up without one, so we shouldn't lose to many customers over it. Men, I think, associate wearing a tie with such things as going to a finer restaurant, semi-formal occasions, and so forth, so our requirement should work to alert them to the fact they are going to see something of higher quality than run of the mill stripping.

The idea has a touch of genius, right? Of course it does!:p
 
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Wherenextcolumbus

Well-Known Member
I agree that it is very pessimistic. I also agree that because of our biology it is easier for a male partner to take advantage his female partner than his female partner take advantage of him.
Here is why I think she is pessimistic. Is intercourse really much of an option of women as other sex acts?
I remember watching embarrassing bodies (a UK show) and this hetero couple were on there because the woman had a rare condition where she would experience extremely painful sharp pains after having intercourse. My first thought was why do they continue to have intercourse while she still has this problem? The man said "I don't want to hurt her," then why just not have intercourse until she finds medical help that works?
She was pessimistic about intercourse being an option for women rather than what they have to do to in order to experience "real sex" and in that sense I would be pessimistic too.
Intercourse is painful for a lot of women the first time they experience it. From my own experience I know how this can be prevented but we aren't exactly taught this, and so for many women the first experience is a bad one.
When I was in high school I remember asking this girl if it hurt her; "yes, but I didn't complain, I was a good girl." This terrified me, the fact that it would hurt and she didn't complain but I had to do it to experience "real sex."
The point is that for the most part men have dictated what is natural, in science and religion. I know that the watchtower society has issues with oral sex because it is "unnatural," deeming intercourse the only natural necessary way to have sex.
Dworkin also argues that men have made homophobic laws in order to make intercourse the only natural necessary way to have sex, this she argues was to maintain male dominance over women.
If a woman wanted other forms of sex besides intercourse, more often. Maybe intercourse once in a while or not at all. How acceptable would she be to straight males? I think this is what she was pessimistic about.
I agree there could of been more about how it could be improved for them female, but I don't think Dworkin personally knew how to could be, because she didn't have positive experiences. Kind of like when someone said to me "if a woman says it doesn't hurt the first time she has sex she is lying." Which I disagree with, but for a lot of women this is true. I think intercourse can be improved for women, but I can see why Dworkin was so pessimistic about it.

Edit: I read a review by man who gave the book three out of five stars, his short review: "it definitely changed how I had sex." Although the book is not positive I believe it has changing power.
 
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Wherenextcolumbus

Well-Known Member
मैत्रावरुणिः;3447423 said:
Namaste,

What are your views on Dworkin? Is she really a man-hater? That is what I keep finding on google search. :( I don't hate her; why she hate me? Man, so not fair :(.

She was not a man-hater, but I honestly don't care if she did hate men in her personal time, some of her work took her years to write, it would of been much simpler and easier and less time consuming to have a rant about hating men and she didn't.
 

Wherenextcolumbus

Well-Known Member
Excuse me if I may say so Penumbra, but you don't come across as entirely sex positive. I may be wrong but I thought sex positive feminists accepted prostitution and think it can be a positive/non-sexist form of work for women?
 

MysticSang'ha

Big Squishy Hugger
Premium Member
At least some days, I'm as optimistic as you are, Heather, about raising the quality of the stripping industry (I don't care at the moment to address raising the quality of the porn and prostitution industries). You and I have spoken over the phone about my fantasies of doing that, if you'll recall. So I agree with you here.

I do recall, yes. We share the same opinion there.

I'd like to add, though, that I think we need to find ways to raise the expectations of the audience for stripping, too. I'm clueless about the specifics of how to do that, but doing it would not be the first, nor the last, instance in which attitudes have been changed on a wholesale level.

Those are my opinions some days. On other days. I'm much less visionary and despair of it all.

EDIT: :D I just had a thought for you, Heather. Let's open a club and require all male patrons to wear ties. We can have a few ties at the door for anyone who shows up without one, so we shouldn't lose to many customers over it. Men, I think, associate wearing a tie with such things as going to a finer restaurant, semi-formal occasions, and so forth, so our requirement should work to alert them to the fact they are going to see something of higher quality than run of the mill stripping.

The idea has a touch of genius, right? Of course it does!:p

Brilliant! Simply brilliant! :bounce :)
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Excuse me if I may say so Penumbra, but you don't come across as entirely sex positive. I may be wrong but I thought sex positive feminists accepted prostitution and think it can be a positive/non-sexist form of work for women?
One of the interests of the thread was to see how people define it, as it tends to be a pretty broad label.

I'm in favor of sexual freedom, including having stripping, pornography, and prostitution be legal/legalized. I'm also happy about whatever people want to do with their own sex lives, like BDSM or kinky stuff or polyamory or whatever else, and I don't have any issues against those things at all and think some of them can be positive.

For stripping, porn, and prostitution, I have some differences between what I think should be legal and what I personally have respect for. I'm kind of neutral towards stripping- I'm happy that women can literally put themselves through college with it but in practice the types of people that usually attend seem pretty objectifying and disrespectful, like I described some of my college acquaintances to be, which would probably be expected. Same with porn really; I have no issues against it in theory, and I can see that some forms could potentially be positive, but the practical result of so much unrealistic and often misogynistic porn is not a result I think is positive. Prostitution is the one I think is the most dangerous, though I generally have a legalizing view towards it.

Basically among any sexual activity, I either view it as "positive", "neutral", or "pessimistic but legalize". I'm a moderate I guess.

In general, I distance myself from some of the more pessimistic descriptions of sex or men, not wishing to be identified with them, and not viewing them as an accurate representation of my overall view of things, even if I think some of the authors wrote some valuable works and had useful views to share.
 

Wherenextcolumbus

Well-Known Member
I would also say, intercourse is pessimistic because she is discussing male writers views of intercourse which has been very depressing and pessimistic, at least the male writers she discusses.
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I agree that it is very pessimistic. I also agree that because of our biology it is easier for a male partner to take advantage his female partner than his female partner take advantage of him.
Here is why I think she is pessimistic. Is intercourse really much of an option of women as other sex acts?
I remember watching embarrassing bodies (a UK show) and this hetero couple were on there because the woman had a rare condition where she would experience extremely painful sharp pains after having intercourse. My first thought was why do they continue to have intercourse while she still has this problem? The man said "I don't want to hurt her," then why just not have intercourse until she finds medical help that works?
She was pessimistic about intercourse being an option for women rather than what they have to do to in order to experience "real sex" and in that sense I would be pessimistic too.
Intercourse is painful for a lot of women the first time they experience it. From my own experience I know how this can be prevented but we aren't exactly taught this, and so for many women the first experience is a bad one.
When I was in high school I remember asking this girl if it hurt her; "yes, but I didn't complain, I was a good girl." This terrified me, the fact that it would hurt and she didn't complain but I had to do it to experience "real sex."
The point is that for the most part men have dictated what is natural, in science and religion. I know that the watchtower society has issues with oral sex because it is "unnatural," deeming intercourse the only natural necessary way to have sex.
Dworkin also argues that men have made homophobic laws in order to make intercourse the only natural necessary way to have sex, this she argues was to maintain male dominance over women.
If a woman wanted other forms of sex besides intercourse, more often. Maybe intercourse once in a while or not at all. How acceptable would she be to straight males? I think this is what she was pessimistic about.
I agree there could of been more about how it could be improved for them female, but I don't think Dworkin personally knew how to could be, because she didn't have positive experiences. Kind of like when someone said to me "if a woman says it doesn't hurt the first time she has sex she is lying." Which I disagree with, but for a lot of women this is true. I think intercourse can be improved for women, but I can see why Dworkin was so pessimistic about it.

Edit: I read a review by man who gave the book three out of five stars, his short review: "it definitely changed how I had sex." Although the book is not positive I believe it has changing power.
As far as I know, most forms of sexual expression are not universal. Kissing, for example, is common among cultures around the world, but not universal. Same with oral sex. Therefore, they are most likely learned behaviors rather than instinctual ones.

Intercourse is universal, because without modern technology, that's the only way to reproduce. Animal studies prove it too; if infant animals are isolated from other animals and put together, they still know how to reproduce when they're olden enough. It's instinctual rather than taught. Males typically have a mounting instinct.

That being the case, I view it to be somewhat unrealistic to expect the majority of males to be entirely sexually satisfied if they don't get to have intercourse at least sometimes. I wouldn't quite put it in the same set of all other sex acts, because most are learned, and only one or a few are instinctual. Similarly, women have needs for certain stimulation if they're going to be completely sexually satisfied.

Consent is the most important thing, otherwise it's rape. If a woman doesn't want to have intercourse, she shouldn't. That might make her sexually incompatible with some people, but so be it. I was with someone for a very long time before doing that; we did other things instead. The next most important thing would be that the consent is actually intelligent. In your example where the woman regularly had painful intercourse, she was apparently giving consent, probably unfortunately out of a feeling of obligation, but that wasn't any sort of healthy consent. Her health and well-being is more important than his desire to have intercourse, and it doesn't make sense for them to consider it so important that they would keep doing it despite the existence of a problem. He may not be 100% sexually satisfied with out it, but that's life, and he should have given it up unless or until she corrected the problem and was able to enjoy it.

Due to instincts, rather than being pessimistic about expecting intercourse to be considered optional for sexual satisfaction any time soon for most people, I personally view it in a way that I think is more optimistic, where other sexual activities can be elevated in importance so that society considers them as important as intercourse. Any good guy should care about his partner's enjoyment as much as his own, and both partners have to figure out what they want sexually so that they can be happy and comfortable.
 
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Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
And now I'm thinking it would be interesting to create a poll in the sexuality section to see what percentage of guys say they would be willing to enter a long-term relationship with a woman who says up front that she's interested in sex but not intercourse, possibly ever. It would be interesting to know.
 

Wherenextcolumbus

Well-Known Member
Could you please expand bit more on what make it instinctual? Obviously it is need for reproduction, but from my experience it was not instinctual for me, I had to be taught it.
 
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