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Title: Penis-In-Vagina Politics Author: Summerspeaker Date: February 2012 Language: en Topics: queer, anarcho-transhumanism, sex, anti-christian Source: Anarcho-Transhuman Issue #1: https://anarchotranshuman.org/post/17062244366/our-first-trial-issue-click
Over the last few days, I’ve found myself in a number of conversations
that involved criticism of penis-in-vagina (PIV) intercourse on feminist
grounds. Blogger lateralpazwalk recently came out as an anti-PIV man,
which generated a fascinating radical feminist discussion on Facebook.
After FCM’s piece about Hugo Schwyzer exposed them to the critique, the
folks on RevLeft employed the opportunity to dismiss it as feminism run
amok and bemoan the horror of supposed puritanical extremists such as
Andrea Dworkin (may the God who does not exist rest her soul). Even a
rather knowledgeable and even-handed RevLefter had no compunctions
against blithely proclaiming PIV right for the majority of human
species.
So what’s going on here? Why such noise and heat? What makes this one
sex act so simultaneously sacred to Abrahamic religious fundamentalists,
evolutionary biologists, and random straight people on the street?
Radical feminists like Dworkin and FCM make a compelling case for its
central role in patriarchal oppression. The responding outcry bolsters
their point and shows the importance of PIV to straight identity–
especially straight dude identity. I find the materiality of FCM’s
indictment particularly intriguing. While any self-respecting queer
theorist should recognize the trouble in privileging PIV sex as the one
true path, most would balk at suggesting inherent problems. FCM
emphasizes the health hazards to females in the form of pregnancy,
sexually transmitted disease, and injury. These dangers in turn generate
emotional and psychological harm; FCM goes so far as to describe the
positive feelings often associated with PIV as a trauma-bonding.
Coming from a background in Shulamith Firestone’s thought and
transhumanism, FCM’s insistence on the relevance of corporeal experience
resonates with me. Reproductive biology matters; Firestone traces the
origins of women’s oppression to female status as the means of
reproduction. Though ey made no critique of PIV intercourse, Firestone’s
materialist analysis lends itself to that position. PIV sex is what
makes females undergo the process ey described as like shitting a
pumpkin. The nightmare of compulsory pregnancy walks hand in hand with
compulsory PIV intercourse. It’s there hiding in the shadows whenever a
parent pressures a child to produce grandchildren. Vast cultural forces
demand heterosexuality, PIV, and breeding. We need attacks on this
oppressive apparatus from every angle possible. In this sense, FCM and
company contribute to the good fight. (Indulge, if you would, my vain
hope that all ours sweat and tears constitute a collective struggle that
can lead us to a better world.) I have difficulty imagining the
patriarchy without PIV as an enshrined institution, though also a
profound respect for its mutability.
At the same time, the self-styled pro-sex opponents of this perspective
bring an important critique of their own. They rail against what they
view as an attempt to code sex as a bad and regulate individual sexual
expression, invoking the repressive sexual morality of organized
religion. They remind us that no good would come from the policing of
individuals’ sex lives. While always something to watch out for as
anyone who grew up under the spell of religion knows, I consider this
fear mostly misplaced. The historical censorship alliances between
anti-porn feminists and Christian moralists do give cause for alarm, but
they strike me as marriages of convenience more than anything else.
Moreover, the same affinity does not apply on this subject. The
allegation of puritanism against PIV critics becomes strange when one
considers the record: Who has greater respect for that act the Abrahamic
religious hierarchy? For hundreds of years they’ve been the ones
mandating PIV by divine degree and denouncing other sex acts as a
diabolical or unnatural. Straightness has indeed been a narrow road to
travel. Going after PIV intercourse strikes at the heart of the
traditional family and is anathema to the adherents of Abraham.
It should go without saying that there’s nothing necessarily oppressive
about any interaction of human bodies that can happen without
significant physical injury. Radical feminists may well veer into
essentialism and conflation of construct with material reality, but if
so they do these things for a legitimate political purpose. We’re
talking about the lives of billions here. Reaction against so-called
feminist extremists is exactly that: counterrevolutionary reaction that
supports the status quo either explicitly or implicitly.
Transhumanism enters the debate offering both a belief in making PIV
safe for those who desire it and deconstruction of that act’s privileged
position. The technofix doesn’t interest me in this case, so I’ll jump
to number two. As tons of folks get off just fine from much less risky
sex acts, rational reflection shows preference for PIV (and penetrative
sex in general) to be based overwhelming in antiquated if not downright
superstitious cultural narratives. Why should we respect irrationality
in this matter? Current birth control debates sound absurd when you
consider their foundation in a binary opposition between PIV intercourse
and the much-dreaded abstinence. Pregnancy isn’t likely for potential
breeders engaging in anything other than PIV – and it’s downright
impossible for folks with the same genital configuration. It’s a pity
rationalists have given little attention to this subject. (Anyone care
to guess why that is?)
I urge serious consideration of the critique presented by Dworkin, FCM,
and company. We will never achieve genuine revolution without radically
rethinking and remaking all of our personal relationships. At a minimum,
PIV intercourse – and penetrative sex in general – has to lose its
sacred status and pivotal place in dude supremacy for the project of
sexual liberation to proceed. Despite popular opinion, sex doesn’t
require sticking a cock somewhere.