Sex, Feminism and Lesbian Desire in Women's Magazines

Kate Farhall

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000169751
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book examines evolving pop culture representations of sex and relationships from the 1970s onwards, to demonstrate parallels between the strength of the feminist movement and positive portrayals of women's sexuality.

In charting changes in the sex and relationship content of women's magazines over time, this analysis reveals that despite surface-level changes in sexual and relationship content, the underlying paradigm of hetero-monogamy remains unchanged. Despite a seemingly more diverse, empowered and liberated sexuality for women in contemporary magazines, in reality, such feminist rhetoric masks an enduring model of sexuality, which rests on women's sexual and emotional maintenance of male partners and their own self-objectification and self-surveillance. Where substantive changes can be identified, they rise and fall in tandem with feminism. By demonstrating this empirical relationship between cultural products and feminist organising, the book validates an assumption that has rarely been tested: that a feminist social milieu improves cultural narratives about sexuality for women. Sex, Feminism and Lesbian Desire builds on ground-breaking feminist texts such as Susan Faludi's Backlash to present an empirically focused, comprehensive study interrogating changes in content over the lifetime of women's magazines. By charting the representation of sex and relationships in two women's magazines— Cosmopolitan and Cleo —since the 1970s through an analysis of over 6, 500 magazine pages and 1, 500 articles, this timely work interrogates—and ultimately complicates—the apparent linear progression of feminism.

This book is suitable for researchers and students in women's and gender studies, queer studies, LGBT studies, media studies, cultural studies and sociology.

1 Sex and women’s subordination

How sex constrains women

Sex is seemingly everywhere in global North countries such as Australia and the US. It screams out from billboards advertising everything from ice creams to sneakers. It is the focus of endless self-help literatures and permeates digital spaces. It is intertwined with politics and religion and is often the basis for celebrity. Women’s magazines in particular are famous for their relentless focus on sex and sexuality, promising their readers pathways to more, better, more thrilling sex. The magazines in this study are no exception, with 30 out of 33 front covers blaring explicitly sex-related headlines from “Nice couples do have filthy sex” (Cleo, March 1993) to “The penis monologues: what his willy REALLY wants you to know (and do!)” (Cosmopolitan, November 2003)—with the remaining three covers still alluding to sex, sexuality or relationships. Yet, while sex may appear to be everywhere, it is often a particular narrative around sexuality that is presented: one where heterosexuality is innate, immutable, framed around sex-role stereotypes and exclusively available to those who perform idealised versions of predominantly white, able-bodied and wealthy femininity and masculinity.

Although the way in which sex is understood, valued and performed can vary across different cultures and countries and at the micro-level of individual relationships, a large amount of social organisation goes into establishing heterosexuality as the norm and directing people to perform it in a certain way. This is evidenced through advertising and popular culture, which consistently centre heterosexual couples (Gurrieri and Hoffman 2019), as well as through state regulation that seeks to define family relationships and marriage through the model of the heterosexual nuclear family, even as these begin to open up to same-sex couples (Barker 2012). Society continues to assume heterosexuality as a baseline, and to be organised around this assumption. Importantly, this immense amount of social organisation suggests that sexuality does not just happen organically, but rather is socially constructed via a vigorous policing of the boundaries of sex and relationships (Barker 2012; Rich [1980]1984; Steinberg et al. 1997).

Sexuality not only plays a significant role in our social worlds but is also closely tied to questions of sex, gender and patriarchy, which is why it has been central to feminist theory and activism for decades (Jackson 1996; Millett [1970]1971; Walby 1990). This chapter harnesses predominantly radical feminist perspectives on sexuality to lay the groundwork for the subsequent analysis, which explores how male-dominant discourses have been centralised in women’s magazines for decades. In particular, the chapter seeks to establish what a radical feminist approach to theorising sexuality adds to research that scrutinises the content of popular women’s magazines. To this end, it highlights the significance of a critique of sexuality, and specifically heterosexuality, to radical feminist theory and underscores the importance of maintaining a structural account of sexuality, as revealed through the application of a radical feminist lens. The main aspects of sex and relationships that are interrogated throughout the analysis of magazine content contained in this book represent key battlegrounds for feminists in the contemporary construction of sexuality. A radical feminist approach adds a useful voice to the conversation, as it is particularly effective in uncovering the ways in which contemporary sexuality is constructed to the detriment of women and identifying the structures and institutions which inhibit women’s liberation.¹

A radical feminist approach to sexuality

Sexuality has been the subject of a significant amount of scrutiny for centuries. It has been the object of religious or socially conservative restriction and judgement; subject to laws regarding how, when and where it may be performed; and the focus of medical, psychological, scientific and social analysis (Foucault 1978; Gagnon and Simon 2005; Jackson 1984; Sullivan 2003). In particular, it has been the focus of feminist as well as poststructuralist and queer theory (e.g. Butler 1990; Weedon 1996). Different strands of these fields of study have provided different perspectives on both the meaning of sexuality, and what approach (if any) should be taken to analysing, regulating or (de)constructing it. At times, as discussed next, these debates have become heated—so central is sex to our lives and how we organise our societies and relate to one another.

This book primarily employs radical feminist theory to analyse changes in women’s magazine content, making a case for why this theory is an important part of the scholarly equation. Here, sexuality is seen as the root of women’s oppression, while gender and (hetero)sexuality are understood as mutually constitutive (Jeffreys 2015, [1990]1993; MacKinnon [1989]1991; Miriam 2007). Yet it also blends radical ideas with those from other traditions, such as poststructuralist feminist thought (e.g. Gill 2007a; McRobbie 2011), demonstrating that in spite of pitched battles over the study of sexuality, there is also much that different approaches can agree on. It is worth recognising that all strands of feminism, as well as queer theory, view themselves as scholarly and activist movements for the liberation of oppressed groups. While radical feminism has something valuable to offer to the study of cultural artefacts, other areas of critical theory may illuminate important (even if competing) parts of the equation, too.

Sexuality, power and patriarchy

Sexuality is a deeply social phenomenon. As radical feminist Catharine MacKinnon clarifies, “sexuality is not confined to that which is done as pleasure in bed or as an ostensible reproductive act; it does not refer exclusively to genital contact or arousal or sensation, or narrowly to sex-desire or libido or eros” ([1989]1991, xiii). Rather, following a radical feminist understanding, “sexuality is conceived as a far broader social phenomenon, as nothing less than the dynamic of sex as social hierarchy, its pleasure the experience of power in its gendered form” ([1989]1991, xiii). It is this notion of “sex as social hierarchy” which characterises a radical feminist conceptualisation of sexuality. Women and men are understood as two sex classes: material social groups, based on biology, shaped by social processes and defined by a relationship of exploitation (Jackson 1999; MacKinnon [1989]1991; Millett [1970]1971). In turn, this sex class system is mediated through sexuality.²

Within radical feminism, it is this central role of sexuality as the fulcrum upon which patriarchy turns which renders it crucial to an analysis of women’s oppression. The dominant sexual paradigm, which is oppressive to women and emerges from the magazines analysed in this book, is thus not merely symptomatic of sex inequality, but also the mechanism through which sex class is determined and enforced. It is through sexuality that women are “produce[d]” as “a class of inferior status”, as they are socialised to eroticise their own subordination and desire male dominance (Jeffreys [1990]1993, 295). From sexuality as the fundamental root of oppression stem a variety of structural and societal constraints that subordinate women, as explored further later on. For these reasons, a radical feminist perspective holds that sexuality is the lynchpin of women’s inequality, and as such that feminist efforts should be primarily directed towards dismantling the dominant heterosexual paradigm.

Radical feminist critiques of dominant understandings of (hetero)sexuality have focused on the impact of such cultural understandings on women and the benefits accruing to men. This issue is centralised within the radical feminist theoretical paradigm and can be seen to have two main branches: a practical one and a theoretical one. The practical branch identifies issues of sexual exploitation and violence as among the most pressing and harmful issues facing women under male domination and thus prioritises questions of sexuality for immediate feminist critique and activism. Issues related to the sex industry, trafficking and sexual slavery (Barry 1995; Jeffreys 1997, 2009), sexual violence and pornography (Brownmiller 1975; Dworkin 2006; Jeffreys 1994; Millett [1970]1971), and the construction of sexuality more broadly (Jeffreys [1990]1993; MacKinnon [1989]1991), are therefore foregrounded in radical feminist scholarship as a matter of urgency.

Alongside this pragmatic approach, the theoretical rationale for the importance of sexuality within radical feminism rests on the premise that sexuality is central to women’s oppression. Notions of a feminine gender that form the foundation of women’s subordinate status by circumscribing diverse aspects of women’s lives, from their appearance to their physical mobility and social roles, have their basis in the political institution of heterosexuality and the servicing of male satisfaction (Miriam 2007; Wittig 1992). As radical feminist Kathy Miriam (2007, 215) explains, “the contents of normative feminine behaviour—what is allowed and disallowed—shows evidence of men’s interests”. Thus, as MacKinnon ([1989]1991, 143) notes, the “social requirements for male sexual arousal and satisfaction are identical with the gender definition of ‘female’ ”, revealing the importance of sexuality to gender compliance more broadly. In this way, radical feminist theorising positions the construction of sexuality as the locus of male power, underscoring the importance of an analysis of sexuality to the feminist project more broadly.

Critiques of radical feminism

Many other branches of feminism, as well as queer theory, contest radical feminist critiques, instead positing a celebratory rhetoric which rejoices in sex and sexuality in all—or at least most—of its forms (e.g. Rubin 1984). There is certainly a place for celebration in our understandings of sexuality: as a counterweight to oppressive and conservative valuations of sex broadly defined, or particular expressions of it deemed pathological. The lesbian and gay liberation movement sought not only to fight the oppression of homosexuals that was (and in many places still is) so pervasive and harmful, but also to celebrate their sexuality and relationships as having worth, oftentimes being places of love and support and being just as deserving of joyfulness as heterosexual couples (Altman 2013; Barker 2012). In the same way, second wave feminism sought to celebrate women’s sexuality and throw off the shackles of the sexual double standard (e.g. Boston Women’s Health Book Collective [1970]2011). These celebratory approaches that fight the shame and suppression heaped upon certain forms of sexual desire or expression have often provided positive, supportive communities for oppressed groups. There is a clear utility in celebration. Yet, it cannot end there.

Moving beyond celebration, it is important to think about which constructions of sexuality we celebrate and why. Going beyond a rhetoric that argues that sex is not something that we should necessarily be ashamed of, or punish, requires applying a critical lens to questions of sex and sexuality. This involves asking questions such as, what are the relations of power involved? How does such an expression of sexuality articulate with broader hierarchical forms of social organisation—including misogyny, but also structures such as racism, classism, ableism and homophobia? And if we find certain constructions of sexuality to be complicit with forms of oppression that are unacceptable in other spheres, how might we conceive of a sexuality outside of these forms of power—or at minimum make an effort not to eroticise or perpetuate them? To consider that sexuality is not possible outside of the eroticisation of hierarchy, or to cordon it off from political discussion as a question of private, personal preference, is to condone inequality and represents a failure to imagine a more just world. Radical feminists, although some of the strongest critics of forms of sexuality founded on inequality, have also been at the forefront of attempts to imagine an alternative construction based on mutuality, reciprocity and the eroticisation of equality (Frye 1990; Mohin 1996; Tyler 2011). Sex is not removed from the rest of society—“a mere fantasy”. It is intimately intertwined with a multitude of social processes, relations and forms of organisation. If we are getting off to racism, misogyny or homophobia, if we are fetishising disability or childhood, then this requires examination.

Flowing out of accusations that radical feminism is ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Sex and women’s subordination: how sex constrains women
• 2 “You’re very interested in men, naturally”: compulsory heterosexuality and sex difference
• 3 “Girl-on-girl confessions!”: lesbian chic and heteroflexibility
• 4 “The penis monologues”: pornification, male desire and aggressive masculinity
• 5 “Booty boot camp”: heterosexual trends and (post)feminism
• Conclusion: feminist tides, pop culture and radical social change
• Index