Belated and Informal Panel Report: Transfeminism and Why Men Hate Sex

[pantryslut]

"Transfeminism" was the second of two panels I attended at WisCon. You have probably figured out by now that I am not big on chronological continuity. I'm starting with this one because, frankly, it's easier to discuss.

This panel was more well-attended than I expected, and also more friendly. Maybe everyone with an anti-trans axe to grind just stayed away, but overall, the panel's audience definitely helped enhance my sense that WisCon is unusually tranny-friendly, if sometimes well-meaning and clueless. Well-meaning and clueless is fine! Even if it does mean that just about every trans-related panel never gets much past the Tranny 101 phase.

Anyway, I liked it, I didn't feel bored or like we were retreading old ground -- maybe approaching the same ground from a different angle?

The other panel that I attended as an audience member was "Why Men Hate Sex." It's a great and provocative title, and attracted a large crowd. There was only one problem...

Joseph Weinberg is writing a book, and was responsible for coming up with this panel idea. I met him last year because we were piled, higgledty-pigglety, into the same reading slot together. Oh yeah, zombie girls and teaching boys sexual ethics, two great tastes. Anyway. He struck me then as earnest but a little clueless. I thought he would be OK in a panel format if someone else were the moderator. And that's what my program book said, so I went to this panel with a light heart.

Mr. Weinberg had managed to negotiate himself back into the moderator position. He spent the first 20 minutes of the panel talking, talking, talking.

Mr. Weinberg is not a bad public speaker. He has a way with humor and with the anecdotal. But this was not a solo presentation. This was a panel. He was not sharing. Bad Mr. Weinberg, bad. Stop grinding your axe and setting the agenda, and let some other folks talk.

He did, eventually. Not before telling an anecdote in the middle of his spiel about talking to a boy, about 11, about a porn movie he'd seen with a woman getting fucked with the blunt end of a pool cue. "Did she enjoy that?" the kid purportedly asked. After much hemming and hawing about how he wouldn't ever dare to speak for women's sexuality...

This is the point where I almost yelled out, "Yes! She did!" but I won't speak for the actress's particular experience either. But, dude, you just named one of my Top Ten fantasies (at least when I was in my 20's. Mine usually involved a gaggle of tough bulldykes as well. But I digress.)(Also, I was somewhat embarrassed to realize I could probably guess the film -- want to bet it was Insatiable with Marilyn Chambers and John Holmes? In which case, again, I bet she did enjoy it).

Thank many deities, then, for the existence of Ian Hagemann, who, when it was his turn to speak (finally!), held up his hand and said, "this is bigger than a pool cue, yet I've had it inside many women, and they've each assured me that they very much enjoyed it."

I think this panel was still a mixed success. The audience was clearly ready for some sort of discussion of the topic. At least two women asked the same question: how to I get my sensitive new-age feminist guy to be more assertive in bed? And I giggled at the equation of SNAGs and feminist men, because I really don't seem to have that problem, myself. I recommend dating kinky and/or queer men as an alternative solution. ;)

I wish I had more time and brain cells to disentangle the mess of stuff this panel brought up and maybe write up a few programming suggestions for next year. Because obviously, there's a group of WisCon people really interested in talking about this stuff -- but I don't want to talk about it in Mr. Weinberg's terms.

Next: panels I was actually on!

Comments

[redbird]

Do let Jane and Betsy know that Joseph Weinberg should not be allowed to moderate panels, because he doesn't recognize that "moderate" doesn't mean "monopolize."

And what on Earth is the point of that anecdote--"did she enjoy it?" strikes me as an entirely reasonable question, given what I've seen of the context here. And reasonable answers, in my opinion, would have included "she seemed to be/not to be" and "there's no way to be sure, she was acting" or "she looked like she did, but it was a movie role, she might have been thinking about what color to repaint the kitchen."

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

As "Why Men Hate Sex" happened to be just before the Programming Lunch of Doom, you can be assured that Betsy and Jane are aware of the issues.

The point of the anecdote was probably "look how porn corrupts boys' notions of loving mutual consensual etc. sexuality."

[lcohen]

i believe that there was two part harmony and pictures with arrows and descriptions on the back of mr. weinberg's lack of talents as a moderator.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I should also note that since, according to the anecdote, Mr. Weinberg did not see the porn movie in question, the *only* reasonable answer as far as I'm concerned is some variation upon "I don't know, I don't have enough data." But his answer was "probably not."

[manomano.livejournal.com]

I know Mr. Weinberg from my days in the rape crisis movement. He was somewhat controversial. Some people LOVED him, I think in part because he's somewhat charismatic, and in part because he actually talked to men about sex, which no one was really doing from a dare I say it feminist perspective (OK, I've been in the can-men-be-feminists debate, if you want to, pretend I wrote pro-feminist).

On the other hand some people hated him because he takes up so much space. Particularly at feminist conferences, men weren't supposed to do that. Also, he used porn in his work, which was REALLY taboo at the time.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Take up space he certainly does. Though I'm sure he would have been OK with the other two panelists talking for 20 minutes themselves. What that would have left, panel-wise, is another issue, I guess.

[nnaloh.livejournal.com]

Yay, Ian H.!

[elisem.livejournal.com]

What nnaloh yayed, that also do I yay.

[charliegrrrl.livejournal.com]

Wow I didn't realize there was a Transfeminism panel... that's pretty cool.

[tgeller.livejournal.com]

I wish I had seen it, but I would have probably been grinding my teeth at Mr. Weinberg. I've been traumatized by SNAGs who are really just trying to find a feminist angle that'll get them more pussy, or feed into their cycle of lowered self-esteem, or work some other ulterior motive.

As a former SNAG (and current sonuvabitch), this strums a nerve hard.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

...and adding this to whileaway's memories as well, if you don't mind.