The Purity Myth (28 page)

* You may remember Parker from Chapter 2: She’s the
Washington Post
writer who fawned over Miriam Grossman’s book and wrote that girls’ having sex constitutes a “mental health crisis.”

†
Parker has also written that women in the military get raped by their fellow officers

because “male soldiers and officers have . . . been forced to pretend that women are equals, and men know they’re not.” Quite a high price to pay for seeking equality.

Something about the fact that the language Crouse uses is nearly identi- cal to Parker’s and Dobson’s is so telling—and so simplistic. None of these writers are making a real argument for a specific kind of masculinity, other than one that calls for men to not be like women. In fact, all of the people who claim to be so concerned about men’s decline don’t offer
anything
in the way of advice, outside of bashing women’s social and political progress.

Take Harvey Mansfield, perhaps one of the best-known proponents of traditional masculinity and purveyor of feminization fear. A professor of government at Harvard University and author of
Manliness,
* Mansfield ar- gues that the decline of society—and of all-important manliness—is due to women’s desire for equality and success outside of the domestic sphere, which he sees as disruptive to the gender binary system.

Women today want to be equal to men, equal in a way that makes them

similar to, or virtually the same as, men. They do not want the sort of equal- ity that might result from being superior at home if inferior at work. They

have decided that work is better than home.
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Women can’t want to be like men, because that would mean that men are like women—a femiphobic’s nightmare if there ever was one. And, like that of most purity-myth proponents, Mansfield’s argument doesn’t stop at women’s engagement in the public sphere; it inevitably always comes back to the bedroom.

In all of the media and virginity-movement hoopla concerning girls’

* The original cover of the book featured the title scrawled across a brick wall. Apparently, the imagery was a bit
too
manly, so the publisher opted for an imageless cover instead. Ah, the bare aesthetic of manliness.

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supposed promiscuity, one of the main talking points is a fear of women’s “be- coming like men” sexually. Mansfield, of course, is no exception. In a 2005 lecture, he blamed “radical feminism,” which, he said, seeks to “lower women to the level of men” in terms of sexual behavior.
21

“By the age of thirty, you see men who are used to getting free samples [of sex],” he said.

And like the men of Kimmel’s
Guyland,
the men in Mansfield’s world believe that women exist simply for male pleasure. In the same lecture, Mansfield noted that when “women play the men’s game . . . they are bound to lose.

“Without modesty, there is no romance—it isn’t so attractive or so erot- ic.”*
22
(Why young women—to whom he is specifically referring—would care about what Mansfield thinks is “erotic” is beyond me.)

In order to please men like Mansfield, and to be accepted by women like Parker and Crouse, women need to be “women”: passive, chaste, and accept- ing of male dominance and superiority.

So while virginity-movement operatives continue to promote the idea that men and masculinity are somehow in trouble, it’s clear that what’s really endangered are the patriarchal standards that they’re so attached to. That’s why feminism is
always
to blame. These books, articles, and arguments aren’t a defense against an assault on masculinity—they’re an offensive attack on progressive social change that allows women to be complex human beings, rather than purity-princess automatons.

* Indeed, Mansfield also noted in 2008, in an article about Sarah Palin, that “feminist women are unerotic.” How disappointed feminists will be.

m o v i n g t o w a r d a h e a l t h y , s e x i s m - f r e e m a s c u l ini t y

In his 2004 essay titled “Picture Perfect” author Douglas Rushkoff wrote

about why he, as a young man, wanted to “go steady” with a girl: “It had noth- ing to do with her, really. Her purpose was merely to assert and define my masculinity. . . . She had only to prove I was not a fag.”
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Women cannot continue to be the markers by which men measure their manliness. And while the myth of sexual purity is primarily about women, it’s impossible to dismantle the notion that women’s worth is connected to their sexuality without also dismantling a conception of masculinity that is reinforced so fully by that myth. We’re only as pure or impure as men deem us to be—they’re the ones with that power to define and control.

Masculinity and manhood need not be built on this foundation of sex- ism and gender binaries that the virginity movement is so desperate to hang on to. In fact, some American thinkers—including Kimmel and Robert Jens- en (mentioned in Chapter 4)—dedicate their careers to this belief.

But the voices we’re more likely to hear—those that appear in syn- dicated columns, control pop-culture mediums (like commercials), or run multimillion-dollar organizations—are the ones that continue to ad- vance ideals about men and masculinity that are unhelpful, regressive, and dangerous.

Axe body spray (a noxious cologne whose lad-based marketing often peddles in sexism), for example, developed a TV ad campaign called “Nice Girls Gone Naughty.” These commercials feature women becoming sexual predators, harassers, and rapists after smelling Axe spray; dressed as cheer- leaders, nurses, and Girl Scouts, these “nice” girls appear in a lineup for hav- ing sexually assaulted the men in the commercials.

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This campaign comes to mind because it trumpets what male sexuality is supposed to be—“naughty,” aggressive, criminal—and turns it on its head. We’re supposed to laugh and find the idea of women assaulting men hilarious (we’re also supposed to be turned on by virginal girls gone horny for cheap body spray). But all this campaign does is use modern masculinity to make light of
actual
violence against women.

And this is why there’s a real sense of urgency when it comes to doing something about the current state of masculinity. American culture recog- nizes that something is brewing when it comes to “manliness.” It’s a new an- tifeminist backlash of sorts, one that claims it’s not about women at all, but about maintaining manhood. And whether it’s an Axe or Snickers commer- cial, a book or an organization, other people are framing this conversation, and incorrectly.

It’s difficult to question gender norms—especially perhaps for men, who simultaneously suffer
and
benefit from them. And I have no doubt that men suffer greatly under the model of masculinity that’s ascribed to them; it’s just not a natural state to enforce for anyone.

In an article called “The High Cost of Manliness,” Robert Jensen out- lines the restricting nature of what being a man today involves—a never- ending struggle for dominance.

No one man created this system, and perhaps none of us, if given a choice, would choose it. But we live our lives in that system, and it deforms men,

narrowing our emotional range and depth. It keeps us from the rich connec- tions with others—not just with women and children, but other men—that make life meaning ful but require vulnerability.
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It’s because I care so much for the men in my life that I advocate a re- thinking of masculinity. It’s also because I want a better world for women. Because as long as men are disconnected from women, as long as they’re taught that we’re what
not
to be, and as long as they believe that the only way to define themselves is through women’s bodies and sexuality, the purity myth will live on.

Jensen calls for an end to our current understanding of masculinity. He says, “We men can settle for being men, or we can strive to be human beings.”
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What’s funny is that that statement essentially echoes the same hope

I have for women: that we can start to see ourselves—and encourage men to see us—as more than just the sum of our sexual parts: not as virgins or whores, as mothers or girlfriends, or as existing only in relation to men, but as people with independent desires, hopes, and abilities. But I know that this can’t happen so long as American culture continues to inundate us with gender-role messages that place everyone—men and women—in an unnatu- ral hierarchical order that’s impossible to maintain without strife. For women to move forward, and for men to break free, we need to overcome the mascu- linity status quo—together.

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c h a P ter 9

sex, mora l s , and t r usting women

“If female sexuality is muted compared to that of men, then why must men the world over go to extreme lengths to control and contain it?”

b a r b a r a s m u t s,

primatologist

the nature of an
educational video produced by Concerned Women for America (CWA) is encapsulated in just the first few seconds, when the narrator says in a serene voice: “An honest talk about casual sex. False prom- ises, searing pain, and tragic problems.”

The video, of a talk that CWA’s Janice Crouse delivered to college stu- dents in Washington, D.C., features Crouse talking about how promiscuity and hooking up are damaging young women. (She also relates a somewhat garbled history of the sexual revolution, which she says had “disastrous con- sequences for women.”) Rambling off false statistics, Crouse tells her young audience that casual sex leads to poor grades, depression, and even suicide.

In 2008, the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute published a guide for

college students, penned by none other than
Unprotected
author Miriam Grossman.
Sense & Sexuality: The College Girl’s Guide to Real Protection in a Hooked-Up World
has a lacy pink design, and most of its text is cursive.*

Like Crouse’s talk, the booklet features mostly scare tactics about pre- marital sex, including telling readers that the young men they have sex with are likely not to “remember your name,” that “as the number of casual sex partners in the past year increased, so did signs of depression in college wom-

en,” and that women who contract HPV
†
are essentially unlovable dropouts:

Natural reactions are shock, anger, and confusion. Who did I get this from, and when? Was he unfaithful? Who should I tell? And hardest of all: Who

will want me now? These concerns can af fect your mood, concentration, and sleep. They can deal a serious blow to your self-esteem. And to your GPA.
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Not satisfied with simply telling young women not to have sex, Gross- man also makes sure to lay on the pressure about early marriage and child- bearing: “Remember that motherhood doesn’t always happen when the time is right for you; there’s a window of opportunity, then the window closes.”

There’s even a section in which Grossman seems to be wishing herpes on fictional characters. “It’s easy to forget, but the characters on
Grey’s Anatomy
and
Sex and the City
are not real,” she writes. “In real life, Meredith and Carrie would have warts or herpes. They’d likely be on Prozac or Zoloft.”
2

It seems that no consequence, from herpes to suicide, is too weighty to pin on premarital sex.