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Authors: Linda Lemoncheck

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cussions of women's sexuality invite critical inquiry and allow constructive negotiation without requiring the final resolution that would silence opposing feminist viewpoints. I believe that this perspective both strengthens and endorses the feminist commitment that women's voices be heard and validated despite a status quo advantaged by our silence. Such a perspective is more pragmatic than relativistic, more reconstructive than deconstructive, since this perspective denounces both the legitimacy of men's sexual oppression of women and any ethic of exclusion that ignores the unique and varied role that sexuality may play in each woman's life. It is a perspective that seeks to transform and transcend current marginalizing definitions of difference. It is not a complement but a radical alternative to more conservative conceptions of the value of diversity in a global community. I believe it is a perspective that works to bring otherwise disparate factions together in a single and collective effort to eradicate misogyny and male bias from women's sexual lives and to increase women's sexual agency and self-definition. In this sense, feminist theory fuses with feminist practice in ways that show how feminism, philosophy, and women's sexuality, taken together, can further our understanding of the relations between the sexes. The conviction to continue, not forestall, the dialogue in women's sexuality by constructing a framework for conscientiously listening to the diversity of women's voices in such discussions has encouraged me to forge ahead, wary of hasty generalization yet convinced of the value of the effort. I encourage readers to use the discussions in this book to reflect on the role that sex and sexuality play in their own lives and to find caring and cooperative ways of sharing those reflections with others.
 
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Notes
Introduction
1. See Gayle Rubin, "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality," in
Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality
, ed. Carole S. Vance (London: Pandora Press, 1989), 267319; Alison Assiter and Avedon Carol, eds.,
Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures: The Challenge to Reclaim Feminism
(London: Pluto Press, 1993); Samois, ed.,
Coming to Power: Writings and Graphics on Lesbian S/M
(Boston: Alyson Publications, 1987); Pat Califia,
Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex
(Pittsburgh: Cleis Press, 1994); Joan Nestle, ed.,
The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader
(Boston: Alyson Publications, 1992); Annie Sprinkle,
Post Porn Modernist
(Amsterdam: Torch Books, 1991). For a discussion of the ways in which challenging stereotypes of male sexuality can liberate men and masculinity as well as women and femininity, see John Stoltenberg, "How Men Have (a) Sex," and Patrick D. Hopkins, "Gender Treachery: Homophobia, Masculinity, and Threatened Identities," in
Free Spirits: Feminist Philosophers on Culture
, ed. Kate Mehuron and Gary Percesepe (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1995), 41032, 51820.
2. For some of the ways that patriarchal institutions encourage battered women to stay in abusive relationships, see Ola W. Barnett and Alyce D. LaViolette,
It Could Happen to Anyone: Why Battered Women Stay
(Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1993), chap. 2; also see chapter 5 in this book. For a variety of feminist arguments against the more radical forms of sexual expression advocated by the authors in note 1, see Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice G. Raymond, eds.,
The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism
(New York: Teachers College Press, 1990); Robin Ruth Linden, Darlene R. Pagano, Diana E. H. Russell, and Susan Leigh Star, eds.,
Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis
(San Francisco: Frog in the Well, 1982); Catharine A. MacKinnon,
Feminism Unmodified:
 
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Discourses on Life and Law
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987); Laura Lederer, ed.,
Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography
(New York: William Morrow, 1980); Diana E. H. Russell, ed.,
Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography
(Buckingham, U.K.: Open University Press, 1993); Andrea Dworkin,
Pornography: Men Possessing Women
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1989); chapters 2, 3, and 4 in this book.
3. See Camille Paglia,
Sex, Art, and American Culture
(New York: Vintage Books, 1992) and
Vamps and Tramps: New Essays
(New York: Vintage Books, 1994); Christina Hoff Sommers,
Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994); Katie Roiphe,
The Morning After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism on Campus
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1993); Rene Denfeld,
The New Victorians: A Young Woman's Challenge to the Old Feminist Order
(New York: Warner Books, 1995); also see chapter 5 in this book.
4. See Janet Radcliffe Richards,
The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry
(Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), chap. 7; Christina Sommers, "Philosophers against the Family," in
Person to Person
, ed. George Graham and Hugh LaFollette (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), 82105.
5. Linda LeMoncheck, "Feminist Politics and Feminist Ethics: Treating Women as Sex Objects,"
Philosophical Perspectives on Sex and Love
, ed. Robert M. Stewart (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 3132.
Chapter 1
1. See Rosemarie Tong,
Feminist Thought
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1989); Alison M. Jaggar,
Feminist Politics and Human Nature
(Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Allanheld, 1983); Nancy Tuana,
Woman and the History of Philosophy
(New York: Paragon House, 1992); Susan Moller Okin,
Women in Western Political Thought
(Prinecton: Prinecton University Press, 1979); Diana Coole,
Women in Political Theory: From Ancient Misogyny to Contemporary Feminism
(Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1988); Linda A. Bell,
Visions of Women
(Clifton, N.J.: Humana, 1983); Genevieve Lloyd,
The Man of Reason: "Male" and "Female" in Western Philosophy
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986); Lorenne M. G. Clark and Lynda Lange, eds.,
The Sexism of Social and Political Theory
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979); Mary Lyndon Shanley and Carole Pateman, eds.,
Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991); Ann Garry and Marilyn Pearsall, eds.,
Women, Knowledge, and Reality
(Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989). On the dangers of describing traditional philosophy as "male" or ''masculine," see Jean Grimshaw,
Philosophy and Feminist Thinking
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986).
2. See María C. Lugones and Elizabeth V. Spelman, "Have We Got a Theory for You!: Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for "The Woman's Voice,'" in
Women and Values
, ed. Marilyn Pearsall (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1986),1931; Charlotte Bunch, "A Global Perspective on Feminist Ethics and Diversity," in
Explorations in Feminist Ethics
, ed. Eve Browning Cole and Susan Coultrap-McQuin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 17685; María C. Lugones, "On the Logic of Pluralist Feminism," in
Feminist Ethics
, ed. Claudia Card (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 3544; Elizabeth V. Spelman,
Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1988), chaps. 5, 6, and 7; Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzalda, eds.,
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color
(Watertown, Mass.: Persephone Press, 1981); bell hooks,
Feminist Theory from Margin to Center
(Boston: South End Press, 1984); Barbara Smith, ed.,
Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology
(New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983); Patricia Hill Collins,
Black Feminist Thought
(New York: Unwin Hyman, 1990).
3. See Alan Soble, ed.,
The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, 2d ed. (Savage,

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