On Female Sexuality

There is an Italian film Non Ti Muovere where the character of Penélope Cruz cleans a bar, earns just enough for herself, lives alone in a makeshift shanty and is raped by a ‘man in distress’ in her own house after she offers him help to make a phone call. They fall in love subsequently but her character passes away, reaffirming the pervert desire of watching the most vulnerable person emerge as the one who suffers the most. Maybe in the name of art, Italian filmmaking itself suffers from a chronic disease of having rape as one of the elements which make a passionate relationship. But then most cinemas seem to be suffering. It is the disease of categorising female sexuality at the receiving end of masochism. Where masochism could imply participation in sexuality in a submissive way, it could translate itself as a mannerism in the everyday life. Hence, independence of the female then is thought to entail self-destruction, whereby independence of the male produces destruction of others.

To say that participation in matters of sexuality is an advantage only few have would be an attempt to presuppose where it exists and does not, and would become a way to underestimate people. This also generates a homogeneous existence of sexuality that can just be divided into haves and have-nots. However, the role of masochism could get internalised in the everyday by force or persuasion through a network of distribution of power that cannot be just divided between male and female. The network exists in the form of social hierarchies created by humans to give social ranks to each other. The role of masochism could then be exerted by women amongst themselves as they measure each other as lower or higher in daily interactions. It could be exerted within a family as well. A mother may have more behavioural expectations from her daughter that from her son and similarly, a daughter may underestimate her mother in comparison to her father.

The issue of consent too ends up producing a narrow-minded approach of ‘yes’ and ‘no’, such that even in the case of an agreement, the understanding of female sex as a beautiful thing waiting to be tamed could still persist, along with the power equation. Exploitation, force and making sacrifices of one’s own pleasure for the sake of the pleasure of the other could still be there even when there is a ‘yes’. An intention to rape and exploit could exist in a perpetrator in spite of the consent of the other person. In fact, ‘consent’ is one of the major reasons why many rape cases are halted in the middle of an investigation or go unreported.   

Female sexuality is elaborate. It has different patterns and combinations on/inside the body which ‘demand’ pleasure, and these patterns also keep changing. This means that female sexuality is the domain of extensive work that has multiple ways of bringing pleasure closer. Time and again female pleasure is controlled and even prohibited because of its vastness and intensity. Where female sexuality (or just sexuality) is heterogeneous to the extent of endless humans existing, it is going to suffer in the hands of lazy efforts at artmaking and lazy efforts at lovemaking.