Lavender Starship/Page 18/May 10, 1972

Smash Phallic Imperialism

by Sue Katz

Sex is an institution. In an oppressive society like Amerike, it reflects the same ideology as other major institutions. It is goal-oriented, profit and productivity oriented. It is a prescribed system, with a series of correct, building activities aimed toward the production of a single goal: climax.

It's also a drag. For women, in a culture based on our oppression, heterosexual sex is a product we have had to turn out. To encourage us, we are given two minutes of this, a few moments of that, a couple of minutes at something else--all aimed toward the Great Penetration and the Big Come. There is great pressure to have an orgasm. Sex without orgasm is a failure, it's a drag, it's incomplete, and very, very, sad. (Just like a marriage is not real until it is "consummated".) Because of the phallic imperialism built upon Freud's ignorance of the female body, orgasm is supposed to come from intercourse. That's just terrific for men, but since our orgasm-producing organ is the clitoris, external to the vaginacontradicting capitalist, sexist physiology-many women don't produce the appropriate orgasm through heterosexuality. By that criteria they are frigid.

I'm a lesbian. A lot of people can't figure out "what we do", how we make love without a penis around for the final consummation. A lot of men have these ideas of dildos and bananas. Sex as an institution is too totally tied up with the penis and its goal that men assume there must be some poor substitute for their noble item.

The

I always hated sex with men. pressure of the goal, the rigidity of the process and end was always totally unsatisfactory. Whenever I hear the word "sex", all those shitty experiences I had with men come to mind. I cannot separate the word "sax" from the phallic tyranny I suffered from for so many years.

sex.

For me, coming out meant an end to It's dead and gone in my life.

I reject the institution totally. Sex means oppression, it means exploitation. It serves the needs of men. It has little to do with pleasure for the greatest mass of oppressed people:

women.

Physical contact and feelings have taken a new leberatory form. And we call that sensuality. The women's movement in general, especially at the beginning, and gay feminism now is a fantastically sensual experience for me. I love my body and the bodies of my sisters. Physicality is now, a realistic experience. It is touching and rubbing and cuddling and holding and rocking and kissing and licking. Its only goal is closeness and pleasure. It does not exist for the Big Orgasm; it exists for feeling nice. Our sensuality may or may not include genital experience, that may or may not be the beginning or the ending of the experience. It may be anywhere or nowhere.

To make good love with women, I don't want to have to "produce" anything except pleasure. And that can

be at any level or in any form. The sensuality I feel has transformed my politics, has solved the contradiction between my mind and my body because the energies for our feminist revolution are the same as the energies of our love for women.

When we feel good about someone we may sleep together. That could mean. a lot of things from hugs to climax to cuddling to being very close but not touching. If we feel good in a group we may have a pajama party which would be called an"orgy" inside the institution of straight sex. That could be a genital thing or not. are free to act without pressure. refuse to feel like I must make a decision about whether to "put out" or not. There is no such thing as putting out among us. There is no set physical goal to our sexuality. There

is no sex.

We

I

The whole language is oppressive. It is white male oriented and heterosexual. One word that must go is "sex", because that describes a way of being physical that can only draw up very bad memories for a lot of us. We must use it only in referring to that oppressive institution, not to any new forms we are developing.

Hay-

ing sex means accepting a set of criteria for "success" that we did not set up and develop among ourselves.

Sensuality is formless and amorphous. It can grow and expand as we feel it. It is shared by everyone involved.

It isn't something one

puts out for another. Sex with men was like doing alienated labor so that one with power could make good profit off my surplus laoor. Sexuality with women is a collective experience growing out of our struggle.

Smashing the notion of sex, getting away from these concepts so intimately tied up with the penis helps us destroy roles. One thing we realized in our group of gay feminists is that the word "lover" doesn't describe anything for us anymore very much. It is very hard to tell who is whose lover, because that is a condition determined by genital contact in our society. But among up we have a very brazen set-up. I cuddle with one sister tonight because we were together and felt close and I might crash on some mattress with a bunch of women tomorrow because we all dasced together half the night. If your lover is someone you feel emotional and physical attraction to and where there is some kind of mutual commitment, then we are surely the biggest group of tloozies in town. It's so wonderful. Without that kind of ex-

clusive coupling sex and lovers breed, people cannot fall into traditional roles so easily. Because each time you sleep with someone you have to make the decision that time. Dependent exclusionary relationships take It becomes an instiaway free will. tutionalized habit to sleep together regularly and there is not usually a fresh decision each time. Amongst us, our getting together is dependent on the reality of the present, not on the promises of before.

Sensuality is something that can be very collective. Sex is private and tease. Sensuality is something you want your best friends to feel and Sex act on with your best friends. is something you want power and teritorial rights over. Sex is localized in the pants and limited to that. Sensuality is all over and grows always. Sex is pinpointed in the pants because the penis is there, and the penis is, if not the material source, the material basis for power in Amerika. If you don't have one you get fucked over by those who do. If you don't have capital you get fucked over by those who do. Unless you attach yourself to someone who has it so that you can serve them in exchange for protection (known as marriage). Sperm And that whole system of exchange necessarily excludes us as lesbians. We can't pretend that those few flaps of skin that make up the masculine apparatus are just a few objective ectodermal gatherings. That stuff is proof of a right to have access to privilege. Some boys reject. that privilege, but they always have the possibility of whipping it out in an emergency and asserting their privilege.

is coin.

We are building a revolution which isn't based on such drivel. And we must have a new language and aethetic Lesbianism is not a

to describe it. sexual perversion: do with sex. "do it":

it has nothing to It is not another way to it is a whole other way to have contact. Sex is a phallic term and we are involved in building a humane world. It's like when people. talk about being bi-sexual it blows my mind. It's like saying that if you have and apple and an orange you have two apples because they're both fruits.

Heterosexuality and lesbianism are two forms of physical contact. But that's as far as the similarity goes. I sleep with women, make love with women, am a woman, a lesbian. But I don't have sex with anyone. If I had sex, I could have it with a boy, but that would be a whole other trip from what I am feeling about my gay sensuality. It would be another trip altogether, not a different form of gay sensuality. I would be re-entering an institution the structure of which is inherently oppressive of me. Although particular experiences might be of reasonable fun. But radical lesbian semauality is a form which I myself a helping to create. It is not an institution existing outside of me, like sex is. It is me, us, as it comes out of our new consciousness

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