BITCHfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism From the Pages of Bitch Magazine

by Lisa Jervis

  And then there’s mainstream pornography—soft-core airbrushed fluff such as Penthouse and Playboy. The folks makin’ this stuff do men and their range of desires a disservice; their implication is that anything outside the “big hair, fake tits, tiny waist, no pores, limited body hair” aesthetic is deviant, weird, not normal—and not something that a red-blooded American man would be interested in. The common boys-will-be-boys explanation for porn—that men get turned on visually (in contrast to a “feminine” mode of arousal, which is mental and emotional)—is nothing more than an insult, making men out to be Pavlovian dogs who salivate uncontrollably and strain at their trousers upon contact with nudie pictures.

  Antiporn arguments, however well-meaning, are no better. Folks like Catharine MacKinnon also believe that men are inherently drawn to porn. And to them, porn is by definition violent, suggesting that it’s somehow in men’s nature to be aroused by hurting others. Furthermore, antipornography activists think that porn leads men to commit violence—as if men have no self-control or capacity to separate fantasy from reality, as if an erection is a driving force that can’t be stopped once it’s started. (I’m not gonna bother pointing out that most porn is about mutual pleasure and not violence, and suggesting that sexual representation is inherently harmful to women is infantilizing and wrongheaded … Oh, I guess I just did.) Actually, the antiporn conception of the rabidly sexual man is suspiciously close to the hormonal overdrive lionized in magazines like Esquire and GQ. The only difference is one of perspective: Antiporn folk believe that male sexuality is always threatening, while men’s-magazine editors think it’s always fabulous.

  What all these examples have in common is the severing of male sexuality from any sort of reflection at all: To be a man who is emotional about sex or even one with thoughts more complex than “Yeah! More!” on the subject is not to be a man at all; that’s female territory.

  My friends and I have seen the havoc this wreaks in our sex lives. Let’s see, there was the guy who thought I was needy and unstable because I wanted to have sex with him as often as possible and was kinda disappointed when he turned me down (which would be a perfectly acceptable male reaction to being rebuffed by a woman). Because of this guy’s commitment to rigidly gendered sexual behavior, he didn’t believe me when I assured him that my desire wasn’t tied to some big emotional thang. And, adding even more trouble, if he could’ve gotten past his disbelief, he would’ve had to come to terms with the fact that there are women with higher sex drives than his—thus threatening his manly-man status as an all-sex-all-the-time kind of guy.

  Then there was the one who was disturbed by my simple request. One morning after—ahem—my needs had not been met, I tried to initiate sex. “I can’t,” he kept saying. “I have to study.” When pressed, he admitted that it wasn’t lack of time that was the issue. “I’m not used to women being so aggressive,” he told me. When I forced him to be honest, instead of letting him make excuses, I ruined the nice little arrangement we had going: him as someone who wanted sex, me as someone who graciously accommodated him. He was angry that I expected to be forthright about my desire; I left and never went back.

  After being told (one way or another) all their lives that they will always be the aggressor in a sexual situation, and they will always want more sex than their partners (assuming, as always, that their partners are female), it’s no surprise that men freak out when they are confronted with a woman who wants sex as much as or more than they do. They’ve been taught that female sexuality is weak—so if a woman’s desire matches their own, that must mean that they’re (oh, no!) weak, too.

  We need to open up definitions of masculinity to acknowledge the reality that we are all sexual, some of us are more sexual than others, and just how sexual we are has about as much to do with gender as it does with breakfast cereal. Instead of being taught that boys have only one thing on their minds, men need to learn that their sex drives, whether raging or trickling, are just fine the way they are—and that they’re still men, regardless. This is certainly a feminist project: In order to achieve both gender and sexual equality, we need to acknowledge the ways men are stifled by the equation of masculinity with constant desire for and pursuit of sex. Men are no more hyperactive skirt chasers always looking for a quick roll in the hay than women are passive, sexually resistant creatures who use their genitals only as sticky traps in which to catch wedding rings. Until we turn as critical an eye toward stereotypical voracious masculine sexuality as we have toward sanitized, emotional female sexuality, no one of any gender will be truly free to act on genuine desires—in or out of the bedroom.

  I Heard It Through the Loveline

  And Misinformation Just Might Make Me Lose My Mind

  Heather Seggel / SPRING 1998

  CHANNEL SURFERS AND THOSE CRAVING SOUND SEXUAL INFORMATION alike, beware: There’s a sexually repressive, ignorant, irresponsible advice show in town, and Loveline is its name. The televised offspring of a call-in show on the Los Angeles radio station KROQ, Loveline appears nightly on MTV with the warning that only “mature audiences” should be watching. Too bad they don’t ask the same maturity of their hosts.

  Said hosts, twentysomething dude Adam Carolla and “Dr. Drew” Pinsky (identified as “a board-certified physician and addiction medicine specialist”), display all the sexual maturity of a horny third-grader and a neighborhood priest, respectively. Adam’s credentials are in stand-up comedy, so he provides the clunky one-liners and penis jokes, and also talks to the celebrity guests (one person or band per show, there to plug a new movie, CD, fragrance, hairdo … oh, and to help dish out advice). He’s a man of the people, that Adam. The male people, anyway, whom he encourages to be as manly as possible every chance he gets. All this crotch scratching and talking to famous people leaves Drew with the real work of the show—listening to callers and answering their questions about love, sex, relationships, and sometimes drugs. To be fair, he handles the illegal substance stuff quite well. It’s those darn sex questions, which are the whole point of the program and make up its bulk, that show him to be a judgmental dimwit who cares more about appearing smart than dispensing accurate information. Want to call in? It’s like a trip back in time to the ’50s. Just check your brain at the door and come with me.

  The show fails us all—female, male, queer, het—but some failures are worse than others. In the spirit of chivalry, let’s let the men go first. Straight male callers seem to know better than to risk their sexual self-esteem by calling in with anything serious or seriously embarrassing. If they do, Adam gets first crack at them, squeezing their experience for any jokes that might shake loose before Drew sums them up in a tidy parcel of medical jargon. Woe betide the young man with one testicle larger than the other who calls this show for reassurance that he’s normal. Even if the hosts eventually allow that abnormality isn’t cause for alarm, the information is couched in so much condescension and teasing that the message gets buried. Carolla’s humor is sometimes aimed at male stereotypes (he tells a woman whose boyfriend loses his voice after cunnilingus, “This is just another excuse for not talking after sex”), but there’s not enough useful information imparted—or thought involved—to justify all this jiving. Then there’s the case of a young man who was concerned that his (male) partner was sleepwalking and might be endangering himself. Not a sexual or a relationship question per se—a medical question, and an interesting one. Our hosts were initially confused as to how the caller was related to his “friend.” When they realized it was his boyfriend he was concerned about, an embarrassing silence followed. Drew then dealt out some recommendations, such as going to a sleep disorder specialist. Adam speculated on the types of harm that could befall a sleepwalker (the caller lived near train tracks) and appeared nervous when the idea of tying the sleepwalker to the bed was mentioned. More inappropriate jokes followed; the hosts’ obvious discomfort with the caller’s sexuality gave the whole episode a mean feel.

  Moving on to the distaff
side, a recent episode found a twenty-five-year-old woman in the audience, let’s call her Betty, standing to ask her question. Betty was in a stable relationship with a man, but she was confused about fantasies she’d been having about making love to a woman. She and her boyfriend elected to explore this further by pursuing a foursome with two other women. Her question: What steps should she take to prevent the spread of STDs between partners and any toys they might use? A reasonable and responsible question for a grown woman to ask, or so I thought. The boys at the helm took a different view.

  The most glaring problem was this: Neither Adam nor Drew ever answered Betty’s question. (A simple formula for safe-sex success in this situation: Use condoms/dental dams and lube on all toys and partners. Anytime you change partners or orifices, exchange the old latex for a new wrap.) Drew’s immediate comment, “Yes, sharing those devices can spread disease,” had nothing to do with anything but putting Betty in her place—that special lower deck in hell reserved for device users. He continued by telling Betty, who made it clear that she and her beau were serious about each other and equally excited about the foursome idea, that she wasn’t ready for a committed relationship. All the more reason to get that safe sex information out on the table, right? Well, maybe not, because they went to a commercial right after that and never mentioned it again.

  In addition to consigning entire activities to the “not for regular, normal folks” pile, Dr. Drew misuses medical jargon to avoid discussing sexual realities—which is a genuine loss for the viewing audience. A caller who sounded excited, confused, and curious about what I instantly recognized as her first G-spot orgasm could have used some reassurance, some cheering on, perhaps an FTD bouquet, and her very own crystal wand so she could explore further. The Loveline prescription? Size her up with a diagnosis of “female orgasmic incontinence” and move on. Now, let’s leave aside the dubious medical accuracy of that language—what’s important is that it’s demeaning and certainly not useful to the caller. And funny how Drew and Adam are willing to throw medical science to the wind when it comes to things they do understand, but when faced with something as mysterious as the G-spot, even their senses of humor fail them. Just label it and back away quickly, before anyone notices.

  Another area ripe for some honest exploration and discussion, but fumbled on Loveline, is the much-maligned rape fantasy. A young female caller, worried because she was having rape fantasies, was brusquely advised to “get counseling.” End of discussion. Here’s what Adam and Drew forgot to say: Rape fantasies are unsettling but common. If they interfere with your daily life, counseling might help. If they turn you on and don’t upset you otherwise … hey, go with it. No harm in that. Most important, they’re fantasies—not real. Just as thinking about clowns doesn’t automatically qualify you to fit in those tiny cars, rape fantasies don’t make you a rapist or a victim. It would take about forty-five seconds to tell someone this, but just labeling the caller a nut job and moving on frees up more advertising time (Oh look, a condom ad! What are those for again?) and saves us viewers from actually having to think about our own sexuality, fantasies, orientation, beliefs, or bodies.

  Drew and Adam are terribly irresponsible in their work, but it’s MTV that really deserves criticism for airing this show. They love to play up sex at every opportunity—I know more about Jenny McCarthy’s breasts than my own, at this point—and then turn around and chastise us for enjoying it. MTV is a network with real reach and power where younger viewers are concerned. And not everyone has the luxury of alternate sources with which to discover that, in spite of Loveline’s supposed function of providing information, you could get a more accurate sex education from the Pope. My advice to the real mature audience out there—those who are taking charge of their sexuality with research and some trial and error, and taking careful notes—is to skip Loveline and start your own show. Don’t wait for friends to ask—start conversations about sex and listen to them as you would want to be listened to. Then expand the dialogue. Rather than adopting the locker-room tone of Loveline, create a slumber party where everyone tells the truth and learns from each other. And look for me—I’ll be handing out the s’mores.

  The New Sexual Deviant

  Mapping Virgin Territory

  Carson Brown / WINTER 2000

  I SAT IN THE WAITING ROOM OF THE STD CLINIC, WONDERING if my fellow patients knew my secret. As I pored over pamphlets, I felt terrified that I was giving off some virgin pheromone that nonvirgins could smell a mile away. Was it written all over my face that I was an imposter and trespasser?

  The week before, my can-I-call-him-my-boyfriend-yet boyfriend had reported some burning when he pissed, and when his results came back positive but curable, I was told to get checked out, just in case, even though we had never actually done the deed. So there I was, nineteen years old, far from home, trying to see my foray into gonorrhea’s grotto as a learning experience. My beau had assumed I was deflowered, and I let him. The moment of my maidenhood that separated ripening from rotting had passed. I was too old to be both a virgin and cool.

  A nurse called my number, and I followed her into a small room for questioning. I breezed through the early rounds: Travel in Africa? Blood transfusions? Intravenous drugs? Innocent on all counts. I was on a roll. But then: “Date of last intercourse?”

  This woman had heard it all before: hundreds of partners, multiple abortions, religious beliefs disallowing condoms, everything. But when I peeped, “Never,” and she looked up from her clipboard for the first time, I could tell this was a new one. Mine was the right answer for church or grandparents, but here, I was wasting time and tax dollars.

  She stared, waiting for me to revise my answer. Finally she repeated, “Never?” I shook my head sheepishly. After a pause she asked, “Oral contact?” I nodded emphatically. She went on: “Mutual masturbation?” I nodded again, having never actually heard that term before but getting the idea and wanting to please her. She led me into an examination room and instructed me to strip from the waist down and wait. When the doctor entered—a woman, to my relief—she offered, “So I hear this is probably your first examination?” and I cringed, imagining the chuckles she’d shared with the nurse. “Not to worry.” She sat on a stool at the end of the table, told me to relax (yeah, right), and ducked below the V-shaped horizon of my thighs, peeking up momentarily to add, “Lovely sweater.”

  As I tried to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, the doctor proclaimed, “My, what a large hymen you have!” “Thank you,” I squeaked out, realizing quickly that it wasn’t really a compliment.

  “Can you get a tampon in there?” she marveled, taking a close, incredulous look where no man had gone before. “I would offer to give it a little, you know, clip, but I would worry you would never go to the gynecologist again! Ha-ha!”

  “Ha-ha!” Translation: It would hurt like a bitch! Meaning it was going to hurt like a bitch when …

  “It’s really up to you, sweetheart,” she continued, suddenly maternal. “Maybe it would just be easier to do it now?” No telltale blood, I thought. No pain to hide. But here? Now? This woman? And Jesus, was she really asking me what she was asking me? “Shall I?”

  MEANWHILE, MY FRIEND ANNA WAS STUDYING IN PARIS AND had found a Frenchman willing to cash in her V card, which had apparently been her intention all along. I didn’t know Anna that well at the time, but I certainly hadn’t figured her for hymenically intact: Her drama major, twenty-something age, perpetually tousled hair, exotic looks, older ex-boyfriends, and unconventional lifestyle all pointed to experience. But when it was discovered that Jacques was also servicing a woman down the hall, she seemed disproportionately devastated (if naively surprised). Her reaction made more sense when she told me, in a heartbroken e-mail, that he’d been her first.

  But recover she did, and started talking constantly about diversifying her sexual portfolio, aiming to boost the count onto two hands. Over a year’s time, the club’s ranks swelled to four me
mbers—“three men and one woman,” she would footnote. I consulted my sources and discovered that she had been seeing a woman before she departed for France. I thought it through: She’s only ever been involved with one woman, she’s slept with one woman, she was seeing this woman before she left, yet she lost her virginity across the pond. The upshot? Anna counted this woman among her partners, but though she came chronologically before the lecherous monsieur, she didn’t claim Anna’s virginity.

  Anna’s mathematical maneuvering brings up a number of issues: Why should virginity loss be based on the presence of a penis, automatically relegating same-sex activity to a lower status? For the sake of argument, I’d almost say that maybe, technically, the hymen defines the event. But if that were true, then some random gynecologist holds the key to my chastity belt. Not very romantic. I wanted to choose my own moment as the end of my maidenhood, and Anna should get to do the same. (However, she can’t have it both ways: If she can’t deal with the fact that she lost it to a woman, then she can’t use that woman to pad her numbers.) Most important, though, what is it that makes virginity so uncool these days?

  The stereotype is that virgins are timid, old-fashioned, meek, boring, cautious, unattractive, repressed, narrow-minded, and naive. They have low self-esteem or bad body image. They can’t participate in fun conversations about sex. Basically, they aren’t rebels. Most products and experiences are marketed to us by equating the hip with the subversive: This is the antiestablishment car to drive, the alternative soft drink to drink, the anticelebrity celebrity to copy. In the end, rebellion is transformed into conformity, and so it goes with sex. How are companies supposed to market their stuff if people aren’t actively pursuing sex? How are they supposed to sell cars, clothes, beers, breakfast cereal, perfume, makeup, or travel on the premise that their products will get you laid if people are content to not get laid? So the market pulls out all the stops to ensure that we will remain sex obsessed, so that we’ll buy things. Businesses want virgins to feel horrible about themselves, because if virgins were happy being virgins, they would be horrible consumers. As long as they are virgins desperately trying to ditch their virginity, fine. But abstinence undermines economics.