The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism
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When interviewed, Jessica comes off as a sympathetic character who is trying to make the best of a bad situation. But it’s disturbing that many girls see a pot of gold at the end of promiscuity’s rainbow if they’re willing to set shame aside.
Women’s studies textbooks or Cosmopolitan?
If few are surprised that popular culture sends the message that sexual promiscuity is an adventurous and fulfilling part of life, some may be taken aback that this message is echoed in academia. Christina Stolba, writing for the Independent Women’s Forum, reviewed the syllabi for introductory women’s studies courses published by thirty colleges and found that just a few textbooks were used, and used frequently, in these classes.3 I read these (and others that popped up on Amazon) and was often stunned by the questionable information presented as truth to America’s students.
In these textbooks, sexual exploration is a key element of women’s liberation. The impulse to confine sex within marriage or a committed relationship comes from that evil, amorphous institution dubbed “patriarchy.” It’s patriarchy that created a system under which women had to serve as sexual gatekeepers and linked virginity with virtue. Embracing this creed of sexual modesty is likened to embracing oppression.
Why is that girl yelling at her boyfriend? Oh, she just came from her women’s studies class.
“In patriarchy, women in our sexual roles are to function ideally not as self-affirming, self-fulfilling human beings but rather as beautiful dolls to be looked at, touched, felt, experienced for arousal . . . to be enjoyed, consumed, and ultimately used up and traded in for a different model thing.... Our sexual role in patriarchy is to be acted upon, not to act ourselves, except insofar as this serves the users’ interest or needs.”
—Shelia Ruth, Issues in Feminism: An Introduction to Women’s Studies
“Female sexuality . . . is seen as something to be contained and controlled, as we see in the traditional dichotomy of labeling women either as virgins or as whores. Such labels depict female sexuality as evil and dangerous if not constrained and imply that “good girls” repress their sexual feelings.”
—Margaret L. Anderson, Thinking About Women: Sociological Perspectives on Sex and Gender
“The prevailing script for sexual morality is the double standard which restricts women’s sexual behavior more than men’s. The boy or man who has multiple sexual partners and strong sexual interest is a ‘stud’; a similar girl or woman is a ‘slut.’ ... The double standard is nurtured by cultures such as our own in which men dominate politics and the economy. Sexual access to women is part of the property system; men assert their high status by having sex with as many partners and as often as possible, whereas women keep themselves precious (and worthy of marriage) by saving themselves for the right man.”
—Naomi B. McCormick, Sexual Salvation: Affirming Women’s Sexual Rights and Pleasures
What a Feminist Icon Said:
“A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.”
—Gloria Steinem
Feminism’s role in changing social mores by increasing the recognition of women’s sexuality, bolstering its acceptance, and encouraging greater access to birth control is celebrated as a great triumph. They point out how women’s sexuality was once seen as “dangerous” or potentially unhealthy, and highlight the benefits of women’s increased sexual freedom.
We can all agree that everyone is better off when women (and men) recognize the healthy role that sex should play in their lives. Yet some feminists do much more than invite women to get in touch with their sexuality and understand better the role that society plays in shaping morality; they encourage women to engage in greater sexual experimentation.
Leading feminist icon Gloria Steinem summed up the feminist take on what it means to be a modern woman: “A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.” In other words, if you don’t have sex before marriage, you don’t count as liberated.
In her book, Slut! Growing up Female with a Bad Reputation, feminist author Leora Tanenbaum explores the devastating impact that being labeled promiscuous can have on a woman’s life and the variety of ways—many of which don’t involve engaging in sexual activity—that a young woman can acquire the label of “slut.”
No woman deserves to be tormented by her peers, but Tanenbaum reveals her poor opinion of women who fail to engage in sexual experimentation and associate sex with love. She highlights the work of one researcher who studied four hundred teenage girls who spent “thousands of hours planning for the first sex.” Typically, these girls didn’t experience much physical pleasure from intercourse and were “distraught” after the relationships failed. She summarizes what she sees as the problem: These girls’ unrealistic expectations of fusing love and sex led directly to profound unhappiness.... Unlike these “true-love narrators,” a small number of girls interviewed by Thompson kept romance and sex in healthy perspective. These girls ... sought sexual pleasure as well as romance while maintaining an independent sense of themselves. They took responsibility by using contraception. And these girls had a good time. When relationships failed, they maintained their sense of humor and the outlook that there were always other guys.
In other words, it’s a mistake for young women to take sex too seriously or to let an expectation of a loving relationship get intermingled with their sexual desires. Clearly, teenage girls who decide to become sexually active with their boyfriends based on the assumption that it will lead to marriage are often deluding themselves. They should be aware that most high school relationships break up, which is one reason they may want to avoid becoming sexually involved with their boyfriends since that may increase the heartbreak at the end of the relationship.
Tanenbaum’s definition of a “healthy” attitude toward sex is one that’s primarily physical and allows a woman to shrug off the loss of a lover. She goes on to contrast the boring lives that those who equate sex with love can expect with the vibrant, colorful lives enjoyed by sexually active women who forgo monogamy.
Some feminists have recognized that the new sexual ethics have had negative consequences for women. Feminist author Sally Cline laments how women have adopted the worst characteristics of men and refers to the modern, post-sexual revolution era as “The Genital Appropriation Era”:What the Genital Appropriation Era actually permitted was more access to women’s bodies by more men; what it actually achieved was not a great deal of liberation for women but a great deal of legitimacy for male promiscuity; what it actually passed on to women was the male fragmentation of emotion from body, and the easily internalized schism between genital sex and responsible loving.4
Feminist writer Naomi Wolf echoed this sentiment in an article on Jessica Cutler. Wolf admits that the sexual revolution has been a double-edged sword, leaving women more sexually free but confused about sex’s proper role:What is gained is they totally reject the double standard and believe they are entitled to sexual exploration and sexual satisfaction. The down-side is we’ve raised a generation of young women—and men—who don’t understand sexual ethics like: Don’t sleep with a married man; don’t embarrass people with whom you had a consensual relationship. They don’t see sex as sacred or even very important anymore. That’s been lost. Sex has been commodified and drained of its deeper meaning.5
It’s an important message for young women to hear from leaders of the feminist movement. Unfortunately, these kinds of statements are drowned out by a flood of contrary messages on college campuses, in popular culture, and in many women’s studies texts and feminist writings. From those sources a young woman might reasonably conclude that she’s falling down on her responsibility to be modern and liberated if she doesn’t experiment with casual sex or views a physical relationship as appropriate only between a man and woman within the confines of marriage or a monogamous relationship.
Sexual freedom is not exactly liberating
Not all sexually experienced teens and young adults are
happy with their decisions. Many report that they regret having had sex. A Kaiser Family Foundation/Seventeen Magazine (2003) survey found that more than six in ten sexually active teenage girls wished they had waited to have sex. Nearly four in ten of the sexually active girls specifically wished they had waited until they were older.6
Oxymoron: Casual Sex
Casual sex. Who knew it could be so complicated? After all, the word “casual” carries with it an implication of carelessness and simplicity—but perhaps that’s where the problems begin. As much as no-strings-attached action may be a spur-of-the-moment experience, we’ve come to realize that being careless can make casual sex a lot less fun for a girl, both physically and emotionally. That’s why we urge you to think through it as completely as possible....This is one of the many reasons we wrote this book . . . .
The bottom line: It feels good and, given the right situation, it makes you feel good about yourself . . . . And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, sister. No way, no how.
The Happy Hook Up: A Single Girl’s Guide to Casual Sex
The survey conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy found an even higher level of regret among sexually active teens. Two-thirds wished they had waited longer before having sex—an increase from 2002 when 63 percent said they wished they had waited. Girls were more likely to regret having had sex than were boys: Nearly eight in ten girls and six in ten boys wish they had waited.7
This level of regret isn’t surprising when you consider the role peer pressure plays in many teenagers’ decisions to have sex. This is particularly true of girls. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Seventeen Magazine survey, more than nine out of ten girls strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that “girls are often pressured to have sex before they are ready.”
Feelings of regret and confusion don’t end for women when they graduate from high school. Glenn and Marquardt highlight, in their report on the sex and dating culture on college campuses, the conflicting feelings that many young women express about these brief “relationships”:Women said that after a hook up they often felt awkward and sometimes felt hurt. A number of them reported not knowing if the hook up would lead to anything else, which made them feel confused if they wanted something more from the encounter. At the same time, a number of women also reported feeling strong, desirable, and sexy after a hook up.8
The dissatisfaction these women experience isn’t uncommon for those who engage in casual sex. In Taking Sex Differences Seriously, Steven Rhoads highlights the work of an anthropologist, John Townsend, who conducted in-depth interviews with forty medical students and fifty undergraduates, selected because they were “unusually open to casual sex.” Townsend found that, over time, these women tended to reject casual sex after experiencing three stages.
Your doctor might have to treat that color.
Sexual rules lead to sexual repression. Girls and women who shoehorn sex within the confines of adolescent romance describe their sexuality in shades of grey. Those who are sexually active yet refuse to commit to one boy, portray their sexuality—and, indeed, their entire lives—in vibrant color.
—Leora Tanenbaum, Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation
In the first stage, women viewed casual sex as an opportunity to test their attractiveness and didn’t feel emotionally scarred by the experience. In the second stage, the women had trouble rectifying competing emotions: “they say that sex without emotion is okay, but they worry about the guy’s intentions after intercourse because previous sexual encounters have not evolved into the desired relationships.” In the final stage, women rejected casual sex in hopes of finding a relationship that would provide more emotional support and commitment from their partners.9
Both Townsend and Glenn and Marquardt note that women expressed frustration with their emotions, or blamed themselves, not for engaging in casual sex, but for feeling emotionally involved afterwards.10 When reality didn’t match feminist dogma, women assumed the problem was their own.
Regret about having too many sexual partners is common among women. A 1998 poll conducted by Glamour magazine reported that nearly half of the women interviewed (49 percent) wish they had slept with fewer men. Less than one in ten (7 percent) wish they’d had more partners.
Even cheerleaders for casual sex acknowledge that many women tend to regret these liaisons and must steel themselves against allowing emotions to spoil the fun. The Happy Hook Up: A Single Girl’s Guide to Casual Sex includes a list of tips to “get your head in the game.” Among the rules that must govern casual sex are to “understand that sex is not love”; “keep your emotions and your orgasms separate”; “make sure it’s just sex”; “limit the encounters”; “keep yourself busy”; and “bond with the girls.” Women are warned against engaging in casual sex with someone in whom they might possibly be interested for a real relationship.11
The authors warn that casual sex isn’t for all women, because many can’t successfully follow these rules. Yet even the women who participated in the “Happy Hookup Survey”—a sample likely to be far more comfortable with casual sex than the average woman—struggled with regret. Nearly nine in ten of the free-wheeling women surveyed admitted regretting having casual sex at one time.12
A biological aversion to casual sex
Our tenured women’s studies professor undoubtedly would point out that the negative emotions women experience are a reaction to societal expectations. A feeling of shame isn’t innate but a product of the patriarchal structure that has created an ideal of purity for women.
Societal expectations may contribute to some of the emotions women experience. But regardless of the source, young women deserve to understand that they might experience negative emotions after engaging in casual sex.
“Patriarchy” is just one possible source—and an unlikely one at that—of the emotional link between sex and love. For some, their religious faith says certain behavior is wrong. Human anthropology is another possible source: Sex with men unwilling to invest in the woman or any offspring almost certainly endangered a woman’s chances for survival. As Townsend hypothesizes, “we possess unconscious emotional-motivation mechanisms that warn women via bad feelings when they engage in sexual behavior that would have been maladaptive in earlier evolutionary eras. Casual sex with men unwilling to invest in them or their offspring is a prime instigator of such negative feelings.”13
In Taking Sex Differences Seriously, Rhoads explores how the physical differences between men and women shape their responses to sex. Women are more vulnerable to the physical consequences of sex, including pregnancy and disease (discussed in a later chapter). Women are also different hormonally than men, with the hormones that increase in men and women during puberty affecting them in different ways. Women react to these physical changes with an increased desire for “bonding” as well as an increased sex drive, while men have no greater desire to “get close.” During this time period, teenage boys tend to want more time alone while girls seek greater companionship.14 These hormonal differences help to explain why women have a more difficult time separating sexual activity from emotional responses.
Dr. Ian Kerner of Be Honest—You’re Not That Into Him Either also singles out biological responses as a cause of women becoming seriously involved with men they don’t really want to be with forever. Women tend to feel connected to a man after sleeping with him, in part, because of the release of hormones that accompanies sex, oxytocin and dopamine, which trigger emotions in women such as affection and attachment.
As a result, women end up wasting time with guys that they “really aren’t that into.” After a series of such relationships, some become anxious to marry due to their advancing age and end up “settling” for a man that they don’t really desire. Alternatively, women may end up disappointed when a relationship fails to develop into anything beyond casual sex, even when that was all they had intended. It is a double-edged sword, and a sharp one emotionally.
A modern woman is required to assign a higher place to her desire for autonomy than to her desire for connection. She is supposed to be tough enough to stand on her own two feet, without worrying about whether her partner in a one-night stand will ever call her again.
—Jennifer Roback Morse,
Smart Sex: Finding Life-
Long Love in a Hook-Up
World
The negative emotions women experience after casual sex also may be because, as unfair and frustrating as it may seem, men are more likely to pursue serious relationships with women who reserve sex for marriage or committed monogamy. Steven Rhoads highlights research that suggests men’s attraction to chaste women may also have evolutionary roots: Men often prize promiscuous sex in the short term, but they want faithful wives. Through the ages, men with faithful mates have sired more children, and a taste for faithfulness will thus have been “naturally selected” for. If a man finds a woman hard to get, he will sense that she is more likely to be faithful after marriage.15
The benefits of serious sex
In A Return to Modesty, Wendy Shalit emphasizes just how unsexy casual sex really is. For women who embrace the ethic that sex is meaninglessly recreation, nothing remains erotic. Shalit summarizes their attitude as: It’s no big deal.