Sex and Power

And grace at the heart of it

He was given a gift that night of a strong soul’s lovemaking, without eluding, fierce as wind, with grace yet at the heart of it and needs of her own, offered honestly and without holding back.

— Guy Gavriel Kay, A Song for Arbonne

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Once upon a time, I was a famous feminist sex writer. (I wrote under a pseudonym, Clarisse Thorn.) The culture around me is different now.

For several years I’ve been thinking about this post, this one you’re reading. There are so many things I could say about what is happening to my country, to my culture. There are so many things I could say.

A German review of one of my books once said: The American writer Clarisse Thorn exemplifies the country’s contradictions.

When I got involved in the far right, some people expected me to disclaim the things I did before. There was a path that opened up, and if I had walked that path, I could have become The Woman Who Regrets Her Past. A Soiled Dove, perchance, even a Wounded Bird. This might have been lucrative, in various ways.

Except.

Except that I don’t regret having a lot of consensual sex.

I feel the need to make a clear statement about this, so here you go:

I did not get involved in the right wing — the so-called conservative movement — because I regretted having a lot of sex, nor do I regret the previous activism I did. I ended up there for many reasons. One reason was that I wanted to preserve — to conserve — the world that made it possible for me to be that free-spirited woman.

At this point, it is unclear to me how many “conservatives” actually want to conserve anything. Nonetheless, conservation of the USA would, in my opinion, be a worthy goal.

Something I love about the country of my birth, a country founded by my ancestors, is that a woman may dream of something resembling equality. Could there be a version of American patriotism where we take pride in the strength of our women?

How many countries like this have ever — ever — existed in this world?

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I think everyone must know, on some level, that connection can be ineffable. That sex, for all its trauma and tragedy, can be a shockingly powerful way to connect. That those of us who experiment with sexuality are like alchemists in potentially explosive labs. That our hope is the age-old alchemist’s hope: A fairytale transformation.

The alchemist with an alembic transforms lead into gold. The mythic maiden spins straw into gold, using only her hands. Does it make sense to treat this precious process as a scarce thing? Or, perhaps, can practice make perfect? Are there, in fact, invisible elements that somehow save the whole endeavor from being the sick, dirty, awful trauma that in too many cases it becomes?

I think everyone must know that sex can be precious. But then, how can there be such manipulation and cruelty, so often, in sexuality? Why so many inner demons expressed in sex? What are we to make of that?

In using years of my youth to explore my sexuality, was I living a lie — in league with the Devil — as some conservatives suggest? There is also a feminist critique — did I inappropriately imitate a sense of delusional freedom, imagined by delusional men? Did I doom myself to retrace old traumas by having a lot of sex? Or was there more to what I did? Did I, in fact, do something positive and powerful with the fantastic freedom I was born into?

Were my actions good or bad — was I ruined or was I exalted by my body, by my desires, by the social class and societal age in which I chose to explore sexuality?

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Here’s another quote, this one anonymous, from someone who used to comment on my blog: I’d like to thank all the brave pioneers of the BDSM community, for exploring the reaches of human sexuality, and coming back with maps.

That was one of several quotes I used to preface my essay collection when I published it. Also this one, by the pioneering sex writer Pat Califia: People’s ability to understand their own emotional and physical experiences and sensations is limited by what is safe to ask or know, what systems of interpretation they have received for screening that raw material, and whether they find it possible to connect with anyone who thinks differently about these matters.

And, of course, the quotes from artists… Jenny Holzer: Abuse of power comes as no surprise.

Marina Abramović: If you're afraid of pain, you have to find out what pain is.

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There are so many things I could say.

For example, if I aimed be precise and rational about all this, I might speak of definitions. Today, sometimes people say I was a “social justice warrior” during the years I was a famous sex-positive feminist. However, this makes no sense because that phrase didn’t exist; SJW has connotations that came later, and those connotations don’t apply to me. The word “woke” wasn’t in widespread use back then, either. I’ve never once applied that word to myself.

As such: These descriptions can be made to look true with a carefully chosen collection of facts, but they aren’t true to me.

Another word people sometimes use to describe me — an even more false description — is “dominatrix.” This rumor became so widespread that in 2022, Vanity Fair almost labeled me a dominatrix when they wrote about me as part of the “New Right.” (Their fact-checker caught the error before publication.) The reason this is false is that the word “dominatrix” describes a BDSM sex worker who takes the dominant role; this word does not describe what I did; what I did was engage in BDSM, according to my own desires, usually in a submissive role, without being paid. Sometimes I wrote about BDSM or taught about it, and occasionally I was paid for writing or teaching, but I don’t think these activities fit most people’s definition of “sex worker.”

I gather that people found it fun to describe me using these words because, at the time of the Vanity Fair article, I was engaged to marry a famous far-right writer, though we did not get married in the end. We were in another mutable movement, one hard to describe in words, the so-called “New Right” or “dissident right” or neoreactionary “NRx” movement. At the time, people enjoyed the idea that he was choosing to marry a dominatrix. There were a lot of jokes on Twitter. Some of the jokes were funny, like the one about how I might lock him in a backyard shed. (At the time, my housemates suggested we make a sign for my bedroom door, based on one of these tweets, printed with the words “BDSM Cuck Shed.”) Sadly, although the jokes were funny, my ex was not planning to marry a dominatrix, because I wasn’t one. Additionally, it’s worth noting that BDSM was not part of our relationship. But I did something sexual with him that I’ve not yet done with anyone else, which was to conceive a child. And, with zero BDSM, he managed to hurt me quite badly.

Is it shocking to write these words in this way? Some people have been shocked by my past writing; to others it is helpful, or simply normal; so it’s hard to predict. Even if I assume people will be shocked, it is hard to predict which parts will shock whom. Besides, if it’s shocking for me to say these things, then it seems weird that other people are openly willing to discuss me in this way, what with all the jokes on Twitter, right?

At any rate, it seems worth pointing out that in some countries, I wouldn’t be allowed to do these things at all, or only in a much different way from how I did them here. This includes the part where I am allowed to be a single mother, now, unowned by a man. To be clear, becoming a single mother was not my goal when I met my ex-fiancé. In many ways, it is extremely difficult. But many alternatives are clearly worse.

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Oh, there are so many things I could say.

I want to express such hope and such heartbreak.

Here’s a question that breaks my heart to ask: What does society gain when women have sexual freedom?

This question lies simmering beneath many conversations, from flirtation to political machination. What does it mean that some societies — including ones that exist today, like the Taliban — confine women at home? I heard recently that the Taliban does not allow women to sing without permission. Nor may women under their sway speak to anyone without a man’s permission, nor be seen by any stranger, not only on the streets but even through the windows of their homes. Also, of course, no smartphones for women, not without the permission of a man, and if a woman is allowed a smartphone, then spyware is often installed to track her activities. And naturally, women are not supposed to drive.

Some of my countrymen comment on social media about how awesome this is. Why? What is gained?

Please understand: I ask these questions to frame a conversation, but I do not ask them rhetorically. I ask that you consider, reconsider, these questions in a serious way.

Why would some societies kill women and call it “honorable,” for the crime of having sex? Why would some societies describe a raped woman as “ruined”? Why would some societies choose to circumcise women so that taking pleasure from sex becomes impossible for those women, or nearly so? Why do this? What is gained?

Let us be blunt. Let us imagine, my friend, that we are men of action, and lies do not become us. Set aside, for the moment, the fact that I, writing these words, am a woman. In return, I’ll try to set aside my anguish and despair, I’ll try not to make it distractingly obvious how much it hurts me, that these questions seem necessary to discuss. After all, it is worth being clear-headed about such a large and important question. When women can be beaten and subdued into bearing children and other labors whether we like it or not, then why bother getting our consent to any of it? Why bother letting us explore our preferences about it?

Tell me: What are women for?

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Guy Gavriel Kay is a male author. He wrote these words, describing a man receiving a gift, one night, from a woman in a society that chooses to exalt women’s sexuality: A strong soul’s lovemaking, fierce as wind, and honest.

In answer to the question I asked a few paragraphs ago — what is gained? — this is the claim I’ve heard from many conservatives: That society is better off, more stable, when women are effectively corralled.

Well. Is it? When I advocate for my sexual freedom, do I advocate for the downfall of my country? Can that possibly be true?

With grace, yet, at the heart.

I had to consider this question and I had to consider it honestly, because I care about the truth. But in all my thinking about it, what I come back to is this question instead: What if we imagine an American patriotism where we take pride in the strength of our women? Can we simply be proud that our women are free?

There’s a bon mot that everything is about sex except sex, which is about power. It’s a funny quote. Also, in my most humble opinion, power is about sex.

Yet there is grace, always, at the heart.

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