XOJane

Kinks are not necessarily harmless.  Even the notion of consent, considered by so many to be a simple matter, is problematic — in a patriarchal society where women’s agency is circumscribed by male supremacy, how meaningful is consent?

What it does, in fact, mean is that the way you fuck is not “private,” apolitical, or outside the realm of critique. Sex does not happen in a vacuum immune to outside structural influences; in fact, it can (and does) replicate inescapable systems of power and dominance. Being sex-negative means acknowledging that sex, and kink, have nothing intrinsically “good” or “positive” about them (in direct contrast to sex-positive feminists, many of whom argue that sex is an inherent good and that less charitable opinions toward sex are the result of a poisonous, prudish society).

The virulent opposition commonly expressed toward sex-negative views is fascinating. Most self-identified feminists that I encounter believe that our society is male-dominated, privileges men, and is patriarchal (also racist, homo- and transphobic, classist, and ableist, among other things), and that sexism has a measurable effect on our day-to-day lives.

We can talk freely and easily about how institutionalized and structural misogyny purports to give men unfettered access to our bodies and how that materializes in street harassment, rape culture and the restriction of access to reproductive health services; and about how sexist and unattainable beauty standards fuel huge(ly profitable) industries that prey on women’s insecurities, reward or penalize women on the basis of how closely they conform to these standards; and how this game plays into patriarchal, racist, and classist hands.

Yet when sex is the topic, we fall over ourselves in an attempt to pass the least amount of judgment and avoid being categorized as “man-hating” or “anti-sex” or “judgmental” or “shaming” or “prudish.”  Too many of us are so committed to escaping accusations of frigidity and joylessness that analysis falls by the wayside, leaving feminist sexual politics in an untenable position.

One of the truisms of sex-critical and sex-negative feminism is, “We can’t fuck our way to freedom.”