Thursday, June 29, 2006

Oral Sex Is Evil

That's the point of much of the discussion summarized here, anyway.

Fer chrissake, these people. If you follow a couple of these links you can see why I no longer consider myself a feminist. The movement has largely been taken over by "everything-is-power" postmodern dunderheads. I miss the old feminism. You know, the liberal one.

This all started with a claim here, at the aptly-named Blame the Patriarchy, to the effect that no women enjoy performing oral sex. On males that is. It's the penis that's the problem as far as they're concerned. When several female commenters pointed out that they, in fact, enjoyed the act in question, the claim transmogrified into (a) yeah, well it's wrong even if you like it because (b) liking it makes you a patriarchal "sexbot" because of (c) (you guessed it) the "power differential."

Lord, how tedious.

We can go through the failure of the "power differential" arguments if anybody's interested, but it's hardly worth the effort. For right now, let me just say that, of the women I've known well enough to know where they stand on the issue of performing fellatio, far more have reported enjoying it than have reported not enjoying it. Now, I'll guarantee you that my friends and girlfriends have been rather unrepresentative of the populace...but they're not from, like, Mars or anything. Well, maybe that one...

Lots of these folks are just left-wing puritans. And, like right-wing puritans, they tend to reason thusly: I find x icky, therefore x is morally wrong. And you don't need me to tell you what's wrong with an inference like that.

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can someone please explain to me how a toothy woman with my business in her mouth is in a position of WEAKNESS?

I would think fellatio would empower a woman. Im certain to have your full attention in said circumstances.

6:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Guh. This kind of crap is why I stopped visiting Ampersand's site.

I am comitted to equality between the sexes, but dammit, I don't think I should have to be verbally abused, insulted, and lectured about how my consentual sexual activities are evil. you know?

I often get the sense that more and more people specifically don't identify as feminist because there are so many self-identified feminists who set the bar bizarrely high. It's too bad, too. I agree (and vote) with them on so much, but crusades for idealogical purity blow ass, no matter who's running them.

1:08 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Yeah, I quit going to Ampersand's digs, too, for the very same reason.

Too many folks on that end of the spectrum have just become the mirror-image of the very bigots the movement started out by opposing.

6:44 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For someone who talks so much about critical thinking and fair play, you sure make your share of misrepresentations.

You say that while "several" commenters report enjoying blow jobs, "lots" of them are left-wing puritans. This is disingenuous. Most commenters are quite pro-blowjob, with basically one strident puritan, who is catching hell from the rest of them.

Singling out a thread in which most of the commenters are self-identified feminists who support your position (the correct position -- blowjobs are great, provided the guy isn't forcing anyone's head down), then holding it up as an example of why you no longer identify as a feminist seems a bit uncalled for.

Those few bj-haters (and not the ones who don't like GIVING bj's -- that's a personal choice -- but the ones who think bjs are evil tools of oppression) certainly ARE people I would want to disassociate from. But most of the feminists in that thread do not fit your characterization.

11:03 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Absolutely wrong, CB. You might be looking at the wrong post.

Most of the commenters on Twisty's original post were decidedly anti-BJ...though the pro- crowd was starting to hold its own by the time I posted this. Responses at other blogs, esp. Feministe, were far more pro- than anti-.

As for the other issue: most of the anti-s were of the "its icky" persuasion, but that segued seamlessly into the "it's wrong" claim...so the discussion went back and forth between the two.

Anway, your characterization of the discussion seems to indicate that you were looking at the second post, or one at one of the sites commenting on the posts at Blame the Patriarchy.

11:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmmm. I was referring only to the Blame the Patriarchy discussion (but not the Salon one -- for some reason, I can't get Salon to load properly).

Well, I don't want to get into an argument. Interested parties can follow the link and make up their own mind.

11:55 AM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

I was talking about the BTP discussion, too. I'll go back and look again, though.

12:50 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

I was talking about the BTP discussion, too. I'll go back and look again, though.

12:50 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Oh, I think I see the problem here--the people in "lots of these people are left-wing puritans" refers to racical lefty feminists, not to people in the IBtP discussion.

The anti-s there are mostly "ick" anti's, not "it's politically incorrect" anti-s... Though that's what Twisty is really getting at.

1:07 PM  

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