Feminism and female sexual submission

Good point sunshine. Agreed.

I tie myself up in knots with this one (no reference to s&m intended ).

Where I get really confused is that a woman playing out a rape scenario or submissive role play is not really being submissive is she? She has, presumably, made it clear to her partner that she likes this sort of sexual play and is, therefore, the protagonist in the scenario. If she hasn't, and her partner is assuming that 'all women like rape really' then she has been raped and isn't actually playing at sexual submission at all.

RP - yes, that's what I was trying to say - they're separate questions whether this is bad/dangerous/whatever in itself, or whether people ever choose things that are bad for themselves (IMO).

catgirl - I don't think anyone, man or woman, makes totally free choices. I'm sure we don't (I guess the alcoholism again makes me see this much less as a gendered issue from my perspective).

I do think it's an interesting question, not a simple one - I don't mean to come across as if I'm dismissing it.

I though that he whole point about feminism was that it makes women equal,so allows them make choices. If their sexual pleasure of choice is to be submissive, then that's her choice. If the man forces this action, then that's not her choice.

I think telling a woman she only does something or likes something because she has been conditioned / brainwashed by society does make the assumption the woman is somehow not capable of making her own choices, is weak, easily manipulated and too stupid to know her own mind.

I do think that view is often anti-feminst as it tends only to be said to women by women and I never hear people saying it to men. I think saying this about a woman is very undermining

So I agree with the OP

Hmm, I'm tempted to agree more with you than your friend. If two people who trust each other enjoy dominating or being dominated, I don't think it's anti-feminist. Is it pro-feminist for a woman to dominate a man?

If its being acted out then obviously it depends where the boundaries of the activity lie. But I'm troubled by the concept of policing people's thoughts. It's people's behaviour that concerns me more.

Sorry, that is a much longer post than I meant to write and I'm not even sure it made sense!

Well, first off, I don't quite see how her argument is 'stigmatizing an area of female pleasure'? Isn't she saying that that it's a kind of self-hating, so only an illusion of pleasure?

You may not agree but I don't really follow the terms of your disagreement (if that makes sense).

I also think, just because a woman enjoys something, disagreeing with her that it's good/healthy isn't in and of itself anti-feminist. I, for example, enjoy drinking a couple of bottles of wine knocked back with gin and tonic, but that is because I'm a (recovering) alcoholic - if someone tells me that drinking that much is bad, it doesn't change the fact I get pleasure from it, nor does it come across as anti-feminist.

The problem is, we can all see that alcoholism is (objectively) bad for the drinker, and we can probably all to some extend understand that the drinker likes booze. If you're asking, is rape fantasy a bad thing, that's something it's possible to discuss - is it (like alcoholism) something a woman might enjoy while it damages her?

But the reason I make this analogy is to show that simply saying your friend is being anti-feminist to object to women doing something they enjoy, doesn't to me seem that logical - it's a straw man to the main argument, of whether rape fantasy is harmful or harmless.

And as far as that goes, all I'd say is, I've got a lot more uncomfortable with it the more I read and learn about rape sexual violence.