Me Too: The Robbery of Female Intimacy- A Feminist Manifesto
By Catherine Cyrano
Our society has a way of life that is all too common and not adequately addressed. The sexualization of women for men’s pleasure and the disregard for women’s wants and basic needs to fulfill men’s desires. Ask any young girl or an older woman and every age in between. Too many of them will share their experience of being taken advantage of or the attempt at it by a man. If a woman denies such things, it’s most likely due to shame. Why is it that such a vast population feels this epidemic, yet nothing is said or done about it? That girl who just started puberty is now fallen into the pool of options to be taken and plucked of her innocence. Because she has breasts, if she is in any social setting, she is fair game to any male who sees potential in getting what he wants from her. Her age does not matter. Her wants do not matter. Her needs do not matter. Her background does not matter. How the rest of her life will be affected certainly, does not matter. What does matter is the man’s desire to ejaculate and how that female is going to help achieve that for him.
Imagine this: a 13-year-old girl with a pretty mature body for her age. She’s a virgin. She is at her friend’s house on a Friday night to have fun. Enter the scene- a 17-year-old boy who has already taken the virginities of at least half a dozen girls. The girl doesn’t know this. He gives her a Four Loko, which she had never drunk before. She drinks it. He starts to kiss her. She kisses him back. He abruptly takes her pants off and starts touching her. She doesn’t stop him because he carries himself with a sense of authority and an “I get what I want” attitude. She knows what he wants: her. Not her intelligence. Not her humor. Not her love or care. Not even her company. He wants her vagina for three minutes. He takes it without asking. She lets him, but not because she wants to. But because he’s intimidating. She’s not precisely scared but still too intimidated to say no. He’s not violent; he doesn’t yell. But yet she feels as though she can’t say no, even though she wants to. And just like that, she has entered the world of patriarchy, women being treated as less than for men’s gain. A political, sexual relationship.
In “Theory of Sexual Politics” by Kate Millet, she explains this power dynamic men have over women sexually. Every societal structure is made and held in men’s hands (Millet, 1969). This position of power is why these issues of women constantly being taken advantage of and sexualized continue to occur today. Men are willing to give up the tiniest details of their patriarchy to “shut us up” by employing women in higher positions and giving them certain reproductive rights. Radical Feminism acknowledges issues of sexual assault and rapes that women have endured by men, and despite policy and activist intervention, little is changing.
Still, the fundamental human need is not being addressed or given up. Sex is so powerful to men that it won’t even be acknowledged as a problem. For example, Brock Turner was a straight, white male Stanford student who was caught in the act of sexual assault. He raped a female behind a dumpster at a college party while unconscious. Despite the witnesses and evidence stacked against him, he was sentenced to six months in jail and served even less time than that. Brock Turner’s father even mentioned the assault as “20 minutes of action” that should not require punishment. The light reprimand alone proves that the use of women for men’s sexual needs, no matter how brutal, is accepted and welcomed in this society.
The relationship between men and women is one of dominance and subordinance. If a woman has 50 male sexual partners, only three of those partners are likely to confirm her pleasure during intercourse. According to Anne Koedt in “The Myth of The Female Orgasm,” the woman’s body is not biologically designed to orgasm during normal sexual intercourse with a man. Because pleasure occurs in the clitoris, extra care and effort must be put beyond the men’s pleasure to please the woman. Men are aware of this because, during foreplay, they pay attention to the clitoris for the woman to provide lubrication, only to proceed with vaginal intercourse for the men’s pleasure. This leaves the woman aroused and unsatisfied, yet the man is satisfied (Koedt, 1970). This sums up the situation between men and women sexually; the man only cares about the woman’s pleasure when it helps his pleasure, then the woman is abandoned. This perspective carried by men reinforces the idea that men believe women are not their separate beings worthy of their respect and rules.
Women only exist to please men. In Halsey’s song/ poem called “A Story Like Mine,” she powerfully displays everyday situations that many, if not all, females experience. Women are being taken advantage of by men for men. Something must change. Something has got to give. The only way to reverse the deeply rooted use of women’s bodies for men’s sexual pleasure is for men to control themselves through self-reflection and care for others.
