The Invisible Chains of Women's "Sexual Liberation" Part 1

October 26, 2023 Mary S

Written by Lola Bessis

Introduction

Since the rise of liberal feminism, women have been subject to an extreme form of sexualization under the false pretense of “sexual liberation ." This sexualization has come with many strings attached, but most importantly, has been portrayed as a gift, one that allows women sexual freedom. This unfortunate dilemma is not new, as Shulman wrote in 1980, “it is claimed that women have won sexual equality (…) People say we are equal because a relatively small number of women are in positions of token power (…) But these facts only disguise the true situation of women’s continued powerlessness” (Shulman, 1980, p. 603). Women are taught that sex is liberating; they are encouraged to explore their sexuality in order to be free. But who is truly controlling this narrative? As Rudy (2001) wrote in her reflection on her involvement in various feminist movements in the 70s and 80s, trying to make sense of the modern narrative of the sexually liberated woman, “in reality it sometimes feels like another way men are allowed to wield the power, set the agendas, and be taken care of” (Rudy, 2001, p. 218).

In this series, I will navigate through the histories of the feminist movement in an attempt to make sense of the situation women now find themselves in. With a focus on the themes of power and control, I will analyze the rise and fall of radical feminism and the various new feminist movements which have become the hegemonic beliefs of feminist theory. I will compare and contrast the debates and controversies surrounding women’s sexual liberation using a historical timeline to see the movement’s rise and fall. I will then analyze the rise of the pornography industry and the various influences of the media to expose who controls the narrative of this “sexual liberation ." Have women truly chosen this sexual freedom, or simply been socialized to conform to the new cultural norms? I will claim that women have so blindly followed the new norm of what a “sexually liberated” woman is that they have failed to realize this image has been constructed to adhere to male desires. The “sexual liberation” of women has produced a new generation of female sexual slaves who now believe they must always be sexually available to men in order to be free.

Rise of Radical Feminism in the US in the 1950s-60s

In the 1950s, sexual libertarian movements began, advocating a “single standard of freedom from sexual guilt and conventional moral restrictions” (Willis, 1982, p. 5). Sex without emotion or attachment was idolized, and women were blamed if they did not conform. The irony of these early movements was that they were male-dominated and “liberation for women meant the opportunity to shuck their ‘hangups’ about casual sex” (Willis, 1982, p.5). The “sexual revolution” began to seep into mainstream narrative when young women of the New Left decided to take back the narrative on female sexuality. This radical wing of new feminism saw its rise in the United States in the late 1960s. These women used their common “sexual discontent to help them understand the power relations between men and women” (Shulman, 1980, p. 592). They argued that the sexual revolution had left them feeling victimized instead of freed, as if they were socially expected to have intercourse with any man, and if they did not, they became prudes or were made to feel unattractive. Sick of being used sexually, these women began to meet and discuss taboo issues, primarily their sexual dissatisfaction with male partners. In addition, they began theorizing on the grander themes of male supremacy.

Debates about the female orgasm began to gain popularity. At first, these conversations centered around the heterosexual man’s need to satisfy women, often leading women to fake orgasms to satisfy the male ego. Conservative popular Freudianism beliefs converted these notions to fuel the hegemonic heterosexual ideals of a perfect life; they argued that women had the right to sexual satisfaction, but that such satisfaction could only come from “mature” acceptance of the feminine role. “Women were told that to actively assert their sexual needs would make satisfaction of those needs impossible; if they were submissive and yet unsatisfied it meant they weren’t submissive enough” (Willis, 1982, p. 5). Consequently, women were trapped, “the right to an orgasm was a new source of pain, inadequacy and self-blame” (Willis, 1982, p.5). However, radical feminists saw through the early hypocrisies of sexual freedom, arguing that the current definitions were all decided by men and were actually against women’s interests. These feminists believed men already had too much power and freedom at women’s expense. Sexual liberation, from this perspective, solely satisfied male goals within a male-dominated society of coercing women into having intercourse with men without getting anything in return; neither love nor respect nor orgasms. These earlier ideas around sexual freedom subordinated women’s true feelings by requiring them to have a certain amount of sex appeal to satisfy the male gaze, meet impossible beauty standards, be sexually spontaneous and available, and fake sexual pleasure to satisfy the male ego (Shulman, 1980, p. 600).

By 1968 radical feminism was burgeoning. In September of that year, sixty radical feminists from New York City traveled to Atlantic City and picketed the Miss America Pageant. This loud demonstration aimed to expose the way the women competing were being “judged as sex objects” (Shulman, 1980, p. 594). In 1969, feminist groups wrote a twenty-page outline on their feminist ideals to a female audience in Ladies Home Journal, and the First Congress to Unite Women was held in New York City (Shulman, 1980, p. 596). Radical feminists understood that ideals about intercourse, attractiveness, sexual satisfaction, and sexual health were all dictated by men and that these ideals perpetuated male domination over women. Men’s “one sided, exploitative view of sexual freedom” fueled radical feminists’ anger toward the still present sexual double standards women faced (Willis, 1982, p. 6). It is important to note that during this time, abortions were still illegal in every state, early radical feminists were therefore primarily concerned with legal protection from the potential danger of an unwanted pregnancy resulting from heterosexual sex. As well as their concern for the right to an abortion, the early radical feminists emphasized women’s right to pleasure or the right to orgasm. From there, feminists combined women’s liberation with sexual liberation “claiming that one without the other would keep women second-class citizens” (Le Masurier, 2016, p.29).

Early 1970s in the US

By the 1970s radical feminist ideas led the feminist movement. The US Supreme Court’s 1973 decision legalized abortions in the United States. Radical feminists were now able to devote their time to new focuses. These feminists recognized that the “sexual revolution” was a “male revolution”, leading to a “political analysis of heterosexuality that encompassed a growing awareness of male power and violence” (Comella, 2015, p. 443). The constant threat of male violence faced by women was a social problem rooted in patriarchal ideology. Radical feminists aimed to bring together the private and the public, the personal and the political. Ti-Grace Atkinson was one of these women and analyzed sexual intercourse as a “political institution” (Shulman, 1980, p. 598). Atkinson became known as a proto-cultural feminist as she was one of the first to call for women to leave men and even urged an armed rebellion by women against men (Douglas, 1990).

The radical feminist movement promoted the clitoral orgasm, mainly due to its potential to threaten the norms of the heterosexual institution. Clitoral orgasms gave women a way to obtain sexual pleasure without the need for a man or his penis. To some extent, the clitoral orgasm became the feminist orgasm representing a direct rejection of men. Male sexuality was portrayed as a “continuum of violence” (Le Masurier, 2016, p. 30) exposing the “double nature of sex and power” imposed on women in this male-run society (Shulman, 1980, p. 600). The feminist orgasm became the only politically correct orgasm in feminist discourse as the vaginal orgasm was ridiculed and the act of orgasming “came to represent women’s self-determination” (Le Masurier, 2016, p. 31).

A strong voice in the feminist movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Germaine Greer, was a journalist for Underground Press. She wrote in The Female Eunuch about the “importance of an active female sexuality and what she termed cuntpower” (Le Masurier, 2016, p. 28). Greer aimed to destigmatize the vaginal orgasm within the feminist movement and promoted the pleasures of penetration. She claimed that the ecstasy which could result from a combination of vaginal and clitoral orgasms would be the energy necessary for a revolution. Greer’s beliefs aligned with those of radical feminists, that freedoms enacted in the sexual field would be reflected in other sectors of life and that “unrepressed sexuality was a revolutionary force that could topple the patriarchal state and that full orgasm was the key to liberation” (Le Masurier, 2016, p. 33). Greer named her theory cuntpower, in an attempt to redeem the term as she argued “the worst name anyone can be called is cunt” (Le Masurier, 2016, p. 33). Greer rejected ideas of the clitoral orgasm being the only politically correct orgasm in the feminist movement and eventually separated herself from the radical feminist movement. Specifically, by promoting cuntpower instead, she aimed to satisfy the heterosexual feminists’ desires for sexual satisfaction with male partners. Unlike radical feminists, cuntpower theory argued that liberated female sexuality could not occur without men, and Greer and her followers naively believed “men could, and must change” (Le Masurier, 2016, p.34). In The Female Eunuch, Greer wrote, “Men are tired of having all the responsibility for sex, it is time they were relieved of it. (…) The cunt must come to its own” (Le Masurier, 2016, p. 34). Greer believed women could find sexual freedom in heterosexual relationships by asserting sexual independence, but failed to recognize the message radical feminists had been trying to assert; that sexual relations with men could never be equal under a patriarchal system. These early contradictions in the feminist movements would only grow stronger, dividing the movement, and leaving each different group too weak to bring about the strong united advocacy needed to challenge male hegemony and destroy the patriarchal state.

Different radical feminist groups were blossoming all over the United States. A New York-based group called Radicalesbians wrote a ten-paragraph manifesto titled “The Woman Identified Woman” in 1970. This document is now considered one of the major turning points for radical feminism, and one of the founding literatures of lesbian feminism. In this manifesto, they wrote “To the extent that she [woman] cannot expel the heavy socialization that goes with being female, she can never truly find peace with herself. For she is caught some-where between accepting society’s view of her - in which case she cannot accept herself - and coming to understand what this sexist society has done to her and why it is functional and necessary for her to do so” (Rudy, 2001, p. 197). Radicalesbians and other earlier groups flourished within the radical feminist movements. New York Radical Women, Cell 16, Redstockings, The Feminists, and more were forming all over the United States with the common goal of “bringing socialist politics into women’s issues” (Rudy, 2001, p. 197). Many of these early radical feminists identified as lesbians and emphasized the woman’s right to sexual pleasure with other women, and some simply adopted the label as a rejection of men.

Stay tuned next week for Part 2 of this 3-part series!

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