Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters (6 page)

I guess what I’ve come to—and this is what works for me—is that you have to find your own middle ground. There has to be space for young women to figure shit out on their own. And I think most times young women do figure it out.

In a recent
Salon.com
article about the trend of straight girls making out with each other for male attention, one young woman came to an epiphany while talking to reporter Whitney Joiner:

See? I really think it doesn’t take all that much for us to work through the pop culture nonsense—we just have to talk it out, hopefully with each other and with women who have been there and done that. Okay, so maybe it won’t be quite
that
easy. But it’s a start. And it’s a much better alternative than calling each other sluts, that’s for damn sure.

Never mind trying to find an authentic sexuality in our fake-orgasm pop culture—it’s near impossible to find
anything
that makes sense. There are all of these contradictions in porn/pop culture that blow my mind and make it all the more difficult for young women to find an authentic sexual identity. It hurts the head to talk about them too much, but unfortunately it’s necessary if we really want to get a grasp on what is being expected of women: the impossible.

We already know that we’re supposed to be virginal (lest we mar our purity), but when it comes to pop culture, the virginity thing gets more complicated. Since I’d probably date myself by talking about Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” I won’t go there. Think Britney Spears (pre-K-Fed) and Jessica
Simpson (pre-
Newlyweds
). They both claimed to be “saving themselves” for marriage and spoke out against premarital sex (while simultaneously presenting themselves in the most sexual way possible, of course). Naturally, it later came out that Spears (before her two weddings) had sex; it was rumored that Simpson managed to wait till the night before her wedding. I can’t think of a better example of how we expect girls to be sexy but not have sex. It’s the
idea
of virginity that’s popular, not the reality of being chaste. Look sexy, act as if you’re having sex, but if you do it . . . whore! You can even look at the newfound popularity of “revirginization” surgeries—you know, getting your hymen “repaired.” It’s the lie and the performance of being a virgin, not the reality. Truly baffling. And impossible to recreate. Unless you feel like getting a new hymen.

Like I mentioned earlier about hotness: It’s about accessibility. We’re expected to be available to men, but we’re also expected to be “mysterious.” Much in the same way we’re
supposed to be sexy but not give it up. Think about a
Maxim
cover girl—she’s totally unattainable but simultaneously available for consumption. No guy who reads the magazine will ever meet her or talk to her—but he gets to look at her half-naked and jerk off to her if he wants, which is something he can’t always get from the women he meets in his everyday life. So in that way, she’s the “perfect” girl. Again, impossible for real women to live up to.

The prevalence of porn has led to this really weird point in American society where the sexual ideal for younger women is a porn star. Internet porn and the normalization of pornography have spawned a whole new generation of guys who were raised thinking that porn sex equals normal sex. Not to mention a generation of girls who think porn sex is the only way to please guys. So we’re expected to—once again—put on the “show.” This means a whole load of screaming, dirty-talking, and sex-loving madness. But the problem is that we’re expected to imitate something that’s
acted
. Most porn stars aren’t really getting off. So the best sex is fake sex? Think about what this does to younger people trying to develop their sexuality! Terrifying.

Being a lesbian is totally acceptable—so long as there’s a man around to watch it—and you’re young and “hot,” of course. The absence of any real images of lesbians in pop culture is
kind of crazy. I mean, even Showtime’s
The L Word
features a bevy of sexy gals and storylines that fit pretty neatly into the girl-on-girl male fantasy. This isn’t to say that there aren’t outed women in the mainstream—there are. But the pop culture, sexed-up version of lesbians is what reigns supreme. Just think of the appropriation of lesbianism by straight male porn. As I mentioned before, there are a ton of young feminists who have thought and written about this in a political frame of mind. By filtering porn/pop through that thought process, I think we can end up in a space where we recognize that while some things are fucked up, there’s still room to do things that are fun and powerful. While a lesbian make-out session may be a fake expression of lust to some, it’s an awesome, authentic experience to others, so if you want to make out with a girl, go for it. It’s about the consciousness behind your decisions. Many younger women
know
what we want and go for it. And that’s nothing to apologize for. But if you’re doing something you wouldn’t normally want to do, or if the only thought behind something sexual is
Please god, let him like me,
you may be in trouble. If you’re doing something that mimics someone else’s sexual choices—for someone else’s benefit or because you feel pressured—then you might want to consider how empowered that choice actually is.

Women who aren’t white (or at least aren’t on the fair side) are nearly invisible in pop culture—unless they’re adhering
to the most vile racial stereotypes. Sure,
Maxim
or
Playboy
will occasionally feature women of color on their pages, but they’re generally as Caucasian-looking as possible. And you don’t have to look far for the tired old stereotypes. Black women are bitchy! And if there’s an overweight black woman, she’s going to be all sassy! Asian women are docile and bow a lot! Latinas are spicy hot hot hot! Puke. It’s not just in the sexual stereotyping of women of color in magazines—but in television shows, movies, and even porn listings. Actually, if you want the perfect example of this pattern, go to the back pages of a local paper that has escort-service ads. You will undoubtedly see ads of black women that are all ass shots (“Big Booty!”), ads of Asian women who are all shy (“Lotus Flowers!”), and ads of white girls touted as college gals (“All American!”). So many stereotypes, so little time. But truly, just the fact that women of color are pretty much invisible in pop culture speaks volumes.

What all of these contradictions add up to are insanely impossible expectations of women. (And yes, I’m aware that pop culture puts expectations on men as well. But really, not
like it does on women.) These baffling expectations mean that any authentic expression of yourself is near impossible. How do you act like yourself when you’re constantly putting on a show?

Contradictions aside, what all this porn/pop culture has in common is performance. Sometimes performance can be a cool thing when it comes to sexuality.

Rachel Kramer Bussel, a feminist sex columnist at
The Village Voice,
says that younger women are claiming a public space for their sexuality.

The difference between what Rachel is talking about—in my opinion—and stuff like
Girls Gone Wild
is that some performances are thought out and some are, well, not. (Especially when you consider the inebriation factor for those less-thought-out times.)

Can a performance really be a subversive way of playing with your sexuality? Sure. But I think it’s a really individual thing and depends on how much you’re buying in to the bullshit notions of what sexy is. Rachel is clearly not buying in.

And again, if you want to show your tits just for the pure fun of it—go for it. But I do think it’s incredibly important that we always be aware of
why
we want to do certain things.

It shouldn’t be that hard to develop an authentic sexuality—or even personhood, for that matter. But the prevalence of porn/pop makes it pretty frigging difficult to negotiate how we separate good kinds of performance from bad and how we develop an identity that isn’t mired in all of this ridiculous crap.

Some suggestions that have worked for me:

I’m well aware that going out and partying is fun. Shit, I have a hangover as I’m writing this. But my college years taught me well about drinking and participating in sexual activities (whether it’s actual sex, flashing, make-out sessions, whatever). If you wouldn’t do it sober, don’t do it drunk. ’Cause I guarantee if it’s something that really turns you on, it will be more fun sober. Plus, if you’re sober, you can’t use the liquor as an excuse for your actions—because, again, if it’s fun and something you want to do, you shouldn’t have to make excuses. Ever. (And let’s be honest—binge drinking is très gross.)

Serious fun. Not “this seems like a good idea” fun. And definitely not “well, they’re egging me on” non-fun. So much of our personalities get caught up in trying to adhere to what we’re “supposed” to be like, it’s hard to just, you know, relax. When you’re trying to be sexy, virginal, available but not, appropriately lesbian but still straight, skinny, hot, and so on, all of a sudden life ain’t so fun anymore. It takes a lot of work to remain in pop culture character. So make it easy on yourself—if it’s not fun, fuck it.

Yeah, I’m dirty. But you get what I’m saying. Because I really can’t imagine that whole porn-performance thing is too orgasm friendly—after all, performing
does
mean faking it.

Obviously, everything we do is affected to a certain degree by social norms and what pop culture demands of us. I think it’s fine to go along with these things to a certain extent, so long as you’re always cognizant of why you’re doing it. For example, I wear makeup. I love it. But I recognize that the reason I love it sooo much is that the larger world tells me I need it to be pretty. Would it be revolutionary of me to throw all of my makeup away? Yup. But I don’t want to. I wear it, but I’m aware of why I do.

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts to work through all of these expectations for ourselves, we’re always going to be judged. If we adhere to the porn/pop standard, we’re sluts (or dumb), even if we’ve come to a place where we’re comfortable with our actions. I don’t say this to be a downer, I just think it’s important to recognize how the same society that enforces these standards will use them against us whenever it can. And in really dangerous ways.

There was a case in California—and you’ll hear more about this in Chapter 4, “The Blame (and Shame) Game”—where a teen girl’s gang rape was videotaped. The defense team said oh no, she just wanted to make a “porn” video. And that logic flew—because the idea of a girl putting on a “show” is pretty normal. You know, ’cause girls just love to go wild and get raped on video.
⁶

This kind of blaming also comes up a lot with the idea of “girls behaving badly”—as in spring break, going out and hooking up, and other things that we’ve been taught are fun rites of passage. For example, the American Medical Association (AMA) released a poll in 2006 about all of the debaucherous spring-break activities going on—like promiscuity and binge drinking.
⁷
The funny thing? It was specific to women. Because apparently we’re the only ones who drink and hook up.

The poll of young women (seventeen to thirty-five years old) showed that 83 percent of those surveyed drank most of the nights while on spring break; 74 percent said spring break results in increased sexual activity. (Is this really news?) I’m all for curbing binge drinking and the dumb
GGW
expectations of spring break, but I can’t help but be irked that this finger-wagging is only pointed at young women. ’Cause you really can’t tell me that men on spring break don’t drink too much and have sex. But the AMA’s main concern was that girls are having too much sex. But . . . but . . . I thought that’s what “hot” girls did! So annoying. Conservative groups
loved
this study and used it to argue that girls who go out and party are just asking to be raped. Seriously. Janice Crouse, a spokesperson from Concerned Women for America, said in an interview: