What is the problem with female sexuality?

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

OK, we talked a lot about Rush Limbaugh's "slut" remarks the other day, and all the drama around it. With a risk of perpetuating the "media-generated histrionic", shall we try to look a little beyond the blazing rhetoric and see where the root of the problem might be? First of all, something to clarify. OK, Rush obviously does not speak for all conservatives. Not even for the majority of them. I understand. So my inquiry will be mostly focused on trying to understand the thought process of those few for whom he is speaking. Or who associate themselves with his position on this particular issue. The issue of female sexuality. And I am aware that I am entering deep waters with this. But still...

I would like to learn some more about what exactly is their problem with women's sexuality. One possible explanation is that the problem is all about the money, that they do not want the financial burden... He might both have and not have had a point. That put aside, I think when someone insinuates or directly calls a woman a "slut" for having sex, it probably demonstrates a certain distaste that runs much deeper than the wallet. Particularly when we consider that the cost of a pregnancy can by far surpass the actual expenses for covering a pregnancy. So it must be about something else. It could be something about a woman having sex that seems to threaten a certain group of people who adhere to an extremely conservative-leaning mindset in this respect. And I would really like to know why that is.

My opinion, and it may be completely stupid, is that the problem has got much to do with the fact that some men (look, I did not say all of them, not even most!) seem to have a problem with the concept of female independence... Unless female independence suits them, of course. I think some men, whether openly or covertly, still believe they are somehow superior to women and because many of them find themselves in a position of power, they are more than willing to abuse their power to suit their interests and respective agendas. I am not sure if there is a more sensible explanation than this for the completely male initial composition of the panel at the contraceptive hearings, a lapse that was only amended after they were called out on it.

I think it is truly disappointing to watch all the efforts for curbing social progress on issues that have become non-issues in vast parts of the remaining developed world. One would argue that it is the striving for control of a few power-hungry men probably feeling a little insecure about their potency, in all meanings of the word, and their desire to assert their dominance over women at any cost. I am not sure if I am in a position to judge on that, but it really would seem so from a first reading. Kind of a "let's put those pesky women back in their place, just like in the good days of old" kind of thing. Or perhaps I am missing something very fundamental here? Please help me out...

Because, when someone goes to such tremendous lengths in their attempts to reduce a woman to the mere sum of her body parts, and is still looking for ways to deny her the most basic access to self-managing exactly that most important aspect of her own life, the above looks like the most apparent conclusion one could make.

The question why women should be shamed and punished for their biology and behaviour has been asked many times. Especially when at the same time many men often exchange high-fives for essentially pursuing the very same behaviour, if not even much beyond that. It may sound like a rhetorical question for many people who have lived in one of the modern societies of today for most of their life, but the very fact that this is an issue in parts of the supposedly "First" World tells us a lot. If the social mores in the 21st century postulate that a man is nowhere being considered "a slut" for having casual sex, then why should a woman be "a slut" for doing the very same thing? If we are to apply a presumably sound moral standard in all cases, why can't it be done gender-neutrally? I think this is an important question. Is it because we might not like what we could discover as a root cause of the problem? Is it because we may hate the grotesque face we would see in the mirror when we look a little closer?

[edit] I'd like to extend a request that we keep it as civil as we can. Would you guys please try to do that for me?

Comments

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I am not sure if there is a more sensible explanation than this for the completely male initial composition of the panel at the contraceptive hearings, a lapse that was only amended after they were called out on it.

It wasn't a lapse, it was deliberate. When you're trying to paint a women's health issue as a religious freedom issue, you can't hardly have any woman around, eh?

The question why women should be shamed and punished for their biology and behaviour has been asked many times.

Because Eve was responsible for the Fall of Man.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Is it the responsibility of Eve, or is it the perceived responsibility of Eve?

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Because Eve was responsible for the Fall of Man.

This does inform the narrative to a such an extent that it is depressingly maddening.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

As a woman having a modicum of experience with non-marital sexual intercourse, I must point out that there is nothing "casual" about it. That label was crafted by people who prefer to participate in the traditional institution of sexual servitude in order to denigrate forbidden love.

I forget who said it, but a social commentator once observed that we emulate the deity we worship. When an individual's higher power has the all-too-human trait of jealousy, he enacts that attribute in his own life. He may even see it as a divine mandate.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Cart--->horse

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

In my view it's a mixture of garbled Victorian ideals that sex is the woman's chore and the man's delight, mixed with the fundamentalist ideas that float around on the Right, and the residual effects of Commie puritanism on the Left. In a really short and oversimplified view as I see it, these guys still think in terms of 19th Century bourgeois concepts that women have no natural sexuality of their own, and that women who do have this are deviant and abnormal. This is of course total bunk and nonsense, but it's the root of the idea. It's also why to them regulating women's sexuality is oxymoronic, as "naturally" women have no sexuality in the first place, and anyone that argues otherwise represents Morgoth in Utumno-er Satan, thus is not to be listened to.

But that's just my opinion and avoiding the six or seven posts to give the long, full view I have on this particular issue to give a really short and simple version.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

I was kind of sympathetic with Melkor/Morgoth in the beginning... until he destroyed the lamps. You do not ruin gorgeous furniture and get away with it just like that!

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

I hear the sponsors are withdrawing their commercials from Da Rush one after another. Looks like the Glenn Beck scenario all over again.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Since liberals want to reclaim "slut" as not an insult, I don't see why there was an uproar. She should have been proud to be called a slut and the media should have been supporting her being labelled as such.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13333013

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I'd normally accuse someone who's doing what you're doing here of something specific but since that brings wrath upon me, I'll just ask if you're being sincere?

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Rush IIRC didn't call her a slut for having sex. IIRC he failed on her for her advocacy that the govt pay her so she could have sex.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Actually he did indicate women using contraceptives were sluts who should make free cheap porn videos for his personal amusement. He phrased that "make sex videos and post them online." At least it's not woman-on-horse like Carl Paladino's issues.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I am not sure if there is a more sensible explanation than this for the completely male initial composition of the panel at the contraceptive hearings, a lapse that was only amended after they were called out on it.

I learned today that this is a myth (http://oversight.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1598%3A2-16-12-qlines-crossed-separation-of-church-and-state-has-the-obama-administration-trampled-on-freedom-of-religion-and-freedom-of-conscienceq&catid=12&Itemid=1). Women were on the panel, as were non-Christian representatives - even a secular panelist was invited, for what it's worth - it makes the myth that much more frustrating.

There was no lapse, it was simply an error in reporting that snowballed.

To answer your question, however, I think that there is certainly a fringe group that is truly uncomfortable with female sexuality. But I think there's also a subset that thinks that, say, not wanting to use taxpayer dollars or force anyone to pay for someone else's contraceptive or abortion services as something against female sexuality or health. It's not. Recognizing that there's definitely a double standard in some circles doesn't mean we need to overreact and call, for example, an anti-abortion stance as an anti-women one.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

So is the case with that panel just a tempest in a teacup with no real implications about patterns of mentality that may or may not exist in certain influential parts of society?

In your opinion, were the words of this radio host a mere expression of his anti-abortion stance, or there was someething more to it?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

I'd posit that in this case female sexuality (or empowerment) did not exactly match the strict criteria of the WHCM (White Heterosexual Christian Male).

But srsly, it's mostly about control, especially sexual control. It's about the gender roles. Control that's reinforced by customs and attitudes. And the double standard there is pretty blatant.

It's also amazing how much energy is being put on the right into controlling people's lives while claiming to be all about freedom and liberty in the same breath.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

Also more and more I see these issues used to detail practical ones like how to fix the economy and I think the GOP could redeem themselves they would just lay off the social issues.

Contraception prevents pregnancies but it does squat for wars and recessions...

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, that may be completely stupid as well lol, is that in the wake of the 21st century the old 20th century crowd wants to desperately hold on to old fashioned mid-century traditions where the wife was subservient to her husband and surrounded herself with various tools and appliances that made herself look pretty and helped her in her role as housewife. Baby boomers and greatest generation-ers are nostalgic for a time that was ideal for a white male but more then a little oppressive for everyone else. Many people grew up in America to believe that woman has her place, people of other races are inferior, homosexuals are perverts, The American Dream, corporal punishment, commies are evil, etc. etc. This is a hard lesson to shake because it was taught to them by their parents, and it was reinforced all the time in the media.

Similar to objection to female independence is objection to blacks rising up through society, to the point of even becoming President of the United States. I've seen several while elderly people treat this as the worst thing ever, because they still believe that they are unintelligent and somehow inferior to white people. It's like the world as they know it is completely changing and they're reluctant to change with it. It's not a good thing to appeal to tradition when some things need to change for the better, but that is what I think it's happening.

[houndofloki.livejournal.com]

There are a variety of reasons for it, I think. Certain parts of the religious right are very married to the idea of man-as-breadwinner-woman-as-support traditional gender roles ("the 50's were heaven on earth" crowd) and they back up their perception of this structure as ideal with many different rationales. Not least among them is the evolutionary-psych idea that men are simply hardwired to spread their seed as far as possible and therefore have, if not an excuse, at least a justification for promiscuous behavior. Women are supposed to pant after marriage, children, and a stable husband to support the offspring. That is supposed to be their overarching desire in life. When woman enjoy casual sex with non-marital partners and actively seek out birth control options to make sex non-procreative - it challenges their entire view of gender and they respond very negatively to it.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

As others have said, it all goes back to religious conservatives (perhaps best exemplified by Rick "Frothy" Santorum) who believe a fictional 50s TV version of family life is the only one for every American, a life in which the men were the sole workers and the women stayed home, raised the children, and served their menfolk faithfully, where Man and Wife slept in separate beds and no one ever talked about sex. In such a fictional reality, birth control is evil because it is solely a tool for "loose women" and whores who want to commit various fleshy sins without suffering the proper consequences, abortion is unthinkable, divorce is only acceptable if the man initiates it, and domestic violence, sexual harassment, and date rape are overblown myths used by hysterical females as excuses to get above their rightful place and punish men.

The fact that such a reality never actually existed doesn't cross their minds, but that's typical of those who hearken back to a "golden age" where everything was pure and sweet and unstained by our modern vulgarities. They don't see their actions as a war against women, or a war against female sexuality, and treat any mention of such as absurd, because they look at The Fair Sex through lenses that completely distort reality.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I completely agree.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

If the social mores in the 21st century postulate that a man is nowhere being considered "a slut" for having casual sex, then why should a woman be "a slut" for doing the very same thing?

I've given this phenomenon way too much thought. I think there might be a connection to the glut of woman-on-woman action in traditional porn.

Men are visual. When they see people having sex, they can have a few contradictory impulses. First, they see themselves in the scene, either as witnesses or participants. The sexual partners writhing away become their sexual partners writhing for them.

If they visualize themselves as a participant, right away they have a problem, since that's most likely not their turgid unit on camera. That woman on screen becomes a slut since, after all, the viewer is not actually involved. Also, for many fundamentalists suffering from repressed homosexual impulses that manifest as active homophobia, the turgid member becomes problematic. "Wait, am I turned on by her or. . . ."

Which is why pseudo lesbian sex scenes are popular. Such porn avoids the unpleasant repressed tendencies.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Interesting interpretation. What about the RL lesbian scenes. Do they call the same contradictory impulses? =)

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I'm still amazed after the 3rd topic about this that people are still defending him calling a woman a slut. I love it so much.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Well anyway hopefully Rush continues to lose all his advertisers. Dude is basically this generation's Strom Thurmond.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

With luck he could become this generations Milli Vanilli

[the-s3ntinel.livejournal.com]

[Disclaimer: In this comment I'm concerned only to 'state the theory correctly on its own terms'. I'm not necessarily asserting that it's a good theory.]

>From a female reproductive point of view, it's better to mate with a man with some sexual experience, because it implies sexual pre-selection by other females and thus social power, which translates to ability to defend and provide for any offspring.

Not quite: it translates to "being the possessor of 'good genes' where 'good' in this context just means 'advancing whatever attributes are necessary for the person to reproduce a lot'."

A Genghis Khan type man would presumably still have 'good genes' even though he had far too many offspring to bother caring for any of them.

Of course, what really matters from the genes' perspective isn't just that the guy 'reproduces a lot' but that the children (and grandchildren) do so as well, so as to maximise long term 'inclusive fitness', and hence 'the ability to defend and provide for offspring' is certainly relevant. It's just not very closely related to whether a man has sexual experience.

>From a male reproductive point of view, it's better to mate with a woman with low or no perceived sexual activity, because it implies a greater assurance of paternity.

Correct. Although notice that for women, unlike men, being more or less promiscuous doesn't say much about whether they have 'good genes' (as defined above). A strategy of seeking out "Genghis Khan"-type males and attempting to lure suckers into the trap of raising their offspring might, in some social contexts, be a better reproductive strategy than just being faithful to whichever random husband a woman ends up hitched to.

>The "sexual value" that comes from ones perceived sexual experience (with opposite cause-effect for each gender) tends to translate fairly directly into social power.

For men at least, there may be a correlation here, but I don't think the former causes the latter much or at all. For women, I don't think there's even a correlation.

>People tend to comply with, defer to and emulate those of higher perceived sexual value and shun and condemn those of lower perceived sexual value.

Emulate, yes. Defer to, no - or at least, not because they have 'higher perceived sexual value'. And again, I only think this applies to men.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

some men (look, I did not say all of them, not even most!) seem to have a problem with the concept of female independence... Unless female independence suits them, of course. I think some men, whether openly or covertly, still believe they are somehow superior to women and because many of them find themselves in a posit

Maybe their mothers weren't able to love them as they needed and a deep bias formed?

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

It's all about power, and the relationship between the assumed intelligence of the white middle-aged man and their objects of desire. As long as men can play the narrative that the female libido should be controlled by mores and religion, women are non-threatening and help to promote the greater good. Once this narrative unwinds these hot air bags are afraid of getting old, useless and basically unwanted. Note that women (while in general more emotionally mature than men) are also capable to play power games over the opposite gender libido when they feel at a competitive advantage.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

It's biology. Calling a man a slut is sort of silly because it's stating the obvious. We're set up to be man-whores. We produce thousands of gametes with every orgasm. One man can theoretically father thousands of children upon thousands of women over the course of his lifetime. Selectivity isn't as high a biological priority for us. Spreading our seed around is a natural response to the way we're engineered. Hell, tons of guys will even go for women who are...how do a put this politely?...less than pretty.

Now, we add in the biology of the female. A woman simply cannot be responsible for as many offspring as a man can father. Not even Octomom. A human female will average one zygote per month. Unlike the man, she will actually carry any resulting offspring for nine whole months, deal with nausea, mood swings, back pains, etc. This causes most women to be selective about who has a chance of impregnating them. They're the gatekeepers. Seriously, who can blame a woman for being selective? Trust me, us men would be far different in our sexual behaviors if we had to carry the children. If you females were inserting an ovum into us, we'd be the gatekeepers and you would be the ones buying us drinks, paying for dinner, etc.

So, when a woman acts promiscuously it looks more than a little abnormal to some people, often even to other women. "Slutty" if you will. In a similar fashion, if a young man isn't trying to get a piece of ass, he often gets nasty labels of his own. Both from women and his fellow men.

This is just a capsule version of a very complex thing, of course. Hope it helps explain things a little.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Yes, it explained a lot, thanks. The biological factor is not to be underestimated. Of course there is the social factor as well, which again stems from the biological one to a great extent. And then there is the fact that all humans, regardless of gender, appreciate leisure and pleasure. It is not, and should not be a monopoly of just one gender. Women have as good a reason to seek physical pleasure as men do, and I cannot think of a reason why this shouldn't be so.

As for Limbaugh's reference to Ms Fluke, I'm afraid he wasn't even aware of what medical purposes contraception could be used for, other than "encouraging promiscuity" as he seems to believe.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

shall we try to look a little beyond the blazing rhetoric and see where the root of the problem might be?

By looking at most comments, I'm going to go with "apparently not".

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Rush Limbaugh literally believes that women should not have agency over their sexual conduct. He thinks that women who have agency over their sexual conduct are sub-human. This man's opinions are dangerous and people follow him.