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Friday, July 12, 2013

Why writing about feminism for The Frisky gave my week a big boost

I was thrilled to be asked to write a response piece for The Frisky, and what I wrote was: "Feminism Deserves Better Than 'Sex-Negative Vs. Sex-Positive.'" If you like it, I'd love it if you'd pass it on on Facebook and/or Twitter, etc. Thank you! A snippet:
Horowitz makes it sound like there is, and should be, yet another giant division within feminism—sex-negative vs. sex-positive, and that those lines are evenly divided. When she writes, “One of the truisms of sex-critical and sex-negative feminism is, ‘We can’t fuck our way to freedom,’” the default assumption is that sex-positive feminists are saying that we can, indeed, fuck our way to freedom. It’s not that simple—nor should it be. I won’t argue that many of her views probably are counter to those of many sex-positive feminists, but after reading her piece twice, I was left with the notion that in fact there are more commonalities than differences. I can only speak for myself, but I’m in favor of more sexual options for everyone, more sex education, and abolishing the idea that anything related to sex is “compulsory.”
Read the whole thing
A few reasons why this made me happy: I've been pitching and researching a lot, and it's slow going, so to be asked to write something, to be recognized as a person who'd have a strong opinion about sex-positive feminism and be able to articulate it, was a boost to my ego. Writing the piece made me realize just how many pieces of information I have floating in my head about the topic--though I'm sure given more time I could've come up with more. I had a brainstorm about a way to tie in beloved blog post (the Momastery one, read the essay to know what I'm talking about). That felt big to me, and I'm grateful. It's a little unusual of an analogy, but it felt fitting. Lastly, I'm proudest of having written it, fast. I've been plagued by writer's block and overthinking, which are tough habits to break. I'm still working on those. In this case, I thought about the piece as I traveled home from my mini-working vacation on Martha's Vineyard, then started furiously writing Thursday morning, took a meeting with the Literary Vixens, and came home and finished it.

Is it perfect? No, but nothing I write will ever be perfect because perfection is a myth. Is it work I'm proud of? Yes. Did I try my best? Yes. Do I think I contributed something valuable to the conversation? Yes. Will it help me pay my rent? Yes. Did writing it buoy me as I pitch, pitch, pitch? Yes. So it's all good. I am working hard to focus on the positive rather than the negative, the achievements rather than the times I got way too ahead of myself. I'm still trying to make a trip to Edinburgh happen. I feel like I'm on a precipice, and it's up to me which direction I head: down or up. I know well what down feels like, so I'm curious to feel the triumph of up again.

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