I don’t read the New York Times Magazine these days*, and, accordingly, I didn’t read its piece about female sexuality, but I do like this point that Jill Filipovic made (via Megan Carpentier):
How about the fact that women grow up in a society that is centered on men’s experiences and lives? That the female body is used as a representation of sex itself, whereas (hetero) men’s experiences and understandings of sex dominate our cultural narrative? To go back to an old feminist gem, men watch; women watch themselves being watched.
And women’s bodies are positioned as public property. Whether it’s ongoing political battles about what we can and can’t do with our reproductive systems or a cultural religious/virginity narrative that places female sexuality as a bartering chip between male “protectors” or not being able to walk down the damn street without a reminder that we don’t have the same right to public space as men do, to be female is to be told, “Your body is not yours.”
Try as I might — and I don’t try hard enough — I’m not a patient person. I truly don’t know how I’d survive as a woman. I’d probably end up killing someone.
*Other behavior of mine that doesn’t correlate with liberalism: Rarely if ever listen to NPR; don’t care about This American Life; truly don’t want to hear you talk about your bike, ever.




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