The Right to Cultural Sexual Consideration

By: Liberate Zealot


Content Warning: discussions of transphobia, racism, ableism, fat hating, and rape culture

Recently the Candanian and US feminist blogosphere has been buzzing over a semiar/workshop put on by a PP and health services in Canada that focused on cultural acceptance of transwomen in the queer community, specifically about sex and desirability.  It made use of the phrase "cotton ceiling" and a feminist group in the US created a petition and leveled charges of predatory and "rapey" behavior. 

This lead to a discussion on the appropriateness of the phrase (by drawing comparisons to the glass ceiling) and the ideas behind the conference. If you're interested in the specifics of the relationship between the glass ceiling and the cotton ceiling read Ceiling Metaphors by Tobi, a queer transwoman.  


One thing that came up for debate was a persons right to have their sexual beingness recognized and respected at a cultural level.  People seemed to conflate this with them having a right to sex at the individual level, or else just didn't get why desexualization was problematic, or why freedom from cultural desexualization is a right.

And honestly, I'm somewhat worried about writing this.  A lot of this post and cultural desexualization has to do with race, or being trans, fat, or a person with differing abilities (societal disabilities) and is an aspect of racism, transphobia, fat phobia, and ableism.  And I'm white, cis, able bodied, and thin.  I'm also blond and rather "feminine" and desexualization is not something I experience.  However, I ended up being the champion for the right to cultural sexual consideration in the thread, and I want to spend some time going over it for future use and to further organize and process my own thoughts.  So here's the warning, as the result of my privilege I might get some of this wrong.  If so, I hope people will let me know.