So this showed up in my Tumblr feed:
All I could think was, "wasted activism" and "who cares?" We’re spending time in theaters, protesting a movie based on a book that millions of women read? These books weren’t flying off the shelves because men couldn’t get enough. Women made these books a thing. Do these protesters think that women can’t tell the difference between erotic fantasy and oppression?
I’m just irritated by this because this is the type of absurd outrage and over sensitivity that makes it easy for some people to mock liberals. To be clear, I’m a liberal. I think that you should be able any damned thing you want, as long as it affects no one else. And when the things you want to do start to adversely affect the public, we need to weigh your freedom against the public good. But in your home, in your body, and in your freaking bookstore, you can do whatever you damned well please.
These protests are predicated on the same thing the anti-choice movement is predicated on: that women don’t know better. Let me repeat: women were the ones who bought millions of copies of these books. Are these protesters saying that those women are too stupid to know what oppression looks like?
I haven’t read these books. I heard that the writing was terrible, and the word "hack" came up a lot when these books were mentioned. I don’t like poorly written books. I don’t care what the subject is; if it’s poorly written, I’m not interested. I didn’t choose not to read these books because I equate bondage fantasies to oppression. I’m not that stupid and simple minded. I have a well written set of books that apparently take the fantasy and the bondage much further than this trilogy took them (yes, I’m referring to the Sleeping Beauty series by Anne Rice). Fantasies are not oppressive.
Fantasies are normal and healthy, and we don’t need the PC police turning them into something else. Wanna know who has fantasies about being completely dominated? Everyone. Men, women, men who like women, men who like men, women who like men, and women who like women. We’re not all advocating for the oppression of women. We’re being human. I knew someone who earned a living dominating (no, there was no sex) men. Really, really rich and powerful men who paid thousands of dollars to be completely dominated for a couple of hours. Are either she or her customers participating in the oppression of women?
Come on, give me a break with this. Surely there are better things that these people can be doing with their lives, than telling women that they’re assholes for buying these books and for going to see this movie. In the process of "liberating" women, they’ve ended up shaming them. There’s nothing shameful or oppressive about fantasies. Stop making people feel shitty about having them. If we were more open and less obtuse about sexual fantasies, women wouldn’t have to resort to buying sophomorically written books. The fact that these crappy books sold so many copies tells me that women are less oppressed than ever. That’s actually not entirely true. They still have to resort to reading crap. If we stopped shaming sex and sexual fantasies, maybe better writers would start writing what there’s obviously a big market for.
I know that you’re all well intentioned, but I need you to stop shaming people over sex. And most of all, I need you to stop being mockable liberals.
