"LORD, Grant me..." - on "choice", "can't help it" and wisdom

Via Caroline Uncool, a little gem of "satire" fail crosses my radar and I feel compelled to respond. Not that my response is going to mean anything to Pisaquari, the author of that laughable (in the worst sense) piece of prose, but anyway.

As ever, the "Other Side" manages to reduce things to a simple "either-or" binary. It seems either EVERYTHING must be mutable and subject to choice, or else NOTHING is.

A famous prayer (I forget which saint is associated with it) is as follows:

LORD,
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
And wisdom to know the difference.

When it comes to sexual orientation, most modern feminists accept that being gay or lesbian is not a matter of choice - it's just the way we are. This, we may safely say, is among "the things we cannot change", so we accept it and say instead that it is something for which we should fight for social equality.

When it comes to the economic and sexual exploitation of women, we can safely say that this is something that can, and should, be changed - it will take a lot of courage and a lot of effort, but we know it can eventually be done.

It does not need much feminist wisdom to tell the difference between these things! (Of course, it helps if you have a bit of feminist wisdom to see the difference.)

Let's have a look at the other items in Pisaquari's little vignette:

• Whatever you do in the bedroom
• Preferences for self-expression
• The kind of people we are
• Wearing lipstick

Well, now. Which of these can we change, and which require serenity instead? Can wisdom enlighten us here?

Actions can be chosen, for sure. A person can choose whether he wears lipstick or not, a person can choose what she does in the bedroom. But can they change the reasons why they choose? That seems to be a question of "preferences of self-expression" and "kind of people we are".

Pisaquari writes of "a feminism that could reject, resist, reform." I have heard that language before. From anti-gay Christians, who believe that Christ will make people reject, resist and reform their homosexuality into conforming heterosexuality. Of course, I do believe in feminism's ability to reject, resist and reform social issues, to change and ultimately destroy the patriarchal systems that govern our everyday lives. But I find the idea that we can use a political ideology to change what turns us on sexually to be extremely dubious. What we do about what turns us on is a different question than what it is that turns us on.

Whatever you do in the bedroom, you can’t help. No matter how many times you examine it, no matter how many times you think you might hate it so much you wanna go jump off a bridge while securing a chained noose to the perimeters of your neck and the scaffolding-whilst also aiming for the shark’s maw-no you can’t help it.

Umm, if you don't like it then you're not going to do it (or at least, you're going to be very well aware that it's not something hardwired into you to do it!). If you examine why you're doing it, you're looking not at the fact you do it, but at the fact you like it - and the reasons for liking it. So everything after "No matter how many times you examine it" has no place in this argument. It's just gibberish.

No matter how many times you’ve tried blocking thoughts about some older man insisting on you calling him Daddy while being orally serviced, it doesn’t matter. You can’t help it. You’ve had those thoughts for as long as you can remember!

Wow - that's some talent, being able to call someone Daddy while orally servicing him. Most people's mouths are somewhat occupied while "orally servicing", and therefore speaking at all is rather prohibited by that fact!

But, erm, let's just say for a moment that this "you" is a man instead of a woman. Then we see that this is precisely the same criticism that those anti-gay Christians keep trying to use to attack the idea that being homosexual is prenatally determined. And it is a big, fat, FAIL for the exact same reasons as the homophobes' argument is a big, fat FAIL.

If you feel you are a queer man trapped in a transgendered body with a hard-wired preference for paisley skirts and pin-striped business suits, then. you. are. It’s your biologically determined state!

"...trapped in a transgendered body..." - I'm not even sure what that's suppsoed to mean, but it looks awfully as if it's saying that you've been forcibly made to undergo SRS? Or is it saying that "if you're a queer man trapped in a woman's body"? Also, is the paisley skirt and the pin-striped suit meant to be worn by the same person at the same time, or is it you in one and your partner in the other? More to the point - why the fuck does it matter to you if I like to wear a paisley skirt and a pinstripe suit at the same time, and fuck people of my ownn genital grouping? Why does feminism have ANYTHING to say on the matter at all beyond, "you go, girl!"? Why do you care if my preference for such behaviour is hardwired or not? Why does it matter to you if I feel this is the way I am (transgendered, gay, paisley-skirt-and-pinstripe-suit-loving) and can't be changed? What difference does it make to you, your lives, the ability of women to "upon examining their condition, find it in themselves to make a different, less painful life"? Help me out here, cos I'm a bit confused!

Power Play Bars are about owning power. With play! Everyone gets a feather boa and black latex stick at admission. The rest of the evening is spent being randomly tickled by feathers and poked/slapped/prodded by The Stick. (Haught.) I was waiting in line at the restroom when I got three hard slaps to my ass. (Ouch!/Hot!) This was code for “Hey can me and my friend take turns c*nt torturing you with our steely pocket knives?” To which I responded by gently plucking two feathers from the boa and sticking one up each guy’s nostril (one was Zed’s!). This meant “Yeah but I’m a feminist so make sure you do it in a feminist kind of way.”

::GROAN::

And how do we own power through play? Through respecting other people's limits, choices, and desires. Through emphasising the importance of informed consent and safe/risk-aware practices. From considering these points, we can see that any encoded interaction is Not Okay (since it relies on a tacit assumption that everyone knows the same code); we can also see that having that coded interaction be based upon striking anothers arse or shoving feathers up their nose is completely out of order, because some people have being struck with sticks as a limit; others have feathers shoving up their nostrils as a limit. In fact, Caroline's passage on this is perfect:

Let me tell you this - it's totally personal, you can't generalise from this. I am the "choice" feminist who believes in autonomy, lipstick and cock. If I'm seeing the dude I like, I make an effort. I wear stuff that makes me look nice. So I'm seeing him with my clothes that make me look nice, and some random dude the street spat out comes and 'slaps my ass'? If I'm making myself sexually available to one guy, that's not a carte blanche for the whole of the male species. And fuck, if I am making myself sexually available to that guy, who the fuck are you to judge.

Finally: I tried very very hard to change who I am, and I failed. Wisdom has advised me that serenity is the best approach after all when it comes to my violent nature. That means I have the courage and power to choose how and when I use that violence, and for what reasons.

As a sadist, I use my sexuality to give sexual and emotional pleasure to others. Does it even matter why I am like this, given that I do no harm? Why does it matter to you why my partners make the choice to let me cause them pain? If it gives them sexual and emotional pleasure, and if they've examined and no it's not patriarchal shit but it's just something they enjoy - why does it matter to you so much that we choose to do this stuff?