#it means RADICAL FEMINIST. which you are obviously not

[maledepravityarchive]

"radical feminist" me when i lie

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

another crazy thing about having been a prostitute is to realise how little difference there has been in how many of my male sexual partners have treated me and how sex buyers treated me, especially since i was an escort where often you get paid to simulate dates. i even had sex buyers beg to see me again meanwhile men in real life often ghost or keep me at armlength especially when there are no romantic feelings involved.

this is why i dont want to have sex without feelings and care for each other anymore - it almost feels like im prostituted all over again, bad in a different way because i actually like the men i sleep with and want them to like and appreciate me too and consider my desires (dont get me wrong obviously prostitution is always worse than sleeping with men im actually attracted to and want to have sex with but it hurts in a different way to realise that ive often also been just a means to get off to them).

like for example, since sex buyers often pay for time instead of sex act (or both combined), they want to get the most out of their money and do the most to you in the set time - but as a prostitute you want to get it over with as soon as possible and it feels like torture. meanwhile so many heterosexual men who dont pay for sex try to reach orgasm as soon as possible and then its over, lmao. like the direct comparison between having been prostituted and having voluntary sex with men will make you feel absolutely crazy but it also made me realise why i thought i didnt even like sex for so long. because i was always treated like an object, not a person. men will do the bare minimum to keep you around for sex if they dont see you as wife material (and then they also do just little more than the bare minimum up until they reached their goal of marriage then usually start neglecting their wives as we know).

which brings home the point that we need a cultural and legal shift. as long as men treat sex as masturbation with another person, and women as objects or tools, there will always be demand for prostitution, and there will always be (privileged) women deluded into thinking „might as well get paid for it“ or even „at least now im being appreciated“, paradoxically. thats how bad heterosexual men treat women in bed.

this also emphasises that yes, #allmen, because even the men who dont buy sex contribute to the system of sexual exploitation with their behaviour. the reason ive heard men say most often why they dont buy sex is not care for women, but pride. they can convince women to get them off so why pay for it? same with porn, they dont stop watching because they care about women, but because their dick stopped working. and then of course you have a lot of sex buyers who dont even want to do the bare minimum mentioned above so they buy sex to go immediately to using a womans body with no „hassle“. the state of heterosex is fucking dire because i know im by far not the only one experiencing this.

and even before prostitution i could feel it but not really put my finger on it, now with this horrible experience and a radical aligned feminist view on things i realise and its really dark. and dont even try talking to men about their inadequacies in bed because they will act like youre the problem and an annoying nag for voicing desires.

[doberbutts]

I remember reading a post that men are the oppressor class so why would they bother to dismantle systemic patriarchy when they actively benefit from its existence? And as I read it, I thought, Damn, so an entire half of the population can never conceivably help us, and the people who love men in their lives are doomed. It wasn't a helpful post. It basically felt, here's some actual material analysis on feminism and said, That trying to educate and make men be part of feminism is fundamentally a flawed effort, because again, they are the oppressor class, why should they care about uplifting the oppressed?

And it made me think about this very good pamphlet I read, explaining how the white worker remained complacent for so long because at least they weren't a Black slave. And that the author theorized the reason labor movements never truly created exceptional, radical change is because of internal racism (which I find true) and failure to uplift black people. And the author listed common outlooks/approaches to this problem, and one of them was: "We should ignore the white folks entirely and hold solidarity with only other POC, and the countries in the Global South. Who needs those wishy-washy white fragile leftists who don't care about what we think or want?" (roughly paraphrased.)

And the author said, This sounds like the most leftist and radical position, but it's totally flawed because it absolves us of our responsibility to dismantle white supremacy for the sake of our fellow marginalized people, and we are basically ignoring the problem. And that blew me away because this is a position so many activists have, to just ignore the white folks and focus entirely on our own movements. I wish I knew the name of the actual pamphlet, so I could quote entire passages at you.

But I feel this is the same for men. Obviously, we should prioritize and have women-led and women-focused feminism. But saying that men are an oppressor class so they can't reliably be counted upon in feminist activism--it's such a huge oversimplification. And mainly, I'm a Muslim, and I've been treated with plenty of misogyny from Muslim men. And also plenty of misogyny from Muslim women. And I love my male friends, I want men to be part of the movement, and I dunno. Thinking about communities, movements, and the various ways we fail each other and what it means to be truly intersectional keeps me up at night.

I don't know the pamphlet you're talking about but I've read and been taught similar. There's a reason much of my anti-racism is so feminist and most of my feminism is anti-racist. Many people coming at this problem from a truly intersectional angle have seen that there is no freedom to be had without joining hands across the community. Not picking and choosing our allies based off of identity but off of behavior.

As used in a previous example, a white abled moderately wealthy man saying "wow Healthcare sucks in this country, why does this system suck so bad" should be told "hey, this system sucks so bad because it's built off of sexism, racism, classism, and ableism. You want to improve the system? Fix those things and it will be much better in the long run" and not "shut up you're a man. Healthcare is always going to be better for you". The second response doesn't fix that Healthcare is still a problem even if you are at the "top" of the privilege ladder. If we want true change, we have to dismantle the entire system at it's core and build it up without the yuck, otherwise you're gunna get to the top and realize this place sucks too.

Something something if the crabs worked together to hold each other up, they could all get out of the bucket and be free.

[biohorror-human]

Trans people may or may not have popped off with the "block every radfem you see" idea because holy shit. You are all some of the most pessimistic and spiteful fuckers on earth. You all claim not to be bio-essentialist, and then turn around and say shit that is, at its core bio-essentialist. All of your ideas, in some way, revolve around hurting someone else. Want to destroy the gender binary? Certainly attacking trans people will help. Want to destroy child marriage? Tell people not to marry brown people, just, ever. Want to destroy the patriarchy? (This is the best one) Never organize, never protest, never coordinate, just sit around and cultivate a nightmarishly toxic environment and then have the GALL to ask "why are people so open about their disdain for radical feminism?"

Because all your ideas are rooted in hate. The last time I've had discussions this fucking bleak with people is when I got into an argument with an actual self-described Nazi. Btw, I know you radfems are super exclusionary and refuse to cooperate with any other social group, but maybe Nazis would be up your alley? Considering they also have an affinity for eugenics and wanting to eliminate general swathes of the population, I think you'd be great for each other.

I mean, just to list some of the bullshit you people constantly say which doesn't line up with any of the other shit you say: "trans and GNC people destroying the gender binary (which is good because we radfems don't like the gender binary) is actually BAD now because we were using that gender binary to call all men oppressors, and now we have to actually confront what specific societal issues enable someone to be an oppressor, instead of just saying that being a man makes you an oppressor (which is bio-essentialism, which we disagree with, unless you're amab, in which case then bio-essentialism is actually something we super-agree with)

And that's just one of the ones that I actually went into the effort of tracking down. In terms of shit that I've just seen on a whim: you say you hate bio-essentialism, but also people born male are naturally more oppressive. You say women should have the freedom to do whatever they want, unless that "want" is dating men, because even if they're happy in their relationship, they're actually secretly sad and lying. Because since when did feminists hold the belief that women could understand their own emotions? Pretty clothes are also bad, because men like to look at clothes. Nevermind what the woman behind those clothes thinks, you shouldn't be able to enjoy anything for any reason because a man might look at it and also enjoy it for a split fucking second.

You know what that last one makes me think of? How abusive husbands tell their wives that they can't wear revealing clothes because it will attract the gaze of other men. But history is obviously not your forte, because if it was you'd understand that the only way social movements like feminism prosper is if they cooperate with other social movements, a concept you could really stand to learn a thing or two about. Another cool historical fact is that segregation is, historically, frowned upon. But I still see you talking about how white women shouldn't date brown men, and how asian women shouldn't date white men.

You know, they actually made a haven for people like you. And no, this isn't going to lead to a "Nazi Germany" bait and switch. It was a place where women could only marry into their own race. Where police were around every corner. Where women actively ratted out people betraying that law. Where women were literally not allowed outside past a certain time. It was South Africa under fucking apartheid. You believe, on a fundamental level, the same shit that traditionalists (nazis) and conservatives believe in. You make yourselves miserable as a form of protest, but because your circles are so exclusive, the only people there to witness your misery are other radical feminists. You're creating a hyper-dense misery sphere that doesn't even take that pain out on the patriarchy, only on other women. You have absolutely, undoubtedly got to be the worst rebels in the history of rebellion. You're literally making the patriarchy's job easier by pre-misery-ifying women. You're streamlining the misery process. I've never seen another social movement do that.

I think the only thing you guys actually accomplished was making men who cared or were curious about your movement equally miserable. You know what I got when I tried to join the radfem discussion? When I made the MISTAKE of trying to learn about your cause to better support it? I got fucking berated. you people finally had a man WILLINGLY come up to you to internalize your ideas. And you know what you chose to say to me? When I had a question, you mocked my voice. You compared me to an ogre, or a giant. You said women SHOULD be scared of me because of the way I was born. You said I was a natural-born rapist. You spoke about how my androgens made me develop into a beast- made me resent my own body, on top of how I already dissociated with it. You demonized any thought of sexuality, shot down any idea of body-positivity. And even then, even after all that I thought it may have been positive. I thought maybe it made me stronger, that maybe I was more like you because I was able to see the flaws in my own biology. Nah. You just wanted me to be miserable, like you. I was your willing punching bag for all of your anger and resentment. You're the femme-fascist matriarchs of self loathing. The only boiling bucket of crabs who not just drags the crabs trying to escape back in, but actively coaxes new crabs to join. You want a revenge story in a world where revenge only leads to more suffering. Your definition of equal is only met when every man is twice as miserable as you. That's not a world anyone, man or woman or anything else deserves to live in.

I have a bunch more shit to say but even thinking about you miserable fucks is starting to rub off on me. Fuck the patriarchy. Trans pride rules.

[lorynna]

i would consider myself a radical feminist also and i agree with the vast majority of your views. honestly i am just curious why you think aromantic/asexual people don't exist or shouldn't be labeled. i don't mean this as hate i'm honestly curious to know if it is part of most radical feminist views

if you can accept someone who is lesbian, and knows for themselves that they aren't at all attracted to men, why would you not accept someone who realizes both that they aren't attracted to men and they aren't attracted to women? (obviously very different identities and experiences i'm just wondering why some people can be trusted to know who they're not attracted to and others can't)

Hello anon, thank you for asking so kindly.

I am going to try and explain what my personal opinion on the topic is, as well as I can, and please keep in mind that I don't speak for the radical feminist community but just for my own views.

First of all, the definitions I have read of both terms (aromantic and asexual) so far aren't really specific, differ from each other at times and leave open room for interpretation. The gendies meanwhile continue to preach "everything means something different to each person" and "it is a broad spectrum" just like they do with gender, which according to them is so complicated and unfathomable that you have to ask each person identifying with it seperately, to know what their gender means to them.

The first thing that comes up when I google the definition of both terms displayed below (just as an example of what I mean):

Like, what do "sexual feelings" all include and to which extent does "little romantic attraction" go?

I do think that people who fit the mainstream criterias for being asexual or aromantic exist, I am not trying to say that it is naturally impossible to experience no sexual or aromantic attraction to anyone. I do think it is really really rare for this to authentically occur though, and that a lot of people identifying with these labels have experienced some kind of trauma or are doing it because it has become a trend.

The thing I most dislike about these labels are not only their inconsistency in definitions but also how much they are starting to get pushed online = trend. In my personal experience I have seen not only online but also offline how younger kids and teens start to pick up on these labels without knowing what they truly mean, because they are "cool" and just like gender it is starting to become a similar trend. Seeing who publicly identifies as those labels, it is again mostly the demographic of teenagers who are going puberty and the several different, crucial developmental phases that come with that.

Since you are asking if this is a common radfem belief, I cannot say. There surely is a variety of opinions, however I have seen some good takes from which I remember being said that a person doesn't need the label of "asexuality" or "aromanticism" as an excuse to not participate in dating culture or to not engage in sexual relations. It should just be common sense to not ask strangers about their dating lives and not ask "why" if they say they are not dating or having sex as if it was something unusual.

Also answering to your last question of "why I don't trust those people to know who they are attracted or not attracted to" is not what I am trying to do insinuate by questioning/criticizing the labels they use to describe said attraction. It is not about me trying to say "I don't believe you, you are lying" it is "why do you need those labels". I just don't think it adds anything valuable to society and it's getting more mainstream each day. Now even with teenagers using those labels when they haven't had the time to figure out themselves as a person yet. It just looses its meaning.

I've seen women going through long periods without having partners (radfems participating in male seperatism for example) being asked "oh, so you're asexual, right?" or "oh, so you're unable to form a romantic connection?" because people start assuming, forgetting that there are so so many reasons why people might not have partners or might not want to.

Again, people who truly are not experiencing any sexual desire or romantic desire are really rare but through so many people mindlessly adopting the label it looses it's meaning because it gets more broad in definition and everyone continues to define it for themselves. "Yeah, I am asexual but sometimes I have sex. Like once a month but that's barely enough so I must be asexual." Like... you might just have a low libido and that's totally okay! Why do you feel the need to label yourself as asexual? Is it easier because of your partner's expectations, maybe? Is a simple no not enough for them?

"I'm 15 and I haven't had a crush on anyone so far. I actually think boys/girls are ew and I can't imagine kissing anyone, like ew saliva. Also the girls/boys in my class are so annoying!!" And no, I've heard statements like this several times before. I mean, give yourself some time you're only 15.

Why do we always have to slap a label on top of everything and why can't we just go through life saying "yeah at the moment I really don't feel like having a partner, I don't want to date or have sex. Maybe that will change someday, maybe not and either way it's okay, I'm open for change. " but we have to say "oh yes, I'm an asexual aromantic without doubt and that won't change, that's my identity" and then when that changes we get an identity crisis realising that oh, maybe that wasn't me? Who am I now?

It all boils down to me not being able to take those labels seriously anymore, which is why I reacted so sarcastically in the post you're probably referring to, where I talked sarcastically about those terms.

"labels are different for anyone"

like no.. to define means to limit, to define means to exclude people who don't meet those criterias and that's okay, that's what makes labels and words meaningful = contributing to a conversation of mutual understanding instead of having to first discuss what each person means by using one and the same word.

Like I can't go outside in a clothing store saying "oh I want a red dress" and when she shows me a red dress I then say "oh that's not red for me, that's yellow by my own definition." How do you expect everyone to effectively communicate by leaving the option open for everyone to seperately define one single term??

But as we know, the gendies aren't fans of definitions.

[spacerockfloater]

I can’t believe that I have to say this, but I need to remind y’all that radical feminism locating the root cause of women's oppression in patriarchal gender relations DOES mean that:

a) a huge amount of cis straight men dominate and oppress women, other genders and literally any kind of human being that is not exactly like them.

b) a radical reordering of society is necessary.

But radical feminism surely DOESN’T fucking mean that:

a) we should hate men.

b) we should hate trans people.

It’s an absolute disgrace that such a revolutionary ideology is automatically associated with bigotry nowadays.

Misanthropy in the form of misandry and transphobia is vile and will absolutely not get us where we want to be. Do not use a movement meant to liberate women and all the people who are oppressed by patriarchy to mask your sick hatred and make it more palatable.

The fact that some fake ass “feminists” sat down all these decades ago and had the audacity to suggest that a major threat to womanhood is the trans community, which makes up about 1% of the world’s population, is outrageous. No such thing as TERFism exists. I mean, it obviously does unfortunately, but the ideology itself is fucking bullshit because you can’t advocate for the rights of oppressed cis women while simultaneously shitting on the rights of trans men and women who are oppressed by literally fucking everyone. The idea that we, as cis women, are somehow more oppressed than trans people is outrageous. Y’all are just transphobes and disguised conservatives.

Also, radical feminism and marxism feminism coexist. Women and other genders are oppressed because most/a lot cis straight men harbour intense hatred for anyone that doesn’t resemble them to a T and they are also oppressed because the cis straight men in power benefit from their oppression. Conflicts between both class and gender have led to patriarchy. It’s not a competition about which theory has it right. It’s about understanding what’s wrong with the world and how we can fix it.

My sincerest apologies if I used any incorrect terms regarding gender in this post. Please do correct me if that’s the case.

I will not be participating in any kind of arguments about this. There’s nothing controversial about saying that hating people depending on their gender is bad (which is the basis of feminism btw) and if you think any type of hatred can be excused or justified, you’re not welcome in my blog. If you want to be hateful towards people, take it elsewhere or you will simply get blocked.

[yurious-george]

i think boiling down the current discourse to "if you think men become fascist because the feminists were Too Mean to them, you are agreeing with supremacist ideology" kind of overlooks some things... because obviously the previous statement is correct! but radicalization of that nature often results from a mindset that safety can only be secured by crushing someone else underfoot, which is most frequent in cults and abusive relationships. this is why we WERE critiquing terfs' violent hatred of men, because that sort of vitrol vectors misogynist radicalization for both cis men and women. right?

or did we just start caring because trans women are the people terfs most overtly crush underfoot. and not actually because you want everyone to be well. :/

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

hey, can we avoid absolute statements about "terf" being "meaningless"? obviously it gets misused and distorted, like many other terms. but in reality there are many feminist-identified cis people who explicitly or implicitly see trans people's existence as anti-feminist and unworthy of feminist goals. the right has successfully exploited this view to pull people into their generally transphobic agenda, but the phenomenon also exists on the left, even among those who otherwise call themselves trans allies. if we want the left to defend trans people, be a political home for trans people, we all have more reason than ever to notice and resist this type of thinking. please let's keep a little perspective.

I mean this very seriously: I do not know who you are at all, and I have not made any original posts. This is a conversation you should be having with OP.

With that said, this post, which I assume is the one you're talking about, is literally saying "call people transphobes if they are transphobic." Period. End of Sentence. It does not say "this is exclusively a right-wing phenomenon." It does not say "you should not call out transphobia in feminist spaces." The issue is that many people have successfully conflated being a transphobic radical feminist with being a feminist at all, or alternately conflate being a general run of the mill shithead rightwing transphobe with being a radical feminist. It is horrifyingly common for people online to call outright "we must get up the birthrate/women are property" types "terfs" instead of "misogynist homophobic transphobes".

like...OP, for example, has been a big proponent of 4B. and you know what, I have complicated feelings about that because I'm someone in my mid-30s who really didn't think I wanted children until quite recently, and am single and am having a lot of difficult personal considerations that this election has complicated even further. but I do support women who are choosing 4B. and that includes trans women. And it is people from the left who are attacking 4B as transphobic (vs. people on the right who are just attacking it bc they are misogynists who think women should submit to men) even though it is about avoiding sex and children and marriage with men. If you think that trans women are women then you should automatically think that trans women can be 4B and can be partners of people who are 4B. If you see the word "woman" and don't automatically assume it means "trans women" that is on you, and in fact I think it will be more effective to fight these transphobic self-identified feminists by, instead of acting in bad faith and assuming that whenever any feminist says "men" they mean "cis men and trans women" and therefore by extension assuming all feminists are inherently transphobic unless they shout from the rooftops "NO, WHEN I SAY WOMEN I ALSO MEAN TRANS WOMEN", using the word "women" and assuming anyone who isn't a violent bigot knows that trans women are part of that group.

(obviously if you are trans I understand that you might need to do a calculus based on context clues, in the same way that any oppressed minority needs to confirm that spaces do in fact include them. It is not different than how I as a Jewish woman need to sus out if non-denominational/secular/interfaith means "not anti-semitic"; this post is not about that.)

There are people who identify as radical feminists who are trans-exclusive. I personally think TERF is not a useful term anymore BECAUSE if you are not for ALL bodily autonomy for ALL women you are not a feminist. Being trans-exclusive should, in my opinion, take away your feminism card. We should treat them as transphobic infiltrators in feminist spaces, and not as feminists of any kind, radical or otherwise, and we should call them transphobes. That is what I mean, and that's what I think OP means. It is not a denial that there are self-identified feminists who are virulently transphobic (and specifically transmisogynist). It is saying "we need to stop calling these assholes feminists and start using the word 'transphobe' across the board, regardless of the other political beliefs they may have or claim to have." When it's not uncommon for people to call both Putin a TERF AND actual trans people who (correctly) point out that "uterus-havers" is a really alienating way to talk about people who can potentially get pregnant TERFs, yeah, I think it's worth retiring the term. This isn't a denial of the reality; it's saying that the specific word isn't used to reflect that reality in a meaningful way.

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

I’m a bit confused by your username

Feminism is a movement that’s defined by the desire for all people to be seen as equal, including men, women, and others. There’s extreme cases, like radfems and “kill all men” etc, but at its core feminism is a movement that’s supposed to embody positivity and equality, not hate

Do you really consider it a hate movement or do you only consider the extreme cases that way?

You're mistaken in a very fundamental way: radical feminism is not an "extreme case"; it's rather the bedrock of all feminist assumptions about the world that simply become more diluted and palatable to a larger number of people the closer to the mainstream they get.

Radical feminism is not fringe feminism but core feminism: All of the beliefs that the moderate foot soldiers of that movement obediently march along to and mindlessly assert to be true, such as "The Patriarchy", "rape culture", "gender is a social construct", "The Glass Ceiling", even the belief in a pay gap, 60 years after it was made illegal across all western nations to pay a woman less than a man for the same work... all of these originate with radical feminist thinkers and writers back in the 1970s onwards and are still chiefly propagated by radical feminists today.

The "why can't we all just get along" feminists don't teach gender studies classes. The "why can't we all just get along" feminists didn't write the textbooks taught in those gender studies classes. They don't organize the marches or start online forums devoted to feminism, etc. The more fanatically taken over by the false assumptions about reality that a person is, the more radical that person becomes and the more deeply involved and influential in the feminist movement that person becomes.

None of modern feminist thought originates with the moderates. There's a case to be made that the movement was for a time a much more moderate, vague and well-meaning ideal, post-suffragettes and pre-radfems, but that was before it was infiltrated and taken over by Marxist radicals around the turn of the 1970s. From then till now, all feminist theory can be most clearly understood as Marxist explanations about reality but with the word "class" replaced with "gender" and the words "the bourgeoisie" replaced with "men".

So, instead of saying all human history can be best explained as a class war, all human history can thereafter be best explained as a gender war. Both of these positions are obviously and self-evidently false, or, at the very, very, very least, so flawed and incomplete as an explanation of human society to be dangerously misleading and terribly destructive: the majority of the day-to-day reality of all the tens of thousands of years of human history can be much more realistically depicted as billions of men and women working together to care for and protect each other and the children they produced, which ultimately resulted in each of us.

Feminism, particularly of the past 50 years, is founded upon a narrative of the world that divides all women and men up into ‘innocent victims’ and ‘privileged oppressors’, and as such has done more to foster hate and drive a wedge between the sexes than any other political movement in history. Instead of seeing men and women as brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and lovers, feminism sees only a gender war that it alone started and it alone propagates, with no realistic end ever in sight. 

Even fairly moderate feminists today think and speak of men almost exactly the way Nazis thought and spoke of Jews, and that’s why I say feminism is a hate movement.

[hard--headed--woman]

About women needing to create a separatist movement: I'm going to cut you right there and spare you a lot of time and frustration 😅 It's been many years since it has been a thing in China and South Korea and it's pretty much a yearly debate among radfems on tumblr. By "debate", I mean het and a lot of bi women calling lesbians incels who want them to be miserable (by prioritizing friendships!) because we're jealous harpies. It's the same every time, don't bother. I think lesbians should just focus on creating our movement because women who want to date men will never listen to us anyway.

Let my young and innocent heart have hope 🥲

More seriously, I have noticed that in my short time on tumblr (less than a year). "Radical" feminist on this website get really mad when we say that women should stop dating men, which is very dumb to me because it's literally the basis of radical feminism. How can you claim to be a radfem if you disagree with this and think it's stupid/too much (and if you date men at all)? It's frustrating and annoying because feminism NEEDS that. We need female separatism and we need more and more women who stop dating men and have sex with them.

But of course it's apparently too much and what's the best thing het many bi women love to do on here when they disagree with something ? Blame lesbians, obviously ! Suddenly we oppress them and hate them for being OSA and are as bad as incels, suddenly we think only lesbianism is a valid sexuality and think they don't deserve feminism... I have seen this debate once, when it was trending on radblr some months ago (i just arrived there back then) but I still hope that most radfems aren't as lesbophobic and agree with the no dating men thing. Am I naive?

I know there are a lot of febfems out there which is already great. But I doubt a big separatist movement will happen anytime soon. I just think we do need it.

[hellsite-yano]

“Porn addiction exists. And is also NOT a moral judgement on one's value as a person.”

Well, it shouldn’t be, but I think the actual problem here is that 90-some percent of the time people run into someone talking (or preaching, usually) about porn addiction online, it is, because the person raving about it is either a self-obsessed wannabe crusader that hates porn for being “degenerate/sinful” almost as much as they hate addicts and soy beans, or a radical feminist who views Men as the root of all evil, and pornography as an apex manifestation thereof. 

And these types both like to pretend that even seeing erotic mention of a breast, vagina, or penis is a morality-destroying cognitohazard. (You know, the way people demonize most addictions.) So it gets hit as a scapegoat with the one-two shot of “porn is moral taint” AND “addicts are moral failures” from the obviously moralizing asshats, which leads to backlash which goes too far in rejecting them and lands at “Porn addiction isn’t real, and only [obnoxious nutcases who I hate and also disagree with politically] believe it is.”

Plus, the social stigma around porn derails most reasonable discussion in the first place, because mentioning it means putting a neon sign atop a wanking wickerman for fuckwits to come scream at you because you disagreed with them over whether or not it’s the worst thing in existence.

which leads to backlash which goes too far in rejecting them and lands at “Porn addiction isn’t real, and only [obnoxious nutcases who I hate and also disagree with politically] believe it is.”

I've noticed this type of argument comes up a lot in vaguely leftist spaces whenever they feel like they're on the back foot in the late-stage of a particular discourse. Instead of engaging with the subject further in an attempt to reach mutual understanding they'll just throw their hands up and claim the problem isn't real. Race isn't real, sex/gender isn't real, borders aren't real, porn addiction isn't real, etc. It's the academic equivalent of throwing a tantrum and swiping the board game off the table.

[tozettastone]

Just on the topic of radical feminism— (heads up that there's some transphobic stuff discussed below, although not in much detail)

I think it's worthwhile to acknowledge that radical feminism did have its era. I know we deride it a lot online now and we have some good reasons for that. And I also do think it isn't really the right tool for approaching the evolving gender landscape of modern life. Radical feminism views all oppression of women as a result of gender relations between men and women (who are binary opposites) specifically. Today, a lot of highly educated people who think deeply about sex and gender have stopped treating gender as, like, "these are the unalterable facts about our bodies and they have a specific, inalienable social and biological meaning," which makes radical feminism just kind of... less useful to us. A school of thought that wants gender as an entire concept to be dismembered and served up on the good silverware can't really make use of a framework that's grounded in gender binary.

But I still think it's worth knowing about radical feminism.

I just think we kind of need to understand where we as feminists have been if we want to understand why we're here. Radical feminism did, in fact, have its era. Once you start thinking about it in its context, it's absolutely no coincidence that it emerged as a force in a froth of rage during the post-war years in the west—when the menfolk came back from war and the women were so condescendingly ushered right back into the home. It's worth reading your Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin and Carol Hanisch (and, yeah, even the most loudly hostile transphobes like Sheila Jeffreys or the off-the-wall spite of Valerie Solanas, yes, sorry), and it's worth thinking about the absolute rage that informs, well, pretty much anything Sylvia Plath wrote (although I don't think she'd ever have called herself a radical feminist, if she'd lived that long—she's furious about the same things, though). All that stuff from the 50s (or late 40s, if we count de Beauvoir's The Second Sex) and 60s and 80s is useful and educational, if the people around you read you as a woman when you walk around on the street. It's worth reading and knowing where words like 'patriarchy,' and phrases like 'male supremacy,' and 'the personal is political,' are coming from.

And, anyway, reading something doesn't mean you should treat it as an authority. Obviously I don't think you should read Jeffreys and come away agreeing with her that "sex reassignment is mutilation," because I personally think that's incorrect (because... see my point above about dismembering gender). But maybe you shouldn't take my, or anyone else's, word for it? Maybe you should read and find out how she arrives at that idea and figure out what you think about that? If you come away thinking she's wrong, you'll be able to explain to yourself, clearly and with high quality critical thinking, exactly why. And if you read a bunch of radical feminist stuff and come out going "all this was a massive distraction from a more significant axis of oppression—which affects all women anyway—which is CLASS," or something, that's a reasonable criticism that you can probably support. I know people who think that, too.

I guess I just sincerely believe that we really only get to know one little tiny bit of reality from one single point of view at a time. So each new piece of information can form part of the lens through which to view reality. And to me it's just so much more useful to understand radical feminism as a deeply necessary, if now outdated, era of feminist thought than it is to howl "RADFEM RHETORIC," and not actually know what you mean by that.

Anyway if you got to the end of this and you're like, "yeah, maybe I should read more historically significant theories, but I simply lack the will and energy," then. Understandable. Have a nice day. LOL.

[heterophobicdyke]

hi, hetl radfem here! I think separatism and celibacy felt kind of like a big leap for me because i originally had the misconception that i was giving something up, that i was sacrificing part of my life, but i got over this phase and realised pretty quickly that celibacy and separatism is not doing that at all! it means to live more full, happy life. I think when other radfems, whether lesbian or not, point out heterosexual radfem’s reluctance and sometimes outright refusal to commit to separatism, the reaction is immediately to get defensive, to say that ‘you don’t have to be separatist to be a radfem btw!’ and ‘a male-partnered housewife who volunteers at a rape shelter still does more for feminism than simply not dating men ever will!’ and when i was in that phase where was i still sort of longing for an ideal romantic relationship with a man, i was reading all this and nodding along, thinking it all sounded reasonable. (the one thing i never did get behind was the whole ‘lesbians are opposing us! they just think we’re cum-brained dick worshippers!’ attitude which is obviously just lesbophobia and even I could see that back then)

NOW though? now i see how stupid these arguments are. i can very plainly see that when lesbian radfems or febfems or other separatists point out the hypocrisy of heterosexual radfems partnering with men, it’s not in condescension — it is actually an acknowledgment of our agency. as radfems, we do have knowledge that a lot of other women do not, and to choose to partner with men despite knowing what we know is an act of hypocrisy and it is not misogyny for other radfems to point this out. i think the reason why heterosexual feminists get so defensive over this is because of one reason — there are no truths that hurt more than those we see as party true, especially about ourselves. it was true for me. whenever i saw this being pointed out, i was uncomfortable. the ridiculous idea of finding the ‘right one’, the ‘good man that has to be out there’ was slowly shattering, and as ridiculous as this illusion was, it was a comfortable one to have. but feminism, especially radical feminism, was never supposed to be comfortable. yeah, it’s hard to let go of something that’s been ingrained into you since you were a little girl, but we did it with makeup, didn’t we? we did it with shaving. we did it with clothes that were meant to pander to the male gaze. we can do it with this, too. we have to if we want to be a part of the feminism group that is focused on the ‘root’ of the problem. and it’s not hard! celibacy and separatism are easy and they’re wonderful things, and it must be so frustrating for you to see het radfems act like it’s some huge feat to pull off

sorry for giving you this essay to read lol, just thought I’d share some insights from my experiences 💜

thanks for sharing! ❤️

[pjharvey-moved]

obviously i think it’s annoying when ppl hear entry level capitalism-friendly/man-friendly feminism and basically stop their feminist journey there, and reject anything more radical, but i think it can be a good starting point… i mean i started openly calling myself a feminist as a tween when i found out emma watson described herself as one, and her heforshe speech was the most watered down man friendly feminist speech you can imagine but it was what made me look into feminism further. AND she still got rape threats and men threatening to leak her nudes over that!!! it’s kind of a no hope for women situation in a lot of ways with how men react to even the most like inoffensive vaguely feminist things and even to things that are not feminist and just pander to men less than they are used to being pandered to, but for women, esp if you come from idk a ridiculously sheltered environment (which i did, my mother even more so) that can be kind of valuable as a starting point

[methaim]

This was originally going to be a post about literary criticism but bc the OG post was about Nimona, this is now a Nimona post lol

So let me start off by saying that I love literary criticism, and the reason I love it is because when done right, there's obviously so much passion behind the criticism and analysis. When done right, the spirit of "there are no right or wrong answers" you hear in English class lives on. But it's all dependent on perspective and the lens you view a piece of media through. That's why you can disagree with someone's literary criticism without them being entirely wrong.

I bring this up bc I was looking through the Nimona tag and saw someone's analysis of the film. As I was reading it, I disagreed with their analysis, but they weren't entirely wrong considering the evidence they used. I won't be linking to the post bc I don't want to start any beef with OP, I'm merely observing a phenomenon when it comes to literary analysis and criticism and why perspective matters.

Spoilers for Nimona under the read more.

So OP claimed that Nimona was misogynistic, and based on their evidence their analysis wasn't entirely wrong. They stated that one of the main characters was a man (Ballister), a gay romance between two men was prominent (Ballister and Ambrosius), and that the main antagonists of the story were women (The Director, who was nameless throughout the film save for her title, and Gloreth). They also implicitly claimed that the movie didn't pass the Bechdel test (which save for the backstory scene with Nimona and Gloreth, isn't entirely untrue, but it doesn't mean it wasn't a good movie). Given this evidence and only this evidence, then their argument isn't necessarily incorrect: in Nimona, women are antagonistic and the story primarily revolves around the story of a man trying to reclaim himself after being wronged by a woman. At first glance, this doesn't scream "feminist media."

However, this analysis would be what I would consider from a feminist lens perspective. In terms of analysis, OP did a great job providing evidence and explaining how that evidence supported their claim.

But I still disagreed with their analysis. And that's because I viewed the movie and analyzed it from two different lenses: a queer lens and a racial lens. Now, again, when doing literary criticism and analysis, it is important to choose which lens you're looking at the film from. Choose too many and you contradict yourself if you aren't trained to write a review (OP wasn't writing a review, they were writing a critical analysis).

The thing about Nimona is that, in my opinion, it isn't a feminist movie; it's a movie that deeply criticizes institutional violence while also being an allegory for transness. A feminist message isn't at its core, but that doesn't mean the movie can't be viewed from a feminist lens, especially if viewed from an intersectional feminist lens.

A lot of people have already pointed out that The Director is supposed to be representative of White women, i.e. the violence inflicted due to White women's fear of those they deem "dangerous"(i.e. non-White non-cisheteronormative individuals, sometimes even extending to All Men including White men but especially men of color). Not only does her fear wrongly villify a man of color (Ballister), but it also directly causes the death of a Black woman (The Queen). This could be seen as a criticism of the current radical feminist movement in which anyone who isn't a White women is immediately a target of White women's fear.

While this movie does explore racism and the role of race when it comes to intersectionality, I've seen most people describe the primary internal conflict as representative of the divide between cis queer people and trans people. This is the queer lens perspective I mentioned when it comes to critical analysis; while the role of race is a theme that is explored in this movie (and I'll try to get into it as much as I can in a Tumblr post), there is a focus on the queer—specifically trans—allegory. Ballister is a gay man and this is explicitly showed rather than implied; his romance with his love interest (Ambrosius) is an important plot point in the movie. He is implied to be cis (narratively speaking) given his initial treatment of Nimona and his inability to understand her and his initial rejection of who and what she is. Although he grows to accept her for who she is by the end of the movie, it's a learning process that ebbs throughout, and his progress reverts at the climax of the movie (when he calls Nimona a monster and reflexively grabs his sword when she shows anger). This is reflective of how even cis queer people can be insensitive to trans peoples' experiences and have much to learn. There's another great Tumblr post out there about how Ballister, although vilified, still has a chance at redemption if he chooses to reject Nimona (the bar/restaurant scene), but Nimona has been demonized and has no chance at redemption bc she has only ever been viewed as a monster. This reflects the divide between cis queer people and trans people in terms of societal treatment; while non-heternormative monogamous couples are being more widely accepted (in the United States at least), trans people are being further demonized as evident from the current political climate.

OKAY so this started as a commentary on the nature of critical analysis but now this is just my Nimona analysis and honestly I'm excited to talk about the racial implications in this movie bc they were apparently. Obviously Ballister is a Brown man (voiced by Riz Ahmed, most likely modeled after him as well) but I have been wanting to speak about Ambrosius for so long bc I have seen very little about his racial implications given that he is explicitly Asian (revealed in behind-the-scenes/making-of) and also modeled after Eugene Lee Yang, an openly queer Asian man (love him <3). Obviously we know the racist implications of Ballister being vilified for 1. being poor/a commoner (explicit reason in the movie and 2. a Brown man (implied). He's up against a White woman in power who is driven by fear (which is why I didn't agree with the feminist analysis of the movie). BUT AMBROSIUS. He's an Asian man, and I personally have not seen many explorations of racism faced by Asian Americans in popular media (not that it's not out there, I just don't think it's very common). There was something about Ambrosius being placed on this pedestal that he didn't ask to be placed on and also leading the search for Ballister. Obviously he did this so that he could bring Ballister in safely since someone else might try to hurt or kill him. But the fact that 1. Ambrosius was seen as an ideal knight and 2. he was being manipulated by a White woman made me think of the stereotypes placed on Asian Americans (there's a reason we're known as the silent and invisible minority). Ambrosius' race played as much of a role in the story's implications as Ballister's race did and as an Asian American person I was so drawn to it. I don't know if it was intended by those who worked on the movie but it just. I'm losing the words for it but it really did mean a lot to me as someone who constantly feels like I'm not allowed to talk about my experiences in any circles when it comes to regards to my race/ethnicity. It all boils down to "Asian person being set up as a model for others (i.e. other races) to aspire to by White society who only wish to use their Asian-ness as a tool." NOT TO MENTION the scene in the car with Ambrosius' meltdown, things he wanted to say but couldn't because The Director had certain expectations from him... THAT hit me hard as well. Someone else please do a deeper analysis about this because all I can do is scream about it without being completely coherent.

Anyway, if you read this far, thank you! Again, this started as an observation on the nature of critical analysis as a whole but spiraled into my own analysis about Nimona. I'm sorry if it seemed messy and rushed, this wasn't well thought-out, it was more of a stream-of-consciousness ramble. I would love to hear your own thoughts, or see other analyses of Nimona. Also if you know the OG post I was talking about PLEASE don't harass OP, from what I could see I don't think think they were a TERF or radfem I think they were just analyzing from a strictly feminist perspective.

[honeyriot]

You're a woman hater! You're pro rape if you think women aren't allowed to have boundaries from men, especially lesbians who are not sexually attracted to male bodies, whether they're in a skirt or not. You have the audacity to suggest the only people standing up for women are Nazis???? So you love rush Limbaugh and male supremacy and hate women. Got it. Loud and clear, bigot

Yeah, pretty much. Who comes to the #letwomenspeak rallies? Who fawns at Tucker Carlson and Fox News? You have no idea you are even indulging it because you have turned feminism into a single issue: trans. As if that were the crux and final coffin in feminism and then sneak around and condone or tolerate LITERAL FASCISTS like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Mr. "What is a Woman" Matt Walsh, organizations like Libs of Tik Tok, Reduxx, Gays Against Groomers, who are racist, nationalist organizations funded by right wing investors. We never question that nature of the prison system or how sports have historically been a means of demonstrating male superiority and a means of perpetuating capitalist competition and we need an entire revamping of bathroom privacy but no let's burn the gays and the trans (because these fascists want you dead as much as they want trans people. to them a feminist is a witch the same as a trans person. they only accept you because you glorify them. you don't want to look at nationalism and capitalism as the machinations of men. You have never come in contact with any trans person you are just a paranoid person who fell for the propaganda from fascists. It was considered crossdressing for a woman to wear pants. Gender essentialism ties in nicely with eugenics and ethnonationalism. Why are so many prominent terfs complete nazis?

Anna Slatz cofounder of Reduxx, a vastly huge and respected GC TERF company, is a absolute fascist collaborating with white nationalist Lauren Southern, who preaches Great Replacement theory is under investigation for receiving Russian funds to spread white supremacist propaganda. Who's that on the left?

That's what reactionaries do in Terf communities. You will all write it off and call me the evil one for pointing it out. To you, feminism is a big joke. You don't study feminist theory and history, you spend more time on trans issues because they seem like a bigger deal and leave the rest of the issues on the back burner because they are tougher and would require real change.

You will never talk about it. It will never be addressed although you will be promoting neonazis and by you tacit refusal to investigate this very real reality, you become an accomplice to it. Many "feminists" spend more time attacking trans people than talking about any real feminist issue, of which there are many that need much more attention than these people are giving at the same time as them NEVER being around trans people.

In fact you probably do not see fascism as a very real thing. Your political science may not be very scientific or historical. If you are so mad, prove me wrong rather than saying I hate women and condone rape when that is obviously not true. I get called the same when I call out racist anti immigration speech. Nationalism and racism are diseases to community.

Do we have to answer the "trans question"? We all know there is a final solution to all the undesirables of society: communists, feminists, gay/lesbian and gender nonconforming/trans. But the questionan is that the systems need to be imagined from the ground up. We cannot build the future on yesterday's institutions.

So yes, it is possibly flattening reality to just randomly call a "trans excluding radical feminist" a nazi. But you have got to know you are flattening reality as well with a skewed understanding of history and political movements (including feminism). I will be posting a link to a bunch of feminist pdfs in a few days so check back!

If that's an ad hominem I hope it forces you to study harder and be a better feminist and, ya know, maybe pick up on doing actual feminist activism instead mischaracterizing the fight for women's liberation.

if you shrug this off as crazy ramblings and cease to understand the political aligning with fascism that trans (and gay and lesbian and gender nonconforming) hate groups have, you will unkowingly perpetuate the very structures and conditions that we are fighting against.