How Feminism Did NOT Kill My Sexy
Posted on 2024-12-17
Category: Lifestyle
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Blog begets blog, and this will be no exception. More typically, however, feminist stances posted to the internet(s) give way to counter-bloggage and commentary retort from those on the outside of our movement. The patient amongst our sister-comrades may even take noble attempts to explain to our foes the histories and social contexts of Black feminist politics that we already knowingly share and understand amongst each other. The less patient among us– say… me– usually just take to internetthugging because my patience for male patriarchs and their allies is limited if not expired.
So, from the outside, it may be surprising to witness feminist dissent amongst feminists. And yet, this is where I find myself–in ardent disagreement with my feminist community over the sexual consequences of feminism in our romantic lives.
Without any intention to misrepresent the post’s point, I will summarize briefly the bulk of this lament: The author is a smart and rising feminist academic. The author is a heterosexual and still has a pulse, so she sometimes finds herself attracted to her male intellectual peers and colleagues. These male colleagues often engage the author in deep intellectual discussion(what she describes as “an intellectual affair”) and yet do not reciprocate sexual interest in lieu of presenting said author with the almighty friend card. Where this may seem typical to the experiences of adult professionals across the board, what has been argued here is that this lack of sexual interest coupled with shared intellectual stimulation constitutes a “mind-f*ck” in which feminists in particular are repeatedly used for mental exercise but not considered as candidates for sexual pursuit.
As a homegirl, I can “get” the former complaint, that women—particularly women involved in the incestuous f*ckfest of academia—often navigate the very ambiguous territory of dating within the profession and have to brace ourselves for rejection. But my feminism takes issue with the latter—the notion that our feminist identities and intellectual depth have somehow muted our sexual desirability to men, and, perhaps more disturbingly, that men’s unreciprocated sexual interest while maintaining intellectual interest is somehow “using” us.
Such a take on feminist ‘dating’ has me doing something I have never actually done before: defending men. While I do understand the hurt feelings that come naturally with any unidirectional romantic interest, I just can’t help but think that men are damned if they do, damned if they don’t on this one. While there is a valid point to how our political presentations of ourselves make us more or less desirable to potential partners (i.e. nothing makes me lose my erection faster than a man with pronounced homophobia issues) I refuse to think that in the history of heterosexuality a man has ever said to himself “I would totally bag dat if she wasn’t so SMART!”
What black women feminists and non-feminists alike more often encounter with our male colleagues is unwanted sexual advances that place us frequently in positions of disempowerment and compelled feelings to play nice and take it lest we get labeled man-haters. What happens more frequently is the harassment of our lesbian sisters for violating the heterosexual contract and being unavailable to male pursuit. What we regularly encounter are men who fake feminism for the aims of lowering our guard against them (and hopefully, our pants). And yes, what we unfortunately still face is the humiliating real life old school Anita-Hill-Pubic-Hairs-on-a-Coke-Can style sexual harassment in the workplace. It is politically irresponsible to bemoan straight men keeping it above the belt without taking account of the hurtful and devastating consequences that their sexual entitlement has caused black women.This is real exploitation. A man not giving up the penis after intense scholarly debate is not.
Feminism has gifted me the quite pleasurable experience of being able to date smart, kind, and thoughtful men (even within academia!) and enjoy them sexually and intellectually. But the sexy part? That was all me. I choose and navigate my sexy inasmuch as I am conscious that it still plays to conventional male heterosexual desire. I won’t give feminism credit for my desirability outside of a brief shout-out for allowing me to feel more in control of my sexual power. But I most certainly won’t have it blamed by my sisters for stifling theirs. To claim that feminism somehow negates our allure to men smacks in the face of the daily exploitation that even feminists face because of our sexual desirability.