Feminist heterosexuality

This article explores the vexed relationship between feminism and heterosexuality from the point of view of the desire for politics, rather than the more usual take of finding a politics of desire. Sexual and emotional passions and repressions arise in any liberation movement, and often are integral to the meaning and shape that political activism takes. Women's movements have been no exception, although those movements have been extremely varied in their attitudes towards heterosexuality. I argue that women need to be passionate about each other for their political alliances to be strong, even as feminism, thankfully, is moving out of earlier, more intolerant sexual stages