The Rise of Sex Negative Feminism Among Young Black Women

[IwantToRetire]

There is a growing subculture of young women (and girls) who identify as sex-negative feminists, taking to the likes of Twitter and TikTok to express candidly negative views on phenomena deemed the offshoots of a male-centric and hyper-sexualised society, such as porn and hookup culture. This movement stands at odds with the sex positive legacy of the mainly millennial-heralded 2010s, which paved the way for ‘slut pride’ and a heightened consciousness of kink and BDSM within the mainstream. Such generational differences have become apparent through ongoing discourse on popular youth programming providing unrealistic and inappropriately graphic depictions of female teens and young adults.

For example, Sam Levinson’s upcoming , which stars a 23-year-old Lily-Rose Depp, has been dubbed a toxic man’s ‘rape fantasy’ for its supposed glamourisation of sexual violence and exploitation of women. And since its 2019 debut, Euphoria (another Levinson-HBO project) has been under constant scrutiny for its on and off-screen antics concerning the adultifying and sexually explicit storylines involving 20-something-year-old actresses playing teenage girls.

More specifically, women from online Black communities are also speaking out against the narrow dimensions of sexual expression that young Black women in the spotlight seem to be able to explore. Stars like Chloe Bailey and Normani are at the centre of these conversations, with many young Black women and girls expressing frustration over their perceived public portrayals as zealously raunchy beings.

The roots of sex negativity as an organised, feminist ideal can be traced back to the works of white second-wave scholars like Andrea Dworkin and Catherine Mackinnon, who have written extensively about the sex industry (termed the ‘sex trade’) as an inherently violent arena for women that only serves to reinforce male hegemony. These views have often been dismissed as essentialist and puritanical in the face of the ‘free love’ movement that characterised the 1960s and 70s.

Prominent Black feminists of the same time period weren’t so explicit in labelling themselves ‘sex negative’ in their perspectives of female sexuality and its relation to the male gaze. The more layered conditions of racism and colonialism for Black women often deprived attention away from this topic to focus on issues like media representation, marriage and motherhood. Nonetheless, Angela Davis offered a retrospective analysis of sex negative politics in a 1999 interview with fellow Black American sociologist Siobhan Brooks, noting its utility. “The definition of pornography as assaultive, objectifying and violative of women's autonomy and self-determination was strategically important because it allowed for a distinction between what was exploitative and violative on the one hand, and what was an expression of agency on the other,” she said. Also discoursing in the 90s was Patricia Hill Collins, who identified a link between the oppressive sexual realities of Black and white womanhood through pornography, writing, “the profitability of Black women's sexual exploitation for white 'gentlemen' parallels pornography's financially lucrative benefits for pornographers” in her seminal work Black Feminist Thought.

"I think the goal of sex negative feminism is really protection. Sex negative feminists view pleasure-centred sexuality as a Trojan horse or another way for men to exploit women. Sex positive feminism is radical freedom.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2023/05/11329778/sex-negative-feminists-gen-z-millennial

Please note the quotes above are just selections that I have made and dont necessarily reflect the article as a whole.

Just thought it interesting, although difficult to absorb because of the language (ie does she speak like this or is this just a writing style) as it references 1970s radical feminism.

I hear you, Misstache, there is definitely a racialised element.

Are they white girls living in Pakistan?

Yes, they are there for a work contract for a year - the girls are 14 and 15.

I had thought we were speaking about what happens within our culture here.

Yes - but I was trying to illustrate that when skin colour comes into it (because it always does) it can be location driven.

In the US the story around Black women and their bodies is really distressing. In most African countries it would not have the same drivers.

But it will always be women and girls getting most of the abuse.

This is confusing to me.

You see all Black women as African?

What about Black British?

Black American?

Black French?

All culturally different with a common skin colour.

Are all white women the world over the same?

This is interesting though as once we leave our little corner of the world we are a minority.

I think most white women who have travelled to countries where white women are the sex object and less than can get a taste of what it is like to be a badly treated minority.

And therefore can have enormous empathy for our Black sister who are a minority here.

I hate that this is being called "sex negative" feminism. How is drawing boundaries, and having sexual relations on your own terms, rather than on the man's terms, sex negative? It's only bad for abusive and manipulative men.

I'm mid-30s and had drunk the kool-aid of Liberal feminism. Nothing has done more to personally empower me than learning from black feminists online. Spaces like Female Dating Strategy and Lipstick Alley where black women are unapologetic about their expectations, and assertive enough to say "No thank you" to people trampling their boundaries, sexual or otherwise. It was a true, old fashioned, feminist consciousness raising of how to treat yourself with self-respect.

👏👏👏👏👏

Love the original post and many of the replies, but why has a lot of the talk descended into the "All lives matter" trope. This has been discussed significantly: for the "white women experience sexism too" please just Google why "all lives matter" isn't a good response to "Black lives matter" - the exact same thing is happening here.

For those instigating this dispute, please let Black women discuss the racism and sexism they experience without saying "white women experience sexism too". We know you do. But this post is about Black women specifically. Allow us one space and one thread PLEASE!

Well, that is kind of what I have been referring to....

Women have been talking about women being under-dressed compared to their male colleagues for a long time...going back to the 1970's.......and then came the 1980's/90's feminism which made it more about women feeling 'empowered' to wear skimpy clothing, and all the rest of it. How empowering embracing sexual display and sexuality was supposed to be ( which morphed into sex positivism). It was all about choice. A woman's choice what to wear.

Personally, I always saw it as arising out of the consumer culture than grew rapidly in the 1980's ( alongside big hair and shoulder pads), rather than about anything particularly liberating or empowering. It seems to have carried on too.
The female news readers always show far more flesh than the men, who are always covered up and dressed in suits.

Women seemed to think that wearing high hels was not only sexy, but somehow empowering. I never got that, myself? How is being hobbled and presenting yourself as a sex object empowering?

Black women in R n B/Rap videos are always presented as hypersexual, and even the black female artists themselves present themselves in such a way ( Megan Thee Stallion, for example). And what's with the super long nail extensions that even sportswomen such as Serena Williams wears while playing tennis. What is that about?

Well then you should mark that thread as for black women only, or else it is an open forum which anyone can contribute to. Also, Andrea Dworkin was mentioned in the OP - why shouldn't people who have read Dworkin comment? Do you have to be a black woman to understand how women are sexualised and shamed?

Do I detect that some of you are American? References to the moving out to the New york suburbs, and so on?

Good clarification question. I never said/meant that only Black women can comment. I meant don't turn it into an "all lives matter" debate.

I wonder if lipstick alley is a part of this?

Dr Suzanne Forbes-Vierling is very good one the links between trans ideology and the treatment of black women historically. Also women generally across all socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds in the past, and how it's continued through the ideology. Medical industry exploiting women in the us.

For those instigating this dispute, please let Black women discuss the racism and sexism they experience without saying "white women experience sexism too". We know you do. But this post is about Black women specifically. Allow us one space and one thread PLEASE!

Totally.

If you want to carve out a space where only black women can share or contribute it is probaly better to make that clear. That tends not to be how it works on this particular forum, though - where anyone can contribute in any way they like. There are threads dedicated to Scottish politics, but it doesn't mean you have to be Scottish or live in Scotland to contribute.

And why use an image of Andrea Dworkin in the OP if you don't want women who have admired and read Dworkin to contribute?

My wider point, though, is that what unites all women is the fact they are women; biological females in a society or in a variety of societies and different cultures in which women are often reduced to their sexuality, or to the repression of their sexuality, in one way or other.

In being reduced or demeaned in such a way we all have far more in common than what divides us. When I first became vegetarian I even recognised my solidarity with females across species, and still do.

Did you mean to be so racist?

I think all women do matter. That is why we are here on the feminsism and women's rights forum of mummsnet.

I've no idea what you are talking about.

If you want a thread which is exclusive then say so at the start.

MoltenLasagne · Today 13:39

I just read a post on Female Dating Strategy you mentioned which was brilliant.

Something I don’t know about personally but once read, so hope someone more knowledgeable will comment, was that if a black girl or woman is raped by a black man she might be under pressure to not say anything for fear of promoting the trope that black men are more likely to be rapists. She has to think of her group rather than herself.

Which is partly why it took so long to bring R Kelly to justice.

Black women in R n B/Rap videos are always presented as hypersexual, and even the black female artists themselves present themselves in such a way ( Megan Thee Stallion, for example). And what's with the super long nail extensions that even sportswomen such as Serena Williams wears while playing tennis. What is that about?

Where to even begin with this? I honestly wonder what is wrong with some people. Comments like this tell me all I need to know. I do not waste time on posters like that.

I don't know a lot about feminism in terms of theories, waves, academic literature. However, I believed (perhaps naively) that one of the ideas behind sex positive feminism is: women should be able - in an ideal world - to dress, work (stripping, sex work) and act how they want and still be believed, treated with respect, not assulted etc.

So, I think times when people question why certain Black women have long nails, or wear g-strings on stage etc. is one reason why slut walks etc. started. Some of the "why does Beyonce do this? Why does Megan thee Stallion do that" comments make me feel a bit uncomfortable. Maybe they like long nails and hot pants and should be allowed to freely enjoy them without judgement.

Obviously, there is the other side of the debate as to whether engaging in those 'sex positive acts' is actually empowering and whether different groups of women (e.g.,Black women vs white women) are able to engage in them to the same extent and be afforded them same level of respect etc. and whether engaging in 'sex positive acts' can lead to social change and empowerment (in short and long run) or whether 'sex positive acts' just reproduce the negative things we've been trying to change (e.g. stripping leading to more sexualization and exploration of women in socoety).

Additionally, I know if I read the literature I'm sure I could see all the different sides of the debate about this from very intelligent people who have been thinking about it for a long time!

Di you read the post I was responding to? Which talked about the power differntials betwen an under-dressed woman and a fully clothed man?
I'd actually be interested to hear your take on what I describe, above?

I'm not going to be treated as a subservient participant in any conversation who is continually supposed to check my privilege and atone for thought crimes I'm not even aware i've committed.

True. I didn't think about the power diffentials between men vs women in the beyonce example. It's definitely very complex, and difficult to navigate as a women (who has enjoyed pole dancing, long nails and hot pants in my younger years!)

This really is reminiscent of "all lives matter."

White women telling black women they are wrong, rather than listening..

This is why academic feminism doesn't translate into ordinary conversations between women. 'sex positive' and 'sex negative' are laughably useless terms to describe how women feel about sexual exploitation.

No young woman should have to come out as 'sex negative' in a world of porn, rainbows and unicorns. But if they are, then all power to them. I hope they are able to stand firm and make their case as they see fit. We can't continue on this race to the bottom.