Check out Margaret Corvid’s fascinating piece in the New Statesman on male sexuality and the appeal of misogynistic movements to sexually frustrated men. As a professional dominatrix who’s also a feminist, she’s acutely aware of the ways conventional masculinity restricts and impoverishes male sexuality.
When I became a professional dominatrix after years in the kink scene, I expected my kinky work to involve lots of spanking, whipping and bondage. And, to my delight, it has. But in the majority of my sessions, I am creating a space for men to explore areas of their sexual lives that society feels are unmanly; they come to me to be penetrated, to be used, to serve, to submit, to worship, to be taken. A client might have any or all of a bewildering array of fetishes, but they mostly come to me to experience something well outside the very narrow confines of what society says that it means to be a man.
Unfortunately, as she notes, Men’s Rightsers and Pickup Artists offer nothing to men who feel confined by these narrow notions of manhood; indeed, their definitions of manhood are both retrograde and restrictive.
One of the greatest tragedies of the men’s rights movement is that, in the end, its lessons serve only to drive men further away from what they yearn for. Pick up artist techniques and aggrieved entitlement are unlikely to help men achieve the goal of intimacy, but feminist values can teach them the skills to communicate with respect.
You’ll notice a few quotes in there from me, from an email interview she did with me as well as from my post Is the Men’s Rights Movement driven by the rage of the rejected? (I also discussed the issue in this post on the weird sexual undercurrents in A Voice for Men’s Facebook “memes.”)
@Kittehserf: And the vast majority of trans-exclusive radfems are white too, hence the hashtags last year indicating that feminism is primarily for white women’s solidarity. Which is one of the reasons there is a Womanist movement.
None of that’s news, friday jones: you think I’m unaware that feminism’s had a problem with racism since the year dot? Of course it has.
The point is that there are vile people in the trans movement, rapists and pedophiles, and yet women aren’t allowed to speak about them. Just what was going on in Laverne Cox’s head when she was supporting the idea that a man who raped and murdered a little girl – burned her body, no less – should get SRS and be put into a women’s prison? What the hell sort of activism is that?
There’s no point in going all #NotAllTrans about this stuff, because nobody is saying it IS all trans people. But saying women aren’t allowed to speak about this? Talking about “social inclusion” as if sexual inclusion is a requirement? Pretending gender is immutable and biology a social construct? That’s straight-up misogyny, because it’s always aimed at women, not at the men who are actually running the show when it comes to systemic discrimination or violence.
Good post, kitteh.
Friday Jones, I’m not sure what the problem is. You’re upset that someone here mentioned that some trans women doxx and harass lesbians? Is that the long and short of it?
Yeah…I can only speak from my own experience, but the Darren Wilson case? Every libfem group I participate in on facebook had a bunch of libfems defending Darren Wilson, saying justice had been served, Wilson was just doing his job, and why were we spending so much time on this anyway. Every. Single. One. The one radfem group I’m in? There was none of that. At all. The only mention of that case was to lament the injustice of the non-indictment. I’ve honestly never seen radfems (talking about today, by the way, not 40 years ago (I didn’t exist yet)) suggest POC issues be put aside. I continue to see it almost every day in libfem spaces. So trying to group people you don’t like as all the same people doesn’t really work as well as you think it does. No, I’m not favour of excluding trans people. Yes, I do see extremists on all sides. No, I don’t justify any of them. I do, however, think that “trans-exclusionary” has taken on a rather loose definition in some circles that comes at the cost of female persons, lesbians in particular.
“The point is that there are vile people in the trans movement, rapists and pedophiles, and yet women aren’t allowed to speak about them.”
I am calling “bullshit” on that statement:
http://www.transadvocate.com/community-responsibility_n_14832.htm
http://www.transadvocate.com/thritvtp-executive-director-resigns-after-aggravated-sexual-assault-record-discovered_n_14862.htm
As you can see, we are NOT sweeping that under a rug, we are pointing it out with more vigor (and less apparent glee) than the people who hate us are. Because we care more about justice than about solidarity.
How is conspiracy babby formed?
Thanks, Shiraz!
friday jones, yeah, and there are people asking “but was it really statutory rape or was it consensual?” – when Woolbert’s victim was ten years old.
And the board’s first vote was to refuse Woolbert’s offer of resignation. They expressed their confidence in her and said that few people have histories that stand up to scrutiny. They said how much they respect and admire her.
They said that about a child rapist.
cassandra – the “Commufeminist NWO” was my favourite bit there. Made me think of Owly’s rants.
To put it another way: Suppose that someone says that some racial or ethnic minority is responsible for a larger-than-statistically-representative amount of a certain type of crime. Do we accept that at face value, and agree that the entire racial or ethnic minority is therefore especially suspect and that society doesn’t talk enough about the XXXX People Problem it has? Or do we acknowledge that XXXX People are just as likely as any other group to have that issue in its members and that perhaps society simply makes a bigger deal out of examples of XXXX People who commit that crime? And that maybe a combination of traditional society’s prejudices plus economic disadvantage plays a major part in their scapegoating?
Naw, let’s just assume that the least-privileged among us are wallowing in gigantic amounts of extra privilege, and join in on the scapegoating. That sounds easier and much less likely to make us examine our own identity group’s problems.
@Kittehserf: “There are people” doing all sorts of terrible things out there. That doesn’t reflect on the people who look a lot like them. Let it suffice to say that you demand a much higher standard of community self-policing among my people than you do among your own. My type of person apparently carries collective guilt for the acts of its most tenuously connected members, but yours is a disparate community of individuals who are each entirely responsible for their own behavior. That’s hardly fair. And fairly hard!
Huh?
You’re still doing #NotAllTrans. How is mentioning that TERF is a word used to silence any woman – trans women included! – who’s in disagreement with the gender politics people, and that actual death and rape threats are made, scapegoating? That’s where this conversation started, pointing out a fact, yet now you’re talking as if that equals hatred of all trans people.
Oh, and you know what sort of self-policing I want from my community (whatever that might be, given you know very little about me). You think pointing out this shit goes on is calling it collective guilt?
I guess it all comes down to you talking about trans women as if we’re just another flavor of men. Which is the main theme behind the entire trans-exclusive radfem argument. You don’t have to hate trans women to be disrespectful to trans women and dismissive of trans women’s issues, but it sure comes off that way to someone who IS a trans woman when you are.
And besides what is your argument other than #NotAllRadFems?
As for the disparate part – get it through your head: I don’t question that most trans people are trying to live ordinary lives while having been dealt a lousy hand in life. I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the minority in a tiny minority who are appalling but who have supporters rallying around them. The equivalent of the MRAs, in that sense. It’s you insisting that this applies to all trans people, not me or anyone else.
Did I ever say there aren’t radical feminists who heartily dislike all trans people? I’m sure there are, and I don’t have any use for that either.
My impression of the trans women I’m talking about are from reading their own words, not stuff written about them.
I am confused. I can’t figure out what friday jones is saying or saying other people were saying. I don’t think anyone was saying what you say they were.
If you bring misogyny here it will be objected to, even if it is not mocked.
Maybe you should just re-read Puddleglum’s excellent comment up the page. You’re not going to have people in total agreement on every issue here. Neither am I. Nobody’s forced to read this blog, or comment on it.
Bewilderness, I think Friday is trying to say that we’re being transphobic against all trans by saying that some do some bad things. I’m confused too.
Also, this is like the fifth fucking troll in a week. Where are they all coming from??
(My previous comment was addressed to friday jones, not thebewilderness.)
sunnysombrera, yeah, nothing like getting a #notalltrans in response to mentioning specific threats against women.
Did you mean friday jones is a troll? No, she’s commented semi-regularly here for a while.
“You think pointing out this shit goes on is calling it collective guilt?”
Yes, when you use an appeal to my alleged collective guilt in order to paint trans activist jargon as hate speech it’s patently obvious that you see me as somehow responsible for the behavior of some allegedly trans women who made death or rape threats. But I’m supposed to ignore the rampant transphobia of the site you linked to with those threats collected together and say “Oh my! I guess we trans women are terrible beasts, sorry for existing, Real Women(tm)!”
So you found a site where radfems have collected bad things said by alleged trans women on the Internet, is that supposed to somehow erase the fact that Ms. Greer called us “Frankensteinian,” or rhetorically force me to agree with it?
What is your end game there? How do you see trans women in an ideal future? Would we be allowed to exist? Would we be allowed to transition? Would we be forced to wear a scarlet letter T? Would we be unwelcome at certain women-only venues? Would we be required to reveal our medical histories on the first date, or just before the first kiss? Would all trans woman sex be considered suspect?
This isn’t some intellectual exercise for me, it’s my life, it’s my place in society, it’s my biological destiny. And every time it looks like we might be approaching a society in which trans women are treated like women, up pops some supposed ally who says or links something that makes my flash literally crawl with unease.
@kittehserf
Can’t add anything to the incisive response to Friday Jones, but want you to know you’re not on your own.
@Friday Jones
Oppression Olympics is literally not going to get us anywhere – if you want to discuss trans issues in relation to masculinity and misogyny there are so many other interesting topics, such as; different models of trans activism and where they sit structurally in relation to feminism and intersectionality, how do liberal male feminists and sj activists make room for and support trans women – just suggestions.
@everyone else. I know this thread and this discussion has sucked. I’m sorry for adding another “subject we wish would go away so we can get back to laughing at Paul Elam” comment. Transactivism’s impact on pediatric treatment of gender dysphoria and it’s impact on women’s political organising is a vitally important topic to me, and i would comment more on this in this thread if WHTM were the forum for this, but it isn’t. I apologize if anyone feels the views I hold on this are tarring them by association.
“Did I ever say there aren’t radical feminists who heartily dislike all trans people? I’m sure there are, and I don’t have any use for that either. ”
No, but you did imply strongly that mentioning them as a group by name is akin to hate speech. Didn’t this begin because you said TERF (Trans Exclusionary Rad Fem) was a misogynistic slur? And then for some reason you linked to a TERF site that collected every violent thing ever said by an allegedly trans person online into an article as “proof” that trans women are violent reactionary shitheads?
Which is why I had such a sad when I read this thread earlier today.