I’ve been reluctant to write more than a brief bit in response to all the criticism I’ve been getting lately, because I’m reluctant to engage with critics who are verbally abusive and demonize my sexuality, or who act like their support and approval of me— in spite of the ‘incorrect’ label I use— are a huge fucking deal. But since this isn’t really going away, I guess it might be time to clarify a few things:
I am not being purposefully contrarian. I’ve been using the radfem label for years, and most of that time I used it in a less controversial way. I have deep ties to the term— radical feminism brought me to social justice, and it did so by helping me to understand my own abuse. I didn’t want to give up the label just because my sexuality had evolved, and I realized, the more I read, that I didn’t have to, because
there is such a thing as pro-kink and pro-sex work radical feminism. It has its roots at the very beginning of the movement, and it fits the necessary conditions of radical feminism: a belief that there is structural oppression of women and that radical everyday actions that undermine traditional gender roles can undo this large-scale, structural oppression. Whether ‘kyriarchy’ can be a substitute for ‘patriarchy’ and what is meant by ‘undermining gender roles’ is up for debate, but
I don’t know how else to describe a philosophy that contains those necessary conditions, and most everything I do originates within them. They’re the reason why I am so conscious about expressing my very problematic exhibitionist, D/s, schoolgirl-roleplaying sexuality— which, no matter how it was formed, is very genuine— in ways that challenge as many common notions about women as possible. Namely, that we can’t be sexual, that our sexuality is coerced, that we aren’t aggressive and assertive. Rejecting my sexuality entirely may seem like it’s more in line with traditional radfem thought, but it’s impossible for me to do; I can only suppress my sexual desires, and that is not feminist, radical or otherwise.
That said, I am open to changing the labels I use. But I’m not open to doing it because some assholes on the Internet don’t understand my interpretation of the label or my sexuality. I am open to doing it because I may be misunderstanding just how intolerant of intersectionality radical feminism is, or because the label may be triggering for certain marginalized women, or because I may find a label that fits me better and is used by other women like me— kinky women who use sex work as a form of sexual expression.
In the end, no matter what label I use, I will be demonized by women (and men, but it’s mostly been women at this point) who don’t understand my sexuality, who think it is a choice, or an illness, or who want me to be repressed and miserable instead of working to express it responsibly, because they think (radical) feminism is all about completely sacrificing one’s actual sexual well-being for the theoretical benefit of the whole. The label is not the real fight.
