Desperately Seeking Post-heterosexual Woman

Abstract

Heterosexuality poses problems for feminism. There is a sense in which it always has. The suffragettes and first-wave feminists were fiercely divided over aspects of heterosexuality. From Josephine Butler’s campaigns against the Contagious Diseases Acts in the 1880s to later ideas of free love in the 1920s it was clear that early feminists would rather have ignored women’s sexuality as they strove to find a legitimate place for women in civil society. It was relatively easy for these feminists to condemn male heterosexual practices and excesses because these were identified as the cause of so much suffering for women, whether in terms of the trade in prostitution, multiple pregnancies or the spread of venereal diseases to the innocent wife. It was much less easy for early feminists to deal with women’s sexuality unless it was either disguised or transposed into discussions about reproduction and aspects of maternity. Thus these feminists could (eventually) publicly debate the benefits or otherwise of contraception, but not the benefits or otherwise of orgasm. Feminist campaigners therefore constructed a lasting mode in which to engage publicly with heterosexuality. This mode cast the woman as either the sexless mother or the fallen victim. Male heterosexuality was framed in terms of excessive desire which required restraint.