Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics

honorable final goal. We believe that to be equal where there

is not universal justice, or where there is not universal freedom is, quite simply, to be the same as the oppressor. It is to have achieved “uniform character, as of motion or surface. ”

Nowhere is this clearer than in the area of sexuality. The

male sexual model is based on a polarization of humankind

into man /woman, master/slave, aggressor/victim, active/

passive. This male sexual model is now many thousands of

years old. The very identity of men, their civil and economic

power, the forms of government that they have developed, the

wars they wage, are tied irrevocably together. All forms of

dominance and submission, whether it be man over woman,

white over black, boss over worker, rich over poor, are tied

irrevocably to the sexual identities of men and are derived

from the male sexual model. Once we grasp this, it becomes

clear that in fact men own the sex act, the language which

describes sex, the women whom they objectify. Men have written the scenario for any sexual fantasy you have ever had or any sexual act you have ever engaged in.

There is no freedom or justice in exchanging the female

role for the male role. There is, no doubt about it, equality.

There is no freedom or justice in using male language, the

language of your oppressor, to describe sexuality. There is no

freedom or justice or even common sense in developing a

male sexual sensibility— a sexual sensibility which is aggressive, competitive, objectifying, quantity oriented. There is only equality. To believe that freedom or justice for women,

or for any individual woman, can be found in mimicry of male

sexuality is to delude oneself and to contribute to the oppression of one’s sisters.

Many of us would like to think that in the last four years, or

ten years, we have reversed, or at least impeded, those habits

and customs of the thousands of years which went before— the

habits and customs of male dominance. There is no fact or

figure to bear that out. You may feel better, or you may not,

but statistics show that women are poorer than ever, that

women are raped more and murdered more. I want to suggest

to you that a commitment to sexual equality with males, that

is, to uniform character as of motion or surface, is a commitment to becoming the rich instead of the poor, the rapist instead of the raped, the murderer instead of the murdered. I want to ask you to make a different commitment— a commitment to the abolition of poverty, rape, and murder; that is, a commitment to ending the system of oppression called patriarchy; to ending the male sexual model itself.

The real core of the feminist vision, its revolutionary kernel

if you will, has to do with the abolition of all sex roles— that

is, an absolute transformation of human sexuality and the institutions derived from it. In this work, no part of the male sexual model can possibly apply. Equality within the framework of the male sexual model, however that model is reformed or modified, can only perpetuate the model itself and the injustice and bondage which are its intrinsic consequences.

I suggest to you that transformation of the male sexual

model under which we now all labor and “love” begins where

there is a congruence, not a separation, a congruence of feeling and erotic interest; that it begins in what we do know about female sexuality as distinct from male— clitoral touch