i'm feeling reckless tonight, and i'm also inspired by the wonderful @stephenroot's invitation to post a cancellable opinion. so here's the one that's been on my mind as of late: i think that the things - sexy content/interpersonal relationship dynamics/kinks/etc. - that get many, many straight women's rocks off are, quite frankly, very politically inconvenient to feminists, especially those who would identify as more radical. and i know that can be a frustrating fact with which to contend, especially when feminists confront misogynists and biological essentialists who would insist that because a woman may like to be sexually submissive, that ultimately means that she is somehow designed and obligated to be submissive to all the men around her, at all times. but i find it incredibly patronizing and actually unproductive for some feminists to tirelessly insist that the idea of a straight woman wanting to be sexually dominated, in very specific and controlled circumstances, is entirely a male fantasy. i think that insistence is the fantasy because acknowledging the sometimes thorny desires of women having sex with men, especially when those desires seem to run in opposition to so many women's deeply held political beliefs of equality and female liberation, is a much more complicated task.
and i have no doubt that the particular sexual appetites of many straight women have everything to do with social conditioning and compulsory heterosexual norms and all of that. that's still very important to recognize and to push against. but at the end of the day, straight women deserve to have good sex, and the only person who is able to determine what qualifies as good heterosexual sex is the woman who is having the sex. all women deserve good sex and safe sex, and talking down to straight women whose sexual desires are inconvenient for your political goals - or simply denying that many straight women experience that type of sexual desire - only alienates those women and makes it easier for the men - to which they are in such close proximity - to take advantage of those desires and endanger straight women.
and i'm really not trying to make blanket statements about the sexual desires of all straight women, nor do i want to be prescriptive about what straight women should enjoy. but i can't look at all the content that is made by women, for other women, that is designed to arouse them in some way, to see and hear about the millions of women who happily consume this content, and come away with the idea that somehow it is highly irregular for straight women to want to be dominated during sex.
call me crazy, but women are complicated, like all humans are! those complications and contradictions shouldn't be used against us, or flat out denied, when trying to build a safer, more equitable, freer world for all women.
