The Case of the Marxist-Feminist Slut

Since it’s Friday, it’s time for an advice column. To my eye, New York Magazine’s weekly offerings pale next to a letter that was sent to The Nation. (via Maggie’s Farm)

It was written by a woman who calls herself a Marxist-Feminist Slut. It shows us what happens to your mind when it is invaded and occupied by an ideology. Worse yet, it shows us the obstacles you face when you decide to politicize your personal life. That is, when you decide that your personal life, your romantic life must fulfill the terms of your pseudo-religion. And, to top it off, what happens when reality does not seem to be fulfilling your ideologically driven expectations?

You will probably feel a certain quantity of pathos for our Marxist-Feminist Slut. You would be right to do so. After all, she is sacrificing her life to a stupid idea. If she learned this in an indoctrination mill of a college, she should get a refund.

She addresses her letter to columnist Liza Featherstone:

I’m a 32-year-old woman who would like to have kids and a life partner in the not-so-distant future. And lucky me! I’ve recently started dating an excellent candidate. But I can’t even pretend to think it’s possible (or desirable) to have sex with just one person for the rest of my life or even, frankly, for a few years. 


Monogamy feels antithetical to the type of feminism and anticapitalism I subscribe to. I am repulsed by the idea of being a man’s property. Also, monogamy—like capitalism—requires us to believe in a false scarcity: that we have to struggle for every little bit and that everything we gain comes at someone else’s expense. The kind of liberatory future I’d like to see is one of abundance and generosity and sharing. One of the few places we can experiment with that now is in our love lives. 


But ALL the decent men I’ve dated are really opposed to open relationships, while the men I’ve slept with who say they fancy the idea don’t ever stick around long enough for the “relationship” part of an open relationship. 


This leaves me feeling like once I find a partner, the options are: 1) cheating (crummy and unethical, also a big anxiety-inducing headache); 2) waiting for the mythical “one” who will magically make me never attracted to anyone else (I’m fairly certain this is a hoax); or 3) retire from my glorious days as a loud, proud slut and gradually wither away inside as I suffocate one of the parts of my life, personality, and politics I cherish most. Please tell me there is another option out there. 

As I said, you will feel sorry for MFS. She is living the ideology and she is discovering that it was all one big fat lie. She is looking for a polyamorous relationship, one where she can cheat at will, and she discovers that the “decent” men she has dated reject it. She has also discovered that the men who are happy to use her for sex have no interest in a relationship. It takes a Women's Studies course to obscure that truth.

She has shown us that we should not expect our lives to conform to some idiot ideology. Unfortunately, she does not have a clue about why a man who loved her would not want her to sleep around. She calls such men “decent” and the word pops out to us as the last living remnant of her moral sense.

What about Liza Featherstone’s advice? To be honest with you—and of course I am always honest—it is fairly solid. Surely, it is better than what we tend to find in New York Magazine columns.

OK, I admit that Featherstone does not question the fact that MFS has politicized her life to fulfill a half-assed ideology. Given the venue, The Nation, she probably does not have that much latitude. To be honest, most therapists would take the woman’s query at face value and would not question her beliefs. It would be like questioning someone’s religious beliefs—there is nothing to be gained by trying to undermine someone’s religion.

If our Marxist-Feminist Slut is going to learn the error of her ways, she is not going to learn it from an advice columnist. After all, she is a true believing zealot and zealots do not listen to reason. So MFS will need to learn it from the real world. Is she willing to dump her current boyfriend because he wants her to be monogamous or will she hold on to him and throw out her Marxist-feminist ideology? 

Instead, Featherstone offers a series of suggestions that tell this woman to learn how to negotiate with a recalcitrant reality. And she tells her that she will have to compromise. As I said, you might not like it, but, under the circumstances Featherstone could not do much better at leading MFS out of her ideological miasma and into the light.

She writes:

With your new boyfriend, treat this as you would any other major difference you have before settling down together: patiently and by tolerating some contingencies. If you wanted to live on the noisiest corner in Bushwick and your partner was happiest in rural Tennessee, you might take turns living in each other’s preferred locale, finding unexpected delights there. Experiment with a period of monogamy—remember, many people are most jealousy-prone early in a relationship—on the condition that he agrees to consider other arrangements in the future. Or perhaps some adventures are more acceptable to him than others. (Group sex only? Dalliances that take place out of town? No exes or class enemies?) If so, are you open to such compromises? And please attend closely to the tone of these conversations—you need to be able to discuss your desires with him without being made to feel immoral, disgusting, or greedy. If such talks give you hope, hang in there! If not, he might not be your future baby daddy.

Funny thing, when you read this you get the impression that MFS's desires are immoral, disgusting and greedy. As a rhetorical ploy, it has some merit.