Your Heterosexual Feminism Is Wrong

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Miriam Mogilevsky (@sondosia on Twitter) describes herself as “queer, gay, femme, and homoflexible . . . a lesbian with exceptions,” furthermore explaining: “I’m on the asexual spectrum somewhere . . . I don’t experience primary sexual attraction.” Also, she is into polyamory, “which means that I’m open to multiple committed and loving relationships, but with minimal life enmeshment and no ‘rules’ placed on me.” In other words, she’s a weirdo. But in 2015, feminism is all about weirdos, which brings us to her latest column at Everyday Feminism:

5 Ways Straight Women Can Be
Better Allies to Queer Women

Perhaps you didn’t realize that feminists are obligated to be “Allies to Queer Women,” but as Professor Mimi Marinucci has explained Feminism Is Queer, and therefore heterosexual women in the movement are expected to regard lesbians as their moral and intellectual superiors. Exactly why heterosexual women would want to be part of a movement that requires them to be lectured by weirdos, I can’t explain, and yet Miriam Mogilevsky presumes they are in need of her instruction:

Most queer women have stories of things straight women have said or done that stung unexpectedly, that casually wore down our senses of self.
Some of those things we would’ve resignedly expected from straight men — but coming from women, they were powerfully painful. . . .
By deconstructing some of these dynamics, I hope to inspire straight women to find better ways to relate to and support their queer female friends.

Notice that Ms. Mogilevsky assumes that her readers at Everyday Feminism share her contemptuous disdain for “straight men”; feminists are expected to recoil in horror at the accusation that their own behavior is as bad as the behavior of heterosexual males (who are always wrong about everything, of course). Well, you may ask, how do straight women fail as “Allies to Queer Feminists”? Ms. Mogilevsky lectures them:

Most queer women I know have stories of straight women touching them without consent — often in ways that read to us as very sexual, and ways that they would (rightfully) be furious if men touched them.
Maybe it’s because we feel “safe” to them, and they feel comfortable expressing affection or attraction to us in ways that they don’t feel comfortable doing with men.
But maybe it’s because they like having that feeling of power over someone.
It’s probably true that if a woman touches another woman, that’s less likely to be interpreted as a come-on than when she touches a man. . . .
However, when women assume that there’s no chance that another woman would ever interpret a touch in a sexual way — not even when they touch her breasts or butt — they desexualize her.
To these women, touching men can be a sexual gesture; touching women cannot.
Straight women touch us in these ways while insisting that there’s no need to ask for consent because there’s nothing sexual about it. . . .
When straight women casually touch me in intimate ways without asking first, it hurts. Not only because I wasn’t given the chance to consent, but because they don’t understand that for me, these types of touches are something to share with a partner.
They’re sexually charged and erotic. It’s an interaction that’s supposed to happen in bed with someone I’m into, not at the bar where you’ve decided that my butt is “soooo cute!” that you want to grab it without asking.

So, that’s Rule One: Never touch Miriam Mogilevsky. And honestly, if you feel an overwhelming urge to touch her, you should seek psychiatric help immediately. But remember there are five ways you heterosexual feminists are failing as “Allies to Queer Women,” according to Ms. Mogilevsky, and let’s just cut to Rule Five:

5. Remember That We Aren’t Your ‘Experiments’ . . .
If you feel like you have to try sex with people of different genders to help yourself understand what kinds of partners you’re looking for, by all means, get consent and go for it.
But treating people as “experiments” is different. Straight or questioning women who treat queer women as “experiments” treat them as disposable, as objects, as a means to an end.
They feel no responsibility — before or after the hookup — to be honest with their partner about their reason for seeking out the hookup or their intentions afterward.
Sometimes they enter explicitly queer spaces despite comfortably identifying as straight and knowing that they’ll be assumed queer in that space. Some straight women I’ve met even seem to take a gleeful pride in their ability to seduce and mislead queer women, toying with them for their own amusement. . . .
But because of the negative experiences many of us have had with women who saw us as nothing more than an “experiment,” many of us are no longer willing to consent to these types of encounters.

Well, you can read the whole thing. Or you can gouge your eyes out with a rusty screwdriver. Either will do you as much good.

Perhaps, if you are a heterosexual woman who considers yourself a feminist, this presumptuous lecture from Ms. Mogilevsky will make you reconsider. As a heterosexual male, however, I am perplexed that Ms. Mogilevsky thinks she’s such a hot commodity that people she meets cannot resist the temptation to “touch her breasts or butt.” Really?

Maybe that’s your idea of an irresistibly attractive “queer, gay, femme, homoflexible lesbian with exceptions,” in which case you should seek psychiatric help immediately. But speaking of exceptions, Ms. Mogilesky recently shared this strange and alarming confession:

So I’d been dreading the inevitable moment when I’d find myself interested in a guy again because I figured it’d be confusing and awful, but now it’s happened and it’s actually not a big deal. If anything, I’m only more comfortable with my gay identity because I could immediately feel the difference from previous times I’ve been interested in men. I have no investment in this, “this” being the idea of dating this person or any other man. I’m not worried about the fact that the attraction will inevitably fade, because I don’t *have* to make it last. I don’t have to make it serious and committed. I don’t have to do anything with it at all. I don’t have to appeal to this person or make myself palatable to him or any other man, because it doesn’t matter to me if I have men in my life as partners or not.
(And yes, I know plenty of women who are attracted to men have similar thoughts, but believe me, it feels completely different from when I was bi.)
It doesn’t really bother me because it’s only natural that something like this would happen. I’ve entered a time of my life that’s more colorful and dynamic than probably any other previous time, and I’m meeting interesting people constantly, and things are stable enough for me now that genuine attraction to people is a thing that actually happens, so it was probable that eventually one of those people would be a man. It doesn’t *have* to mean anything about My Sexuality; it’s a statistical fluke. These results are not statistically significant. They are, however, quite enjoyable in the moment.
(This also makes me realize that one of the reasons I mostly stopped being attracted to men to begin with is that whenever I felt and expressed that attraction, they would more often than not freak out, shame me, etc. They’d be all “whoa you’re acting weird” and “um wow isn’t that kind of forward,” and of course the next day they’d be texting me at midnight asking “what’s up,” but that was enough. Men in general can’t handle women expressing interest in them directly, so I gave up and eventually the interest went away.
Well, now it doesn’t bother me if my attempt to be clear and direct gets stigmatized and ridiculed, because I don’t f–king need them. If they’re going to act like children, I’m out.)

Am I the only one who thinks the lady doth protest too much? She wants it known to everyone on Tumblr that she doesn’t really care about men and they don’t matter, but then there’s this jarring assertion: “Men in general can’t handle women expressing interest in them directly.” What? According to who? Maybe men have a problem with Miriam Mogilevsky “expressing interest,” but we can’t blame them for that, can we? If this weirdo “expressed . . . attraction” to you, wouldn’t you “freak out”?

Yet this is feminism in 2015: The “queer, gay, femme, homoflexible lesbian with exceptions” is a columnist for Everyday Feminism, and heterosexual women are expected to be grateful that Miriam Mogilevsky has taken the time to tell you exactly how and why your heterosexual feminism is wrong. You are so ignorant you wouldn’t even know how to be “Allies to Queer Women” unless she told you, and if you find her attitude insulting, then perhaps you’re not a feminist at all.




 

66 comments

  1. “…open to multiple committed and loving relationships, but with minimal life enmeshment and no ‘rules’ placed on me.”

    There is no way I can get past that sentence. Whatever her concept of “committed” is, I can’t guess. I don’t want to be inside that brain for a nanosecond.

  4. Your sense of self would have to be pretty fragile to be casually worn down, as described. So other than obviously being weirdos, they also clearly lack any concept of coping skills.

  6. In the summer of 1978, I had two girlfriends, one in Kennesaw and the other in Red Oak. The word “polyamory” was not around back then, however. In fact, most teenagers in 1978 never thought of ourselves as having a “sexuality” — not the kind of fancy label stuff these Gender Studies kids have, anyway. We had sex, but not “sexuality,” and we didn’t even mind not knowing any of that stuff.

  8. I read a psychology book long ago about a woman who claimed to be under attack by a poltergeist, and when that started to fall apart, she was suddenly under attack by a vampire.

    Her defense of her claim was “If I was inventing this, why would I invent something so horrible?”

    The answer is: Victimization is their adventure. They love the drama. The more oddities they can put on their self-description list, the better. And this is why they love, love, love to post little updates about how they were curled up on the kitchen floor last night weeping endlessly.

  11. The invention of the word “sexuality” is part of the fall of civilization.

    If you don’t find ordinary sex interesting anymore and you need props and odd situations or bizarre couplings, that’s not “sexuality”; it’s merely being jaded.

    And when they bring that lunacy into schools and tell kids that it’s normal, then they’re making “jaded” the starting point for those kids.

    That’s not good.

  12. I love her strawman “get consent.” It’s like saying America defaults to not doing that.

    “By all mean, have friends, just don’t murder them.”

    Okay Miriam. I’ll see if I can navigate the dangerous waters of sex without inadvertently raping someone. I keep telling myself that. Don’t rape them this time, you stupid.

  13. How come ghosts are never raped? Surely if ghosts are dead people then some living people must be just as bad. Just lay in wait for that ghost, put salt on it’s tail and have a go. What’s a ghost gonna do; call the police? It’s the perfect crime. Take note mental cases.

  14. It also never occurs to them that they are preaching to their own left-wing crowd; the party-sex crowd.

    The young people that I know who still have old-style relationships (granted, there aren’t many) don’t have this problem.

  15. So she behaves like a slut and doesn’t want people to treat her like one. No one likes to be shamed for behaving in a hedonistic way, but these societal ‘rules’ exist for a reason. If you act like a slut you’re more likely to have unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and a maladjusted love life. Instead of learning to live in a more socially acceptable manner (which others would find admirable and sane) apparently she thinks it’s better to stubbornly commit to her warped lifestyle (which seems ultimately directionless and maladjusted). It’s everyone else who is a problem to her and not the real culprit.

    In my experience, most heterosexual women don’t go grabbing other women’s butts or boobs. Her words to heterosexual women seem really weird in that sense. It calls to question what kind of people is she socializing with that these things happen more than once in a rare while.

  18. I swear, there’s a checkbox on job applications for Trader Joe’s that says “Are you a lesbian?” and if you check “no” they toss out your application.

  20. So wait.

    “Straight or questioning women” are not allowed to “treat queer women as ‘experiments’ ” but she’s allowed to treat men that way.

    Got it. OK.

  23. “and no ‘rules’ placed on me.”

    But she seems to do *nothing* but place ‘rules’ on *everyone else’s* potential interactions with her, no matter how seemingly minor.

    Our Host is correct — these women are batsh!t insane.

  24. So she’s naked WITH her pet cat. She has already assured herself that no human being will ever touch her again.

  25. However, when women assume that there’s no chance that another woman would ever interpret a touch in a sexual way — not even when they touch her breasts or butt — they desexualize her.(Emphasis supplied)

    How often does this happen!?! I mean really. Do women routinely grab each others’ boobs and butts? What planet are these people from?

  26. For someone who says she’s asexual, she spends a lot of words writing about sex. Fergawdsake shaddup already and write about something else. She has to be at least as knowledgable about the NFL as she is about sex.

  27. . . .you need props and odd situations

    Aside: Hey, honey. Ditch the cheerleader outfit . . . No, really . . .This guy on the internet said it’s problematic . . .

  28. Just like their complaint that heterosexual patriarchy is an artificially imposed system… which they want to replace with another artificially imposed system.

    The difference being: their new system is one that is totally against the nature of 99% of humanity and no one wants it.

  30. At least she’s honest enough admit to admit this brand of feminism is “queer,” although I’ve seen plenty of evidence many don’t know the origins of their own ideology. They have the answer but not the question, and of course that is the essence of mainstreaming hate speech.

  34. “I don’t want to be inside that brain for a nanosecond.”

    Please don’t. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

  36. Yeah, I thought about mentioning that: Who is she hanging out with? In what subculture are these behaviors so commonplace? Her claims about inappropriate behavior remind us that feminists are not randomly scattered throughout the population. Rather, we most commonly find feminism among a certain young college-educated demographic, especially in major urban areas, and allied to other left-wing political movements. It is in this atheistic, amoral, bohemian milieu that promiscuous sexual behavior gives rise to the typical feminist complaints about “objectification,” etc.

  38. You mean you don’t believe if not for the cunning Ministry of Heterosexuality’s propaganda we’d all be bi-sexual? You must be a freebooting cis gender pirate.

  39. In what subculture are these behaviors so commonplace?

    Presumably the same one where young men have to go to “consent workshops” to learn how not to rape.

  43. “Her defense of her claim was “If I was inventing this, why would I invent something so horrible?””

    Similarly, why someone points out the truth that “gayness” is a choice (*), the currently (**) approved response is, “I’m so miserable being “gay”. Why would I *choose* this life?”

    Why does not one realize that the answer is, “Why does *anyone* make self-destructive choices? How does the self-destructive nature of your choices make them un-choices?”

    (*) And that the point of present-day “sex education” is to impose “gayness” on defenseless children, before they have the capacity — or interest — in choosing it themselves.

    (**) The “I was born this way — therefore no one may condemn my behavior” claim was only invented in the 1980’s.

  44. 5. Remember That We Aren’t Your ‘Experiments’ . . .

    She’s so incredibly, condescendingly smug, that she doesn’t realize that injunction and the paragraphs which follow conflict with third wave feminism.

    Consider, third wave feminism views heterosexuality as a) unnatural and b) purely the result of social constructs overseen by the nefarious and omnipresent Patriarchy. If that is true, obviously the vast, vast majority of women are living lives of pure delusion, necessitating the evangelism which we see from the “Femblrninas” asserting that “PIV is always rape, OK?”

    So then, how are all these deluded, socially constructed heterosexual females supposed to throw off the chains of the Patriarchy, unless they stick a tentative toe into the carpet-munching pool? I should think these strap-on Billy Grahams would believe it to be their sapphic duty to lead the deluded masses to the promised land of flannel shirts and endless softball games.

    What am I missing?

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