Before you freak out, let me say that this is not my thought. This is the thought of society, which has been all my life trying to drill a notion into my head, a notion of what a female should and should not be. Ever since I was very small, too small to remember how small, I've been told that what I needed to be was a fence post, sitting on the line, stationary and harmless.
First, some background information. I'm a Christian. I love Jesus. I can't help it. He's more amazing than I can tell you, and He's more real to me than everything else on the planet, so I'm stuck this way. Because I'm a Christian, because of my own personal understanding of the nature of life and the Word of Christ, I have chosen to abstain until marriage.
This is what Jesus wants for my life, and I'd be happy to bust out a Bible and have a calm, rational, friendly discussion with you about it, but this isn't the time for that.
No, this is the time for the words "slut" and "virgin" to be thrown together into the ocean in matching pairs of cement boots, because these words suck. They suck.
Why? Because we have this dichotomy in place, a line which must be toed, we fence posts, a line between virgin and slut.
1. Virgin
Virgin is a specious and insidious label for those, like me, who've never had sex. "This makes us, in a patriarchal society, a precious commodity," she said, doubled over, dry heaving relentlessly.
In our culture, women tend to be valued primarily because of our bodies and what we have or have not done with them. Women's bodies are considered the prize, and in really terrible cases, the right of men, so if a woman has "saved herself" for a man, she is the ideal. She is, in effect, the perfect possession, unblemished, unhandled, uncontested.
But there's a catch: Virgins must be pure, but not prudish.
Prudish is a fun word. It's an arbitrary designation with no actual qualifiers or quantifiers. Some call me prudish simply for never having had sex. Others would call me prudish only if I couldn't laugh at a dirty joke or a sex scene in a comedy, or didn't at least do some stuff - cause some stuff is necessary, right? Like there's something wrong with you if you don't do at least some stuff..., prude.
The problem is this: We're operating under the assumption that virginity is a tangible thing, valuable to someone besides the person to whom it belongs, that is, the virgin him/herself. It isn't.
I've never had sex, but that does not make me more valuable or better than someone who has. I've never had sex, but my virginity, for lack of a better term, is not in a box I carry around with me, ready to hand over to the first man who puts a ring on it.
My virginity is for me and me alone. It has no inherent value, so whether I "lose" it or not, my worth remains the same. I'm valuable, and my experiences have no impact on that fact.
2. Slut
Slut is a foul and hateful label for women, as I'm sure you know, who are deemed sexually promiscuous. Synonyms for slut include: slattern, whore, harlot, tramp, slag, ho, etc., etc. Note that these words have no male equivalent, not unlike the word virgin, the definitions for which usually contain a word for female. In fact, the root word of virgin, virgo, literally means young woman. Remember what I was saying about women being appraised for our bodies...?
In our society, a woman who has extra-monogamal sex, whether with or without shame, is vilified as a slut: a worthless, used up, disgusting old sack of a person, deserving of neither love nor respect. She is ridiculed and despised wherever she goes, and often, her past, her "crimes," if you will, follow her, indelible and unforgivable.
But again, a woman's sexual experience is not currency. It isn't a commodity, so why do we treat women who have much as having lost all their social capitol?
A woman who's had lots and lots of sex is no less valuable than a woman who's had none. Let me put it another way: A woman is valuable because she is a person. People are valuable intrinsically, so our worth is beyond equivocation. It's there. It's real. It ain't budgin'.
Back to fence posts. Fence posts are built into the line, supporting it, affirming it. A fence post never questions whether or not it should be a fence post, and a fence post will never hop out of its hole, shrug off its fence, and roll away to the middle of the field where there is no fence to define it, no pit to contain it, tno safe little role for it to fill. A fence post in the middle of a field? That would never happen! For surely, it would cease to be a fence post.
Exactly.
A fence post has no autonomy, no agency. A fence post has no choice. A fence post is an object to be acted upon, rather than acting itself. I am not a fence post. And neither are you, but when we step out of bounds, beyond the perfect blend of sexy and pure, when we sway too far one way or another, we become the targets of contempt, particularly, when we're leaning toward the slut side of the spectrum.
We're supposed to be fence posts! If we do something that we've been told is contrary to our cookie cutter nature then we aren't fence posts anymore, and what's the point of us? If we aren't, we're no longer feminine or desirable or worthwhile. And once that label "SLUT" is slapped on us, we're in trouble.
We live in a society where it's tough to be a woman in the best circumstances. Sorry, that's the truth.
- 96% of sexually objectified people are women.
- Every 9 seconds a woman is beaten or assaulted in the US.
- Female United States citizens have a 1 in 5 chance of being raped.
- 70 - 99% of women worldwide will experience street harassment.
- 32,000 women are impregnated as the result of rape every year in this country.
- In Afghanistan and Dubai, a woman can be imprisoned for being raped.
- 3 women are killed by domestic violence everyday in the US, and 4 women daily in South Africa.
- Women make 77¢ for every dollar a man makes, and the numbers get worse for women of color with Black women making 64¢ and Latinas 55¢.
It is bad enough without having to worry about whether or not we are adequately fitting the role we are supposed to play as the subtly seductive virgin, especially when there are real consequences to falling out of line.
Where am I going with this?
I'm going to Steubenville, Ohio, where a girl's sexual assault was filmed, and then she, the victim, was labeled a slut. I'm going to Montana, where a 14 yr. old was raped by her teacher and the rapist only got 30 days. I'm going to Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, where Rehtaeh Parsons was assaulted, then faced relentless bullying and slut-shaming, and then took her own life. Then there's Salt Lake City and Elizabeth Smart. And Port Coquitlam, British Columbia and Amanda Todd. The ramifications of being called a slut are dire.
We live in a culture that tells us that it's the slut's fault if she's abused or miserable, and she ought to kill herself for it, because she's vile now and no man will ever want her. We live in a culture that tells girls that if something happens to them, they were asking for it or they weren't smart enough. We live in a culture that tells girls that there's only so much worth to go around, and if we drop even a couple of points on the scale of desirability, then we're screwed and we'll never get that value back. We live in a culture that tells girls that everything they are and ever will be is contained in their body parts.
We have to learn to respect women as human beings, not as a series of orifices to be utilized.
Someone has to break the cycle.
Teach the boys and men in your life to see females as people, people deserving of their compassion and respect, people with all the complexity and power and potential that they have. Show them their actions and words have potency, for good and for ill, and to be mindful of what they say and do and how they say and do it. Let them know that without them the struggles that girls and women face are many times harder to overcome, that patriarchy, which perpetuates the idea that men are mindless, power-hungry, self-serving brutes, hurts them too by making them seem like creatures that are small compared to the wonderful and complicated beings that are males.
Teach the girls and women in your life that they are as feminine as they ever need to be, because they're female - and that's the only requirement for it. Tell them that they're beautiful, because they're human and singular. Tell them that they are more than pretty or cute or sexy or gorgeous, because they have bodies that can tear down and build up, minds that can solve any problem that attempts to thwart them, powers to harm and to heal, and a soul that is miraculous, truly astounding and incomprehensible, and fighting to be defined by sex is so small compared to the enormity of who they are. Teach them that they are so much more than the chains society wraps around them and the words others sling at them like mud, like stones that tear at their flesh and seek to render them incapacitated. They are people, and they are more than fence posts, more than virgins, more than sluts. More.
