loving and may involve graphic displays of nudity, bondage and discipline, group sex, sex with objects, or some other "perverse" sex. Feminists who advocate women's experimentation with such practices believe that a heterosexual and male-dominated society has a vested interest in confining women to sexual attitudes and practices that maintain the status quo of female heterosexual subordination. Therefore, one way to undermine such oppressive politics is to subvert precisely those sexual practices that reinforce male-identified sexual norms. Indeed, many feminists who adopt this perspective believe that the oppression of sexual diversity, not the oppression of women per se, should be feminism's primary enemy since both men's and women's challenges to the sexual status quo help subvert the sexual dominance of women circumscribed by heterosexual monogamy.
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However, other feminists are equally convinced that the appropriate expression of women's sexual liberation is the participation in caring and committed lesbian or heterosexual relationships in which the sexual politics of dominance and submission is self-consciously avoided. Feminists who would advocate more intimate and egalitarian relationships either with other women or with men are at odds with their more sexually radical sisters since they regard the practices of sex radicals as precisely the behavior most identified with men's sexual objectification and exploitation of women. From this view, promiscuity, sadomasochism, and commercial sex work are pervasively patriarchal forms of sexuality specifically designed to subordinate women to men, and feminists therefore cannot adopt them without also adopting the sexual politics of dominance and submission that accompanies them. Indeed, some feminists point out that the public display of radical feminist sexuality invites the sexual harassment, rape, and abuse of women by men who use women's consent to such displays as justifications for men's assaultive behavior. It is argued that male-dominated societies establish and perpetuate themselves by legitimizing the sexual intimidation of women in order to keep women in a state of dependency, wariness, and fear. Many feminists note that women will hesitate to take advantage of economic and social opportunities if men's sexual harassment of women is perceived as the cost of doing business. Women are also intimidated into remaining in physically abusive relationships upon which they are emotionally or financially dependent.
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Many women who consider themselves political liberals, if not sexual liberals, counter that feminism's emphasis on men's sexual intimidation of women reflects an antimale and antisex bias that equates all heterosexual sex with violence against women. They argue that although some men are abusive, the notion that men as a group conspire in smoke-filled rooms to oppress all women through sex promotes a form of sexism against men that should be anathema to any feminist pursuing sex equality. Some women regard feminist sexual harassment policies, rape brochures, and sexual abuse therapy as discouraging women from free, open, and responsible expression of their sexuality, bombarding women with an onslaught of oppressive propaganda that only undermines women's successful pursuit of sexual liberation. These women acknowledge the disturbingly high incidence of men's sexual violence against women, including men's sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse of women. Nevertheless, they enjoy heterosexual sex and see themselves as the subjects of moralizing lectures by feminists interested in forcing all of the power dynamicsand so all of the realism, risk, and exhilarationout of sex.
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