Most radfems would agree with your ideas posted here. So how come we get labeled prudes?

I honestly don’t know. I’ve never been privy to a feminist labelling a radfem a prude, nor would I stand for that kind of thing if I did.

I don’t think that’s at all an appropriate response, even if the feminist in question is employing the “modesty” tactics I outlined above (which were, btw, inspired by a thread in another community, but then my “raunch culture” part was inspired by reading Levy’s book because a lot of what she said in there spoke to me on a personal level). Employing oppressive tactics should be called that, not countered with using other kinds of oppressive tactics.

“Prude” is one of those words that involves shaming women for their sexuality and is, in my opinion, a tool of the patriarchy on the same level of “slut,” “ho,” and “bitch.”

Bitch | Lab said:

could you provide some specific examples of instances in which women are guilted and shamed into being sexual in a certain way? (

Indeed I can. I’ve written about my personal experience with it in this post. I have to say that Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvanist Pigs (despite the unfortunate name and that I felt she sometimes stepped over the line and began blaming women for this) had a lot of examples that spoke to me personally, as well.

Another personal experience is that, around the same time that my abusive ex was forcing me to wear shapeless outfits, my dad was pushing me in the opposite direction. And it’s not like he was thinking, “I want my daughter to dress sexy!” It’s just that Miami is big into the raunch culture thing, and so it was normal clothes to him. I think another part of it is that he (my entire side of that family, actually) tends to correlate looking “good” (which often means tight shirts, showing cleavage, and form fitting jeans or short skirts for women) with being happy and having self-esteem. It probably didn’t help matters that at the time I was wearing the baggy clothes my self-esteem was being systematically destroyed by my abuser.

but I’m more interested in the more subtle ways this happens.

That said, just as the choice to adopt “modest” dress does not live in a vaccum, neither does the choice to wear “revealing” clothing.

My reason for hesitation: our political differences. I know you id as a sex positive feminist. All I could think when reading this post is “Absolutely!” But I was also thinking that if a radfem wrote this piece, all the old prude attacks would come out of the woodwork. I really like your treatment of modesty and raunch as 2 sides of the same coin-that’s very nice analysis. Most radfems would agree with your ideas posted here. So how come we get labeled prudes?

I’m not trying to nitpick, or start an argument. I’m really trying to understand why things are like this.

This was an excellent post.

I love this because, while I firmly oppose excessive and gender-biased rules of modesty, I also hate the way raunch culture treats women’s sexuality – and I still assert that I’m quite sex-positive, thank you. Here you’ve given me a resource to back up my claim!