I definitely don’t think anyone should be expected to “justify” their own individual sexual desires and preferences, or to make sure that they are “sufficiently” feminist. But that doesn’t change the fact that there are a (surprisingly, to me) huge number of women out there–even if not a single one of them is commenting on this thread–who still in 2008 don’t feel comfortable examining their desires and speaking up if they don’t enjoy something, or even if it actively hurts them. That doesn’t make rough sex bad in and of itself, but the cultural promotion of rougher forms of sex (and I say this as someone who enjoys it a little rough), and, for example, the message that there is something wrong with you and you’re a humorless man-hating feminist if you don’t just absolutely love giving blow jobs, are a problem in my opinion.

Of course there is also cultural pressure not to be “kinky,” which is equally problematic. And I agree with Amber to the extent of thinking, what is to be done about it? You can’t blanket condemn any particular act between consenting adults because there’s going to be someone somewhere, or more likely a lot of people, who genuinely love that act and derives sexual fulfillment from it. But just as I do kind of think that you can point out that lipstick, high heels, and the like arise from the patriarchy without actually passing any judgment on whether it is good or bad for a person to wear them (since of course some women love them, some are indifferent, and some hate them), isn’t it possible to argue–and it may or may not be true for any given practice–that certain sex acts arise from the patriarchy without passing judgment on the acts themselves or the people who love doing them? Because they cannot really be judged in a vacuum.

To me it’s almost more unusual to actually not attach any judgment to fashion choices or sex acts. There seems to be one side that says you suck and are a mindless tool of the patriarchy if you feel beautiful in dresses and heels or get off on having your hair pulled, and another that says you suck and are a sex- and man-hating neurotic if you insist on wearing baggy clothes and Birkenstocks and feel that giving blow jobs is a perfectly fine activity if it pleases your partner, and you get into it to an extent, but for the most part sucking cock hurts your jaw and is sort of boring. In practice there doesn’t really seem to be a “side” that says any or all of these preferences are OK on an individual basis. On each side these preferences still seem to be thought to signify something larger–and negative–about the woman who has them.

I usually only become suspicious of sex acts if their popularity in society appears to wax and wane in a way that appears to be driven by Maxim or whatever. Like how blow jobs seem currently to be the be-all and end-all of sex among teenagers, and anal sex has this cachet at the moment that it hasn’t always had. On the one hand it makes me feel sort of good for the young women who may enjoy giving blow jobs but previously got the message that nice girls don’t do that, and for the folks who have been wanting to try anal sex but considered it over-the-top dirty until they did some looking around and realized they weren’t sick freaks for their preferences. That part is good. The problem comes in when you start to get the impression that something other than your own preference–specifically the patriarchy and its ceaseless efforts to define for us what is “beautiful,” “sexy,” or a “turn-on”–is influencing your sex life, and then teenage girls feel bad if they don’t want to give blow jobs and married women feel bad if they don’t like anal, and many people still don’t feel comfortable refusing to go with the flow in that regard no matter how many times we’re told to communicate with our partners and speak up if we don’t like something. That’s what frustrates and upsets me.

So I guess I do agree that sex acts are strictly speaking neutral from a feminist standpoint and are just individual choices and preferences, but many women, in practice, may not really feel like they have a right to a choice in the matter. If they don’t like x or y, then something’s wrong with them and they just have to try harder.

Yes – I think you’re spot on in saying there is a correlation with certain subcultures.

Anecdote: A few years back I was musing on similar stuff in connection with BiCon the UK bisexual conference/convention. Obviously, bisexuality is pretty normal there. But also a lot of people there identify as polyamorous and/or bdsm-er, and there are often workshop sessions on those subjects.

I forget now exactly whom I was talking to about it, but we agreed that in some ways it was probably more scary at BiCon to come out as monogamous or vanilla than as poly or kinky. Not that anything would have happened comparable to what can happen to poly or kinky people in mainstream culture, but just that people might feel a kind of social caution about it lest they be looked down upon or considered odd. The sense of it was something like “polyamory and bdsm is normal here”, or perhaps more like: “all the cool people are poly and kinky, and being monogamous or vanilla isn’t as cool”.

This is of course not necessarily related to whether poly/kinky people are or aren’t in fact in the majority in that subculture / at that event – it’s about visibility and perceptions.

(The whole thing about “being a proper bi person” is something I was interested in anyway – article here about a workshop I did at BiCon one year around that.)

By way of sequel to the anecdote: I have a little cottage industry making button badges. I already had some celebrating poly and kink, but after that discussion I designed two new ones – “bi & monogamous” and “delicious vanilla”. They were quite popular :-)

This is an attack. I think your interpretation of this debate is condescending and denies the fact that people on both sides of the fence can have well thought out and relevant moral outlooks on life. Basically you think people on both sides of the argument are being stupid and you’re the mistreated hero of the blog. Nobody could possibly understand you because you’re just too level headed for us. And any attempt people make to converse with you by questioning anything you say isn’t a relevant difference of opinion, it’s an “attack.”

This is an attack. I think your interpretation of this debate is condescending and denies the fact that people on both sides of the fence can have well thought out and relevant moral outlooks on life. Basically you think people on both sides of the argument are being stupid and you’re the mistreated hero of the blog. But of course nobody takes you seriously because everyone’s just so closed minded.

Since this has now devolved into an argument between two hypothetical extremes, instead of an actual substantive conversation about the nuances of culture, societal expectations, desire, sexuality, individual expression, self-determination, and all the rest of it (and is past 200 comments), I believe it’s time for me to bow out.