> I think that a lot of the talk going on on this
> board re: "diversity" has the unintentional effect of glossing
> over genuine debate on the issues that "divide" us, and
> throwing us into a realm where all we are concerned about is
> whether or not we feel comfortable with any given discussion.
>
Yes, this clarifies a realization I was coming to. As I said from
the beginning of the discussion of the vegie issue, the fundamental
point there is whether farmed animals are oppressed. That's the issue
that divides us, but instead of focussing on that, our discussion
continually returns to how we feel about someone standing up for
animals (meat-eaters feeling not welcome at vegetarian conferences,
meat-eaters feeling like the vegies are "holier-than-thou," etc.)
To some extent I facilitated this misplaced focus by bringing up how
vegies sometimes feel surrounded by dead flesh. I did this out of
desperation after a long personal history (and a short history on
this list) of finding people unwilling to straightforwardly discuss
the situation of farmed animals and our responsibility for that as
consumers. But, that was a mistake--if people don't want to discuss
something, they won't. It's apparently time to let it go, on this
list anyway. So, onto sexuality:
>
> So I would like to ask you (all) a question: how can we begin
> to formulate an ecofeminist agenda that deals explicitly with
> questions of heterosexism? I see, in existing ecofeminist
> literature, little discussion of sexuality, let alone queer
> sexuality. I am not interested in creating a new set of sexual
> "norms" to which all people must aspire; I AM interested
> in interrogating current forms of sexuality in terms of their
> perpetuation of particular modes of power. Are we (ecofeminists)
> content with Dworkin and MacKinnon, or are there specific
> things that we could add to contemporary struggles around
> sexuality (which I think is far more complicated than simply
> a question of orientation)? Isn't there an erotic dimension
> to social life that we want to preserve/foster? Don't
> Dworkin et. al. seem to forget this?
I've read all of Dworkin's work, not so much of MacKinnon's. It's
common to associate anti-porn positions like Dworkin's with anti-sex,
a position that your last question comes close to, as I read it
anyway. I personally have found no anti-sex views whatsoever in
Dworkin's writings. If anything, by challenging the sexuality
constructed by men, in particular within pornography--which is a
sexuality of power and dominance--she is working to reclaim the
erotic dimension of social life. Pornography is not erotic, it kills
our capacity to feel. It channels all of our sexual impulses and
energies into the maintainence of power relations, at the expense of
our capacities to feel erotic pleasure with each other.
This is relevant to the point about not wanting to create a new set
of sexual norms--this is also a common charge made of Dworkin and
MacKinnon. But again, Dworkin's work suggests that since pornography
is so normative, and so restrictive of our sexuality, opposing
pornography and the sexuality it helps construct will open up all
kinds of possibilities for developing our sexualities. Anti-porn
feminism is AGAINST the creation of sexual norms. Hugh Hefner et al
are in actuality our present-day Puritans.
For example, there's an article in a recent Advocate magazine about
Rebecca Armstrong, a lesbian who posed for Playboy a few years ago.
She talks about how they placed sandbags on her feet so she
wouldn't move during the hours it took to shoot the centerfold, about
how they fluffed up her pubic hair and had to work to make sure both
her nipples were erect at the same time, how she had to go into the
director's office and say "shoe" and "moo" for him until she had the
pout down just right, etc. This is not erotic! This is clearly anti-
sexuality. And this is what anti-porn feminists like Dworkin are
working against.
Can we speak about the
> erotic dimensions of nature (especially in a context where
> so much sexuality is influenced by/reduced to domination)?
>
One thought-provoking example about this. Breast-feeding is (or can
be) a very erotic process (so I'm told). Women often breast-feed
nonhuman animals, though this is covered over in our woman and animal-
hating culture. When Utne Reader ran a photgraph of a Peruvian woman
peacefully breast-feeding a lamb, the reader response was amazing.
One woman wrote in saying she works with victims of sexual assault,
but that nothing she'd seen in her work was anywhere near as
disgusting as that photograph! That indicates to me how deeply our
fear of the possibilities of erotic relations with animals goes in
our culture. On the other hand, if she's presuming (like those who
equate anti-porn with anti-sex) that the erotic is necessarily
violent and dominating, then I can understand her reaction--she's
afraid of animals being sexually dominated and hurt they way women
often our in this culture.
> On a practical level, how can we think about political organizing
> in a way that links struggles over nature with struggles over
> sexuality? How can these be linked to antiracism? How are
> our understandings of our bodies implicated in all of this, and
> is there a link to challenging the medical establishment?
>
Really important and interesting questions. But no more time to
write today, darn it! Looking forward to everyone else's
contributions ...
Brian
