Illana Weizman: “Male domination is the erasure of women in favor of satisfying men”

Almost three years ago, I posted a call for testimonials on my Instagram account. I asked my subscribers to share their experiences of self-coercing themselves into sex if they wanted to. Rain of occurrences in my private messages: “I had already gone up to him, I didn’t know how to get back”, “We had already started to warm up, if I said no, I was taken for a joke”, “I didn’t have the strength to justify myself as to why I didn’t want to anymore. So l ‘I took it upon myself’, ‘We were in a relationship, I felt like I owed him sex, that was on my to-do list’, ‘I was scared of his potential violence if I refused.

“You came all the way here, you had that drink, you’re at his house, you can’t hide, you’ll look like a seducer”

This barrage of experiences has come to crush a sensitive point in me. The addition of these readings cast a cold light on some moments in my life that I had carefully compartmentalized. A particular memory came back to me. Exchange with C. met on a site for several weeks. We talk to each other every day, a hundred times a day, we seduce each other. Then, very naturally, we decide to meet. The following weekend I take my Twingo and head north (he’s from Lille, I live on the outskirts of Paris). I arrive at the bar where we had arranged to meet, I’m a little disappointed, because physically I don’t like it very much. The gap between photos and reality is the lot of many people dating through apps. Either way, I tell myself that given our exchanges, I’ll give this story one more shot. But the longing will not come and an internal dialogue will begin to take place, “Illana, you’ve come all the way, you’ve been talking for weeks, you’re expected to sleep together”.

So, step by step, I give up, have this drink, go up to his house and we end up sleeping together. In this whole scene, there’s this little voice that accompanies me. I think then that it is mine, I know today that it is that of the injunctions ingested, “you came this far, you drank that glass, you’re at his house, you can’t hide, you’ll look like a seducer”. When I undress, I remember the disconnect between my mind and body, like I’m leaving it and waiting for it to be over, something I imagine borders on dissociation. It’s not the only time this will happen to me, and afterward, the sticky feeling of cheating on me.

The omnipotence of the other’s desire

Now I question these facts in the light of feminism, my findings and my commitments. What prompted me, and still prompts many women to scuttle themselves in this way, to ignore their own desire and in this case the absence of it? Why grant this omnipotence to the desire of the other? If I don’t want to watch such a movie, eat such a dish, go to such an event, it will be quite obvious for me to identify it and make choices for myself. Why is it that when it comes to sex and relationships with men, myriad factors drown out my free will and subjectivity?

“Male domination is the erasure of women in favor of men’s satisfaction »

We inevitably return to patriarchal models that glorify and naturalize women’s self-sacrifice and relegate their deepest desires to the background. Male domination is the erasure of women in favor of satisfying men. Unfortunately we have integrated him well, which can lead us to ignore our lack of desire at the time, to forget ourselves, to make his body an empty shell aimed at answering the injunction to satisfy a man.

One in four women force themselves to have sex after giving birth

And this pressure affects all periods of our life. Teens, young women, moms all in the same boat. An IFOP study this month reveals that nearly one in four women force themselves into sex for the first time in the weeks or months after giving birth.

I’m tired of the constant sacrifice required of women, tired of knowing how many of us are deprived of our true desires in the realm of sexuality and elsewhere. So, I’d like you to leave this reading with one statement in mind: You owe no one anything but self-respect.