Kristina Marlen - Sexuelles mit Format

A sexually self-determined woman talks to herself

This article was written November 2018 . Its a critique to a weird and repressive discourse about female* sexuality which is taking place currently in written and spoken word in Germany. It is now translated by David Bloom, thanks!

Swiss TV channel SRF organized a philosophical round table to deal with the question of whether it’s allowed to pay for sex.

First of all, thank you to my colleague and only sex worker at the table, Salome Balthus, for keeping your poise, even though you had even predicted the possibility of losing it during the discussion. I tip my hat to you, it didn’t happen.

I would probably have lost it in several moments. Reactionary and moralizing agendas presented themselves in their most stylistically flawless form (philosophy), which didn’t make them any more bearable. I don’t enjoy reporting that the only other woman at the table, in particular, almost made my uterus go take a hike a few times. Sandra Konrad makes disastrous statements about sex workers that are presumptuous and are missing any kind of broader empirical base.

She eliminates all sex workers’ reports of personal experience from differing perspectives, and so declares the only whore at the table to be untrustworthy. However, in her scolding, humorless tone, assuming absolute, unconditional, and everlasting trustworthiness in her role as therapist, she manages to connect to the mass of concerned citizens who find a kind of almost sexual ecstasy, as I suspect, in their sympathy for “the Others” (whores and other loose subjects).

Sympathy is the most perfidious form of arrogance. The most effective way of making structural inequality stick – those who look down on others have best secured their place in the machinery without getting their hands dirty.

It may not surprise anyone that Sandra Konrad knows so much about the problems all whores face, even if she doesn’t listen to the one who’s at the table; because she has sympathy for all women. The author of the book “The Governed Sex – why she wants what he wants” thinks of the sexually self-determined woman as a “fata morgana” (source: see below). Well then. There’s nothing to add. Is there?

Short insert: the book gives an extensive overview of female #sexuality throughout history and in the present – including her perspective as a therapist. I value many chapters of the book, and many of its theses are simply part of general feminist knowledge which must serve as a base if we wish to further liberate the sexes today. So thank you for that

Whoever deals in-depth with human sexuality will not be able to circumvent several realizations: human beings don’t communicate enough about sexuality and trade all sorts of things in bed, including sexual favors, and often feelings are not the first priority; female sexuality throughout history has been, and is still today, suppressed, and often exploited; we live in a world of narrow gender stereotypes that are sad, limiting, and usually give men more freedom to act than women.

I agree with all of that. But how is it possible that such an extensive book ignores all the women* (and men*) who are doing it differently and who are re-writing, appropriating, living that history sideways? Those women* who feel their sex and live it in the midst of all the clichés, norms, and taboos constructed around female sexuality like musclebound SecurityCops?

How does one ignore all the partners of these people who are developing other forms of relating, of communicating, to make relationships and sex into a real experience for everyone? Where are the lesbians in that book anyway, has Ms. Konrad ever heard of people living beyond heterosexual guidelines?

And should we give Ms. Konrad some free tickets for the Berlin Porn Film Festival, so she can broaden her horizon concerning the explicit cinematic oeuvre?

People not being able to think outside their own lived experience is not to be condemned per se, even if it’s a pity. But when writing about books that have a certain claim to the truth, then unfortunately that’s not acceptable.

Those who bring catastrophic book titles into the world that are untrue and offensive need to answer the question: what effect do they wish to bring about? Is “The Governed Sex” a title that leads to freedom and why does it erase the struggles and existence of important people?

I guess that I and the majority of my female* friends, lovers, colleagues, my wild clients and their play partners, porn and pop stars, divas, dominatrices, great women in history who didn’t care how a woman should behave, and therefore led or lead a very happy life, simply don’t exist.

POOF – I will just disappear. I’m only a ghost. Just like all whores should. Disappear off the face of the Earth.

But wait. We will come back. Again and again. In your dreams. In your beds. We speak, we moan with pleasure, we take our orgasms without mercy, we sit on your faces and come right on your flattened noses. We were always around, even if you’re still trying to declare us dead in the 21st century. We are immortal. We are and stay the witches. Burn us if you like. We have magic powers and brew magic potions from our own ejaculate.

Long live the sexually self-determined woman.

Resources (German): der Philosophische Stammtisch im SRF mit Salome Balthus, Sarah Konrad, Dominique Kuenzle, Peter Schaber
Sandra Konrad: Das beherrschte Geschlecht. Warum sie will, was er will. Piper 2018.
Hier eines der unzähligen Interviews, alle mit dem selben trostlos besserwisserischen Duktus – Hier die FATA MORGANA