She described the situation as feminist because it is her choice
This is both hilarious and disgusting – the New York Times solemnly reporting on a male composer who gets extra super-duper creative by dominating his wife. The Times says this is “kink” but it sounds much more like the same old arrangement there always was.
The OkCupid message Mollena Williams received in December 2013 was, in some ways, standard. It was complimentary: “Wow — your profile is great.” It was confident: “I am an artist, very successful (probably member of the top 10 or 20 in my genre in the world).” It was polite, signing off with “warm wishes.”
But something was a bit out of the ordinary, speaking to its author’s interest in domination and submission. The central desire? “I would like to tame you.”
The writer was Georg Friedrich Haas, whose powerfully emotional, politically chargedmusic and explorations of microtonality make him one of the world’s leading composers. His work had brought widespread acclaim, but his personal life was troubled, with three failed marriages in his wake, when he met Ms. Williams, a writer and sex educator who specializes in alternative lifestyles. Shortly after he messaged her, the two began a relationship and were married last fall.
I hate to be the one to break bad news, but a man dominating a woman isn’t an alternative lifestyle. It’s about as conformist as a lifestyle can possibly be.
In a joint appearance with his wife, who now goes by Mollena Williams-Haas, late last year at the Playground sexuality conference in Toronto, then in an interview this month in the online music magazine VAN, he has “come out,” as he put it, as the dominant figure in a dominant-submissive power dynamic. Mr. Haas has chosen to speak up, both because Ms. Williams-Haas’s sexual interests are widely known (her blog, The Perverted Negress, is not shy about kink and bondage) and because he hopes to embolden younger people, particularly composers, not to smother untraditional urges, as he did.
But the urges aren’t untraditional. They’re so.very.traditional.
Their marriage can seem, in this regard, distinctly old-fashioned, and not in a Marquis de Sade way. While the terms they negotiated at the start of their relationship do not prevent her from pursuing her own professional and personal life, Ms. Williams-Haas devotes much of her time to supporting the work of a man — “Herr Meister,” she has nicknamed him — for whom a “good day” is one in which he composes for 14 or 15 hours.
Ah they finally noticed!
“She makes my life as comfortable as possible,” Mr. Haas said.
Ms. Williams-Haas, who described the situation as feminist because it is her choice, said, “I find intense fulfillment in being able to serve in this way.”
And that right there is what’s so fucked up about “choice” feminism, aka libertarian or liberal or third wave feminism. No, not every “choice” is feminist just because it’s a woman making it. Michelle Duggar isn’t a feminist.
She conceded the discomfort many may feel with a black woman willingly submitting to a white man. “It’s a struggle to say, ‘This is genuinely who I am,’” she said. But she added, “To say I can’t play my personal psychodrama out just because I’m black, that’s racist.”
Right. So if she started actually calling herself his slave, and he called her that too, it would be racist to give that the stink-eye? Please.
And that’s especially true when they’re out there proselytizing. If it were just their private games at home then whatever, but here they’re making a case for it – and I say that’s revolting.
Mr. Haas said that he felt liberated after what he described as a lifetime’s and three divorces’ worth of suppressing what he once considered “devilish” desires. The change has altered his music in ways both quantifiable and more ineffable. He said that his productivity had roughly doubled since meeting Ms. Williams-Haas, which will delight his fans.
Well as long as he feels liberated, that’s what counts.
I think she does describe herself as a ‘slave’ in some venues.
I’ve just had an exhausting conversation with a grown woman who accepts as ‘human nature’ the worst aspects of dating culture. Haas and Williams are another example of drawing a ‘Texas Bull’s-eye’ around some cultural artifact and declaring it to be a manifestation of immutable Natural Law. How is this any better than the Duggar’s fantasy of ‘god’s will?’
I have no idea whether Mollena Williams-Haas made a “feminist choice”.
I wholeheartedly agree. A woman choosing to order pizza? A woman choosing to stay in bed longer than usual? Sure, some choices are just neutral. They have nothing to do neither with feminism nor with anti-feminism. No quarrel here. Still …
Well, that’s different. The example suggests that you are speaking now about anti-feminist choices, not the neutral ones. Am I right? In the same vein: some women claim that they choose to wear hijabs, some women choose to emigrate to the ISIS state. Indeed, there have been cases where we’ve got no good reason (apart from our wishful thinking!) to suspect that they are forced to do it, at least in any usual sense of the word “forced”. Sure, anti-feminist choices can be made.
But how should we classify Mollena Williams-Haas? By your standards, are her choices anti-feminist or just neutral? If the first, why exactly? Also: do you consider this question simple? Do you consider the answer obvious?
What does it even mean to make an “anti-X” choice? Well … at least some elements seem clear to me. If, according to the X’s set of beliefs, I *shouldn’t* make this-and-this choice – if they consider my choice essentially *wrong*, then indeed my choice could be described as anti-X. The women who chose ISIS made a wrong choice. Wearing hijab is a wrong choice. I guess that’s what many feminists (and not only them) would say.
Do you think that Mollena Williams-Haas made a wrong choice? Do you think that she (or perhaps everybody) *shouldn’t* choose a dominant/submissive relationship? Or maybe you consider such choices neutral and it is only discussing them in public that is essentially wrong? If so, what are your reasons?
I can’t see much proselytizing in the quoted fragment. He doesn’t explicitly recommend this type of a relationship as the proper one, he doesn’t say that women are “naturally submissive” or any other such bullshit. He describes what it gave him. That’s all. What’s so revolting about this?
Just for curiosity: would the opposite situation – with the woman in the lead – be equally revolting to you?
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Apologies for asking so many questions. And no, I’m not expecting Ophelia to answer them. Please, treat most of the “you”-s as plural.
I see the choice of a Dom/sub relationship to be neutral in itself. However, given how many non-kink areas of culture still push the woman serving the man, I feel like it’s anti-feminist to promote it, particularly as a way of boosting masculine productivity– that isn’t kink; that’s obviously just patriarchy.
I wouldn’t call it traditional: this Dom/sub relationship is consensual.
As for whether a feminist can be a homemaker, my recollection from the ’70s is that (some) feminists stated that this was valid as long as it was a choice, while (some other) feminists made homemakers ashamed of that choice. Still others, in academia, debated whether “choice” is applicable in a culture that greases the rails for homemakers and puts glass ceilings over women in the workforce.
All valid questions, and still not answered AFAICT, because not really answerable AFAICT. Does a “girly girl,” a “lipstick lesbian,” or a trans woman further the patriarchy by donning heels and makeup? Are their choices not “free,” because they’re the culturally approved ones? Are they victims of pressure as adults, or brainwashing as children? And if they are, can we respect their decisions anyway while opposing the institutionalized brainwashing and incentivizing of patriarchal gender roles? And if not, what do we do–spit on these women as heretics to the cause of feminism?
I ask rhetorically, but if there are genuine definitive answers to such questions that have somehow eluded me, I’m eager to learn them.
I heard this trope from my mother and sisters for years – but none of them were ever ashamed of that choice! They were proud, because they were real women. I am sure there were women out there who were ashamed of that choice, and perhaps feminists who made them so. I haven’t actually met any, but I haven’t lived in such a way that I know absolutely everyone, or even more than a tiny fraction of everyone, so I can accept that.
The problem is, this is presented as it stands. It never receives the proper response, which is that women who chose to be homemakers have for a very long time done everything they could to make working women ashamed. And since they are usually the ones getting the positive attention in the magazines, newspapers, and other venues (the Mommy wars?), and women are still expected to give birth to, clean up after, and chauffeur children, it is definitely an issue. In addition, there is still a lot of noise about how women “have” to work because of the economy and how horrible that is – usually coming from the left, who (rightly) want a better distribution of wealth and use that old trope to try to shame Washington (men) into propping up the social safety net. There are a lot more support systems for homemakers than for mothers who work outside the home, as well, and almost no support systems for childless women who work outside the home.
So, go ahead and acknowledge the fact that (some) women feel ashamed of making that choice, but please don’t leave it standing as a trope on its own without noticing that a lot of homemakers do their best to shame working women. My mother never let a day go by without throwing some crack out there about “real women”, by which she meant women that were girly women, didn’t do “man” things, did not work outside the home, and had no fewer than six children (conveniently, the number she herself gave birth to). I spent a dozen years in therapy, by the way, and a lot of it was from this sort of crap – being made to feel not just less female (I don’t give a rat’s ass about that), but also a lot less human.
[…] a comment by iknklast on She described the situation as feminist because it is her […]
I think you’re conflating women who choose to be homemakers, regarding that as one valid choice among many open to women, with women who regard homemaking as the only valid choice–I.e., who buy into and perpetuate the patriarchy. Treating all homemakers as a monolith in this way conflates two very distinct groups of women.
Ophelia is suggesting that a woman who chooses to participate in some sort of BDSM relationship as a sub is harming the cause of feminism. I think this is part of her larger criticism of “choice feminism.” In my post I both sympathized with her sense that not all choices are equally feminist, but also suggested that denigrating women’s choices can have the effect of dictating to women in a way that’s unacceptable whether the dictator is patriarchal or feminist. My central point was that these two things are in tension, and that the tension is inescapable.
A Masked Avenger – I do not believe I treated all homemakers as a monolith. I was merely trying to point out that the “shamed homemaker” is not the only situation women have to face for there choices. The “shamed working woman” is a very prevalent trope in our society, and a very damaging one, but I rarely hear anyone worrying about that. All I ever hear is the spitting at feminists for shaming women who stay at home. I was offering a corrective.
The simple fact is, a woman is damned if she does, and damned if she doesn’t. It’s time that stopped.
Inknlast, what I find incomprehensible about your reply is: in what universe is it less than obvious that pro-patriarchy women will both (a) be housewives and (b) condemn women who aren’t housewives? Did you feel your point was other than astoundingly obvious?
I certainly feel bad that you had to experience such shittiness firsthand from your mother. Nobody should have to put up with that.
If you “rarely hear anyone worrying about that,” you might want to go meet some feminists. It’s mostly what they do worry about. If you hang out near this blog, you may run into some of that.
I’m having thoughts, and struggling with them, about the extent to which a person’s kink is truly their own, versus an expression of images and relationships found historically and in contemporary culture, adapted to satisfy one’s own desires. And how negative the implications of those adaptations are, or perhaps how positive, for the individuals involved. I have been reading articles at Ms. Williams-Hass’s site, linked through the NYT article, as I do this thinking (recommended): http://www.mollena.com/
Additional: I just described this arrangement to my partner, as objectively as I could. They said, “That feels squicky.” I wholeheartedly agreed.
Samantha #3:
Same here.
I have mixed feelings about this. I would say that it all depends on the aims and methods. In other words, the answer depends on what exactly you promote and how.
Indeed, it is easy to find an anti-feminist promotion. There are some Christians doing it who search for justifications in the Bible, there are also non-Christians claiming that one particular gender (it’s usually about women, but sometimes men are also depicted in this way) is particularly predisposed for the submissive role The aim of the promotion is then to present dom/sub as *the* proper way of living. Just introduce it, and there will be no bitter marital conflicts, no divorce, no fights over children and so on; all that is needed is letting God’s command or your natural instincts prevail. In short: it’s an undisguised blatant anti-feminist rubbish.
On the other hand, sometimes the goal is a promotion of the “live and let live” attitude. Then such relationships are depicted as a matter of personal choice (not for everybody); it is also emphasized that the choice of the role (dom or sub) is not – or shouldn’t be – regulated by your gender. Personally, I see nothing anti-feminist in this but nothing particularly feminist either, at least not by default.
My impression from the New York Time piece was that of the second type. Your reservation (“given how many non-kink areas of culture still push the woman serving the man”) is valid, but still, I’m very hesitant to conclude that “that’s obviously just patriarchy”. The thing is that in general I find it risky for a dom/sub couple to talk about their experience, especially (but not only) when it is the woman who plays the submissive role. How can they explain what it is that they find attractive in their relationship withouth creating any danger for the “non-kink areas of culture”? There are so many traps! It’s not that easy!
To make it clear: my last paragraph doesn’t contradict what you wrote. The difference – if any – is that of emphasis, not of content. You emphasized the dangers to non-kink areas of culture; what I emphasized was the inherent difficulty of their situation.
Ariel – this is not like choosing to order a pizza, it’s more like choosing to never leave the house without make-up and high heels. Claiming it’s feminist is ridiculous. And if the relationship worked the other way round, it would actually be untraditional. This just sounds like the sort of marriage Great Men have always had. Having a perfectly obedient servant on hand 24/7 frees up your mind to do Great Things.
clamboy – Libby Anne describes how purity culture leads to rape fantasies:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2011/11/the-purity-culture-and-sexual-dysfunction.html
Just to make it clear – I don’t have a problem with kink; that would be a bit silly as I’m kinky myself. But this relationship (as described in the article) sounds very traditional – just an exaggerated version. And I find it pretty annoying when people insist their traditional, strongly-supported-by-anti-feminists, choices are feminist.
I get a distinct impression that there’s topping from the bottom going on here – but what do I care?
I find this unnecessarily hostile. I hang out around feminists all the time; many of them seem extremely concerned about the fact that homemakers aren’t getting paid for their work. They are concerned about a lot of things. But they do not talk about the shaming women get for working. That could be happening in some feminist circles; after all, I have not been able to sample every single possible piece of feminist work out there. And I was talking a great deal about the media, including some rather liberal magazines, that are exploiting the working woman and the horror of the two income home, to work for what are noble ends, but crapping on working women while doing it, noting that the women are not “home with their families”.
And obviously I do hang out around this blog. While this is a great blog that has a nice readership and one of the most interesting comment sections, I can’t say that it is anything close to mainstream. It does not represent the bulk of what women are getting exposed to in the national press, and often, in their own communities.
When I was in my 20s and 30s, I frequently met women who did talk about this, who did work about this, but things are shifting, and the media-driven Mommy wars have made us worried about the shaming of stay home mothers, something I have never seen any feminist that I know do, and something that has been, at best, very muted in the feminist literature. It may be like the Christians who are disturbed and offended by the mere presence of non-belief – the conversation around feminism, promoting the rights of women to work and earn their own money makes these women feel like women are saying they have to work, when the actual feminists may not be saying that at all.
I have been reading feminist literature, and have been a proud feminist hanging with other feminists, for my entire adult life and a substantial part of my teen life. And I have seen massive shifts in feminism, many of which are documented by Ophelia right here. And I would like more documentation of this so-called shaming of women (massive, widespread shaming, not just one or two little blog posts) that choose to be homemakers. If it is out there, I am willing to acknowledge that, but I am saying that all I see are people claiming women are going through this massive shaming, when the shaming I see is the other way.
A Masked Avenger @ 7 –
You must have skipped over the part where I said:
Also – could you try not to do quite so much explaining the basics to me and other readers as if we’d never heard of them?
Leg irons and convict’s stripes. Are they a fashion ‘choice’ for Black American men? Would they be more absurd than some of the criminalized fashion choices in ‘street’ culture?
A particular kink matchup exists against a background that can’t be ignored. Of course I haven’t followed the Mollena/Haas thing enough to know if THEIR ‘slave’ games involve cotton-picking or pyramid building.
Everybody knows feminists shame stay-at-home moms, like everybody knows feminists hate men.
There’s no point in providing specific examples, because everybody just knows. Like everybody knows giraffes got that way from centuries of stretching their necks to reach the leaves at the tops of the trees.