Fantasies of abuse

53 replies

Tortoiseonthehalfshell · 11/06/2014 03:45

Not a pervy thread, I promise! I'm posting here because I'm really, really struggling to articulate what I mean, and if anyone can put this into better words it's you lot. It's a really delicate area, so if I'm coming across as victim-blaming or dismissing experience, please tell me off because that's not even slightly where I'm coming from.

(For full disclosure, I'm also trying to write a blog post about this)

Okay. So here are some disjointed thoughts.

Fifty Shades of Grey, Twilight, etc. Romanticising abusive relationships. Classic literary trope, actually - the idea of the dominant/stalky boyfriend as true love object. Wuthering Heights, and all that.

Lots of feminist critique of these books/media. Blaming Hollywood plot lines, lazy storytelling, etc., for teaching women that controlling relationships are actually romantic. Very useful stuff, glad it exists. Important to teach young women that this is not a healthy model.

BUT. Popular culture is descriptive as well as prescriptive. And these books are targeted at, and - to our communal chagrin, I'm sure - devoured by women. So they strike some sort of chord.

There's a bit, early in The Women's Room, where young Mira is described as conjuring up elaborate sexual fantasies involving torture and rape. Which struck a chord with me, in a 'it wasn't just me!' way - and this is back when I was 12, 13, already a self-identifying feminist without any abusive or patriarchal models in my life (I was raised by an awesome single mother, with no male relatives on the scene in any significant way).

So. I guess I'm thinking that there is something about that abusive/controlling/dominant relationship model which is darkly attractive to a lot of women. Not because we're confused about consent, or because we've been lied to by Hollywood, although maybe we are those things as well. But underneath that. Why?

I mean, who knows. Chicken/egg, products of patriarchal culture, etc. I'm certainly not about to run an evo-psych argument here. But ... does anyone know what I'm trying to get at? That the reason that these storylines are so popular is not because we're confused that this is real love, but because on its own level, they tap into something that a lot of women actually do fantasise about?

OP posts:

BillnTedsMostFeministAdventure · 11/06/2014 07:21

Nancy Friday has some comments on rape fantasies - IIRC, the "motivation" is often a permission one ie women who have been socialised to believe sex is big and scary (pregnancy risk, risk of being called a slut etc) and that they are the "gatekeepers", can enjoy the freedom of the idea of someone taking responsibility for all that by "taking them" - but the actual fantasies are not of rape, because by designing the fantasy they are in fact consenting.

It's probably more accurately described as a BDSM fantasy.

Twilight et al I think are more insidious.

Beachcomber · 11/06/2014 07:19

Yes, I agree.

Oppression/subjugation/submission is sold to us as sexy. Usually by eroticising dominant/controlling/rapey male behaviour.

We are conditioned at a social level to submit to men at an individual level. This is the definitive example of "the personal is political". It is absolutely key to the social/political control of women and girls; we are taught to love a person who dominates us, we are shackled by this mechanism.

So when he stalks you, it isn't harassment it is desire to be near you. When he rapes you it is because you are so desirable. When he controls your movements (sometimes actually with restraint such as bondage) it is because you are so sexy, etc, etc.

It is grooming, plain and simple. Social wide grooming.

I don't believe for a second that it is anything else. This grooming (which starts at birth) has entered and altered female psyche, both at an individual (private) level and at a wider (political) level.

Makes me think of Simone de Beauvoir "women and men are made, not born".

A concept which Dworkin wrote a lot about; "Woman is not born: she is made. In the making, her humanity is destroyed."

calmet · 11/06/2014 06:31

Under patriarchy, women are taught to eroticise their own oppression. We are taught to be turned on by the thought of a strong man "taking us", by being treated roughly during sex, by being dominated.

This puts women into a double bind. How can we complain when we are indeed treated roughly or forced? After all, we had fantasised about it, we wanted it.

But you can also unlearn these fantasies, and sexually responding to being treated roughly. It is not natural, it is taught by patriarchy.

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