Strap on advice part 1 Salon dot com jan 1999
As a Patti Smith-lovin', tomboy-turned-feminist,
I've always resisted the notion that being a woman
means being submissive. I want to move through the world
as the subject not the object, the bee not the flower. And
yet I never minded being the girl in bed. Being the one penetrated
is so basic I didn't really see it. It was the one part
of female destiny I never mourned. This is partly because
heterosexual sex never lived up to the dire warnings it
came with: that his gain would be my loss; that I'd get
attached, enslaved and heartbroken; that I'd end
up yesterday's garbage or, if I was lucky, monogamy's
ball and chain. Thankfully, sex never felt like the war
described by Republicans and mothers.
Sex, those parties say, is something men want and women
deny. The boys hear the same message, which makes them ashamed
of their filthy urges at the same time it lets them off the
hook. Boys will be boys, and if sex happens, it's the
girl's fault. Since sex is our responsibility, I realized
early on, part of my job was to obviate the shame that men
carried into bed. Though that context has eroded considerably
over the past 30 years, women's sexual power is still
largely that of withholding something that they generally
want too. Though politically I resent this ancient, absurd
assignment, it does have its sweetness sexually: Submitting
is both transgression and absolution, a blessing bestowed
and a taboo broken.
Even the most confident lover betrays
an initial shock and gratitude that he's welcome inside
my body.
Women's hold on the supply side of sex may explain some
of the patriarchy's most tenacious tenets: Outspoken,
independent women still get tagged as dykes, bitches,
dominatrixes. The rape victim -- if she can be portrayed
as sexual in any way -- still asked for it. Single women are
suspect while they're nubile, and after that they're
invisible. But other attitudes lurking in the public sphere
can't be traced to the supply and demand of sex -- especially
not nowadays, when women generally do give it up to the men
they date. Why has contempt for the slut persisted? Why
does the military struggle so hard to keep women and gay
men out? And why is homophobia as murderously vehement
as ever?
____Sociological, historical, economic and biological
theories of male domination and privilege don't fully
answer those questions. They can't explain the anger
and contempt for women and gay men that keeps bubbling up
into the culture. The dissonance is sad and baffling, because
I like men and often identify with them. Men are straightforward,
generally easy to get along with, and I like having sex with
them.
____All these contradictions carved out a blind spot,
a gap between the personal and the political that made room
for what I can only call an epiphany -- a glimpse of something
not in me, but out there, pervasive and invisible as air.
I had my revelation about the patriarchy when -- I challenge
the gentle reader to put this more delicately -- I strapped
on a dildo and fucked my boyfriend in the ass.