We’ve all felt the pressure. Whether women are being told to be pure and chaste, or being cast as sexual objects in the media, the message is the same: as a woman, our only value lies in our body and what we do –or don’t do– with our body.
This is most commonly described as the virgin/whore dichotomy and can be seen in nearly any establishment or ideal that focuses on women.
In the US, we are experiencing some serious moral confusion over women’s bodies. The confusion is borne out of the intersection of hypersexualization in the media and the conservative agenda that pushes abstinence and demands decreased funding for Planned Parenthood.
Take beauty pageants, for example. Many contestants tout traditional values such as abstinence until marriage and female purity — immediately after strutting around in a bikini on stage. However, the very fiber of these pageants is, well, beauty, and outward appearance. Like any other realm that places females in a challenger role, from running for president to auditioning for a movie role, the foundation is built upon the notion that sex sells.
One telling example of this disturbing dichotomy is former Miss California Carrie Prejean, who gained favor because she promoted herself as a virgin, waiting for marriage. Americans all over the country ‘respected’ her for her purity while drooling over the breast implants that the Miss California organization subsidized for her. Then, when some racy photos of her came out, the Miss California winner lost her crown due to “breach of contract.”
This story is rife with contradictions and is a very telling example of the short-circuit we encounter when it comes to women and their sexuality. Are we supposed to be pure …or are we supposed to be sexual objects? I propose that much of this dichotomy is derived from fear of female sexuality.
Women are hidden behind burkas or victim-blamed in rape cases because the idea of self-possessed female sexuality is subconsciously threatening.
In a Jezebel interview with Jessica Valenti, author of ‘The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women,’ answers a question about the intricacies of female sexuality and the complexity of the female orgasm. The supposition being that these “purists,” or people obsessed with female purity, simply do not understand female sexuality. This leads to fear, and fear leads to ignorance, anger, and sometimes violence.
A sexy woman is less terrifying if she’s only an image in a magazine; a sexual object without feeling, desire, or all the mysteries of her sexuality. But God forbid she’s a real-life woman taking ownership of her sexuality.
And the lack of information from a young age does not help. In the US, the government allocates funding for abstinence-only sex education in public high schools. With federal funding, which many schools need, and pressure from religious groups in the US, many schools choose to teach this abstinence-only sex education. Not only is abstinence-only education harmful to teens in that it paradoxically promotes more teenage pregnancies, the spread of STDs, and abortions, but it often aims its rhetoric at young girls.
In The Purity Myth, Valenti outlines some strategies used by abstinence only sex educators to push the purity agenda on teen girls. One method involves a male volunteer from the class and a piece of tape. The educator places the tape on the boy’s arm and pulls it off again. The piece of tape is presented to the class and the educator exclaims, “See how dirty the tape is? This is what happens when you have sex before marriage.” The idea being that the girl is the tape, and when she comes into contact with the opposite sex before the sanctity of marriage, she becomes “dirty.”
This and many other examples of defining a woman’s virginity as a “gift” for her future husband, only to be unwrapped on the wedding night, is the cause of misunderstanding, fear, and the perpetuation of chastity as the standard of female morality.
And this is the real issue. Women wearing itsy-bitsy bikinis or “sexy pirate” costumes on Halloween is not the issue, and these things certainly do not make women ‘sluts’. The issue is that women aren’t the ones taking ownership of their own sexuality.
Valenti talks about the overlap between the agendas of the virginity movement in America and the feminist movement. The question being that both movements are against the hypersexualization of women: “The big difference, of course, is that, with feminists, we’re choosing what kind of sexuality we’d like to put out there; with the virginity movement it’s adults (and a lot of men) deciding what appropriate sexuality is for younger women. It’s anyone and everyone except young women themselves defining young women’s sexuality.”
Shouldn’t we be deciding for ourselves what’s appropriate without the fear of slut-shaming? The thing that many people seem to forget is the will of each individual woman. What if the mostly nude woman on the cover of Vanity Fair reached her lifetime ambition by posing in front of that camera? Is that any less valuable than a woman achieving her goal of becoming a neurosurgeon? Does a woman’s sexuality really define her morality, her intelligence, or her humanity?
We don’t need to to tear down the models in the magazines, or slut-shame the women wearing mini skirts, or tell young women that they must be modest in order to set the balance of men and women at an even keel. The only way we can ever hope to overcome the prejudices against women is to completely divorce the idea of sexuality with morality. We can all start by examining our motivations. So the next time you think about calling a woman a slut for any of the myriad of pre-conditioned reasons, stop, think, and try to see this woman as more than just her body.
Read more: Is Religion Afraid of Women?
Modesty is a very important part of maintaining a sane society. And promiscuity and looseness of morals run directly contrary to that…so it makes sense to discourage being slutty !!
Promiscuity ≠ cheating. It surprises me how ignorant some people are. A character has to do with how you treat others, not how many people you fuck. Girls and boys have the full rights do what they want with their lives, whatever makes them happy and works out (be it having 150 sex partners or being in a monogamous long-term relationship). Thank god for birth control, this enables girls to have more sex too. Your theory that “not being in a committed relationship means no secure life” is absolute bullshit. Based on anecdotes, many single people are stable in their lives. Also, how is being promiscuous selfish? Remove that negative connotation from “selfish.” Why is it bad to understand and care for your needs (sexual needs included) as long as you aren’t harming others? Moreover, times are changing. We don’t need the traditional family system anymore in order to thrive and be happy.
I agree with her in the sense that there is a double standard. There is no doubt there are risks involved when someone is promiscuous, but society seems to only recognize this in women. Also the fact that women are supposed to be virginal/practice self-control while men are encouraged to have many sexual partners. In terms of the way you dress that’s a personal choice, but I think showing less is more. That being said the way a person dress is never an excuse for rape.
Though I personally may not agree with exposing your body or sleeping around (regardless of gender), I couldn’t care less about someone else doing so. Why? Because it’s their life and not mine. Nobody in the world is mine, yours, or anyone’s puppet. You control nothing of their life, don’t know what they’ve gone through, or why they do what they do, so why force your opinions on others? As a human, you are given the right to do whatever you want WITH YOURSELF! The moment you affect or control someone else’s life is the moment you surpass your own rights. Saying this, it is okay to have an opinion, but why does an opinion have to be so hateful? I’m pretty sure none of you are perfect and that’s alright. We aren’t meant to be.
Well, maybe schools with dress codes that are mostly for women should re-think their policies. I remember this old news wherein a teacher sent a young girl to detention because her clothes are “seducing” him.
Modesty isn’t the best policy. Geez, I’ve been raised to always keep my legs closed even on family gatherings because it’s so “not women-like” to not be sitting properly and we don’t want other people seeing our underwear beneath our dresses even if everyone in the room is our relatives. We’re raised to fear men because they can’t keep their hands off of defenseless women. Is this how the world is? We’re like animals and women are the prey. We slaughter animals because we don’t want to level ourselves with them but we’re no different.
Yes, this comment.?? We’re no different from animals because of our behavior.
Here’s a thought: we tell boys that their sxual desires are dirty, then we start implying that anyone (even a girl) who engages them is assumed to be dirty as well. The problem is, it’s not just women that we’re harming here. We’re all harming both genders and I’m not exactly sure how to get by it.
Slut shaming is some sort of defense to some people. It happens because those people aren’t taught to deal with their emotions, or that it’s not their job to label people or put them in their place. It’s not like calling names can serve as a justice to their hurt feelings.
If virginity is a gift that should be given to husbands, what if they get divorced? Human logic is so weird. If virginity is required for every woman, then why did they allow divorce bills to get approved? I mean, I know those are two different things but the logic about virginity is so flawed because it doesn’t make any sense at all. I haven’t even met a man who still cares about her woman being a virgin upon marriage. Every man I met is trying to get into women’s pants before they even last a day dating.
I get your point. It’s honestly stupid to be judging women because of this now.
We target the wrong issues when there are bigger problems.
The problem with sex education is that abstinence thing. If any of you will claim that it’s inaccurate that the forbidden fruit is the one that’s twice as tempting, then you’re lying. My point is, telling these teenagers to not do it will make them twice as curious and you’re left with dealing with bigger problems such as STDs and HIV because of unprotected sex.