The Worst Thing I Read Today, Or Adventures In Slut-Shaming

(Flickr/umfi1)

Well if this isn't the worst piece of slut-shaming garbage I have ever read, it's at least a close second. Possibly to this other really terrible thing Mark Regnerus wrote. Today he asserts the following:

When attractive women will still bed you, life for young men, even those who are floundering, just isn't so bad. This isn't to say that all men direct the course of their relationships. Plenty don't. But what many young men wish for—access to sex without too many complications or commitments—carries the day. If women were more fully in charge of how their relationships transpired, we'd be seeing, on average, more impressive wooing efforts, longer relationships, fewer premarital sexual partners, shorter cohabitations, and more marrying going on. Instead, according to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (which collects data well into adulthood), none of these things is occurring. Not one. The terms of contemporary sexual relationships favor men and what they want in relationships, not just despite the fact that what they have to offer has diminished, but in part because of it. And it's all thanks to supply and demand.

To better understand what's going on, it's worth a crash course in "sexual economics," an approach best articulated by social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs. As Baumeister, Vohs, and others have repeatedly shown, on average, men want sex more than women do. Call it sexist, call it whatever you want—the evidence shows it's true. In one frequently cited study, attractive young researchers separately approached opposite-sex strangers on Florida State University's campus and proposed casual sex. Three-quarters of the men were game, but not one woman said yes. I know: Women love sex too. But research like this consistently demonstrates that men have a greater and far less discriminating appetite for it. As Baumeister and Vohs note, sex in consensual relationships therefore commences only when women decide it does.

So aside from the fact that there are probably very good reasons why women approached by a stranger, even an attractive one, Regnerus also makes the extremely original point that boys will be boys! And he also repeats the idea that women don't actually want sex, they just go along with it. Ugh.

Regnerus also cites the work of the really awful Catherine Hakim, who, as I explained once before, is at the UK equivalent of the Heritage Foundation. So that pretty much destroys his credibility right there.

Let's for a moment remember that Regnerus believes it's a huge problem people aren't getting married until later in life. Instead, as I've noted many times, this is merely what happens when we as a country get richer, weddings get more expensive, and more people are focused on establishing their careers first (thanks, in part, to the United States' pretty atrocious work/life balance).

So, when people delay marriage, they might engage in some casual sex or temporarily monogamous relationships to fill the sexual needs in that gap. It might seem inconceivable to Regnerus that women might want to engage in that, but believe it or not, it happens! But Regnerus asserts that that never happens, so therefore if you're a woman who has casual sex, you're just giving in to men who want sex. You slut.

This doesn't mean that men "hold all the power," it just means that men are willing to say yes more. There are a lot of factors that go into whether women decide to engage in casual sex, and let's not forget that personal safety might be among them. This might be just one reason why women are more willing to be up for casual sex less than men. Others? Slut-shaming, double standards, and the fact that there are a lot of undesirable sexual partners out there. Those are just a few. But I do not believe, as Regnerus does, that the fact that young people engage in casual sex is some kind of crisis. What is a crisis is access to safe and affordable sexual health care.

Geez, Slate, try not to assign articles to someone so terrible next time.

Let's Talk About Sex (Columns), Baby

The Nation reports that ever since Berkeley's "Sex on Tuesday Column" in 1996, students have been writing columns in the vein of what author Alex DiBranco calls the "student sex columnist movement."

At its core, the sex column phenomenon is a radical progressive movement in the sense of pushing against traditional silence and the status quo, which is a source of concern for many administrators, parents and even students. Challenges to the columns stem from a conservative mindset--whether that be political, religious or cultural.

The challenges, it seems, are numerous. Universities and state legislatures threaten to pull funding from campus media that publish sex columns. Ultimately, to me it seems like more expression about sexuality is a good thing. Sex columns, as trite and annoying as I often find them, sometimes do perform an important public service for people who feel alone in their sexuality. The good ones push conventional wisdom and social norms about what's "normal" when it comes to sexuality.

The Nation column pointed out that Dartmouth is a school known as a conservative campus, but the Dartmouth Free Press, a Campus Progress-sponsored publication, has been publishing a sex column for years.

The sex column entered the pages of the Dartmouth Free Press in 2004, when senior Sheila Hicks, sexual leftist and host of the campus radio sex talk-show, "In Your Pants," encouraged readers to send "the questions you probably wouldn't ask your parents or your clergy members" to Dartmouth's liberal, progressive and alternative biweekly. Clint Hendler, Free Press editor in chief during the latter half of Hicks's tenure, saw the column as "a way to put a thumb in the eye of campus elements who found a ready outlet in the Dartmouth Review for rather churlish and reactionary takes on steps taken by the administration and others to support safe sex and LGBTQ culture." Unsurprisingly, given the aesthetic of the paper, sex columnists for the Free Press tend to be more clear about having explicit political and activist motivations than those on campuses in general.

Heather Strack asserts in the Free Press, "A sex column is a significant statement of female rights. Not only am I a female columnist, but I am writing about a topic considered taboo and improper for a woman." Women are the main target of abstinence/purity movements; thus, even if most columnists do not state this as unambiguously as Strack, the campus sex column is not only about students seizing control but about hearing underrepresented voices. Though men are readers in equal numbers, the sex columnist is a (straight and queer) female-dominated profession, with a small minority of queer men.

It's true that not all sex columns are the same. Just as many are inspired by Sex and the City, Cosmopolitan, and Dan Savage (although Dan Savage's column is decidedly the most progressive of the three, since he actually acknowledges that non-straight couples exist), as they are by open and honest views of sexuality.

Sometime around my junior year (if I recall correctly) my alma matter's campus daily began publishing "Dr. Date," a letter response column that reads like a more inane version of Savage Love. The column, as I remember it, was awfully relationship focused and took more of an opportunity to snark than it did to educate.

Cross posted.

'Mad Men' Shows 'Slut' Is Relative

Ann Friedman writes about the influence women writers are have on Mad Men's plot relating to the female characters:

And indeed, I love how the show paints an unvarnished picture of '50s gender roles and how the female characters are so three-dimensional. They don't easily map onto the sorts of stereotypes prevalent in TV shows and movies set in all decades. The bookish achiever (Peggy) is also kind of a slut. The slut (Joan) is also kind of a bookish achiever. And the devoted wife (Betty) is primed for a feminist awakening. (I've often wondered if the character was named after Betty Friedan.)

But commenter vwom asks:

What is a "slut" exactly?

I think one of the cool things about Mad Men is it challenges some of the stereotypes we have even today. Peggy, it becomes clear in the second season, is very different from her Catholic family. Even though Peggy doesn't seem to have a particularly active sex life (especially in comparison to other characters on the show), her family views her as a radical slut. Her sister breaks down into tears in a confession when she tells the priest how much she resents her sister who has a lot of freedom but leads what she views as a sinful lifestyle.

This all brings into focus the idea that the term "slut" is relative. When I think back to high school and middle school, I realize that girls that may not have ever had sex were viewed as "slutty" because they were viewed as such. The term has little to do with one's actual sexual activity and more to do with the way we slander women and the idea of women as sexual beings. It's a way to attack women, much like the term "bitch" is. Some women, like Tracy on Jezebel, have been trying in their own way to reclaim the word "slut" in her blogging moniker Slut Machine (although she dropped it when she got engaged).

Looking at Mad Men, their portrayal of the way women's sexuality was viewed in the early 1960s is illustrative of some of the remaining stereotypes today. I can't wait to see how they deal with the publication of the Feminine Mystique this season (and I hope they do!).

Women Want ...

I never commented about the New York Times Sunday Magazine article about "What Women Want" because I a) didn't read the article because I felt it would only make me mad, and b) Jill said everything much better than I could say it. Here is my advice: The article doesn't say anything particularly new, so instead you should read Mary Roach's much more awesome book, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex. That is all.

Is a Little Bit of BDSM All Bad?

The latest issue of Bitch (a feminist magazine which I've had for a couple weeks but haven't taken a look at until this weekend) recently sparked a controversy on a feminist listserv in which I participate. I'm a little late weighing in on this -- much of the debate happened early last week, while I was finishing up my vacation, but I think it's a relevant enough topic to still weigh in on. The argument erupted over a cartoon on page 43 of the noir-themed issue.

The comic, titled "The 'Nightmare' Zone" by Jennifer Cruté, depicted an artist who seems to be fantasizing about finding herself in hell, tied up, and with a white man wearing a devil hat holding a paddle. The comic's main character says, "Hey! Wait a minute! I was good all of my life! Shouldn't I be in the other place?" The man in the devil hat responds, "Oh baby! This is the other place!" The white man smacks the main character on the ass with the paddle and in the final frame of the comic, she seems to be in a state of euphoria, with a devil character on one side riding a dildo and an angel charactor on the other winking. To further put the cartoon in context, it is part of a full color section of the magazine devoted to "my dark confession" in which "five comic artists reveal their secret loves, lives & lust."

In other words, this is a depiction of a dark fantasy the cartoonist went out on a limb to share. The reaction by one woman on the listserv was obvious one of concern. She wondered how far we are supposed to go in terms of sanctioning violence against women even if it is in the name of sexual fantasy.

Her concern is one that many feminists struggle with. Rape fantasies and submissive sexuality are really complicated places to negotiate as a feminist. This essay from a recently released book on the subject (Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Jessica Valenti) is worthwhile and I recommend anyone read the whole thing.

BDSM (for my purposes, bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism) makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and the concept of female submission makes feminists really uncomfortable. I can certainly understand why, but I also believe that safe, sane and consensual BDSM exists as a polar opposite of a reality in which women constantly face the threat of sexual violence.

[...]

But when you throw a little rape, bondage or humiliation fantasy into the mix, a whole set of ideological problems arises. The idea of a woman consenting to be violated via play not only is difficult terrain to negotiate politically, but also is rarely discussed beyond BDSM practitioners themselves. Sexually submissive feminists already have a hard enough time finding a voice in the discourse, and their desire to be demeaned is often left out of the conversation. Because of this, the opportunity to articulate the political ramifications of rape fantasy happens rarely, if at all.

Ultimately, what was depicted in the cartoon was fairly tame, especially by BDSM standards, and the comic clearly noted how risky such a fantasy is -- I might even argue that it addressed some guilt over even having such a fantasy. I know that we tend to come from a culture that has a very repressed sexual past. This kind of sexuality isn't for everyone. It's complicated, especially for feminists that work on increasing agency of women and it becomes difficult when some women use that agency to ceede sexual power.

But by eliminating the option of expressing or discussing such a fantasy in an alternative feminist magazine especially seems to further ghettoize such fantasies. It urges such people to keep it closeted, hidden, and never to talk about it. I'm glad that Cruté was brave enough to share her fantasy, and that it sparked a debate among feminists. The more we talk about these things, the closer we might get to actually negotiating some space in the public discourse for them.

Let’s Talk About (Realistic) Sex, Baby

Today the Washington Post wrote about a study released that shows a correlation between unintended pregnancies and watching television shows that portray “flirting, necking, discussion of sex and sex scenes,” which Matt blogged about earlier. The study concludes that there isn’t necessarily a causal relationship between the two, but of course abstinence-only advocates are using this as an excuse to push their programs, which have been proven ineffective.

But what we really need to see is some more realistic scenarios involving sex, and by realistic I mean realistic. When was the last time you saw a teen pregnancy discussed on a television show? I bet it’s been even longer (or never) since you heard talk about birth control, Plan B, and other forms of contraception. It’s as if sex just magically happens and these scenes aren’t ever contextualized by conversations with parents about going on birth control or using condoms. Instead, we’re presented with Fairy Tale Sex where people just magically have sex without talking about the practical side.

It would be nice to instead see teenagers have honest conversations with one another about their options for birth control and protecting themselves against sexually transmitted diseases. Many shows shy away from this because it makes the shows “too controversial,” but what shows like Gossip Girl pride themselves on is being edgy. Wouldn’t it be just as edgy to include some realistic conversations about sex? Teenagers aren’t just going to stop having sex, no matter what goes on TV, but at least we can get the message out about sex with contraception.

Over the Counter Sexual Experience

Everyone I've talked to that went to see Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 seems totally embarrassed that they went to go see it. Well, I went ahead and saw it since I read all of the books and (go ahead, laugh at me) loved them. The movie was pretty great overall, since it focuses on the girls and their ambitions and goals. But there was something that differed from the book. [Spoilers below.]

The storyline with Tibby was almost the same as in the book -- except for one important detail. After she and Brian have sex for the first time and the condom breaks, the movie doesn't even mention emergency contraception as an option. In the book, written by Ann Brashares, Brian calls her to tell her she can still get emergency contraception and even looks up the address of the nearest Planned Parenthood. But Tibby is pretty much in denial (emphasis added):

She didn't want to know the address of the Planned Parenthood. She didn't want to have that kind of life. She didn't want to get examined by a gynecologist and fill a prescription. She wanted her sexual experience to be strictly over the counter.

Interestingly enough, since the book was written EC has become available over the counter. But Tibby, normally one of my favorite characters in the series, reacts in an extremely irrational way to a fairly common problem. After all, that's why they invented emergency contraception. And she somehow gets confused, like needing EC makes her a different kind of person than she was before she had sex.

Weirdly enough, before the film, there was a trailer for the movie House Bunny.

Somehow we can't have a realistic conversation about EC between a girl and her boyfriend who have sex for the first time when the condom breaks, but it's a-OK to show smart young women what they really need is to be more like a Playboy Bunny.

Machismo Puts Lives at Risk

There's a heartbreaking story in the New York Times about gay men in Mexico -- or as they insist, straight men who occasionally sleep or have just once slept with a man. These men are at risk for contracting HIV, and their difficulty identifying as gay makes it much harder for public health officials to educate, combat, and treat HIV infection and AIDS.

What's remarkable about this story is what it really shows about social influences. Many people who stigmatize homosexuality don't see the harm and often feel it's wrong anyway. But this story shows that making an unsafe environment for these men to identify as openly gay puts their lives at risk.

Siegel reviews Girls Gone Mild

Deborah Siegel, the author of Sisterhood Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild, has an excellent review of Wendy Shalit's new book, Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good up at The American Prospect today. She touches on some very good points that moralizing can be a difficult topic to broach:

To me, ethics and morality apply to the way we craft our arguments. More moral dichotomizing is hardly what women, what girls, what any of us need now.

I agree. It's hard enough to be a young woman these days, with all kinds of social pressure about what grades we're supposed to get (good ones), how many sexual partners we're supposed to have (not many), the way we're supposed to look (sexy), and how much we're supposed to weigh (the less, the better). Piled on top of that, Siegel says that Schalit adopts a lot of the language the Christian right has been using for the last 15 years to push young women to adopt the virgin model.

What women need is to realize that they can break outside of stereotypes and forge their own thoughts, styles, and moralities. Young women need a more supportive environment rather than another pile of lectures.

Cross-posted at Campus Progress.

Multiple Sex Partners, You Do the Math

In this rather odd NYTimes article, it says that men have, in median numbers, more heterosexual partners than women do. Gina Kolata, upon consulting some mathematicians, says this is impossible. The economists over at Crooked Timber, think differently. Meanwhile, the larger question is, why are these numbers unequal? Regardless if the numbers are right, women either say they have fewer partners or they actually do. I would say it largely has to do with a social standard. Men are expected to have more partners. A man with a lot of sexual partners is a "player" whereas a woman with a lot of sexual partners is a "slut." Now, economists, you tell me who has more incentive to rack up the numbers.

Cross-posted at Campus Progress.