Ooh, I've participated already!

Yeah, it's probably too mean, but I guess I'm annoyed that you deleted my polite comment without even a reply, it's awful small-minded of you. And you even hid some other posts of your own when people started disagreeing with you! It's like you're a COWARD or something! Don't you want to show how brave women/feminists are? Can't fight the fight if you're going to hide the fight!

(I'm female, if that helps.)

OK. Here is your insipid comment:

" I don't know about the rest of them, but I'm a member of the CSPC and it's a wonderfully safe, respectful, woman-positive place. Men end up on the bottom as well as as women, and the women who are on the bottom, want to be there. Nobody's getting their cunt tortured who isn't getting off on it."

No, you're being female doesn't help. I publish most comments, but clearly, assholes like you can't realise that.

Thanks for replying. Honestly; although I know I've gotten plenty snippy I really do appreciate it when people are willing to talk.

That said, I don't remotely understand why my comment is insipid?

because their website is the opposite of what your experience with it is--either their website is a crock or your impression of it is. ps, i saw your comment on renev's entry... not impressed.

Well, I've actually been a member for close to a year, and you've looked at the website, so dude, I know wherefrom I speak.

Anyway, as a female bottom I have no motivation to lie; if I weren't having a good time, what would I get out of keeping that a secret? I've been there, it's a nice place, don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

(Not telling you you have to try it, just you shouldn't knock it.)

and what of women who have tried it, and are against it?

It's not for everyone. But there's nothing fundamentally wrong about consensual BDSM safely practiced between two people who know each others' boundaries and respect each other in "real life," and that's what I've seen and experienced at the CSPC.

OH I SEE HOW IT LOOKS LIKE YOU GOT THE LAST WORD THERE

CLEVER GIRL

i'm not your servant. i do have a life outside of unscreening your comments. i even spend a couple days at a time away from the computer. imagine that!

...then don't do it. That would be my experience. I've tried BDSM, I don't like it, so I don't do it. I encourage anyone who doesn't enjoy it to do the same, but no one has the right to cram their personal sexual preferences down another person's throat.

Just a question: will the carnival be respectful of a political lesbian analysis of trans? Cause my mind is boggling with the idea that the word cunt could be used by a male born person. In my opinion, a cunt is something you are born with: it cannot be 'made'.

Also, I am uncomfortable with this because in the past you have called lesbian feminists transphobic just for calling a male born person he instead of she. Now, to me this is not a hateful act, it is just a lesbian feminist truth. Male-borns are he; female borns are she. I don't understand why this would be construed as hateful or phobic.

Anyway, I don't really know if I want to be involved in a cuntspeak carnival that involves male born people. Doesn't make sense to me that they should be included.

can one be a political Lesbian and be sexually involved with a man/men?

And this question makes me uncomfortable. I don't feel like this should even be a question. If a woman is involved sexually with men then no, of course she isn't a political lesbian.

Nevertheless, I support you in pursuing your politics, within the context of the cuntspeak carnival; I just don't feel like I can contribute anything more than this. I'm sorry. It is not my intention to discourage you or hurt you, I just have different views than you on certain issues that will likely cause complications.

Good luck and sisterhood as always, I look forward to seeing the carnival when you put it up.

The carnival will be open to various sides of trans, including lesbian feminist analyses. I think trans women and radical feminists both have a hard time actually *listening* to each other, and understanding what the other side is saying, so I think it's important to have a respectful place for both. It is something one is born with generally, but what about an intersex child who had her vulva constructed to be a "proper" one? Is she vulvaed? Or a woman who is genitally mutilated and has her vulva reconstructed--does she still not have one?

I think it can be used respectfully by men--I've experienced it.

This is pr
obably the comment you are referring to: http://demonista.livejournal.com/97409.html?thread=498049#t498049. That was one of my reasons. The other BIG one was that Jeffreys opposes civil rights legislation for trans people. That is phobic. But blind adherence to the binary, while recognising reality, does perpetuate it. Yes, under patriarchy born penised-people are he, and born (and constructed, in the case of how intersexed children are usually labeled) vulvaed-people are she--but why should we, outside of patriarchy, class each other as such (eg genderneutral language)?

I don't know if it'll have men. I want it to include trans women, but I don't think the first couple of carnivals will be open to men. It does make sense to me to have them included to some degree, eg their experiences of their female partners giving birth, positive experiences with a partner's menstruation/menstrual blood, and theorising possible applications for cuntspeakers' work.

It was an open question, not a statement. I want debate on it! :) Do you consider Andrea Dworkin to be a political lesbian--her life partner of over 30 years was John Stoltenberg? Was Anne Koedt a political lesbian? (I don't think she was; she identified as bisexual.) Is Sheila Jeffreys--I don't want to contribute to a rumour mill, but I have a friend who knows a couple people who know Jeffreys, and they say that she has had sexual dalliances with men post-coming out as lesbian feminist--and they aren't accusing of her of bad politic, they like her, etc, so to me, they may be telling the truth.

I'm glad you're supporting this; it's unfortunate you don't feel you can participate. :(

I wasn't talking about intersexed or female genital mutilation. They are both very, very different that transsexualism. I don't agree that people born with dicks can have cunts. Therefore cuntspeaking would necessarily exclude persons born male.

but why should we, outside of patriarchy, class each other as such (eg genderneutral language)?

At present time there is no space outside of patriarchy. Gender neutrality does not exist, perhaps one day it will (I'm guessing many decades after I am dead), but for now it does not. Any attempt to erase he and she, merely erases she. I am not interested in being erased.

It was an open question, not a statement.

I would respectfully argue that this is not a question that bisexual or straight women should be opening up. Perhaps if lesbian feminists wanted to talk about it amongst themselves, but I've never seen a lesbian feminist worry about this question. To me, it sounds as if straight and bisexual women want permission to identify as political lesbians whilst still engaging in heterosexuality. I am totally not comfortable with this.

But good luck with putting it together. I hope it takes off, despite my personal disagreement with some of your ideas.

Not to start a confrontation, but do you think Heart is a lesbian feminist? As far as I know, her past partners have been male, as is her current one.

No, Heart is not a lesbian feminist.

But I don't really see what that has do with anything. I don't get it.

She calls herself one. And you quite like her.

re: erasing she leaves male to be the universal: hells yes. any reference to the female body is labeled essentialist!

have you read jeffreys anticlimax? in the last couple chapters she talks about how people should be classed as homo- or heterosexual not based on whether they are attracted to same or differently genitaled people, but based on whether they eroticise equality and sameness, or injustice and difference. So some heteros would actually be homosexual and vice versa. I really liked that theory. And her talk about virgin wives in the first chapter, and how some of the men weren't interested in sexually coercing their wives into intercourse. eg one couple had been together for 14 years, never having coitus, but engaging in mutual masturbation, which both were happy as clams with..."neurotic collusion" the doctors called it. :) *in short: book is awesome

She does? Where has she said she is a lesbian feminist. Link please.

This one says she'll achieve "clear-eyed lesbian gaze" sometime: "When Satsuma talks about the “clear-eyed lesbian gaze” I know *exactly* what she’s talking about, and honestly, it’s something I rarely see amongst heterosexual feminists, and it’s something I don’t think that I have, that “clear-eyed lesbian gaze,” but I’ll get there in time." Satsuma says she already has it. http://www.womensspace.org/phpBB2/2007/08/17/men-boys-sons-something-i-wrote-to-someone-i-love/

this is also ambivalent: http://womensspace.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/support-lesbian-feminist-filmmakers-build-local-womens-communities-order-and-show-the-gendercator/
as is http://womensspace.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/come-together-blog-carnival-march-22-2008-given-to-tears/ : comments 3 and 8

http://womensspace.wordpress.com/2006/05/28/on-what-radical-feminism-is-and-isnt-2/ : comments 30 and 33m, esp "I like to think of all of the women who are unhappily partnered with men (zillions), who are living miserably surrounded by men, who are lesbians and radical feminists, yet entangled with men and with patriarchy in a million ways, as a sort of “diaspora” of women, and I look to the time when, like me, they will be able to make their way back home."

there are a lot of hints, some strong, but nothing that i could find that was really concrete, eg heart saying "i am a lesbian feminist." i had actually assumed that she said she was, a lot of others have also said she was, maybe i'm wrong! :)

I didn't get from any of that that she identifies as or names herself a lesbian feminist. She relates strongly to lesbian feminist politics, she is completely committed to sisterhood with lesbian feminists but she doesn't call herself one, nor does she open it up for questioning that straight and bisexual women should/could identify as lesbian feminists.

I think if you asked her outright whether she was a lesbian feminist she would deny it upfront.

But this is all beside the point. Heart has not posted an offensive question as part of a carnival she is setting up. You have.

If Heart had posted this question then I would take her to account for it too.

Re: Sheila Jeffreys. Yes, I have read anticlimax. While I understood the content of what she was saying in that section, I have problems with her conclusions.

I don't mind if you unscreen this or not, but these two links seem meaningful:

ginmar: Not having to kiss male ass is kind of the point of feminism.

Yes, it is. Kissed plenty of male ass in my day. Them days are long gone. I am a very, very proud political lesbian. If that gives belledame or whomever else Heart burn, well, them’s the breaks, take a couple antacid and call me in the morning. I’m getting old. In the years I have left, I’m going to be *all* about the women. And I’m going to tell the truth about men. You’d better believe it.

The thing is, being a lesbian, again, doesn’t make anyone a feminist. It doesn’t make a woman committed to women or to women’s issues. It doesn’t make anyone woman-centered. A while back I was part of a discussion of what it meant to be a lesbian and of whether specific women were “really” lesbians. Frustrated, one of the women burst out with, “Yeah, but does she f*** women?!” All I could think was, yeah, cause that’s what it’s really all about, huh. My experience is, where I see someone with that attitude, many times, she does “f***” women– in every destructive way it is possible to imagine.

Oh, and Allecto: The archetypal transphobic act is to disrespect a trans person's sex and gender and tell them that they're really their birth sex. You clearly don't know what it's like to be trans, so you should stop trying to talk like you do.