女权在线－女权主义者的集结地

我的性革命

文章来源：《卫报》 http://www.buzzle.com/articles/248345.html

2009年1月29日

翻译：廖爱晚

三十年前，一群激进的女性开始宣称，所有的女性主义者都应该成为女同性恋。

朱莉.宾德尔（Julie Bindel）说，这种思想改变了她的人生。

二十世纪七十年代，英国利兹（Leeds）一群被誉为革命派女性主义者（revolutionary feminists）的女同志，做出了一个令我和其他许多女性都深感共鸣的举动。她们号召所有的女性主义者都拥抱女同性恋生活。她们鼓励异性恋的姐妹把男人“从床上和脑袋里”赶走。这引起了一场争论，这场争论在1981年的小册子《爱上敌人？》（Love Your Enemy?）出版之时达到高潮。这是一场异性恋女性主义和政治上的女同性恋主义之间的争论。对此，革命派女性主义者写道：“所有的女性主义者都能够而且应该成为女同性恋者。我们对政治上的女同性恋者的定义是：一个不和男人发生性关系的自我认同是女性的人。它并不要求一定要和女人有性关系。”

一石激起千层浪。《爱上敌人？》所激起的反响不但强烈，而且有不少是负面的。尽管得到了部分激进的女性主义者的赞同，很多人因为被指为“反动的”而大为光火。这一主张也削弱了女性通过“睡男人”而获得解放的努力。《爱上敌人？》的主要作者希拉.杰弗里（Sheila Jeffreys）说，这本小册子遭遇的反对“甚至在女同志当中也相当惊人，一些人对这本书的写作团队心怀怨恨，因为这本书把她们暴露在了愤怒的异性恋女性主义者的敌视之下。”

这本小书的争议性是意料之中的。“我们认为一个真正的女性主义者除了放弃异性恋的生活以外别无选择。”这本小书写道，“只有在男性霸权的压迫体制中，压迫者才会侵入并且殖民被压迫者的身体。”它还宣称，插入“不仅是一种象征，其功能和效果是惩罚和控制女性”。

蒂娜.考克特（Tina Crockett）是聚集在约克郡宽谷（Yorkshire Dales）的一间度假小屋中写作《爱上敌人？》的团队中的一员。她表示，该书不仅因为宣称女同性恋可以是一种选择而引起了争议，它对于男人就是敌人的暗示同样导致了激烈的争论。“我们挑衅地向一些异性恋女性主义者发问，为什么她们和这个或者那个男人生活在一起。她们回答说，我的男人还不错。她们拒绝正视这个事实：一些男人的确憎恶女性。”

艾利森.加斯维特（Alison Garthwaite）是该书的另一位作者，她坚持这本书原来的主张。“性不是由与生俱来的基因决定的，”她说，“它会随着时间而改变，并且同时受制于你的环境和你的选择。”虽如此，加斯维特仍然重视异性恋女性主义者在女性主义中的地位，她们的角色不是可有可无的。“或许最初的版本暗示异性恋女性主义者毫无助益，所以大可弃之无憾，但是，我并不这样认为。”

考克特和加斯维特都明白这本小书为何惹得众怒。“这本书的观点是对不得罪人的女性主义惯例的颠覆，”考克特说，“这种惯例纵容异性恋女性主义者偏爱男性而非女性却不因此而受到批评。”

这本小书的出版是英国妇女运动中首次将性视为一种选择并且公开讨论。许多女性主义者仅仅把性作为一种个人欲望，女同性恋可以成为一种政治选择的想法对于她们来说是“冷血的”。“她们相信一个人不能选择性倾向或性感觉，而只能被它们征服。”杰弗里说，“一个人可以接受自己的性倾向或者为之挣扎，但却无法制造它。”

女性主义作家碧.坎贝尔（Bea Campbell）是《爱上敌人？》的众多批判者之一，她认为，比起让女性对男人完全绝望，检视异性恋关系中男人的所作所为才更为重要。“政治上的女同性恋的提法简直疯狂，”她说，“它抹除了欲望。它建立的基础是对男性的恐惧而非对女性的爱。”另一位女性主义评论家、学院派的林恩.西格（Lynne Segal）也支持异性恋关系。“对我来说，七十年代早期进入女性主义阵营的‘政治上的女同性恋主义’只是一小撮先锋女性的姿态，”她认为，“她们的姿态是可悲的，因为并非所有的男性都是敌人。”她还补充说，媒体利用《爱上敌人？》来贬低整个女性主义，“这不可避免地增加了我们的恶感，无论当时，还是从那以后。”

尽管不乏对其观点嗤之以鼻者，还是有不少女性对这本小书字字入心。这本书使用流光溢彩的语言来描述女同志生活，而在七十年代，出柜的女同志遭受着相当的歧视和排挤（就在昨天，《太阳报》还在关于冰岛过渡时期总理的一则头条新闻里使用了轻蔑语lesbo）。一些女性抛弃了男友或丈夫，因为她们深信：“做一个异性恋女性主义者无异于在纳粹占领区的一个白天毁桥、夜里修桥的抵抗分子。”

其他人，包括我自己，则觉得这本小书直接道出了我们业已存在的感受。政治上的女同性恋主义的反驳者认为，“真正的”女同性恋者仅仅是受到了对女性的欲望的驱使，而不是做出选择，拒绝男性和异性恋关系。但是对我来说，我的女同志身份是和我的政治观点、和我反对性暴力的斗争从本质上紧密相连的。

当我在达灵顿（Darlington）一座经济互助委员会提供的住房里长大时，我所面临的期待是嫁人、成家、生小孩。诚实地讲，这种想法让我毛骨悚然。我的周围有许多男人——我父亲、两个兄弟——我还在很小的时候就熟睹了家庭暴力、儿童虐待以及各式各样的不幸，它们像一股怪戾的能量从周围邻居的房子里放射出来。我也受够了各种各样的苦差事。当男人们在外面豪饮、垂钓或者享受其他消遣的时候，女人们被困在家里，为他们煮饭、洗衣、看孩子。对于女人来说，投身异性恋关系无异于被宣判徒刑。

15岁，在有过一个不当真的男友之后，我宣布自己是一个女同志。三年之后，我前往利兹寻找那些我曾经听说的令人生惧的女性主义者，我加入了一个反对色情文学的团体，并最终结识了革命派女性主义者。她们邀请我参加关于异性恋关系的讨论，她们对于这种主流性别文化的批判让我觉得很有道理——毕竟，我童年所知的女性当中，无人因为异性恋关系而受益。她们告诉我，女同志生活是可以做出的一种选择，而非一种我们与生俱来的境况。当时的说法是，“所有女性都可以成为女同志”。我选择了自己的性，这让我感觉很好，我不是像很多别的女性那样，为之感到羞耻或者悔过，我为之自豪，觉得它是一种优势。

许多在七八十年代拥抱了政治上的女同性恋主义的人至今仍对之深信不移。例如对杰弗里而言，《爱上敌人？》中的论述现在和三十年前一样中肯。“我们选择成为女同志，因为爱女性并且为之斗争是我们生活的核心，而且对我来说，永远如此。把我们的工作时间全都奉献给妇女解放，然后回家，服侍男人，这是完全说不通的。”考克特也表示，她仍然坚持这本小书中的观点，但同时也希望它不曾仅仅注意到异性恋关系的阴暗面。“我们当年应该这么说：来吧，海水很宜人呢！因为实际上，作个女同志真是很有意思的。”

对我来说，政治上的女同性恋在本质上一直是有道理的，因为它支持了性是一种选择的观点，我们不因为我们的基因而背负一种特定的命运。同时，我认为成天和男性暴力相抗争是一种困苦，和一个晚上才出现的陌生人同床共枕是一种不幸。因此，能够和女同胞们一起为了一个共同目标而奋斗，和她们建立一种强大而富有激情的维系，但却拒绝和她们有私密关系，而只把这种待遇留给男人，一些女性主义者的这种做法是我所无法理解的。

我认为现在是时候让女性主义者们重启关于异性恋关系的讨论，并且重拾对政治上的女同性恋主义的关注。在我们所身处的文化中，强奸仍然是一个日常的现实，而女性居然为此遭受谴责，因为在异性恋文化中强奸被认为是不可避免的。家庭暴力对于不计其数的和男人处在关系中的女性来说，仍然是一种挥之不去的慢性病。女性被告知要热爱她们的压迫者，而作为女性主义者，我们的使命正是终结这种属于男人的先天特权。来吧，姐妹们，你知道这是正当的。不要再假装你认为女同志们属于一个少数派俱乐部，加入这个群体吧，你不会后悔的。

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/248345.html

My Sexual Revolution

Thirty years ago, a group of radical women began arguing that all feminists should be lesbians. Julie Bindel explains how it changed her life

In the late 70s a group of lesbians in Leeds, known as revolutionary feminists (RFs), made a controversial move that resonated loudly for me and many other women. They began calling for all feminists to embrace lesbianism. Appealing to their heterosexual sisters to get rid of men "from your beds and your heads", they started a debate, which reached its height in 1981 with the publication of an infamous booklet, Love Your Enemy? The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism (LYE). In this, the RFs wrote that, "all feminists can and should be lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women."

The message of LYE immediately provoked a strong and often negative reaction. While some radical feminists agreed with the group's arguments, many went wild at being told they were "counter-revolutionaries", undermining the fight for women's liberation by sleeping with men. The main author of LYE, Sheila Jeffreys, says that the backlash to the booklet "even among lesbians, was quite shocking. Quite a few were angry with the group for writing it. They felt it exposed them to hostility from outraged heterosexual feminists."

It's no surprise that the booklet was so controversial. "We think serious feminists have no choice but to abandon heterosexuality," it reads. "Only in the system of oppression that is male supremacy does the oppressor actually invade and colonise the interior of the body of the oppressed." It also asserted that penetration "is more than a symbol, its function and effect is the punishment and control of women".

Tina Crockett was one of the RFs who gathered in a holiday cottage in the Yorkshire Dales to write LYE. She says that while the booklet's insistence that lesbianism could be a choice was controversial, debate was equally heated around the suggestion that men were the enemy. "We were trying to challenge the excuses used by some heterosexual feminists as to why they lived with Nigel or John," she says. "They said, 'Oh, but my man is OK,' as a way of refusing to look at the fact that some men really do hate women."

Alison Garthwaite was another of the authors, and she stands by the original argument. "Sexuality is not determined by a gene which we are born with," she says. "It can change over time, and is determined by both your circumstances and the choices you make." Garthwaite is keen to reassure heterosexual feminists, however, that their role in feminism is not redundant or unwanted. "Perhaps the original paper implied that heterosexual feminists were of no use, and that they need not bother. I don't think that."

Both Crockett and Garthwaite can see why LYE upset people. "The arguments in LYE were a stick of dynamite up a very cosy feminist convention," says Crockett, "that heterosexual feminists must never be criticised for choosing men over women."

The publication of LYE was the one of the first times that the notion of sexuality as a choice had been publicly raised in the UK women's movement. Many feminists considered sexuality purely a matter of personal desire, and the idea that lesbianism could be a political decision was perceived as "cold-blooded". "They believed that one did not choose sexual orientation or feelings, but was overcome by them," says Jeffreys. "One could accept them or struggle against them, but not manufacture them."

The feminist writer Bea Campbell was one of LYE's many detractors, arguing that it was far more important to challenge men's behaviour in heterosexual relationships than to insist that women abandon hope altogether. "The notion of political lesbianism is crazy," she says. "It erased desire. It was founded, therefore, not on love of women but fear of men." Another feminist critic was the academic Lynne Segal, who has written in celebration of heterosexuality. "For me, coming into feminism at the beginning of the 70s, 'political lesbianism' was the main position advanced by a tiny band of vanguardist women," she says. "Its stance was tragic, because no, all men were not the enemy." She adds that the media used LYE to "trash" feminism in general. "That inevitably added to the bitterness we felt, both then, and ever since."

For all those who bridled at its message though, there were women who took the arguments in LYE to heart. The booklet described lesbianism in glowing terms, which was quite something back in the 70s - after all, out women still face prejudice and exclusion (just yesterday, the Sun used the pejorative "lesbo" in a headline about Iceland's interim PM). Some women threw out boyfriends and husbands after taking note of claims such as this: "Being a heterosexual feminist is like being in the resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe where in the daytime you blow up a bridge, in the evening you rush to repair it."

Others, such as myself, found that the arguments in LYE spoke directly to feelings that had already been developing. Opponents of political lesbianism argue that "genuine" lesbians are motivated purely by lust towards women, rather than a decision to reject men and heterosexuality. For me, however, my lesbianism is intrinsically bound up with my feminist politics and my campaigning against sexual violence.

When I was growing up on a council estate in Darlington, the expectation was that I would one day marry a local boy, settle down and start producing kids. Frankly, the thought horrified me. I was surrounded by men - my father and two brothers - and at an early age I had picked up on the stories of domestic violence, child abuse and general unhappiness that seemed to emanate from neighboring households. I was also struck by the drudgery on display. While men were out drinking, embarking on fishing trips and generally enjoying their freedom, women were stuck cooking for them, cleaning for them, and running around after children. For women, heterosexuality seemed a total con.

At 15 then, having only ever had one, non-serious, boyfriend, I came out as a lesbian. Three years later, I moved to Leeds in search of the scary-sounding feminists I had heard about and, having joined a group that campaigned against pornography, finally met the RFs. They engaged me in discussions about heterosexuality in the pub, and critiquing this mainstream sexual culture made sense to me - after all, the women I had met during my childhood clearly hadn't benefited from it. The RFs told me that, to them, lesbianism was a choice that women could make, and not a "condition" we are born with. "All women can be lesbians" was the mantra. I loved the sense that I had chosen my sexuality and rather than being ashamed or apologetic about it, as many women were, I could be proud, and see it as a privilege.

Many of those who embraced political lesbianism in the 70s and 80s still keep the faith today. For Jeffreys, for instance, the arguments in LYE are as relevant now as they were 30 years ago. "We made the decision to become lesbians because loving and fighting for women was the center of our lives, and for me it still is. It made little sense to spend our whole time working for women's liberation and to then go home to men." Crockett also says she stands by the sentiments in the paper, but wishes it had not only focused on the negative aspects of heterosexuality. "We should have said, 'Come on in, the water's lovely,' because actually, it is really great fun being a lesbian."

To me, political lesbianism continues to make intrinsic sense because it reinforces the idea that sexuality is a choice, and we are not destined to a particular fate because of our chromosomes. I also suspect that it is very difficult to spend your daily life fighting against male violence, only to share a bed with a man come the evening. Then there's the fact that working with women towards a common goal means you develop a strong and passionate bond with them - why some feminists then block out the possibility of sexual relationships with their political sisters and instead turn to men for intimacy is beyond me.

I think it's time for feminists to re-open the debate about heterosexuality, and to embrace the idea of political lesbianism. We live in a culture in which rape is still an everyday reality, and yet women are blamed for it, as it is viewed as an inevitable feature of heterosexual sex. Domestic violence is still a chronic problem for countless women in relationships with men. Women are told we must love our oppressors, while, as feminists, we fight to end the power afforded them as a birthright. Come on sisters, you know it makes sense. Stop pretending you think lesbianism is an exclusive members' club, and join the ranks. I promise that you will not regret it.

© Guardian News & Media 2008

Published: 1/29/2009

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