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Date Posted: 11:38:04 01/31/02 Thu
Author: sarah
Subject: Re: A bit more about our Greer....
In reply to: rich u 's message, "A bit more about our Greer...." on 14:43:54 01/30/02 Wed

Thanx for taking such an interest in this subject Rich, and I'm impressed that you actually bothered reading something about Dr Greer (as compared to my lovely but wannabe macho Tim). If I can remember correctly from The Whole Woman (havent read it for about a year) She is indeed critical of the 'sexual freedom' that women are granted in modern times, precisely because in her view it is NOT freedom.
She acknowledges all the progress made in sexual equality for women in the past couple of decades. This is where I pick up my book and try to remember exactly her point (btw in case I make no sense it is probably because I'm developing flu).

she is very disparaging of cosmetic surgery and talks about the silicone industry and says that women have become synthetic objects and have actually moved away from their true sexuality. A main point about traditional female sexuality by the way is that they are perceived and treated as decorative objects and desired for their passivity towards men, who are meant to want to dominate them sexually (raaar). So, Greer (and me too) thinks that far from recapturing the true sense of sexuality, i.e. what is natural and not socially interfered with, women have distanced themselves from it.

Greer also points out that there are more single women and single mothers than ever before and that sex is constantly bombarded at women in the media telling them that they must shag in order to be a 'whole' woman (excuse the accidental use of irony - but I'd better ask Tim whether that was the correct use of it since he painstakingly taught me so well).
I'm waffling. Basically Greer's message is:
'no sex is better than bad sex'
and i'm completely with this sensible reasoning. Thinking about it, that is probably one of the only things that I have really identified with from this book.

Sex indeed is bombarded at men in the media, let us not forget, in the form of pornography. Greer takes the conventional feminist standpoint that it downgrades women and relegates their role entirely to secually please men(I dont entirely agree as I'm sure lots of lesbians like naked ladies too...)

So after that really shit response of mine Rich, I would like to question slightly the conclusions you came to and say that Germaine Greer is wholly in favour of sexual freedom for women (she is a feminist and a woman is she not?) but denies that we have come much closer to finding it in a general sense. I'll just leave this with you:

'to deny a woman's sexuality is certainly to oppress her but to portray her as nothing but a sexual being is equally to oppress her'

Sexual freedom and sexual persmissiveness need to be distinguished. You can be sexually liberated and be monogamous for your whole life, yet you can also be permiscuous (wrong spelling) and still be trapped in insecurity, unfulfillment and depression. Of all the girls I know, the ones who are 'sexually sophisticated' tend also to have low self esteem as they mistake sex for love. They are not the same, something that you men are intelligent enough to see. But at the same time I do believe that sex and love are, and should be connected. have a look at a previous thread entitled 'do blokes value love over sex'.
comments would be gratefully recieved
p/s/ well done for a great gig last night Alias

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