Reviews for Straight sex

The average rating for Straight sex based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-03-08 00:00:00 Katherine Banks This book is of its time: a salvo in the feminist sex wars of the 1980-90s and an angry response to Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Celia Kitzinger et al. Having grown into adulthood at the height of those so-called sex wars, I've spent some time lately trying to make sense of how they affected both my own relationship with sexuality and the wider cultural landscape. 20 years on, Segal's book is still relevant and powerful. It is dated, with plenty of contemporary references (Thatcherism, Madonna, Clause 28 etc), and a long (slightly exhausting) discussion of psychoanalytic theory (Freud, Lacan, Irigaray) and Foucault (remember how new and exciting all that stuff was back in the 80s?), but I guess that's to be expected (Segal is after all a professor of psychology and gender studies).* But in addressing the way feminist critiques of heterosexuality often replicate and reinforce traditional conservative narratives of active male aggression and passive female submission, Segal is smart, insightful and scathing. She writes powerfully about the disruptive complexity of desire - whatever our gender and sexuality - arguing that actual, real world heterosexuality is far queerer (in every sense) than the simplistic caricature often conjured up in both feminist and anti-feminist discussions. At a personal level, I read much of this book with a great sense of relief. Segal's account of the experience of sexuality (at least when it wasn't tangled up in Freudian and post-Freudian psychobabble) felt far closer to my own than anything I've encountered in the Dworkin-Dines feminist tradition (or, for that matter, than much of what I encounter in media in general). Segal's call for a "queering" of our view of heterosexuality resonated strongly with me, as a straight cis-gender man who has never felt like I fit the stereotype of what those labels imply (whether those stereotypes came from Playboy or Broadsheet). In reality, when you really dig deep, sexuality (like gender) is slippery, fluid and enormously complex. Segal's most welcome contribution is to emphasise this point again and again, and to insist on a genuine respect for the variety and power and fragility of real people's actual experience of sex; to listen openly and honestly to the voices of women (and men) describing their sexual desires, hopes, experiences, fears and disappointments; and to work towards a sexual politics of pleasure and liberation for all. *It's also interesting to note that Segal occasionally criticises the "political correctness" of some feminists. After all, this book was written at a time when "PC" was a term people on the left used to satirise each other: that particular strain of ideologically driven moralising that can so easily emerge when "the personal is political." It wasn't until the mid-1990s that the right took over the term "PC," using it to belittle everything from health and safety policies and environmental regulations to the whole idea of progressive politics. Which is a shame, because I reckon it would still be a useful corrective for some left-wing activists, if only it hadn't become so weighed down with stupid hateful conservative baggage...

Review # 2 was written on 2013-08-06 00:00:00 Jon Donald 3.5 // first chapters offer a great overview of feminist work on heterosexual romantic and sexual relationships: very clear and coherent. but segal's own ideas offer no real solution from the struggles that come almost necessarily with a heterosexual relationship. "except for the games with power - 'power' being culturally symbolised as 'phallic' and 'masculine' - there seems litle reason to see the pleasures and risks of desire outlined here as either distinctively 'feminine' or heterosexual'." yeah sure, there's little reason, but we do it anyway, that's the very problem. bit disappointed with this but the first bit was solid and a worthwhile read.