204 Chapter 4 / Sexualities

the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the 34. Donna Bassin, “Woman’s Images of Inner Space:
Theory of Emotional Development (New York: Data towards Expanded Interpretive Catego-
International Universities Press, 1965). Elsa First ries,” International Review of Psycho-analysis 9
provided a very helpful account of the signifi- (1982):200.
cance of this text in her paper at the New York 35. Carol Gilligan, “The Psychology of Love,” Semi-
Freudian Society, March 1985. nar on Sex and Consumerism, New York Institute
32. Erik Erikson, “Womanhood and the Inner for the Humanities, March 1985.
Space,” in Identity, Youth, and Crisis (New York: 36. This idea has been developed by Emmanuel
W. W. Norton, 1968), pp. 261–94. Ghent in “Masochism, Submission, Surrender,”
33. D. W. Winnicott, “Creativity and Its Origins,” in Colloquium, New York University Postdoctoral
his Playing and Reality, p. 97. Psychology Program, December 1983.

SEXUALITY use and abuse by men;3 if the pervasiveness of

male sexual violence against women substanti-
Catherine A. Mackinnon ated in these studies is not denied, minimized, or
excepted as deviant or episodic;4 if the fact that
What is it about women’s experience that pro- only 7.8 percent of women in the United States
duces a distinctive perspective on social reality? are not sexually assaulted or harassed in their
How is an angle of vision and an interpretive lifetime is considered not ignorable or inconse-
hermeneutics of social life created in the group, quential;5 if the women to whom it happens are
women? What happens to women to give them a not considered expendable; if violation of women
particular interest in social arrangements, some- is understood as sexualized on some level—then
thing to have a consciousness of? How are the sexuality itself can no longer be regarded as un-
qualities we know as male and female socially implicated. Nor can the meaning of practices of
created and enforced on an everyday level? Sex- sexual violence be categorized away as violence
ual objectification of women—first in the world, not sex. The male sexual role, this information
then in the head, first in visual appropriation, and analysis taken together suggest, centers on
then in forced sex, finally in sexual murder1— aggressive intrusion on those with less power.
provides answers. Such acts of dominance are experienced as sexu-
Male dominance is sexual. Meaning: men in ally arousing, as sex itself.6 They therefore are.
particular, if not men alone, sexualize hierarchy; The new knowledge on the sexual violation of
gender is one. As much as a sexual theory of gen- women by men thus frames an inquiry into the
der as a gendered theory of sex, this is the theory place of sexuality in gender and of gender in
of sexuality that has grown out of consciousness sexuality.
raising. Recent feminist work, both interpre- A feminist theory of sexuality based on these
tive and empirical, on rape, battery, sexual har- data locates sexuality within a theory of gen-
assment, sexual abuse of children, prostitution der inequality, meaning the social hierarchy of
and pornography, support it.2 These practices, men over women. To make a theory feminist, it
taken together, express and actualize the distinc- is not enough that it be authored by a biological
tive power of men over women in society; their female, nor that it describe female sexuality as
effective permissibility confirms and extends different from (if equal to) male sexuality, or as
it. If one believes women’s accounts of sexual if sexuality in women ineluctably exists in some
 Chapter 4 / Sexualities 205

realm beyond, beneath, above, behind—in any power did not exist in fact, including by valoriz-
event, fundamentally untouched and unmoved ing in writing what women have had little choice
by—an unequal social order. A theory of sexual- but to be limited to becoming in life, is to limit
ity becomes feminist methodologically, meaning feminist theory the way sexism limits women’s
feminist in the post-marxist sense, to the extent lives: to a response to terms men set.
it treats sexuality as a social construct of male A distinctively feminist theory conceptualizes
power: defined by men, forced on women, and social reality, including sexual reality, on its own
constitutive of the meaning of gender. Such an terms. The question is, what are they? If women
approach centers feminism on the perspective of have been substantially deprived not only of
the subordination of women to men as it identi- their own experience but of terms of their own in
fies sex—that is, the sexuality of dominance and which to view it, then a feminist theory of sexu-
submission—as crucial, as a fundamental, as on ality which seeks to understand women’s situa-
some level definitive, in that process. Feminist tion in order to change it must first identify and
theory becomes a project of analyzing that situ- criticize the construct “sexuality” as a construct
ation in order to face it for what it is, in order to that has circumscribed and defined experience as
change it. well as theory. This requires capturing it in the
Focusing on gender inequality without a sex- world, in its situated social meanings, as it is be-
ual account of its dynamics, as most work has, ing constructed in life on a daily basis. It must
one could criticize the sexism of existing theories be studied in its experienced empirical existence,
of sexuality and emerge knowing that men author not just in the texts of history (as Foucault does),
scripts to their own advantage, women and men in the social psyche (as Lacan does), or in lan-
act them out; that men set conditions, women guage (as Derrida does). Sexual meaning is not
and men have their behavior conditioned; that made only, or even primarily, by words and in
men develop developmental categories through texts. It is made in social relations of power in
which men develop, and women develop or not; the world, through which process gender is also
that men are socially allowed selves hence identi- produced. In feminist terms, the fact that male
ties with personalities into which sexuality is or power has power means that the interests of male
is not well integrated, women being that which sexuality construct what sexuality as such means,
is or is not integrated, that through the alterity including the standard way it is allowed and rec-
of which a self experiences itself as having an ognized to be felt and expressed and experienced,
identity; that men have object relations, women in a way that determines women’s biographies,
are the objects of those relations; and so on. Fol- including sexual ones. Existing theories, until
lowing such critique, one could attempt to invert they grasp this, will not only misattribute what
or correct the premises or applications of these they call female sexuality to women as such, as
theories to make them gender neutral, even if if it were not imposed on women daily; they will
the reality to which they refer looks more like also participate in enforcing the hegemony of
the theories—once their gender specificity is the social construct “desire,” hence its product,
revealed—than it looks gender neutral. Or, one “sexuality,” hence its construct “woman,” on the
could attempt to enshrine a distinctive “women’s world.
reality” as if it really were permitted to exist as The gender issue, in this analysis, becomes
something more than one dimension of women’s the issue of what is taken to be “sexuality”;
response to a condition of powerlessness. Such what sex means and what is meant by sex, when,
exercises would be revealing and instructive, how, with whom, and with what consequences
even deconstructive, but to limit feminism to to whom. Such questions are almost never sys-
correcting sex bias by acting in theory as if male tematically confronted, even in discourses that
206 Chapter 4 / Sexualities

purport feminist awareness. What sex is—how it into the content of sex for women. Being a thing
comes to be attached and attributed to what it is, for sexual use is fundamental to it. This approach
embodied and practiced as it is, contextualized identifies not just a sexuality that is shaped under
in the ways it is, signifying and referring to what conditions of gender inequality but reveals this
it does—is taken as a baseline, a given, except in sexuality itself to be the dynamic of the inequal-
explanations of what happened when it is thought ity of the sexes. It is to argue that the excitement
to have gone wrong. It is as if “erotic,” for exam- at reduction of a person to a thing, to less than
ple, can be taken as having an understood refer- a human being, as socially defined, is its funda-
ent, although it is never defined, except to imply mental motive force. It is to argue that sexual dif-
that it is universal yet individual, ultimately vari- ference is a function of sexual dominance. It is to
able and plastic, essentially indefinable but over- argue a sexual theory of the distribution of social
whelmingly positive. “Desire,” the vicissitudes of power by gender, in which this sexuality that is
which are endlessly extolled and philosophized sexuality is substantially what makes the gender
in culture high and low, is not seen as fundamen- division be what it is, which is male dominant,
tally problematic or as calling for explanation on wherever it is, which is nearly everywhere.
the concrete, interpersonal operative level, un- Across cultures, in this perspective, sexuality
less (again) it is supposed to be there and is not. is whatever a given culture or subculture defines
To list and analyze what seem to be the essen- it as. The next question concerns its relation to
tial elements for male sexual arousal, what has gender as a division of power. Male dominance
to be there for the penis to work, seems faintly appears to exist cross-culturally, if in locally
blasphemous, like a pornographer doing market particular forms. Across cultures, is whatever
research. Sex is supposed both too individual and defines women as “different” the same as what-
too universally transcendent for that. To suggest ever defines women as “inferior” the same as
that the sexual might be continuous with some- whatever defines women’s “sexuality”? Is that
thing other than sex itself—something like poli- which defines gender inequality as merely the
tics—is seldom done, is treated as detumescent, sex difference also the content of the erotic,
even by feminists. It is as if sexuality comes from cross-culturally? In this view, the feminist theory
the stork. of sexuality is its theory of politics, its distinc-
Sexuality, in feminist light, is not a discrete tive contribution to social and political explana-
sphere of interaction or feeling or sensation or tion. To explain gender inequality in terms of
behavior in which preexisting social divisions “sexual politics”7 is to advance not only a politi-
may or may not be played out. It is a pervasive cal theory of the sexual that defines gender but
dimension of social life, one that permeates the also a sexual theory of the political to which
whole, a dimension along which gender occurs gender is fundamental.
and through which gender is socially constituted; In this approach, male power takes the social
it is a dimension along which other social divi- form of what men as a gender want sexually,
sions, like race and class, partly play themselves which centers on power itself, as socially de-
out. Dominance eroticized defines the impera- fined. In capitalist countries, it includes wealth.
tives of its masculinity, submission eroticized de- Masculinity is having it; femininity is not having
fines its femininity. So many distinctive features it. [Masculinity precedes male as femininity
of women’s status as second class—the restric- precedes female, and male sexual desire defines
tion and constraint and contortion, the servility both.] Specifically, “woman” is defined by what
and the display, the self-mutilation and requi- male desire requires for arousal and satisfaction
site presentation of self as a beautiful thing, the and is socially tautologous with “female sexu-
enforced passivity, the humiliation—are made ality” and “the female sex.” In the permissible
 Chapter 4 / Sexualities 207

ways a woman can be treated, the ways that are the expression of something that is to a signifi-
socially considered not violations but appropri- cant extent pre-social and is socially denied its
ate to her nature, one finds the particulars of full force. Sexuality remains largely pre-cultural
male sexual interests and requirements. [In the and universally invariant, social only in that it
concomitant sexual paradigm, the ruling norms needs society to take socially specific forms. The
of sexual attraction and expression are fused impetus itself is a hunger, an appetite founded on
with gender identity formation and affirmation, a need; what it is specifically hungry for and how
such that sexuality equals heterosexuality equals it is satisfied is then open to endless cultural and
the sexuality of (male) dominance and (female) individual variance, like cuisine, like cooking.
submission.] Allowed/not allowed is this sexuality’s basic
Post-Lacan, actually post-Foucault, it has be- ideological axis. The fact that sexuality is ideo-
come customary to affirm that sexuality is so- logically bounded is known. That these are its
cially constructed.8 Seldom specified is what, axes, central to the way its “drive” is driven, and
socially, it is constructed of, far less who does that this is fundamental to gender and gender is
the constructing or how, when, or where.9 When fundamental to it, is not.12 Its basic normative as-
capitalism is the favored social construct, sexu- sumption is that whatever is considered sexuality
ality is shaped and controlled and exploited and should be allowed to be “expressed.” Whatever
repressed by capitalism; not, capitalism creates is called sex is attributed a normatively positive
sexuality as we know it. When sexuality is a con- valence, an affirmative valuation. This ex cathe-
struct of discourses of power, gender is never one dra assumption, affirmation of which appears
of them; force is central to its deployment but indispensable to one’s credibility on any subject
through repressing it, not through constituting it; that gets near the sexual, means that sex as such
speech is not concretely investigated for its par- (whatever it is) is good—natural, healthy, posi-
ticipation in this construction process. Power is tive, appropriate, pleasurable, wholesome, fine,
everywhere therefore nowhere, diffuse rather one’s own, and to be approved and expressed.
than pervasively hegemonic. “Constructed” seems This, sometimes characterized as “sex-positive,”
to mean influenced by, directed, channeled, as is, rather obviously, a value judgment.
a highway constructs traffic patterns. Not: Why Kinsey and his followers, for example, clearly
cars? Who’s driving? Where’s everybody going? thought (and think) the more sex the better.
What makes mobility matter? Who can own a Accordingly, they trivialize even most of those
car? Are all these accidents not very acciden- cases of rape and child sexual abuse they discern
tal? Although there are partial exceptions (but as such, decry women’s sexual refusal as sexual
disclaimers notwithstanding) the typical model inhibition, and repeatedly interpret women’s sex-
of sexuality which is tacitly accepted remains ual disinclination as “restrictions” on men’s natu-
deeply Freudian10 and essentialist: sexuality is ral sexual activity, which left alone would emulate
an innate sui genetis primary natural prepoliti- (some) animals.13 Followers of the neo-Freudian
cal unconditioned11 drive divided along the derepression imperative have similarly identified
biological gender line, centering on heterosexual the frontier of sexual freedom with transgres-
intercourse, that is, penile intromission, full ac- sion of social restraints on access, with making
tualization of which is repressed by civilization. the sexually disallowed allowed, especially male
Even if the sublimation aspect of this theory is sexual access to anything. The struggle to have
rejected, or the reasons for the repression are everything sexual allowed in a society we are
seen to vary (for the survival of civilization or told would collapse if it were, creates a sense of
to maintain fascist control or to keep capitalism resistance to, and an aura of danger around, vio-
moving), sexual expression is implicitly seen as lating the powerless. If we knew the boundaries
208 Chapter 4 / Sexualities

were phony, existed only to eroticize the targeted following comment by a scholar of violence
transgressable, would penetrating them feel less against women:
sexy? Taboo and crime may serve to eroticize If women were to escape the culturally stereotyped
what would otherwise feel about as much like role of disinterest in and resistance to sex and to take
dominance as taking candy from a baby. Assimi- on an assertive role in expressing their own sexual-
lating actual powerlessness to male prohibition, ity, rather than leaving it to the assertiveness of men,
to male power, provides the appearance of resist- it would contribute to the reduction of rape . . . First,
and most obviously, voluntary sex would be avail-
ance, which makes overcoming possible, while
able to more men, thus reducing the “need” for rape.
never undermining the reality of power, or its Second, and probably more important, it would help
dignity, by giving the powerless actual power. The to reduce the confounding of sex and aggression.15
point is, allowed/not allowed becomes the ideo-
logical axis along which sexuality is experienced In this view, somebody must be assertive for sex
when and because sex—gender and sexuality—is to happen. Voluntary sex—sexual equality—means
about power. equal sexual aggression. If women freely expressed
One version of the derepression hypothesis “their own sexuality,” more heterosexual inter-
that purports feminism is: civilization having course would be initiated. Women’s “resistance”
been male dominated, female sexuality has been to sex is an imposed cultural stereotype, not a
repressed, not allowed. Sexuality as such still form of political struggle. Rape is occasioned by
centers on what would otherwise be considered women’s resistance, not by men’s force; or, male
force, hence rape, is created by women’s resist-
the reproductive act, on intercourse: penetration
ance to sex. Men would rape less if they got more
of the erect penis into the vagina (or appropriate
voluntarily compliant sex from women. Corollary:
substitute orifices), followed by thrusting to male
the force in rape is not sexual to men.
ejaculation. If reproduction actually had anything
Underlying this quotation lurks the view, as
to do with what sex was for, it would not happen
common as it is tacit, that if women would just
every night (or even twice a week) for forty or
accept the contact men now have to rape to get—
fifty years, nor would prostitutes exist. “We had if women would stop resisting or (in one of the
sex three times” typically means the man entered pornographers’ favorite scenarios) become sex-
the woman three times and orgasmed three times. ual aggressors—rape would wither away. On one
Female sexuality in this model refers to the pres- level, this is a definitionally obvious truth. When
ence of this theory’s “sexuality,” or the desire to a woman accepts what would be rape if she did
be so treated, in biological females; “female” is not accept it, what happens is sex. If women were
somewhere between an adjective and a noun, half to accept forced sex as sex, “voluntary sex would
possessive and half biological ascription. Sexual be available to more men.” If such a view is not
freedom means women are allowed to behave as implicit in this text, it is a mystery how women
freely as men to express this sexuality, to have equally aggressing against men sexually would
it allowed, that is (hopefully) shamelessly and eliminate, rather than double, the confounding
without social constraints to initiate genital drive of sex and aggression. Without such an assump-
satisfaction through heterosexual intercourse.14 tion, only the confounding of sexual aggression
Hence, the liberated woman. Hence, the sexual with gender would be eliminated. If women no
revolution. longer resisted male sexual aggression, the con-
The pervasiveness of such assumptions founding of sex with aggression would, indeed,
about sexuality throughout otherwise diverse be so epistemologically complete that it would be
methodological traditions is suggested by the eliminated. No woman would ever be sexuality
 Chapter 4 / Sexualities 209

violated, because sexual violation would be sex. “expression” as it is men’s. As if violation and
The situation might resemble the one evoked by a abuse are not equally central to sexuality as
society categorized as “rape-free” in part because women live it.
the men assert there is no rape there: “our women The Diary of the Barnard conference on sexual-
never resist.”16 Such pacification also occurs in ity pervasively equates sexuality with “pleasure.”
“rape-prone” societies like the United States, “Perhaps the overall question we need to ask is:
where some force may be perceived as force, but how do women . . . negotiate sexual pleasure?”21
only above certain threshold standards. As if women under male supremacy have power
While intending the opposite, some feminists to. As if “negotiation” is a form of freedom. As if
have encouraged and participated in this type pleasure and how to get it, rather than dominance
of analysis by conceiving rape as violence, not and how to end it, is the “overall” issue sexuality
sex.17 While this approach gave needed emphasis presents feminism. As if women do just need a
to rape’s previously effaced elements of power good fuck. In these texts, taboos are treated as
and dominance, it obscured its elements of sex. real restrictions—as things that really are not al-
Aside from failing to answer the rather obvious lowed—instead of as guises under which hier-
question, if it is violence not sex, why didn’t he archy is eroticized. The domain of the sexual is
just hit her? this approach made it impossible divided into “restriction, repression, and danger”
to see that violence is sex when it is practiced on the one hand and “exploration, pleasure, and
as sex.18 This is obvious once what sexuality is, agency” on the other.22 This division parallels
is understood as a matter of what it means and the ideological forms through which dominance
how it is interpreted. To say rape is violence not and submission are eroticized, variously socially
sex preserves the “sex is good” norm by simply coded as heterosexuality’s male/female, lesbian
distinguishing forced sex as “not sex,” whether culture’s butch/femme, and sadomasochism’s
it means sex to the perpetrator or even, later, to top/bottom.23 Speaking in role terms, the one
the victim, who has difficulty experiencing sex who pleasures in the illusion of freedom and se-
without reexperiencing the rape. Whatever is sex curity within the reality of danger is the “girl”;
cannot be violent; whatever is violent cannot be the one who pleasures in the reality of freedom
sex. This analytic wish-fulfillment makes it pos- and security within the illusion of danger is the
sible for rape to be opposed by those who would “boy”. That is, the Diary uncritically adopts as an
save sexuality from the rapists while leaving the analytic tool the central dynamic of the phenom-
sexual fundamentals of male dominance intact. enon it purports to be analyzing. Presumably, one
While much previous work on rape has ana- is to have a sexual experience of the text.
lyzed it as a problem of inequality between the The terms of these discourses preclude or
sexes but not as a problem of unequal sexuality evade crucial feminist questions. What do sexu-
on the basis of gender,19 other contemporary ex- ality and gender inequality have to do with each
plorations of sexuality that purport to be feminist other? How do dominance and submission be-
lack comprehension either of gender as a form of come sexualized, or, why is hierarchy sexy? How
social power or of the realities of sexual violence. does it get attached to male and female? Why
For instance, the editors of Powers of Desire take does sexuality center on intercourse, the repro-
sex “as a central form of expression, one that de- ductive act by physical design? Is masculinity the
fines identity and is seen as a primary source of enjoyment of violation, femininity the enjoyment
energy and pleasure.”20 This may be how it “is of being violated? Is that the social meaning of
seen,” but it is also how the editors, operatively, intercourse? Do “men love death”?24 Why? What
see it. As if women choose sexuality as definitive is the etiology of heterosexuality in women? Is
of identity. As if it is as much a form of women’s its pleasure women’s stake in subordination?
210 Chapter 4 / Sexualities

Taken together and taken seriously, feminist constant creation of person/thing, top/bottom,
inquiries into the realities of rape, battery, sexual dominance/subordination relations, does. What
harassment, incest, child sexual abuse, prostitu- is understood as violation, conventionally pen-
tion, and pornography answer these questions etration and intercourse, defines the paradig-
by suggesting a theory of the sexual mechanism. matic sexual encounter. The scenario of sexual
Its script, learning, conditioning, developmental abuse is: you do what I say. These textualities
logos, imprinting of the microdot, its deus ex and these relations, situated within as well as
machina, whatever sexual process term defines creating a context of power in which they can
sexual arousal itself, is force, power’s expres- be lived out, become sexuality. All this suggests
sion. Force is sex, not just sexualized; force is that what is called sexuality is the dynamic of
the desire dynamic, not just a response to the control by which male dominance—in forms that
desired object when desire’s expression is frus- range from intimate to institutional, from a look
trated. Pressure, gender socialization, withhold- to a rape—eroticizes and thus defines man and
ing benefits, extending indulgences, the how-to woman, gender identity and sexual pleasure. It
books, the sex therapy are the soft end; the fuck, is also that which maintains and defines male su-
the fist, the street, the chains, the poverty are the premacy as a political system. Male sexual desire
hard end. Hostility and contempt, or arousal of is thereby simultaneously created and serviced,
master to slave, together with awe and vulner- never satisfied once and for all, while male force
ability, or arousal of slave to master—these are is romanticized, even sacralized, potentiated and
the emotions of this sexuality’s excitement. naturalized, by being submerged into sex itself.
“Sadomasochism is to sex what war is to civil In contemporary philosophical terms, nothing
life: the magnificent experience,” wrote Susan is “indeterminate” in the post-structuralist sense
Sontag.25 “[I]t is hostility—the desire, overt or here; it is all too determinate.28 Nor does its real-
hidden, to harm another person—that generates ity provide just one perspective on a relativistic in-
and enhances sexual excitement,” wrote Robert terpersonal world that could mean anything or its
Stoller.26 Harriet Jacobs a slave, speaking of her opposite.29 The reality of pervasive sexual abuse
systematic rape by her master, wrote, “It seems and its erotization does not shift relative to per-
less demeaning to give one’s self, than to submit spective, although whether or not one will see it
to compulsion.”27 It is clear from the data that the or accord it significance may. Interpretation varies
force in sex and the sex in force is a matter of relative to place in sexual abuse, certainly; but the
simple empirical description—unless one accepts fact that women are sexually abused as women,
that force in sex is not force anymore, it is just located in a social matrix of sexualized subordi-
sex; or, if whenever a woman is forced it is what nation, does not go away because it is often ig-
she really wants, or it or she does not matter; or, nored or authoritatively disbelieved or interpreted
unless prior aversion or sentimentality substitutes out of existence. Indeed, some ideological sup-
what one wants sex to be, or will condone or coun- ports for its persistence rely precisely upon tech-
tenance as sex, for what is actually happening. niques of social indeterminancy: no language but
To be clear: what is sexual is what gives a man the obscene to describe the unspeakable, denial
an erection. Whatever it takes to make a penis by the powerful casting doubt on the facticity of
shudder and stiffen with the experience of its po- the injuries, actually driving its victims insane. In-
tency is what sexuality means culturally. Whatever determinacy, in this light, is a neo-Cartesian mind
else does this, fear does, hostility does, hatred game that raises acontextualized interpretive pos-
does, the helplessness of a child or a student or sibilities that have no real social meaning or real
an infantilized or restrained or vulnerable woman possibility of any, thus dissolving the ability to
does, revulsion does, death does. Hierarchy, a criticize the oppressiveness of actual meanings
 Chapter 4 / Sexualities 211

without making space for new ones. The feminist women, Jewish women, pregnant women, disa-
point is simple. Men are women’s material condi- bled women, retarded women, poor women, old
tions. If it happens to women, it happens. women, fat women, women in women jobs, pros-
Women often find ways to resist male suprem- titutes, little girls—distinguishes pornographic
acy and to expand their spheres of action. But genres and subthemes classified according to di-
they are never free of it. Women also embrace verse customers’ favorite degradation. Women are
the standards of women’s place in this regime made into and coupled with anything considered
as “our own” to varying degrees and in varying lower than human: animals, objects, children,
voices—as affirmation of identity and right to and (yes) other women. Anything women have
pleasure, in order to be loved and approved and claimed as their own—motherhood, athletics,
paid, in order just to make it through another day. traditional men’s jobs, lesbianism, feminism—is
This, not inert passivity, is the meaning of being made specifically sexy, dangerous, provocative,
a victim.30 The term is not moral: who is to blame punished, made men’s in pornography.
or to be pitied or condemned or held responsible. Pornography is a means through which sexual-
It is not prescriptive: what we should do next. It ity is socially constructed, a site of construction,
is not strategic: how to construe the situation so a domain of exercise. It constructs women as
it can be changed. It is not emotional: what one things for sexual use and constructs its consumers
feels better thinking. It is descriptive: who does to desperately want women, to desperately want
what to whom and gets away with it. possession and cruelty and dehumanization. In-
Thus the question Freud never asked is the equality itself, subjection itself, hierarchy itself,
question that defines sexuality in a feminist objectification itself, with self-determination ec-
perspective: what do men want? Pornography statically relinquished, is the apparent consent
provides an answer. Pornography permits men of women’s sexual desire and desirability. “The
to have whatever they want sexually. It is their major theme of pornography as a genre,” writes
“truth about sex.” 31 It connects the centrality of Andrea Dworkin, “is male power.”32 Women are
visual objectification to both male sexual arousal, in pornography to be violated and taken, men
and male models of knowledge and verification, to violate and take them, either on screen or by
objectivity with objectification. It shows how camera or pen, on behalf of the viewer. Not that
men see the world, how in seeing it they access sexuality in life or in media never expresses love
and possess it, and how this is an act of domi- and affection; only that love and affection are not
nance over it. It shows what men want and gives what is sexualized in this society’s actual sexual
it to them. From the testimony of the pornogra- paradigm, as pornography testifies to it. Viola-
phy, what men want is: women bound, women tion of the powerless, intrusion on women, is. The
battered, women tortured, women humiliated, milder forms, possession and use, the mildest of
women degraded and defiled, women killed. which is visual objectification, are. This sexual-
Or, to be fair to the soft core, women sexually ity of observation, visual intrusion and access,
accessible, have-able, there for them, wanting of entertainment, makes sex largely a spectator
to be taken and used, with perhaps just a little sport for its participants.
light bondage. Each violation of women—rape, If pornography has not become sex to and from
battery, prostitution, child sexual abuse, sexual the male point of view, it is hard to explain why
harassment—is made sexuality, made sexy, fun, the pornography industry makes a known ten bil-
and liberating of women’s true nature in the lion dollars a year selling it as sex mostly to men;
pornography. Each specifically victimized and why it is used to teach sex to child prostitutes, to
vulnerable group of women, each tabooed tar- recalcitrant wives and girlfriends and daughters,
get group—Black women, Asian women, Latin to medical students, and to sex offenders; why it
212 Chapter 4 / Sexualities

is nearly universally classified as a subdivision crucial but can be done with anything; penis is
of “erotic literature”; why it is protected and de- crucial but not necessarily in the vagina. Actual
fended as if it were sex itself.33 And why a promi- pregnancy is a minor subgenetic theme, about
nent sexologist fears that enforcing the views of as important in pornography as reproduction is
feminists against pornography in society would in rape. Thematically, intercourse is incidental
make men “erotically inert wimps.”34 No pornog- in pornography, especially when compared with
raphy, no male sexuality. force, which is primary. From pornography one
A feminist critique of sexuality in this sense learns that forcible violation of women is the es-
is advanced in Andrea Dworkin’s Pornography: sence of sex. Whatever is that and does that is
Men Possessing Women. Building on her earlier sex. Everything else is secondary. Perhaps the
identification of gender inequality as a system reproductive act is considered sexual because it
of social meaning,35 an ideology lacking basis in is considered an act of forcible violation and de-
anything other than the social reality its power filement of the female distinctively as such, not
constructs and maintains, she argues that sexual- because it “is” sex a priori.
ity is a construct of that power, given meaning To be sexually objectified means having a so-
by, through, and in pornography. In this perspec- cial meaning imposed on your being that defines
tive, pornography is not harmless fantasy or a you as to be sexually used, according to your de-
corrupt and confused misrepresentation of other- sired uses, and then using you that way. Doing
wise natural healthy sex, nor is it fundamentally this is sex in the male system. Pornography is a
a distortion, reflection, projection, expression, sexual practice of this because it exists in a social
representation, fantasy, or symbol of it. Through system in which sex in life is no less mediated
pornography, among other practices, gender in- than it is in representation. There is no irreduc-
equality becomes both sexual and socially real. ible essence, no “just sex.” If sex is a social con-
Pornography “reveals that male pleasure is inex- struct of sexism, men have sex with their image
tricably tied to victimizing, hurting, exploiting.” of a woman. Pornography creates an accessible
“Dominance in the male system is pleasure.” Rape sexual object, the possession and consumption
is “the defining paradigm of sexuality,” to avoid of which is male sexuality, to be possessed and
which boys choose manhood and homophobia.36 consumed as which is female sexuality. This is
Women, who are not given a choice, are ob- not because pornography depicts objectified sex,
jectified; or, rather, “the object is allowed to de- but because it creates the experience of a sexual-
sire, if she desires to be an object.”37 Psychology ity which is itself objectified. The appearance of
sets the proper bounds of this objectification by choice or consent, with their attribution to inher-
terming its improper excesses “fetishism,” dis- ent nature, is crucial in concealing the reality of
tinguishing the uses from the abuses of women.38 force. Love of violation, variously termed female
Dworkin shows how the process and content of masochism and consent, comes to define female
women’s definition as women, as an under-class, sexuality,40 legitimating this political system by
are the process and content of their sexualization concealing the force on which it is based.
as objects for male sexual use. The mechanism In this system, a victim, usually female,
is (again) force, imbued with meaning because it always feminized, is “never forced, only actual-
is the means to death;39 and death is the ultimate ized.” 41 Women whose attributes particularly fix-
sexual act, the ultimate making of a person into a ate men—such as women with large breasts—
thing. are seen as full of sexual desire. Women men
Why, one wonders at this point, is intercourse want, want men. Women fake vaginal orgasms,
“sex” at all? In pornography, conventional in- the only “mature” sexuality, because men de-
tercourse is one act among many; penetration is mand that women enjoy vaginal penetration.42
 Chapter 4 / Sexualities 213

Raped women are seen as asking for it: if a man be that sexuality is so gender marked that it car-
wanted her, she must have wanted him. Men ries dominance and submission with it, whatever
force women to become sexual objects, “that the gender of its participants.
thing which causes erection, then hold them- Each structural requirement of this sexuality
selves helpless and powerless when aroused by as revealed in pornography is professed in re-
her.43 Men who sexually harass say women sexu- cent defenses of sadomasochism, described by
ally harass them. They mean they are aroused by proponents as that sexuality in which “the basic
women who turn them down. This elaborate pro- dynamic . . . is the power dichotomy.” 47 Exposing
jective system of demand characteristics—taken the prohibitory underpinnings on which this vio-
to pinnacles like fantasizing a clitoris in a wom- lation model of the sexual depends, one advocate
an’s throat44 so that men can enjoy forced fellatio says: “We select the most frightening, disgusting
in real life, assured that women do too—is surely or unacceptable activities and transmute them
a delusional structure deserving of serious psy- into pleasure.” The relational dynamics of sado-
chological study. Instead, it is women who resist masochism do not even negate the paradigm of
it who are studied, seen as in need of explanation male dominance, but conform precisely to it: the
and adjustment, stigmatized as inhibited and re- ecstasy in domination (“I like to hear someone
pressed and asexual. The assumption that in mat- ask for mercy or protection”); the enjoyment of
ters sexual women really want what men want inflicting psychological as well as physical tor-
from women, makes male force against women ture (“I want to see the confusion, the anger,
in sex invisible. It makes rape sex. Women’s sex- the turn-on, the helplessness”); the expression
ual “reluctance, dislike, and frigidity,” women’s of belief in the inferior’s superiority belied by
puritanism and prudery in the face of this sex, is the absolute contempt (“the bottom must be my
“the silent rebellion of women against the force superior . . . playing a bottom who did not de-
of the penis . . . an ineffective rebellion, but a re- mand my respect and admiration would be like
bellion nonetheless.”45 eating rotten fruit”); the degradation and con-
Nor is homosexuality without stake in this sumption of women through sex (“she feeds me
gendered sexual system. Putting to one side the the energy I need to dominate and abuse her”);
obviously gendered content of expressly adopted the health and personal growth rationale (“it’s a
roles, clothing, and sexual mimicry, to the extent healing process”); the anti-puritan radical ther-
the gender of a sexual object is crucial to arousal, apy justification (“I was taught to dread sex . . . It
the structure of social power which stands behind is shocking and profoundly satisfying to commit
and defines gender is hardly irrelevant, even if this piece of rebellion, to take pleasure exactly
it is rearranged. Some have argued that lesbian as I want it, to exact it like tribute”); the bipo-
sexuality—meaning here simply women having lar doublethink in which the top enjoys “sexual
sex with women, not with men—solves the prob- service” while “the will to please is the bottom’s
lem of gender by eliminating men from women’s source of pleasure.” And the same bottom line of
voluntary sexual encounters.46 Yet women’s sex- all top-down sex: “I want to be in control.” The
uality remains constructed under conditions of statements are from a female sadist. The good
male supremacy; women remain socially defined news is, it is not biological.
as women in relation to men; the definition of As pornography connects sexuality with gen-
women as men’s inferiors remains sexual even if der in social reality, the feminist critique of por-
not heterosexual, whether men are present at the nography connects feminist work on violence
time or not. To the extent gay men choose men against women with its inquiry into women’s
because they are men, the meaning of masculin- consciousness and gender roles. It is not only that
ity is affirmed as well as undermined. It may also women are the principal targets of rape, which by
214 Chapter 4 / Sexualities

conservative definition happens to almost half of taken by the single social equation of male with
all women at least once in their lives. It is not dominance and female with submission. Feel-
only that over one-third of all women are sexually ing this as identity, acting it as role, inhabiting
molested by older trusted male family members and presenting it as self, is the domain of gender.
or friends or authority figures as an early, perhaps Enjoying it as the erotic, centering upon when it
initiatory, interpersonal sexual encounter. It is not elicits genital arousal, is the domain of sexuality.
only that at least the same percentage, as adult Inequality is what is sexualized through por-
women, are battered in homes by male intimates. nography; it is what is sexual about it. The more
It is not only that about one-fifth of American unequal, the more sexual. The violence against
women have been or are known to be prostitutes, women in pornography is an expression of gen-
and most cannot get out of it. It is not only that der hierarchy, the extremity of the hierarchy ex-
85 percent of working women will be sexually pressed and created through the extremity of the
harassed on the job, many physically, at some abuse, producing the extremity of the male sexual
point in their working lives.48 All this documents response. Pornography’s multiple variations on
the extent and terrain of abuse and the effectively and departures from the male dominant/female
unrestrained and systematic sexual aggression by submissive sexual/gender theme are not excep-
less than one-half of the population against the tions to these gender regularities. They affirm
other more than half. It suggests that it is basi- them. The capacity of gender reversals (domina-
cally allowed. trixes) and inversions (homosexuality) to stimu-
It does not by itself show that availability for late sexual excitement is derived precisely from
this treatment defines the identity attributed to their mimicry or parody or negation or reversal
that other half of the population; or, that such of the standard arrangement. This affirms rather
treatment, all this torment and debasement, is than undermines or qualifies the standard sexual
socially considered not only rightful but enjoy- arrangement as the standard sexual arrangement,
able, and is in fact enjoyed by the dominant half; the definition of sex, the standard from which all
or, that the ability to engage in such behaviors else is defined, that in which sexuality as such
defines the identity of that half. And not only inheres.
of that half. Now consider the content of gen- Male sexuality is apparently activated by
der roles. All the social requirements for male violence against women and expresses itself in
sexual arousal and satisfaction are identical with violence against women to a significant extent.
the gender definition of “female.” All the essen- If violence is seen as occupying the most fully
tials of the male gender role are also the qualities achieved end of a dehumanization continuum
sexualized as “male” in male dominant sexuality. on which objectification occupies the least ex-
If gender is a social construct, and sexuality is a press end, one question that is raised is whether
social construct, and the question is, of what is some form of hierarchy—the dynamic of the
each constructed, the fact that their contents are continuum—is currently essential for male sexu-
identical—not to mention that the word sex re- ality to experience itself. If so, and if gender is
fers to both—might be more than a coincidence. understood to be a hierarchy, perhaps the sexes
As to gender, what is sexual about pornogra- are unequal so that men can be sexually aroused.
phy is what is unequal about social life. To say To put it another way, perhaps gender must be
that pornography sexualizes gender and genders maintained as a social hierarchy so that men will
sexuality means that it provides a concrete social be able to get erections; or, part of the male inter-
process through which gender and sexuality be- est in keeping women down lies in the fact that
come functions of each other. Gender and sexu- it gets men up. Maybe feminists are considered
ality, in this view, become two different shapes castrating because equality is not sexy.
 Chapter 4 / Sexualities 215

Recent inquiries into rape support such sus- having their sex life—their life, period—not be a
picions. Men often rape women, it turns out, series of rapes, the most they provide is the raw
because they want to and enjoy it. The act, includ- data for the man to see as he sees it. And he has
ing the dominance, is sexually arousing, sexually been seeing pornography. Similarly, “consent” is
affirming, and supportive of the perpetrator’s supposed to be the crucial line between rape and
masculinity. intercourse, but the legal standard for it is so pas-
Add this to rape’s pervasiveness and permis- sive, so acquiescent, that a woman can be dead
sibility, together with the belief that it is both and have consented under it. The mind fuck of all
rare and impermissible. Combine this with the of this makes liberalism’s complicitous collapse
similarity between the patterns, rhythms, roles, into “I chose it” feel like a strategy for sanity. It
and emotions, not to mention acts, which make certainly makes a woman at one with the world.
up rape (and battery) on the one hand and inter- The general theory of sexuality emerging
course on the other. All this makes it difficult to from this feminist critique does not consider
sustain the customary distinctions between pa- sexuality to be an inborn force inherent in in-
thology and normalcy, paraphilia and nomophilia, dividuals, nor cultural in the Freudian sense, in
violence and sex, in this area. Some researchers which sexuality exists in a cultural context but
have previously noticed the centrality of force to in universally invariant stages and psychic rep-
the excitement value of pornography but have resentations.50 It appears instead to be culturally
tended to put it down to perversion. Robert specific, even if so far largely invariant because
Stoller, for example, observes that pornography male supremacy is largely universal, if always in
today depends upon hostility, voyeurism, and specific forms. Although some of its abuses (like
sadomasochism and calls perversion “the erotic prostitution) are accentuated by poverty, it does
form of hatred.” 49 If the perverse in this context not vary by class, although class is one hierarchy
is seen not as the other side of a bright normal/ it sexualizes. Sexuality becomes, in this view, so-
abnormal line but as an undiluted expression of a cial and relational, constructing and constructed
norm that permeates many ordinary interactions, of power. Infants, though sensory, cannot be said
hatred of women—that is, misogyny—becomes to possess sexuality in this sense because they
a dynamic of sexual excitement itself. have not had the experiences (and do not speak
All women live in sexual objectification the the language) that give it social meaning. Since
way fish live in water. With no alternatives, the sexuality is its social meaning, infant erections,
strategy to acquire self-respect and pride is: I for example, are clearly sexual in the sense that
chose it. this society centers its sexuality on them, but to
Consider the conditions under which this is relate to a child as though his erections mean
done. This is a culture in which women are so- what adult erections have been conditioned to
cially expected—and themselves necessarily mean is a form of child abuse. Such erections
expect and want—to be able to distinguish the have the meaning they acquire in social life only
socially, epistemologically, indistinguishable. to observing adults.
Rape and intercourse are not authoritatively At risk of further complicating the issues, per-
separated by any difference between the physi- haps it would help to think of women’s sexual-
cal acts or amount of force involved but only ity as women’s like Black culture is Blacks’: it
legally, by a standard that centers on the man’s is, and it is not. The parallel cannot be precise in
interpretation of the encounter. Thus, although part because, owing to segregation, Black culture
raped women, that is, most women, are supposed developed under more autonomous conditions
to be able to feel every day and every night that than women, intimately integrated with men by
they have some meaningful determining part in force, have had. Still, both can be experienced as
216 Chapter 4 / Sexualities

a source of strength, joy, expression, and as an Investigation of Sexual Murder (New York: New
affirmative badge of pride.51 Both remain none- York University Press, 1987).
theless stigmatic in the sense of a brand, a restric- 2. A few basic citations from the massive body of
tion, a definition as less. This is not because of work on which this chapter draws are:
On Rape: Diana E. H. Russell and Nancy
any intrinsic content or value, but because the so-
Howell, “The Prevalence of Rape in the United
cial reality is that their shape, qualities, texture, States Revisited,” Signs: Journal of Women in
imperative, and very existence are a response to Culture and Society 8 (Summer 1983): 668–695;
powerlessness. They exist as they do because of D. Russell, Rape in Marriage (New York:
lack of choice. They are created out of social con- Macmillan 1982); Lorenne M. G. Clark and
ditions of oppression and exclusion. They may be Debra Lewis, The Politics of Rape: The Victim’s
part of a strategy for survival or even of change. Perspective (New York: Stein & Day, 1975); Andrea
But, as is, they are not the whole world, and it is Medea and Kathleen Thompson, Against Rape
the whole world that one is entitled to. This is why (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974); Su-
interpreting female sexuality as an expression of san Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women,
women’s agency and autonomy, as if sexism did and Rape (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975);
Irene Frieze, “Investigating the Causes and
not exist, is always denigrating and bizarre and
Consequences of Marital Rape,” Signs: Journal
reductive, as it would be to interpret Black cul- of Women in Culture and Society 8 (Spring 1983):
ture as if racism did not exist. As if Black culture 532–553; Nancy Gager and Cathleen Schurr, Sex-
just arose freely and spontaneously on the planta- ual Assault: Confronting Rape in America (New
tions and in the ghettos of North America, adding York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1976); Gary LaFree,
diversity to American pluralism. “Male Power and Female Victimization: Towards
So long as sexual inequality remains unequal a Theory of Interracial Rape,” American Journal
and sexual, attempts to value sexuality as wom- of Sociology 88 (1982): 311–328; Martha Butt,
en’s, possessive as if women possess it, will re- “Cultural Myths and Supports for Rape,” Journal
main part of limiting women to it, to what women of Personality and Social Psychology 38 (1980):
are now defined as being. Outside of truly rare 217–230; Kalamu ya Salaam, “Rape: A Radical
Analysis from the African-American Perspec-
and contrapuntal glimpses (which most people
tive,” in Our Women Keep Our Skies from Falling
think they live almost their entire sex life within), (New Orleans: Nkombo, 1980); J. Check and
to seek an equal sexuality without political trans- N. Malamuth, “An Empirical Assessment of Some
formation is to seek equality under conditions of Feminist Hypotheses about Rape,” International
inequality. Rejecting this, and rejecting the glo- Journal of Women’s Studies 8 (1985): 414–423.
rification of settling for the best that inequality On Battery: D. Martin, Battered Wives
has to offer or has stimulated the resourceful to (San Francisco: Glide Productions, 1976);
invent, are what Ti-Grace Atkinson meant to re- S. Steinmerz, The Cycle of Violence: Assertive,
ject when she said: “I do not know any feminist: Aggressive, and Abusive Family Interaction (New
worthy of that name who, if forced to choose be- York: Praeger, 1977); R. Emerson Dobash and
tween freedom and sex, would choose sex. She’d Russell Dobash, Violence against Wives: A Case
against the Patriarchy (New York: Free Press,
choose freedom every time.” 52
1979); R. Langley and R. Levy, Wife Beating:
The Silent Crisis (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1977);
NOTES Evan Stark, Anne Flitcraft, and William Frazier,
“Medicine and Patriarchal Violence: The Social
1. See Jane Caputi, The Age of Sex Crime (Bowling Construction of a ‘Private’ Event,” International
Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Journal of Health Services 9 (1979): 461–493;
Popular Press, 1987); Deborah Cameron and Lenore Walker, The Battered Woman (New York:
Elizabeth Frazer, The Lust to Kill: A Feminist Harper & Row, 1979).