Oh hey ladies! I've been speaking with my English class a wee bit lately on their use of language. Specifically, the slut-shaming: you guys, NO.
(1) Divorcing consensual sexual choices from morality: I know this is hard to take in, United Statesians, given the national climate just now: you can have sex and be a good person. You can have sex with lots of people and be a good person! You can decide sex isn't for you right now and be a good person. You can not want sex at all, ever, and be a good person. Consensual sexual choices should have no bearing on how you are perceived by others. You should certainly not have to deal with harassment because of it, because that is bullshit and plays right into the virgin/whore dichotomy we're fighting so hard to kill. Still don't get it? Go read Valenti's The Purity Myth and get back to me on that. Wait, quote time:
"For women especially, virginity has become the easy answer -- the morality quick fix. You can be vapid, stupid, and unethical, but so long as you've never had sex, you're a 'good' (i.e., 'moral') girl and therefore worthy of praise." Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth
See that? Abstinent = good; sex = bad bad bad bad BAD!
(2) On 'sorostitutes' (yes, lady in my English class whose chosen subculture is sorority ladies, I AM LOOKING AT YOU): this term is terrible. It involves taking hundreds of ladies from diverse backgrounds and lumping them together under one insulting umbrella based on presumed sexual contact. It is slut-shaming: see (1). You can be in a sorority and have/not have sex and be an awesome person. You can be in a sorority and participate in hook-up culture and be a good person. Ok? Ok. Even (especially!) if women in sororities are agreeing to sex for some modicum of protection from predatory behavior, or because they have to in order to remain a 'valuable' member of the sorority, as Kimmel asserts in Guyland, this does not make them a 'sorostitute.' Calling them such a thing is so popular it has had its own name for many years now: blaming the victim.
(3) On a related note, no matter how many people you have sex with, you are just *not* a prostitute unless you actually work in the sex industry. Had one/two/five/twenty/fifty sexual partners? Nope, still not a prostitute.
(4) To close this argument, with some prodding from notinthestyleof.tigers: HEY NATION. You can be a prostitute and be a good person! But the issues (consent/abuse/etc.) surrounding that statement should be a post of its own.
In short: no matter how much sex you have or don't have, or what kind, or with whom, or whether it's in exchange for something, it should have no bearing on whether or not you're perceived as 'good' or 'bad.'
I feel like this is quite disorganized, but hey, I have strawberries to eat.
Who’s Not Cool With AC?
5 weeks ago
Being a sex worker isn't a moral failing either. Number 3 kinda leaves me hanging on that one.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I wrote a bit about that, then decided I probably wasn't educated enough on that topic to address it properly (are you? Go for it!).
ReplyDeleteI would just feel like I was writing a Remedial Humanity course? I tend to refuse to explain why sex workers are people, why rape is bad, etc, because needing to explain it makes me v. sad. So I don't think you need much proper education to write about that? Number 3 just reads like "You can do all these things consensually and still not be a prostitute, and as long as you're not a prostitute, you're a valid human." It kinda goes back to Number 1, and the idea that one can be "abstinent" while participating in everything but PIV sex, but once you go there? Not a person. Arbitrary and harmful lines to draw, is what I'm saying. (And all situations leave dudes, as pushy boyfriends, pimps, or abusive johns, out of the discussion. Hurrah.)
ReplyDeleteI will add a line to briefly cover this.
ReplyDelete