Frances: Well, ending affirmative action is recognized as such. "Ending preferential treatment" was not. The language successfully obfuscated the realpurpose of the proposition. I chose that language deliberately. I suggest that the "free love movement" also successfully obfuscates male desires to get laid.
Charles: You seem to imply that male desires to get laid are in some sense politically incorrect ( I know you don't use that term, but I'm not sure what your term is for indicating political agreement; maybe liberatory) . But male desires to get laid are politically correct, liberatory. Racism is politically incorrect not liberatory ( substitute your term).
Charles
>I definitely disagree that free love is analogous to ending affirmative
>action. You are >overstating the male chauvinism of the free love movement.
>Women were in and are still in >it.
Frances: You keep talking about this "free love movement" yet you haven't convinced me that any such thing exists. As far as I can tell, the folks who are out engaging in what you call "free love" aren't doing it as part of a movement, they are acting as individuals.
Charles: All movements have explicit and unspoken aspects. The Civil Rights Movement was a name put on something that Black people were doing as individuals and small groups without a name or national headquarters ever since Jim Crow was instititued. The labor movement was what workers were doing all along without a "movement" name for it. A "movement" is what is already happening getting a name ,more organization and leaders. Marx says communism is what we call the real movement of things. That real individuals are out doing exactly what I am saying is the best proof that it is a real movement.
Frances: Alot of people fucking around doesn't make a movement. I'm pretty uncomfortable with this lumping together of people. Yes, alot of people are fucking around. You don't know why, you don't know their goals/desires/interests. And, you don't know what's going on in those sexual relationships/experiences. Are they liberatory? Satisfying? Abusive? Was he too drunk to say no? Did she do it because she wanted to pass on a venereal disease? Are they happy? Fulfilled? How do you know all of them are enjoying "free love"?
Charles: When you say " a lot of people fucking around... " to me that is evidence of the anti-sex attitude that is the profound sexual repression of Western Civilization. Sex is bad, dirty, guilty. That's the consciousness we're trying to "problematize" ( it's politically incorrect). "Fucking around" is a sexually repressed and sexually repressive phrase. With sex in particular the categorizing of it as VULGAR is one of the main tactics of preventing its liberation from being taken seriously.
Take any other "movement". Do you think the goals, desires, interests of all the millions involved or affected must be known ( by me or you ) before the movement is validated ? Of course, not.
However, you are also throwing up a typical exaggerated naivete as to sex that obfuscates to undermine. Yes, we do , by common sense, have a good idea of what most people's goals/desires/ interests are in "getting laid". It's not that complicated. It is a simple yet profound enjoyment and pleasure of life. How do I know all of them are ENJOYING "free love" ? Yea, lets do an empirical study. Maybe they would prefer "restricted love". Give me a break.
Then to basically say that what is going on has problems. Would we really expect any "movement" to be perfect ? And , no, this one does not have more "failings" than the other ones. Name a movement, any liberatory movement, and I'll describe horrendous failures in its history. Does that mean we abandon the causes of those movements. Of course, not. The struggles continues. Victory is certain.
I take it "liberatory" is equivalent to "politically correct".
Charles
> The idea that women are not for free love is false in my experience. A lot
of times they are >the promoters of it, but not necessarily shouting it in a
movement. I would say anti-free love >is the more male supremacist,
patriarchal position. Suppression of woman loving sex is a >main dimension
of world-historic and 1990's male supremacy. Many women want to have >sex
too. It is not just men.
Frances: This "free love" language is seeming more and more archaic the more frequently I read and write it. Well, suppression of women loving sex is one part of male supremacy, but it equally serves the interests of male supremacy for women to want to have sex.
Charles: I'm not stuck on that particular phrase. It is a matter of convention; and it makes some sense to establish continuity with past efforts. Actual my term is "sexual liberation movement". I just use "free love" because it was an actually occuring phrase from history.
You are going to have to explain how women wanting to have sex serves the interests of male supremacy. The idea of women not wanting to have sex sounds like an example of Judith Butler's subjection to me - self-suppression. Now it is true that an unfortunate circumstance is that sometimes denying themselves sex in order to deny men sex is a main way that women can influence men - hitting the donkeys in the head to get his attention. But we need to take women out of that dilemma by ending male chauvinism.
Frances:
Can you make the arguement that the suppression of women loving sex is a main dimension of 1990s male supremacy? I can't. Everywhere I look I see images of happy sexualized women. The happy sexual woman, as seen in magazine ads and billboards (I don't have a tv, I assume they are there too) is one of the dominant images in US culture.
Charles: Yes, I think you are raising a critical clarification here. Sexual objectification of women is NOT women loving sexuality. It is male supremacist. I'd say your implication is correct: all of that capitalist promoted anti-woman sex is male supremacist. But I would also say it is not "free love". It is "bonded love". I suppose I should say this is one of the reasons , a subtlety, why what I am saying may not make sense to you. I am presuming the main premises and critiques by feminism. Sexual objectification of women is not "free love". It's obvious similar "appearance" to liberatory sex is a main confusion and obstacle of sexual liberation.
I didn't say this before and it is important. But it does come out when someone takes the time to think about this issue to the extent that you have on this thread. In my opinion, you raise an important question here.
Frances: The there are all the images of women who only achieve selfhood and happiness through their relationship with a man, right? That's sort of a dominant story as well. Women's magazines always have articles on having more fulfilling sexual relationships--they give detailed instructions on how women can enjoy sex more. Note: I'm not saying anything about whether it's just men or men and women who enjoy sex. I'm pointing out that sexual freedom is the one freedom offered to women, whereas (white) men have more options. Men don't have to be sexual. If women are not sexualized, they are judged negatively as being frigid prudes or old spinsters.
Charles: Yes, this is important, because it is sort of the Gordian Knot or most twisted part of the contradiction of sexual liberation. The sexual liberation movement, in my analysis, is basically a sub-liberation movement of the women's liberation movement. All of the main premises and critiques by feminism (women not being dependent on a man for identity, etc, the whole nine yards) must be met substantially first or else "free love" becomes "sexist trickery" as it did to an extent in the '60s, as you pointed out. But at the exact same time, in complex contradiction with that, we really do want those women to have all of that good, loving sex in those mags. etc. We want men to too, but because male chauvinsim is the main fly in the ointment, we have to focus on women's sex as the "sextant" to guide us through the whole revolution. "Sexual revolution" was another term they used besides "free love".
Charles Brown