Beyond Vanilla and Bloody Handkerchiefs

A review of Unleashing Feminism, edited by Irene Reti, HerBooks, Santa Cruz, 1993; $8.95.

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory'," Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't 'till I tell you. I meant, 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "

"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,' " Alice objected.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master? that is all."

I find arguing about lesbian sadomasochism a lot like talking to Humpty Dumpty. I can't get my brains around a good argument because old words take on new meanings like some cruel game of Dictionary. What I might call "beating someone up," is actually "a scene." What I thought was an ever-fascinating exploration into the variety of the familiar, like the virtuoso performance of a jazz standard, is really only "vanilla." If I express any critique of intimate piercing, jewelry of slavery, leather hoods, or wonder why looking throughOn Our Backs makes me wet, I'm accused of a kind of "-ism," and worse; I'm accused repressing my true desires and inordinately emphasizing my letch to spoil other people's fun.

I'd rather have a good argument where no one gets hurt and everyone learns something without changing her mind--too much. In my lesbian utopia we constantly argue about everything. Dissent is not only the conscience of a group of lesbians, it is sometimes most of the brains. I meant dissent, as in loyal opposition, not issues with our ex-lovers.

I found, in the new essay collection Unleashing Feminism, a series of conversations I could enter into and not be thrust into dizzying Wonderland word games. Not since Against Sadomasochism has there been an assembly of lesbian writings coming from the conversations and arguments we've been having since the early 1980s. Unleashing Feminism is a valuable offering of arguments by seven very smart and ethical women.

It's the kind of book you want to argue with, even if you agree with what they say. Start with these essays and take off on the perspectives, analyses, and questions provided; it doesn't matter if you "gree:with the essays or not. It's not like Wonderland, it's a vast Argument Landscape where our thoughts can run wild.

The three long essays by Kathy Miriam, Irene Reti, and D. A. Clarke explore sexualized violence and how it has affected lesbians and our struggle to be visible and free.

Miriam writes of how ten years ago lesbian sadomasochists were arguing to be includedas feminists. Now, she says they claim that lesbian sadomasochism is the natural evolution beyond feminism, beyond the restrictions of p.c. feminist thought-police and the peer pressure of sexual repression.

While lesbian sadomasochism presents a picture of itself as filling a void hollowed out by sexual repression and denial of power, I would like to suggest that it moved into a space voided by political inertia (not sexual repression) a place where lesbian values have become abstracted from their historical movement in women's liberation struggles. When lesbian separatism becomes idealist rather than visionary, it creates a vacuum that, for many lesbians, appears to be filled by, among other things, the apparant "realism"of sadomasochism.

Reti's essay "Remember the Fire: Lesbian Sadomasochism in a Post-Holocaust World" is a poignant work exploring the impact of nazi culture on lesbian lives. She draws few conclusions, offers stories of Jewish tragedy and Jewish resistance, and asks questions:

In a world where torture, slavery and violence are our legacy, I believe we must question why we find handcuffs and chains alluring, slavery erotic, torture pleasurable.

Clarke's "Consuming Passions: Some Thoughts on History, Sex, and Free Enterprise" demonstrates her usual brilliant analogies and command of language and irony.

There is an old familiar slipstream in Western thought, of course, that personal liberation meansexactly the freedom to injure others, that the ultimate experience of personal liberty is in the destruction or degradation of another. This doctrine, mystified and prettified, lies behind a great deal of what is called nihilism, libertinism, and so forth; this is the doctrine behind the appeal of sadistic fantasies (or realities): the defiance of all rules. It should not be associated all at with progressive or liberal politics. Its genealogy is quite otherwise.

Other pieces in the book are shorter, but no less in their impact. Pat Parker's poem, "Bar Conversation," serves as epigraph to the entire book. Fiction writer Anna Livia (Incidents Involving Mirth) contributes a wry story which illustrates why it is so important to keep arguing. Jamie Lee Evans's "Rodney King, Racism, and the SM Culture of America" is a quick look at the parallels of what the jury said about King's behavior during his beating ("Mr. King was in control the entire time he was being beaten.") with sadomasochist writings. "The Rules of Love," a short story by Sharon Lim-Hing is the only unsatisfactory contribution of the book. It attempts to be a distopian vision of along the lines of "what would happen if things just keep going the way they are," which is a form of parody difficult to pull off well.

Unleashing Feminism is published by HerBooks, Irene Reti's lesbian publishing company based in Santa Cruz. It is available at Herland, a women's bookstore and cafe on Center St. in Santa Cruz.