Three "left wing" concepts that are officially not cool.

Here are some lefty nonsense-ideas that have been getting my goat lately.

The real 9/11 conspiracy was perpetuated by the people who produce sparkly crying eagle gifs

1. The idea that people abused through prostitution are “sex workers” who should be unionised.

Being abused is not a job. People being abused through prostitution should be given all of the help, access to help for addiction, safe affordable housing, and therapy for the multitude of abuses they have suffered before and during prostitution that they need. People who buy consent through paying for sex should be criminalised. The men who buy women and other men through prostitution are disgusting and oppressive and should be blasted off the face of the earth, or at least prosecuted to fuck. “Unionisation” = normalisation of abuse.

2. 9/11 “truthers”.

Do you want to know the truth about 9/11? Okay, the truth is that there’s this terrorist group called Al-Qaeda which used to be funded by the US so that they would do their bidding in the Middle East, but then they thought fuck that let’s put all this training to use and bomb our real ideological enemies, America! So they flew some planes into the World Trade Centre, killed a lot of people, and the US used it to its propaganda advantage by fooling a lot of stupid people into thinking that Afghanistan and Iraq had anything to do it, and started the War on Terror. TA DA! THERE’S YOUR TRUTH! No lizards, holograms, Jews, nanothermites or satanist symbols in banknotes required. So you can stop selling well meaning lefties your anti-semitic, anti-working class shit and go shave your back now.

3. Polyamory.

Really, this is just a heap of manipulative shit wrapped up in ‘alternative thinking’ and ‘free love’ terminology. Like, if we lived in the abstract, in theory there shouldn’t be a problem with several consenting adults freely choosing to take part in multiple relationships concurrently and totes not get jealous or emotional about it, if that’s what they’re into. The problem is that we don’t live in the abstract, we live in patriarchy. The fact that this is an actual concept that is encouraged in left wing political circles is what’s offensive, rather than the individual fact of specific couples agreeing to cheat on each other and not care. You shouldn’t be judged specifically if you really truly feel you have made the free choice to live that way. You should, however, be judged if you promote it to your partners who weren’t into it before you encouraged them to be, or to other lefties as some sort of alternative way to live your life, because it just encourages a culture in which it’s okay for charismatic lefty men to subtly manipulate their girlfriends into accepting bad behaviour as ‘polyamory’. Too many women have been manipulated into an ‘open relationship’ (i.e. her boyfriend wanting an excuse to shag around and mistreat her and get away with it) because they loved their boyfriend so much they didn’t want to lose him, and the truth is that he simply didn’t care as much as he said he did and wanted an easy way to get what he wanted all the time. That’s especially true of the all too prevalent charismatic sexy left wing man who later is revealed to be an arch abuser. Also, it promotes a total false consciousness of empowerment. Also, there’s nothing wrong with not wanting the person you’re in love with, who says they’re in love with you, to not be sticking it in other people. That is an okay way to think and feel, and it’s wrong that polyamory is promoted as a ‘left wing’ way of thinking when it’s not political at all, and as something that young women in left wing circles should get into. There’s nothing left wing about it, it’s left too many abused, manipulated and used women in its wake for that to be the case.

LET THE COMMENT RIOTS COMMENCE!

22 Comments

Mhairi McAlpine says:

March 22, 2011 at 1:35 am

Totally with you on the first, and can understand where you are coming from on the third, but 911 is something else.

There is simply no way I am buying the official conspiracy theory. Its utter nonsense. Way too many questions surround 911 and way too many of the answers come down to “hating our freedoms”. No lizards, holograms, Jews, nanothermites or satanist symbols in banknotes are required to see that its a load of utter shit.

This narrative of the official story tells it far better than I ever could.
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/coincidence-theorists-guide-to-911.html

fitta says:

March 22, 2011 at 2:46 am

Hmm. I think you have to be very, very careful about wholesale denouncing polyamory. For one thing, your characterisation of it is terribly heteronormative, and for another, while I get the concerns you have, to say you have a ‘problem’ with polyamory comes dangerously close to a reactionary conservative stance that assumes there’s any such thing as a ‘right’ way of experiencing sexuality. There are plenty of feminists who’d argue that monogamy is itself an inherently oppressive patriarchal construct. I’m not saying this is my position (although it’s an understandable one, considering heterosexual monogamy is the most privileged form of sexuality under patriarchy) – for me personally, monogamy will always be the only option – and I agree with you that polyamory shouldn’t be ‘promoted’, in the same sense that no mode of sexuality should ever be ‘promoted’ as superior to any other and that nobody should ever be coerced into anything they’re not comfortable with. Of course, your point is that it IS sometimes used coercively and abusively – but so is monogamy, and just because one is more dominantly endorsed than the other doesn’t mean it has any less potential for abuse (I, for one, can’t see much difference in nastiness between a man who uses polyamory as an excuse to sleep around without considering his girlfriend’s feelings and a man who uses monogamy as an excuse to make his girlfriend feel guilty for looking at/talking to other men, or to control her sexuality because she is ‘his’). I’m not saying you shouldn’t speak up if you think particular people are using polyamory as an excuse for being manipulative twats (just as you would do the same in the monogamous scenario). But I’d say we all have to think really carefully about automatically privileging normative sexualities just because we come across some people who abuse in other contexts. I realise you’re coming from a pragmatic victim-centric feminist stance, which is obviously an important one in lots of ways, but I also think feminism would sometimes do well to engage more closely with queer theory about reimagining sexuality and gender and making space for multiplicitous forms of sexual agency that don’t always adhere to the structures already in place.

Sarah says:

March 22, 2011 at 4:43 am

I’m not intending to wholesale denounce polyamory, I’m denoucing it as a left wing concept. And as something that is characterised as anti-oppressive. And saying that it needs to change. I’m thinking of it similarily to how I denounced MEN (the concept) in another article I wrote, which of course doesn’t mean that I denounce men (the people). I don’t think it’s wrong to BE polyamorous, I think the way it is presented, structured and promoted as a concept is wrong, however.

I totally agree that monogamy can be used as a tool for abuse, although as with polyamory I think what I’m saying is my problem with that (and with monogamy) is not the abstract concept of it but the way people use it to manipulate. The reason I’ve got a post up about polyamory here and not about the way that men can use monogamy to trap and control women, is that monogamy is not presented as an inherently left wing approach to relationships, whereas polyamory is, and that bugs fuck out of me. We know what to watch out for in monogamous, heterosexual relationships, because we’ve studied the privilege and abuse perpetuated in them to within an inch of its life, and we will continue to do that (I read feminist blogs on those topics every day and always learn new things). What we need to watch out for are the kind of wolf in sheeps clothing things, which I think actually relates really pretty exactly to the other two topics in this post (sex work unionisation and 9/11 conspiracy theories), where left wing activists are fooled into thinking that because something is ‘alternative’ that means that it is ‘healthy and safe’ when it is not. They still perpetuate privilege and abuse, but it’s hidden behind flashy ‘look at me, I’m new and different and alternative!’ language.

I of course also hate the way that monogamy is used and promoted by the right-wing to fuel a conservative agenda. However part of the reason why I hate both of these approaches (treating polyamory as an expression of leftism and treating monogamy as an expression of rightism) is that I think that who you are attracted to and what kind of relationships you choose to have are completely apolitical, and it annoys me that either are presented as political choices or lifestyles or ways of being or thinking. On the left, we’re supposed to be stepping outside of the mainstream discourse and doing things in a new way, and I think that ‘polyamory’ is confused as ‘a new way’ when in fact it’s just another expression of the same things, personal desires and relationships, and what we should be doing in the ‘new way’ is refusing to treat those things as political in the way that the right do, rather than just treating it in political but in an alternative way. Of course I don’t mean that these feelings and identities don’t have political rammifications – but the rammifications are in the way they are treated by society (or sub-cultures within society), and not the feelings or acts themselves.

I think of it in the same way that I think of sexuality and gender. As leftists, we encourage people to think outside the box of how these are structured and promoted within our society, and aim to get people to acknowledge the fluidity and spectrums that exist within these concepts. But that doesn’t mean that we start saying that it’s politically right wing and oppressive of people to be straight or to be attached strongly to a male or female gender identity. What we are encouraging is the ability to be open and honest about who you really are in relation to these concepts, what we shouldn’t be promoting is one as inherently left wing, which anti-monogamy is presented as. We can be against how monogamy, or masculinity, or heterosexuality is expressed within society without claiming that the fact of being monogamous or masculine or heterosexual is inherently opposed to our left wing ideals.

I’m also a strong believer that women should trust their guts when it comes to recognising abuse. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t examine why things might be positive or negative in detail, and that we should shy away from questioning our instincts. But I know a lot of feminist women who have a gut instinct that there is something just a bit wrong about promoting polyamory as left wing and men promoting it to their girlfriends. The majority of that gut feeling comes from the experience of it being used as a framework for using women. For me I think a big part of that gut feeling is the question of behavioural accountability, who gets to arbitrate it in polyamorous circles, and what happens when someone needs to exercise their right to change their mind. It’s really something I don’t think anyone should jump into lightly (that’s not saying don’t do it if you want to, but really consider all the rammifications for you and your partners’ mental wellbeing which will be tested in ways you probably can’t imagine until you experience it, and be sure that there are healthy boundaries in place which can be opted out of in a safe and appropriate way. I am sure there are lots of polyamorous couples who do very well at setting these boundaries, but again my problem is not with the choices of individuals to consent to that kind of relationship but with the promotion of it which goes on a lot in left wing circles, which I feel doesn’t explain it fully and which leads young men to think it’s just something they’re entitled to do and not explain, perpetuating privilege and mistreatment of women). So I stand by my comment that polyamory as a concept is a heap of manipulative shit. I’m of course not saying that monogamy isn’t a heap of manipulative shit, or that it doesn’t need to change, but I am saying that polyamory needs to change too and become less manipulative, and that we shouldn’t forget that it IS manipulative and seek to challenge the promotion of it as a political ideal. That’s not to say it can’t change, or that monogamy can’t change. Fundamentally, none of this will ever change without a feminist overhaul of society. My problem is leftists feeling that there are no feminist concerns with polyamory when there most certainly are.

Regarding the heteronormative aspects, I didn’t go into that (mainly because this just started as a short-essay avoiding rant on my facebook). I understand the regular unhealthy characterisation of heterosexual monogamy as the norm and right way to be, and I dislike it. However, I dislike the characterisation of polygamy as somehow an alternative to heteronormativity – for a start, I know a lot of men who use it as a chance to sleep with and gain the benefits of relationships with several women at once, and that’s not doing anything to challenge heteronormativity at all. As well, as a bisexual, I dislike the characterisation of the feelings and acts of being bi or gay as somehow aligned to polyamory over monogamy, and as political expressions (though again, the rammifications of being LGBT in homophobic and heteronormative society necessarily creates political situations and outcomes for LGBT people) and as something that should be opposed to monogamy on a political or structural basis. I respect someone else’s right to want to sleep/have relationships with both men and women at the same time (while also recognising the abusive situations this can create due to problems of coercion, and problems with a patriarchal society which promotes aggression and dominance in relationships as virtues, which can create problems of abuse in same-sex relationships too), but I want them to respect my right not to have to listen to the bullshit that it’s a political choice to do that when it isn’t (and that ergo, as a woman who never wants to be in a polyamorous relationship and who is a monogamous bisexual in a relationship with a man, I am not very left wing in my ‘political’ expression of my relationships and desires).

“feminism would sometimes do well to engage more closely with queer theory about reimagining sexuality and gender and making space for multiplicitous forms of sexual agency that don’t always adhere to the structures already in place.”
-I agree with you, but I think that the way to promote making space for a whole varieties of sexualities is not by promoting the idea that living ‘outside’ the structures that are in place, in an alternative structure, is a left-wing political approach. I think the left wing approach is encouraging people to think about the structures, not saying that an alternative approach is left-wing. By thinking about the structures and analysing how they work, you’re able to separate the personal aspects from the societal political ones. And I think promoting that separation is left wing. Whereas ‘polyamory as a left wing alternative to oppressive monogamy’ isn’t separating them, it’s presenting an alternative which in many ways fails to challenge the political problems at the route of the problems with monogamy – it’s not monogamy the concept, it’s monogamy in practice abused by abusive people and forces in society.

I just want to reiterate again at the end of this long long post that I don’t have a problem with any individual who is polyamorous because they are genuinely happier existing without monogamy, and good for them. My problems are with the ignorance of the manipulative trappings the concept can create, and the way in which it’s promoted, not with anyone’s happy polyamorous relationships or how they identify their sexuality.

Sarah says:

March 22, 2011 at 6:15 am

And yet more embellishments on points I’ve sort of already made, because I’m still supposed to be doing an essay but thinking about this instead:

A reason I am opposed to polyamory as ‘the left wing alternative’ and the right, non oppressive way to behave in relationships, is precisely because it presents the view that “monogamy is itself an inherently oppressive patriarchal construct”. For me that’s like saying that men and heterosexuality are inherently oppressive patriarchal constructs. It’s just not true. Men aren’t the problem, it’s men having power and dominance, and the falsified concept of what it supposedly “means” to be a man that is the problem.

And I totally appreciate that were we to rid the world of all of the things that force people to pretend they are something they are not because it’s the dominant social structure or it’s the one that they are supposed to fit into, then there’d be a LOT more people ‘in the middle’ and that would be a good thing. If we got rid of the dominance of monogamy as a social structure there’d be a lot more polyamorous people and happily so, but we don’t do that by just pretending it’s wrong and that everyone would be happier if they just stopped being monogamous and that all of the other forces in society don’t impact it every bit as much and make it need to be self-policed for abusive behaviours every bit as much. If we got rid of the dominance of monogamy, monogamy would still exist, and that’s fine.

“But I’d say we all have to think really carefully about automatically privileging normative sexualities just because we come across some people who abuse in other contexts.”
- And that’s definitely true, but I don’t think I was phrasing it that way, or that’s not how it was intended. I wasn’t intending to privilege monogamous relationships (of any sexuality, which I deliberately didn’t mention but perhaps should have), I was intending to say that monogamous relationships are not wrong, in the context of it being indicated through the way I’ve seen polyamory promoted that they are wrong from a left wing perspective. I’d say me writing about abusive polyamorous relationships and not about abusive monogamous relationships is more comparable to if I were to write an article about men abusing their male partners and not mention men abusing female partners, because that’s not the issue I’d be talking about, than it is comparable to writing an article about how women totally abuse men too (ignoring all the context of patriarchy) so therefore men abusing women is alright and normal and we shouldn’t talk about the problems of that. Dyou know what I mean by the comparison, or am I phrasing it badly? And the point is it’s still men and traditional masculinity that is causing the problems in all of these scenarios (abuse in monogamous/polyamorous relationships, abuse in mm/mf relationships), and patriarchy is what needs to be dealt with in order to resolve ALL these problems.

Reading through my comments I can see how it could fall easily into interpretations of expressions of (monogamous) privilege. However, I simply do have a problem with that assessment of monogamy vs polyamory of being one of privilege vs marginalized group. I think some things that actually come down to other expressions of privilege (in this case, male privilege and straight privilege vs female and LGBT marginalization) are falsely attributed their own sort of privilege zone or whatever you want to call it – I think sex work is also an example of something that is an issue of women’s oppression that has falsely been labelled as its own individual oppression (i.e. the contention that ‘happy hookers” as they’re horribly called are marginalized on the basis of their enjoyment of “sex work” when really the use of all prostitutes by privileged men is an expression of marginalization on the basis that they are women and they are 99.99% dirt poor. Similarly I think that ‘polyamorous people being oppressed’ is not a thing into and of itself but an expression of other types of intersecting oppressions. If you take away the oppression of sex workers and polyamorous people overnight magically, you’ve not done a thing to stop the oppression of women and poor and LGBT people. If you take away the oppression of women and poor and LGBT people, you’ve got rid of the oppression of sex workers and polyamorous people.

Muzza says:

March 22, 2011 at 10:35 am

I agree with Mhairi.

Whilst I agree that coming up with your own batshit theory to what happened on 9/11 is insane, to accept the US gvmnt’s conspiracy theory dispite all of its contradictions is impossible given access to even the modest amount of evidence that is in the public domain.

fitta says:

March 22, 2011 at 2:42 pm

I completely agree with pretty much everything you’ve said in these comments and that’s why I think it’s really worth thinking carefully about how you put things and sometimes being more long-winded than you’d like! The real problem I had with the original post is that it DOES come across as simply assuming that monogamy is somehow ‘better’ or more ‘natural’ and that polyamory is more often than not is just a male ploy to mistreat women. Which is an issue that needs discussed, but not by saying we should stop ‘promoting’ polyamory without any qualifiers. Like I said, I agree that no sexual lifestyle should be ‘promoted’ as such, and I definitely agree that no sexual lifestyle is inherently ‘more left-wing’ than another (and people who are trying to suggest that we ‘shouldn’t’ be monogamous should definitely be challenged), but I DO think it’s a positive political act to make an effort to make space for alternative sexualities to be seen as legitimate choices, and for people to be able to freely discuss them and have access to information about them. To say polyamory shouldn’t be ‘promoted’ seems, in the original post, to be saying we should shut that discussion down and just leave it to those who want to do it in private, and I don’t think that’s a particularly leftist (or feminist) attitude to have. It also seems to suggest (simply because it doesn’t say otherwise) that monogamy doesn’t need to be questioned in this way – it’s just something we take for granted as ‘normal’ and therefore not so open to interrogation (and I know you mentioned that you DO think/write about the practical realities of abuse in monogamous relationships, but have you ever written a blog post about monogamy *as a concept*?)

I also agree that the automatic association of LBGT sexualities with polyamory is a bit dodgy in itself, but I do think that LGBT communities tend to have a much more progressive attitude to approaching these questions, and are less willing to see monogamy as the default setting rather than just another valid option.

One other thing I think you have to be careful with is presenting a reductive view of women’s sexuality. Your original post seems to assume (I’m sure not intentionally) that polyamory is something only men are ever really into, and that women are usually just going along with it for the sake of their boyfriend or because of ‘false consciousness empowerment’. I don’t doubt that statistically men probably ARE more likely to be into polyamory, which is hardly surprising – we all know that boys and girls are indoctrinated to think very different things about the virtue of promiscuity. But you have to be careful, when highlighting the problem of victimised women, that you don’t accidentally impose victim status on ALL women, or accidentally suggest that women are just ‘naturally’ more monogamous, because to do so completely removes women’s agency over our own sexuality and positions us as always and unalterably *objects* of a patriarchal structure and never *subjects* within that structure. I think the term ‘false consciousness’ is a VERY slippery one that shouldn’t be used lightly, because it’s constantly in danger of invalidating real women’s real experience. (Although, to qualify, I agree that to present polyamory or any sexuality as inherently ‘empowering’ is dangerous and misleading – sexual structures under patriarchy can never be empowering *in themselves*, but our positive and active experiences of them can.)

But like I said, your comments have made your position MUCH clearer and I entirely agree with your fundamental point – I’m just trying to point out the issues where I thought the original post was quite misleading and could have been better worded

Antsy says:

March 23, 2011 at 12:33 am

This article is DISGUSTING and HORRIFIC.

I CANNOT BELIEVE that you would use the word sexy in the link to the Tommy Sheridan article!

You make me SICK.

Sarah says:

March 23, 2011 at 1:28 am

It was really just intended to be a wee rant post that sparked some debate, but I’m really glad of your comments and although I hadn’t originally intended to do it I’m glad I was put in the position of defending and explaining my position in much more detail

Ewan says:

March 23, 2011 at 2:27 am

One of my friends is a prostitute and he seems pretty happy. That being said, I don’t think he really gives a fuck about being unionised either. In any case, be careful when making these sort of generalisations. He’s not being abused. He made a conscious choice and makes a good living off it.

On the 9/11 subject, Cheney and co orchastrated it as a springboard for invading Iraq, and there aint a damn thing that’s gonna change my mind on that one.

As for polyamours relationships, I’m gay, I’ve had enough people harassing me and passing judgement on me for my so-called “lifestyle choice,” so leave these folk alone, it aint no ones fuckin business.

Don Juan says:

March 23, 2011 at 2:42 am

Ewan Cheney and co didn’t need a springboard nor is 9/11 justification for Iraq as it was Afghanistan that was invaded first. Your point doesn’t make sense in a world twhere people genuinely hate Americans. The fact is they don’t need to orchestrate it they can just let it happen although I believe its more to do with Integgience agencies incompetence.

Meghan says:

March 23, 2011 at 3:14 am

Don Juan, I’m starting to suspect that you disagree with everything that gets posted on this blog, merely for the sake of doing so. You accuse us of putting you in a ‘box’ (again I’m not sure how we do this, especially since we do continue to post your comments), and having indulged you on several occassions I’m now starting to believe that you’re not really interested in socialism at all, but in trolling. Must you bombard my comrades with non-constructive criticism at every available opportunity?

Meghan says:

March 23, 2011 at 3:56 am

Ewan: although I certainly can’t speak for your friend who is a prostitute, I don’t think it would be accurate to say that prostitutes aren’t abused, or to treat all cases as if they are the same as your friends. The sex industry is notorious for abuse. In this BBC report (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12731409) they vaguely touch on allegations made against a convicted prostitution ring boss:

“Prostitutes were recruited through advertisements on the internet and in newspapers while young women and girls, one aged just 15, were trafficked in to the UK from south America and Nigeria.

The court heard the women believed they were escaping to a better life, to enjoy an education or become hairdressers or seamstresses.

Many did not know that they would have to work as prostitutes to pay off their “debts”, the court heard.

Some were subjected to “terrifying and humiliating” rituals involving killing chickens and being pushed into a coffin “to put the fear of death in them,” the trial heard.”

LydiaTeapot says:

March 23, 2011 at 2:47 pm

Ewan: Probably because he is a man. Male privilege.
My friend is asian and doesn’t suffer racial hate. Therefore there is none.
This is not how shit works, sorry.

Don Juan says:

March 23, 2011 at 5:59 pm

Meghan my criticism is in his belief of 9/11 as some big cover up or conspiracy whereas the problem often is not looking at facts. I do beleive in socialism and care for it my problem is that yes your are correct I do disagree with many points on this blog but then in certain aspects I do agree. Also most times when I agree with a blog or something said I don’t really put a comment because I believe evefrything needed to be said is said. When I disagree I put my perspective in to stoke conversation and hopefully change the view of the blogger or even to help others in making an argument and actually talking about subjects rather than a blog filled with only praise.

I would say I interject not only because I disagree but to but a different perspective on views, I have views correlating with feminism but my views come from a very different place.

Meghan says:

March 23, 2011 at 6:18 pm

It’s not so much that I expect you to post praise. Other posters occassionally post supplementary information etc., or ask the original poster to modify their argument in light of new information/information they might not hitherto have been aware of. I don’t object specifically to your objection to 911 conspiracy-type stuff, but from one comrade to another, you’ve posted a lot of comments on this blog lately and you could be more constructive. Dialogue is great, but haranguing is something else. From what you say above it sounds like you prefer dialogue – so do we. But please be aware that the internet is rubbish for conveying tone and stuff, so think about how your posts will come across to others before you post them – you might find that you’re presenting yourself as much more agressive and brutally oppositional than you mean to be.

john l says:

March 23, 2011 at 6:24 pm

Sarah none of your pet hates are that controversial – because none of them are that significant. Its worth taking positions on all three subjects, just not worth spending much time on any of them

1.Unionising sex workers – I agree with many leading feminists – this whole argument is a shibboleth. The womens movement and the left loves to tear itself apart over this subject. It’s led to actual punch ups on reclaim the night marches. But in truth the left is in no position to effect whether prostitutes are unionised or not.

2. 9/11 – I hate conspiracy theories – they are intellectual rot and cannot explain how or why war happens. Having said that i don’t really care if people believe in it or not as long as they are against the wars that followed.

3. I don’t think lifestyle politics of any kind can end gender oppression. I think politicising ones life style in general is a waste of time. I also don’t think its my business to judge people for their consensual sexual practice – even if i disagree with it. What percentage of present sexual relationships would you deem in some way reactionary Sarah? If you think like me you would have to suppose its around the 100 mark.

What’s never discussed on this blog is theory. There is a whole lot of huffing and hawing about the shitty things we don’t like. Then there are some appreciations of this or that act of resistance. Then there are some abstract schemas about how things could be better. What there is never is how we get from shitty things to a better world. That last bit requires theory – an anlysis of economics, a theorisation of state power, a study of the past and present of the Labour movement, an examination of the sociology of various social classes, a discussion of strategy and tactics in the struggle and much else besides.

Diane says:

March 23, 2011 at 9:30 pm

Agree with most of what commenters above have said. The sex industry IS notorious for abuse and while I think it’s OK for people (men and women) to work in the sex industry if they enjoy it and aren’t being abused… Well, those people tend to be the exception (see: Secret Diary or w/e).

I’d also suggest that the BDSM community (particularly D/s relationships) belong on that list.

Yer granny says:

March 24, 2011 at 12:15 am

I agree, I don’t know and I agree

1.Unionising sex workers – If prostitutes want to organise themselves, collectiviise that is totally up to them however i reject that prostitution is actually work. i think prostitution particularly of women is based on men’s priviledge and abuse of women. Men have no right to buy women for their own sexual gratification. Prostitution is very dangerous and how can it be unionised when the trade union movement argues and organises against sexual harrassment! Prostitution harms prostitutes but it also harms all women. The women (and men) who make choices well good for them, I hope they are safe and make a good living but they have to be careful not to be apologists for the abuse of women.

2. 9/11 – I think I am with Mhairi on this just don’t spend too much time thinking about it

3. I so agree with you on the latter one, I think it is an excuse for bad behaviour!!! Polyamory makes too many people cry so it doesn’t work. If anyone can get involved in polymoric relationships that don’t make them cry or anyone else then who am I too judge but I don’t see it took me to read Aleandra Kollantai’s A Great Love and Love of the Worker bees to get it!!! I strongly recommend these books – they are short stories They changed my life!!!

Old Flame says:

March 25, 2011 at 10:02 am

^^
On point 3 – Yer granny sounds a wee bit morally conservative…….plenty people can attest to conventional monogamy making people cry and
repeating abusive , dysfunctional patterns of relationships . Open , “polyamory” relationships work for some people – once jealousy , insecurity and possesiveness are dealt with………if we’re serious about changing the world……….dare to be different

Sarah says:

March 28, 2011 at 3:45 am

Just to be clear: I have had more than one woman who’ve been abused by men using ‘open relationships’ thank me for putting it out there that this isn’t a left wing concept.

If you actually read what I’ve said (and then again in the comments in more depth and repeatedly), I don’t think it’s unreasonable or judgemental of alternative ways of experiencing sexuality. However, I’m raising the fact that it’s not a left wing idea, and shouldn’t be promoted as such, and that people need to be wary of and speak up about the ways it can be used to abuse (and not be tricked into thinking that because it’s not-monogamy, that it is free of the manipulations men use in monogamy, and of other manipulations, and that every ‘alternative’ is always right or good for you if you’re left wing).

cullens91 says:

April 1, 2011 at 5:54 pm

I agree with the majority of the comments on this post and the main article to a large degree. Presenting polyamory as a left-wing concept is wrong. I think that politicising any form of relationship or “lifestyle-choice” and promoting it as an ideological concept is a bad thing, and can obviously lead to abusive individuals manipulating (or attempting to manipulate) their partners or other people into making choices they would otherwise not have made; which is abuse, and depending on the outcome should be considered as rape, sexual abuse or attempted rape. I do not criticise or denounce anyone’s choice to enter into any form of relationship, assuming there is genuine consent from all individuals involved. I’m glad Sarah denounced polyamory as a “lefty” concept and made the argument against it being categorised as such better than I could. One thing that I hate is the general perception of “masculinity” and the roles of both sexes in our society and the widespread belief that virtually no guy can ever say “no” to sex and all men strive to be the dominant “alpha male”, get as much as they can with as many girls as they can; and that this is all good and normal. The promotion of such ideas and the sexual objectification of women by male-dominated media carriers seriously fucks me off, and in my opinion drives some of the sickest opinions/beliefs within our society and normalises both the ideas that men should be dominant sex addicts and women can be viewed/used as mere objects for sexual satisfaction. There are lots of good posts on this blog regarding chauvinism and how the media helps drive sexism and patriarchal views within society, so I’ll try and not go into a full-blown rant as it most probably wouldn’t be a literary masterpiece. It is easy to recognise why women should find this patriarchal system to be unfair and generally shit, but (other than moral objections) there seem to be few examples of why (some) men find the societal problems we suffer to be unfair and crap. One of my reasons for posting this was to include a wee story of how the perceived role of men (as dominators and sex-machines) by society has possibly left a guy I knew feeling worthless and inadequate. I had an acquaintance who was offered a threesome by his ex-girlfriend and her best pal after a night out and he said no, the two girls (who were drunk) then proceeded to go around his male pals telling them that he’d declined a threesome, and make out that he “didn’t have the guts”, or was in some way a total “sissy” or incapable, totally overlooking that casually screwing your ex-girlfriend and her friend could potentially be the biggest mind-fuck ever and might leave you emotionally wrecked. The guy then got pelters from his (supposed) male pals who, I assume, seemed to think they were denting his “male pride”. Having to fulfil the perceived role that some people feel they have to live up to fucks up lots of peoples lives.

Meghan says:

April 3, 2011 at 12:56 am

Hey cullens,

Just to say cheers very much for posting your views on masculinities, it has a lot in common with some of the stuff me and another comrade have been discussing regarding progressive male identities and masculinity in the age of feminism. Although the cultural complicity with traditional gender roles/stereotypes has led to create binaries where women are the underprivileged group (see Cixous, ‘Sorties’ and ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ for this argument), men are also pigeonholed into particular roles by these binaries. The advent of feminism is the breaking down of these binaries in order to liberate women, and although we must be wary of making the heterosexual white male the focus of any liberational discourse, the breaking down of these binaries also offers important opportunities for men – i.e. not to be the sexually dominant, neanderthal stereotypes. Cixous has a great excerp that I think I’ve posted elsewhere – about how man has to stop “confusing himselves with his penis” and ‘write himself’ by ’saying where his masculinity and femininity are at’. I interpret this is an existentialist point: that men must perform and thus construct alternative identities for themselves, that don’t necessarily fit the sex-hungry, active, predatory stereotype that binaries construct for them (in opposition to woman’s traditionally passive role/stereotype).

Anyway, w00t deconstruction, int it fun.

Three "left wing" concepts that are officially not cool.

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Three "left wing" concepts that are officially not cool.

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