The Politics of Positivity
Yes Means Yes!
Visions of Female Sexual Power
and a World Without Rape
Edited by Jacklyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti
Seal Press, 2009, 361 pages, $16.95
Four decades ago, when I was pretty young, a WRL member for whom I worked attempted to rape me. There was a good possibility that his wife would arrive and interrupt his attack, but I successfully fought him off first. I then waited outside his door while he wrote me one last check. Perhaps curiously, I was more astonished than traumatized.
That a pacifist would attempt a violent physical assault is just one small strand in the large, unwieldy tapestry that weaves together the disparate views about female sexual autonomy, and about rape. The contributors to Yes Means Yes! present many of these views.
Jil Filipovic, in the first chapter, sets the stage by classifying rape as a “tool of social control.” The possibility of an assault is used to keep women “safe” at home and to reinforce women’s passivity at the expense of efforts to become strong and independent. She argues that rape should be situated with the greater cultural battles over women’s bodies and not continue to be seen as an act of one individual against another. Filipovic’s framing of rape as a political issue is a good introduction to the chapters that illustrate her model.
For example, Kimberly Springer and Samhita Mukhopadhyay, in different chapters, argue that women of color don’t own their own sexuality. Springer asserts that the Black community uses rape as justification for the view that sex always ends badly for women and that asexuality should be women’s goal. Conversely, both authors say that some Black males, rappers specifically, claim that the rape of Black women is not possible because they are “hypersexual.” Miriam Zoila Pérez explains how undocumented women desiring to enter the United States are raped repeatedly, used both as bribes for immigration officials and as inducements to prospective male clients for illegal border-crossing services. Kate Harding states that the rape of fat women is a logical extension of society’s treatment of them in general.
Coco Fusco, using Abu Ghraib as an example, describes the new way that servicewomen have been abused, not by fellow soldiers this time, but by the U.S. government. “[C]ompelled to relinquish control of their own sexuality in exchange for the illusion of individual power,” servicewomen are trained to use their sexuality as a component of torture, particularly in situations where it would increase the humiliation of the victim. They are then scapegoated as renegades—shown in photos where they seem to make an independent decision to sexualize acts of torture—while in fact their actions were choreographed by male superiors. By blaming servicewomen for what they did, male officers gain in two ways, Fusco explains: First, they absolve themselves of responsibility for illegal acts, and second, they perpetuate the stereotype that women are temptresses and thus morally suspect.
Despite concerns about rape, many women, as authors describe in several chapters, assert themselves in gendered, albeit post-feminist, ways. Posing nude in magazines and music videos, according to Javacia N. Harris, is a way for some to publicly announce that they are comfortable with their bodies and to be rewarded financially for their attractiveness, although such decisions enable male viewers to continue to objectify women and promoters to become rich off women’s bodies. Stacy May Fowles argues that sexual submission for women, where boundaries are carefully defined and ground rules set, actually eliminates the threat of violence as it enables feeling pleasure without fear.
In my view, however, by relinquishing authentic control over their bodies but calling it “girl power,” these women are no different from—albeit the mirror image of—women who devote themselves to a religion that keeps them subservient but defend their oppression as a sign of respect from god and man. This is the antithesis of true female liberation.
Toni Amato speaks eloquently about the need to reclaim self-respect, especially in the case of the individuals whose identities have traditionally been despised. In particular, she argues poignantly for the absolute acceptance of children who want to express their gender and sexuality in nontraditional ways: “If a small boy is permitted to express his desires and longings, his feelings and dreams, only in rough touch and angry words, how will that young man grow to be able to express the tenderness and compassion at the core of his intimacy?” Amato further urges that everyone, with society’s active support, purge themselves of personal shame over their identity or their sexual victimization because in our culture, where “profitable sales and presumed security” are based on shaming, “violence is acceptable and expected.”
Educating Against Violence
So how can sexual violence be stopped? The contributors do not present answers that would satisfy a survivor as fully as they would support a political agenda. The few who even broach this question focus on education: of youth and of society. Brad Perry and Cara Kulwicki each offer well thought-out plans for teaching about sexuality in general and about sexual consent in particular. Latoya Peterson further explains how education can end the epidemic of “not-rape,” which occurs when a woman acquiesces to unwanted sex because it is simply easier than protesting. But Julia Serano cautions against portraying all men as predators: the aggressor/victim stereotype may lead some men to take on this role “in order to gain attention and feel desirable” and some women to take on the role of sexual object for the same reasons; moreover, the stereotype leads to societal efforts to desexualize women to limit their desirability as prey.
Jaclyn Friedman, in the last chapter, objects to warning women about “risky” behavior, saying that it is not fair for women do all the policing and then, probably, to be blamed anyway for their own victimization. Still, she urges women to make responsible decisions about their behavior, and, most important, to take self-defense courses to empower themselves and to send the message that a rapist should worry about being hurt. Friedman also calls for holding rapists responsible, which occurs far too infrequently. Thus, the many earlier political pronouncements notwithstanding, one of the volume’s editors returns to the conventional position that rape is an act of an individual, deserving of a public response, and not only an artifact of a repressive and greedy culture.
