"heterosexuality is just not working" - the return of political lesbianism (sort of).

[Metaphor]

Another day, another feminist article published in establishment media that somehow the patriarchy has failed to censor. Come on patriarchy, what happened to your glory days?
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opini...worth-isn-t-just-celebrity-fodder-ncna1042931

Emphasis of particularly ludicrous content is mine. The below is selected paragraphs.

Over the past week, an assortment of trending stories — from Jeffrey Epstein to the Dayton and El Paso mass shooters, to Miley Cyrus’s separation and Julianne Hough’s declaration that she’s “not straight” — together have laid bare the strictures of an American patriarchy on the edge of a nervous breakdown. As the status quo, heterosexuality is just not working.

As a snapshot of 2019 America, these stories present a startling picture: Men continue to coerce, harass, rape and kill girls and women — and go to extreme lengths to avoid responsibility for their actions. On the other side of the issue, girls and women are challenging heterosexuality, and even absconding from it altogether.

Framed differently, the picture is this: Men need heterosexuality to maintain their societal dominance over women. Women, on the other hand, are increasingly realizing not only that they don’t need heterosexuality, but that it also is often the bedrock of their global oppression.

Patriarchy is at its most potent when oppression doesn’t feel like oppression, or when it is packaged in terms of biology, religion or basic social needs like security comfort, acceptance and success. Heterosexuality offers women all these things as selling points to their consensual subjection.

Historically, women have been conditioned to believe that heterosexuality is natural or innate, just as they have been conditioned to believe that their main purpose is to make babies — and if they fail to do so, they are condemned as not “real,” or as bad, women.

Cyrus thoughtfully explains how her sexuality is both distinct from and influences her definition of what a relationship looks like. “Being someone who takes such pride in individuality and freedom, and being a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community,” she writes in a personal memo in Vanity Fair in February, “I’ve been inspired by redefining again what a relationship in this generation looks like. Sexuality and gender identity are completely separate from partnership.”

...

While men stew in their mess, women are rising. They are taking back control of their lives and their bodies and they are questioning the foundation of the patriarchy — heterosexuality — that has kept them blindly subordinate for centuries.

“A feminist critique of compulsory heterosexual orientation for women is long overdue,” Adrienne Rich wrote in her 1980 feminist classic “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.”

It looks like this critique has finally arrived in the mainstream.

The author talks about and praises Miley Cyrus, who is bisexual, as one of the women in the vanguard of rejecting heterosexuality. This language is outrageous. People can't reject heterosexuality because it is impossible to change your sexual orientation. (Heterosexual women and men can choose to be celibate if they really hate the other sex, but they can't not be heterosexual).

Switch a few words around, and this could be a conservative piece arguing against same-sex marriage. After all, if people can choose their sexual orientation, gay people could just choose to change theirs.

Bisexuality is not rejection of heterosexuality. Bisexual people are bisexual because they are sexually attracted to both sexes, not because they've decided to reject hetero or homosexuality.

How do ideas like this -- that people can choose their sexual orientation -- continue to get establishment media attention?

 

[Jarhyn]

Radfem yells at clouds. Story at eleven who even fucking cares?

Seriously though, she can go pound sand. She's about as crazy as the shitlords who try to reject that trans people exist, or that gender identity is complicated, and nobody should even give that kind of bullshit the time of day.

 

[Metaphor]

Radfem yells at clouds. Story at eleven who even fucking cares?

Seriously though, she can go pound sand. She's about as crazy as the shitlords who try to reject that trans people exist, or that gender identity is complicated, and nobody should even give that kind of bullshit the time of day.

I made a promise to myself that I would no longer seek out ragebait on feminist sites, and my blood pressure has thanked me.

But this isn't a Tumblr feminist listing "autism" as her gender and kvetching about the misogynoir kyriarchy. This is privileged writing in establishment media.

 

[Toni]

Radfem yells at clouds. Story at eleven who even fucking cares?

Seriously though, she can go pound sand. She's about as crazy as the shitlords who try to reject that trans people exist, or that gender identity is complicated, and nobody should even give that kind of bullshit the time of day.

I made a promise to myself that I would no longer seek out ragebait on feminist sites, and my blood pressure has thanked me.

But this isn't a Tumblr feminist listing "autism" as her gender and kvetching about the misogynoir kyriarchy. This is privileged writing in establishment media.

Thank his you are steadfastly rejecting identity politics.


Seriously, dude. That’s about as well thought out as similar dorm room discussions in the 70’s. The problem really is the 24 hour news cycle.

 

[prideandfall]

But this isn't a Tumblr feminist listing "autism" as her gender and kvetching about the misogynoir kyriarchy. This is privileged writing in establishment media.

when it's the majority of members of the majority party controlling the government saying this on the floor of congress or the senate and using it as their justification for passing bills outlawing straight marriage i might be inclined to give any shits whatsoever.
until then, your promise to yourself needs work.

 

[Metaphor]

But this isn't a Tumblr feminist listing "autism" as her gender and kvetching about the misogynoir kyriarchy. This is privileged writing in establishment media.

when it's the majority of members of the majority party controlling the government saying this on the floor of congress or the senate and using it as their justification for passing bills outlawing straight marriage i might be inclined to give any shits whatsoever.
until then, your promise to yourself needs work.

My promise to myself was not to seek out ragebait on feminist sites, like Jezebel or Feministing, and I haven't. My promise does not need "work".

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I have to admit, this got a good chuckle out of me. There are feminists who think they can repress heterosexuality and change people away from it? Pray away the not gay? Is not gay "conversion therapy" next? Whoever denies that toxic feminism is a religion needs to think again.

But I do find it funny and a bit ironic, having dealt for decades with gay bashing, being told i am evil and sinful for my sexuality, and now seeing the same happen in the polar opposite direction.

As for men needing women sexually and heterosexuality being patriarchal.. is this woman not aware that gay men also exist?

 

[RVonse]

How do ideas like this -- that people can choose their sexual orientation -- continue to get establishment media attention?

Because that is what the global elites want us to hear. Maybe its because they want to "cull the herd" without the need for violence in order to keep certain populations infertile. I really do not get all of it.

But what I am pretty confident of is that the majority of the "main stream media" sucks. Turn on any channel and its all the same. Trump is no good...we need to be fighting wars in the middle east for Israel.....free global trade for the billionaires is mandatory....government is good......white men are bad.

Trump really is right when he calls it the "fake media". Because that's exactly what it has become.

 

[Trausti]

Heterosexuality natural and innate? Pfft. That's an alt-right fascist Nazi plot.

 

[Metaphor]

I have to admit, this got a good chuckle out of me. There are feminists who think they can repress heterosexuality and change people away from it? Pray away the not gay? Is not gay "conversion therapy" next? Whoever denies that toxic feminism is a religion needs to think again.

But I do find it funny and a bit ironic, having dealt for decades with gay bashing, being told i am evil and sinful for my sexuality, and now seeing the same happen in the polar opposite direction.

I don't think the author is applauding the bisexuality of men. I'm pretty sure she thinks men can die in the gutter as long as they're out of the way.

 

[Half-Life]

Every time the right makes a prediction, the left laughs at us, then the prediction comes true, and the left is silent.

The right has been saying, "We're not too far away from heterosexuality being demonized by the LGBT community and being shamed for being straight." The left said, "hahaha! You guys are delusional! No one will ever care if you're straight!"

The right was right once again. Maybe you guys should start listening to us.

Besides, gay men can't have children. Is it progressive to want depopulation?

 

[ronburgundy]

The author talks about and praises Miley Cyrus, who is bisexual, as one of the women in the vanguard of rejecting heterosexuality. This language is outrageous. People can't reject heterosexuality because it is impossible to change your sexual orientation. (Heterosexual women and men can choose to be celibate if they really hate the other sex, but they can't not be heterosexual).

Switch a few words around, and this could be a conservative piece arguing against same-sex marriage. After all, if people can choose their sexual orientation, gay people could just choose to change theirs.

Bisexuality is not rejection of heterosexuality. Bisexual people are bisexual because they are sexually attracted to both sexes, not because they've decided to reject hetero or homosexuality.

So, your entire post rests on your assumption that people only ever identify as and act upon the actual biologically based sexual orientation that they are born with. Reject that silly and clearly false assumption and your reaction makes no sense and the "ludicrous" comments you bolded are rather mundane and plausible.

She is simply saying that many women are rejecting the false notion they they are strictly heterosexual and that heterosexuality is the overwhelming biological norm for females. Instead they are embracing the sexual arousal and desire that a huge % (plausibly a majority ) of women naturally feel for each other but are shamed and conditioned to repress. Research shows that most women show similar levels of sexual arousal to images of only women and lesbian sex as they do to images of men and heterosex, but low arousal to male homosexual acts. This is much less true of men who tend to either show arousal.

A CDC study found that nearly 20% of white and black women in the US have engaged in same-sex sexual behaviors, even though most of those women still identified as "heterosexual". The % of women having sexual encounters with other women is sharply on the rise, as is the % of those who admit that they are bisexual. The fact that only 11% of Hispanic women in the US report same-sex encounters only provides more evidence that female heterosexuality is often a result of repression, since Hispanics are coming from cultures with more strongly enforced gender roles and overt bigotry against same-sex behavior.

People don't choose their sexual desires, but they do choose their behaviors and they clearly choose what label they choose to pick when others' ask them about their sexual orientation. But since people don't like to be attacked, beaten, and even killed almost no person ever chooses behaviors and labels that are less heterosexual than the actual desires, but often will choose behaviors and labels that are more heterosexual than their actual desires. This is what makes your attempt to equate her comments to conservatives who claim homosexuality is a choice completely invalid.

 

[Metaphor]

So, your entire post rests on your assumption that people only ever identify as and act upon the actual biologically based sexual orientation that they are born with.

No. In many households, countries and eras, homosexual people never publically identified with their homosexuality. They were still homosexual.

Reject that silly and clearly false assumption and your reaction makes no sense and the "ludicrous" comments you bolded are rather mundane and plausible.

It is absolutely mundane to say bisexual people are attracted to both sexes. It is absolutely outrageous to say you can choose to be attracted to a particular sex.

She is simply saying that many women are rejecting the false notion they they are strictly heterosexual and that heterosexuality is the overwhelming biological norm for females. Instead they are embracing the sexual arousal and desire that a huge % (plausibly a majority ) of women naturally feel for each other but are shamed and conditioned to repress. Research shows that most women show similar levels of sexual arousal to images of only women and lesbian sex as they do to images of men and heterosex, but low arousal to male homosexual acts. This is much less true of men who tend to either show arousal.

That women's sexuality is different to men's I do not doubt. I have not ever met a man in his thirties or forties who was heterosexual his entire life and then said 'and suddenly I just fell in love with this guy, and now I'm gay'. But it's a common lesbian narrative for a woman to have been a lifelong heterosexual (including identifying as one personally and not ever fantasizing about women) before a same-sex experience that changes them. But that isn't the point. They didn't choose to change their heterosexuality. You can't change it by an act of will.

A CDC study found that nearly 20% of white and black women in the US have engaged in same-sex sexual behaviors, even though most of those women still identified as "heterosexual". The % of women having sexual encounters with other women is sharply on the rise, as is the % of those who admit that they are bisexual. The fact that only 11% of Hispanic women in the US report same-sex encounters only provides more evidence that female heterosexuality is often a result of repression, since Hispanics are coming from cultures with more strongly enforced gender roles and overt bigotry against same-sex behavior.

People don't choose their sexual desires, but they do choose their behaviors and they clearly choose what label they choose to pick when others' ask them about their sexual orientation. But since people don't like to be attacked, beaten, and even killed almost no person ever chooses behaviors and labels that are less heterosexual than the actual desires, but often will choose behaviors and labels that are more heterosexual than their actual desires. This is what makes your attempt to equate her comments to conservatives who claim homosexuality is a choice completely invalid.

That you are more likely to come out as non-heterosexual in a less homophobic environment is neither news nor newsworthy. It is, as you say, completely mundane.

But the entire piece implies different. It implies that rejection of heterosexuality is a choice. It isn't. She even references a guidebook on political lesbianism at the end!

I don't know anything about the author but I knew after reading this piece she was a lesbian. In my experience, it is common for lesbians to think they chose their same-sex attraction (they didn't and they're deluded). And they think because they did it, any woman can.

 

[ronburgundy]

No. In many households, countries and eras, homosexual people never publically identified with their homosexuality. They were still homosexual.

Exactly, and that is a main premise of her argument, that most bisexuals continue to be controlled and shamed into living a lie that they are heterosexual, and it is that lie of heterosexuality that they are rejecting in favor of honestly embracing their real bisexuality. The evidence supports this point.

The valid criticism of her point, it is that she ignores the fact that many lesbians have also shamed bisexual women by treating them as if they are really just lesbians too afraid to give up men completely. The reality is that there are likely far more natually bisexual women than either hetero or homosexual women.

It is absolutely mundane to say bisexual people are attracted to both sexes. It is absolutely outrageous to say you can choose to be attracted to a particular sex.

And nothing you quoted or that I said makes such a claim. See below for more about that.

She is simply saying that many women are rejecting the false notion they they are strictly heterosexual and that heterosexuality is the overwhelming biological norm for females. Instead they are embracing the sexual arousal and desire that a huge % (plausibly a majority ) of women naturally feel for each other but are shamed and conditioned to repress. Research shows that most women show similar levels of sexual arousal to images of only women and lesbian sex as they do to images of men and heterosex, but low arousal to male homosexual acts. This is much less true of men who tend to either show arousal.

That women's sexuality is different to men's I do not doubt. I have not ever met a man in his thirties or forties who was heterosexual his entire life and then said 'and suddenly I just fell in love with this guy, and now I'm gay'. But it's a common lesbian narrative for a woman to have been a lifelong heterosexual (including identifying as one personally and not ever fantasizing about women) before a same-sex experience that changes them. But that isn't the point. They didn't choose to change their heterosexuality. You can't change it by an act of will.

A CDC study found that nearly 20% of white and black women in the US have engaged in same-sex sexual behaviors, even though most of those women still identified as "heterosexual". The % of women having sexual encounters with other women is sharply on the rise, as is the % of those who admit that they are bisexual. The fact that only 11% of Hispanic women in the US report same-sex encounters only provides more evidence that female heterosexuality is often a result of repression, since Hispanics are coming from cultures with more strongly enforced gender roles and overt bigotry against same-sex behavior.

People don't choose their sexual desires, but they do choose their behaviors and they clearly choose what label they choose to pick when others' ask them about their sexual orientation. But since people don't like to be attacked, beaten, and even killed almost no person ever chooses behaviors and labels that are less heterosexual than the actual desires, but often will choose behaviors and labels that are more heterosexual than their actual desires. This is what makes your attempt to equate her comments to conservatives who claim homosexuality is a choice completely invalid.

That you are more likely to come out as non-heterosexual in a less homophobic environment is neither news nor newsworthy. It is, as you say, completely mundane.

But the entire piece implies different. It implies that rejection of heterosexuality is a choice. It isn't. She even references a guidebook on political lesbianism at the end!

So your whole post just keeps repeating the false accusation that the author is asserting that there is not natural biological basis to attraction and that it's just a choice. Nothing in the article says or presumes that. It only implies you choose how to view yourself, and how to act. "Heterosexuality" and "bisexuality" have multiple meanings and can refer solely to one's innate feelings of sexual attraction, or to how one views/presents themselves, or one's actual sexual activities. The article explicitly focuses upon how women have been controlled and shamed into pretending they are solely attracted to males (and that is an objectively accurate observation). So, in that context, "more women are rejecting heterosexuality" quite clearly refers to women rejecting the false pretense of heterosexuality imposed upon them to embrace their actual desires.

Also, even regarding subjective feelings of attraction, it's not as simple as you feel whatever you were born to feel. Feelings about anything can be and are constantly impacted by conditioned learning and socialization. Countless experiments show that the innate instinctual attraction an organism feels towards a type of object can be turned into fear and revulsion by classical and operant conditioning using rewards and punishments. The negative feelings caused by the punishment gets integrated and becomes part of how one feels about the object that was associated with the punishment, which means it changes innate feelings about those objects.
From long before kids have any clue what sex is they experience rewards for heterosexual consistent acts and punished for things inconsistent with that. This would definitely alter how both homosexuals and bisexuals subjectively feel about the idea of same-sex encounters, making them feel scared and negative about such relations and thus likely to sincerely believe that they are heterosexual unless they come to unlearn those feelings that mask their innate attraction. Thus, a woman may realize that they are bisexual and yet still feel shame and unease about engaging in gay-sex, so again this is where choice can come in and they can choose to be a bisexual in action in spite of their learned feelings that may mimic heterosexuality, and such actions will cause them to unlearn those negative feelings. So, indirectly, they are choosing to feel their natural bisexual or lesbian feelings by rejecting the fear and unease they learned to associate with those things.

I don't know anything about the author but I knew after reading this piece she was a lesbian. In my experience, it is common for lesbians to think they chose their same-sex attraction (they didn't and they're deluded). And they think because they did it, any woman can.

Given how you misrepresented what this author was saying, I am highly skeptical about your other claimed experiences of lesbians claiming that their same-sex attraction is purely a matter of will. Again, a woman saying "I chose to be a lesbian" doesn't even qualify, b/c they are likely referring to their choice to only have sexual relationships with other women. This is especially applicable to women who are naturally bisexuals in terms of attraction but who can choose to only have sex with women (even as a political choice), and thus become defacto lesbians by choice.

 

[starwater]

Another angry male so lets find something to blame women (aka feminists) about thread.

 

[Metaphor]

Exactly, and that is a main premise of her argument, that most bisexuals continue to be controlled and shamed into living a lie that they are heterosexual, and it is that lie of heterosexuality that they are rejecting in favor of honestly embracing their real bisexuality. The evidence supports this point.

What evidence? That two bisexual women exist and therefore they are rejecting compulsory heterosexuality?

So your whole post just keeps repeating the false accusation that the author is asserting that there is not natural biological basis to attraction and that it's just a choice. Nothing in the article says or presumes that. It only implies you choose how to view yourself, and how to act. "Heterosexuality" and "bisexuality" have multiple meanings and can refer solely to one's innate feelings of sexual attraction, or to how one views/presents themselves, or one's actual sexual activities. The article explicitly focuses upon how women have been controlled and shamed into pretending they are solely attracted to males (and that is an objectively accurate observation). So, in that context, "more women are rejecting heterosexuality" quite clearly refers to women rejecting the false pretense of heterosexuality imposed upon them to embrace their actual desires.

And I've already said that being bisexual and open about it is not rejecting heterosexuality.

Also, even regarding subjective feelings of attraction, it's not as simple as you feel whatever you were born to feel. Feelings about anything can be and are constantly impacted by conditioned learning and socialization. Countless experiments show that the innate instinctual attraction an organism feels towards a type of object can be turned into fear and revulsion by classical and operant conditioning using rewards and punishments. The negative feelings caused by the punishment gets integrated and becomes part of how one feels about the object that was associated with the punishment, which means it changes innate feelings about those objects.

Operant conditioning was used to try and convert gay men and women into heterosexuality in the middle of the 20th century. It didn't work.

Given how you misrepresented what this author was saying, I am highly skeptical about your other claimed experiences of lesbians claiming that their same-sex attraction is purely a matter of will.

My own supervisor at university was a lesbian of this variety. I asked her "but you're not saying you freely chose to be attracted to women" and she said although there was a "background predisposition", that she did choose it (not just lesbian sex but the actual attraction).

 

[Arctish]

Given how you misrepresented what this author was saying, I am highly skeptical about your other claimed experiences of lesbians claiming that their same-sex attraction is purely a matter of will.

My own supervisor at university was a lesbian of this variety. I asked her "but you're not saying you freely chose to be attracted to women" and she said although there was a "background predisposition", that she did choose it (not just lesbian sex but the actual attraction).

That sounds like she chose to allow her 'background predisposition' to flourish, instead of stifling it.

I know a woman who realized she was a lesbian at an early age, had a difficult adolescence, was kicked out by her parents before she graduated high school when she introduced them to her girlfriend, and really had to pull herself up by her own bootstraps to get a college degree. I met her when her daughter and my kid were taking an extracurricular class together, and I met her wife at a birthday party shortly before their relationship ended. She was absolutely gobsmacked when, about a year later, she began to experience sexual attraction and romantic feelings for a guy. She had to decide whether to act on her feelings, which meant changing her own self-image, or ignoring them and staying in her comfort zone. I think it's fair to say she 'chose' to be bisexual, because she really did have to choose to take that path, and it was pretty scary for her.

 

[Metaphor]

Given how you misrepresented what this author was saying, I am highly skeptical about your other claimed experiences of lesbians claiming that their same-sex attraction is purely a matter of will.

My own supervisor at university was a lesbian of this variety. I asked her "but you're not saying you freely chose to be attracted to women" and she said although there was a "background predisposition", that she did choose it (not just lesbian sex but the actual attraction).

That sounds like she chose to allow her 'background predisposition' to flourish, instead of stifling it.

I know a woman who realized she was a lesbian at an early age, had a difficult adolescence, was kicked out by her parents before she graduated high school when she introduced them to her girlfriend, and really had to pull herself up by her own bootstraps to get a college degree. I met her when her daughter and my kid were taking an extracurricular class together, and I met her wife at a birthday party shortly before their relationship ended. She was absolutely gobsmacked when, about a year later, she began to experience sexual attraction and romantic feelings for a guy. She had to decide whether to act on her feelings, which meant changing her own self-image, or ignoring them and staying in her comfort zone. I think it's fair to say she 'chose' to be bisexual, because she really did have to choose to take that path, and it was pretty scary for her.

She chose to express her bisexuality. She did not choose the attraction itself. You cannot will yourself to be attracted to a sex you're not attracted to.

 

[Arctish]

That sounds like she chose to allow her 'background predisposition' to flourish, instead of stifling it.

I know a woman who realized she was a lesbian at an early age, had a difficult adolescence, was kicked out by her parents before she graduated high school when she introduced them to her girlfriend, and really had to pull herself up by her own bootstraps to get a college degree. I met her when her daughter and my kid were taking an extracurricular class together, and I met her wife at a birthday party shortly before their relationship ended. She was absolutely gobsmacked when, about a year later, she began to experience sexual attraction and romantic feelings for a guy. She had to decide whether to act on her feelings, which meant changing her own self-image, or ignoring them and staying in her comfort zone. I think it's fair to say she 'chose' to be bisexual, because she really did have to choose to take that path, and it was pretty scary for her.

She chose to express her bisexuality. She did not choose the attraction itself. You cannot will yourself to be attracted to a sex you're not attracted to.

True, you cannot will yourself to be attracted to a sex you're not attracted to, but you can be frightened by your attractions and will yourself to ignore them.

My friend had to fight for her own self worth when she confronted her parents about her sexuality and endured their rejection. She had to learn how to deal with anti-gay bigotry and to live openly as a lesbian. Realizing she might not actually be a lesbian was disorienting and disturbing. It was like she didn't recognize herself.

Embracing her bisexuality felt like rejecting her lesbianism. That was hard. It would have been easier for her to stay in her comfort zone but she chose not to.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

True, you cannot will yourself to be attracted to a sex you're not attracted to, but you can be frightened by your attractions and will yourself to ignore them.

I think ignoring things is key, likewise unawareness which is a similar concept. But I should also mention that *sexuality like most words has ambiguity--there are meanings such as not merely attraction, but instead what one does physically. It is defined either way. So when authors write about compulsory *sexuality, they are talking about in patriarchal societies where these options are not discussed much, but also only heterosexuality is discussed, enabled, and allowed, any minor bout of awareness is classified as something else--good friends, whatever. So, the theory is one can indeed be forced by these two things: lack of awareness in a culture and no physical consummation. This whole thing seems to be semantics again, not something more.