Talk:Sex-positive feminism

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The "sex positive movement" and "sexually liberal feminism" are not identical, are they? —Ashley Y 04:42, 2005 Jan 21 (UTC) - I would say no. I would identify libertarian feminists like Dr. Paglia with sexually liberal "Feminists." She is in a VERY different category than most of the women discussed here. What do others think?


Contents

[edit] Most Sex-positive feminists do not set men as the gold standard of sexual freedom

This page has gotten so much better over these last few months! The one edit I would make is to the sentence that reads, sex-positive feminists "argue in favor of giving women the same sexual opportunities as men, rather than restricting male sexual expression in the form of pornography." Most of the sex positive feminists quoted here would argue that men have also experienced sexual oppressions based in the patriarchy-- men are not the golden standard. You see some of this critique in Pat Califia's book "Public Sex" and in much of Suzy Bright's work. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Emaildeva (talk • contribs).

Sure, feel free to make those edit! Be bold! Catamorphism 23:20, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In relation with more known authors where does it stand?

Where would Simone de Beauvoir stand in this theory? Could she be enlisted "for" or "against" Sex-positive feminism?

[edit] General Edit, What is not sex-positive feminism

I have done a general edit to try and clarify this article. I hope i haven't gone off the rails,

Three statements in the article were worrisome:

  1. Radical feminism is seen as a potential cause of female-centric problems such as eating disorders, and the inability to experience orgasms. And attempts to censor consensually-produced pornography are looked upon as being patriarchal in nature.

It is a big claim that radical feminism causes anorexia, and anorgasmia. The rejection of heterosexuality by radical lesbians is (I have been assured) accompanied by increased sexual response and affection. No doubt this is caused by a lover who understands the female body, and invests time into the sexual act. Increased feelings of self-worth would doubtless lessen the need to starve oneself to death for affection. This may be a criticism launched by "sex-positive feminists" at radical feminists, but in its current unsubstantiated form, it looks fairly offensive.

Anorexia and anorgasmia are also not female-only problems. This claim should be fleshed out more and substantiated.

  1. In recent years, members of this movement have leveled criticism at The Vagina Monologues, which they see as having a negative and restrictive view of sexuality and an anti-male bias. (See article on VM by Betty Dodson.

Again, this should be fleshed out and substantiated. When I saw the vagina monologues, it was explained that they were produced from oral accounts directly from womens experience, not theortically conceived and forced upon women. This also seems a little anachronistic ("in recent years") and out of character for the article as a whole.

  1. There may be some confusion as to what exactly constitutes "pro-sex feminism". People with widely differing views on the pornography issue which spawned the movement, have adopted the "pro-sex feminist" label. Many feminists are "pro-sex", at least if the forms of sex are ones that they approve of.

I think this is an interesting point, but it would be nice if it were fleshed out more. I'm not an American feminist theorist, so it would be good if someone else could provide info. An An 05:18, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)


[edit] AnnaAniston's reversion of this page

AnAn, next time, please bring up any issues you may have in the disscussion here before you delete other people's contributions. As far as your allegations that it's "dubious" that pro-sex feminist leaders oppose the vagina monologues, I would encourage you to actually read the article that I linked to and read what Betty Dodson and other P.S. feminists had to say there:

http://bettydodson.com/vaginano.htm

I can cite more sources on this same issue if anyone deems that neccesary.

If you can get a copy of it, I'd also encourage you to read Ms. Dodson's "Sex For One," where she goes on at length about how pissed off she was when she and others started having to call themselvs "pro-sex feminists" in direct response to censorship campaigns, not "in response to the question of pornography censorship."

As for the radical feminism causing eating disorders part, I didn't write that, so I don't know where that came from. You can put up a "dubious" tag on the article there if you like - but please at least give the author or someone there a chance to defend and cite that before you go and delete it.

Thanks so much!

--Blackcats 08:54, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Blackcats, I didn't mean any offence. I didn't just delete, I moved to the talk page and opened discussion on what I thought had a dubious connection to the article, or needed to be fleshed out to make it more obvious. I gave my reasons for the content which I felt needed more substantiation. I really don't think I've done the wrong thing.
I was genuinely trying fore more readability in the page. The wikipedia motto is "be bold", and I was being bold. I checked to see who was here, what discussion had been made, and the history of the page before editing. I can appreciate that you might want to be asked about your work in particular, however, you reverted my work just as mercilessly. Several hours which I spent trying to make the article flow, and read a little more homogenously are now wasted. At the bottom of each page is a disclaimer that if you don't want your work edited, don't add it.
The reason I gave for moving the Vagina Monolgues comment to this page was that it seemed anachronistic, and that in its present state it seemed to be unsubstantiated/POV. Maybe some more detail from the article would help.
Blackcats, I ask you to let me revert to my latest version of the article because I did give a general edit which I feel improved the readability of the article. If you want your comment about the Vagina Monologies left in, then please add it back in.
I have moved your criticisms of me to the end of this page, which is where new material should be added.

An An 07:12, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Sex-radical feminism is an off shoot of radical feminism NOT sex positive feminism. Sex positive feminism has historically been linked to libertarian feminism while sex radical feminism recognizes the patriarchy as real and offensive. Bell hooks is a sex radical feminist while Nina Hartley is not.

I don't think that's an entirely accurate account. Susie Bright, a sex-positive feminist, certainly recognizes the patriarchy as real; many sex-positive feminists wouldn't align themselves with "libertarian feminism" (to the extent that that isn't a contradiction in terms!) Catamorphism 04:09, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyedit 6 Mar 05

The article was full of weasel statements "some people may think this possibly causes that sometimes" which says nothing. The main practicioners are still undescribed here (Xavieria, Sprinkle). The only citation is Dodson, and there in a self-published forum. Does Dodson actually practice, why isn't this mentioned here.

Sentences were far too long (four to five concepts per sentence). Additionally, scientific terms were used liberally "females" instead of "women". Apart from the obvious critique of sciences' gender and sexual politics, humans generally experience sexuality and engage with ideology, lets humanise the subjects of this article.

Finally, remember "be bold" and the GPL. Nobody owns this article, and playing ownership games over it (reverting new contributions) is an excellent way to defeat the wikipedia.

I agree with AnAn. I require cites that pro-sex feminists believe that rad fems cause anorgasmia and anorexia. Claiming that they're in Dodson generally is insufficient. "Dodson (1995) claims..." is adequate.

I'm off to read the Dodson, Xavieria and Sprinkle articles to expand this.Fifelfoo 08:10, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Needs Work

I can't say I agree with all of An An's criticisms, she raises a couple of good points. This article really does need a lot of work, in terms of readability, organization, and content. This sentence is problematic:

"Radical feminism is seen as a cause of problems for women such as eating disorders, and anorgasmia (the pathological inability to experience orgasm."

Is there a source for this? Certainly, pro-sex feminists have criticized anti-porn feminists for their puritanism and have accused them of narrowing women's choices and fostering sexual guilt, and hold that this has very negative effects on the sexuality of women who internalize this ideology. Outside of this article, I've never heard radical feminists accused of causing eating disorders, however.

The term "radical feminist" is a contested term, anyway. It was not always that case that "radical feminism" was a synonym for "anti-porn feminism" and many of the early sex-positive feminists (such as Ellen Willis) came out of the radical feminist milieu.

The article as it stands fails to put sex-positive feminism in its historic context, which grew out of the dominance of anti-porn feminism in the 1970s and the "feminist sex wars" of the 1980s. Some important figures, groups, and publications that are neglected include Ellen Willis, Pat/Patrick Califia, Lisa Palac, Candida Royalle, Nina Hartley, Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce, Feminists for Free Expression, and On Our Backs. OTOH, some of the individuals listed as being "pro-sex feminists" are rather dubious. Xaviera Hollander may have been "pro-sex", but was never particularly feminist. Camille Paglia has kind of a peripheral relationship with sex-positive feminism, but really isn't closely aligned with that movement - Paglia is phenomenon unto herself, really.

Also, to be truly NPOV, this article also needs to discuss anti-pornography feminist criticisms of pro-sex feminism.

--Peter G Werner 09:34, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Hey Peter G Werner, it sounds to me like you're already on the way to cleaning up this article. I agree with the criticisms you've raised. This article seems to have gone through several major revisions over the period of its life (from highly sexological to more political). I think its headed in the right direction, but you're right. It needs lots of copyediting. Good luck, and I'll help where I can. An An 10:37, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New revision

I've done a major rewrite of this page, reorganizing it, removing some of the dubious claims about radical feminists, adding some important authors and removing others who importance to the topic is questionable. Some sections could use expansion (especially the section on critiques of sex-positive feminism -- I basically threw in a few references in lieu of giving a detailed explanation of any of the critiques), but I hope I've improved the page by giving it a better structure and adding some external references. Any feedback would be welcome. Catamorphism 03:35, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology

It strikes me that "sex-positive" and "pro-sex" are weird NPOV terms. Who is going to describe themselves as sex-negative or anti-sex? There should be a section in the article discussing this; surely there are people (anti-prostitution-legalization people, etc) who object to the deck being stacked against them with this terminology. Tempshill 22:53, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

There are pages on pro-choice and pro-life, which I think are much more loaded terms. It's generally clear what "sex-positive" means, because there's agreement on who it describes: people may not call themselves "sex-negative", but those who would be designated that way by sex-positive people certainly wouldn't call themselves "sex-positive", since they don't believe that all consensual sex is necessarily a good thing. Catamorphism 23:17, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adding info re. pleasure activist group?

i'm the founder and co-ordinator of a pro-feminist, sex-positive group called Pleasure Activism Australia, which i feel could appropriately be mentioned in the 'Further resources' section of this article. But of course i would say that :-), and i certainly don't want to spam . . . . . what do other people think?

[edit] aka Individualist feminism?

I'm a bit concerned by the leading sentence "Sex-positive feminism, sometimes known as pro-sex feminism, sex-radical feminism, sexually liberal feminism, or individualist feminism" (my emphasis). There seems to be a wave of individualist feminism supporters who are trying to lay claim to other brands of feminism whether or not they're compatible. This seems to consist of (1) long discussions of Wendy McElroy (2) writing long individualist feminist critiques on the [other kind of feminsim] page (3) purporting that the [other type of feminism] is synonymous with individualist feminism.

Is sex-positive feminism actually known as "individualist feminism"? Can the person who added that provide a cite? AnAn 00:10, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

It looks like I originally added that in my overhaul of the article in September. I can't remember why, nor did I really know what "individualist feminism" was at the time (and I still don't, really). So, I'm just going to remove it. Catamorphism 00:30, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh cool, I thought it was part of the larger "iFeminist" program to diss all other feminisms on wikipedia. No worries. AnAn 01:03, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
"Individualist feminism" is feminism with a strong influence of libertarianism or individualist anarchism. As such, its analogous to other "feminisms with modifiers", such as anarchist feminism (which it may or may not overlap with) or Marxist feminism. Wendy McElroy is probably the leading current exponent of this ideology. In any event, even though individualist feminists are largely sex-positive or sexually liberal, not all (or even most) sex-positive/liberal feminists are individualist feminists, the two categories should not be treated as synonyms. Peter G Werner 07:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Queer" as loaded/specialized term?

I notice that somebody just changed a reference to "queer activists" to "LGBT activists"; is everybody comfortable with that? I understand that to those who self-identify as "queer" the term has very different connotations, especially as it relates to "queer theory" in academia. Not an academic; just asking.--Orange Mike 15:02, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

"LBGT" is broader than "queer" and since opposition to anti-porn feminism often came from gay-rights activists who had nothing to do with "queer theory", I suppose the change is good. Its also slightly problematic for two reasons. One, "LBGT" is a neologism that wasn't even used during the hight of the porn wars. Also, there's historically been a very small minority of LBGT activists who are anti-porn, and some strong advocates of gay monogamy like Larry Kramer are arguably not sex-positive. Peter G Werner 16:57, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think either "LGBT activists" or "queer activists" is really accurate. I'm not sure there is a term with the exact right connotations. Maybe more research is in order. Catamorphism 19:05, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ariel Levy

I added some material on Ariel Levy's book "Female Chauvinist Pigs" and reactions to it among sex-positive feminists. I wasn't sure whether to place it under "Critiques..." or "Debates...", since Ariel Levy doesn't fall neatly into either the anti-porn or sex-positive camp, and reactions among the latter are divided. I chose the former, since the book is more of a critique than anything.

[edit] Suggestions for cleanup and additions

I've been contributing material to this article, but the article still needs cleanup and addition of some important material. I've put together a to-do list, which can be take up as either I or others have time.

To-do list for Sex-positive feminism: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • The introductory section is too long. A concise, one-paragraph summary would be better, with additional material incorporated into distinct, named sections.
  • Historical roots – off to a good start, but material about the 1980s "Feminist Sex Wars" is still needed (A Wikipedia article with this title is definitely needed as well), as well as material on more recent developments.
  • Pornography – some room for expansion. Sex-positive feminists defend access to pornography, some even produce it, but what do they say are its virtues? What is their response to the anti-porn claim that porn is inherently misogynist and viewing porn causes misogyny?
  • Sex work – room for expansion about sex-worker-rights activists and their ideas; there should be an entire Wikipedia article about sex-worker rights.
  • Sexual orientation – mistakenly emphasizes the "lavender menace", a battle took place in 1970, long before anybody spoke of "pro-sex" or "anti-porn" feminism. Anti-lesbian feminism was a historic quirk and is quite simply dead. (If anything, feminism quickly went entirely the other way, into what was an often anti-heterosexual position.) The position that sex-positive feminism took from the beginning was that sexual orientation is a matter of personal identity and that there is no right or wrong sexual orientation. This was an explicit rejection of both the "lavender menace" and lesbian separatist positions. Note that sex-positive feminism defends choice in sex roles (eg, butch/femme) and relationship orientation (eg, polyamoury, monogamy, celibacy) as well as in sexual orientation.
  • Debates within sex-positive feminism – definitely some room for expansion here. Some less radical sex-positive feminists have little problem with socially-dominant sex roles and sexual tastes, others, especially "queer" sex-positives are very critical of them. What unites both is the idea that sexual tastes, whether mainstream or alternative, must be allowed to be freely chosen.
  • Critiques of sex-positive feminism – much room for expansion here. Surely during the "sex wars" and the 20+ years since then, anti-porn feminists have come up with some kind of critique of sex-positive feminism beyond "certain sexual practices have historically benefited men rather than women...."
  • Further resources – this section is kind of an orphan, and much of it is repetition of material that's already been mentioned. Perhaps move much of this material to other sections, re-title this section, and/or clarify its purpose.
  • Sex positive literature – another orphan, which should either be expanded or deleted. It seems to be a suggestion for a list, but lists are better broken out into their own articles rather than break up the flow of a regular article.
  • Citations – more are needed. Should the academic Harvard style be kept or Wikipedia "ref" style. Both have advantages and drawbacks.
  • Overall organization – more attention to "what goes where" when it comes to adding to content to different sections, and avoiding repetition.

Feel free to add to the list. Peter G Werner 00:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I would add that some of the content should be slightly reworded to be more geared towards an encyclopedia audience interested in the ideas and people, rather than primarily towards an academic audience interested in the citations. There currently seems to be a lot of treating books and essays as the topic of the article, rather than the ideas in those books or the people who wrote them as the topic—it'd be nice to be able to ignore all citations and still have coherent sentences. --Delirium 04:40, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Camille Paglia

The burden of responsibility is on the editor who would like Camille Paglia to be named as a sex-positive feminist here to provide a reliable source that she identifies as one. Catamorphism 15:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Camille Paglia: sex-positive feminist

Here are the "reliable sources" you asked for, Catamorphism, you stupid arrogant twit!

http://www.lotl.com/content/paglia.htm

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Sex-positive_feminism


If you are too lazy and full of yourself to read them in their entirety then I will just post the relevant sections here:

Camille Paglia: "On the other hand I’ve been saying in public for five years ago, as someone who’s endorsed prostitutes and strippers and that whole extreme of sex-positive experience, that I’m concerned about the effect on young people – people growing up from 8, 10, 14 in a climate where it’s gone to the opposite direction. I’m already out there concerned about this so I’m really outraged to be stereotyped in that way by her because I am a career teacher and yes, when you have a situation where commercialised sex is being pushed without a true eroticism…I’ve been saying this for years, that we have got to a point of meaningless exhibitionism without real eroticism. I’m for eroticism."

Camille Paglia is a major American social critic. Paglia's academic writing focuses on the role of vibrant dangerous sexuality in human history. Paglia's key importance to sex-positive feminism is not only her writings on sex, but her advocacy of "traditional" values like canon texts. Paglia is somewhat of an intellectual enigma, a conservative and academic feminist, who revels in low and high culture alike and celebrates sexualities disapproved of by mainstream Western culture. Paglia has, in many ways, presented a "respectable" face for pro-sex feminism to the world at large. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jaiwills (talk • contribs) 02:59, 18 July 2006.

The second link you posted is to a previous version of this article, which does not count as a reliable source. In the first link, Paglia is saying that she endorses "that whole extreme of sex-positive experience" but it's not at all clear that she is identifying with the movement of sex-positive feminism, per se. Sorry, but that just doesn't fly. In addition, I would request that you refrain from making personal attacks. Catamorphism 03:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Agree on no personal attacks, disagree on Catamorphism's second argument above: that Paglia is a feminist who endorses sex-positive experience YET not clearly a sex-positive feminist. This distinction seems unproductive. By analogy, saying that a politician may have endorsed the full range of pro-choice views, but isn't clearly a pro-choice politician if not directly quoted identifying as such in so many words, and anything less "just doesn't fly" is too high a standard for people who consider position statements to be more important than explicit declarations of group membership. 23:56, 2 Sept 2006 (UTC)
The problem with calling Camille Paglia a "sex-positive feminist" is that she really doesn't identify as a feminist at all. In other words, she identifies with the first part (sex-positive), but not the second (feminist). If I'm not mistaken, by the early-90s, she was pretty dismissive of the whole sex-positive feminist movement, seeing it as too feminist. Look, if anybody can find a source where Camille Paglia herself refers to herself as a "sex-positive feminist" or something like that, then by all means let us know. I've read Paglia, and I've never come across her saying anything like this.
The other problem with Jaiwallis' argument (besides the shear nastiness of his approach) is that he sees Paglia as a central figure in the sex-positive feminist movement, perhaps more important in that movement than Susie Bright, Pat Califia, and Betty Dodson. This is simply not the case. Peter G Werner 03:06, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

This petty argument is pure and utter crap! I can't believe I have to explain these things to you people! In a 1995 Playboy interview, Paglia unequivocally declared "I am absolutely a feminist!" In fact, she has said as much quite emphatically in several publications. What Catamorphism refuses to acknowledge is the fact the Paglia is opposed to the kind of whiny, neurotic, resentful, sex-phobic, manipulative, man-hating, whitebread, opportunistic, money-grubbing, morally bankrupt and academically fraudulant "victim feminism" which is shamefully personified by the likes of Gloria Steinem, Kate Millet, Robin Morgan, Dworkin and McKinnon, Naomi Wolf, Susan Faludi, Eve Ensler, et al. Paglia claims that these victim-obsessed, anti-male "paleofeminists" have "have betrayed women and have alienated men and women from each other", and she seeks to cut the bullshit and redress the balance with hard facts and a comprehensive and rigorous examination of sex and "Sexual personae" in Western culture rooted in plain language and classical scholarship, and not abstract, speculative, logocentric and self-referential postmodern theory.

I know that it is only an elite cadre of snooty debutantes at the National Organization for Women who get to say who is a feminist and who isn't. Paglia endorses a bawdy, streetwise, boldly individualistic and open-minded kind of feminism that embraces the whole spectrum of human sexuality and respects sexual differances and which is pro-sex, pro-beauty, pro-art, pro-porn, pro-prostitute, pro-gay, pro-masculinity, pro-abortion, pro-responsibility. She doesn't advocate for some kind of grotesque androgynous, pseudofeminist sexual "utopia" where masculinity is outcast and everybody is a hermaphrodite who lactates and menstruates in unison.

Paglia has stated her position on these matters over and over. Read her piece "No Law in the Arena" for heaven's sake! Just because she defends men and masculinity against hateful, scurrilous, demeaning attacks by misandrist whack-jobs doesn't diminish her commitment to the social advancement of women on equal terms. She has written about this at length and has supported her arguments with citations from great art and literature as well as psychology and endocrinology (the last of which most so-called "feminists" totally ignore!)

The type of "feminism" that Paglia opposes is the kind that sanctimoniously claims women's innate moral superiority and suppresses recognition of male achievements throughout history. She also disdains the politically correct "womynists" and "queer theory" types who like to analyze and speculate on sexuality by applying the logocentric methods of theoreticians like Lacan and Foucault, and their followers such as Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler, to name only two. Paglia rejects the preposterous notion that all the physiologic processes of hormones and body and brain chemistry have no influence at all on human sexual behavior, and that sex differences (i.e., masculinity and femininity, heterosexuality and homosexuality, and everything in between on the continuum) are simply and strictly a matter of external environmental influences and socialization.

Indeed, this flawed premise is what has led to all of the smug, preening, self-righteous, pseudointellectual baloney about such ridiculous concepts as "patriarchal oppression" and "phallocracy" which are have absolutely no basis in the material reality of human interaction and are merely solipsistic, self-referential, language-based contrivances. Hence, Catamorphism is just playing idle word-games here and is not applying any common sense to address these matters directly and honestly. Jaiwills

[edit] "reqphoto" tag

"It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality."

I'm not against having some photos with this article, but I wouldn't even know where to begin. What kind of images help describe sex-positive feminism? I can't think of anything offhand. (And there's the problem of finding copyright-free images, even if someone does have a good suggestion.) Peter G Werner 20:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

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