I don’t think I could have written a more bizarre story than that written by Elliott Balch for the Harvard Crimson. The story outlined a plan by the Radcliff Union of Students to host a sex toy party for Harvard women, as Balch put it, “to emphasize women’s sexual independence.”
The kicker to the story is the role that one of the organizers apparently thought such an event would have in fighting “the patriarchy.” Balch reports that RUS president Elizabeth Vogt sent an e-mail to all RUS members saying that among other things, the sex toy part would give women a way to “challenge patriarchal society.”
“If you know that you can satisfy your own sexual desires without relying on someone else, you can gain a lot of power in romantic relationships,” Vogt wrote in her e-mail message.
Interesting how some feminists have no problem conflating sex with power — a view that traditionalists were long criticized by feminists for maintaining.
Source:
RUS Plans Women’s Sex Toy Event. Elliot W. Bach, The Harvard Crimson, April 20, 2001.