Are women ever NOT sexual?

There is a section of this part of the book that really got me thinking. Two authors, Kristeva and Cixous, both make comments about how feminist writing comes from feminine sexuality. Cixous in particular says "Write your self. Your body must be heard", and goes on to say that the key for women to enter the realm of writing is to become intuned to their sexuality.

I have to say, I was a little underwhelmed. When I saw the title, I was expecting someone more than "the key to feminist writing is sex!' which really doesn't seem all that different than the key to male writing of female characters, which is also sex, albeit in a different way. Throughout history men have been guilty of writing, generally, two types of female characters. The sex symbol, and the anti-sex symbol. A woman is either gorgeous, desireable, and attractive, or she is an ugly, repulsive old hag. Regardless of any other traits, women would nearly always fit into these two categories.And that's without even going into the "good women don't have sex" and "bad women are sluts who get their comuppance" sub-categories.

I realise that at the time the dead was written, female sexuality was suppressed. However, it still upsets me to read this sort of critisism because I am sure that if we were to read an essay on how to be a good male writer we'd see mentions of internal and external inspiration, observations of how society can affect writing, the theories of romanticism, realism, the sublime, etc. etc. etc. But NO! Women's righting of course has to be all about sex, sex, sex. Like it always has been.

I understand where the writer was coming from with this viewpoint. But reading it is a modern woman in a modern world I would have to say it's a failure as a feminist work. Feminism is all about breaking away from the norm and showing women that they are more than a sex organ that exists only in relation to men. In my opinion this critizism did the opposite. It only reinforced the idea that women and sexuality are one and the same, and that men always have to be part of the equation.