Rebecca Scherm on the pressure she feels to be “charming.”
This is quite interesting.
I’m charming when I want to be, I believe… and I do feel obligated to be charming. My mother is a feminist, but southern and has old fashioned manners, I called my friends parents “Mr and Mrs” and so on.
Don’t date non-feminists, they’re all either Sarah Palin, Margaret Thatcher, or Michelle Bachman, unless it’s because of feminism’s history of racism and transmisogyny, then it’s okay
I think the dangerous thing about the sex-positive movement is twofold: first, because it makes appeasing the male gaze into some sort of feminist act and reinforces the idea that women’s real power is in our sexuality (more specifically, our attractiveness to heterosexual men) and secondly in that it presents that as the only viable option and frames women who don’t want to be seen that way for whatever reason as misguided or repressed
It wasn’t supposed to be that, but yes it turned into that.
Like, I don’t like being made to feel guilty for how I like looking (which has very little to do with the male gaze except occasionally to upset all the dudes who ever told me I was prettier without makeup) or how I fuck, but honestly I think any feminism that centers entirely around sex (sex pos or sex neg) is fucking problematic as fuck.
I think the centering of sex as the central issue of feminism (which is what happens with sex neg’s porn obsession too) reduces women to their sexualities.
My ideal feminism is a “Can we talk about something other than sex for once in our fucking lives” feminism.
Like, leave me the fuck alone about my personal appearance and sex life is pretty central to my position leave all women the fuck alone about their personal appearances and sex lives, can we talk about domestic labor, and wages, and rape (because bringing women’s sex lives into that is fucking victim blaming)
I grew up in a sex neg second wave house hold, that shit is not any better, let’s do something different.
I learn from you little motherfuckers, when I write erotica this is my standard. Like pegging, it’s an act that pretty much involves no physical stimulation for the person giving, and a LOT for the person receiving, and yet the receiver is being submissive by taking it?
Mhm, yeah, nah, you’re getting waited on, motherfucker. I write fantasies about doms putting a fuck ton of work in and subs getting to enjoy it without actually contributing a lot.
Because fuck you.
That said in my own bedroom, joy and generosity from all to all, but I’m gonna make my wank material as selfish as I fucking want.
and a lot of them are like
“My husband got really offended when I didn’t want to change my name when we got married”
“My husband says it’s unrealistic for fat women to be with conventionally attractive men:
"My husband *insert incredibly racist bullshit here*”
“My husband *insert homophobic bullshit here*”
“My husband *insert transphobic bullshit here*”
“My husband *insert victim blamey bullshit here*”
and I’m like “how much do dudes have to suck on average for this to be normal in my really careful about intersectionality, really careful about ableism and generally incredibly good feminist group? Like HOW ARE YOU MARRIED TO THESE THINGS?”
Also how come mine doesn’t do that? Did I just randomly happen to get literally the best one? Is that what I did?
Is it because I had the alternative of people who aren’t men that I didn’t end up with a dude who lives to spout problematic shit?
And how they illustrate the shittiness of capitalism and the patriarchy really well. Most of the job’s I’ve had have been in some way me doing another woman’s second shift (child care, beauty industry, sex work with a heavy focus on emotional labor) while the employer benefited from the product of my labor and gave me a tiny percentage of the value I’d produced back.
But, also because the employer is typically a woman, getting “paid” the value of a bunch of women doing second shift work, she’s usually getting paid for the value produced in a portion of her husband’s larger salary (which is in turn the value produced by a bunch of workers working under him, who get a tiny percentage of the value produced back, and also larger because he’s giving his wife a percentage of the value of her doing his second shift work has produced).
Does that make sense?
Like I am denied the comfort of the middle class woman who at least spends her time taking care of her own kids, sexually and emotionally dealing with her own husband, and keeping her own house clean, and the comfort of not having my own second shift waiting for me when I get home (thankfully D does not demand the second shift from me).
Like I’m having trouble expressing as thoroughly and accurately as I want to what sucks about this.
I think they must either be forgetting what I’m into or they’ve decided that the horror of hearing about the psychology behind my kinks just isn’t worth it. I don’t know if they’re feminist or not, but I know that the look on men’s faces when I answer their questions about what I’m into are immensely satisfying.
Fuckers look like they just saw Cthulhu, and I’m a submissive… and I love that I can be a submissive and yet have kinks so weird and upsetting that male doms are creeped out by me.
Thoughts From The Peacock Angel 