If one were to listen to the strident bleating of the Chastity crowd, I should not be married. My marriage a fluke, the relationship should have ended in bitter divorce and tears long, long ago. For you see, not only was I not a virgin when I got married, but I had gone through a period of some serious slutting it up. As had my husband. In fact, I slept with him on the recommendation of several of my friends, who had already slept with him... and a little over a year later we got married. Seventeen years later, we're still married, and frequently mistaken for newlyweds because of the nauseating schmoopiness of our interactions. Seriously, we're disgusting.
I tell you this, because according to the myths of the Chastity crowd, THIS SHOULD NOT BE. I should be alone, and friendless, dying locked in my spinster's apartment, slowly being devoured by my multitude of cats before a concerned landlord finds my rotting corpse, to be buried in a potter's field, no one to care, no one to mourn... Alone. (*hand/staple/forehead*)
Ok, I'm engaging in a touch of hyperbole (not really), but for the love of little green apples, folks, that's what it sounds like. With all this bleating on about how promiscuity is destroying women, and oxytocin and unwrapped suckers and flowers with no petals, they seem to miss the point that people are people, regardless of gender, and sometimes people want and need different things from other people.
This latest round of promiscuity panic has been engendered by Jaclyn Friedman's post "My Sluthood Myself", which was posted both at the Yes Means Yes blog, and Feministe. She wrote about going through the break up of a relationship she had thought was The One. During the rebound, she figured out that sometimes if you scratch the physical itch so your desire for physical contact is sated, it quits clouding your mental and emotional vision, and you can more clearly see what you really want and need. This has, of course, brought the naysayers screaming to the fore.
I don't get it.
I don't understand why these people care so much about who and what Friedman does with her body. Or who and what I do with mine. Or anyone's. What is so threatening about women enjoying sex with whomever they want whenever they want?
Susan Walsh tells us it's because all of us slutty slutty slut sluts are out there slutting it up, so no man will ever want, date or marry a "decent girl." You know, decent girls: The ones who don't have sex. Which, if you actually research Walsh herself, is diametrically opposed to what she did. She slutted it up, and then GOT MARRIED to one of her "one-night-stands." "Hey, Kettle, the Pot called. Guess what she said?"
Look, I've got nothing against anyone who personally wants to remain a virgin until they get married. That is their choice. I've had good friends who held that conviction very strongly. Some of them even lasted until their wedding night. And I respect their right to do whatever they want with their bodies and their feelings. It's what being a Feminist is all about, respecting other women's choices. I may not agree with your choices, but I'll support your right to make them.
What I can't support is attempting to impose your choices on other women. (Oh, I am just waiting for someone to explain to me that my not imposing my choices on them, is imposing my choices on them or some such circular bullshit. You laugh. I've seen it happen.) But you cannot call yourself a Feminist if anywhere in your agenda you include limiting women's choices.
And yes, I know. There are a raft of people out there who feel like Walsh does, that my enjoying my sexuality means I'm "limiting" the choices of "decent" women. But hey, guess what? If a guy is into casual sex with me, and you're determined to remain a virgin until your wedding night, then you guys are probably not compatible, and that has nothing to do with me.
See, here's this other thing Feminists get that Walsh and others like her just don't seem to get: The genders are not monoliths. There is no one true man or one true woman template. No Platonic ideal of either gender by which all members of that gender must live. Feminists understand this. We understand that some men and women are totally down with casual hook-ups, and some are not.* My Atheist, borderline Socialist husband would never have been a good match for some woman with strong Christian values who believed in no sex until marriage. And my putting out for him didn't change that.
Let me repeat that: My putting out for my husband did not make him a bad match for someone with traditional Christian values. He already WAS a bad match for that woman. So why does she care that he hooked up with my friends, and then me, and when we discovered our sexual and emotional compatibility, we got married? I didn't seduce him away from traditional values. He had already rejected them, long before he met me.
So, you'd think those "decent" women would be ecstatic that we're taking these godless heathens off their hands.
Friedman never says in her post that every woman has to slut it up to discover or heal herself. She said that it worked for her, and that women should support each other in their choices, regardless of what those choices are: i.e. celibacy or hooking up.
What's so threatening about that?
Articles in support of Ms. Friedman:
Thomas's response to the Slut post at Yes Means Yes
Thomas again Fastened to a Dying Animal, or Sluts stand up and be counted
Amanda's Marcotte at Pandagon's first rebuttal to Susan Walsh
Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon: Don't be a slut, you prude
*I know this has a heterosexual focus, this is not meant to be exclusive of anyone, but rather to address the specific instances of both Friedman's and Walsh's posts. I recognize that some people are not heterosexual, and that LGBT relationships can have many of the same issues. I also recognize that some folks are just not into sex with anyone regardless of gender.
Mickey Schulz is a guest author for the California NOW blog; her opinions are not necessarily those of California NOW. Copyright Mickey Schulz, with permission granted to California NOW for use on this site.
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