It's summer. Time for the slut-shaming!

[Trigger warning. This post discusses slut-shaming tactics aimed toward victims of sexual assault and rape.]

I was going to finish a blog post on the serious topics of "Why I can't fucking stand scientists sometimes" or, "Why manfiction almost made me not become an English major," but slut-shaming in the Battalion is so much more fun! And you can already tell that this article is bad. Look at the picture included! It's fucking infuriating! The implication is that women only dress to be "hot" for men, and that said men are totally fine with sending contradictory messages about what is "hot," via the sexualization of women in advertising, movies, music videos, etc. and simultaneous slut-shaming. Women must be both modest and "hot"! And they must CONSTANTLY care about how men are judging their attire! And men are allowed to judge their bodies and their clothing all the time, because women's bodies are public property, donchta know? You may think that you have the right to wear whatever the fuck you want to (especially when it is 100 fucking degrees outside), but you, Matthew Poarch is here to tell you, are wrong! Women's bodies are not their own! They exist to be policed by fine gentlemen like himself. Fine gentlemen who suggest that raping is the fault of sluttily-dressed ladies, not, you know, rapists.

Summer doesn’t have to mean skimpy. We all know it’s hot, but the clothes - or lack thereof - worn around this time of year leave little to the imagination. It seems like I can’t walk anywhere in town without seeing a half-clothed woman shamelessly flaunting her attributes for the entire world to see. Not only does this have potential for personal safety concerns, but it also leads to poor first impressions.

Oh no! Is my awesome rack distracting Matthew Poarch? Well, then I MUST leave this tube top at home. His imagination and discomfort are so much more important than my own comfort or desires. Also, OBVIOUSLY this tube top will "get me" raped, especially if I am "stupid" enough to drink alcohol.

Those who frequent situations with alcohol should carefully consider how their clothes strike the people around them. Even though women should be safe no matter what, showing too much skin when around men who are more prone to elevated emotions and lowered inhibitions can lead to dangerous situations.

Even those who seem perfectly trustworthy have the capacity to make incredibly stupid decisions under the influence. There is no acceptable reason for men to act like animals, but showing too much skin in these situations can heighten the inherent dangers.

By dressing to attract attention, remember this includes unwanted attention. Sexual assault, stalking and harassment are not issues to be tossed around lightly, but in this context, they are of utmost importance. Nobody wants to be in a situation that could endanger them even slightly; dressing a little more modestly in that environment can be a preventative measure.

Um, fuck you? Rape apologists will never get tired of repeating this old hat, will they? Because that's what this makes you, Michael, a RAPE APOLOGIST. Don't fool yourself that the little line that "there is no acceptable reason for emn to act like animals" somehow balances out your claims that women who dress a particular way are asking for "unwanted attention." You know what prevents rape? MEN NOT RAPING. (That link is hilarious, by the way.) Not women dressing a particular way, or dancing a particular way, or drinking alcohol in a public place.* "Being safe" shouldn't involve abstaining from REGULAR things that young women (particularly in a college town) do, like dressing like they want to have (consensual) sex (clutching! pearls!), or drinking alcohol in a bar. And the onus should never, ever be on women to "be safe," but on men to NOT RAPE.

Immodest dress also does not portray an image of dignity or self-respect. “It looks like they’re just rebelling or trying to be cool,” said Dane Molire, a senior biomedical science major. “It makes them seem like they’re immature.”

Women shouldn’t have to worry about impressing men, especially at the expense of their self-respect and safety. Guys who do think that a women should dress down to show off are not worth the trouble anyway. A man who is impressed by the very thing that revealing clothes accentuate will most likely be shallow and disrespectful.

Disrespectful like a man who thinks that all B/CS** women's clothing choices properly fall under his personal judgment?  Apparently, "women shouldn't have to worry about impressing men," except Matthew. And Dane. THOSE are the men you have to impress, ladies. THEY'RE "worth the trouble," presumably because of their gentlemanliness, as shown by their ability to call you "immature" and suggest that you are asking for rape with your high heels and miniskirt.

The way you dress also sets an example for the younger girls, who can be more impressionable and care more about being cool. Daisy Dukes and a revealing half of a top are creepy and inappropriate on younger girls.

“I wish it wasn’t the style to be immodest,” said Amanda Boudreaux, a senior meteorology major. “When you go to the pool, if you’re covered, you aren’t following the ‘cool’ trend.”

Of course Matthew couldn't write an article about ladies ruining the world (that is, Matt's personal walks about town) with their skimpy clothes without asking WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN. It's WOMEN'S fault that young children pick up on the fact that women are sexualized in our culture, natch.

Look, I absolutely believe that Amanda Boudreaux should wear whatever the fuck she wants to at the pool. Or anywhere else. But, it's not every other womans' job to make sure SHE feels comfortable in public. Anymore than it's every womans' job to make Matt feel comfortable, or Dan, or any other misogynistic douche who thinks that women's bodies are under their constant purview. Yes, it's a problem that the "trend," as Amanda puts it, is to publicly sexualize women and make sure that they know constantly that they are subject to objectification. But Matthew? He is still objectifying! He completely disregards the desires of individual women dressing in the way he finds so offensive. He argues that women should still dress to impress men (see: My opinion means everything! Because of my penis! And gentlemanliness!). He thinks he has the right to judge and comment on the clothing choices of women he doesn't even know. He is still treating women like their BODIES ARE PUBLIC.

Matthew's entire article is mansplaining through and through. "Let me mansplain to you ladies," he says, "about what your clothes mean! Also, how they will 'get you' raped! Also, how to attract the good menz, which I will define for you as 'like me.' What? You have your own desires for menz? Your desires are wrong. You want the gentlemenz. I promise."

It ends on a high note:

According to the Bible, Christianity is a religion that emphasizes modest clothing. As the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 2:9, “women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control.” The direct consequence of immodesty is to arouse illicit desires in men. More importantly, revealing clothes do not reflect the image of one who respects her body. God has called his children to a life of purity and holiness that extends beyond a once a week service. Christianity, however, is not the only religion that supports modesty, and even those with no religious affiliation can benefit from covering up.


Yes, it’s hot, but please dress in a way that shows dignity and class rather than skin. Dressing modestly is not only safer, but it reflects true character and self-respect, along with respect for others.

Why should you dress the way Matthew wants you to? Because another man, Paul (the Bible's resident douchebag), says so. Even if you're not Christian, though, Matthew feels entitled to comment on your clothes! (As an atheist, Matt, thanks for the reassurance that you are authorized to judge my clothing choices!)

Matthew Proacher to should be ashamed of himself. And the Battalion editorial staff should be ashamed of themselves, too.

*Of course, some women do rape, and some men are rape survivors or victims. I'm not trying to diminish that. But Matthew is, of course, talking about the more frequent scenario, in which a male perpetrator rapes a woman.

**That's Bryan/College Station, for the uninitiated.

Doctor Who fans are uncomfortable with women who want what they want.

Television! That may or may not be what I've been doing with my summer. This is a Doctor Who post, but I want to start with the awesomeness that is Glee, so we can start on a happy note before I get all pissy with DW fans. So, Kurt's dad? Kurt's dad makes me wish I could have him for my dad. He's so awesome! Every time the man talks, he makes me cry. Literally. This week (in the Gaga! episode), he gets onto Finn for being a homphobic dick to Kurt. (Transcript below.)

[Boo! The video was removed from YouTube.]

[Update: Here is a shittier version.]



Kurt: It's just a room Finn! We can redecorate it if you want to.

Finn: Okay. Good. Well, then FIRST thing that needs to go is that faggy lamp. A-and then, we need to get rid of this faggy couch blanket...

Burt, walking in: Hey! What did you just call him?

Finn: Oh, oh no. I didn't call him anything. I was talking to the blanket.

Burt: No, you use that word, you're talking about him.

Kurt: Relax, Dad. I didn't take it that way.

Burt: Yeah, that's because you're 16 and still assume the best in people. You live a few years, you start seeing the hate in people's hearts. Even the best people. [To Finn] You use the N-word?

Finn: Of course not.

Burt: Yeah, how 'bout retard? You call that nice girl in Cheerios [the cheerleading team], with Kurt, you call her a retard?

Finn: Becky? No, she's my friend, she's got Downs Syndrome. I'd never call her that, that's cruel.

Burt: But you think it's okay to come in my house and say faggy?

Finn: That's not what I meant...

Burt [interrupting]: I know what you meant! What, you think I didn't use that word when I was your age? You know, some, some kid gets clocked in practice, we'd tell him to stop being such a fag, shake it off. We meant it exactly the way you meant it. That being gay is wrong, that it's some kind of punishable offense. I really thought you were different, Finn. You know, I thought that being in Glee club, and being raised by your mom, that you were some, you know, new generation of dude, who saw things differently. Who just kinda, you know, came into the world, knowing what's it's taken me years of struggling to figure out. I guess I was wrong. I'm sorry, Finn, but you can't stay here.

Kurt: Dad.

Burt: I love your mom, and maybe this is going to cost me her. But my family comes first. I can't have that kind of poison around. [Turns to Kurt.] This is our home, Kurt. [Turns back to Finn.] He is my son. Out in the world, you do what you want. Not under my roof.

[Finn walks away. Burt turns to Kurt again.]

Burt: Place looks great.

[Burt walks past Kurt and puts his hand on his shoulder, leaving it there. Kurt touches it with his hand.]

*Sniff*

Okay, let's talk about Doctor Who! (Spoiler alert, obviously.) First, Moffat has been exceeding my expectations! I worry about him sometimes. But he seems to have matured from the lowest-dominator misogyny of Coupling. (If you haven't seen that, it's like Friends, but more sexist.) I'm still a bit weary, but so far, I am extremely pleased with the Doctor, Amy, and Rory (oh, Rory! I hope you come back), and their relationships. The depiction of the female characters in this series has been impressively three-dimensional and inoffensive.*

That said, there have been some issues. The first I want to talk about is the end of Flesh and Stone. (Yes, I'm behind on this. I know.) The scene where Amy assaults the Doctor was complicated for me.** For one, I love that Amy takes charge of her sexual desires, and that we get to see a healthy adult woman decide to have a one-night stand. It's great! Amy wants sex, knows what she wants, and goes and gets it! Unfortunately, even once the Doctor decidedly says no, she continues to force herself on him, and it starts to get uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable in a look-at-the-poor-Doctor-isn't-it-funny-that-she-won't-stop-kissing-him kind of way, uncomfortable in an oh-god-nearly-every-woman-watching-this-has-had-that-happen-to-her kind of way. The Doctor said no, Amy ignored his non-consent, and continued to try and have sex with him. I'm all for women taking the initiative in sexual contact if they want to, but once a partner has made it clear they are not consenting, YOU STOP. Period. What she should have done, after kissing him and having him pull away from her, is stop trying to touch him and undress him. Several commenters on a recent Shakesville Doctor Who open thread mentioned that this was sexual assault, but the best explanation I found was at Reconciliate:

Do you really think that was sexual assault?

Yes, I really do. The Doctor’s nonconsent was obvious and constant, and Amy did not pay attention to it at all. Sexually touching someone–in this case, attempting to remove their clothes or kissing them–after they have indicated their nonconsent, is sexual assault.

But it didn’t look like sexual assault to me. Sexual assault is violent and serious.

I hear this a lot in rape apology. Often sexual assault that does not take place in a police/military/corporate context involves no weapons nor punching nor direct physical dominance. Many sexual assault victims think of their experience as “the time that person had sex with me/touched me/kissed me and I didn’t want them to,” because they feel as though sexual assault is a concept that should be reserved for something serious.

The truth is, that’s all there is to sexual assault: you indicated you didn’t want to have sexual contact, but somebody made sexual contact with you anyway. (Sexual assault can also happen if someone makes sexual contact with you without giving you a chance to consent.) While sexual assault with a weapon or accompanied by a physical beating can often be more traumatizing to a victim (for example, higher rates of PTSD), any sexual assault is violent.

[...]

If Amy thought the Doctor had bad or irrelevant reasons for not wanting sex and wanted to address them, she could have dealt with his concerns before attempting to take off his clothes or kiss him again. She could have stopped touching him and explained that she just wanted one night, not a lifetime relationship.

She didn’t, though. She continually grabbed at him and tried to undress him while he was making his protests and without waiting for his consent. In fact, she showed a total disregard, throughout the scene, for his nonconsent, despite the fact that he was physically and verbally showing her he was flustered, upset, and unwilling. Although the word “no” didn’t pass his lips, he was still saying no every time he physically removed himself, shoved her hands away, redressed himself, and verbally gave reasons he did not want to have sex.

His “no” is unmistakable except by people who have an interest in not hearing it. This is common in instances of sexual assault. Most sexual-assaulters would claim they could tell their victim really wanted it, no matter how explicit the no was.

It's frustrating for me, because Amy's sexuality, and her refusal to be ashamed of it, is one of her best characteristics. So why did the DW writers feel like it was appropriate to turn this scene into one of sexual assault, where Amy find non-consent to be a joke? It felt like this scene was supposed to be funny in a similar way that the Doctor popping out of Rory's bachelor party cake was funny. Amy certainly thinks it's funny, and her cracks during the scene (I'm 907! Don't you know what that means?--It's been a while?) are supposed to make the audience laugh. In the middle of a scene where one character is sexually assaulting another. The writers don't seem to be able to imagine a confident, healthy woman who likes sex without imagining her as unconcerned with her partners' consent. Which I find depressingly disappointing.

Worse than the writer's inability to imagine a respectful sexual woman, however, was the fan reaction, which I wouldn't have even known about (particularly since I haven't listened to DW podcasts in for-fucking-ever) if all my fave feminist bloggers weren't Doctor Who enthusiasts. Kate Harding documents the oh-so-frustrating douchey fan reaction to this episode:

Not only is there slut-shaming galore (I forgot to mention that Amy’s supposed to get married in the morning, so OMG HOW COULD SHE?) but there are several people advancing the theory that her hitting on the Doctor is meant to be read as evidence of mental illness (by which they seem to mean daddy issues and low self-esteem, mostly, but they’re framing it in terms of a disorder). Simply because she wants to have sex with what appears to be a very cute twentysomething guy (ok, he’s a 900-year-old alien, but still) after going through several adrenaline-pumping adventures with him. Previous companions in the new version have either mooned over the Doctor endlessly or kept it strictly platonic, and on a show about time and space travel and aliens and monsters, the fact that no one’s tried to bone him yet has strained my credulity more than just about anything else.

[...In Doctor Who Confidential] the show runner, Steven Moffat (who’s been accused lots of times of being anti-feminist, but whatever, that’s another post) says: ”Here’s this man, this generally rather good-looking man — sometimes older, sometimes younger, but generally good-looking — who’s wonderful, funny, passionate and kind, and the nicest, bestest human being (apparently), you’ll ever meet. And all those girls… didn’t notice? Ever? Not once?” GOD, THANK YOU. ABOUT TIME. Yes, previous companions have been crazy about him, but only in a “You are my One True Love and I will wait around until you think of me that way, which I know you never will” way, so later, Moffat explicitly states the obvious: Unlike them, Amy’s just looking for a romp, not true love, because why not? See also the part around 3:05 where Karen Gillan, who plays Amy, gives her reasoning for why the character went for it: “I don’t know, sometimes you do things in the heat of the moment…when you’re, like, excited, and you’ve shared something with someone and… [shrug].” Indeed. NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

And yet. Precisely because she just wants sex, a disturbing number of people can’t figure out her motivation. There must be something deeper — something dark and fucked up, in fact — because a young woman just wanting a roll in the hay because hey, you’re here and you’re hot and all that stuff we just did was kind of mind-blowing? Well, that makes no sense whatsoever! To take that at face value, you’d have to believe that girls like sex or something!

WHAT THE FUCK, DOCTOR WHO FANS. It's all okay as long as Amy Pond is our eye-candy hot girl in a miniskirt, doing what she does because it's sexy for us, but as soon as she expresses desires of her own***, she's pathologized? Fuck that noise. I'm going to blow your minds for a minute: Women often like sex. Women sometimes choose, without being mentally fucked up, to have casual sex. These are true facts!

But not only do Doctor Who fans think that Amy is a screwed-up slut for her sex-liking, but mentally ill for also not liking the babies inside her! I've added this blog, Behind the Sofa, to my feed reader recently, and it's not usually groundbreaking or anything, but better than average when it comes to episode-by-episode blog reviews****. Usually when I disagree with these guys, it's in a friendly manner. They tend to not make me want to punch them. But when I saw Neil Perryman's review of Amy's Choice, I almost had an aneurysm. Okay, not really. But I did get super pissed. It just hit me in the face, because I actually liked the review:

In Star Trek this would be the result of a quaintly segregated parallel universe or a bizarre transporter accident but in Doctor Who we are told to accept the fact that the villain of the piece is buried deep within the psyche of our hero. And still is.

How macabre is that?

Did you steal into my heart, Neil Perryman, to figure out why I loved this episode so much? And:

I've noticed that some Pond/Gillan scepticism has reared its head over the last couple of weeks. I just don't get it. Yes, she's full of contradictions, kooky mannerisms and bouts of selfishness but that just makes her feel like a fully-rounded character to me. Even if the crack of doom isn't exerting a malign influence over Amy, her actions seem perfectly reasonable when examined in context.

I love that he loves Amy! And finds Amy scepticism to be silly! Unfortunately, what he doesn't find "perfectly reasonable" is that Amy isn't consumed in rapture because of her unborn child in this episode:

Amy's lack of compassion for her unborn child, as she hastily cobbles together s [sic] suicide pact with the Doctor, could simply be interpreted as yet another subtle clue that the OAP world wasn't real, even if I'm still surprised that the Doctor would go along with her plan considering that he didn't know for sure that she was right, and she wasn't exactly thinking straight having just seen Rory crumble to dust like that.

UGH. I found Amy's pregnancy, and decision to commit suicide even while pregnant, to be perfectly realistic. Especially when it becomes perfectly clear that she doesn't actually want a baby. (Also normal! Not all women want babies!) She chooses the chance of having Rory alive over her baby, and I don't get how this is an irrational or unbelievable choice. Is it because she's a woman? If she was pregnant in the hospital and had to have risky surgery, and the surgeon told Rory they may need to choose between saving her and saving the baby, would Neil Perryman argue that Rory choosing Amy (and not just Amy, but the mere chance of her surviving) is a "subtle clue" that there's something wrong?

Not all women see their bodies as mere incubation containers for the glorious baby-flesh that is inside them when they are pregnant, and are thus quite capable of making decisions that put that baby in danger when they think it's necessary. That doesn't make them mentally ill or whatever. It makes them people who can make their own damn decisions. Like, you know, men.

Even professed Amy-lovers, then, seem to have issues with Amy not following the Patriarchal Narrative of Ladyness, in which she is sexy Only For Men, keeps it in her pants except in Serious Relationships, and Want Babies. Also, Love Them more than herself or Rory. Do you see why I am repelled by Doctor Who fandom?! It is distressing. I am distressed.

*Has anyone else noticed that Doctor Who has pretty much NEVER had an episode pass the Bechdel test? Even when the show has two women (very rarely), all they really ever talk about is the Doctor. Is this different in the classic series?

**I should preface this by pointing out that I am no purist (although I find the arguments that the Doctor is always and forever asexual in the classic series unconvincing, since he starts in the TARDIS with his granddaughter?). I love seeing sex and relationships in television shows because they are present in real life. Without them, it all feels a little Victorian. Which is to say, we all know it's happening, we just don't talk about it. Because sex is dirty and shameful. I'm under the impression that most DW fans who want so very desperately for the Doctor to be chaste have issues. Like, lady issues. My friend Amy asked me what the fuck was up with the anti-River Song movement among fans, and I told her that they are probably mostly anti-Doctor-romance, and don't think the Doctor would ever sully himself with vaginas. Anyway, I find a lack of any sex in Doctor Who totally unrealistic. Why the hell wouldn't the Doctor find any of his companions attractive? They totally are! And he's super hot lately!

***I was going to say, and not for laughs, but this scene appears, as I said, to be intended to be funny. The other moments where we see Amy Pond owning her own desire are also usually wrapped in humor (because nothing's funnier than a LADY liking SEX).

****Unfortunately, it also has seven contributors, ALL MEN. What the hell is up with that?

Feminist home cooking and various sundries

Slate's XX has issues, but I'm subscribed to their RSS for this sole reason: Amanda Marcotte writes for them occasionally. After reading her defense of taking time to cook from scratch, I was linked to a post of hers in which she take Pollan to task for trying to shame women into the kitchen to save the health of the nation.

As a feminist foodie, I am ambiguously uncomfortable with foodie culture, which was the topic of the XX debate. Some women were writing that foodie culture is overbearing, elitist, and has a standard most actual women who shop in real grocery stores simply cannot achieve. Which is a little true, but cooking from scratch is not actually that hard. I'm a very lazy chef, and I have very little free time on my hands. I still think, like Amanda, that cooking is a good use of my time; it's one of the few activities I can do where I get to chill out, destress, and also produce something worthwhile. I also pick up and drop craft hobbies, like crosstitching, jewelry making, and scrapbooking, but none of those produce anything as delicious and useful as wine-flavored cream sauce. I disagree with the sanctimonious tone of some foodie culture, the dismissal of young folks who like to make bread from scratch as time-wasters is no less judgmental.

And I agree with Amanda that cooking from scratch can be a feminist act. I often get odd looks from friends and acquaintances when I tell them that I like to cook and bake from scratch. As though I hurt my feminist cred by cleaning my bathroom or making boeuf bourguignon. Which I find a little puzzling; since when is eating frozen pizza and canned soup feminist? Certainly, as Amanda says, the domesticity trend has an antifeminist side, but baking break when I like baking bread is not a betrayal of my feminist principles. I don't cook or bake from my partner (who hardly even notices the difference between canned and homemade spaghetti sauce), any children, or my friends. I cook for me, because I love food and I like making it.

Various sundries:

Some douchebags in Bristol, VA are passing around a pamphlet shaming women for dressing too slutty. A memorable quote:

Scripture tells us that when a man looks on a woman to lust for her he has already committed adultery in his heart. If you are dressed in a way that tempts a men to do this secret (or not so secret) sin, you are a participant in the sin. By the way, some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly. So can we really say they were innocent victims?

Gross.

Latoya Peterson claims that fat-shaming is "the new Millennium bloodsport". Truer words, my friends. The commenter I like the most:

I'm convinced the pillar of American culture is just stone cold judgment. Puritans FTW!

That is my new pet theory about why people are such assholes.

A survey asked couples trying to avoid pregnancy whether how they would feel if they accidentally got pregnant. The really fucking odd results:

Forty-three percent of young men responded that they would be “a little pleased” or “very pleased” by the news; only 20 percent of women answered the same. Men also proved more comfortable with an unplanned pregnancy at an earlier age: Thirty-four percent of men 18-19 said they would be pleased. By the time they reach age 20-24, 42 percent of men said they would be pleased. And over 50 percent of men aged 25-29 would be pleased by the news. Remember: this is only among men who deemed it “important” that a pregnancy not occur at this junction.

Meanwhile, the percentage of women who would be “pleased” by an unplanned pregnancy stays steady at a low 16 percent all the way from age 18 to 24. By the time women reach the 25-29 age range, the percentage of “pleased” women soars to 29 percent. Despite the jump, women in their late 20s still lag behind their male counterparts by 22 percentage points.

Amanda speculates as to why.

Finally, the Center for Public Integrity did a study about rape on college campuses, concluding that not only do the vast majority of rapes go unreported (95%), rape victims who do report the crimes often get no justice. Rapists are often given a slap on the wrist, and hardly ever face suspension or expulsion. Huffington post reports on a case study here at Texas A&M.

Austen in Conservative Culture

My computer broke down a few weeks ago, which is why I haven't posted in so long. Also, I've been unbelievably busy. For the first time, I'm starting to wonder if I'm right for grad school. Anyway, as promised, here are some further thoughts on Austen as deployed in the conservative, anti-feminist movement:

Miriam Grossman’s self-proclaimed “college girl’s guide to real protection in a hooked-up world” has all the elements of panicky conservative writing about the so-called “hook up culture;” it focuses solely on women, contains slut-shaming language, suggests that women alone feel an emotional attachment after engaging in sexual activity, and it even suggests that young women put off getting a post-undergraduate degree until after having children. Grossman’s pamphlet, however, also has another common feature of anti-hook up culture literature: it references Jane Austen. Grossman’s title, Sense and Sexuality, evokes Austen without mentioning her, and her name does not appear in the text. On the most jaw-dropping page of the pamphlet (the first page of section six), in pink cursive writing over red paper, Grossman writes, “The rectum is an exit, not an entrance.” The cutesy handwriting and feminine colors are supposed to make the reader forget how judgmental, over-the-top, and homophobic this statement is. The statement is also part of a pattern in pro-abstinence literature, in which writers choose to write about abstinence and women’s bodies because it is in some sense titillating; the proclamation, “The rectum is an exit, not an entrance” falls squarely into the tradition of abstinence advocates who tend to imagine graphically the violations they wish to repress. The use of Austen in this context is the use of her propriety and politeness. The pink and red, the ribbon, the lace, the cursive—these elements, in combination with the Austenian title—are not only intended to make this pamphlet clearly “for girls (not women) only,” but to give Grossman’s “facts” and tips an air of gentility and modesty.

In her review of Grossman’s Sense and Sexuality website, based on her pamphlet, Suzanne Fields claims that it “draws its name from the Jane Austen novel that dramatizes the conflict of reason and feeling in male-female relationships. Jane Austen never wrote a sexually explicit scene, but her insights into the moral shadings of behavior between a man and woman give her books their remarkable staying power.” According to Fields, Austen’s popularity has to do with her ability to teach us about heterosexual romance, a romance which conspicuously does not include anything “sexually explicit.” This is an interesting statement in light of the remainder of Field’s article, most of which attempts to draw a connection between Grossman’s website and the controversy surrounding Roman Polanski. She claims that rape used to be a crime which the public treated seriously, but that it is not anymore, and uses Polanski as a prime example of this “new” moral ambiguity surrounding rape. Interestingly, she compares Polanski to an “upper-class Englishman of a Victorian novel who takes his pleasure with the upstairs maid.” She then claims that the victim’s desire to forgo a trial 37 years later indicates
“generosity impossible to imagine in a victim in a Victorian novel. Her description of the rape, as told to the Los Angeles grand jury three decades earlier, lacks the sentimentality you could find in a Thomas Hardy novel. Her plea for him to stop and take her home was not the plea of a knowing Lolita, but the plaint of a pathetic, frightened child.”

Fields’s references to rape in Victorian novels reflect that same moral ambiguity she sees in modern culture. Calling Nabokov’s Lolita “knowing” is most obvious—accepting the narrative of Humbert Humbert, Fields engages in slut-shaming a young girl who was raped and comes dangerously close to valorizing individuals like Polanski. Her reference to the “sentimentality” of Thomas Hardy novels in the best case, elides the actual rape in his Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and in the worst case, excuses this rape because it is written with sentimental language, unlike the far more ugly narrative of the Polanski rape. Without removing her own complicity, Fields seems to be suggesting that Victorian novels do not, because they include those “knowing” Lolitas and rape scenes, give modern readers a good guide to behavior between men and women. Austen, historically preceding the Victorians and lacking all references to sex, does. Austen represents for Fields a pre-sexual culture, since she sees a culture of sex as the cause for rape.

Another conservative author, Wendy Shalit claims that the popularity of Jane Austen is a sign that women (again, the focus is on women and girls) are craving traditional methods of courtship and romance. She argues that
“women all around the country, women who have already had numerous sexual affairs, are descending on nineteenth-century period dramas—at the cinema, on PBS, anywhere they can catch a glimpse of Jane Austen’s Emma or Elizabeth—with a kind of religious seriousness that would be comical if weren’t so poignant” ( A Return to Modesty 94).

For Shalit, Austen represents a place in which “the facts” of sex are not “shoved in our faces all the time,” and thus women are allowed “to imagine there might be something more to hope for than all [the] dreary crudeness” of comprehensive sex education (Return 25). This, she claims, is why women “are flocking to Jane Austen movies” (25). She argues that the facts which are taught in sex education in schools “conceal the truth” about sex, which is that it creates “obligation” (25). The title of Shalit’s book, A Return to Modesty, makes it explicit that she desires a literal return to attitudes about sex and male-female relationships which the modern world has outgrown. She suggests that the popularity of Jane Austen is popularity of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sexual politics.

This type of conservative writing—pro-abstinence, pro-courtship, and anti-feminist—wields Austen in a particular and interesting way. It is not merely that Austen “has no sex” in her novels, but that the sexual politics of her novels suggest for these authors a model of desirable heterosexual romantic relationships. For these authors, Austen is pure and modest because she exists in a pre-sexual culture, unlike the Victorian era and unlike our contemporary “hook up” culture. The cultural work which Austen does for conservative writers in talking about female sexuality is twofold; she conveys a sense of propriety and modesty in talking about that most immodest and titillating topic—women having sex—as well as offering a model for romance. By evoking Austen, the conservative writer not only makes her (it most often is a woman) subject palatable and proper, but suggests the solution to the problem of the “hook up” culture—more Austen.

Works Cited

Fields, Suzanne. “Sense and Sexuality: Sensibility Has Been Replaced in Hollywood’s America.” Washington Times 8 Oct. 2009: n.p. Washington Times. Web. 22 Oct. 2009.

Grossman, Miriam. Sense and Sexuality: The College Girl’s Guide to Real Protection in a Hooked-Up World. N.p.: Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, 2008. PDF file.

Shalit, Wendy. A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue. Toronto: HarperCollins, 1999. Print.

Sense and Sexuality

I have to write an "Austen manifestation" essay in my Austen and popular culture course, so I've been doing some research lately on how the abstinence-only sex education proponents wield Austen in their rhetoric. I recently came across this train wreck, which I thought I would share with you. It starts with the moral panic and blame-it-on-the-liberals right away:

Not so long ago, rape was a capital offense, right up there with murder. When death was not decreed, convicted rapists could count on a long prison sentence. No one took rape lightly. The crime was an absolute evil, the moral equivalent of neither shoplifting nor stealing a kiss.

As far as I can tell, this isn't actually true. Capital offenses are determined state by state, and not all states ever punished rape with capital punishment. Some did, and that's not true now. From MSN Encarta:

The English common law served as the model for criminal law in the United States, including rape laws. However, U.S. laws added to the protections against false accusations of rape. For example, many states instituted a special corroboration rule for rape prosecutions. This rule provided that in the absence of corroborating physical evidence (such as semen or bruises) or the testimony of a witness, a rape victim’s testimony was insufficient evidence on which to convict a defendant. As was the case with English law, this requirement assumed that the primary objective of the law was to protect men from false accusations rather than to protect women from rape.

Rape law has a history of protecting potential rapists and not their victims. Fortunately, the feminist movement has resulted in an improvement in rape laws, and they do not (for the most part) shield men more than rape victims--we have the media to do that instead. From MSN Encarta again:

Following the English model, some U.S. states punished rape as a capital offense. However, a 1977 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States ruled this practice unconstitutional. Today state statutes typically provide for a substantial number of years of imprisonment, including life imprisonment, for persons convicted of rape. In 1997 Montana adopted a law authorizing the death penalty as punishment for a second conviction of rape involving serious bodily injury. Whether this law is constitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s earlier decision has not yet been addressed.

In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment for rape not resulting in death is unconstitutional--cruel and unusual punishment. And this is particularly interesting when you consider that capital punishment was disproportionately given to black men convicted of raping white women:

As a practical matter, the death penalty had nearly withered away for crimes other than murder and rape. From 1930 to 1967, over 3,300 persons were executed for homicide, 455 for rape, and only 70 (or less than 2% of the total) for all other non-homicidal offenses, including robbery, burglary, attempted murder, kidnaping, assault by a life-term prisoner, carnal knowledge, espionage, assault with intent to rape and accessory to murder.

In this era, executions for rape were carried out exclusively in the Southern states (including the border states of Oklahoma, Missouri and Delaware), and they were carried out predominately on black men convicted of raping white women. Of the 455 rapists executed, 405 (89%) were black.

Professor Marvin Wolfgang's research on the death penalty for rape, reported as "Racial Discrimination in the Death Sentence for Rape" in William Bowers's Executions in America (1974), showed that over one-third of black defendants convicted of raping white victims received death sentences; in all other racial combinations of victim and defendant, only 2% received death sentences. This eighteen-fold heightened likelihood of getting a death sentence had only one possible explanation, Wolfgang concluded after reviewing other possible explanations or linkages: "It is the racial factor of the relationship between the defendant and the victim that results in the penalty of death."

Fields wants us to believe that people punished rape by death because they took rape more seriously than we do now. But, considering that before 1993, marital rape wasn't even illegal in many states and that the first rape crisis center didn't open until the 1970s, this is unconvincing. Capital punishment for rape was a racially motivated cause, and to portray it's departure as a sign of decaying morality is disingenuous. Frankly, the only people "taking rape lightly" these days are conservatives. The anti-rape movement was fought primarily by feminists, and it still is. Conservative reactions to rape are to deny that we live in a rape culture, to deny rape statistics, to defend rapists, and to blame women for their own rapes. Even with the conservative backlash against Roman Polanski, we don't see a concern for the victim or the crime committed, but a new chance to hate Hollywood, which they think represents liberalism. Fields herself uses Polanski as an example of this new-fangled rape apologism (which isn't really new at all):

Men could create sympathy for themselves, as Roman Polanski has done. The forced sex act to which he pleaded guilty was never perceived in the culture of his peers as all that serious. He expected to get a light sentence, counting the 42 days he spent in psychiatric observation. Age, at least in Hollywood, no longer mattered so much; 13 was the new 18. You could hear the oh-so-sophisticated defenders of the distinguished director asking: "What did the aspiring pubescent model expect when she went with him to Jack Nicholson's house for a topless photo shoot?" (Jack Nicholson, for the record, was not at home; Polanski borrowed his house.) Besides, the 13-year-old girl had already done "it" twice. Polanski was only 43; how could he have known 43-year-old men don't fool with 13-year-old girls? Besides, it wasn't really "rape-rape," as the distinguished legal scholar Whoopi Goldberg famously decreed.

Hollywood, according to Fields, is to blame, sexualizing children and apparently creating a rape culture all on its own. Those conservatives who create an environment in which rape is okay in most situations (like, when the woman is doing a topless photo shoot, or has already had sex) have nothing to do with it. Yes, the hyper-sexualization of young girls is a problem, but it isn't made better by blaming young women and scolding them for having sex. But don't worry, Fields identifies the problem: the so-called "hook-up culture," which we all know will fix itself if women like Fields just shame women into not having sex or wearing low-cut tops. And then, rape will magically disappear.

Hollywood's attitude can make life hard for young women. A study at Princeton University finds that young women, in twice the number of young men, nurture hopes that what once was called "a one-night stand" can become "a relationship." Far more often than men, women regret that a "hook-up" even happened. The signs of depression grow with the number of her casual sexual partners; almost half the couples "hooking up" never see one another again.

If you want to read about why the moral panic over "hook-up culture" is ineffective and just plain bad for women, see here. Anti-feminists love this creature they've invented, the hook-up culture, which simply gives them an excuse to blame rape on feminists (and women in general) and scold women for having sex. In reality, both men and women are lacking experience and discussion about discussing boundaries with their sexual partners and identifying and recognizing consent (as well as situations in which consent is not possible), essential communication skills which could reduce confusion that may lead to rape, because of abstinence-only sex education. Rape culture is a consequence of conservative ideas about purity and sex, culminating in abstinence-only education.

Fields wields Jane Austen (and Victorian culture in general, which she equates with Austen) in an interesting way, but that'll have to wait for my next post.