The article, “Lusting for Freedom” by Rebecca Walker, discusses sex as a means of pleasure rather than procreation. She discusses how she put on a different persona with each man she was sexually involved with. I admired her honesty with how young she was the first time she had sex. At the same time I think she is incredibly lucky that she didn’t wind up with a bad man who didn’t want to let her go. Although she says there was something inside her that kept her safe, and that her knowledge kept her from harm, she could have wound up with a man who wanted to abuse her, etc. This article also relates back to our discussion in class about the division between sexual acts for pleasure and for procreation. We discussed how heterosexuality has become compulsory because of the need to reproduce. This article takes a different route: she is involved in heterosexual relationships for pleasure. He has no intention of getting pregnant or starting a family, she has sex to discover herself and to gain knowledge. While I agree with her that women should “live free of shame, that my body is not my enemy and that pleasure is my friend and my right”, I also think that women need to be careful. I don’t think that women should just have sex to experience pleasure at a young age. I think there are so many dangers with that, such as pregnancy, abusive relationships, or sexually transmitted diseases that women need to be aware and careful of. Most women are not aware of these dangers when they are young, so I don’t advocate for young women to have sex.
The other article, “Tight Jeans and Chania Chorris”, by Sonia Shah discusses sexuality and feminism intertwined with culture. Sonia comes to a realization that when discussing her feminist viewpoints and sexuality with her parents, she needs to put a cultural spin on it. She tries to stop her sister from dressing provocatively and being so caught up with boys, and also tries to explain to her father why she likes ungendered nouns and stops shaving her legs and armpits. However, neither of her parents can understand because it is all through a western viewpoint. It is only after her sister goes to India that she understands she needs to communicate through Indian culture. This shows how different sexuality and sex is viewed in our country versus how it may be viewed in other parts of the world. I think this is important to note because we discuss heterosexuality and feminism strictly in a Western viewpoint, and I’d be interested to see how it is viewed in other parts of the world. For example how we were discussing in class what it would be like if our world was primarily homosexual. I’m sure that somewhere in the world this is the case, and it would be interesting to read about.
2 comments:
Samantha,
(sorry about my delete above! I posted before I was done commenting)
You’re absolutely right. Walker could have ended up in a very different situation (and the fact that this is one of your first thoughts confirms the narrow line between sex and violence in our society). We’ll talk more in class about Walker’s experiences, and particularly her reasons for writing this essay: is she advocating her experience, or is she advocating something else entirely? Your questions about sexuality in a global context are great ones, too: we do tend to generalize and think only in an American context, but things can be very different elsewhere!
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