Ready for Radical Change

This week’s readings were full of radicalism and passion, some of my favorite things. And while at times they were hard to read, and to agree with at some points, I found them to have a strong validity, especially since they were aiming to start a conversation around this idea that rape is a form of systematic oppression, and not just individual circumstances. The idea that rape was an individual issue could not continue and it was time to turn the issue on its head. With keeping this in mind, the radical standpoints needed to drive this point home, in order to cause outrage, and evidence towards this far-reaching issue.

MacKinnon’s piece surrounding consent really stuck with me, in a number of different ways. It gave me ways to understand why the law fails survivor’s so often, and how so many of sexual assault survivors can be said to be lying. However, I struggled with this idea that all heterosexual sex is constructed in a way that can never truly be consensual. She is basing this off a model where the man is always pursuing the women for sex, where he is engaging and she is always the one consenting. MacKinnon is trying to argue that because of power imbalances that exist, this consent is always coercive and can never truly be from a place of equality. However, I think this takes away women’s agency to want sex, and to enjoy sex. This idea that women can never be the ones to pursue sex is outdated, and stomps on a movement of sex positivity. This model doesn’t allow for men to be the ones who need to consent, if and when the women in this scenario is the one pursuing the sexual relationship.

This week's readings made me feel angry, but also empowered, because of the passion and conviction of the voices shining through from these women. Dworkin's piece was full of power, and it made me want to demand the right to have a world free of sexual assault. It made me want to be able to consent to sex without MacKinnons voice in the back of my mind questioning the validity of those words. I’m sad that I don’t already live in a world where this exists. I’m sad that not much has changed in the way people view consent or sexual assault since MacKinnon wrote her piece, but I am so ready for that change.