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Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans & Perverts
A brief collection of feminist essays by Joanna Russ, most of them related to sexual fantasies and pornography.
Includes Russ’s autobiographical essay about figuring out that she was a lesbian (“Not for Years, but for Decades”), Russ’s influential discussion of Star Trek slash fiction (“Pornography by Women for Women, with Love”), and four other essays.
Most of these essays were individually published in feminist magazines in the early 1980s. This ebook is a reprint of the 1985 book that brought the essays together.
Includes Russ’s autobiographical essay about figuring out that she was a lesbian (“Not for Years, but for Decades”), Russ’s influential discussion of Star Trek slash fiction (“Pornography by Women for Women, with Love”), and four other essays.
Most of these essays were individually published in feminist magazines in the early 1980s. This ebook is a reprint of the 1985 book that brought the essays together.
119 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
4 people are currently reading
222 people want to read
About the author
Joanna Russ
187 books499 followersJoanna Russ (February 22, 1937 – April 29, 2011) was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny. She is best known for The Female Man, a novel combining utopian fiction and satire. [Wikipedia]
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 4, 2025
I'm struggling a bit with figuring out exactly what to say about this book.
In reading feminist theory of this era, I am constantly struck by the degree to which porn becomes a focus, and I really enjoyed what Joanna Russ had to say. However, I do think there are degrees to which societal pressure on women to enjoy fantasies of submission, and societal pressure on men to enjoy dominance, influence our sexual desires. I think that in talking about porn as morally neutral, that's an important part of the puzzle - even in being morally neutral, our desires do not exist in a vacuum! They come from somewhere, because that's what desire is.
On the bright side, really enjoyed the entire section just dedicated to Kirk/Spock fanfiction. Great vibes.
QUOTES THAT RESONATED FOR ME
➽“When I hear women denounced for deviant sexual behavior, when male lust is seriously advanced as a primary cause of women's oppression and the cultivation of certain kinds of sexuality, I begin to wonder where I am. Is this feminism or feminine-ism? The feminism I know began as politics, not rules for living. To call X a feminist issue did not then mean that there was a good way to do X and a bad way, and that we were trying to replace the bad way with the good way.”
➽“What is demanded is that you ‘make something of yourself.’ Sometimes this means being artificially thin or girdled and sometimes it means being artificially fat and padded, but it always means being unnatural and uncomfortable.”
➽“...Two factors operating: who you want the other person to be and who you want to be yourself.”
➽“I was uneasy about wanting anybody else to ‘be the girl’ since I knew what a rotten deal that was; I couldn’t imagine anybody choosing it voluntarily.”
➽“A partner's hostility or boredom is ordinarily a real turn-off and yet this is exactly the situation under patriarchy, where so many women are not interested, not excited, not participants, and not happy. Yet men must penetrate and ejaculate if there are to be any babies - and so the problem for patriarchy (whether you think of this as a one-time invention or a constant process) is to construct a male sexuality which can function in the face of a woman's non-cooperation or outright fear and hostility. Of course such a sexuality is, in fact, common. It is also furtive, guilty, miserable, unspontaneous, forced, unfree, and minimally sensual.”
➽“If you’ve been forbidden the use of your own power for your own self, you can give up your power or you can give up your self. If you’re effective, you must be so for others but never for yourself.”
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In reading feminist theory of this era, I am constantly struck by the degree to which porn becomes a focus, and I really enjoyed what Joanna Russ had to say. However, I do think there are degrees to which societal pressure on women to enjoy fantasies of submission, and societal pressure on men to enjoy dominance, influence our sexual desires. I think that in talking about porn as morally neutral, that's an important part of the puzzle - even in being morally neutral, our desires do not exist in a vacuum! They come from somewhere, because that's what desire is.
On the bright side, really enjoyed the entire section just dedicated to Kirk/Spock fanfiction. Great vibes.
QUOTES THAT RESONATED FOR ME
➽“When I hear women denounced for deviant sexual behavior, when male lust is seriously advanced as a primary cause of women's oppression and the cultivation of certain kinds of sexuality, I begin to wonder where I am. Is this feminism or feminine-ism? The feminism I know began as politics, not rules for living. To call X a feminist issue did not then mean that there was a good way to do X and a bad way, and that we were trying to replace the bad way with the good way.”
➽“What is demanded is that you ‘make something of yourself.’ Sometimes this means being artificially thin or girdled and sometimes it means being artificially fat and padded, but it always means being unnatural and uncomfortable.”
➽“...Two factors operating: who you want the other person to be and who you want to be yourself.”
➽“I was uneasy about wanting anybody else to ‘be the girl’ since I knew what a rotten deal that was; I couldn’t imagine anybody choosing it voluntarily.”
➽“A partner's hostility or boredom is ordinarily a real turn-off and yet this is exactly the situation under patriarchy, where so many women are not interested, not excited, not participants, and not happy. Yet men must penetrate and ejaculate if there are to be any babies - and so the problem for patriarchy (whether you think of this as a one-time invention or a constant process) is to construct a male sexuality which can function in the face of a woman's non-cooperation or outright fear and hostility. Of course such a sexuality is, in fact, common. It is also furtive, guilty, miserable, unspontaneous, forced, unfree, and minimally sensual.”
➽“If you’ve been forbidden the use of your own power for your own self, you can give up your power or you can give up your self. If you’re effective, you must be so for others but never for yourself.”
Blog | Youtube | Twitter | Instagram | Spotify | About |
November 6, 2016
I really enjoy reading Joanna Russ's feminist essays (and her prose!), but this anthology was a disappointment. The intro was promising, and I loved her personal essay "Not for Years but for Decades" about her journey to lesbianism (five stars for that alone), and she offered interesting thoughts on the active/passive destructive dynamics of "magic mommas" and "trembling sisters" in the women's movement, but then: all the defense of S&M and pornography. I get where she's coming from, and her intentions are clearly good, but her arguments aren't convincing in the slightest! Russ completely underestimates the strength (and consequences) of the pro-S&M movement — and pornography. For example, she approaches porn as a habit of a minority of men, a habit that could be replaced by having actual sex. She brings up statistics to show that porn use has not gone up and neither has sexual violence. Looking at the debate from 2016, it's obvious that everything the anti-porn camp warned about has come to fruition and, in the process, contributed to the decimation of feminism as a political force. So no, I'm not swayed to support the "perverts" over the "Puritans" (her words). Not at all. There's also an interesting essay about Kirk/Spock and the beginnings of female-driven slash culture, if you're into that. (It was never my thing.) She offers a well thought-out exploration of what women get out of M/M fan fiction. It's an analysis I've read before, but I suspect her piece was the original source.
QUOTES
"[I am] absolutely certain that men's insistence on women's 'attractiveness' and sexual availability has nothing to do with either carnality or aesthetics. For one thing, 'attractiveness' in women changes too fast and too often (this decade's fashion is next decade's hilarity) to have any deep connection with male instinct. Moreover, men make it clear that the way unadorned women actually smell, feel, and look (which surely arouses lust in conditions of actual copulation) is exactly what is not acceptable otherwise. What is demanded is that you 'make something of yourself. Sometimes this means being artificially thin or girdled and sometimes it means being artificially fat and padded, but it always means being unnatural and uncomfortable. What it also always means is giving off signals of the availability of your energies, time, emotions, and resources to men, that is, your loyalty to the patriarchal order." (p. 13)
"There is immense social pressure in our culture to imagine a Lesbian as someone who never under any circumstances feels any attraction to any man, in fantasy or otherwise. The popular model of homosexuality is simply the heterosexual institution reversed [...] This idea of what a Lesbian is is a wonderful way of preventing anyone from ever becoming one; and when we adopt it, we're simply doing the culture's dirty work for it. There are no 'real' Lesbians—which is exactly what I heard for years, there are only neurotics, impostors, crazy virgins, and repressed heterosexuals. You aren't a Lesbian. You can't be a Lesbian. There aren't any Lesbians." (p. 29)
"I knew that I did not really want to sleep with men. But that was sick. I did want to sleep with men—but only in my head and only under very specialized circumstances." (p. 37)
"[T]he choices presented to me and my friends were: 1) Marry so you can have sex in safety, and thereby prove your inferiority and vulnerability, 2) stay celibate and go crazy (it was an article of faith then that all spinsters were 'sexually repressed' and therefore diseased, 3) have sex outside of marriage and die of an illegal abortion, or 4) become a Lesbian—a state so unthinkable and unspeakable, so utterly absent from anyone's view of reality that it probably didn't exist—but was, of course, unutterably criminal, insane, and destructive at the same time." (p. 103)
QUOTES
"[I am] absolutely certain that men's insistence on women's 'attractiveness' and sexual availability has nothing to do with either carnality or aesthetics. For one thing, 'attractiveness' in women changes too fast and too often (this decade's fashion is next decade's hilarity) to have any deep connection with male instinct. Moreover, men make it clear that the way unadorned women actually smell, feel, and look (which surely arouses lust in conditions of actual copulation) is exactly what is not acceptable otherwise. What is demanded is that you 'make something of yourself. Sometimes this means being artificially thin or girdled and sometimes it means being artificially fat and padded, but it always means being unnatural and uncomfortable. What it also always means is giving off signals of the availability of your energies, time, emotions, and resources to men, that is, your loyalty to the patriarchal order." (p. 13)
"There is immense social pressure in our culture to imagine a Lesbian as someone who never under any circumstances feels any attraction to any man, in fantasy or otherwise. The popular model of homosexuality is simply the heterosexual institution reversed [...] This idea of what a Lesbian is is a wonderful way of preventing anyone from ever becoming one; and when we adopt it, we're simply doing the culture's dirty work for it. There are no 'real' Lesbians—which is exactly what I heard for years, there are only neurotics, impostors, crazy virgins, and repressed heterosexuals. You aren't a Lesbian. You can't be a Lesbian. There aren't any Lesbians." (p. 29)
"I knew that I did not really want to sleep with men. But that was sick. I did want to sleep with men—but only in my head and only under very specialized circumstances." (p. 37)
"[T]he choices presented to me and my friends were: 1) Marry so you can have sex in safety, and thereby prove your inferiority and vulnerability, 2) stay celibate and go crazy (it was an article of faith then that all spinsters were 'sexually repressed' and therefore diseased, 3) have sex outside of marriage and die of an illegal abortion, or 4) become a Lesbian—a state so unthinkable and unspeakable, so utterly absent from anyone's view of reality that it probably didn't exist—but was, of course, unutterably criminal, insane, and destructive at the same time." (p. 103)
January 22, 2016
From the book cover:
I think questions of sexuality and pornography which are of so much concern to feminist today can be clarified and demystified. If what matters is men's non-reciprocal access to women's resources, then male lust and even male violence are not the basic issues; they are merely particular examples of the fundamental issue - From the introduction
This book consists of six essays where Joanna Russ deals with issues such as homophobia, sexuality and pornography.
In the essay Not for Years but for decades, an autobiographical account of her coming out, she tells us how homophobia shaped her life pressuring her into heterosexuality and to a denial of her lesbianism - [..] I had -for close to 25 years - no clear sexual identity at all, no confidence in my bodily experience, and no pleasure in lovemaking with any real person.- and how, only with the help of the women's movement, she was able to finally come out. Also, in typical Joanna Russ fashion, she analyses the world around her and goes to the root of things. So, she shows, by commenting the Love Comics she read as a teenager, that romance is used by the heterosexual institution, both to maintain the gender system and heterosexuality and to hide homosexuality - the hearts and flowers and the psychedelic flashing light would sweep all that away. She points that romance can be considered a self-obliterating religion. She also questions what a real lesbian is. She complains that world is seen as black and white when it comes to homosexuality and heterosexuality: This idea of what a lesbian is, is a wonderful way of preventing anyone from ever becoming one; and when we adopt it we're simply doing culture's dirty work for it.
On the essay Power and Helplessness in the Women's Movement, she analyses the Feminine Imperative where women are supposed to make other people feel good, to feel others' needs without having any of our own. Therefore women exist for others. This leads to women judging success in other women to be the worst sin, and women forcing other women to be unselfish, which has a destructive effect in women's groups.
On Being against Pornography, she starts by stating that she has problems assessing the differences between erotica and pornography on a single glance. She then goes on analyse why, starting on the moral stances regarding sex. Then she demonstrates that most of the feminist analysis that was being made of pornography was quite superficial and that there was a need for an in-depth study of the politics economics and history of pornography.
On News from the Front aka Puritans vs perverts she also analyzes the fights within the women's movement regarding pornography. She starts by identifying the theory behind the Puritans stance: (1) culture is the primary cause of sexism, along with personal, (2) sexual relationships and, (3) that sexual behavior and sexual preferences are at the core of the human personality. Particularly interesting in her analysis is the comparison between (3) and what happened on the 19th century with the creation of homosexuality. The German doctors then did not characterized the lesbian by having same-sex genital activity but by the personality traits: feminist, refused to marry, wished to go to college, lived independently, smoked, preferred female company, disliked female dress, and so on.
On Pornography by Women for Women with Love, she analyses Kirk/Spock fanfiction and why it was created by women and read by women, in spite of its male/male sexual content. She argues that this fanfiction is a fantasy of love and sex as women want them whether with a man or with another woman.
Finally in Pornography and the Doubleness of Sex for Women she talks about our sexual training as women how that affects women's stance regarding sexual liberation.
As usual, when it comes to Joanna Russ, the text is clear, witty and provocative. A recommended book.
I think questions of sexuality and pornography which are of so much concern to feminist today can be clarified and demystified. If what matters is men's non-reciprocal access to women's resources, then male lust and even male violence are not the basic issues; they are merely particular examples of the fundamental issue - From the introduction
This book consists of six essays where Joanna Russ deals with issues such as homophobia, sexuality and pornography.
In the essay Not for Years but for decades, an autobiographical account of her coming out, she tells us how homophobia shaped her life pressuring her into heterosexuality and to a denial of her lesbianism - [..] I had -for close to 25 years - no clear sexual identity at all, no confidence in my bodily experience, and no pleasure in lovemaking with any real person.- and how, only with the help of the women's movement, she was able to finally come out. Also, in typical Joanna Russ fashion, she analyses the world around her and goes to the root of things. So, she shows, by commenting the Love Comics she read as a teenager, that romance is used by the heterosexual institution, both to maintain the gender system and heterosexuality and to hide homosexuality - the hearts and flowers and the psychedelic flashing light would sweep all that away. She points that romance can be considered a self-obliterating religion. She also questions what a real lesbian is. She complains that world is seen as black and white when it comes to homosexuality and heterosexuality: This idea of what a lesbian is, is a wonderful way of preventing anyone from ever becoming one; and when we adopt it we're simply doing culture's dirty work for it.
On the essay Power and Helplessness in the Women's Movement, she analyses the Feminine Imperative where women are supposed to make other people feel good, to feel others' needs without having any of our own. Therefore women exist for others. This leads to women judging success in other women to be the worst sin, and women forcing other women to be unselfish, which has a destructive effect in women's groups.
On Being against Pornography, she starts by stating that she has problems assessing the differences between erotica and pornography on a single glance. She then goes on analyse why, starting on the moral stances regarding sex. Then she demonstrates that most of the feminist analysis that was being made of pornography was quite superficial and that there was a need for an in-depth study of the politics economics and history of pornography.
On News from the Front aka Puritans vs perverts she also analyzes the fights within the women's movement regarding pornography. She starts by identifying the theory behind the Puritans stance: (1) culture is the primary cause of sexism, along with personal, (2) sexual relationships and, (3) that sexual behavior and sexual preferences are at the core of the human personality. Particularly interesting in her analysis is the comparison between (3) and what happened on the 19th century with the creation of homosexuality. The German doctors then did not characterized the lesbian by having same-sex genital activity but by the personality traits: feminist, refused to marry, wished to go to college, lived independently, smoked, preferred female company, disliked female dress, and so on.
On Pornography by Women for Women with Love, she analyses Kirk/Spock fanfiction and why it was created by women and read by women, in spite of its male/male sexual content. She argues that this fanfiction is a fantasy of love and sex as women want them whether with a man or with another woman.
Finally in Pornography and the Doubleness of Sex for Women she talks about our sexual training as women how that affects women's stance regarding sexual liberation.
As usual, when it comes to Joanna Russ, the text is clear, witty and provocative. A recommended book.
June 24, 2007
Feminist essays, mid-seventies to early eighties, mostly focusing on the experience of sexuality and eroticism in life and the arts. Includes the "Doubleness of Sex" essay that's recently been linked in fandom, and also an essay on Kirk/Spock, which she apparently likes very much.
Russ is struggling for a nuanced view of the erotic arts at a time when feminism was having a lot of trouble knowing how to handle them.
Something I found really interesting, in her Kirk/Spock essay, was that she first took the techniques we often use to analyze our own fantasies (the eroticism in mind-bonding is X, in hurt/comfort is Y, etc.), and made a gesture toward applying them to mass-produced het-male-oriented porn (for a man under patriarchy, the eroticism in a rape fantasy might be Z). I agree with her when she says that the only person who can really interpret a fantasy is the person for whom the fantasy works; I wish I had some such person to interpret popular porn for me.
I'd really like to read some feminist essays by people who weren't raised in the fifties. The fifties were a war zone for female self-esteem, and I sympathize with anyone who survived them, but they were a weird aberration and have very little in common with the world I live in now.
Russ is struggling for a nuanced view of the erotic arts at a time when feminism was having a lot of trouble knowing how to handle them.
Something I found really interesting, in her Kirk/Spock essay, was that she first took the techniques we often use to analyze our own fantasies (the eroticism in mind-bonding is X, in hurt/comfort is Y, etc.), and made a gesture toward applying them to mass-produced het-male-oriented porn (for a man under patriarchy, the eroticism in a rape fantasy might be Z). I agree with her when she says that the only person who can really interpret a fantasy is the person for whom the fantasy works; I wish I had some such person to interpret popular porn for me.
I'd really like to read some feminist essays by people who weren't raised in the fifties. The fifties were a war zone for female self-esteem, and I sympathize with anyone who survived them, but they were a weird aberration and have very little in common with the world I live in now.
Read
April 9, 2019This sucks and from the intro it sounds like she kinda knew that?? I never read a book that’s 90% disowned by the author in the intro to the first edition...... she was funny and I kinda liked her but power and helplessness in the women’s movement was the only essay here with a useful message. That one was awesome but most of the book sucked. Holds the dubious distinction of having the earliest (classically feeble) political defense of slash fiction I’ve ever read. She strongly implies she thinks pat califia is awesome and that she’s not critical of gay male efforts to legalize pedophilia the whole time so throughout the book you’re like come on you must mean something else but no, she actually doesn’t. Don’t say boylove uncritically please what the hell???? Most of the essays come off as being contrarian for the sake of it, she attacks intellectual dishonesty and lack of internal consistency in others but doesn’t seem especially concerned about it in her own work here. This book was a real stinker. I want to try more of her stuff bc that one essay was amazing but geez
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 27, 2020
Last two essays are the real keepers.
Some of the others seem dated today — documents of internal debates within feminism that have, though not ended, moved on. But for Russ fans, at least, every essay here is full of lively sharp sentences and interesting autobiographical morsels.
Are the last two essays anthologized elsewhere? I hope so.
Some of the others seem dated today — documents of internal debates within feminism that have, though not ended, moved on. But for Russ fans, at least, every essay here is full of lively sharp sentences and interesting autobiographical morsels.
Are the last two essays anthologized elsewhere? I hope so.
July 11, 2022
Russ has some great snark directed at the right places I think, but this collection is admittedly older, and she even disavows most of it in the Introduction. A great read if you are into Russ or historical feminism, but otherwise probably not. The most interesting piece is actually about Star Trek fan fiction !
Read
October 12, 2023includes the essay "Pornography by Women, for Women, with Love," about Kirk/Spock Star Trek fanfic, early m/m slash fic mostly by & for women
May 26, 2013
An excellent collection of rather personal essays about literature from a liberal feminist perspective by a great writer. I am not a fan of Russ' fiction but the moment I started reading her non-fiction I was hooked. She's direct, easy to understand and profoundly coherent throughout.
Includes essays:
'Not From Years but For Decades’
'News From The Front'
‘Pornography and the doubleness of sex for women’
'Power and helplessness in the women’s movement’
'Being Against Pornography' focuses on how obsessing over one aspect of oppression makes us lose sight of the underlying oppression in every other aspect of our lives.
If pornography is bad because it tells lies about women, is it any worse than - or even different - from the rest of the culture? Patriarchal culture and ideology are nothing but lies about women. 12
‘Pornography by Women For Women; with Love’ is seminal essay about slash fandom in which Russ theorizes about the motives of slash readers and writers. It being 40 yeras old and fandom evolving faster than most things, it has details that don't work anymore but I find the overall thesis convicing.
Includes essays:
'Not From Years but For Decades’
'News From The Front'
‘Pornography and the doubleness of sex for women’
'Power and helplessness in the women’s movement’
'Being Against Pornography' focuses on how obsessing over one aspect of oppression makes us lose sight of the underlying oppression in every other aspect of our lives.
If pornography is bad because it tells lies about women, is it any worse than - or even different - from the rest of the culture? Patriarchal culture and ideology are nothing but lies about women. 12
‘Pornography by Women For Women; with Love’ is seminal essay about slash fandom in which Russ theorizes about the motives of slash readers and writers. It being 40 yeras old and fandom evolving faster than most things, it has details that don't work anymore but I find the overall thesis convicing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 3, 2013
I had read these once before, a long time ago, and it was interesting to come back to them now. I find much of what Russ says interesting, and in particular the pieces about the doubleness of women's sexuality in this society feel quite timely despite having been written almost 30 years ago. I do wish, though, that the writing had more clarity. Her tone is very conversational, with much humour, and there is a lot of good to that; it lets the outrage come through, and puts the reader on a level rather than making it a lecture. But often she repeats the same thing from one page to the next, and so rather than building upon each other her ideas circle and the force of it is lost. I was thinking on whether or not I would give these to someone for whom the ideas would be entirely new, and I think not; there is too much assumed and not enough development.
May 5, 2011
Reread 5/4/2011. Once these essays meant a great deal to me, but now I hardly agree with any of them. At most, it's "Yes, but" and more often it's "Yes, BUT" or "NO".
First time I'd ever heard of slash, though.
First time I'd ever heard of slash, though.
January 24, 2010
The sex wars. violence against women, erotica and a wealth of other thoughts on writing and activism. Highly recommended.
Want to read
May 25, 2013Particularly the essay "Pornography for Women by Women, with love"
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews