Back in high school, my maleness often served as an all-access backstage pass to the more mercilessly misogynistic quips that my fellow classmates would share (when they were, of course, sure there were no women around). I’ve heard them all: men describing women as objects; commenting on their presumed sexual availability based on their clothing, or even their race; and recounting their sexual conquests in supremely disrespectful fashion.
The worst of all, though, were the jokes. Those who possessed the unique skill of finding humour in belittling the opposite sex would share bigoted bon mots like: “If a key opens a lot of locks, it’s a master key. If a lock is opened by a bunch of keys, it’s a shitty lock.”
I was put off by these blatant expressions of sexism then, but I didn’t say much about it. Whether it was fear of exclusion or simply a lack of bravery, I often stood by silently, listening. Unfortunately I wasn’t the only one: many of my friends would later tell me that they were also offended by these hateful exchanges, but failed to speak up.
High school gossip, of course, is just one of the many ways in which women are made to feel guilty for expressing themselves sexually. There’s a historical precedent set for the shaming of women’s sexuality.
The nymphs of ancient Greek mythology set the precedent for the dangerous, sexually liberated female archetype; the term nymphomania originated during the Victorian Era to describe a woman who experienced excessive sexual desire or exhibited excessive sexual behavior. At this time, hypersexuality — as it’s now known — was seen as an exclusively female disorder, and was treated as a mental illness.
Chastity belts and accusations of witchcraft often befell sexually promiscuous women during the rigidly ecclesiastical Middle Ages. Though societal reactions loosened during the intellectual and political upheaval of the Renaissance, the sexually repressed conservatism of Queen Victoria’s reign in Great Britain quickly re-indoctrinated similarly repressive moral codes against women.
Due in part to the Industrial Revolution and the urban sprawl that resulted, men and women were made to occupy separate spheres during the Victorian Era. Men occupied the public sphere, which included businesses, economic centres and urban areas; women on the other hand, were restricted to the private sphere, which typically limited their societal roles to child-rearing and homemaking.
Though the emergence of first wave feminism and the ‘flapper’ subculture of the 20s loosened societal pressures on female sexuality, the nuclear families of the 50s quickly reinstated societal views of promiscuous women as immoral and unacceptable. The sexual revolution and second wave feminism fought back, and modern feminist movements continue to do the same, but there is still progress to be made.
In the realm of media, female sexuality is still often seen as immoral or unstable. A common trope in many contemporary films and TV shows is the archetypal femme fatale: these villainous women use their sexuality to control and seduce the men around them, not unlike the nymphs of Greek mythology.
In contrast, female love interests are often portrayed as innocent, pure and virginal. This dichotomy — often referred to as the Madonna / Whore Complex, after an antiquated Freudian psychoanalytic term — characterizes female sexuality as dangerous and female chastity as desirable.
More recently, the SlutWalk movement has inspired many to question their preconceived notions towards women and sexuality. Inspired by a 2011 Torontonian rape case in which women were advised by police not to dress “like sluts,” the movement has sought to reclaim the term ‘slut’ — historically possessing a negative connotation — and combat notions that women are responsible for being sexual assaulted because of their attire.
This is an example of what academics refer to as a rape culture: instead of using chastity belts, our modern society belittles sexually expressive women by blaming them for victimizing themselves. We teach women not to be raped, rather than teach men not to rape. Attempting to control the way that women dress and their presumed promiscuity is not only an unfair form of gender discrimination, it’s also damaging to women’s propensity for self-expression.
I wish it were as easy as saying, “Women should be able to have sex with whomever they want, just like men!” Of course, this is completely true, but to reduce the issue to a matter of equality between genders would be to ignore the oppression that women face every day for wearing revealing clothing and for refusing to play into the virginal, innocent archetype that our Western society expects of them.
Though this is a multi-faceted cultural issue with no clear solution, men can play their part in helping to reverse these negative stereotypes and conceptions of women in simple ways. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Don’t belittle women for their sexuality — whether it be heterosexual, homosexual or otherwise — and don’t sit idly by when others do the same. Speak up, and don’t lump women into categories like ‘slut’ and ‘tease’ because of the way they decide to express themselves.
We live in a culture that shames women for wanting to enjoy one of life’s biggest joys. Everyone deserves to be able to enjoy a rewarding sex life: after all, sex is awesome. But above all, sex is an expression of love, passion, individuality and desire that should be between equals, no matter what race, sexuality or gender.
