The Purity Myth (27 page)

a sexual dynamic that assumes women don’t want to have sex
†
and therefore

need to be convinced to do so—and that this “convincing” is a natural part of seduction. But too often, underlying this model, what is called “seduction” is actually coercion.

Take a 2007 online article from
Details
that asked readers, “Is it OK to Demand Anal Sex?” In addition to having a jarring headline (when is it ever okay to demand
anything
sexually from a partner?), the article quoted men who had “convinced” women to have anal sex—which, according to the re- porter, is more attractive than vaginal intercourse because “it’s a harder-to- reach goal.”
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* Notably, the article’s author, Matthew Fitzgerald, also wrote a book called
Sex- Ploytation: How Women Use Their Bodies to Extort Money from Men
, available on Ama- zon.com for just $135. What a steal!

†
And, as in all things purity related, women who do want to have sex are simply whores,

worthy of derision and sometimes violence.

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One young man, Josh, age thirty, told
Details,
“For most of my friends, it’s sort of a domination thing . . . basically getting someone in a position where they’re most vulnerable. But it’s not like girls are ready for it—it’s something they do when they’re really drunk.”
10

Not “ready for it” speaks volumes. As does twenty-nine-year-old Albert’s charming commentary on the subject: “Ideally, every girl is a disgusting pig who wants it.”

Men’s joy is in domination, a “harder-to-reach goal,” and in giving wom- en something they’re not ready for*—and when women acquiesce, they’re “disgusting pigs.”
†

Naturally, a selection of articles doesn’t epitomize the full spectrum of straight men’s sexual perspectives on women. But these pieces absolutely shed light on what is considered acceptable—and even lauded—male sexuality.

Author Michael Kimmel reveals in his book
Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men
that this kind of sexuality—the point of which is to revel in dominance and “seduction,” which can become predatory—is par for the course among young men. And it’s not just what’s defining their
sexuality,
it’s what’s defining them as
men.
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The time-honored way for a guy to prove that he is a real man is to score with a woman. . . . The problem, however, is that for guys, girls of ten feel

like the primary obstacle to proving manhood. They are not nearly as com- pliant as guys say they would like them to be.
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* Also known as rape.

†
This message is not so far off from that of most abstinence-only education classes. The virginity movement positions men as sexual aggressors and women as ideally chaste, in order to keep supposedly uncontrollable male sexuality in check. And, of course, women who have sex are tainted. At the end of the day, it’s the same idea, different mediums.

Kimmel paints a dark picture of young manhood in the United States, where porn is aplenty because it can’t say no and where men will do anything to “convince” women to have sex—whether that means lying to her, trying to get her as drunk as possible, or even raping her.

One young man, Bill, tells Kimmel how he knows it’s “not PC and all,” but that he has pushed girls’ heads down on him when he wants to receive oral sex, and that he once dragged a passed-out drunk woman to his room and had sex with her.

When she sort of came to a lit tle bit, she was really upset and starting crying and asked why I had done that. I think I said something like, ‘ because you

were so pretty’ or some bullshit, but really it was because, well, because I was drunk and wanted to get laid. And she was, like, there.
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What’s more terrifying than the assault Bill perpetrated is the fact that he doesn’t recognize it as such—he just thinks it wasn’t “PC.” But in an inter- view about
Guyland,
Kimmel clarified that he doesn’t believe that this is what young men are naturally
like;
it’s just what’s expected of them: “As if guys are biologically programmed to be rapacious predatory beasts. I think that’s ‘male bashing’—and sets the bar far too low. I believe that guys can be men— ethical, responsible, and resilient. . . . ”
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So do I. But while men’s natures are being insulted by a code of mas- culinity that sees them as little more than walking dicks, it’s women— like Bruen and Bill’s victim—who are paying the bigger price.

What’s more, positioning women as naturally nonsexual and men as innately ravenously sexual sets up not only a dangerous model that al- lows for sexual violence and disallows authentic female sexual expression,

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but also further enforces traditional gender roles—the main objective of the purity myth.

P u r e m a n l i n e s s

As much as the virginity movement is based on the idea that a woman’s worth is dependent on her sexuality, it’s also mired in the belief that tradi- tional masculinity is superior and its preservation is necessary. In fact, the movement is so concerned about maintaining the masculinity status quo that it’s staging an imaginary backlash. Organizations, pundits, and purity- pushing academics are up in arms about the supposed feminization and destruction of American men. And while a national crisis regarding mascu- linity is undoubtedly happening, it has nothing to do with feminization— hypermasculinity and femiphobia are hurting men. But questioning these norms means disrupting the gender power balance, something the virginity movement just won’t have.

James Dobson, evangelical Christian leader and founder of the power- house organization Focus on the Family, is at the forefront of the movement to keep “masculinity” traditional. In fact, the entirety of Dobson’s advice about raising boys, manliness, and fatherhood is that old-school norms about “boys will be boys” are part of the natural order—and he resents anything that calls that notion into question.

In his book
Bringing Up Boys,
Dobson drives the point home again and again that “boys are different from girls.”*

* Dobson’s derision regarding social change is palpable in his commentary immediately following that statement: “That fact was never in question for previous generations.” These darn whippersnappers and their newfangled ideas about equality!

. . . Haven’ t you heard your parents and grandparents say with a smile, “Girls are made out of sugar and spice and everything nice, but boys are made of snakes and snails and puppy dog tails .” It was said tongue-in-

cheek, but people of all ages thought it was based on fact . “Boys will be boys,” they said knowingly. They were right.

But Dobson’s definition of what boys, and men, are is based complete- ly in femiphobia and oppositional definitions. In a 2004 letter to Focus on the Family supporters, Dobson asked, “What does true masculinity look like?” His answer was “the physiological and emotional characteristics of a typical male are dramatically and intrinsically different than those of the typical female.”
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Men are simply un
-
women.* But he doesn’t stop there. Manhood isn’t simply about being different from women; it’s about being
better
than they are.

In
Bringing Up Boys,
Dobson relays an anecdote about his son’s “clearly identifying with [his] masculinity.”

[A]s our family prepared to leave in the car, Ryan would say, “Hey, Dad. Us guys will get in the front seat and the girls will sit in the back.” He wanted it known that he was a “guy” just like me. I was keenly aware that he was patterning his behavior and masculinity after mine. That’s the way the system is supposed to work.
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It’s no surprise then, that Dobson blames “radical feminism” for supposedly attacking traditional masculinity. And he’s not alone. Other

* In fact, Dobson’s fear of women and the feminine is so great that he often writes (in this book and elsewhere) that boys will potentially turn gay if they are not raised with appro- priately masculine role models around them.

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virginity-movement cohorts are also bemoaning its end and blaming its demise on the women’s movement.

Kathleen Parker,* columnist and author of
Save the Males: Why Men Mat- ter, Why Women Should Care,
for example, is certain that American men are in dire straits—they’re mocked on television shows as bumbling dads and miss- ing out on career opportunities because of “Take Your Daughter to Work Day.” They don’t live as long as women because of pesky programs that raise money for breast cancer, and are being increasingly feminized by an education system that won’t just let “boys be boys.” Parker’s world is one where feminists, who

keep insisting that men and women are equal,
†
have socially castrated men.

(Naturally, Parker has an obligatory chapter on
The Vagina Monologues.
)

Her suggestion? “[A]cknowledge that men are not women and boys are not girls.”
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And, of course, put an end to the “radical feminism” that Parker believes is causing this gender confusion and male feminization.

Janice Shaw Crouse, of Concerned Women for America, agrees. She wrote in 2004, “[T]here is a concerted effort to mainstream the feminization of boys. We are familiar with the radical feminists’ attempts to teach girls to act like the guys.”
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Like Parker and Dobson, Crouse is concerned with maintaining gender norms: “[T]here is definitely nothing wrong with masculinity (boys being boys and men being men) or with femininity (girls being girls and women being women).”
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