The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

CONTINENCE AND PSYCHIC LOVE
In sexual matters it would appear that the whole trend
and tendency of man’s relations to woman has been to make
refusal impossible and to cut off every avenue of escape from
the gratification of his desire. 35
A contributor to the Freewoman magazine made much the same
points. The Freewoman represented the new sex-reforming
tendency within feminism. After writing of sub-human species
where the female was not subject to the male, she went on:
But the human female has lost her great prerogative. As
Bondswoman, she must perforce pander to the lusts of her
lords and masters. From her infancy she has been sedulously
trained for this purpose, though she is strangely ignorant of
sex and its functions, and if she would earn an independent
livelihood she is handicapped all along the line. 36
The analysis which these women give, in which they see women
as deliberately restricted and prevented from making an
independent living so that they will be forced into sexual slavery
with men, is very similar to some contemporary feminist
writings. Adrienne Rich, a lesbian feminist theorist, expanded
upon this theme in her recent article Compulsory Heterosexuality
and Lesbian Existence. 37 She details the many ways in which
women are forced into heterosexual relations with men.
The pre-war feminists also engaged in detailed criticism of
the form of male sexuality. In particular they set out to defeat
the idea that male sexuality was a powerful and uncontrollable
urge. This was more difficult in the pre-war period than it had
been in the early 1890s. The movement for sex reform became
more organised in the 1890s through the Legitimation League
and its journal the Adult and acquired two eloquent
propagandists in Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis. The
Legitimation League was founded in 1893 ostensibly to
campaign for the interests of children born out of wedlock. Its
journal was published from 1897 to 1899 with subtitles such as
‘A Journal for the Advancement of Freedom in Sexual
Relationships’ and’ A Crusade against Sex-enslavement’. The
journal was a platform for those who were promoting the idea
that sexual intercourse was a vital necessity for men and women.
A typical example of the ideas expressed is the following
quotation from an article entitled ‘Free Thought and Free Love’
by Lucy Steward.
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