Feminism

[Deadpan]

Relationships are not immediately radical if you don't do internal work to root out problematic behaviours. 

 

That's a good way of putting it. And super worthwhile! Like, oh my glob how my relationships have improved since I got a little better about all this stuff. Not that it's particularly relevant. Feminism doesn't have to be sexy to be worthy of your time, and all that. But it also definitely is, like "whoaaa," like "hello, whaaaaat?"

 

I feel the need to clarify that I am in no way arguing that women have a duty to submit to dudes breaking boundaries, which I feel sideways accused of.

 

Not purposefully, but it had some "I will force you to be free" vibes about it, I felt.

[SuperBiasedMan]

Well, yeah, that's the obscuring factor of privilege - if you don't deal with that kind of socialization or behavior, it's extremely hard to understand why it is a problem. But the pushback is just so loud, I want people to at least consider why they think they can make demands on people in that sort of way. Granted, there's definitely relationships and extenuating factors that obligate you in some ways socially but the less we have people not thinking critically about this, maybe that obligation will be reduced significantly.

 

Totally, my previous point is just one significant factor, not the end of the conversation at all.

 

I feel the need to clarify that I am in no way arguing that women have a duty to submit to dudes breaking boundaries, which I feel sideways accused of.

The thread felt like someone bemoaned the fact that they were often being contacted by men for threesomes because of their sexual orientation even though they explicitly stated that they didn't seek out anything of the sort. Your response was to criticise monogamy normative society, which is not the problem at play there. Society is monogamy normative and presumably impacts upon you in that respect but there's a difference between challenging people's monogamy and impressing sexuality upon them. You didn't seem to respond to the point about being marked as seeking friends in good faith, which made it hard to really have a dialogue with you.

[Bjorn]

It mostly does come down to men being aware of social signifiers, right?  Boundaries often (but not always) flow from there.  Like, in a business meeting, obviously no one should be sexually objectifying anyone else (but it still happens).  There are clear statements and more subtle clues in dating profiles, or even in a social space like a dance club, that shouldn't be that hard to understand.  But men are pretty much taught that they can ignore those, and even to some extent that they ought to ignore them.   Men embrace their cluelessness about paying attention to these types of things, which then excuses behavior, leading to them trying to impose the signifiers they want to see rather than acknowledging the ones actually present. 

 

 

 

Obviously speaking in generalities there, notallmen and all that.  But I know that's certainly applied to me in the past, and probably still in the present in some way I'm still blind to my own behavior. 

[MrHoatzin]

I don't want to force anything on anyone, christ.

 

I took exception to the point that because Apple Cider has never, ever explicitly listed herself as poly, the world ought to take that automatically and absolutely to mean she would never, ever be open to dating someone who is, or a couple, under any circumstances. That explicitly clarifying this point is somehow an afront in and of itself. I was talking about that parenthetical in her post, completely independently from the fact that the person asking in that specific scenario was an uncouth jerk.

 

We're all assuming a lot of random different things about the vague hypothetical scenarios at hand apparently. My "clarifying the point" as above has been taken to mean out-of-the-blue interrogation by a belligerent stranger—which is insane!

[SuperBiasedMan]

I don't want to force anything on anyone, christ.

 

I took exception to the point that because Apple Cider has never, ever explicitly listed herself as poly, the world ought to take that automatically and absolutely to mean she would never, ever be open to dating someone who is, or a couple, under any circumstances. That explicitly clarifying this point is somehow an afront in and of itself. I was talking about that parenthetical in her post, completely independently from the fact that the person asking in that specific scenario was an uncouth jerk.

 

We're all assuming a lot of random different things about the vague hypothetical scenarios at hand apparently. My "clarifying the point" as above has been taken to mean out-of-the-blue interrogation by a belligerent stranger—which is insane!

 

I could totally get that you're bothered by the monogamy default, I'm sure I've said as much in some post. But your first post after that seemed to be asserting a high degree of narrow mindedness because of not being willing to communicate with men on a dating site, which is a notoriously toxic environment for dialogue. Maybe that wasn't that big a deal to you, just a trigger for you to launch your post from (it does seem a bit like that) but it came across as a direct response and you stayed pretty firmly in opposition to the rebuttal.

 

I feel the need to clarify that I am in no way arguing that women have a duty to submit to dudes breaking boundaries, which I feel sideways accused of.

 

I don't think you're arguing for male sexual dominance, but I think you're neglecting to consider the severe gender slant of sexual politics that makes it hard to really have this conversation on a level playing field. If I was bi and being approached by women to ask me to enter into threesomes, I wouldn't automatically feel like the woman probably saw me as a piece of meat or a high level sex toy. The opposite can't be said for dudes approaching women, and that has more to do with the interactions of the genders than it does the concept of polyamory.

[Gormongous]

I took exception to the point that because Apple Cider has never, ever explicitly listed herself as poly, the world ought to take that automatically and absolutely to mean she would never, ever be open to dating someone who is, or a couple, under any circumstances. That explicitly clarifying this point is somehow an afront in and of itself. I was talking about that parenthetical in her post, completely independently from the fact that the person asking in that specific scenario was an uncouth jerk.

 

I'm trying to unpack why this makes me uncomfortable. I don't know about the world as a whole, but on a dating site full of near-anonymous strangers, people should probably abide by the relationship preferences that are explicitly listed. The politics here are personal ones, about consent and agency. Because of my general appearance, I am sometimes propositioned on dating sites by gay men who want to show me "the truth" about myself (or who get a kick out of fucking a straight guy) and I take exception to any implication that I should be open to gay sex simply because I attract interest by presenting queerer than I am, the reason I usually get when I thank them for their interest but restate my orientation. How exactly am I supposed to keep random people from making unsolicited requests of my person contrary to my stated wishes? I can only imagine how it is for bisexual women who actually have to navigate far deeper waters, especially with a history of bisexuals being people who just "can't decide" or who are "open to anything" (and the history of women's bodies always being perceived as available).

[Apple Cider]

It was a specific parenthetical but honestly, the fact that I was listed as looking for friends only and NOT threesomes, open marriages, poly relationships that people should take what I said at face value but don't because my sexuality and gender combination is taken as being openly available for all of those things regardless. It has literally nothing specifically to do with JUST poly couples as I have said over and over, it's just that in the mix of people who have completely disregarded my profile, those were some of them. Despite not listing myself as open to anything BUT looking for friends, I am trying to remember that I even specified I was in a long-term relationship and was happy with that and that didn't deter people from asking. 

 

I even explicitly stated that I have NO problems with poly couples or relationships or the lifestyle specifically and I even empathize with you but apparently I did not make myself abundantly clear about what I took offense to (which again, was not even specific to poly couples. Again.) 

[Deadpan]

I took exception to the point that because Apple Cider has never, ever explicitly listed herself as poly, the world ought to take that automatically and absolutely to mean she would never, ever be open to dating someone who is, or a couple, under any circumstances. That explicitly clarifying this point is somehow an afront in and of itself.

 

I'm somewhat familiar with the scenario, I suppose, in that sometimes people I end up talking to on these sites or in general respond to me being poly with "Well, I never really thought about it." And yeah, that directly ties into the idea of monogamy as the norm: it goes unquestioned and people don't necessarily ever think about there being alternatives.

 

However, this is not an assumption you get to make about somebody if you approach them. Until and unless you end up in a situation where they feel comfortable talking about how exactly they feel on those matters, you had better assume that what they put in their preferences was a conscious, informed decision. Because, to put it the other way around, to go into it thinking that they don't know what they want, or that you know more about what they want than they do, is more than a little arrogant.

[Apple Cider]

Also, good read from today: 

http://www.ravishly.com/2015/01/26/your-guide-non-oppressive-bdsm

 

Soha is one of my favorite writers and she just started writing at Ravishly! She tackles a lot of BDSM and adjacent topics in her work and games and this was a great read and honestly I feel extends far beyond JUST bdsm relationships.

[Deadpan]

Soha's pretty great! Weird how I managed to convince her to write for me for a while.

 

I could have sworn I saw that article earlier this month though. Or maybe I just recall the phrase "shameless buttplug" from somewhere else (Her on Twitter maybe).

[Apple Cider]

Don't we all deserve a little shameless buttplugging.

 

Edit: A+ top of the page post, good job, I'd like to thank the Academy

[SecretAsianMan]

This is tangential to the current discussion but I thought it was worth sharing

 

[Mawd]

I can only imagine how it is for bisexual women who actually have to navigate far deeper waters, especially with a history of bisexuals being people who just "can't decide" or who are "open to anything" (and the history of women's bodies always being perceived as available).

I'm just chiming into a very small part of an interesting conversation here but it is frustrating.

It's not uncommon to meet other homosexuals, openly identify as bisexual, only to read the bemusement coming off them. Sometimes they then implicit that you're saying you're bisexual because its fashionable, or because you don't have the courage to come out as homosexual to everyone. But they're extremely horrible discussions to get into because only you can really advocate for yourself, and if you're lucky someone you both mutually know to advocate. Whereas they can draw from everyone they've known so you get a lot of anecdotes from people's time at highschool or some other point in life when a homosexual was uncomfortable with talking openly about their feelings so they did publicly label as bisexual before saying that they were gay once everyone else was used to the idea. Bonus points if they're talking about themselves.

It's not that unsimilar to a conversation about personal expression (for example "how gay are you?" which inevitably revolves around the less stated question of "how masculine or feminine are you?" with even less discussion of what people think qualifies as masculine or feminine behaviour and how much is prejudice; also these discussions encourage a fair amount of people to crow "Man I'm so straight acting" or begin talking about how they don't like feminine gays because they colour the experience of 'coming out' for them because people are still really used to the idea that gay men are all effeminate musical theatre lovers because they're the most visible. But really the 'alpha' gays should just come out already to change the impression that all homosexuals belong to a 'gay scene' or act in a highly specific effeminate way/rant.). Something I hate about most internet discussions is that there's always some contrarian out there going "bullshit/honey, no" to statements you make about yourself.

I'm not sure if this is really content for the feminist thread beyond examinations of what really makes people masculine or feminine although it's probably talked about frequently here. Eh I just really needed to let some frustration out. Conversations like the above caused me to no longer enjoy some forums where this kind of topic is more at home.

[Gormongous]

It's not that unsimilar to a conversation about personal expression (for example "how gay are you?" which inevitably revolves around the less stated question of "how masculine or feminine are you?" with even less discussion of what people think qualifies as masculine or feminine behaviour and how much is prejudice; also these discussions encourage a fair amount of people to crow "Man I'm so straight acting" or begin talking about how they don't like feminine gays because they colour the experience of 'coming out' for them because people are still really used to the idea that gay men are all effeminate musical theatre lovers because they're the most visible and really the 'alpha' gays should just come out already to change the impression that all homosexuals belong to a 'gay scene' or act in a highly specific effeminate way/rant.). Something I hate about most internet discussions is that there's always some contrarian out there going "bullshit/honey, no" to statements you make about yourself.

 

In terms of fostering conversations that dismiss personal experience as somehow invalid, there's no beating the internet. I'm very aware of my privilege there, because I only have a minimal number of non-mainstream identities, and even those get attacked all the time. For someone dealing with intersectional oppression, I can't even imagine.

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that you knew I wasn't dismissing the bisexual experience when I said what I did. I was mostly just referencing the hate that they get, but there's almost not enough quotation marks for that to fly.

[Roderick]

SAM, what a cool video. Love the presenter's attitude! And then the setup, oh, it's delicious.

[Mawd]

In terms of fostering conversations that dismiss personal experience as somehow invalid, there's no beating the internet. I'm very aware of my privilege there, because I only have a minimal number of non-mainstream identities, and even those get attacked all the time. For someone dealing with intersectional oppression, I can't even imagine.

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that you knew I wasn't dismissing the bisexual experience when I said what I did. I was mostly just referencing the hate that they get, but there's almost not enough quotation marks for that to fly.

I knew what you meant. I hope I didn't come across as admonishing you or anything.

[Apple Cider]

Well you have bisexual solidarity here. The real intersections between bisexuality/queerness and misogyny are kinda scary in that bisexual women have particularly high incidences of being abuse and rape survivors, particularly from intimate partners. But bisexual people in general, including men suffer a ton from invisibility, being considered a "pass-through" point on a sexuality spectrum (which, I mean, some people do come out as bi before being gay but that's because of heteropatriarchal norms, it's not our fault) and a lot of other things. 

 

Then there's a lot of other really gross intra-community issues like cis lesbians who believe bi women are "tainted" by interaction with penises (which is also hugely transphobic), think we're going to cheat on them with a dude, etc.

 

It's hard sometimes.

[Argobot]

Jonathan Chait has an article in this week's NY Mag about a new strain of liberal having an opinion.

 

There are a lot of missteps in the article and I wish anyone other than Chait had written it, but the central point is something that I really think feminists need to seriously talk about. The call out cultural that takes up a lot of space in current feminist discourse is something I am becoming more and more uncomfortable with. Of course I want to create a society where historically marginalized groups are given the respect and power they deserve, but not at the expense of supporting a knee-jerk culture that favors loudness and shallow snark over depth and consideration. Issues of equality are complicated and, I believe, are supposed to be challenging and hard to talk about. However, I see less and less of that thoughtfulness, especially online. Instead, there's a prevailing attitude of I'm Right and You're Wrong and here's the the clear, unquestionable line that separates us and anyone on the wrong side of the line is a traitor to liberalism. It fosters an uninviting atmosphere and does nothing but encourage those with less than ideal values to remain entrenched in there thinking. I don't have a real solution except asking that other liberals give each other the benefit of the doubt and honestly try to reason out issues instead of immediately raising to a smart twitter comment and then writing the whole situation off. Otherwise, I don't see how we will convince people who aren't starting from a more open place on these issues to ever change their minds.

[Apple Cider]

All of this stuff is a great intra-community topic to hash out but I always see these critiques coming from on high from people who have typically profited from or having no personal stake in it, and it always, always comes off as "oh those toxic feminists, those thought/language police, those PC troopers, etc" and I want nothing to do with it. 

[Deadpan]

That internal discussion was actually going on around this time last year. And then GG happened and (understandably) very quickly burned through everybody's patience. I tend to feel similarly iffy about these critiques, which I rarely see as part of intersectional bonding and frequently as part of the old argument about flies, vinegar and honey put forth by dudes who want to tell feminists how they should go about their biz (which is ultimately a way of saying "I'll hold my support hostage until you agree to play by my rules/be nicer to me")

 

Sort of goes both ways you know? It's suggested that we should discuss issues, not people, but if any time you adress a problematic action or attitude people take it as a personal attack, that's literally impossible. So often the response to "that thing you said was sexist" is "why are you saying I'm sexist you meanie"

[Apple Cider]

Well I got to the graf about how trigger warnings don't work and I just gave up, too. This guy is literally not having anything that's even remotely "PC" or "liberal" and it shows. What's funny is most of the feminists I know are not even liberals - and liberal feminism is fairly eschewed among a lot of us who are radical leftists. But it always comes back to how angry and combative we are and shit. And yes, I know that there's a lot of bullshit drama/call-out beefing because a lot of people come into feminism being justifiably angry and boundary defining but I don't need a guy ranting on a national publication to dictate that. 

[JonCole]

John Hodgman has been saying some interesting stuff on this Twitter feed in response to that article. Chait felt the need to respond and in reading those responses I've come to conclude that he's kind of a dick -

 

 

There's definitely a kernel of truth in that article that I think is worth talking about (I'm still mulling it over). That said, invoking McCarthyism and constructing strawmen about how Congress has the potential to denounce Bill Maher is effectively equivalent to the continuous complaints of GGers re: censorship.

[jennegatron]

I love love love John Hodgman, and I highly recommend popping over to his twitter to see everything he had to say about this article & the rest of convo between him and Chait.

He's measured and restrained and thoughtful in a way that I have a hard time being.

[Chris]

I don't know why it's not meaningful and worthwhile to present anecdotal evidence of well-meaning people being afraid to engage on many of these topics for fear of reprisal over the tiniest perceived misstatement, because the entire way that these criticisms are generally constructed is to speak about the lived experience of marginalized people, which is in most cases inherently anecdotal. I think it is intellectually dishonest to refuse to at least consider that current trends of having an opinion in progressive communities are not severely curtailing actual debate that is genuinely well-meaning.

I think that, at this point, the actual reality of this situation is that the people who are most likely to watch what they say are people who are fundamentally in agreement with progressive people most likely to tsk-tsk, but are worried about small distinctions. The people who actually have fundamental disagreements or more significantly harmful attitudes simply do not care what a bunch of liberals say about them, and in fact benefit from being able to paint their opponents as overly sensitive outrage-mongers.

While I don't think anybody in this situation is operating in a dishonest or ill-motivated way, I'm not sure it's doing any significant good more than harm.

[Gormongous]

I don't know why it's not meaningful and worthwhile to present anecdotal evidence of well-meaning people being afraid to engage on many of these topics for fear of reprisal over the tiniest perceived misstatement, because the entire way that these criticisms are generally constructed is to speak about the lived experience of marginalized people, which is in most cases inherently anecdotal. I think it is intellectually dishonest to refuse to at least consider that current trends of having an opinion in progressive communities are not severely curtailing actual debate that is genuinely well-meaning.

 

All of these articles have in common the belief that discouraging the speech of generally white, generally straight, generally male voices, even by indirect and unintentional means, is an unequivocally bad thing that demands a fundamental change in the direction of liberal and feminist culture to rectify. The fact that many of the authors find the fear of saying something offensive and being expected to apologize for it a huge problem, but not the fear of being attacked or just not being heard as a minority voice speaking out against oppression, tells me volumes about their privilege and somewhat about the relative worth of their arguments. Like Deadpan said, it's a bunch of white dues being worried that no one cares what they have to say, which is not malicious but certainly a bit oblivious.

 

I don't know, I agree that callout culture can sometimes feel hostile and stressful, but I don't see how the repudiation of it is going to be anything but silencing to those who need a voice.