Sexual Dynamics: a Two-Way Street
In a recent article in New York magazine, Naomi Wolf detailed an unwanted advance by scholar Harold Bloom, which she said occurred when she was a senior at Yale University some 20 years ago. The famous professor, who was tasked with teaching and grading Wolf, allegedly put his hand on her inner thigh when they were alone together.
Wolf’s excoriating revelations of her experience, which include her purportedly failed attempt to catch the attention of Yale’s leadership on the issues of sex, secrets and Ivy League denial two decades after the grievous deed, raise important questions about exactly who women are and what women want.
For starters, women nowadays seem to fall into two categories, which accounts for a modicum of distrust and confusion. Are we the women, for example, who want vindication for a sexual advance by a professor that occurred 20 years ago? Or are we the women in TV’s “Sex and the City” -- those delightful sexual predators -- who actively pursue the opposite sex and recognize that women are as much participants in such sexual dynamics as men?
The answer is that we are both.
American women now enjoy many of the privileges (and burdens) that men have enjoyed for years. We run companies, we earn hefty salaries and we own property. We also divorce, remarry and make choices about whom we bed. Yes, women continue to earn less than men in America, but there has been significant progress toward pay equity. Moreover, women still maintain the right to choose whether to terminate their pregnancies. The American feminist movement clearly has done a great deal for women over the last several decades, and we should celebrate these hard-won victories.
Yet, despite these gains, some women are quick to side with those who believe we are still victims of men’s control. Wolf categorically complained that Yale administrators were indifferent to her sexual harassment allegation that Bloom put his hand on her leg when she was a student in 1984. No doubt many women who read Wolf’s article agreed that Yale, by refusing to respond to Wolf’s complaints about Bloom lodged some 20 years after the offense, was acting in a typically male fashion. For this reason, it’s important that clear guidelines about sexual harassment be defined and that protocols for handling such problems be established.
As in Wolf’s story, I was propositioned by a professor when I was a student, in my case a junior at UC Irvine. In the darkness of his office, he promised me an A if I slept with him. Like Wolf, I didn’t respond to his desire, nor did I complain. But unlike Wolf, I don’t feel my alma mater owes me anything.
In the 27 years since that incident, I’ve come to recognize the power of my sexuality, and the ways I use it to my advantage. Even accounting for the power disparity between my professor and me, there was sexual energy between us. With time I’ve learned that sexual dynamics are never one-sided and that seeing my role in those dynamics gives me control, not only over myself but also over the men who’ve desired me. “Sex and the City” captures this sentiment perfectly -- it is the reason it appeals to so many women. It reminds us just how far we’ve come in 20 years.
Indeed, it is time to stop blaming others for the uncomfortable sexual dynamics we as women often find ourselves in, and recognize that we contribute to them.
Linda G. Mills, author of “Insult to Injury: Rethinking Our Responses to Intimate Abuse” (Princeton University Press, 2003) is teaches social work and law students at New York University.
