Care and Feeding of an East Coast Liberal

Let's see if I can string this together coherently.

Hi everyone! (All, what, four of you that pass by here occasionally. ;)

So, uh, it's the new year! Hooray!

If my New Year celebration has any predictive quality, this is going to be a year of Guitar Hero, geekery, and nakedness. Altogether, I think that's a good year to have.

At any rate, I said in my last post that I had a thought churning around in my head. I think I'm going to chuck out all my intentions to research this and just write it, though (although I did read the blog and essay so kindly linked to me :).

Basically it goes like this:


There are some forms of pain that are culturally acceptable.

There are even some forms of pain that it is OK to seek out, even desirable.

Athletics-related pain is specifically what I'm thinking of. We talk about "the burn", muscle stiffness, the feeling of the body breaking down in order to rebuild itself (faster, stronger - we have the technology). It is even possible to have other-created pain that is not undesirable, even if it is to be avoided (being tackled in American football isn't exactly a walk in the park, and let's not start on rugby or boxing).

I have seen exactly one feminist ever say that all pain she could cause herself or others was bad, even if it was unintentional. I wanted to ask her if she was prepared to give up figure skating, because I cannot envision a world in which practicing sports does not cause some amount of pain.

This is, in part, why I wanted to hear feminist perspectives on sport. Because I don't see a lot of feminists arguing that sports are bad. Sports create a winner/loser dichotomy. They're traditionally male-oriented (and I have seen that analyzed). But no feminist I've ever seen has explicitly said that sports should be banned. (Gym class, maybe.) The gendered connotations and language of winners/losers, yes. The competitiveness to the exclusion of sportsmanship, yes. The sports themselves? I haven't seen it.

But there is pain involved.

Let's take boxing. You're deliberately consenting to another human being punching you. Unless you are absolutely the most fantastic boxer ever, you're probably getting (at minimum) winded, and probably bruised, sore ribs, sore jaw. Possibly a broken nose, possibly brain damage, broken teeth, possibly open wounds.

Yes?

So should real feminists not box?

Or an example from my real actual very-own life. I took kung fu for three years. During that time, I willingly put my body through hell. (At one point I was on the demo team and the accelerated black belt group, although I quit shortly after.) Even just self-inflicted, there was the ache of my arms from pushups, shortness of breath after running, injured ankles from landing improperly, bruises from sparring, sore shoulders, sore legs, sore back, eyes that burned when sweat got into my eyes... And at least on some level, I was enjoying it. Even getting taken down by sparring partners was fun, because it helped me learn about my own weaknesses and blind spots.

...I'm sure most of you have figured out where I'm going with this, but let's make it explicit:

Why is it that when my pain is explicitly consented to, but presented in the context of sexual activity, that it becomes vile, evil, dark, and upholds the patriarchy?

Hell, even if it's not explicitly sexual, but is for sensual gratification, BDSM is considered all those things. Maybe because there's no way to "fight back" (but there is: the safe word) - and let's face it, if a sparring partner keeps pummelling you long after you're down, well, wait a minute, that's assault/battery. So... why do people somehow think that one distinction is harder to make than the other?

It really isn't.

And people get into sports for bad reasons, too. Work out to uphold crazed beauty standards, to fulfil parental dreams, to earn perceived respect, to earn ludicrous amounts of money. (Without the love of the game, that is, for the last two.) Body dysmorphia. Any number of things. Right?

And yet we don't generally belittle or shame these people for doing it once we realize the motivation, I think. Generally.

So I guess to sum up:

If a woman and a man spar, and the man wins, does it uphold the patriarchy? If the woman wins? If they come to a draw? If they laugh about it afterwards? If the "inferior" thanks the "superior" for what they have learned about themselves and about the sport/sex? If the superior does likewise? If the "inferior" in kung fu goes on to "beat" the "superior" in their next "match"? If both participants are male, as above? If both are female, as above?

When are we feminists going to give up on sports? (I, for one, would like American football to be the first on the chopping block, if only because it makes no sense as a game.)

Or when are we going to come to the conclusion that yes - we really can consent to, own, and love our own pain, so long as it remains within our defined bounds? And that this pain is not, necessarily, horribly damaging patriarchy-mimicking cultural backwash? That motivation, as with anything, is key, and that we should not treat those with lamentable motivations with contempt (save in the case of abuse/rape) but rather compassion?

Yeah? Anyone with me?

posted by Alex @ 4:03 AM