Unsolicited Thoughts on Things
Jun. 17th, 2009 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aliarasSo, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cereta made a great post that's sparked all kinds of discussion on rape, culture, violence against women, and men's role in the whole thing. And it was interesting. But it got me thinking - what's my relationship to all this?
I'm a lesbian, I find women attractive. This attraction ranges everywhere from "My, you are an interesting (and incidentally physically pleasing) person who is intelligent and shares many things in common with me! We should go out to eat and be adorable together and maybe have sex at some point" to "Hi you're hot wanna bang?" I've had giggling butterfly-filled crushes, and I've known people where it was a real struggle for me to look into their eyes (my vision was too busy being redirected by my latent 13-year-old boy brain)
It's this second, more physical kind of attraction that worries me. I'm not sure how to express it and process it out loud or in my head without falling into the traps set by a misogynistic culture. My most common model for looking at the female body from a sexual point of view is that of a man. I worry that it slips into my language. How do I tell a woman I find her, or one of her features, incredibly physically attractive without framing it in a way that's reminiscent of men you wish weren't looking?
I don't want to be a part of the problem by looking too much, flirting too heavily, or in the wrong ways. I don't have any feelings of ownership over (other) women, because really, that's ridiculous. I know people are people, not things (though at what point am I objectifying, and at what point am I merely enjoying the view?) and try to respect others. I know no means no in all situations, not just sex, and I'm definitely a fan of 'enthusiastic consent' as a standard for physical activity itself. But, even though I think I'm okay, after having thought it through...I'm still going to watch myself, because the worst thing for me would be to contribute to the problem.
(As a side note...this whole discussion has made me actually GET what was being said in RaceFail. Watching women smack down men who were defensive, derailing, etc. made me finally realize that hey, my privileged ass hangs out a bit, yanno?)
cereta made a great post that's sparked all kinds of discussion on rape, culture, violence against women, and men's role in the whole thing. And it was interesting. But it got me thinking - what's my relationship to all this?I'm a lesbian, I find women attractive. This attraction ranges everywhere from "My, you are an interesting (and incidentally physically pleasing) person who is intelligent and shares many things in common with me! We should go out to eat and be adorable together and maybe have sex at some point" to "Hi you're hot wanna bang?" I've had giggling butterfly-filled crushes, and I've known people where it was a real struggle for me to look into their eyes (my vision was too busy being redirected by my latent 13-year-old boy brain)
It's this second, more physical kind of attraction that worries me. I'm not sure how to express it and process it out loud or in my head without falling into the traps set by a misogynistic culture. My most common model for looking at the female body from a sexual point of view is that of a man. I worry that it slips into my language. How do I tell a woman I find her, or one of her features, incredibly physically attractive without framing it in a way that's reminiscent of men you wish weren't looking?
I don't want to be a part of the problem by looking too much, flirting too heavily, or in the wrong ways. I don't have any feelings of ownership over (other) women, because really, that's ridiculous. I know people are people, not things (though at what point am I objectifying, and at what point am I merely enjoying the view?) and try to respect others. I know no means no in all situations, not just sex, and I'm definitely a fan of 'enthusiastic consent' as a standard for physical activity itself. But, even though I think I'm okay, after having thought it through...I'm still going to watch myself, because the worst thing for me would be to contribute to the problem.
(As a side note...this whole discussion has made me actually GET what was being said in RaceFail. Watching women smack down men who were defensive, derailing, etc. made me finally realize that hey, my privileged ass hangs out a bit, yanno?)
