There’s an interesting debate going on at Unherd between two groups of radical feminists. It’s an interesting opportunity for us outsiders to look into their thinking. One takes sexuality as a tool of politics. We liberate sex to destroy the current oppressive world. Everything must be public, spectacular, pushed to the extreme. For them, sexuality is omnipresent. Against them stand the puritanical feminists, for whom, on the contrary, any sexuality is an expression of patriarchy. Anything that goes beyond the missionary position is oppressive and must be banned. In fact, even the missionary position, unless it serves to breed commies. Those first feminists would flood the world with pornography, preferably including kindergartens. The latter would ban the sight of cleavage and all sparkles.
Those first feminists would flood the world with pornography, preferably including kindergartens. The latter would ban the sight of cleavage and all sparkles.
Completely missing the normal position that most people hold and experience. Sexuality and eroticism is something that gives people pleasure, that helps them have nice relationships, that takes place in private and that is not talked about. Well, maybe girlfriends confide in each other or gentlemen hint at something after a few drinks. But it certainly can’t be a political debate. That normal position includes the two of them occasionally making life more interesting, watching a peppy video, using a toy or some other innovation. Yes, even normal decent people do things in their bedrooms that weren’t done generations ago. And the next generation will do things we don’t do today. No one needs to get offended about that. But when people are normal and like eroticism, both sides will pounce.
It’s easy to see from the debate that the main problem with this kind of thinking is that it’s not measured. Everybody gets their own life, why not. But why does everything have to be banished to the absurd? Why so much aggression everywhere? That’s the problem.
