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Is sex and sexuality inherently oppressive to women?

Asked by hominid (7357points) January 24th, 2015

Is there something about sex that is inherently anti-woman?

I see the word “objectification” thrown around here without any qualification.

There seems to be a near consensus that getting paid for doing anything that is considered sexual (posing for photos, dressing provocatively, etc) is necessarily harmful to women because it says that “women are only about sex”. But what jobs do not only value their employees for what they bring to the task they have been hired to do? My employer doesn’t care anything about me as a person. I am simply someone who solves problems and produces code. When people hire someone to pump out their septic tank, they are not particularly interested in what other qualities the person has to offer. Could someone explain what makes it different when sex/sexuality is involved?

There were people in debates during college that argued that any consensual sex between a man and woman was an act of oppression. I am trying to figure out if that’s where many people here are starting from.

Likely related, and I should probably offer this as a separate question, it seems that we might have a bit of a “blank slate” thing going on here regarding sexuality and culture. We’ve seen claims that the only thing that isn’t cultural is our instinctual attraction for symmetry. Sure, symmetry is important. But does that mean that our heterosexuality and homosexuality is a product of our culture? I understand that we can have some concerns about some of evolutionary psychology. But is the response to reject biology altogether?

Anyway, what is wrong with sex and sexuality?

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