A Marriage Agreement and Other Essays by Alix Kates Shulman

Author:Alix Kates Shulman [Shulman, Alix Kates]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Essays, Feminism & Feminist Theory, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9781453250136
Google: Bg24Hn2BVDgC
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2012-04-03T03:59:55+00:00

This analysis was continued by Ti-Grace Atkinson, a founder of The Feminists, the early antimarriage group which limited to one-third of its membership those women who lived with men. In “The Institution of Sexual Intercourse,” in Notes from the Second Year, Atkinson analyzed sexual intercourse itself as a “political institution,” analogous to the institution of marriage, which serves the needs of reproduction and often the sexual desires of men but not necessarily those of women. Atkinson coolly proposed that we try to “discover what the nature of the human sensual characteristics are from the point of view of the good of each individual instead of what we have now, which is a sort of psychological draft system of our sexualities.” Never reducing sexual relations to mere technique, Atkinson elaborated the insight that orgasm is not everything by observing that what lovers add to the sexual experience “cannot be a technique or physical improvement on that same auto-experience” but “must be a psychological component.”16

Carrying the feminist rebellion against the sexual exploitation of women a step further still, Dana Densmore of Boston’s Cell 16 proposed a reordering of women’s priorities away from the sexual altogether. After all, the belief that sexual love of man is the core of woman’s aspirations—or is even necessary for fulfillment—justifies woman’s exploitation and keeps her enthralled. In her powerful 1969 essay, “On Celibacy,” which appeared in the first issue of No More Fun and Games, the journal associated with Cell 16, Densmore wrote:

We must come to realize that we don’t need sex, that celibacy . . . could be desirable, in many cases preferable to sex. How repugnant it is, after all, to make love to a man who despises you, who fears you and wants to hold you down! Doesn’t screwing in an atmosphere devoid of respect get pretty grim? Why bother? You don’t need it. . . . This is a call not for celibacy but for an acceptance of celibacy as an honorable alternative, one preferable to the degradation of most male-female relationships. . . . Unless you accept the idea that you don’t need [men], don’t need sex from them, it will be utterly impossible for you to carry through, it will be absolutely necessary for you to lead a double life, pretending with men to be something other than what you know you are. . . . If we are going to be liberated we must reject the false image that makes men love us, and this will make men cease to love us. . . . An end to this constant remaking of ourselves according to what the male ego demands! Let us be ourselves and good riddance to those who are then repulsed by us!17

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.