{"id":10454,"date":"2010-07-11T08:16:13","date_gmt":"2010-07-11T15:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10454"},"modified":"2010-07-11T08:16:13","modified_gmt":"2010-07-11T15:16:13","slug":"who-would-you-rather-learn-about-sex-from-a-feminist-critic-or-a-feminist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=10454","title":{"rendered":"Who would you rather learn about sex from, a feminist critic or a feminist?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Note: Comments on this post on “Alas”<\/a> are open to self-identified feminists. Comments on this post on “TADA”<\/a> are open to everyone.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Feminist critic Cathy Young, in the comments of her blog, wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I really can\u2019t think of anything that would kill the moment (at least, for a lot of people) more than stopping in the middle of the mating dance for a clear and rational \u201cconsent\u201d discussion. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Feminist and occasional “Alas” guest poster Clarisse Thorn wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Consider the following example: during my last vacation to America, I had an S&M encounter with a dude I\u2019ll refer to as Klark. (It\u2019s not my fault. He requested the pseudonym.) At one point, Klark was experimenting with hurting me, and I had my eyes closed and was whimpering \/ crying out in a totally glorious way. (The poor overnight desk clerk. He was only one short flight of stairs away from us.) I think Klark was legitimately having trouble detecting whether I was enjoying myself, though \u2014 understandably, because we had only just met, and I enjoy sinking myself into dramatic masochistic misery \u2014 so he leaned over me and said, in a low dark voice, \u201cRed, yellow, green.\u201d Immediately, I gasped back \u201cGreen\u201d. Because he spoke in a gritty and dominant voice, and the check-in was quick, we were able to maintain the mood \u2014 and it was actually kind of hot in itself. […]<\/p>\n

If you aren\u2019t sure how to read your partner\u2019s reactions and you suspect ze may be uncomfortable with what you are doing, then you might consider checking in even if ze hasn\u2019t safeworded, because your suspicion may be right<\/strong>. […]<\/p>\n

So anyway, the biggest moral of the story with safewords and check-ins is that consent does not only happen once. Consent is always happening, and can always be renegotiated or withdrawn. Adapting my understanding of sexuality to reflect this \u2014 even in my non-BDSM sex \u2014 might have been the best thing that ever happened to my sex life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Clarisse’s example comes from BDSM, but her point is that the principles she’s learned in BDSM — including how to good communication helps <\/em>keep sex hot — are applicable to all kinds of sex, including “vanilla” sex.<\/p>\n

Okay, now let’s imagine that Alas University offers two sex-ed classes for first-year students. Class “A” teaches how to have sex based on Cathy’s principle — checking for consent during sex kills the moment. Class “B” teaches based on Clarisse’s principle — checking for consent helps keep sex hot. Randomly assign 50% of students to class “A,” and 50% to class “B.” Check back in a year and survey the students and their sexual partners. ((It’s possible that at some point, the University’s committee on the ethical treatment of human subjects will object to your planned study. The solution to this is to have everyone on the committee shot.))<\/p>\n

I’d bet a lot of money that the folks in class “B” — and their partners<\/em> — wind up having hotter, better sex lives.<\/p>\n

There’s a myth that communicating about sex ruins sex; and that by emphasizing consent, feminists are in effect opposed to hot sex. I don’t think either myth is true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Note: Comments on this post on “Alas” are open to self-identified feminists. Comments on this post on “TADA” are open to everyone.) Feminist critic Cathy Young, in the comments of her blog, wrote: I really can\u2019t think of anything that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,31,134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crossposted-on-tada","category-feminism-sexism-etc","category-sex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}