I spend a lot of time thinking about the differences between how men and women operate. I think that therein lies some clue about the purpose of life. I wonder at how it is that men and women are meant to co-exist when their essential nature seems diametrically opposed. Perhaps this view is just very Western of me. The diametric opposition dialectic is pretty much our bread and butter here. Perhaps if I was Chinese, say, I might not find this a dilemma at all. Then again, a dilemma is a uniquely western construct. It’s sort of like predicament bondage.
I recently got an email from a girl wanting to know if I had any advice for her about getting into porn. She explained that she was 19 and that she had an interest in making some money and doing porn, and included some pictures. My first impulse was to advise her against it. I guess because I’ve totally internalized the patriarchal structure of our culture and felt it was my duty to patronize her. But that wasn’t totally it, because at the same time, if I could go back and tell my 19 year old self something, it would be to go do porn and make some money. Granted when I was 19 I was a junior in college, so I was already displaying the kind of “fuck what ya heard, I’m a boss bitch” mentality that does well in this industry.
I was feeling a kind of frustration that is common for me. The frustration comes from the gap between what is fair and what it true. What’s fair is that people shouldn’t be judged based on how they use their genitals. How they use their genitals should have about nothing do with their value as a whole person, but the reality is that women and men are judged by this and in ways that have very real consequences on their lives, not the least of which, is the way in which they view themselves, which can be devastating.
If you look at the basic sex act, men are reinforced and reaffirmed socially every time they have sex. They are reaffirming that they are virile attractive men and therefore more valuable. Every time a woman has sex, she has less value, she is giving something up, and basically giving her value to the man she is having sex with. It’s not fair, but it’s the way it is. The more people a girl has sex with, the more of a slut she is, and the more acceptable it is to ridicule her. In this way, sex becomes a powerful tool of humiliation and leverage.
When people talk about rape culture and slut shaming, its this predicament they are addressing. If you want to stop rape, you have to do more than educate people and open up rape crisis lines and teach women self-defense. You have to get at the root of the culture that says that women’s value is attached solely to her vagina. The fact is that most of us as women internalize this view. Women have bodies and men have souls.
Porn can operate as a microcosm of society in this way. In porn women are either “barely legal” or a “MILF (mom I’d like to fuck).” In either case the woman is defined by her sexual use to a man. She is either so young that a few months ago having sex with her would send you to jail, or she is old enough to be a mother, and yet somehow, miraculously, she is still fuckable.
You also see this in the culture at large. If you look at advertising, it would seem the thing that women fear the most is being unattractive and getting old. These are both primarily physical concerns…that whole women have bodies and men have souls thing again. The kind of havoc this can wreak on a persons psyche is self-evident…and I don’t want to belabor it here. I’ve probably lost most of you by now anyway, because people aren’t really concerned with the soul of a woman anyway, except other women…when they’re not competing with each other over men…so they can have value.
Before the turn of the eighteenth century, women were considered little more than chattel and rape was in fact a property crime committed against her father or husband. It wasn’t until the Napoleonic Code in 1804 that the notion was brought forth that rape was actually a crime against a person. Even so, two-hundred years later people are still struggling against the cognitive dissonance of knowing that you shouldn’t judge or value someone based on their sexual use and the cultural framework that still finds it acceptable to do s
Insightful analysis.
Becoming a “male” or a “female” subject is a process with multiple variables. It is not an ontological given, that is, the traditional dualistic paradigm of a universal “maleness” and “femaleness” (the reification of the “norm”) needs to be replaced with a more nuanced/rhizomatic, critical, theory of subjectivity/becoming. We can start by identifying the structures in our society that construct/perpetuate/normalize the commodification of women – who or what benefits most?
On the topic of gender and difference. On Point had Caitlin Flanagan on to discuss/debate her book “Girl Land.” It’s interesting and you can find it here: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/18/caitlin-flanagan
BTW: I got here by following one of Sovereign Syre’s tweets.
I guess I should have said, following one of your tweets
Strange, a part of me agrees completely and a part me does not. First off there are striking differences in how men and women operate but in the end we fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Two halves of a whole so perfectly suit for each other as to be undeniable.
It is true that there seems to be a double standard between men and women in terms of how society views multiple partners. This likely traces all the way back to the first man and women. Men has always been able to spread his seed to multiple women while a women can carry only one seed at a time. This led to polygamy. But in the segment of society I am part of men are unable to avoid the criticizing eyes of others for having multiple partners, albeit to a lesser degree than women. Part of this is due to women being view as a conquest. But part I think is due these men seeming to display a ‘manly’ characteristic that women find attractive thus reinforcing it as a behaviour which gets you laid. Which is the point of life anyways isn’t it?
Insightful analysis.
Becoming a “male” or a “female” subject is a process with multiple variables. It is not an ontological given, that is, the traditional dualistic paradigm of a universal “maleness” and “femaleness” (the reification of the “norm”) needs to be replaced with a more nuanced/rhizomatic, critical, theory of subjectivity/becoming. We can start by identifying the structures in our society that construct/perpetuate/normalize the commodification of women – who or what benefits most?
On the topic of gender and difference. On Point had Caitlin Flanagan on to discuss/debate her book “Girl Land.” It’s interesting and you can find it here: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/01/18/caitlin-flanagan
BTW – I got here by following one of your tweets.