I was recently shamed for talking about sex

[BainsBane]

I responded to a question about intercourse with a discussion of my own perceptions of sex based on my own experiences. Someone who has accused me and other members of this group of "pathologizing male sexuality," being a "prude" and "sex-negative," responded by telling me I had given "way, way, way TMI." I was in a subthread discussing with another woman the issue of PIV sex, and we were exchanging our different views on the subject. (I am for it). This man felt compelled to enter the thread and tell me he wasn't interested in my "sexcapades." I had not asked him to be interested. I was discussing a topic about human sexuality, so naturally my post included a discussion of sex. I spoke in general terms and saw no reason to pretend I did not have or enjoy sex.

I felt his lecture that I had spoken inappropriately about my "sexcapades" was an effort to shame me. I found it ironic that I have so often been accused of not liking sex because of my concerns about objectification of women in the media and violent porn. I have been told I simply can't bear the fact that people are attracted to one another and having sex. That point is of course absurd, as members of this group well know, but to them have a person who has made those very charges turn around and scold me for my "sexcapades" showed me that my entire sexuality is a rhetorical target.

While people often speak of "slut shaming," the fact is women can be shamed for any sexual choice or the perception that our views are linked to our sexual choices. Calling someone a prude, or sex-negative when they have not identified themselves as such, is part of the same process of shaming women for enjoying sex. Advancing feminist positions that certain men dislike means that they may target our sexuality as defective, either excessive or inadequate. Women's sexuality is a subject of attack at all points: when she turns a man down for a date, chooses not to have sex with him, has sex with someone besides him, or challenges him on the idea that misandry is pervasive opens her up to scorn and shaming. The term "slut shaming" is not adequate to describe the phenomenon because we can be simultaneously called prudes and sluts. What is under attack is our womanhood. Expressing ideas or behaving in ways some men don't approve renders us sexually defective, as less than full women.

Add to that other rhetorical practices, using the c word, associating weakness with the vagina through the word "pussy," and the far too common online practice of threatening women with rape. For some men, a woman's purpose is to provide sex. Any deviation from what they see as acceptable behavior for a woman renders her defective, a slut or a prude. In targeting our sexuality, those men who find our feminist ideas so objectionable attack our very womanhood, indeed our personhood. I realize I have been shamed for my sexuality all along, since I was called a prude when I first raised concerns about objectification. This was simply a continuation of that shaming process. Whether a prude or someone who discusses "sexcapades," I was defective. Daring to speak my mind pathologized my sexuality and ruined my value as a woman, as a person.