Can you be a feminist and like rough sex?

//Can you be a feminist and like rough sex?

Slapping, choking, spitting — if a woman gets off on a little consensual degradation in the bedroom, does that make her less of a feminist?

Many women who demand equal pay by day and harder spanks by night wake up feeling conflicted (and a little bruised) about their two favorite F-words: feminism and fucking.

Almost every version of feminism has been hell-bent on equalizing power structures and fighting gender-based oppression. But those feminists who are also hell-bent on bending over in the bedroom — using those very same power structures to get off — may be faced with questions about whether or not their political walk matches their pillow talk.

“I love being spat on during sex,” says Zoe, a 28-year-old graduate student I’m sipping espressos with. “The nastier the spit, the better. Does that make me a bad feminist? Do I need to burn all of my Audre Lorde books? Give back my Smith College degree?” She tosses aside a lock of hair as she laughs at the ridiculousness of her own rhetorical questions. I wonder how many times she’s caught a loogie.

Of the 1,500+ self-described “kinky” women Jennifer Eve Rehor studied in 2011, the majority were found to have participated in “at least one of the following activities for their own sensual or erotic pleasure: physical humiliation, deprivation, punishment (physical), breath play, obedience/training, verbal abuse/humiliation, other forced activities and service-oriented submission/domestic service.” They did so in the role of the receptive or submissive partner.

For the record, the dominant partner(s) needn’t be male in these scenarios. Nor does rough sex necessarily imply penis-vagina intercourse. Feminist women can and do experiment with power structures well beyond male-female play.

In the past few years, women have both devoured countless (controversial) copies of 50 Shadesand rallied around Beyonce’s “Flawless” definition of feminist.

But what does this mean for our real, kinky sex lives? How does getting flogged contribute to our feminist ways? How can we create kinky sex lives that are both feminist and degrading instead of just plain degrading?…continue reading on Mashable.com…

 

By |2016-02-09T17:04:15+00:00February 9th, 2016|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Can you be a feminist and like rough sex?