ABSTRACT
During the early stages of contemporary women's movement, feminist liberation was often equated with sexual liberation by both feminist activists and non-feminists. At that time, the conceptualization of female sexual liberation was informed by a fierce heterosexist bias which saw sexual liberation primarily in terms of women asserting the right to be sexually desiring, to initiate sexual relationships, and to participate in casual sexual encounters with varied male partners. Joan Mellen in her introduction to Women and Their Sexuality in the New Film emphasizes that the recent attempt to portray radical and transformative images of female sexuality has proved to be a disappointment, in most instances a failure: The language of independent women may be reluctantly allowed, but the substance goes unaltered. Positively, the film does show people the nature of black male/female power struggles, the contradictions, the craziness, and that is an important new direction.
