The Sexual Education of a Beauty Queen

by Taylor Marsh

  I knew that if the guy I was living with preferred pornography to me, knowing he was faithful in every other way, it’s likely I’m not the only woman experiencing this with a man. Getting him to talk about our problem on any level was impossible. This became a personal hell for me, but unlike Laura, an operation wouldn’t fix it. Jeffrey fueled my curiosity to find out more about the secret sex lives of men, which was obviously a very real thing, and learn a lot more about pornography.

  Years later, watching Charlotte in Sex and the City catch her first husband Trey MacDougal masturbating to pornographic magazines, it wasn’t just a scene in an HBO sitcom to me. It could have been a scene starring Jeffrey and me, minus being married.

  Jeffrey was no Don Jon, the name of the lead character in the film Don Jon’s Addiction, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s wildly entertaining romp about porn addiction. Gordon-Levitt’s character loves porn more than pussy, as it’s put in the movie, because porn makes him forget everything else. One difference between Jeffrey and Don Jon is that while my guy wasn’t having sex with me, Don Jon was having lots of sex with lots of girls. They were both porn junkies, but Don Jon delivered in the sack, while Jeffrey wasn’t interested in trying.

  The beauty of Don Jon is where the lead character starts and where he finishes.

  When Don Jon meets Barbara Sugarman, played flawlessly by the gorgeous Scarlett Johansson, she won’t have sex with him, expecting courtship done all her way. Then she finds out he’s a porn “junky,” and explodes. When he can’t keep his promise to stay away from it, she catches him after snooping through his browser history. It’s over. Screw her! Back he goes to his faithful porn, masturbating ten times a day again and loving it, complete with a contagion of Catholic confessions that soothe his guilt.

  It’s all good, until Don Jon starts talking to Esther, played by Julianne Moore, who caught him watching porn in their night class. She offers him an adult video, which he thinks is weird. It’s a lot better than the trash he’s watching on the web, she tells him. Eventually, Esther asks him if he can go one day without watching porn. Don Jon says, “I lose myself” in porn, so why should he? They’ve had sex by now, so she calls him out, saying that’s the way he fucks her, like she’s not even there. It’s a two-way thing… get lost together, Esther suggests. It turns Don Jon’s idea of sex upside down.

  Suddenly Don Jon’s insatiable lust for pornography, which is never quenched, shifts. Without porn, he suddenly finds sex with Esther more satisfying than whacking off. He starts singing when he drives, instead of screaming at people in cars. Hilariously, the priests in his Catholic confession sessions never take into account he’s now monogamous, porn free, and being a very good boy.

  The best sex is about orgasm, as much as it is how you get there. It’s also why some porn fans get attached to the girls they watch when they masturbate. Connection is key in mind-blowing sex, so your average porn junky’s problem isn’t the visual extravaganza. It’s an emotional issue, which cannot be explored as long as smut is keeping a guy absorbed and alone in his very own secret sex world that cuts him off from engaged intimacy.

  The scenes with Laura in Sexy Baby and the other stories, as well as reports about cybersex, sexting and social media, prove the pornification impact in our culture has widened. At least now documentaries are being made that include the voices of young teens.

  My reaction to my problem with Jeffrey was different than Laura’s in Sexy Baby: Dump the jerk. But it sure didn’t happen quickly. First, I had to go through the gauntlet of figuring out that my sex drive wasn’t abnormally voracious. Guys are the ones who enjoy sex so much, I’d been told, only to find out in other relationships that I was any man’s sexual equal. After a relatively normal start with Jeffrey, it was a year before I went looking for a reason why we weren’t having sex, and I found out about his porn obsession. That’s also when I finally figured out it wasn’t about me; it was his problem, not mine.

  I was obviously choosing guys that didn’t deserve me. The important question was why had I chosen him in the first place? I wasn’t going to change myself. The object was to change the guys I was dating. I did prove Kinsey’s theory, however, that women are sexual, and sex matters to us a great deal, though how much can differ between girls. We also have healthy sexual egos that can be crushed just like a man’s, which is rarely discussed.

  Jeffrey never considered my sexual needs or my ego or pride. At one point, since this went on for years, I demanded we have sex-dates once a week. We’d put on Barry White and get comfy in the living room and he’d take care of me or I’d take care of myself while he… Honest to Christ, I have no idea what he did. My head was flipping through naked males, with beautifully erect penises and all I cared about was that one brief release, which kept me from becoming a pent-up, raving bitch. Because going without sex is bad for your health. Anyone who does it is certifiable. When it’s not great, finding a way to at least make it better is the only alternative, because what sex does for your self-esteem, mood and general happiness is undeniable.

  Even as embarrassing as it was at first, confronting my boyfriend, it was a whole lot easier solving my problem with a guy obsessed with porn magazines than Laura’s problem was for her.

  But getting a labiaplasty? Surgery on external female genitalia to make it prettier is one issue; if it’s surgically needed because of pain during sex, that’s another. Both are legit, but we’re into new territory here. Check out labiaplasty on Wikipedia, the web’s free, group-sourced encyclopedia. The definition comes with four pictures of different labias for you to compare, or you can watch a web video to educate yourself.

  In January 2013, VH1’s Best Week Ever highlighted a reality show Plastic Wives, on TLC. The show, getting coverage from TMZ to the New York Daily News to Fox News, starred Veronica Matlock, Dayna Devon, Alana Sands and Frances Marques, who are all married to successful Los Angeles plastic surgeons who also appear on the show. The plot develops from there. One wife sits down in front of the camera holding a tray, takes the jar that’s sitting on it and pronounces, “This is my labia. You know, I think she looks better in the jar than hanging down there.”

  Words fail.

  “We’re seeing more and more requests from teens under the age eighteen even, because of a heightened sexual awareness, because of magazines, because of porn, because of the Internet,” says Dr. Bernard Stern, a labiaplasty surgeon interviewed in Sexy Baby.

  As Beyoncé sings in “Pretty Hurts,” from her 2013 record-shattering iTunes release on her self-titled album, “perfection is the disease of a nation.” In the video released with this song, Beyoncé is competing in a beauty pageant, but the content of the lyrics revolves around seeking the approval and applause of others, which goes well beyond the pageant scene. “Nobody frees you from your own body,” is something all girls know. “It’s the soul that needs surgery,” sings Beyoncé.

  Nikita Kash, the ex-stripper in the documentary, who also became a porn actress, not to mention a contestant on America’s Got Talent, makes the point that the “adult entertainment world has completely infiltrated the mainstream.” She blames the digital age for helping make it all possible. She’s right when she talks about women mimicking strippers in nightclubs. She also says guys are now doing moves in bed from adult movies. Think about sleeping with Dirk Diggler, the fictional porn star made famous by Mark Wahlberg in Boogie Nights.

  The mainstreaming of the adult industry was also facilitated by some of the top five hundred companies in the country, including Marriott, which streamed pornography into their hotel rooms until 2011. Why shouldn’t they, if it makes money? As long as children don’t have access, adults can play, and it can even help your sex life.

  Sexy Baby makes an important distinction beyond the obvious, between the twelve-year-old and the ex-stripper and porn star. Nakita admits that she wishes her mother would have encouraged her dancing, because it might have made a difference. Winnifred’s parents are divorced, but both her mother a
nd father are involved with her on screen, questioning her and talking to her about what’s coming at her on Facebook and in the world.

  “You can either be part of the conversation, be part of their thinking, or you can let them figure it out on their own. I sort of would rather be part of the conversation… I get blown off a lot,” Winnifred’s mom Jeni offers.

  It reveals a relationship with her daughter that I couldn’t have dreamed of having with my mother. Not in a million years.

  It’s not the access, it’s the judgment people apply to their situations, to the things that infiltrate their daily lives and assault their relationships. This is nothing new, even if the situations are wildly different and the subjects far wider to tackle than they were in Kinsey’s era, when he was just introducing America to the sexualized female who has always existed.

  Winnifred’s dad lies to her, by his own admission, telling his girls that it doesn’t matter what you look like. They’ll learn the truth soon enough, that it’s easier for a girl who is pretty, and maybe even combat it through having more to offer than looks that change through age. Right now their dad is pumping up their confidence. As Sarah Jessica Parker, aka Carrie Bradshaw, has proven conclusively, if you have audacity, confidence and brains, it can more than make up for not being what’s considered a classic beauty.

  The conversation Sexy Baby joins is that girls now focus as much on what they want to do as what they look like. It strengthens self-confidence and makes you less dependent on a man for approval, which will relax the whole relationship situation. It’s become more about how the girl or woman sees herself, not how she’s seen through a man’s eyes or through anyone else’s eyes. The self-possession obsession is replaced by something inside that drives her.

  The overexposure of sexy images and pornography has led to the mainstreaming of soft-core visuals on broadcast and cable TV. The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show has become a lingerie-model extravaganza that now includes major entertainers in a production that is now a musical fashion show each Christmas.

  But look at Marilyn Monroe, then look at the Victoria’s Secret model. It’s an example of just how much our visual standards have changed for women. Could Monroe get cast today in any major role? With her voluptuousness, you wonder if it would be possible. The skinny-girl perfection of the Victoria’s Secret models is challenging for any girl watching. The abnormally small waists, super-skinny legs and skin perfection are enough to make any girl give up or run to the nearest plastic surgeon.

  What else do the Victoria’s Secret models have, and what are we getting besides an hour of eye candy? It doesn’t really matter, unless you consider how the image of these models blankets our culture in other forms beyond the lingerie store. Then there is what it takes to be a Victoria’s Secret model, which is endemic across our culture.

  It’s one thing to be beautiful and have the right body type and height, but has anyone thought about the “training”? In an interview with the UK Telegraph, the model Adriana Lima talks about her eating habits beginning nine days before the show, when “she will drink only protein shakes — ‘no solids.’” Lima worked with a nutritionist and a trainer, jumping rope, boxing and working out twice a day. She did this just months after giving birth, showing up at the December 2012 Victoria’s Secret show looking spectacular.

  The American Decency Association, whose name alone is enough to make any woman wince, has boycotted Victoria’s Secret, because it “sells lingerie in an inappropriate and immoral manner and therefore contributes to the sexual objectification of women and the desensitization of moral sensibilities.” They raised a ruckus when the first show was scheduled to air, but the public decided that the viewer could always turn the channel if the sight of vamping lingerie models wearing angel’s wings was too shocking.

  I’m not trying to make light of the images we all see every day, with the supposedly perfect woman being pictured as thin, beautiful and without a mark on her skin or any extra fat anywhere, or saying it isn’t overwhelming at times. Remember that the photos are retouched.

  This is the twenty-first century, and with the onslaught coming at girls and women, we’re all going to have to buck up. Objectification is real, and the only antidote is to address it straight on, not simply react to it. It also depends when it occurs. In a professional setting, combat it with what you have to offer that really matters and make it known. We can’t stop it, but we can challenge it by addressing the appropriateness of any comment, depending on the situation.

  Being in the pageants was a means to an end for me. I was never the prettiest girl there, but seeing the most beautiful made me look at who I was and what I had that was unique that they didn’t. It also teaches you that what you’re looking at on the surface doesn’t tell the whole story. It reminds you that the hardest work of all is not impressing someone else; it’s crafting your own narrative that takes you where you long to go. Don’t get distracted.

  I watch the Victoria’s Secret show and I enjoy it, especially with the added productions and the musical extravaganza it has become, which is a hint to a shifting reality. After the novelty of the first year, it simply wasn’t enough to see the girls strutting around in extravagant costumes, no matter their beauty. Naked or half-clothed girls are everywhere today.

  Even the famous swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated has become supersized. To keep people interested they need to give readers more bikinied beauties than ever before. It’s the only way to keep up with the onslaught of sensory bombardment the web offers that also desensitizes.

  Now think about the Sexy Baby profile of Nikita Kash. She traded on her looks as a major part of her career, which now becomes about booking other strippers in clubs. Strippers and adult actresses make fantasies come true in people’s minds for differing types of pleasure and profit. It’s a brave, new, creatively capitalistic world for all liberated ladies, no matter how you define the terms or whether society approves of what we’re doing or not.

  No one has begun to work what’s happening to women today more uniquely, while redefining the territory, than Lena Dunham and the show she created for HBO, Girls. Dunham puts a whole new meaning to the words sex and the city, because she doesn’t look, act or sound like anything close to what came before or what popular culture shows us non-stop today. What Dunham is doing is revolutionary, but the pilot episode included a nod to Sex and the City, with Shoshanna, played by Zosia Mamet, breaking down her own personality in terms of the Sex and the City girls who came before. The image Dunham’s presenting is groundbreaking, her material worthy of acknowledging as the earthquake it is in modern American culture. Dunham’s healthy body image blasts a message, whether intended or not, just like the lives of the “girls” on the show. Live out loud any way you choose, and make it up as you go along.

  It didn’t take long at all before the twenty-six-year old Dunham pissed everyone off for being so brilliant at such a young age. Funny how our culture never freaks when a man does it young. I can relate to Girls, because at the very same age, I was living in New York City making my way on Broadway after college, experiencing it all as it came my way.

  The first observations and reviews about the show didn’t focus on the fact that it obliterated every Marilyn-Monroe-to-Victoria’s-Secret-to-Sexy-Baby image of women with a realistic view of ordinary females not in the Sex and the City glamour loop. The critics instead commented that the whole thing was just too “bleached.” Where were the people of color? After all, it was taking place in New York City.

  So, in season two, Dunham began by bedding a hot African-American guy. Asked and answered.

  Co-executive producer Judd Apatow explained after the backlash landed. “We wanted it,” the Huffington Post’s Crystal Bell quoted him saying enthusiastically. “That’s the point of it, really. It’s supposed to be a comedy about women in New York who are really smart, but their lives are a mess. They know they should be doing great things, but they don’t know what it is, and they have kind of a fe
eling of self-entitlement about it. That’s the joke of the show.”

  Girls is about a slice of the female population. But it’s a section that is anything but put together, perfectly coiffed and worried about designer anything. The characters are fairly certain they should be on their way to doing something great. They just haven’t a clue what it is.

  After The Devil Wears Prada and Anne Hathaway’s perceived perfection, Lena Dunham’s Girls competes with no glamour icon or vision of visual perfection. It’s more in the style of Jennifer Lawrence, though with a twist. It informs why Anne Hathaway is irrationally disliked and mocked in the social media universe. The disdain for any hint of trying to measure up, which begins with maintaining an aura of behavior that screams, “I’m doing what’s expected.”

  For her classic moment in the 2013 Oscar spotlight, Jennifer Lawrence felt no similar compunction. She literally tripped and stumbled on her way to accept the Best Actress award. Her reaction to this public screw-up was not only charming, but refreshing in a way that made all girls exhale. You can trip and fall in couture at the Oscars, no less, and it doesn’t mean a thing. That’s revelatory. After it happened, the website Jezebel.com published, “11 Reasons Why Jennifer Lawrence is Your BFF in Your Head.” They nailed it with Number 11: “Basically she’s perfect. Mostly because she’s not.”

  Lawrence also didn’t try to act cool when she lost it over meeting Jack Nicholson. She’s simply unafraid of being who she is, which at that moment meant reacting like an average fan when meeting one of the great cinematic icons of Hollywood royalty.

  After her own Oscar acceptance speech, Anne Hathaway unleashed deafening Twitterverse noise from the “Hathahaters,” complete with #hathahaters hashtag. “It came true,” Hathaway said in her speech, referring to her lifelong dream of Hollywood success, but the emotional intent was way too cool for the words. In today’s social media atmosphere, people react when canned word-salads sound perfunctory or insincere. We want to hear Hathaway speak from her heart when her dream comes true without worrying about being sloppy or sentimental at a moment that requires just that.