When Culture, Power and Sex Collide

LINDA MARTíN ALCOFF - June 8, 2011, 9:15 pm - The New York Times

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The recent events swirling about the ex-next-president of France, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, have revived old tropes about how culture affects sex, including sexual violence. Before this scandal, many continued to believe that Americans are still infected by their Puritan past in matters sexuel, while the French are just chauds lapins: hot rabbits. The supposed difference consisted of not only a heightened sexual activity but an altered set of conventions about where to draw the line between benign sexual interaction and harassment. The French, many believed, drew that line differently.

The number of women speaking out in France post-scandal calls into question this easy embrace of relativism. French women, it appears, don't appreciate groping any more than anyone else, at least not unwanted groping. A French journalist, Tristane Banon, who alleged that she was assaulted by Strauss-Kahn in 2002, described him as a "chimpanzee in rut," which draws a much less sympathetic picture than anything to do with rabbits. Still, some continue to hold that the French have a higher level of tolerance for extramarital affairs and a greater respect for a politician's right to privacy. But neither of these factors provide an excuse for harassment and rape.

Conventions of workplace interaction do vary by culture. In Latin America and parts of Europe, kissing is the normal mode of greeting, and to refuse a kiss may well appear cold. Kissing co-workers in New York, however, can elicit mixed signals, at least outside of the fashion district. One does need to know the relevant cultural conventions to be able to communicate with effective ease. In other words, one needs to be a cultural relativist to know when one is being hit upon.

The more thorny question is whether relativism is relevant to those domains we generally want to put in the non-benign category: harassment, sexual coercion, even sexual violence. Could it be that offensiveness is relative to the perspective of the recipient, based on her own cultural sensibilities? More troubling, could it be that our very experience of an encounter might be significantly affected by our background, upbringing, culture, ethnicity, in short, by what Michel Foucault called our discourse?

Violent and brutal encounters, even for sado-masochists, are unlikely candidates as culturally relative experiences. But much harassment and even rape is cloudier than this: date rapes, statutory rapes, and many instances of harassment can be subject to multiple interpretations, which has given rise to the new term popular on college campuses — "gray" rape. The writer Mary Gaitskill famously argued some years back that the binary categories of rape/not-rape were simply insufficient to classify the thick complexity of her own experience. In this netherworld of ambiguous experiences, can understanding cultural relativism be useful?

Feminist theory, some might be surprised to learn, has been exploring this possibility for some years. There is a great deal of work on the realm of fantasy, and desires approached through fantasy, as a means to understand the different ways women can experience varied sexual practices. Women's sexual responsiveness varies, and feminism has endeavored to honor the variation rather than move too quickly toward moral and political hierarchies of legitimate practice.

Fantasies can vary by culture and context, and they operate to create an overlay of meaningfulness on top of actual experience. The result is that fantasies provide projections of meanings that seem to control the determination of events, affecting the way we narrate and name our experience, and even the sensations we feel. This suggests a picture of an idea-body encountering another idea-body, with the fantasy projections rather than any physical characteristics of the encounter, controlling the production of experience.

Such an approach, however, can lead one to discount experience altogether. Whether workplace pornography is experienced as threatening or a reminder of the sexual power of women is simply relative to one's expectations and prior predilections, some might say. Those who take offense are simply operating with the "wrong paradigm." This has the danger of returning us to pre-feminist days when women's own first person reports and interpretations of their experiences were routinely set aside in favor of more "objective" analyses given by doctors, psychiatrists, and social scientists, inevitably male.

The slide toward a complete relativism on these matters can be halted on two counts. First, there is the question of the physical body. Sex, as Lenin correctly argued, is not akin to having a glass of water. It involves uniquely sensitive parts of the body around which every culture has devised elaborate meanings, from adulation to abomination. The genitals are simply unique in the role they play for reproduction and physical ecstasy, and no discourse can operate as if this is not true. A light touch on the shoulder and a light touch on the genitals elicit distinct sensations. The body is not infinitely alterable by discourse.

Second, there is the question of power. Differences in status and the capacity for economic self-sufficiency — not to mention the capacity for self-regard — compromise the integrity of consent, no matter the culture. Status differences can occur along the lines of age, class, race, nationality, citizenship and gender (all of which apply to the alleged attempted rape by Strauss-Kahn of an immigrant housekeeper). Power differences alone cannot determine whether something is benign or harmful, but they do signal danger. It cannot be the case that cultural context can render power differences completely meaningless. Obvious power differences in sexual relations should raise a red flag, no matter which color one's culture uses to signal danger.

While cultural conventions on power and sex may vary, the impact of sexual violence does not. Sexual violations should be universally defined, and universally enforced.

Linda Martín Alcoff is a professor of philosophy at the City University of New York. She has written and edited several books, including “Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self ” (Oxford University Press, 2006). More of her work can be found at her Web site.

Nonviolent Democratic Alternative:

- By Bahram Maskanian

Those who do not learn from their true history are doomed to repeat it.

History has shown time and again, that in the absence of coherent, organized civil society and supporting infrastructure, well informed citizens, independent Citizen Unions, or political parties free from foreign and religion influences, labor unions, student unions, women organizations and independent local journalists and press, no democratic movement and public rebellion has ever fully formed, matured and lasted as a true functioning democracy. The revolutionary revolts are usually instigated and used as instruments of replacing one thuggish regime with another, soon after which the promise of democracy shall evaporate for another quarter century, or more.

The disorganized desperation and anger-driven social uprising witnessed in Tunisia, soon followed by Egypt, Jordon, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, etc, are similar movements motivated by the public’s deep revulsion and animosity towards their ruling corrupt and criminal regime. These movements are historically focused on an illusion of democracy and hoax of free democratic elections, funded and organized by either a foreign power using the local thugs, or local political hustlers eager to gain political power and wealth. These thugs, or hustlers are willing to provoke the public into the streets, based on deceitful promises, and if successful, they provide the public with a couple of puppet candidates to vote for and choose from, thus creating mass euphoria and the illusion of free democratic election and a birth of a new democracy.

But in reality and based on many in-depth studies of nonviolent uprisings, civil rights struggles, and successful and lasting democratic regime changes, it is clear that advancing social freedom, reform and true democracy takes careful strategy and meticulous planning, plus the six defined democratic components.

Peaceful Nonviolent Protest:
Peaceful nonviolent uprising is the best tool in the hands of political and social justice activists.  Nonviolent pursuit of political change is a simple common sense.  Violence provokes dictators and legitimizes the use of deadly force to crack down.  Violence paints activists as villains in the eyes of the silent majority, thus losing the crucial support of the large segment of the public.  If any democratic movement lowers its standards by using violence, they are in fact promoting the use of the dictator's best weapon.  One may be perceived brave for a moment, acting as a villain, but there is a fine line between courageous and shortsightedness, besides, a brave dead hero is no help to anyone.

Citizen Unions, or Political Parties:

- By Bahram Maskanian

I personally prefer the name Citizen Union, a coinage of mine, instead of Political Party for the simple fact that due to the monumental local and international corruptions many folks do not have a favorable view of political parties, politicians and politics in general.  And still perceive politics a dirty business, that politicians and political parties are corrupt, in many cases deservedly so.  I am positive that the only effective means of encourage disenfranchised people back into the political scene is to renovate, update and rename the whole Political Party concept and process of political management and participation.

I am confident that people will see the difference between what use to be, what it should be, and is now.  Realizing that politics has always been part of our daily lives, we just need to be involved and get good at it.  Citizen Union is the union of the people, more so than a typical political party.  Citizen Union platform will be the reflection of peoples’ desires for a dignified and democratic society and life.  Once people witness honorable and high quality political policies put in practice by their Citizen Union, political process shall be perceived as a noble task, the ultimate pursuit of serving the public to protect and improve social, economic and political conditions, and the lives of the citizens.

Citizen Union will be responsible for enhancing the ability of the public to participate and contribute to the democratic values and policy-making, the social governance processes at the national and local levels in an open, representative means, thereby generating a greater public trust and confidence in their ability to govern and effect positive policy change.

Citizen Union Management:
Citizen Union offices should be controlled and managed by the local citizen members, adhering to the Citizen Union platform.  All of the citizen union leadership and managerial positions should be fulfilled through fair and democratic elections, and no official, nor anyone should ever be allowed to deviate from the union’s platform, unless is democratically changed, voted upon and approved by the union members. 

Citizen Unions are one of the necessary six components for the development and preservation of democratic social governing system and the rule of law. Citizen Unions serve to bring people who strive for dignified, democratic and just system of government together within any given society.  Citizen Unions provide policy ideas reflecting peoples’ desires of how their society should be governed.  Citizen Unions identify, groom and educate future political leaders. Citizen Unions are important link between the citizens and their government.

Citizen Union development and growth is guaranteed by its visionary democratic platform.  A healthy and democratic citizen union is an important instrument for the establishment of governmental bodies and civic organizations.  Without a democratic, strong and dynamic Citizen Unions democracy will not mature and survive.

Citizen Union Platform & Civil Organization Charter:
All Unions and Civil Organization charters and platforms must be based on reason, common sense principles, ethical standards and United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, reflecting and promoting democratic values.  A forward thinking detailed document reflecting public desires for a dignified life consisting of: good public education, healthcare, social safety, liberty, justice, rule of law, just and fair taxation, preservation and protection of the nation and the environment, based on democratic principles and values.  Union platforms and Civil Organizational charters are the foundation on which any Union, or Civil Organization bases its decisions, social and political activities, a visionary constitution that governs all political involvements, organizational behavior, legislatures and government policy support.

All Unions and organizational charters and platforms must be built upon a solid foundation of peoples’ hopes and aspirations.  Reflecting the societies democratic values.  A platform outlining a democratic system of governance of the people, used as a guiding force and a contract, honored by the membership and the leadership of Unions and other Civic Organizations.

Citizen Unions and Civic Organizations main role is to be an open forum for bringing the citizens of the community together, by providing a platform within a society to monitor, examine critic, and if necessary expose and stop bad government policies, laws and treaties.