It’s about to get a little
personal. (Trigger warning for descriptions of sex)
I had a rough time with the
Gavey article. Simultaneously I loved the Gavey article. On Monday, we talked
about agency in class and I wanted to continue talking about that for a little
bit in terms of my own experiences.
My sexual debut was with a
partner who was significantly older than I was (24 to my 19). I had always been
incredibly anxious about sex (I still am), but he was also my first long term
partner and so a few months in, I decided to give it a shot. It was bloody and
painful and scary, but as far as I knew, that was normal. I’d been taught I was
supposed to bleed, been taught it was supposed to hurt. So naturally I figured
it would get better, and for the interim I would just bite my lip and endure
it. My partner was enjoying it, and I wanted to fulfill my sex-positive
feminist identity to its fullest, which for me meant being sexual.
But the pain never really
went away and I never enjoyed sex and it got to a point where I was telling myself
that at least someone wanted to have sex with me and maybe next time it will
feel like it’s supposed to feel. More than that though, my partner was an older
and sexually experienced person and I wanted to live up to his standards. I was
well aware that he could easily just find someone else if I wasn’t willing. So,
like I said, I kept telling myself I was just sticking this out because it was
sure to get better. I even went and saw my family doctor about it, who told me
pretty much the same thing.
It’s interesting how well you
can lie to yourself if you do it enough.
Like many of the women in the
Gavey article, none of the sex I had in this relationship was forced or
outright coercive. Eventually, despite the pain, after a few months we did
reach a point where penetration was possible. I was ecstatic; even though it
still hurt, it was progress, right? My body proved itself able to perform what
I figured was a vital function, and therefore I felt worthy of being someone’s
girlfriend. I felt more secure in my relationship. I felt powerful. I felt like
I had gained control over my own body.
And here’s where agency comes
in, for me. Even though I was performing this sex mostly for the benefit of
someone else, I felt like I had some means of control. Even if I couldn’t
control the pain, I could control my reaction to it for long enough that I
could satisfy my partner’s needs. Besides, if it got too painful, my partner
was very respectful and caring when I did need him to stop.
I am still conflicted though,
because it was my choice to put myself through this pain because I thought it
was in my best interests to do so. To keep my relationship, to feel that my
body was functioning “normally.” But truthfully, I don’t know if I can really
argue that, not anymore.
A few summers ago I saw a
therapist after being diagnosed by a gynecologist with vulvodynia (more
specifically, vestibulodynia) and she told me something I’ll never forget: My
body is not broken. My body is working exactly the way it was meant to work.
Just because it doesn’t work like the majority of people’s bodies do, doesn’t
mean there it isn’t doing its job perfectly well. I think if I had known that
three years ago, that relationship probably would have ended a lot sooner. I am
not obligated to force my body to perform in a way that is painful for me for any reason at all. And I think that’s
where I’m starting to find real agency.
(If there was a like button, I'd like this.) I've never really considered agency in this sense before. Agency for me has always been looking as broadly and as widely as possible to look for a sense of total control and self-direction, which I realize now is perhaps not the best way to approach thinking about agency. Perhaps there is an entanglement between agency and self-mastery in that it may appear as though someone is an agent in how they chose to deal with circumstances they’re not 100% okay in? After reading your post, I now think that maybe agency can choice can be had in situations people don’t want to be in. I feel like to negate someone’s agency because they don’t have “enough” choice available to them is more detrimental to that person than simply encouraging the choices they do have available to them. Thanks again for this post, Natasha.
ReplyDeleteI also really appreciated your insight on the discussion of agency. Reading through the blog posts this week, another classmate suggested that agency needs to be looked at in terms of one's motivations or justifications for their particular action. I think you provided a really good example of this, Natasha, with your description of painful -yet consensual- sexual experiences in which you feel you expressed your agency to consent for various reasons. I can relate to these reasons, such as wanting to fulfil a "sex-positive feminist identity", be a good partner, feel sexually empowered. I have understood myself to express my own agency in similar ways during consensual, but not always completely "wanted" or desirable experiences. Though I don't think you use this term (but the articles from this week definitely do)- I find the term "unwanted sex" makes it very difficult to talk about agency. Perhaps this is why you don't use this word to describe your own experiences which you note are consensual, but often not entirely desirable. In reflecting on my own experiences, sex can be both wanted and unwanted prior to consenting for various reasons. I find its hard to talk about a consensual act as completely "unwanted", because in some way I wanted it for reasons such as the ones you listed (to explore or assert my own sexual identity and/or to foster a relationship with my partner), but in many ways I also didn't "want" this experience (because it was painful, not entirely pleasurable, etc.). However, I think in a similar way, I still understood myself to be exercising my agency despite whether the actual interaction was enthusiastically wanted or fully desired. This is not to say this makes it "okay" (to quote Hakvag), especially when applying this logic to other people's experiences, because this can become a dangerously slippery slope, fast. In fact, this might be exactly what Hakvag and Gavey are talking about in terms of the expectations of a normative heterosexual relationship and the way coercion underlies our understandings of sexuality. However, I think in terms of my own experience (whether it is structured by this structural scaffolding or not)- I still see my own actions as an expression of agency and this to me, makes my own personal experience "okay". Maybe the options for choice as a female sexual subject are limited, or maybe they are just perceived that way due to normative gender constructions, as Hakvag suggests. Or maybe, as I feel in my case (and perhaps yours too), the choices were still evident to me (to be able to say no to "unwanted" sex) but I chose to engage in it anyway. Can we really say this is not "real" agency? Or that I am being "duped" by my own perception of agency and am simply disregarding or underestimating the way sexual coercion is caught up with heterosexuality? Maybe. But I think again, we need to look at the motivations for our actions and our own personal definitions of agency to understand how they operate to
ReplyDeletedefine our own subjective sexual experiences.