Michigan Feminist Studies 1

Jenna Basiliere

Political is Personal:
Scholarly Manifestations of the Feminist
Sex Wars

Introduction
Feminist theorists have often reacted publicly to existing discussions
of female sexuality. In response to the dominant paradigms that cast
women as neurotic because of their sexual organs and hormones, and ad-
vocated for male dominance of female sexuality, feminist theorists of the
1970s began to radically challenge the notion that biology rendered men
superior both culturally and sexually. This challenge to male authority,
and the subsequent conversations it sparked within the feminist communi-
ty, ultimately unearthed a point of contention among feminists discussing
sexuality. Feminist discussions of sex work, s/m1, and women-centered
sexualities uncovered a rift between feminists who believed firmly that
women could claim sexual pleasure and agency within a patriarchal society,
and women who believed that embracing radical sexualities constituted
violence against women and submission to patriarchal ideals.
This conflict rose to the surface of feminist discussions partially as a
result of a conference held at Barnard College in 1982, The Scholar and
the Feminist IX.2 As a result of the conversations that happened at this
conference, a clash surfaced between women who embraced the pleasure
of sexuality, and women who focused on the dangers inherent in sexual
exploration. Women who embraced pleasure often acknowledged the

1
S/m is used here as shorthand for a group of practices often referred
to as BDSM: bondage, domination(discipline), sadism, and masochism.
2
Referred to elsewhere in this article simply as “the Barnard conference.”
2 Political is Personal

dangers inherent in female sexuality, but chose to focus their analysis on

the positive aspects of sexual interaction. On the other hand, women who
centered their discussions of sexuality on danger acknowledged the pos-
sibility for pleasure in sexual acts, but believed that the inherent dangers
(rape, sexual assault, domestic violence) overshadowed any pleasure that
could be gained. While there were certainly feminist thinkers who fell
somewhere in the middle, the broader feminist discussion became orga-
nized around this dichotomy.
Recognizing the Barnard conference as the center of these feminist
debates around sexuality, and considering the fruitful contradictions that
have come from this moment in feminism, this article is an analysis of
the feminist sexuality debates as they played out in the academic press.
The feminist academic press is an ideal archive for understanding the
ways that the personal and the political became conflated within feminist
discussions of sexuality. As this article demonstrates, the personal and
the political are mutually reinforcing, a phenomenon which is most clearly
seen in the ways this debate played out in scholarly publications. In this
space, theory, politics, and practice wove together to present a highly
complex picture of the feminist sexuality debates in the moment during
which they became most public.
I will begin with a brief overview of the events leading up to and
immediately surrounding The Scholar and the Feminist IX, as I believe
that this chronology is important to understanding the subsequent back-
lash among feminist thinkers. Then, I will conduct a close reading of one
of the scholarly journals most important to charting the progression of
feminist thinking: Feminist Studies.3 Within this publication, I will pay
specific attention to published articles that contributed directly to the sex-
uality debates, as well as conversations occurring within published letters
addressed to the editor of the journal. The scale of analysis shifts from

3
Initially, I reviewed the published content of three prominent feminist journals (Feminist
Review, Feminist Studies, and Signs) between the years 1979 and 1983. I ultimately chose
to focus my analysis specifically on the content of Feminist Studies because it presented
the most coherent narrative of the shape this debate within feminism took within the early
1980s.
 Michigan Feminist Studies 3

the macro to the micro in order to illustrate the clear mapping between
conversations happening more publicly, and conversations happening
within the scholarly press. Through this juxtaposition, it becomes clear
that the attempts to navigate binaries happened in parallel ways on both
large and small scales. Ultimately, I conclude that the boundary between
pleasure and danger mirrors a number of other binary tensions within
feminist theory, a fact which must be central to future attempts to under-
stand this moment in feminist history.

The Scholar and the Feminist IX in Theory and Practice

In the early 1980s, the members of the feminist community concerned
with issues of sexual identity were engaged in a series of heated debates
over the role of sexuality and sexual expression within feminist conscious-
ness. These discussions rose to the center of feminist dialogues partly
as a result of The Scholar and the Feminist IX. In order to gain a more
complete understanding of the theoretical implications of the Barnard
conference, and the role the conference played in catalyzing a broader
feminist debate, it is first necessary to investigate the progression of
events leading up to the conference. Considering this sequence of events
provides an excellent framework for understanding how issues of identity
politics and tensions between the personal and political affected feminist
discussions of sexuality on a broader scale.
In September of 1981, Carol Vance, a feminist sociologist, sent out
a letter to a number of her colleagues, inviting them to participate in the
planning process for the annual Barnard conference. Vance’s letter in-
formed potential committee members that, “[o]ur purpose in this first and
subsequential meetings is to explore ‘sexuality’ as this year’s theme, and,
through discussion, to identify the most pressing concerns for feminism
[…] we hope to put together a conference which will inform and advance
the current debate” (Vance 1982: 1). From this call, it is clear that Vance
was interested in engaging with the ideas forwarded by contemporary
feminist thinkers, and her subsequent letter articulated more clearly an
interest in acknowledging the work of diverse feminist thinkers. This
letter provided a number of questions to frame the opening discussion:
4 Political is Personal

• How do women get sexual pleasure in patriarchy?

• How do women of various ethnic, racial, and class groups
strategize for pleasure?
• What are the points of similarity and difference between feminist
analyses of pornography, incest, and male and female sexual
‘nature’ and those of the right wing?
• Dare we persist in questioning traditional sexuality and sexual
arrangements in the current political climate?4
• What is the nature of the current conflict between the ‘social
purity’ and ‘libertarian’5 factions in the feminist community?
• What can be learned from similar debates during the first wave
of feminism in the 19th century? (Vance 1982)

As these original exploratory questions demonstrate, Vance (and even-

tually the entire conference planning committee) were concerned with
advancing new scholarship surrounding sexuality and sexual agency—not
simply reproducing the adversarial dialogue between the radical and sex-
radical feminists. According to Vance,
[t]here is a vacuum about sexuality evident in feminists’
theory and our lives. The feminist movement is in a
political crisis, in part concerning sexuality. The Right
has proposed a comprehensive theory of sexuality and
the feminist response has been lacking (Vance 1982: 13).
This illuminates one of the key conflicts between radical and sex-
radical feminists: the latter were highly concerned that the former’s

4
The political climate of the early 1980s included Ronald Reagan’s presidency, vicious
attacks on abortion and reproductive rights, a backlash against feminist activism, and
increased economic instability. For an excellent discussion of these social circumstances,
see Eisenstein (1981)
5 In this context, Vance is using ‘social purity’ and ‘libertarian’ to refer to the same groups
of women that I will differentiate as ‘radical feminists’ and ‘sex-radical feminists.’ While
this distinction is not perfect, as many of the women I label ‘sex radical feminists’ would
also identify themselves with radical feminism as a whole, I have chosen to use this lan-
guage because I find it slightly less weighted than Vance’s original distinction.
 Michigan Feminist Studies 5

understanding of sexuality, particularly as it related to non-traditional sex

practices, looked too much like the ‘Religious Right’s.’ Feminists in this
moment struggled to navigate the question of how a feminist critique (of
pornography or BDSM for example) would differ from a conservative
Christian critique. An analysis of danger within sexuality lends itself to a
discussion of issues that more conservative groups were also interested in.
This led to a divide in the feminist community that became as much about
how one understands patriarchal control (whether it be through actual
sexual domination, or a dominance over the discourse of sex), as it was
about the binary between pleasure and danger.
These exploratory questions also call to mind another binary that
appeared within the feminist community: the split between a feminist
politics of consensus and a feminist politics invested in debate. Feminism
in the 1970s was largely (though not exclusively) invested in a politics of
sisterhood and consensus, as exemplified through the process of con-
sciousness-raising:
The primary purpose of awareness groups is to enhance
consciousness about the components of feminine iden-
tity: body image, roles, feelings, choices, and sexual-
ity as defined by a sexist society, by feminists, and by
the individual woman. The most important element
of consciousness-raising is that ideas and feelings are
shared with other women who have contracted to cre-
ate an atmosphere of respect, support, and acceptance
(Randolph and Ross-Valliere 1979: 922).
In many ways, the model of sisterhood underlying this principle of
consciousness-raising was threatened by the type of questioning that
surrounded the Barnard conference. This is not to say that sex-radical
feminists were not interested in a politics of sisterhood, in fact, quite the
opposite is true. However, at this moment in feminist history, it became
increasingly difficult to employ a shared embodied experience as women
to unify the feminist movement. On the contrary, sex-radical feminists
involved in conversations around sexuality were challenging the notion
that a shared female identity led to a shared experience with sexuality.
6 Political is Personal

While it is clear from Vance’s original questioning that this challenge was
based on the assumption that debate and discussion would be healthy for
the feminist movement, the subsequent reaction to this questioning, which
I discuss in greater detail below, suggests that feelings of betrayal or anger
provoked some of the radical feminist response.
As the planning process of the Barnard conference progressed, its
scope expanded to include a wider exploration of lesbian sexualities,
s/m sexualities, and the debate surrounding pornography. Planners also
introduced the topic of psychoanalysis’ role within feminist discussions
of sexuality, as well as childhood experiences with sexual subjectivity.6
After three months of weekly discussions, the committee released the
concept paper and call for submissions:
The ninth The Scholar and the Feminist conference will
address women’s sexual pleasure, choice, and autonomy,
acknowledging that sexuality is simultaneously a do-
main of restriction, repression, and danger as well as a
domain of exploration, pleasure, and agency. This dual
focus is important, we think, for to speak only of plea-
sure and gratification ignores the patriarchal structure
in which women act, yet to talk only of sexual violence
and oppression ignores women’s experience with sexual
agency and choice and unwittingly increases the sexual
terror and despair in which women live (Vance 1982: 38).
The concept paper remained faithful to Vance’s original framework,
yet also represented the contributions of other members of the planning
committee. It most notably differed from Vance’s original letter in that it
more fully articulated the dichotomy between pleasure and danger—an
articulation that would eventually become thematically central not only
to the Barnard conference but to the dialogue within the feminist com-
munity as a whole. At the core of the divergence between radical and
sex-radical feminists was the question of whether the tensions between
pleasure and danger could lead to liberating sexual practices for women
6
For a complete compilation of minutes from the planning committee see Vance 1982
 Michigan Feminist Studies 7

living in a patriarchal society. However, despite the complicated nature

of this question, and the possibility for sweeping disagreement from both
within and outside the feminist community, this opening paragraph (like
Vance’s original letter) reflected a willingness to engage with both sides
of the sexuality debates, not simply the perspectives of feminists who saw
libratory potential in sexual acts.
True to the original call, the papers and workshops presented at the
conference ended up being extremely diverse. Topics included: historical
understandings of sexuality within the feminist community, the sexual
socialization of children, popular culture perceptions of female sexuality
and body image, sexual vocabulary, eroticism and taboo, butch/femme
sexualities within the lesbian community, the role of the legal system in
protecting and regulating sexualities, and erotic representations in art.7
Presenters at the conference came from American Studies, Anthropol-
ogy, Psychology, and English, Women’s Studies, Social Work, History,
and Photography departments; there were also a number of independent
scholars and grassroots activists. In fact, the body of work debuted at the
Barnard conference was so diverse that there is simply no way to uni-
formly categorize the submissions in any manner other than as a selection
of responses to the question of the role of women’s sexual experiences and
agency under patriarchy.
As Carol Vance noted in the introduction to Pleasure and Danger:
“[t]he conference attempted to explore the ambiguous and complex
relationship between sexual pleasure and danger in women’s lives and in
feminist theory. The intent of conference planners was not to weaken the
critique of danger. Rather, we wished to expand the analysis of pleasure
[…]” (Vance 1984a: 13). Ultimately, the goal of the Barnard conference
was to increase dialogue around issues of sexuality that had previously
been silenced within the feminist community. Given this attempt for
inclusiveness within the conference framework, it is difficult to under-
stand the political backlash that began as soon as the concept paper was
released. The actual content of the conference became confused within
the larger debate around how to discuss sexuality within a feminist con-
7
For a complete list of papers and workshops presented at the conference see Vance 1984
8 Political is Personal

text, thereby conflating the discussion regarding the intersections between

pleasure, danger, and sexuality with concerns regarding the relationships
between pleasure, danger, and specific sex acts. In particular, feminists
opposed to modes of sexual expression such as s/m, pornography, and
penetrative sex believed that the women participating in the Barnard
conference were endorsing sexual practices that allowed continued patri-
archal domination over female sexuality. The different understandings
of danger’s location within sexuality prohibited radical and sex-radical
feminists from having a productive conversation.

Backlash
The day before the conference was scheduled to begin, Barnard
College officials—in response to phone calls from angry members of
anti-pornography groups—confiscated 1500 copies of Diary of a Con-
ference on Sexuality. The Diary, which was intended for distribution to
conference participants, was a unique compilation of steering commit-
tee minutes, personal narratives, information about conference events,
and work by feminist artists. It has been argued that “[t]he controversy
surrounding the Barnard conference represents in microcosm some of
the larger issues which the conference sought to address: the diversity of
women’s sexual experiences; […] the complex meaning of sexual im-
ages; the terror aroused by sexuality” (Vance 1984b: 341, see also Allison
1984). The conference brochures were eventually returned, but not until
after all references to Barnard College and the Barnard College Women’s
Center were removed from the publication.
The conference was protested in the weeks preceding and during
the actual event. Accusations about the specific sexual practices of
individual women involved in the conference were central to the outcry
around the event. Members of anti-pornography groups such as Women
Against Pornography (WAP) and Women Against Violence Against
Women (WAVAW) picketed outside the conference wearing t-shirts with
the words ‘For a Feminist Sexuality’ on the front and ‘Against S/M’ on
the back. This framing of a sex-radical perspective on sexuality pits an
acceptable version of feminist sexuality against sex practices which chal-
 Michigan Feminist Studies 9

lenge the narrative of patriarchal control over women’s bodies. For these
protesters, sex practices such as s/m represented a betrayal of the concept
of sisterhood so important to feminist debates in this moment. Because s/m
became such a flash-point for feminist debate and dissent, practitioners
within the feminist community were held up as visual markers that the
politics of feminist consensus and sisterhood was in a space of transition.
Furthermore, the protesters and their propaganda blurred the lines
between theory and praxis—feminists who defended the right of others
to speak freely were marginalized as practitioners of ‘deviant’ sexual acts.
As one account notes:
At the conference, a coalition leaflet was distributed
which singled out and misrepresented some individual
participants. They, and the groups to which they
belonged, were attacked by name as morally unac-
ceptable and beyond the feminist pale. The effect was
to stigmatize individuals identified with controversial
sexual views or practices, such as butch-femme roles,
sadomasochism, or criticism of the antipornography
movement. The leaflet contributed significantly to an
atmosphere in which the diversity of the conference and
the broad issues it raised were obscured (Abelove et al
1983: 179).
In examining this argument, it is easy to see how the interpretation of
the leaflets distributed could be swayed to fit the political views of those
responding to direct criticism. However, an examination of the text of one
of the leaflets in question clearly reinforces the account cited above:
[t]he Lesbian Sex Mafia, Samois’s New York City
counterpart, recently founded by workshop leader,
Dorothy Allison. This group is known for its aboveg-
round demonstrations of S & M paraphernalia and its
underground demonstrations of bondage, flagellation,
and ‘fist-fucking’ (Coalition for a Feminist Sexuality
[CFS] 1983: 181).
10 Political is Personal

Already, the conference’s critics have established a concern with the

personal sexual practices of the women participating. The leaflet further
goes on to claim: “[a]lso among the speakers and workshop leaders are
several women who champion butch-femme sex roles, while denying that
these roles have any relation to the male-female sex roles that are the psy-
chological foundation of patriarchy” (ibid: 181). The language used in this
leaflet, such as ‘tiny offshoot’ and ‘backlash’ indicates that the protesters
outside of the Barnard conference had no knowledge of the diversity of
views represented inside. The leaflet further diminished the views of the
women participating in the Barnard conference by asserting that:
We acknowledge that all people who have been social-
ized in patriarchal society—feminists and nonfeminists,
lesbians and heterosexuals—have internalized its sexual
patterns of dominance and submission. But No More
Nice Girls, Samois, The Lesbian Sex Mafia, and the
butch-femme proponents are not acknowledging having
internalized patriarchal messages and values. Instead,
they are denying that these values are patriarchal. And
even more dangerous, they are actively promoting these
values through their public advocacy of pornography,
sex roles, and sadomasochism and their insistence that
this kind of sexuality means liberation for women (ibid:
181-182).
Aside from the fact that this passage makes sweeping generalizations
about groups of women who don’t necessarily fit the model it lays out
(No More Nice Girls, for example, was a reproductive rights group), the
authors further diminished the opinions of the women participating in the
Barnard conference by claiming that their sexual identities are a result of
patriarchal conditioning, and not the result of an autonomous decision.
This strategy of minimizing and homogenizing the view points present
at the Barnard conference missed the intricacy of the identities of the
women involved.
The multiplicity of views becomes immediately apparent when one
inspects the makeup of the conference itself. For example, Carol Munter
 Michigan Feminist Studies 11

led a workshop session designed to address the hypocrisy of the feminist

movement for their willingness to advocate for fat-positive rhetoric while
(perhaps) unintentionally perpetuating cultural practices that marginalize
fat women. Participants in Munter’s workshop were led through a variety
of exploratory exercises designed to produce empathy for women margin-
alized because of their weight or other aspects of their physical appear-
ance. Roberta Galler discussed the fact that women with ability restric-
tions are often denied any sort of sexuality and the medical implications
that this reality can hold. These topics (along with many others) hardly
fit into the model of the conference projected by its opposition. Rather,
the understanding of the nuanced relationships between pleasure and
danger was more fully articulated than the critique that the conference’s
opposition presented.

Scholarly Manifestations of the Controversy

Having now reviewed some of the major controversy surrounding the
Barnard conference, I will spend the remainder of this article engaged in
a close reading of the feminist sexuality debates as they played out in the
pages of Feminist Studies. Focusing first on the content of published ar-
ticles, and then on the conversations happening in the “Notes and Letters”
section of the publication, I will examine the ways in which the conversa-
tions happening within the pages of Feminist Studies both addressed and
mirrored the controversy surrounding the Barnard conference. It is my
hope that in doing so, further light can be shed on the intricacies of this
moment of controversy within the feminist community.
In the introduction to the special edition issue “Towards a New
Feminism for the Eighties,” Judith Stacey (1979) noted that the editors
of Feminist Studies did not set out to do an issue looking forward to the
eighties, but the articles submitted for review seemed to naturally coalesce
into one. This prompted the question: “[w]hat has provoked such diverse
feminist thinkers simultaneously to reexamine the meaning of personal
politics and the lessons of both the disturbing and inspirational moments
in the history of feminism in its immediate and more distant past”
(Stacey 1979: v)? Stacey reflects on these questions, drawing attention
12 Political is Personal

to a number of issues that seem to have risen to the surface of feminist

consciousness at the turn of the decade. In particular, questions around
the politics of sexuality seemed to be of particular import: “the subject
of heterosexual feminism resurfaces, one of the major ‘closet’ issues of
our movement that was moth-balled prematurely by the well-intentioned
discretion of those who survived lesbian/straight discord” (ibid: iii). In
this introduction, Stacey highlighted one of the issues that Carol Vance
later fleshed out in her planning efforts around the Barnard conference—
clearly there was a split in the feminist community around how to discuss
issues of sexuality. For Stacey, this split seemed to fall along lesbian/het-
erosexual lines. Vance didn’t identify the tension as such, but the politics
of the Barnard conference lend credence to Stacey’s theory, an idea which
I will return to in greater detail later in this article.
Within this same issue of Feminist Studies, there are two articles that
deal explicitly with the politics of sexuality. The first, by Barbara Haber
(1979), addresses her concern that discussions of the family were being
taken away from feminists and co-opted by other groups. According to
Haber, heterosexual feminists must take responsibility for restoring this
debate within the feminist community. As a follow up to this claim, she
asserts:
But the feminist movement must take advantage of
the experience of both gay and straight women; and
to do so, we will have to come to terms with the long
and painful history of abrasions, splits, and avoidance
between the two groups. In the early seventies, lesbian
moralism, the dismissal (as opposed to the critique) of
heterosexuality cause heterosexual women to withdraw
from radical feminism and from dialogue with lesbians
(ibid: 421).
In Haber’s formulation, feminism’s reconnection with issues of family
must originate from heterosexual women, but must draw on the experiences
of all women. What we see in this call to action is an early example of
a practice that will become highly visible in the controversies surround-
ing the Barnard conference: the scapegoating of sexual minorities. To
 Michigan Feminist Studies 13

read Haber’s commentary, the fact that discussions of the family escaped
from feminist theory was not the fault of the feminists living in normative
families, but rather the fault of the feminists on the fringes, who made
heterosexual feminists feel uncomfortable with their choices. Haber con-
tinues with more critical language, “[w]e must, as a movement, speak to
the sufferings and fears of people in the sexual mainstream of American
life, as well as to people whose life choices have pulled them outside of
the mainstream” (ibid: 422). The tone of this claim is explicit. Accord-
ing to Haber, it is not enough to focus on the oppressions of those who are
most frequently targets of oppressive social forces; we must also consider
the needs and anxieties of those whose lives prescribe to social norms.
It was an unwillingness to address these experiences that got feminist
theory in its current position, and it’s only through a re-incorporation of
heterosexual feminist concerns that feminist theory can return itself to a
proper path.
In stark contrast to Haber’s work, Estelle Freedman’s (1979) “Sepa-
ratism as Strategy: Female Institution Building and American Feminism,
1870-1930” is an attempt to think through the continuing merits of early
separatist movements. According to Freedman, feminist scholarship in
the ten years preceding her article was largely concerned with two ques-
tions: the origins of women’s oppression and the most effective strategies
for combating patriarchal control. Separatism, according to Freedman,
provided one way to begin theorizing answers to both of those questions:
Lesbian feminism, by affirming the primacy of
women’s relationships with each other and by providing
an alternative feminist culture, forced many nonles-
bians to reevaluate their relationships with men, male
institutions, and male values. In the process, feminists
have put to rest the myth of female dependence on men
and rediscovered the significance of woman bonding.
[…] The historical sisterhood, it seems to me, can teach
us a great deal about putting women first, whether as
friends, lovers, or political allies (524-525).
14 Political is Personal

Freedman’s stance on lesbian separatism stands in stark contrast to Haber’s

reading of the relationship between heterosexual and lesbian feminists.
While Haber ostensibly blames lesbian feminists for alienating hetero-
sexual women, Freedman proposes that all women can learn from the
women-centered model practiced by lesbian separatists. This divergence
of viewpoints can be seen as representative of one of the larger tensions
surrounding feminist discussions of sexuality at this time, namely, that
the politics assigned to specific sexual identities are so highly subjective
that they find themselves open to multiple, even opposite interpretations.
It is this same duality that later prompted much of the anger directed at
the participants of the Barnard conference, the inability to understand the
variant interpretation of specific sexual acts. Further, it is this tension
that led some women to label sexual practices the result of patriarchal
control while other women labeled those same practices liberating.
This problematic propensity to overlook the multiple meanings that
can be assigned to the same sexual practice is further worked out in Jes-
sica Benjamin’s (1980) “The Bonds of Love: Rational Violence and Erotic
Domination.” Using The Story of O as a case study, Benjamin’s piece
thinks through the relationship between s/m sexuality, gender roles, and
power dynamics. Her aim “is to suggest an explanation for the assign-
ment and characterization of female and male roles in sadomasochistic
fantasy, based on the differences in which boys and girls differentiate”
(ibid: 146). Already, Benjamin’s work illustrates the duality of mean-
ing possible when dealing with sexual encounters—she is assuming that
dominant and submissive roles map clearly onto male and female gender
roles, an assertion that many practitioners of s/m sexuality would find
highly problematic.8 This mapping becomes even more apparent as Benja-
min fleshes out her analysis:
I want to argue that traditionally male rationality
and individuality are culturally hegemonic, while the
traditionally female unboundedness and submission are

8
For an overview of the feminist critique of this formulation, see Allison 1984.
 Michigan Feminist Studies 15

denied and repressed. However morally condemned by

society, domination, and even violence, do not evoke the
same fear and loathing as the spectacle of the victim.
Further, and crucially, male rationality and violence are
linked with institutions that appear to be sexless and
genderless, but which exhibit the same tendencies to
control and objectify the other out of existence that we
find in the erotic form of domination (167).
This marriage of violence, dominance, and rationality coupled with
the marriage of emptiness, irrationality, and victimhood is largely in line
with the feminist critiques that are later leveled against participants in
the Barnard conference. In particular, it mirrors very closely the Coali-
tion for a Feminist Sexuality’s assertion that members of the Lesbian Sex
Mafia “champion butch-femme sex roles, while denying that these roles
have any relation to the male-female sex roles that are the psychological
foundation of patriarchy” (ibid). This unwillingness to mark multiple
meanings, and the inclination to immediately associate sexual dominance
with masculinity and social dominance was prevalent in much of the
controversy surrounding the Barnard conference.

Notes & Letters

While published articles certainly provide a broad marker of where
feminist thinking on sexuality lies, the most telling moments in this
debate, at least as seen through Feminist Studies, are played out in the
“Notes and Letters” section of the journal. The first instance of tensions
around sexuality occurred in 1982, when the National Organization of
Women (NOW) released a resolution detailing their stance on lesbian
politics:
Whereas, NOW does not support the inclusion of ped-
erasty, pornography, sadomasochism and public sex as
Lesbian rights issues, since to do so would violate the
feminist principles upon which this organization was
founded; now therefore
16 Political is Personal

Be it resolved, That the National Organization for

Women adopt the preceding delineation of Lesbian
rights issues as the official position of NOW” (NOW
1982: 195).
After the NOW resolution was publicized, a number of feminist
groups spoke out publicly about its content. In particular, two groups of
women wrote letters to the editor decrying NOW’s stance on lesbian sexu-
ality. These two letters are notable not only for their willingness to speak
out publicly in defense of lesbian sexuality, but also for the marked differ-
ence in tone between the two. The first letter framed NOW’s resolution in
relation to feminist politics, arguing that it would be tactically inadvisable
for the feminist movement to engage in the kind of scapegoating that the
resolution seems to suggest: “[t]he resolution assumes that all feminists
share an identical view of what constitutes ‘correct’ sexual behavior. This
leads to a kind of ideological lockstep. It tells people how to think and
feel and negates fundamental autonomy. This pressure towards homoge-
nization within movements for social change should be forcefully and vig-
orously resisted” (Anderson et al 1982: 196). The second letter, instead of
framing the resolution in terms of feminist politics, spoke out against the
NOW resolution because of the discrimination it implicitly endorsed. In
light of the political pressure placed on female sexuality, this letter advo-
cated for a policy that didn’t participate in the same sort of regulation of
sexuality frequently practiced by conservative activists. However, at the
same time, this letter also included a caveat about pornography:
Though we agree that much pornography denigrates
and objectifies women, we reject the simplistic and
demagogic equation of pornography with violence, and
the confusion between fantasy and action that this equa-
tion implies. We also reject the implicit assumption
that there is some objective way to distinguish ‘porno-
graphic’ material from ‘legitimate’ depictions of sex.
(Baxandall et al 1982: 198)
 Michigan Feminist Studies 17

What these two letters illustrate is a continuing tension within the

feminist community around how to discuss issues of sexuality. Neither
letter came out and explicitly defended ‘perverted’ sexual practices.
Instead both letters framed their critique in terms of other issues more
relevant to the feminist community at large. Interestingly, the letter
which framed the NOW resolution in terms of discrimination, the letter
most likely to be read as endorsing specific sexual practices, included a
disclaimer about the possible dangers of pornography. This shows us that
there was a discomfort within the feminist community at large around the
issue of pornography as a form of sexual expression, which can in part
help explain the fallout that occurred as a result of the Barnard confer-
ence. In reading the controversy surrounding the Barnard conference in
light of the public reception of NOW’s resolution, it becomes clear that
the same social anxieties were being played out in both circumstances. In
particular, social anxieties around sexual expression and the public recep-
tion of said expression played an intimate role in shaping the subsequent
harsh reaction to the participants of the Barnard conference.
The backlash from the Barnard conference and the public outcry sur-
rounding it left a lasting impression on many of the women who partic-
ipated—as well as the feminist community as a whole. However, it is
important to note that participants in the Barnard conference did not take
their marginalization lightly. Many women resisted forcefully, and this
resistance played out, in part, as a dialogue constructed through letters
to the editor. Less than a year after the conference occurred, over three
hundred individuals who took part in the Barnard conference drafted an
open letter to the editors of Feminist Studies, which detailed the reactions
to the conference that they considered most unjust. In particular, these in-
dividuals spoke out against the ways in which anti-pornography feminists
misrepresented the political objectives of the conference, the fact that
Barnard College pulled all of the copies of the central conference text the
day before the conference, the leaflets distributed outside the conference
which singled out and misrepresented a number of the women present-
ing papers or workshops, the fact that the Helena Rubenstein foundation
pulled all of their funding from The Scholar and the Feminist series, and
18 Political is Personal

the impending threat that the women’s center at Barnard College would
have its intellectual autonomy restricted in the future (Abelove et al 1983).
By voicing these concerns in a public forum, the participants in the
Barnard conference demonstrated to the feminist community at large that
they were unwilling to back down, and submit to misrepresentation and
marginalization.
This move was prompted, in part, by the fact that many women
reported lasting feelings of alienation and marginalization within the
feminist community in the aftermath of the conference. Dorothy Allison
describes her experience as such:
There was, also, the too-present memory of the last time
I’d seen her, the way her eyes had registered, stared,
and then avoided mine. I’d recognized in her face the
same look I’d been seeing in other women’s faces for all
the months since the Barnard Conference on Sexual-
ity (which my friends and I refer to as the Barnard Sex
Scandal)—a look of fascination, contempt, and extreme
discomfort (Allison 1984: 101-102).
This conflation of the personal and the political, and the confusion
surrounding whether or not to assign meaning to specific sexual practices,
is largely symptomatic of feminist discussions during this period. Just as
Haber and Freedman struggled to assign unique meaning to lesbian sepa-
ratism, the participants in the sexuality debates surrounding the Barnard
conference struggled to decide whether the personal was political or the
political was personal, and what that decision meant for them.
In defense of the individuals who drafted the above letter to the edi-
tor, Feminist Studies reproduced the text of the leaflet next to the letter,
with the intent of highlighting exactly how unjustly these women were
represented. This decision, though obviously well-intentioned, was met
with a swift outcry from sex-radical feminists:
Publishing the leaflet has increased the scope of the
damage, now to national and international levels. […]
this is not an academic debate which has no repercus-
 Michigan Feminist Studies 19

sions in the real world. This is not a document from

an ancient feminist dispute, an interesting datum. It is
a lethal attack on particular women, who live, breathe,
work, and worry in our world (Vance 1983: 591).
Along with printing a formal apology for the leaflet’s inclusion, the
editors of Feminist Studies included fourteen pages of letters from the
individuals who were personally attacked in the leaflet, giving them the
opportunity to defend themselves against the charges. All of the included
letters echoed the same theme, that the leaflet included gross misrepre-
sentations of their sexual practices and affiliations with feminist politics.
Gayle Rubin summed up the sentiment among the collection of letters:
It is therefore with some degree of bemused astonish-
ment that I find myself portrayed as one of the Five
Horsewomen of the Patriarchal Backlash. At least the
company is good. I am proud to be associated with the
bunch of intelligent, honest, courageous, and radical
women who were attacked, by name or innuendo, in the
scurrilous WAP leaflet on the Barnard Sex Conference
(Rubin 1983:598).
Brett Harvey also addressed the question of the leaflet’s legitimacy,
“[s]preading misinformation has been a systematic, consistent tactic of
the anti-pornography movement in its ongoing attempt to discredit its po-
litical opponents” (Harvey 1983: 592). Overall, the tone of the letters sent
to the editor reflected an attitude of disgust and disbelief with the actions
of the Coalition for a Feminist Sexuality. Not only did the individuals
named in the leaflet believe that their politics and sexuality were misrep-
resented, but they also believed that the tactics used in disseminating the
information within the leaflet were highly reminiscent of McCarthy-era
homosexual baiting. The authors of the letters to the editor included in
this issue of Feminist Studies all felt very strongly that this sort of under-
handed political tactic was not appropriate within the feminist movement,
and would only lead to further alienation and isolation of potential political
allies.
20 Political is Personal

These same feelings of isolation or alienation were also felt by radical

feminists who opposed the sex-radical feminist position. The narratives
of radical feminist women describing their experiences with this controversy
focused widely on the question of who has the right to speak. Because the
sex-radical feminists positioned themselves as both oppressed and more
politically progressive than their counterparts, dissent was often met with
aloof indifference, or accusations of discrimination. Kirsten Anderberg
(2004) writes:
I quit my involvement with the ‘sex-positive’ commu-
nity because they were not open to discussion about
how what they were doing made women like me feel,
and because they attacked me when I tried to discuss it.
[…] There are no fat women in porn, except in fetish
capacities, and that degrades fat women to the status of
sideshow attractions (277).
This passage indicates quite clearly that it was not just sex-radical
feminists who were being marginalized, but rather that women on both
sides of the debate were thinking and speaking in ways that prevented
them from effectively communicating with each other. Adriene Sere
(2001) furthers the criticism, “[t]he problem is that [the sex-radical femi-
nist] arguments are put forth in an ongoing monologue that not only sup-
presses dissent, but contemptuously dismisses those who would object”
(270). Testimonials from both sides of this debate clearly illustrate that
the question of how to negotiate pleasure, danger, and sexuality within the
feminist community is not one that can be easily answered.
In light of these feelings of ill-will, the members of the Coalition for
a Feminist Sexuality sent a letter in response to the series of letters sent in
to Feminist Studies.9 Their letter mounted a number of defenses of their

9
A note about placement: it is the tradition in the “Notes and Letters” section of Feminist
Studies that letters to the editor are placed first, and then all remaining business and an-
nouncements follow. The only exception to this rule with the four year span I reviewed
is this letter to the editor from Leidholdt et al. The editors of Feminist Studies silently
endorsed the sex-radical feminist position by placing this letter at the end of the “Notes
and Letters” section.
 Michigan Feminist Studies 21

actions, including the fact that all of the individuals named in the leaflet
had spoken publicly or published on their sexual identities, an act which
brings them out of the private sphere and into the public eye. In closing,
the authors of the letter reinforced their right to speak out publicly against
the participants in the Barnard conference:
And we feel certain that the organizers [of the confer-
ence] could readily defend the sexuality of dominance
and submission only because they felt that they had
little in common with its most obvious victims—women
who are raped, battered, sexually abused in childhood,
sexually harassed at work, and coerced into pornogra-
phy and prostitution (Leidholdt et al 1984: 366).
What is most notable about this accusation is that several of the
participants of the Barnard conference have spoken very publicly about
their experiences with rape, domestic violence, prostitution, and incest.10
Clearly, the authors of the letter were at least loosely familiar with the
written work of the individuals they spotlighted—that was their defense
for using individual names in the first place. However, this familiarity
stopped abruptly when it came to experiences that could directly chal-
lenge the underpinnings of their argument.
As this collection of letters to the editor illustrates, the debates hap-
pening around female sexuality in this period of feminist history are
personal and painful, as well as public and political. I believe that this
tension between these binary categories of political activism further
increased the tensions between radical and sex-radical feminists, causing
the controversy to escalate to the level that it did. This series of letters
brings us back to the tension that Haber and Freedman were trying to
work through: what do we make of identity categories that can hold mul-
tiple meanings for multiple people?

10
For a representative example of this honesty, see Hollibaugh 2000.
22 Political is Personal

Conclusions: Pleasure is Personal, Danger is Political?

Despite the backlash that occurred after the conference, several major
theoretical breakthroughs were made in relation to the feminist under-
standing of sexuality. The notion that sexuality is an issue central to the
feminist dialogue and not simply a peripheral issue to be addressed when
all other crises are resolved was propelled to a much broader scale of
attention within feminist communities by the Barnard conference. The
debate surrounding pornography and s/m sexualities raging through the
feminist community was also pushed to the forefront as a result of the
scandal surrounding the conference. The troubling relationships between
pleasure, danger, eroticism, and agency were added into the already exist-
ing discussions around female sexuality.
Feminists involved in the scandal surrounding the Barnard conference
developed a more nuanced way of approaching the binary oppositions
that earlier second-wave feminists struggled with. For these women, the
binary between pleasure and danger became inextricably linked with the
binary between the personal and political. For feminists directly involved
with the Barnard conference, their relationship to pleasure was a highly
personal one, while feminists in opposition to the conference’s project saw
the need to address danger as a highly political reality.
The conference and its subsequent debates spurred extensive conversa-
tions about how and under what circumstances sexuality is an appropriate
tool for negotiating and challenging the structures of patriarchal control.
However, this debate failed to spur conversations around ways to chal-
lenge or dismantle the systems of patriarchal control that feminists were
trying to dismantle. Like feminist thinkers earlier in the second wave,
the participants in the Barnard conference were generally not interested
in challenging the culturally constructed nature of ‘man’ and ‘woman’
as static identity categories. While many women expressed concern over
specific gendered roles or expectations ascribed to men and women, no-
body challenged the basic premise of distinguishing individuals based on
the gender assigned to their biological sense. Rather, the site of struggle
became how to address the power imbalances inherent in the opposition
between men and women.
 Michigan Feminist Studies 23

Ultimately, this moment in feminist history is marked by binary

oppositions. Whether the tension is between pleasure and danger, men
and women, radical and sex-radical feminists, violence and victimhood,
consensus and debate, or dominance and submission; the feminists of this
historical moment were bound up in binary constructions of their daily
life and identity formation. While the attempts to negotiate the boundar-
ies caused a significant amount of strife among and between feminist
thinkers and activists, the work that these women did to flesh out the ten-
sions around social dichotomies has paved the way for the type of theoriz-
ing around sexuality that contemporary theorists are able to engage in.

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 Michigan Feminist Studies 25

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