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Raping, Shaming Girls to Impress Guys
Felicia Garcia
Young men at Piedmont High near San Francisco were caught “drafting” female schoolmates (unbeknownst to most of them) into a secret “Fantasy Slut League.” Upper classmen earned points for documenting their sexual exploits and used social pressure to manipulate the girls’ yearnings to feel attractive, included and popular. Sometimes they plied their targets with alcohol to impair judgment and control, that is, to commit rape.
Meanwhile, in the Stanton Island borough of New York, 15-year-old Felicia Garcia of Tottenville High had sex with four football players. The escapade was recorded and passed around the school as football players bragged about their conquest. Two of the ball players involved began tormenting her, and as news spread through the school, bullying spread, too.
One of Felicia’s friends told the New York Daily News,
Kids are saying she had sex with some guys from the football team at a party after the game. Later on, they wouldn’t leave her alone about it. They just kept bullying her and bullying her.
The young women of Piedmont High were left shamed and humiliated, and too many of them were sexually assaulted. Felicia killed herself on October 24 when she jumped in front of a Staten Island train as 200 students watched in horror.
You have to wonder why so many young men are willing to harm so many young women.
The answer likely revolves around guys trying to feel like men.
Michael Kimmel is an expert on men and masculinity who has studied “guys” at the cusp of manhood. He says that too often guys hurt themselves or others as they latch onto the more negative notions of manhood like aggression, violence, dominance and being tough.
Meanwhile, women are often objectified and seen as “things” that are all about sex. If they are things, and not people, you don’t have to worry about their feelings or their lives.
The young men at Piedmont High and Tottenville High were working to create a culture that painted men as aggressive and dominant, and women as silenced and humiliated victims who were made to feel lower in status… and who may even end up killing themselves.
Surely there are better ways to be a man.
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Why Men Objectify
Some men wonder why they objectify women. So Jayson Gaddis asked men on his Facebook page why they thought they did, and then he wrote about it for The Good Men Project.
What is objectification? Jayson describes it as:
Staring, gawking, or checking out women and their bodies and body parts. Seeing them as objects instead of actual people, and thinking of them in a sexual way.
Why do they do it? Most blame “nature.” As one man exclaimed,
I love looking at women. They’re just amazing. It’s part of my biological make up to think that they’re beautiful.
Jayson believes biology plays a role since men are hardwired to look for mates and procreate. But he thinks cultural conditioning is involved, too. To paraphrase:
In men’s culture, it’s acceptable to objectify women. Men bond around it. And, it’s pervasive and all around us. Notice where men buy stuff, there are often photos of women present. I can barely go on any male-focused website now without being hit at some point by a tiny, physically attractive, disproportioned airbrushed woman looking at me.
Some men objectify because the “feel good” feeling acts like a drug or pick me up. Objectification can fill an empty place inside:
I’m stuck in the belief that that feminine essence is outside of myself. I’m alienated from the larger truth of my Completeness as a human being. That sexy, juicy, radiant paradise is not inside myself, therefore it’s an object I obsess about outside myself and I treat it like entertainment. This insight leads me to believe I haven’t spent enough time balancing the relationship with My (whole) Self.
Others want gratification without any real work or risk of rejection.
I objectify women cause it’s “safer.” I receive an immediate gratification, a thrill if you will, albeit superficial, it does keep me safe at least for a time from annihilation — from a treacherous road of intimacy and vulnerability — the risk of being really seen and connected with – or actually rejected!! Yes, that’s it — it’s an avoidance of rejection… Intimacy takes a lot of work, courage and commitment. Objectifying is an “easy” road out of the potential of rejections.
Maybe some men simply enjoy the sense of being with many women, polygamous, a way of living that doesn’t appear to be a possibility in our culture. One man says he likes to play with the fantasy and the illusion like he does with porn:
The most fun and exciting and ego gratifying times in my life have been when i have embraced it and danced with it and gave myself permission to play with the illusions, projections, feelings, etc.
Like this man, many say they seek approval or self-esteem. I’m not sure what that means. Might a man’s self worth rise when he imagines the women enjoying his attention?
Or, does self-esteem rise from gaining a sense of power over women? After all, they dressed and adorned themselves to please men – and thus, “him.”
Some talk of the power women have over men – making them melt and creating unrequited desire. But by objectifying women a man can feel superior. “He” is subject while “she” is an object that exists for his pleasure and purposes.
The fear of annihilation has been cited before, but one man describes it in a way that echoes this fear of female power. He seeks “to avoid the terror of annihilation — being reabsorbed back into the feminine.”
Whatever’s going on, Jayson suggests men consider how objectification is working for them and the women in their lives. For those who feel it’s not working, here’s how some have dealt with the matter:
What I’ve found works best for me so far is being a yes to everything in my own experience and in what’s happening AND at some point in my development simply realizing that objectification is not enough for me … I love appreciating and experiencing another human being for more than just her physical traits. What I prefer physically doesn’t in itself inspire me to want to connect with a woman, and doesn’t in itself have me feel attracted. The attraction and inspiration simply are there or not independent of how she looks.
Or this:
The answer for me was to stop trying to get this woman but use that energy to make myself the best possible me I could become. A me that now has confidence because I am self assured, self respecting, and full of self accepting unconditional love. Part of becoming that man means that I must accept and own the truth of my motives and be willing to see the motives of others. That is when I was finally able to let go of the fantasy and see this woman for who she really is inside.
My biggest life breakthrough and victory came as a result of that growth.
As a result, something incredible is happening to me now. Something wonderful has started growing in the void where my fantasy used to live. It’s a genuine curiosity and appreciation for all woman. Especially for all the women who actually live and display their authentic self and freely give their love to all as an expression of their femininity.
Or this,
Once I get connected to me again, I notice how I can appreciate a beautiful woman and I’m in my body, connected to my heart. It has a totally different quality. She feels it and I feel it.
By the way, objectification and desire are two different things. And men are rarely objectified. See these two articles:
For more on all this, go to The Good Men Project.
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Porn Fantasy Mistaken for Reality
By Demon Ted
Does porn raise men’s expectations of how women should perform in bed? I believe it depends entirely on the man’s ability to distinguish between real life and fantasy.
True, you could try to recreate porn in real life. But then it’s not real. It’s acting. So you’re back to fantasy.
I think porn is great to enjoy. But men must realize what it is.
Unfortunately, a lot of men (and some women in regards to things like Twilight) get fantasy and reality mixed up. And that can harm relationships.
Take my girlfriend’s ex. He’s a nasty piece of work. Barely finished high school, can’t drive, no job. Literally sits at home all day. But because my girlfriend was young when she met him, he became a lot of “firsts.” And he made her think that things that weren’t healthy were.
She didn’t expect to ever get off on real sex, or that her significant other should even try. Early on she told me that she would be “totally down for a threesome” if I saw another girl I found attractive. She later recanted when I told her to never suggest anything that makes her uncomfortable or unhappy.
As we talked on she began blurting out a long list of things her ex did, sexually, that she asked me not to. The worst part was that after she had listed everything, she thought I was angry with her.
I was angry. Not because she had asked me not to do certain things, but because I realized what she had come to expect. I had thought she’d say something like, “I don’t feel comfortable with the lights on,” not, “Please don’t tell me I’m a dirty slut for enjoying your cock.”
I was upset that she had let someone treat her, for lack of better words, like trash. I had to explain that, even without her asking me not to do those things I would not have done them.
I saw that she had come to believe that she must do things she hated for a relationship to “work.”
Obviously we’ve talked about these things and she realizes that, yes, I do watch porn, but that porn is porn. I do not expect her to act like the girls in it, nor should anyone else.
My girlfriend is beautiful. She’s incredibly attractive just the way she is. And she’s most beautiful when she’s enjoying herself, sexually or otherwise.
This was written by one of my students who gave permission to post it under a pseudonym.
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Gay Marriage, Slippery Slope to Polygamy?
Obama and Romney both have grandparents who practiced polygamy, yet both have said (and one’s still saying) that marriage should be between one man and one woman. Some think it odd that they both reject the practice when they’ve each got a family history. But I, too, have grandparents who practiced polygamy yet I don’t like the practice, either. This brings me to the concern that marriage equality is a slippery slope to polygamy.
If you hold marriage to “two consenting adults” the problem goes away.
At the same time, while I have a personal distaste for polygamy, I’m not sure that decriminalization would be a bad thing.
First, the problems with the practice.
Gender inequality can be created by simple supply and demand, with “the one” having more power, whether polygyny (one man, many wives) or polyandry (one wife, many husbands). In the polyandrous Lahaul Valley of the Himalayas women have great say over matters. As one young man in this community explained, “The wife’s voice is the dominant voice in the household.”
Typically, polygamy is practiced under patriarchy (as polygyny) so the power of “the one” man becomes intensified. As one New York Times letter writer observed in response to Jonathan Turley’s insistence that polygamous families should be free to live their religion and values:
(In highly patriarchal families) this is not ‘the right to live your life.’ The men have rights, but not the girls (who are) brainwashed, uneducated and mothers while in their teens.
In polygyny it can seem that women make all the sacrifices so that men may take unlimited pleasure. A Sufi who agreed to be a third wife of her teacher (the article title “My Husband, My Teacher” suggests additional inequality of relationship) described her experience this way:
I went through, as did the other wives, all of the usual feelings of jealousy, fear, and insecurity.
She had to learn to let go of attachment, or seeing her spouse as property. Yet her husband didn’t need to learn any of these lessons, enjoying greater freedom and sexual variety than any of his wives ever will.
The addition of a new wife may even be used as a threat in polygamous cultures. Not surprisingly, 86 percent of Afghani women are against the practice.
Moving to larger societal problems, at marriageable age women and men are in equal number so girls in polygamous communities must be married at younger and younger ages, and are often forced into marriage. Their youth further disempowers them. Meanwhile, teenaged boys may be thrown out of these communities via trivial charges like watching “inappropriate” movies.
Joseph Henrich, a University of British Columbia professor whose expertise lies in psychology, anthropology and economics says higher levels of polygamy are tied to higher crime rates, lower GDP per capita, and worse outcomes for children.
And, fewer available women may mean more frustrated bachelors who support the sex trafficking of girls and women. These young men are also vulnerable to recruitment by extremists in some parts of the world.
There is plenty that is not pretty. So why legalize polygamy?
When the practice is illegal and stigmatized, those who live it end up isolated from the rest of society. That means its practitioners hear few alternate voices, and are less aware of the possibility of living differently. Or, choices become limited as others ostracize them and reject their friendship. In other words, they’re more stuck.
Oddly, adherence to “plural marriage” might actually decrease if it were made legal and destigmatized.
I don’t know if legalization will ever destigmatize polygamy, which is an important step in freeing people to hear different voices and to help them to have more options.
Regardless, I doubt legalization will bring people flocking to the practice. The notion of sharing your husband or wife while being forced to be monogamous, yourself, just isn’t that appealing to most people. In the U.S. polygamy is pretty much only practiced for religious reasons, so it’s not likely to catch on. And where it does, it would be more likely voluntary and not coerced.
If you fear gay marriage because polygamy might come next, I doubt there’s really much to worry about.
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Turning on the Sex Goddess
Naomi Wolf wants women to have better sex lives, and more empowered lives generally. Vagina: A New Biography seeks to light the way.
Wolf began researching this book after she regained her sexual desire, creativity and passion for life — much to her surprise — when her spinal cord was repaired.
I’ll discuss the larger life issues later. For now, let’s look at how her somewhat controversial book might benefit women with low libido, and the partners who love them.
Something she calls “the Goddess Array” consists of “a set of behaviors that activate the autonomic nervous system in women” and turns them on. She describes these as “the-things-that-women-need-that-men-don’t-need,” quoting sex educator Liz Topp, who coined the obese phrase.
So, women need certain things to spark desire that men don’t. And these behaviors actually have biological effects.
As she explained to the Huffington Post, women need to be relaxed and free from bad stress so that heart rate and respiration can increase, engorging what needs to be engorged and lubricating what needs to be lubricated. These processes are heightened when women lie in their lover’s arms and when they are romanced. In fact, dancing is actually seductive, she says.
On the other hand, these arousing physical processes can be interrupted if her lover snaps at her or flirts with someone else.
So foreplay begins way before bed. But we all know that, right?
True, she says, but what’s new is that science actually backs this up.
Plus, she points out that porn — so prevalent today — leads us away from this knowledge. Porn is a sex educator (a poor one) — even if neither men nor pornographers look at it that way. Men go there to get turned on, but then believe what they see: women see a huge penis, quickly get aroused and climax after a very few minutes of friction. Context doesn’t matter.
Even Masters and Johnson can throw us off. Wolf adds,
We’ve got this model from Masters and Johnson that male and female sexual response is kind of the same — there’s arousal, plateau, climax and resolution — and the Cosmo model is that everyone should be racing to the goal together, trying to get there together. This as a model of sexual response (for women) is not true.
And for women and men who do know better, we too often forget or don’t take the time to nurture the good energy that women need for arousal.
This is especially important in long-term relationships. When love is new, “feel-good” oxytocin levels skyrocket. But then they drop. Women also get turned on by feeling chosen, but after being married awhile a woman may feel less like she’s chosen and more like her partner simply has no other choice but her. Wolf continues:
Once you’re in a relationship, you don’t have to woo her, you don’t have to bring her flowers, you don’t have to take her dancing, you don’t have to tell her she’s beautiful, you just cut to the chase. That is a killer for passion for women in long-term relationships, and it’s not a psychological thing, it’s physiological, and a mind-body connection.
Marta Meana, a UNLV psychology professor, would seem to agree. She says women have a lower sex drive (culturally influenced) and need a bigger jolt to spark their libido. As she told a New York Times reporter,
If I don’t love cake as much as you, my cake better be kick-butt to get me excited to eat it.
Turning on the sex goddess, the gospel according to Naomi Wolf. It may be worth a read.
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Feminists Have More Fun
You may have thought feminists were unattractive man-haters. Turns out that men find them attractive, and that relationships between feminist men and women are more romantic and healthier than others. In fact, having a feminist partner heightens sexual satisfaction for both women and men.
So says a study performed by Rutgers University researchers, published in the journal Sex Roles, and reported by LiveScience.
Rutgers psychologists surveyed 242 undergraduates and 289 older adults (average age 26 and in a relationship for about four years). They were asked how often they and their partners laughed together, how often they quarreled, whether they had thought of ending the relationship, and whether they thought their relationship had a good future, for instance.
The researchers aren’t entirely sure why feminism enhances relationships but they have a few ideas:
Feminist men might be more supportive of their female partner’s ambitions than are traditionalists. Men with feminist partners may enjoy the extra breadwinner to share the economic burden of maintaining a household.
I can think of a few others.
In feminist relationships each partner is more likely to have an equal say so that neither becomes habitually aggravated. In counter-example, I have a couple of friends who wanted to marry “male dominant” men. I guess they seemed sexy. Both of them did, but neither of them liked the reality of never having their way. One quickly divorced, the other had long-term emotional problems before finally divorcing.
Feminist men respect women and don’t hit them, rape them, or emotionally abuse them.
In the same vein, feminist relationships tend to be more respectful, generally. Men are more likely to help with the laundry and they are less likely to objectify either their partners or other women — which increases emotional connection and decreases conflict.
Feminist men are also more likely to express their feelings, which further heightens connection.
Emotional connection is great for sex. Not feeling guilty about sex is also great for sex – and as it happens, great sex is a big concern of third wave feminists.
Turns out, getting outside of traditional sex roles makes for better sex, too. He might like it when she asserts her desire – and she might, too.
Egalitarian women are even more likely to be in their relationships out of choice instead of financial dependency, because they are more likely to support themselves.
No wonder feminists have more fun.
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Less Sexism Means More Sex
Sexual liberation and women’s liberation seem to go hand in hand.
Cherokee women and men were equals. Each had their own tribal councils and say in decisions. Women may have even had the upper hand since they controlled the staple, corn. If men wanted to go to war but women didn’t, the women could say, “Okay, no corn for you!” Property passed through women and tribes traced families through female lines. (Young women and men enjoyed sex, and married women didn’t always cling to fidelity, so who knew who “daddy” was?) And everyone cared for kids.
These women were also extremely sexual and orgasmic. It probably helped that sex wasn’t thought dirty and neither were sexual women.
Pacific Islanders were similar. No wonder Gauguin loved Tahiti.
Not so much in Victorian-influenced Europe and America. There, women had no means of supporting themselves and needed to stay “pure” to get married. A “bad reputation” could mean the end of the world. Wives weren’t expected to enjoy sex: bad girls liked sex, good girls didn’t. And many “good girls” probably didn’t since sexual repression tends to lead to bad sex.
Western women are still more repressed than their ancient Native American sisters, but less so than women of Victorian times. Thanks to greater equality.
The “first wave” of feminism brought women the vote in 1920, and “a revolution in manners and morals” followed. As single women increasingly entered the workforce and became independent they spent their money in the dance halls and nightclubs that had sprung up. Between their independence, the clubs and the privacy of a Model T, parents couldn’t supervise courtship, while women’s sexual needs and desires were increasingly accepted.
Better condoms helped, too.
The “second wave” of 1960s feminism sparked a second sexual revolution, again buoyed by women’s financial independence, as well as Freudian concerns over the evils of repression. The Pill also opened sexuality and helped women stay in the workforce – and stay independent.
So men, if you want more sex support equality.
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What’s Wrong With Hooking Up?
By Lisa Wade
Crossposted from Ms. and Sociological Images
Hanna Rosin, senior editor at The Atlantic and author of The End of Men, has written a piece about hook-up culture on and off college campuses for the September issue of her magazine. Given that I’ve done some research on hook-up culture, here are my two cents: Rosin isn’t wrong to argue that the culture offers women sexual opportunities and independence, but she mischaracterizes the objections to hook-up culture and draws too rosy a conclusion.
Those who wring their hands and “lament” hook-up culture, Rosin contends, do so because they think women are giving it up too easily, a practice that will inevitably leave them heartbroken. She writes:
[Critics of hook up culture pine] for an earlier time, when fathers protected ‘innocent’ girls from ‘punks’ and predators, and when girls understood it was their role to also protect themselves.
If this is the problem, the answer is less sex and more (sexless?) relationships. But, Rosin rightly argues, this wrongly stereotypes women as fragile flowers whose self-esteem lies between their legs. It also romanticizes relationships. Drawing on the fantastic research of sociologists Laura Hamilton and Elizabeth A. Armstrong, she explains that young women often find serious relationships with men to be distracting; staying single (and hooking up for fun) is one way to protect their own educational and career paths.
All this is true and so, Rosin concludes, hook-up culture is “an engine of female progress—one being harnessed and driven by women themselves.”
Well, not exactly. Yes, women get to choose to have sex with men casually and many do. And some women truly enjoy hook-up culture, while others who like it less still learn a lot about themselves and feel grateful for the experiences. I make this argument with my colleague, Caroline Heldman, in Hooking Up and Opting Out: Negotiating Sex in the First Year of College [PDF].
But what young women don’t control is the context in which they have sex. The problem with hook-up culture is not casual sex, nor is it the fact that some women are choosing it; it’s the sexism that encourages men to treat women like pawns and requires women to be just as cunning and manipulative if they want to be in the game; it’s the relentless pressure to be hot that makes some women feel like shit all the time and the rest feel like shit some of the time; it’s the heterosexism that marginalizes and excludes true experimentation with same-sex desire; and it’s the intolerance towards people who would rather be in relationships or practice abstinence (considered boring, pathetic or weird by many advocates of hook-up culture, including, perhaps, Rosin).
Fundamentally, what’s wrong with hook-up culture is the antagonistic, competitive and malevolent attitude towards one’s sexual partners. College students largely aren’t experimenting with sexuality nicely. Hook ups aren’t, on the whole, mutually satisfying, strongly consensual, experimental affairs during which both partners express concern for the others’ pleasure. They’re repetitive, awkward and confusing sexual encounters in which men have orgasms more than twice as often as women:
The problem with hook-up culture, then, is not that people are friends with benefits. It’s that they’re not. As one of my students concluded about one of her hook-up partners: “You could have labeled it friends with benefits … without the friendship, maybe?”
Hook-up culture is an “engine of female progress” only if we take for granted that our destination is a caricature of male sexuality, one in which sex is a game with a winner and a loser. But do we really want sex to be competitive? Is “keep[ing] pace with the boys,” as Rosin puts it, really what liberation looks like? I think we can do better.
Crossposted from Ms. Magazine and Sociological Images
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Men Guarding My Purity
By Anonymous
Why do some men want to control women’s “purity”?
I was reading about Tara Conner, Miss USA 2006, who was almost stripped of her crown due to:
substance abuse, failing to make Miss USA promotional appearances, chafing at other obligations and nonstop nightclubbing at Big Apple hot spots.
Being dismissed for substance abuse and failing to make obligations, I get. But nonstop nightclubbing? What’s the problem?
Donald Trump, the pageant’s co-owner, eventually came to her rescue, granting her a second chance.
Later, he gave her permission to pose in Playboy.
I read about Tara in The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women by Jessica Valenti. She points out that when Trump determined that Tara could keep her crown despite a fast life, and when he determined that she could appear in Playboy, her immodest ways were not the problem. The problem was that Tara was in charge of herself, instead of Trump being in charge of Tara. Some men just want to be in charge of women’s purity.
Even today men may flaunt their sexuality and make “conquests.” Yet women must still be restrained, and are called ho’s and sluts when they aren’t.
And while there is no argument about whether men should be able to use a little blue pill to enjoy sex, various conservative, male-led legislatures find The Pill morally repugnant.
It comes as no surprise to me that young women can grow to be ashamed, and at times even afraid of sexuality.
I, admittedly, have been a victim of the power of negative connotations of virginity, or the lack thereof. Maybe because I come from a more conservative, Latina background I was hit harder than other girls who were raised in America. But after the first time I had sex I drowned myself in guilt and shame. I doubted everything that had just happened. I thought,
This wasn’t supposed to happen that way; I shouldn’t have done it with him; I won’t be able to marry in a white dress anymore; I wonder what he thinks of me now; the whole school is going to find out…
As these phrases filled my head, there was another thought that would not leave me peace: “My parents are going to think I’m worthless.” The worry was so intense that for several months I literally put my head down when having any sort of conversation with them.
I eventually realized that it wasn’t them setting the “standard of virginity,” but the society they grew up in.
Although my mother and I are of different generations, we share the same experience of oppression when it comes to our sexuality. Only she had it worse. Her teenage years were so squeamish that the word sex was frowned upon even between doctor and patient. I, fortunately, have more tools to overcome the repression.
Why do some men want to regulate a woman’s every move, disciplining her if she gets “out of line”?
I don’t know the answer to that. But it feels oppressive. And I don’t think that celebrating sexual males while shaming females helps anyone.
This post was written by one of my students, who asked to remain anonymous.
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Fatal Attraction: Relationship Slayed By What Sparked It
When a relationship is killed by whatever had sparked it, that’s a fatal attraction.
Living in a culture that sexualizes male dominance, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a friend of mine was once drawn to the “take charge,” male dominant qualities of one of her lovers. So attracted that she married him. A few years later she left him for the same reason. Many women romanticize male dominance only to find that it’s not so much fun to be bossed around and never get your way in real life.
Or, we might look for someone to balance us out. Another friend was attracted to the free-spirited artistic quality of his ex-wife. She seemed a nice counterweight to his ordered, mathematical mind. But after a few years her carefree ways morphed into chaos. Complimentary souls won’t necessarily complete us.
Some women are attracted to men who show a deep interest in them. A boyfriend’s obsession and jealousy makes her feel really loved. But after he starts beating her because other men looked her way, she eventually sees he has a possessive, abusive personality.
The most common fatal attraction involves friendliness. One 20-year-old found her boyfriend’s humor and sociability appealing when they first met. Now, asked about his least attractive quality, she points to his friendliness, saying “He often flirts with others.”
Physical attractiveness can also become an unexpected turn off. A forty-one year old man had initially been drawn to his girlfriend’s sexy, exotic Asian looks. He had also liked her outgoing, flirty personality. But over time that all became a problem as he came to see her as “disloyal and mercurial.”
The list goes on. A woman is attracted to a man’s sense of humor but later complains that he’s never serious. A man is drawn to his partner’s nurturing nature, but comes to see her as smothering. A woman admires her husband’s ambition, but then sees him as a workaholic.
There is a real tendency to become disillusioned with qualities that initially attract us.
I guess there can be too much of a good thing.
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