Working on our sex lives still perpetuates gender norms

Mackinnon, unlike Brownmiller, understands the position as someone who is rapable to be a social position (Mackinnon 178). This social position is the result of the socialization of women into passive docile beings and a compulsory heterosexuality that eroticizes “dominance and submission” (Mackinnon 178). For another class I recently read “Heterosexuality and the ‘Labour of Love’: A Contribution of Recent Debates on Female Sexual Dysfunction” by Thea Cacchioni. In this article Cacchioni explores the ways women work to improve areas in their sex lives that they believe to be lacking or dysfunctional. Cacchioni calls this work “sex work” and focuses on three types of “sex work” evidenced by her study: “Discipline Work, Performance Work, and Avoidance Work” (307). When I read this article by Cacchioni I was struck by the number of women who feel their sex life to be problematic and go into the world with the intention of working on these problems in order to reach a state of sexuality that they believe to be most normal. It seems that Cacchioni’s argument that women participate in “sex work” to improve their sex lives contradicts Mackinnon’s argument that women are socialized into passive sexual beings. However, upon closer reading I think that Cacchioni’s discussion of how these women work to ‘fix’ their sex lives actually supports Mackinnon’s argument that women are socialized to be submissive.  In this post I will argue that even though many women actively participate in “sex work” they are not resisting gender norms of passivity because the “sex work” they do often has the aim of perpetuating dominant and submissive heterosexual sex.

Mackinnon argues that “the acted upon is feminized…[and] the actor correspondingly is masculinized” (179). Therefore if women are participating in work, such as learning new sex moves, better faking orgasm, or attempting to increase desire, it could be understood that these women are being active in their sexuality. However almost all of the work Cacchioni discusses in her article is undertaken by the women to better preform sex simply because “sex is what women do”.  In her study countless women described the reason for their sex work as to better please and keep men. So if this is the reason these women are preforming “sex work” it cannot be work that resists gender norms of passivity because even though it is work, its aim is to reinforce the ability of these women to have normal sex. One part of Cacchioni’s article that clearly supports Mackinnon’s belief that women are socialized into the position of rapable is Cacchioni’s discussion of material impacts on “sex work”. In Cacchioni’s study there were a small number of women who chose to preform “sex work” that did not perpetuate heterosexual sex but it was only economically independent women that were able to do this kind of work. Mackinnon argues that some women do not fight back in cases or rape because they feel that they must “submit to survive” (177). Similarly Cacchioni argues that when women feel their livelihood is dependent on sex they are much less likely to participate in “sex work” that undoes gender norms because it might result in a dramatic decrease in ones ability to live.

CACCHIONI, Thea [b1] (analytic). "Heterosexuality And 'The Labour Of Love' : A Contribution To Recent Debates On Female Sexual Dysfunction (English)." Sexualities (London) 10.3 (0001): 299-320. FRANCIS. Web. 24 Sept. 2015.