The Master’s Tools

Readers may recall a recent post on the wisdom of Margaret Jamison, a guru of sorts to a small circle of admirers. Ms Jamison is a lesbian feminist who defines rape as “all penile intercourse” on grounds that, “there is something wrong with this notion that a woman’s ‘consent’ is what separates a rapist from a non-rapist.” When not insisting that “all heterosex is rape,” Jamison’s thoughts turn a little too readily to the subject of harming children: “I believe male infanticide to be a better option than the current circumstances. I think it’s better than what we’ve got.”

Ms Jamison’s latest declarations concern a matter of some delicacy. It begins in the usual, rather grandiose way:

What I want more than anything is for women to achieve a state of being that is untainted. I especially want us to free ourselves from male rule and influence, for us to be unaltered in ways that are modeled on maleness.

Then it gets a little coy.

The reliance of women on various man-made implements to mediate their relations with other women, whether psychological constructs or manufactured goods, is an adulteration of the female.

Ms Jamison is very big on The Unargued Assertion and she likes to pile ‘em high. I’m not quite sure what the psychological constructs in question might be, but in case it isn’t clear, those “manufactured goods” include strap-ons, dildos and other such devices:  

Femaleness cannot be enhanced by maleness, only denied, suppressed, and degraded, lessened. The master’s tools inhabit our minds and the realm of our physical lives… And I don’t think that a tool forged by males or in their likeness is any less male when wielded by women.

Oh, I do like that - The master’s tools. Very good.

Given the all-pervasive nature of The Crushing Patriarchy and its Symbols of Dominion™ - and given the obligation of all women to shun such indecencies - this can create problems of an intimate nature. Penetration is patriarchal degradation, see? Even when the penetrator in question is a lady. So what’s a girl to do? Are fingers and tongues okay? Will scissoring suffice?

Faced with this dilemma and eager to comply with the latest sexual protocol, Ms Jamison’s devotees share their umbrage and confusion:

I only wish there was a way out. You know those mirror rooms with the infinite reflections? I feel like I’m in one of those. I turn and turn and turn, looking for the male supremacy and how to take it down, but all I see is myself instead…

And,

This post ignites too much passion for me to be coherent. All I can spit out are phrases such as… “Don’t even let me see a strap on, much less discuss the desire for one.”

Some readers, however, feel more thrusting and empowered:   

Thank you Margaret, I have not long started reading radical lesbian blogs and have felt disillusioned by this very issue. It is apparently easier to create some twisted justification as to why putting on a strap-on has nothing to do with heterosexuality than it is to admit that you are imitating and participating in a heterosexual transaction. Your words enable me to feel slightly less insane.

Remember, people – penetration is suppression; it’s heteronormative and a lessening of womanhood. Even lesbian penetration is a heterosexual transaction and an echo of The Patriarchy. Do try to keep up. There’ll be a test on Friday. It’s easy to mock, of course – though in this case I think that’s okay. But take a moment to ponder a worldview in which aversion to the penis, even in rubber form, is so rigid and unyielding, and where sex is above all an ideological activity. There are rules to be observed and things one mustn’t do, or even think about. All in the name of purity, empowerment and liberation.

(h/t, Randall Sherman) 

Feel free to compensate me. I had to wade through this.