April 11, 2011

This month each member of  the Insomnia Club is taking their own slant on a recent New York Time article, A Girl’s Nude Photo, and Altered Lives. The article detailed the story of “Margarite”, a grade eight student who made the very bad decision to forward a nude picture of herself to her boyfriend via her mobile phone and subsequently faced a devastating fallout.

Needless to say there was much to cover in the article, the responsibility of parenting, sexting, child pornography laws, etc. But as you would expect, we here at MetAnotherFrog.com decided to focus on the Slut Shaming Margarite endured as a result of making one regrettable choice.

Enjoy!

ELIZABETH ROSE

“Do you really have to be the ice queen intellectual or the slut whore? Isn’t there some way to be both?” – Susan Sarandon

***Caution feminist rant ahead***

Slut-shaming. It seems to be back in fashion again. Mocking a woman for being sexual isn’t big or clever – it’s childish, and illustrates the ongoing double standards of our society.

Some slut shamers pretend that they are really pursuing an agenda of safe-sex and by mocking promiscuity they are really protecting morals / family values / the health of the individual (delete the options as appropriate). But this isn’t what slut-shaming is really all about. Instead it’s about trying to belittle women on the final feminist frontier. You can no longer acceptably limit a woman’s educational or career prospects – but you can still limit her sexual freedom. Through degrading terminology, bullying and now forwarding flirtatious texts, we can brand a girl a SLUT – in a cyber instant.

Some of the recent incidences of this, including the one discussed in the NY Times article mentioned above, aren’t far removed from witch hunting back in the Middle Ages. My sympathies lie with those victimised by individuals wishing to keep “women in their place”. (In this particular realm it seems that women don’t get to enjoy or want sex on their own terms.)

But dear readers, we all know that no one would think it was OK to mock or belittle a girl for having a desire to play sports or be athletic. So, why is it good form to run her character down for wanting to enjoy sex? Are some among us afraid of the prospect of having more sexually confident women?

As women gained confidence in their positions in society divorce rates rose as they were less inclined to keep crap husbands, and many put off having children until later in life as they wished to pursue a career first. If we women, all gain confidence in our rights and needs in the bedroom – what would that mean to society? (The mind boggles, but my current daydream is a world where men get plastic surgery to extend their tongue.)

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SKYE BLUE

After reading A Girl’s Nude Photo, and Altered Lives, I had a number of reactions. At first, my single, no child having ass got stuck in a whole lot of self-righteous indignation (you know how we non-parents always think we can do it better, right?), wondering where the parents were when all of the “sexting” was going on. Next, I asked myself how did our society come to be a place where pre-pubescent teens feel such a need to display/brag about their nascent sexuality that they are compelled to send nude shots of themselves to one another – something this (by comparison) very old woman – has never had the courage/inclination to do. But then, as I read the article through a second time, in preparation to write this post, another, more important question (at least IMO), hit me:

Why is it that in this day and age – a time when sex, for better or worse, is seemingly everywhere – our collective response to a any girl or woman who openly expresses and enjoys her sexuality (without harming anyone else) is to insult, condemn and tear her down? Essentially, shame her into never partaking in or admitting she enjoys such pleasures again?

As any woman or girl (likely from direct experience) will tell you, Slut Shaming, the idea of humiliating and/or attacking a woman or girl for being sexual, having one or more sexual partners, acknowledging sexual feelings, and/or acting on sexual feelings, is prevalent in our culture. What’s more, it’s incredibly damaging: not only to the girls and women directly targeted, but to EVERY female (as any girl or woman who acts in a way that another person doesn’t like is at risk for being slut-shamed) and our society as a whole. And while many people are quick to point out that it is we women, competing against one another for the seemingly “limited supply” of male attention (because we’ve been brainwashed socialized to believe that our most valuable asset is our beauty and ability to attract men), who are the harshest perpetrators of Slut Shaming (click here to read an essay by one such woman, and here to read the insights of the male editor who rushed in to clean up her mess), it’s absolutely undeniable that this phenomenon is perpetuated by the way we ALL – men and women, girls and boys alike – think and speak about women’s sexuality.

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In a study of North American English, Stanley (1977, cited by Graddol & Swann, 1989, p. 110) identified 220 words for a sexually promiscuous woman but only 20 for a sexually promiscuous man. - Sandra McKay and Nancy H. Hornberger, Sociolingüistics and Language Teaching

It’s telling that our society has so many words to describe so-called ‘loose women’, and so few to describe their male peers. According to Dr. Orville Boyd Jenkins, anthropological linguist, a given culture’s “language gives a unique internal insight into the thought-world of the people who speak that language. This thought-world is the realm in which concepts are set and decisions are made.” In essence, language isn’t merely a means of communication. It also influences our culture, shapes our perceptions, and reflects our societal interests and concerns. And since we Westerners seem pretty keen on clearly and concisely describing promiscuous women, I would argue that we are more than a little preoccupied with reining in women’s sexuality. Just take a look at the sampling of terms used to describe promiscuous men and women below, and you’ll see what I mean:

Females: fast woman, hussy, doll,  siren, gypsy, minx, vamp, wench, trollop, coquette, bint, crumpet, floozy, scrubber, slag, groupie, nympho, slut, tart, strumpet, skank, hoochie, ho, whore,  floozy, harlot, chickenhead, skeezer, bint, slapper, tramp and (my personal fave) cum dumpster.

Males: Casanova, Romeo, Lothario, Don Juan, ladies’ man, lady-killer, gigolo, stud, sugar daddy and roué.

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… a boy caught sending a picture of himself may be regarded as a fool or even a boastful stud, girls, regardless of their bravado, are castigated as sluts…Photos of girls tend to go viral more often, because boys and girls will circulate girls’ photos in part to shame them… Jan Hoffman, A Girl’s Nude Photo, and Altered Lives, NY Times

I’m guessing you were all observant enough to pick up on the fact that all the terms used to describe sexually aware women have a pejorative tone; while in sharp contrast, with the exception of the word roué the terms used to describe such men uphold the very macho notions of power and conquest – giving them a much more positive slant. Further evidence that our language and culture supports the double standard we females face with respect to our sexuality. A double standard that keeps virtually every woman and girl living in fear of making even slightest misstep (as randomly defined by individual members of the slut police, making the goal post for avoiding “slut-dom” a moving target) regarding the expression of her sexuality. Fear that compels us to:

• Work hard to keep our ‘number’ down or at least very private to avoid being judged/called out.
• Repeatedly invoke our ‘good girl’ status whenever topics like one night stands, casual sex and such come up.
• Keep quiet about our sexual desires and needs, even within the bounds of our romantic relationships.
• Nod our head in agreement or remain silent (and complicit) when someone explains away a sexual assault with quips like “What was she doing out so late at night anyway?”, “Well, you know she did have a bad reputation”, or “She must’ve have wanted it if she was dressed like that, no?”
• Slut shame women and girls, either privately or publicly, who we believe is ‘freer with themselves’ than we are.

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“… when we have one standard for both sexes–that is, when we have sexual equality.” – Leora Tanenbaum, Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation

Based on the sheer quantity and relentlessness of the venomous Slut Shaming that Margarite faced at the hands of both her frenemies and complete strangers, it is clear we have a long way to go, before our society approaches anything akin to sexual equality between men and women. A fact that leaves me wondering, just how many more girls and women, will have to face the same level of shame and fear Margarite did, simply because of a single bad decision (show me a woman hasn’t made at least a few hundred in her life) before things change?

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