Le Mépris
Countless times I’ve heard and read about how a woman is inescapably and biologically submissive: the penetrated, the supine, the taken. The image of being overcome and driven into is the source of apocryphal radical feminist notions that all penetration is at best a violent act, at worst automatic rape.
But to me, having something plunge inside an orifice that’s all-too-happy to accommodate it doesn’t feel all that passive. Nor does gripping that something in the crush of my mighty orgasm. Of course I’ve felt myself in the submissive position in sex before– in ways both lovely and horrible, but being penetrated wasn’t the factor that made it so.
One of the most alarming and saddening articles I’ve ever read on the subject of sex was Virginia Vitzthum’s 1999 Strap-on Epiphany. In it, Virginia recounts her experience of pegging (before it was called that) her boyfriend, Adam.
The article starts innocently enough. Sure, it flirts with the idea that a woman allowing someone to enter her body is empowering in its vulnerability or something, but it really doesn’t disturb me until she actually starts fucking Adam. Once she penetrates him, shit gets weird. (I refuse to resist pointing out that the link to the second page of this article says “Defiling Adam”. This is indicative of exactly the attitude you’re about to see.) Observe:
As “my” huge appendage disappeared inside him, his eyes showed shame, trust, fear and a sort of helpless adoration. In a way I’d never understood those words before, he was mine. The knowledge I could really hurt this person by being less than careful made me feel responsible, protective. The vulnerability appalled me at the same time; it was vaguely disgusting that he would let someone do this to him. Mixed in with the disgust was possessiveness. The thought of anyone else penetrating him seemed revolting. These observations clicked into place in quick succession; I felt like a projector being loaded with slides of maleness, of male seeing.
…I was conquering, silent, responsible, the taker. With his legs spread, Adam was agreeable, inviting, ashamed, taken.
When I first read this I was shaken. I’d never used a strap-on, and I wasn’t a man, so I felt completely unequipped to answer the question of IS THIS TRUE? Does penetrating someone really give you contempt for them? Is the act of being penetrated disgusting and weak somehow? This Virginia bitch had really upset me by suggesting that the sexual interactions I was having may be entirely different (in troubling, corrupt ways) to the people I was sharing them with.
I asked a few male friends, my boyfriend at the time. Some said, “Yeah, that sounds about right,” and some said “She’s overthinking it.”
In truth, I think that some people might equate penetrating with power, but it’s not an inevitable conclusion. Virginia’s views here weren’t objective, and they tell us more about her than they necessarily do about “men”. They tell us nothing about the native symbolism of a sex act.
Are you submissive to the food you eat? Is a canteen at the mercy of the water inside it? Eclipsing, holding, consuming, overlapping, absorbing aren’t words of weakness to me. We choose to think of the partner who welcomes the other into his/her body in such passive terms, but that’s choice, that’s perspective. It’s not innate to the nature of sex; it’s a commentary on our social paradigm.
I’ve had moments when I had a cock inside me and I was conquering, silent, responsible, the taker. Well, not silent, but close enough. And I refuse to be surrendering, tractable, helpless, and (wtf?) ashamed just because it feels good to fill my holes anymore than I would presume to project those words onto a guy I was pegging. It’s fucking piffle, is what it is.
…So 1999, anything else you want to tell me about sex? I’m all ears.
