What If They Had “A Culture War Around Sex,” But Nobody Came?

Rachel Kramer Bussel published an article in the Village Voice titled “Fucking and Feminism.” In it she says things like this:

We’re in the middle of a culture war around sex, and it goes beyond left vs. right. Many of the voices quick to excoriate you for buttfucking, baring your boobs, having a threesome, or public sapphic smooching come from the left.

Vanessa at Feministing seemed to like the piece, and noted:

This lusty lady’s got a point. The feminist movement has been struggling with bedroom politics for so long, it might be time to put the debate to bed (no pun intended). As Bussel says,”[It’s] as if coming up with the most politically correct form of orgasm will automatically solve other inequities.”

I found both the article and Vanessa’s reaction very confusing. Are some leftist feminists really “excoriating” other women “for buttfucking, baring [their] boobs, having a threesome, or public sapphic smooching”? Which leftist feminists are doing this? In what context? Her only iterated examples are Ariel Levy’s book, and Twisty from I Blame the Patriachy‘s posts about blow jobs (see e.g. this and this). With respect to Ariel Levy, Bussel says:

Levy argues that women have to (and want to) out-‘ho ourselves to fit into our increasingly raunchy, male-identified sexual culture. She cites Paris Hilton as a lead “pig.” That the devil-may-care heiress wasn’t chastened for her slutty ways irks those who think women should never flaunt their bodies:even voluntarily.

Not everyone reads Levy quite that way. With respect to Twisty, Bussel says: “Holier-than-thou pronouncements of sexual superiority don’t scream “sisterhood” to me.” Well good grief, I certainly didn’t interpret Twisty’s post as “a pronouncement of sexual superiority.” I agreed with Heart, who saw Twisty as providing women who do not like giving blow jobs with a place to air those feelings.

Bussel concludes her essay by saying:

Sexual freedom is not the only, or the most pressing, issue facing American women today, but it’s vital to any true feminist movement. Excoriating other women and berating them for a host of erotic sins creates unnecessary divisions and puts people on the defensive. No one has the right to tell you how to fuck.

Well, I’d like to know how, even if Brussel’s readings of Levy’s book and Twisty’s posts are correct, this constitutes “excoriation” in any way that meaningfully affects her life. She accuses Levy and Twisty and other Mysterious Leftist Feminist Forces of writing things she disagrees with, which obviously bothers her a lot, so she calls for them to stop doing this. No one has the right to tell her how to fuck, but by gosh she will tell others what (not) to write. Thus, in a sense, her proposed solution to this purported culture war is to censor people, and irony is so dead that (insert your favorite irony-is-dead metaphor here, laugh appreciatively as appropriate).

I was pleased to see that Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon had a somewhat similar reaction.

–Ann Bartow