Femenist Theory

James Laing #260475144 TA- Coughlin Feminist Theory One particular site of gender oppression that has been consistently identified among feminist scholars is that of patriarchal sexuality and sexual intercourse. Female sexuality is a persistent topic among feminists as a site of oppression due to influencing factors such as the strength and determination of males to make sexuality and intercourse a masculine domain. In order to remove the painful stigma attached to female sexuality and the act of intercourse, it is necessary to explore solutions as presented by feminist theorists writing on the specific topic of the oppression of female sexuality. This note will accomplish three separate goals: first, it will be necessary to identify and analyze sexuality and sexual intercourse as a site of gender oppression; second, it will identify a realistic solution for lessening the oppression associated with female sexuality and intercourse as explained by Gayle Rubin; third, the research note will consider and rebut the possibility of objections to the aforementioned solution, as explored by Luce Irigaray. Ultimately, it will be confirmed that the solution to revising the site of gender oppression of patriarchal sexuality and intercourse lies with a change in the theories and ideology surrounding basic human sexuality. In order to identify the important aspects of sexuality and intercourse as a site of gender oppression, taking a closer look at the work of prominent feminist theorists will be necessary. One reading by Marilyn Frye almost perfectly describes the precarious position of women in America, whether they are sexually active or not:
It is common in the United States that women, especially younger women, are in a bind where neither sexual activity nor sexual inactivity is all right. If she is heterosexually active, a woman is open to censure and punishment for being loose, unprincipled or a whore…On the other hand, if she refrains from heterosexual activity, she is fairly constantly harassed by men who try to persuade her into it and pressure her into it and pressure her to “relax” and “let her hair down”; she is threatened with labels like “frigid,” “uptight,” “man-hater,” “bitch,” and “cocktease.” (Frye)

Young American women are reproached both for their sexuality and their non-sexuality, leading to a paradox that must be solved in a refinement of societal expectation. Gayle Rubin, in her “Thinking Sex,” writes of several measures that keep women in precarious positions due to their natural sexuality. Rubin opens her piece with a parable describing one doctor’s solution to “onanism,” or masturbation, in young girls: “he had succeeded in curing young girls affected by the vice of onanism by burning the clitoris with a hot iron” (Rubin, 143). Such cruelty concerning female sexuality is historically embedded in our society. Rubin recognizes that in unstable times, “sexuality should be treated with special respect” (143). In our times, sexuality is something still treated like a disease – a nearly unspeakable subject for many, and a fearsome thing for many young women who are caught in the patriarchal cycle. According to Rubin, the cultural stigma surrounding female sexuality stems from a simple idea: “sex is presumed guilty until proven innocent” (150). Sex negativity pervades society, making sexuality and the act of sex still looked down upon by many factions of society. Any woman who may enjoy her sexuality or the act of intercourse is still subject to being labeled a “whore”. Rubin goes on to criticize the “limits of feminism” in the discourse on sexuality. There are dangers in feminist anti-porn activity and its polar opposite, sexual liberalization. A single ideology concerning female sexuality must be born from such chaos. The most promising solution proposed by Rubin to revise the manner in which women are repressed in a patriarchal sexuality is her assertion that a new “radical theory of sex” must be developed. Until attitudes concerning sexuality and sexual intercourse change, women will continue to be the victims of a male-dominated sexual structure. Rubin insists that sexual politics may be thought of in terms of “populations, neighbourhoods, settlement patterns, migration, urban conflict, epidemiology…these are more fruitful categories of thought than the more traditional ones of sin, disease, neurosis, pathology, decadence, pollution, or the fall of empires” (Rubin, 149). Essentially, it is the ideology of sex that must undergo changes. The gendered oppression of women who are frowned upon for enjoying, or in many cultures, even having sex, is persistent even in the developed world. Attitudes and beliefs concerning sex are the last frontier in correcting such injustices.
After taking a closer look at the work of Gayle Rubin, one may be interested in learning how the thoughts of another theorist may be applied as a rebuttal to the solution of a repressed female sexuality. We will look to Luce Irigaray’s work to provide the basis of the rebuttal to Ms. Rubin’s proposed solutions. Luce Irigaray, in her 1977 essay “The Sex Which is Not One,” argues that women are in a constant cycle of sexual repression due to the construction of their genitals and reproductive organs. Due to the physiological structure of the clitoris and vulva, “women’s erogenous zones never amount to anything but a clitoris-sex that is not comparable to the noble phallic organ, or a hole-envelope that serves to sheathe and massage the penis in intercourse” (Irigaray, 363). The resulting “autoeroticism” that occurs when a woman’s genitals consistently rub against each other is only “disrupted by a violent break-in: the brutal separation of the two lips by a violating penis, and intrusion that distracts and deflects the woman from this “self-caressing” (Irigaray, 364). Irigaray’s argument becomes problematic when she calls for women to undertake an extensive series of actions in order to counteract the effects of patriarchal sexuality. In order to escape what Irigray deems “phallocratism,” a word designed to describe the male-centered society in which women reside, women must escape repressive male sexuality in several steps:
To keep themselves apart from men long enough to learn to defend their desire, especially through speech, to discover the love of other women while sheltered from men’s imperious choices that put them in the position of rival commodities, to forge for themselves a social status that compels recognition, to earn their living in order to escape from the condition of the prostitute…these are certainly indispensable stages in the escape from their proletarization on the exchange market (368-369)

Irigaray is urging women to act in ways that certainly many of them would not consider. Irigraray’s intentions, though admirable, are not simplified enough in a way to provoke the average woman to action. Her urge reads like a political manifesto designed for the active feminist. Many women may also live under “the condition of the prostitute” due to financial dependence on a male partner. Irigaray’s solutions lack the proper technical means to eradicate the sexual oppression of women. Until a change takes place within the societal system, where women learn their sexual behaviors, women will continue to be sexually indebted to men. Rubin would indeed mock Irigaray for her idealistic vision for women. Irigaray’s vision is nearly an impossibility without the implementation of Rubin’s proposal. As a continual site of gender oppression, sexuality and sexual intercourse are contingent upon the wants and desires of males. Women often become marginalized when considering sex. It may be argued that in order to transform the oppression experienced by women in sexuality, that the ideology surrounding sex must transform. Indeed, it is not until sexuality becomes less of a taboo in our culture that any sort of oppression surrounding such an issue may be eradicated. Sex positivism is the only hope for there to one day exist a generation of women untouched by the fatal hand of man’s touch.

Works Cited
Frye, Marilyn. “Opression.” The Politics of Reality. (Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press, 1983).
Irigaray, Luce. “The Sex Which is Not One.” New French Feminisms. (New York: 1981).
Rubin, Gayle. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. (New York: Routledge, 1994).

Cited: Frye, Marilyn. “Opression.” The Politics of Reality. (Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press, 1983). Irigaray, Luce. “The Sex Which is Not One.” New French Feminisms. (New York: 1981). Rubin, Gayle. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. (New York: Routledge, 1994).