An Unoccupied Room of One’s Own.

Photo Source: iamchanelle on Flickr.

It’s officially my spring break, that time when I ignore the mountain of homework I still need to work on, in order to make a dent on all the blog posts I’ve wanted — but not had time — to write. (At least, I hope that’s what happens over the next week or so.) This semester has proposed some fascinating ideas for me, largely thanks to a gender theory course I’m in, which has some of the best readings of any class I’ve ever taken.

One of the first readings that really affected me was a chapter from the Andrea Dworkin book Intercourse, which I’ve seen referenced many times but haven’t delved into before.  Based on the positions of the people who tend to cite Dworkin’s work, I more or less assumed I wouldn’t like her.  I’d presumed that she was firmly positioned in the “sex = bad” school, which is something I’ve pretty much rejected flat-out, without much investigation.  When I read the chapter, I was absolutely blown away.  Although I didn’t necessarily agree with it — (in fact, on an ideological/ political level, I felt at odds with it fairly often) — I reveled in it much the same way I reveled in the (much more recent) “Do Not Want” article in Bitch.  In spite of myself, in spite of my preconceptions and my articulated politics regarding sexuality, I felt understood by that reading.  I felt like something I had been struggling to articulate myself had been articulated for me, like something I had been struggling to overcome (to some extent, and not always without reason) had been affirmed.

Dworkin’s position on intercourse (more specifically than “sex”) is pretty disturbing to a lot of people. Her sense that “physically, the woman in intercourse is a space inhabited, a literal territory occupied literally” does not necessarily sit well with folks.  Even those most committed to women’s rights don’t necessarily want to consider the idea that for women specifically, “there is never a real privacy of the body that can coexist with intercourse: with being entered.”  The idea that the so-called ultimate act of relational expression actually constitutes the “persistent invasion” of a woman “opened up, split down the center [...] occupied — physically, internally, in her privacy” turns about as many stomachs as heads.  Yet, as Dworkin points out, even in the larger culture, “Violation is a synonym for intercourse” and “penetration is taken to be a use, not an abuse; a normal use; it is appropriate to enter [a woman], to push into (“violate”) the boundaries of her body.  She is human, of course, but by a standard that does not include physical privacy.”  And like it or not, these sentiments aren’t entirely dismissable.

My goal here isn’t to argue Dworkin’s points, but I can’t say that they don’t hit a nerve with me. While rationally/ politically, I resist them, critique them, defend against them, my immediate and overwhelming response — on an emotional level — is that this is my own experience/ opinion articulated and affirmed. In an early entry, I mentioned that I struggle to conceive of sex (and of intercourse specifically) as something other than rape, that although the difference is clear to me intellectually, on a visceral level I tend toward equating the two. I would hardly argue that such a perspective is standard, but I do know I’m not the only person with this tendency. While I wouldn’t for a second want to normalize my “sex = rape” paradigm — (note, please, that this is not to say I look at rape as the same as sex, but that I look at sex as the same as rape; in other words, I’m not attempting to justify rape as sex, but to suggest a difficulty defining sex as something other than rape) — I furrow my brow a bit when I realize how overwhelmingly my politics regarding sex ignore my own relationship to it, how willingly I default into an argument that ignores my own input.

Dworkin considers this “the measure of women’s oppression.” The fact “that we do not take intercourse — entry, penetration, occupation — and ask or say what it means: to us as a dominated group or to us as potentially free and self-determining people” shows the extent to which we’ve been silenced and the extent to which that “silence is taken to be appropriate.” In acquiescing to the standard of silence, women lie about life. “Women lie about life by not demanding to understand the meaning of entry, penetration, occupation, having boundaries crossed over, having lesser privacy: by avoiding the difficult, perhaps impossible (but how will we ever know?) questions of female freedom. [...] We give up the most important dimensions of what it means to be human: the search for the meaning of our real experience, including the sheer invention of that meaning…” Again, I bring this up, not to convince anyone, but to admit the extent to which it feels true for me. Introspective and prone to pondering as I am, I can’t say that my understanding of sex is based on my experience (or even my “experience” of inexperience). In my (uncharacteristically) un-skeptical embrace of sex-positive feminism, I’ve accepted other people’s perspective in place of my own, and I take issue with that, even when I’m not sure I take issue with the perspective itself. How does my insistence, as an activist, that sex is not fundamentally negative fit in with my personal inability to differentiate it from occupation, violation, or rape? Why do I pass on the opportunity to create my own narrative regarding sex, to develop meaning based on my own knowledge? Why do I dismiss what I know, invalidating it in favor of the knowledge of others?

I think the problem I have with “knowledge” like mine is that it can (also) so easily be used for oppression. If intercourse is occupation, it makes no sense for women to pursue it. If sex is rape, why would a woman have a sex drive? In a culture where women are already allowed very little room to express desire, own their sexuality, and act on it, I’m hesitant to share a narrative that could further fuel the suppression/ repression/ oppression agenda. But I balk a little at the suggestion that I have to ignore my own reality, as a woman, in order to support other women. Isn’t there a way for this understanding, my understanding, as it is now, to work within the cause of healthy sexuality? (Including asexuality, of course.) Couldn’t this be testimony to the necessity of helping women to possess their own bodies, to feel comfortable in their corporeal experience (in a way that’s so rarely allowed), to feel safe and capable of protecting their physical integrity/ privacy when and how they see fit? Maybe instead of a narrative like mine contributing to the further dismissal of sexual desire and prohibition around sexual expression, it could speak to the necessity for such expression to require, as a prerequisite for women and men, the physical security so few of us — at present — are encouraged to pursue.

I could get into that.

Tags: andrea dworkin, asexual, asexuality, body, dworkin, feminism, gender theory, intercourse, perspective, rape, sex, sex-positive, sex-positive feminism, sexuality, women, women's rights