bell hooks on sexuality

Sam Pawlett epawlett at uniserve.com
Sat Dec 26 11:10:42 PST 1998


This long quote comes from bell hooks_Feminist Theory_ SouthEnd 1984,p149ff. A very insightful book written before Ms. Hooks wandered off into the mists and bogs of the various post-isms.

" However, this is not a culture that affirms real sexual freedom...The focus on "sexual liberation" has carried with it the assumption that the goal of such effort is to make it possible for individuals to engage in more and/or better sexual activity. Yet one aspect of sexual norms that many people find oppressive is the assumption that one "should" be engaged in sexual activity. This "should" is one expression of sexual coercion. Advocates of sexual liberation often imply that any individual who is not concerned about the quality of their experience or exercising greater sexual freedom is mentally disturbed or sexually repressed. When primary emphasis is placed on ending sexual oppression rather than on sexual liberation is it possible to envision a society in which it is as much an expression of sexual freedom to choose not to participate in sexual activity as it is to choose to participate...Such thinking corresponds with sexist role patterning. Men are socialized to act sexually, women to not act (or to simply react to male sexual advances). Women's liberationists insistence that women should be sexually active as a gesture of liberation helped free female sexuality from the restraints imposed upon it by repressive double standards, but it did not remove the stigma of sexual inactivity. Until that stigma is removed, women and men will not feel free to participate in sexual activity when they desire. They will continue to respond to coercion, either the sexist coercion that pushes young men to act sexually to prove their "masculinity" (i.e. their heterosexuality) or the sexual coercion that compels young women to respond to such advances to prove their "femininity"( i.e. their willingness to be heterosexual sex objects). The removal of the social stigma attached to sexual inactivity would amount to a change in sexual norms. It would have many positive implications for men and women, especially teenagers who are this historical moment most likely to victimized by sexist social norms...A shift that will undoubtedly emerge as the struggle to end sexual oppression progresses will be decreased obsession with sexuality. This does not mean that there will be decreased sexual activity. It means that sexuality will no longer have the importance attributed to it in a society that sexuality for the express purposes of maintaining gender inequality, male domination, consumerism, and the sexual frustration and unhappiness that deflects attention away from the need to make social revolution. We must keep in mind that the struggle to end sexual oppression is only one component of a larger struggle to transform society and establish a new social order."



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