Radical lesbian separatists

[Slayerofmyth]

I'm a radical feminist, I'm straight. Getting a lot of flack from other radical feminists who are telling me sexuality and orientation is a choice, and that until women abandon their heterosexuality nothing will change for women......thoughts.....

I think this is the same group I recently (quietly) left. It's hard at my advanced age and with a rather 'adventurous' past to be told I only fancy men because I've been brainwashed. Oh, and that all women are naturally lesbians who have to be coerced into heteronormativity.
The final straw was being told off for using the term ' fucking' about sex.
If this was a lesbian separatists group, I wouldn't have imposed in the first place but it was called a RadFem group. I've just had too many men scolding me like a child and policing my language and behavior- I can't be arsed with it from women.

I'm a feminist. Women can have sex with any consenting adult they like.

And now blocked from group .....guess we have a tattletale.....ffs, pathetic!

Julie Bindel said 'come in, the water's lovely'.

I have a lot of time for Julie Bindel, for the work she has done, but this kind of comment is exactly why so many women don't call themselves feminist.

No, the water isn't lovely to heterosexual women. It's 'eew'. The idea of sexual relationships with other women is as repulsive to me as the idea of sexual relationships with men is to lesbians. 'Heteronormative' culture didn't make me not attracted to women, millions of years of evolution did. Homo sapiens are not bonobos. Thankfully given bonobos are into incest so why anyone would hold them up as some kind of 'gotcha' is beyond me.

Try not to let this situation get to you, being chucked out of a group like that just saved you time and energy!

I’ve definitely encountered this attitude in radfem circles, not just a lone group I’m afraid, although it sounds a lot more aggressive. I don’t care what someone else’s sexuality is, but if anyone says mine is a choice and I’ve been brainwashed into it, they would not get a moment more of my time and I would not excuse the behaviour based on their sexuality.

why anyone would hold them up as some kind of 'gotcha' is beyond me.

That comment was aimed at me I take it?

The evolutionary argument is not the final word either way. You can put it forward and it can be refuted - especially when discussing such a heavily socialised species as our own. It's an aside, but there is no mother/son incest between bonobos and incest in humans is rife sadly, so that doesn't really work as a clear distinction between our species' behaviour either.

Anyway the Julie Bindel 'water's lovely' comment' was quoted to illustrate my skepticism that someone talking about 'het privilege' could be a political lesbian, since they believe that they are liberated from the oppression of compulsory heterosexuality and male dominance. It would be strange for them to do the 180° change in perspective and call heterosexuality for women 'privilege'. I didn't quote her to suggest she was right in thinking the water would be lovely for everyone.

Nott aimed at you in a personal attack way ExasperatedHarridan, though obviously you did mention it. It's a view I've heard many times and bonobos are often held up as some kind of superior cousin to us than chimpanzees because of their sexual proclivities, which I always frankly find strange. Chimps may be more aggressive but bonobos practise incest and paedophilia so I have never understood why some people think we should take lessons on what is 'normal' for our own from the latter rather than the former.

ArnoldWhatshisknickers
I think the reason bonobos are held up and compared to humans is because we may be more closely related than chimps yet evolutionary biologists tend to look towards chimps to explain us. This is important when it comes to sexual behaviour because humans are unusual in that we are sexually active throughout a woman's cycle, whereas most species, chimps included, tend to only mate when the female goes into oestrus. Bonobos are more like us in that respect - in that sexual behaviour has a huge social element aside from reproduction.

Oh, and that all women are naturally lesbians who have to be coerced into heteronormativity.

Yes. I do think sexual orientation may be a little more flexible than many people realise, but that sort of statement is just dumb. Do they really think any species has success if they have to be pushed into reproductive sex by culture?

But that kind of ignoring biology is a bit of an achilles heel in some streams of feminism IMO.

Is "Het privilege" teh same as "Cis privilege" then?

From here, heterosexual, newly realised Rad Fem, it looks like just another stick another woke section of society has picked up.

Fuck whomever you fancy, but don't try telling me that I am not only womaning wrong but am now fancying wrong also!

My abiding thought is that the gender bending 80s need to find a time machine and leap forward, to show all the uber woke twonks of today what sexing whatever, whenever is really all about!

I read that article by Julie Bindel....the comments were very amusing....😁 It's exactly this sort of shit which alienates women from femimism in any form. I've been doing a bit of research and the science does point to heterosexuality as being the 'norm' for most people. That doesn't of course, make being lesbian, gay or bi abnormal. The whole choosing your sexuality is just do damaging and nothing different to conversion theory. Well, I'm sure they are happily slagging us all off.......well all 48 of them......

There was a bit about separatism at the Lesbians On Chairs event. I think a lot of us concluded that being completely woman-focused was a nice ideal, but didn't really have legs in our current situation because it requires an amount of financial and organisational self sufficiency that is only available to a few women right now.

I have to say, as far as tumbling ideas around, and being creative, rather than reactive, as Julia Long encouraged, I think there are worse pip dreams knocking about. But anyone who likes to create cliques in feminism is a pillock, really, and there really shouldn't be any room for a hierarchy of feminists, I don't think.

I don't think it's the same as conversion therapy to believe women who say they have experienced a positive choice to be lesbians.

I think that group sounds bizarre and nobody should be pressured or ridiculed.

However I think the 'born that way' understanding of sexual orientation is culturally and temporally specific.

How you feel inside might be innate or it might not. But I think behaviour is a choice that's influenced by society.

For me, it's positive to be a lesbian.
It makes me feel a bit weird to see comments like "aren't lesbians and gay men dying because of their sexuality? Why would they choose it if it was purely a choice??"

Nobody does because of their sexuality. They die because somebody killed them. Because of heteronormative patriarchal attitudes.

But it's not all rosy for heterosexual women is it? Either you sort out contraception of some kind which might have side effects or you are celibate or you may have more children than you wish to have. Pregnancy and labour are risky.
You're living with a huge power imbalance and not every couple negotiates that well.
2 women a week are killed in England and Wales by a partner or ex partner.

So I don't like funny looks or difficulty when I go with my partner to buy a car or whatever but I wouldn't swap it.

I don't like 'please pity us we are unique and vulnerable' as a tactic to gain respect and equality.
Lesbian and gay people have a right to exist. It isn't wrong to be lesbian or gay. We don't need to invoke sympathy to access our rights.

That argument seems a lot like the TRA one tbqf.

It's also horrible to read things like 'eew' about same sex relationships between women.

*nobody dies

SuperLoudPoppingAction

Thank you. You've articulated what I was aiming for.👏

SuperLoudPoppingAction
Agree about the eeew but it's exactly what lesbians and gay men say about heterosexual sex. I agree to a point about cultural influences affecting sexuality but there is research which is looking at genetic aspects of sexuality, I don't think we should ignore that. I absolutely agree that there is nothing wrong with being gay, lesbian or bi, just as there is nothing wrong with being heterosexual either. It's most definitely not rosy for women but the tone of the group on Facebook most definitely involved victim blaming mentality....well if they will choose to get involved with men.....🙄

There's been research looking at genetic aspects of all sorts of things.
It's often linked to eugenics and it often justifies prejudice ranging from 'eew' to slavery.
I don't think it's in line with feminist thinking.
There's no one gene linked to being gay in any case.

SuperLoudPoppingAction

Yes there's a lot we don't know but nothing justifies telling people that sexuality is a choice. I couldn't have sex with a woman, it's just not something I'm interested in, but it's not eeew to me. You do hear a lot of gay men saying ewww about vaginas, and lesbians going ewww about penis's.

On here?

No, not on here, generally.

Whatever else evolutionary biology says, the only thing that matters in my view is that homosexuality is not a trait limited to homo sapiens but is present in a number of other species, too, both within and without the mammalian class.

Apart from that, the chimpanzee vs bonobo discussion is ever so faintly ridiculous in my opinion.

We split from our common ancestor 6.5 million years ago. All of human society evolved after that. Recent genome analysis has also shown that we are equally closely related to either species, neither is closer than the other actually.

I do believe that the argument regarding a closer relationship of humans to bonobos has in my view far more to do with wishful thinking than anything else.

Chimpanzee society is firmly, violently patriarchal. They are often brutal, hunting down weaker members of the species with adult males fully in control and females and juveniles treated accordingly.

Bonobo society in contrast is seen as far less aggressive, matriarchal, bisexual and polyamorous. Conflict is typically solved not by violence but by seeking to release tensions via close physical contact like face-to-face sex, tongue kissing and mutual grooming, often ending in orgies involving most if not all members of the group.

That desire to get away from the thought of humans, specifically the male of the species, being naturally violent and having evolved naturally to be killers is attractive to me too.

(Most research on bonobos should come with a disclaimer that almost all of the knowledge we have on them is based on observing them in captivity. Researchers positing ideas about the "peaceful" bonobos usually point to the fact that the same is true regarding our knowledge of chimpanzees. The flaw in that argument is what this really means is that with much of our knowledge coming from captive populations of either species, all we can really say for sure is that we know how they behave in captivity.)