#when actual toxic femininity is a huge issue on tumblr with the moralist lot and the sexist theys

[aikainkauna]

Repressing your perfectly healthy desire never made things better for you.

Recently, I’ve seen so many instances recently of women (and theys–anyone brought up female) repressing their own desire and giving the power over their pleasure to others that I can’t shut up about any more about how fucking toxic that is.

Every day I see this. From fangirls to grandmothers, denial of one’s own absolutely harmless desire in so many forms: women refusing to ship something because it’s not canon, refusing to participate in RPS because those actors (who never read social media anyway) are married in real life, moaning about “objectification” if someone adores Tom Hiddleston’s penis (without reducing him to a penis–when to fangirls it’s never just the odd anonymous penis, it’s always Tom Hiddleston’s penis, the penis of that guy they really like as a person) to even refusing to fantasise about something in their heads–

–all things that literally never harmed anyone, as if that denial somehow gave the fangirl some moral integrity and made them better. And, above all (and a lot of this is actually subconscious) somehow, magically got back at the douchebag guys for all those times they objectified you, all those times they didn’t ask your permission, when they cheated on you, when they–you get the picture. Whatever example of toxic masculinity and rape culture you want to use. So they go on denying themselves these thoughts and fantasies, genuinely believing that makes them better people.

While douchebros go around posting rape gifs, with actual real women being assaulted in them.

While douchebros go around celebrating their stories of cheating on real women and treating real women as pussies.

While douchebros go around producing and consuming porn with physically harmful acts perpetrated on women.

While douchebros keep reducing women to body parts, literally treating them as such and rejecting the fact that women are human beings.

And while all this is happening, women and theys just sit there and refuse to exercise their own pleasure in perfectly respectful and loving ways, via characters and people they are attracted to because of their personalities.

Now, I understand a lot about magic and ritual and all that–this ties in a lot with religious self-denial, in Christianity in particular: the idea that if you suppress these filthy bad desires, you somehow grow holy mojo and become purer when you give something away. It’s a sacrifice; it’s sympathetic magic–maybe if you give this thing away, you will get something. And again, there’s the idea that you’re better than all those people (read: douchebag guys) who gave you all those traumatic experiences.

You’re rising above it, not being like them–you have moral integrity and your love is pure. And your love does things by the rules.  Your love exercises the respect you were never given. Your love involves concepts of consent. When your ship is all canon and the characters you like are morally sound and all that. You might even hold asexuality as higher and sacred, or refuse stereotypes about bisexuals as promiscuous, or feel like you’re rising above that bullshit by having a different gender identity.

But all these are reactions that change nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

They are passivity, as the bad people around you still go on doing bad things.

It’s like having this massive, beautiful feast that could nourish you before you, but you never touching it even if you were starving because eating was bad. (Hey, somewhere in Africa someone’s starving.) This beautiful, powerful, nourishing thing is something that you don’t believe you can actually handle, somehow. Something that you could perfectly well enjoy in a healthy and responsible manner in a way that harmed none–something that people still think isn’t possible about sexuality–especially because we’ve been taught to see sexuality through the patriarchal male lens. Wherein all the aforementioned abuse is the default idea of sexuality (sex=always some kind of waste and pollution or harm), and female sexuality with its focus on persons and psychology and love and relationships and mutual pleasure is never even discussed.

Don’t you think that’s a bit fucked up? A tiny bit?

Ask yourself: did being a prude ever stop rape culture? (Or make the douchebros come after women even harder?)

Ask yourself: did only shipping something that was canon ever make you happy and satisfied? (Or did it make you feel even more starved?)

Ask yourself: did refusing to participate in RPS ever stop real-life cheaters, pervs on the metro, actual batshit murderous stalkers? (What would they know about your fantasies, when they don’t even think you have sexual agency in the first place?)

Ask yourself: when in the actual fuck did some girl whacking off alone in her dorm room to her favourite characters ever, in a million years, on any fucking scale, compare to the mass-scale, inescapable, traumatic, lethal ACTUAL PHYSICAL DEHUMANISATION AND RAPE AND MURDER OF WOMEN PERPETRATED BY MASCULINITY-POISONED MEN EVERY SINGLE MINUTE AND HOUR AND DAY AND YEAR FOR THE PAST FUCKING TEN MILLENNIA?

And then, wake up.

It will not be easy to reclaim your pleasure from a society that’s taken it from you–other women’s moralising bullshit not making it any easier–but you have to fucking have trust in your own morals. You already have them! You have to have trust in your own goodness. You already have it! The huge irony here is that thanks to all this repression and because of simple facts of biology (unwanted penetrative sex being painful, unwanted pregnancy being always a concern), women have been given more actual physical tools for a moral and responsible living out of sexuality than a male monk will ever get in a lifetime, not having been brought up with constant harassment and slut-shaming and all the above crap. 

And that’s the actual sexual-moral integrity the world needs. That’s the kind of responsible sexuality the world needs. Taking charge of your desire and using it responsibly instead of denying it even exists, instead of suffocating it.

Most of the time, we’ve only ever been given two options: either an abuse of sexuality or a complete denial of it–which makes it difficult to construct something new, because men especially haven’t been given those tools for a responsible sexuality (which is why the whole AIDS business exploded out of hand–it sure wasn’t due to female prudery that it became an epidemic, but because of that “either you remain celibate or you’re irresponsible and promiscuous” dualism in the culture of masculinity). It’s been poisonous for both women and men and it’s bullshit, and human beings can be more than that. We’ve got brains between our ears. Yes, even if you’ve got a dick between your legs (and smart and responsible guys know this, even if they get called fags. Tough–they get laid the most because women realise they treat them as people).

But what we need to do is to stop acting like we can’t do it–responsible sexuality. Yes, we can. And step number one is to own your desire, actually look past these prudish dualisms and think.

Are you harming anyone with that RPS fic, when those actors/rock stars are deliberately not ever reading social media–and quite probably wank off to porn right now themselves, porn with far less chracterisation and humanity given to its women than an average female-written fanfic is giving to the guys?

Are you doing something harmful to your body by giving it a nice rush of oxytocin and endorphins and dopamine and getting your circulation going and making yourself happier?

Are you damaging someone out there by tapping into the beauty of those stories and fantasies and whatnot this actor/character/rock star is giving you, when you let yourself be swept with them, let yourself glow, and at best, make other people around you happy as well with your stories or your feedback?

No, you aren’t. 

Stop acting like you’ve been abusing desire when you’ve never, ever in your life done that.

It’s ok. You’ve just been absolved. You’ve just stopped being a victim.

Now go and allow yourself pleasure–yes, you can do it without harm to anyone!–and be happy for once.