(continuing in the sex series, of course)
“But I do desire the other for the other, whole and entire, male and female; because living means wanting everything, that is, everything that lives, and wanting it alive
…Other love-in the beginning are our differences. The new love does for the other, wants the other, makes dizzying, precipitous flights between knowledge and invention.
…It’s not impossible, and this is what nourishes life-a love that has no commerce with the apprehensive desire that provides against the lack and stultifies the strange; a love that rejoices in the exchange that multiplies.
…I am for you what you want me to be at the moment you look at me in a way you’ve never seen me before: at every instant.”
-Helene Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa”
So in the discussion of sexual freedom, we often center on the freedom to have sex without love, to talk about desire or even about sex work as something that we have a right to because our sexuality is our own.
“Sexy feminism” is criticized because it is supposedly playing into male desires, making us tools of the patriarchy because we are fitting into those roles defined for us by men. Women are there for men to fuck, men to look at, men to desire.
But even if we’re dressed nice and properly (whatever that is) and not having unruly sex that we have the audacity to flaunt, what if we like to be with…gasp…men?
If having sex with lots of men makes us used up and penis accessories, what if we have lots of sex with just one man? What if it’s the same amount of sex, but it’s only with that one person that you truly love?
Patriarchy, of course, would only approve of us if this is how we live.
But is it radical enough? What makes sex right or wrong? If we have it with the right person, if that person is appropriately guilty for being part of the patriarchy, are we then allowed to have sex with men without breaching some rule of the Sisterhood?
What’s the magic number, then? How many men am I allowed to have sex with before I’m officially crossing the line into patriarchy-enabling? What if I thought I was in love with them when I did it?
The myth of romance, of course, can be just as damaging as sex. The idea that there’s one person out there who will sweep us off our feet and save us and of course we must wait for them to show up and oh goodness please remain pure for them because our virginity is all we’ll have to offer…well, we know how much good that does us.
Of course I’m being sarcastic and deliberately difficult here. But navigating relationships is difficult territory enough, trying to do it in a properly feminist manner can be maddening.
The personal is political, right? Which is why people see fit to weigh in on our personal lives all over the internet. Witness Ren being asked how her man deals with it.
Because love and sex and everyone’s notion of fidelity are assumed to be universal. Having sex for money violates some notion of sex belonging with love instead of with desire–which, yes, sometimes goes hand in hand, but let’s face it, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you want things that you know are bad for you. Sometimes you want things that don’t fit the rules–and when you try to tell someone about them you get that stony-faced look that says, “But that’s wrooooonnnnggggg.”
I don’t think I’ve ever quite fit into the rules. When I told people stories from my past, I’ve gotten that look a lot. And yet most of those times were when I did what I did out of love. The relationships I had that fit all the rules, that were monogamous and committed and progressed from a date to boyfriend-girlfriend and all that silly bullcrap, well, those were just following some pattern laid out for me that said that this was how you act when you have a proper relationship.
Proper never worked for me.
Love knocked me sideways and it was–is–so much bigger than those petty rules, it doesn’t matter how many infidelities happened between us, how many months, years went by…when we got together, fireworks.
And it makes me want to get down on my knees and fucking beg sometimes for that feeling back, and you know that’s not very feminist of me either, right, because he’s a maaaaann and that’s bad.
(Again, sarcasm. well, some of it. hopefully you know which part.)
But it got me thinking, of course, reading about how horribly used-up sex workers are gonna be from all that sex they’re having, and wondering, yes, wondering if that same rule applies when it’s the same amount of sex with one man? Whether it’s just sex with men that is the problem? Or is it just sex? Is it just indulging our desires that bothers people so much?
And where does love fit in?
Are we allowed that too? Or is it to be that only? What if we have love with one and sex with many, or love with more than one?
In The Dreamers, a film all about odd questions of love and its rules, Matthew (Michael Pitt) asks Isabelle and Theo (Eva Green and Louis Garrel) to tell him they love him…not they love him “too” but to say it first, to just say they love him.
We look around for answers, for rules, for something to tell us how all these things, these desires, these needs, these, yes, loves are supposed to play out because they’re scary, they’re weird, sometimes they seem wrong and no one understands them, so people pass judgment on each other and try to create rules.
And in the end, as Lydia Lunch said, “I know I don’t have all the answers. But I know that I have all the questions.”
Wow. I love your blog. Thanks for this!