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More Words On Only Words
by Patricia Bellasalma
It is argued, stated with the assurance of natural law, that sexualized
violence is nothing more than free expression of an individual's sexuality.
Others claim that sexualized violence is political speech, the expression
of the natural subjection of women. Freedom of expression, it is further
argued, must be protected from government intrusion. Anyone arguing to
the contrary, that is, detaching sex from violence is nothing more than
repressed, Victorian - against sex itself.
The individuals who stand on their knees (usually with someone's hand
on their head) in defense of sexualized violence disconnect from the world
in which real women live, including themselves. They separate from their
world, the reality that assault on women through the private acts of individual
men has been and is protected and encouraged by the law, the economic
system and the social culture for a thousand years and counting. They
separate from their world that the visual medium, be it film, video, or
computer generated has taken these assaults and recorded them for mass
use.
The latest tool in the subjugation of women. This tool however, is distinguished,
separated out as different from other tools of discrimination and oppression.
It is speech - free expression, sex itself, and therefore, must be protected
to ensure our freedom from oppression. Catherine MacKinnon argues that
"there is a connection between the silence enforced on women, in which
we are seen to love and choose our chains because they have been sexualized
and the noise of pornography that surround us, passing for discourse (ours,
even) and practiced under constitutional protection. The operative definition
of censorship accordingly shifts from government silencing what powerless
people say, to powerful people violating powerless people into silence
and hiding behind state power to do it."
I would go further and state that sexualized violence is sex to defenders.
They love and choose their chains. The defenders not only declare that
they have freely chosen to live on their knees, but demand that their
choice be respected and protected. They are the wives in Margaret Atwood1s
The handmaid1s Tale. Gladly holding down the handmaid while their husband
rapes her, thus earning a position of "status" in the society. In Atwood's
novel women had the choice of being freedom fighters (if they were lucky
enough to escape) fighting to free their homeland from oppression, the
prostitute who was free to do what she wanted during her "off" hours,
the handmaid who was a breeding slave and the wife, the female oppressor
and rapist. The defenders declare that the wife is a legitimate choice
option to be equally valued. Such a valuing is repugnant to a egalitarian
liberalism.
The argument back is that this is merely a straw argument, set up simply
in order to refute the premises, that defenders of sexualized violence
are feminist who simply believe in First Amendment values. Allowing government
to censor will assuredly lead to the censorship of feminist writings,
films, and images. The analogy however, is quite appropriate because the
defenders of sexualized violence do not care about the construct of society.
They do not care that it based on hierarchical oppression. Power dependency
relationships do not exists, in fact, bringing up the actual make-up of
society is said to be insulting women. If it is argued that inequality
exists, then the arguer is said to be saying, "women are delicate, fragile
creatures, that must be protected by law and man." It is a figment of
our imaginations that the whole force of the coercive power of the state
is used to subordinate women and prevent them from defending themselves
against unfettered access to their bodies. It is a figment of our imaginations
that the power of the state is used to support and protect sexualized
violence and the collaborators who defend it, not the other way around.
So ill informed are most who defend sexualized violence that the Victorian
Era is represented as female generated sexual repression, when in reality
it was a response to women1s call for equality. Sexual oppression - the
ownership of women by men through unfettered sexual access has always
been the vehicle of subjugation by gender. In America, two control mechanisms
were used after the betrayal in being written out of the 14th amendment.
First, abortion laws were enacted for the first time; and second, female
genital surgeries were encouraged to "control" upper class women. An economic
and political system was also in place where women had only two options
for survival; one, to enter into a long term contract, wherein she submitted
to one male in exchange for room and board, commonly known as marriage
(by submitting she was then unable to refuse sexual access and could also
be beaten); or two, enter into short term contracts in exchange for money,
commonly known as prostitution (where she could not refuse sexual access
and could also be beaten). In the defenders1 world, these are real choice
options. Attacking a system of unfettered sexual access is not attacking
the system but attacking women.
Due to several waives of feminist gains, we now have greater choice options
in providing an independent means of economic survival outside of selling
sexual access. The reality that enslavement is still an option is not
only used to justify choosing sex slavery, but in arguing that sex slavery
is natural - it is sex itself.
Those who advocate equality - the elimination of slavery in all its forms
- do not deride women who must make choices in order to survive; however,
we must not hesitate to distinguish the "wives" from all other women,
that is the handmaid, the prostitute and the freedom fighter. The "wives"
are our enemy - collaborators whose hands are as bloody as the oppressors
that they sit beside. These defenders of sexualized violence claim that
getting
off on dominance is a legitimate form of expression. Other defenders of
discrimination claim that sexual harassment is protected speech, that
hit lists of abortion doctors are protected speech. The dominant, the
predator, the oppressor has a constitutional right in limiting another
human beings ability to live, work, learn and flourish, for this is what
constitutional liberty was designed to protect. As a radical feminist,
I agree, the American constitution was designed to maintain the privileges
of wealth, whiteness, maleness and heterosexuality. I merely ask that
the defenders of sexualized violence argue honestly and state that they
believe and will defend their right to dominate and oppress others who
they considered less than themselves.
State that you do not care that pictures of sexualized violence are not
proof of rape, torture, battery, but are sex - proof of desire and women's
consent. State that you do not care that a picture of a woman tied, bound,
gagged no longer is evidence of a kidnapping, but of consensual bondage.
State that you do not care that pictures and now even testimony of battery
or torture is reduced to evidence of a sadomasochistic relationship. State
that you do not care that it is immaterial whether I consent at all because
a rapists has an affirmative defense wherein he or she merely has to state
that they reasonably believed I wanted to be beaten, tortured or raped.
State that none of this matters because it gets you off and that's all
that matters.
There have always been individuals who freely, gladly submit to slavery.
Their existence has been and continues to be used to justify slavery as
natural subjection. The defenders of sexualized violence are nothing more
and nothing less than advocators of the natural subjection of women. They
can rap themselves in free speech and a bankrupt version of libertarian
philosophy, but they can not hide their disdain for equality values.
They fight for the right to dominate. The equality battles hard fought
and won have afforded upper class, predominantly white women the opportunity
to dominate others, including women and has produced female defenders
of hierarchical oppression, be it sexualized or not. The coup that took
place in Atwood1s book is no longer necessary to create an all too real
version of the book1s world. The Handmaid1s Tale for many is reality.
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