⚠ Content Warning: Sexual Violence, Sexual Coercion, Child Sexual Assault, Rape Apologia, Pedophilia (Non-Graphic)
Excerpt:
First, the feminist critique is more accurately phrased:
“rape is not about being overwhelmed by desire, it is about the exercise of power.”
This critique originated as part of robust feminist framework that treats sexuality, desire, and power as inseparably intertwined in the operation and production of patriarchy. Importantly, the exercise of power is not always about “feeling” powerful and dominating. very often the exercise of power, the practices of power, are subjectively felt by the person enacting them as being functionally “power-neutral.” The practice and exercise of power is very often taken for granted as naturally occurring or just the way things are, not as an actively felt experience if power. A person feeling powerful, feeling an active sense of personal power, is not synonymous with a person actually exercising power upon the body of others. Both in the sense that a person can feel powerful while they have no access to material power and in the sense that a person can feel powerless while actively exercising power.
To read the full essay, visit Immer Autonom here: https://immerautonom.noblogs.org/sex-desire-and-power/
Thank you for reading! And thank you for your patience with the long-ish gap between essays. I sincerely hope you find something of value in these works.
with hope for a better world,
narcissus