![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Hi! My drafting table owns my heart and soul until Boston Anarchist Book Fair is over (come and say hi this weekend!) but I wanted to shove my head in here real fast and give y'all a quick couple detox links for sexual purity politics!
Back in our tumblr days, we heard people saying this was basically the Lesbian Sex Wars Reprise, but nobody ever gave any sources or readings, so we were unable to learn more and were stuck in the crummy position of just having to hope the information was trustworthy. Well, I been reading a bunch of lesbian books and gee golly willikers, people discussing those fights there was the best cure I've ever had for that shit! So here are three lesbian feminist things discussing the transphobic, kink-negative, anti-sex worker, anti-butch-femme, and generally sex-negative shit in the community and the tactics and heartbreak therein:
Allison, Dorothy. "Public Silence, Private Terror." Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature. Ithaca: Firebrand, 1984, 1994. Accessed August 12, 2024. https://efigies-ateliers.hypotheses.org/files/2014/11/Allison-public-silence-private-terror.pdf
Freeman, Jo [Joreen]. "Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood." Ms., (April 1976): 49-51, 92-98. Accessed August 12, 2024. https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/trashing.htm
Nestle, Joan. "Voices from Lesbian Herstory" and "My History with Censorship." A Restricted Country. New York: Firebrand, 1987, accessed October 16, 2024. https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-03-21_65fbab8f192b6_Arestrictedcountry-NestleJoan1940-IthacaN.Y.1987-IthacaN.Y.FirebrandBooks-9780932379375-d3baf967efaba267e721d81cc9441ca2-AnnasArchive.pdf
Back in our tumblr days, we heard people saying this was basically the Lesbian Sex Wars Reprise, but nobody ever gave any sources or readings, so we were unable to learn more and were stuck in the crummy position of just having to hope the information was trustworthy. Well, I been reading a bunch of lesbian books and gee golly willikers, people discussing those fights there was the best cure I've ever had for that shit! So here are three lesbian feminist things discussing the transphobic, kink-negative, anti-sex worker, anti-butch-femme, and generally sex-negative shit in the community and the tactics and heartbreak therein:
Allison, Dorothy. "Public Silence, Private Terror." Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature. Ithaca: Firebrand, 1984, 1994. Accessed August 12, 2024. https://efigies-ateliers.hypotheses.org/files/2014/11/Allison-public-silence-private-terror.pdf
"I got caught up in the Barnard Sex Scandal of 1982. A year earlier I had helped organize the Lesbian Sex Mafia [...]. In addition, I had started publishing my fiction and essays on incest, family violence, and sexuality. The combination of activities had made me question what, at that time, was the dominant feminist ideology on pornography. I did all this without thinking too much about the possible results [...] when I found myself accused of being a pawn of the patriarchy, an antifeminist writer, and a pimp for the pornographers, I was surprised and unsure how to reply."
Freeman, Jo [Joreen]. "Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood." Ms., (April 1976): 49-51, 92-98. Accessed August 12, 2024. https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/trashing.htm
"Trashing may even be thinly veiled by the newest group techniques of criticism/self-criticism, mediation, and therapy. Whatever methods are used, [...] This attack is accomplished by making you feel that your very existence is inimical to the [feminist] Movement and that nothing can change this short of ceasing to exist. These feelings are reinforced when you are isolated from your friends as they become convinced that their association with-you is similarly inimical to the Movement and to themselves. Any support of you will taint them. Eventually all your colleagues join in a chorus of condemnation which cannot be silenced, and you are reduced to a mere parody of your previous self.")
Nestle, Joan. "Voices from Lesbian Herstory" and "My History with Censorship." A Restricted Country. New York: Firebrand, 1987, accessed October 16, 2024. https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-03-21_65fbab8f192b6_Arestrictedcountry-NestleJoan1940-IthacaN.Y.1987-IthacaN.Y.FirebrandBooks-9780932379375-d3baf967efaba267e721d81cc9441ca2-AnnasArchive.pdf
"two journals I write for, Bad Attitude and On Our Backs, have not been allowed into many women's bookstores around this country and in Canada because the contents were found to be "prosado-masochistic, antifeminist, antiwoman, anti-Semitic, and racist." Now, as you all know, these are the words that call for exile from our community, for there is no argument possible when this code is used. (As a Jewish woman, I find it ironic that Gentiles are in such a hurry to protect me from myself.)"
