Recently, The Diamondback has run a few pieces addressing the issue of sex on the campus. Staff writers have considered its pertinence to the marginalization of the LBGT community, as well as victims of sexual abuse and/or violence. Laura Frost’s Feb. 8 column, “Graduate in four year or get drunk trying,” included a biting quip about casual hook-ups; Matthew Rice’s Feb. 15 guest column earnestly urged the consideration of chastity as a viable option for college students.
For the love of cliché, I am going to jump on this bandwagon. But before all you eager readers get ahead of yourselves, let me make clear that my love for cliché runs way deeper than the occasional use of outdated colloquialisms (I mean what is a “band” anyway? Do you mean, like, Skrillex?). In fact, you might say my love runs so deep that I’ve turned to imitation, which is — after all — the sincerest form of flattery (See what I did there?).
Jokes aside, I know the whole young, liberal female writing about sex thing is a little tired and often leads to the retrospective embarrassment of said female (see: Lena Chen). But to err is human (or whatever), and I’m willing to risk it for the opportunity to defend my personal favorite of all the marginalized populations.
So let’s talk about sluts.
Wednesday’s chastity guest column began its concluding paragraph as such: “Little girls dream of husbands, not hook-ups; wedding gowns, not skimpy skirts. Little boys value courage and valor, not just mere conquest.”
Now, I bet you’d guess I have a problem with this. You’d be right. But let me surprise you by saying that the gender-normalizing-pre-women’s-lib assessment of what “little girls dream of” is totally, like, not even the issue. No. The problem with this generalization (and others like it) is its presumption that (hetero)sexual relations in the 21st century still find impetus in the conquered/conqueror model.
In his column, Rice vies for love over sex, gender aside. But his suggestion that women desire “husbands” over “hook-ups” taps into a larger cultural assumption about the differences between genders — namely, that men want to have sex and women do not. But not only is this line of thinking antiquated and untrue, it is dangerous. And it leads to a culture of hate.
In 1993, Salt-n-Pepa released a song called “None of Your Business.” Rapping over a simple early ‘90s beat, the all-female crew challenged sexual double standards and the female tendency to castigate women who are sexually aware/active. In the male-dominated world of hip-hop, this was a song that not only empowered women to realize their sexual desires, but also reproved those women who believed that doing so could be equated with sluttishness (Is that even a word?).
They were on to something.
The vilification of women by women on the grounds of sexual activity is rooted in the untrue assumption that women have fewer sexual desires than men, or that women’s desires somehow matter less. “Sluts” are despised in the female community because we — for some reason — find it impossible to accept that: a) women want to have frequent sex or b) women should be allowed to have frequent sex. Instead, we say they are attention seeking or insecure. We say they are easy. We say they are asking for it.
This is called slut-shaming. And slut-shaming, my dear ladies, leads to rape culture.
So let’s love the sluts until the cows come home (and then let’s love the cows too). Because to quote Salt-n-Pepa: Everybody gets horny.
Alex Leston is a freshman agriculture and resource economics major. She can be reached at leston@umdbk.com.
