Friday, October 19, 2007

3) To what extent is using your sex appeal degrading? empowering? Is it feminist to use sex for power?

2 comments:

Trin RM said...

Sex as power is at the very roots of feminism. In ancient societies, womens sex was the source of their power: Their mystical ability to bleed without dying, their mysterious ability to bring forth new life. Sex was not a tool, but a reward, between two equally powerful though very different members of a society.

Now,the degradation of sex in todays society stems not only from how we use it, but from how it is portrayed. Sex is bad, sinful, dirrrrty, potentially deadly. Birth is dangerous, scary, disempowering, potentially deadly.

Women cannot use sex as a tool to power unless they view being a woman as being powerful. Using sex to get what you want (in terms of material posessions and promotions in the work place) is not a positive tool. Using sex to create equality and respect and recognition of the power that is inherent in human beings when they respect the differences of the sexes, and the way those difference can compliment each other in order to empower and improve life experiences for both genders, is how sex can be a poweful feminist tool.

Anonymous said...

When I was a teen, I thought denying my gender / sexual identity would make me seem equal. It didn't work because it's not how I see me, it's how others see me that affects how I am treated. I learned the hard way that it's important to use the assets I have & that denying them is selling myself short. I'm now in my 30s and this is something I still struggle with.