The way women are seen in society is changing and women are being given more social and sexual freedoms and take full advantage of these. As a result, boundaries or “… an imaginary line between good and bad sex” (Rubin 1984:14) are being crossed more frequently. Good sex is a thin category where bad sex encompasses a wide range of deviant sex acts. According to Rubin the contemporary girl would more often than not fall under the category of having bad sex. Traditionally it was more normal and almost expected that the women wait till marriage to have sex, and once married it was her sole job to raise a family and watch over the house.
In this picture my friend is simply washing dishes and doing upkeep on the apartment. She isn’t out drinking and looking to hook up with multiple partners. This is what would be seen as the traditional role for a female. They were suppressed socially and sexually because of the expectation that men are the dominant figures in society. As Manatu views it, “Men are socially constructed as instrumentalists: independent, dominant, rational, adventurous, and aggressive; women as relational: passive, dependent, emotional, intuitive, and irrational” (Manatu 2003:51). Women are socially constructed to behave passively and seek to only get married and not have multiple partners without any relational connection. We see every day examples where women are told to be passive and look for love such as,”… in film, women’s ambitions, intelligence, and sexuality are suppressed, while the pursuit of romantic love is amplified and promoted” (Manatu 2003:57). We all have seen the movies where the only thing a woman looks forward to is finding a man to look after her and getting married. As Rubin sees it, any sex is bad sex except “marital, reproductive heterosexuals are alone at the top of the erotic pyramid” (Rubin 1984:11). Although this saying goes for both men and women, it is women who get the finger pointed at them when they stray away from being the “good” girl.
On the other end of the spectrum is the promiscuous girl who likes to drink and go find boys at parties. These girls are definitely on the bad sex side according to Rubin with “promiscuous, unmarried, commercial, homosexual, or casual sex” (Rubin 1984:13). This is the way in which most girls today act such as the two pictured here, as they exercise their newly found sense of sexual freedom. Although women do have more freedom than a century ago, they are still looked down upon much more than men when acting this way. For instance there are, “more than a thousand negative words for a sexually active woman” (Weinberg and Biernbaum 1993:97). It’s easy to insult a girl who is known for sleeping with a bunch of guys, If a woman has too much sex she is looked at as a ‘slut’ or ‘loose’ (Tanenbaum 1999:406). On the other hand if a guy is known for hooking up with many girls he may be labeled a man-whore by some but is praised by most other guys. Ronen conducted a field study in which he studied the way girls and guys interacted at college parties. In one instance a guy and girl who were both strangers were hooking up, the girl stopped and went back to her friends where she said, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I just did that… I feel like a slut” (Ronen: 362:2010). The guy isn’t worried about being labeled a slut as he enjoys hooking up with as many girls as possible, and the girl knows she has done something which may be looked down upon by society.
Women and men everywhere are looking to improve their self image as they are never satisfied with what they are given. This is mostly due to a sociological effect that marketing and advertising has on people. Advertisement shape who we want to become which strengthens the argument that gender is “an achieved status: that which is constructed through psychological, cultural, and social means” (West and Zimmerman 1987:150). These advertisements fall heavily on women as they are the ones who must always look their best and attract the males.
In this picture my friend is in her bathroom straightening her hair before she gets dressed to go out. This is just one of many time consuming steps a girl must do before she is ready to head out for the night. Notice all the bottles of lotions and creams in the top left. This is a direct result of advertising and the pressure to use these products to look your best. If these products claim to make a girl more beautiful and desirable then plenty of women will fall for it and purchase the item. It’s an unfair advantage if one girl is using these products which helps beautify her while another is not. Our society, due to media and advertising, will favor the girl using the products over the one who isn’t because, “The qualities that a given period calls beautiful in women are merely symbols of the female behavior that the period considers desirable…Competition between women has been made part of the myth so that women will be divided from one another” (Wolf 1991:14). It is this notion of competition that drives girls to become even skinnier and start to use even dangerous methods to become more “beautiful”. Some of these dangerous extremes women go through include, “breast implants, botox, and other types of cosmetic surgery that make women feel more confident” (Ciancutti-Leyva 2007). By the fake images presented to us, society believes it is these digitally enhanced and underweight models which is what’s attractive. Because we have this certain sense of what’s attractive, both men and women look for these certain features in the opposite sex as Johnson points out, “Countless normal males and females irrationally attempt to ape models who are 20% under normal healthy weight, who devote full time to their appearance, and who appear in digitally enhanced specially lit settings in which all imperfections are artificially removed” (Johnson 2004:359). From media telling us what features in a man or women is attractive; we go to great lengths to reach goals set by advertising which in most cases is completely unrealistic.
This photo is not one of any person but is a remake of a display I saw on campus one day. When a girl says no to sex in any way, it means no sex in any form no exceptions. Although this poster seems to be using rape in a joking way, rape is a very serious topic in our society and should not be taken lightly by men or women. The thought of rape changes the way a woman thinks and plans her night. Many women use tactics such as getting a friend, man or woman, to walk her home with or pretending to be on her cell phone if she is walking alone. The reason for these extra precautions is because rape “fundamentally alters the meaning of life for women” (Beneke 2003: 537). No woman wants to go through something like rape ever in her life and is something they will make sure to be extremely careful to avoid. As pictured above, alcohol and/or drugs play a major role in sexual assault, either with the victim or the attacker. The “act of using pressure, alcohol, or drugs or force to have sexual contact with someone against his or her will” (Struckman-Johnson 2003:76) is extremely common, especially among college campuses. Cases where the victim was too intoxicated to give consent or the attacker can’t control himself from being under the influence are the common ways in which rape occurs. In a study of rape cases conducted by Scully and Marolla, they found that “…The alcohol and drugs had sexually aroused their victim or rendered her out of control” (Scully and Marolla 1984:270). Where alcohol has impaired the judgment of the woman where she is unable to think clearly and give consent, it is considered rape. It’s extremely important for both males and females to understand the severity of rape so that both are able to be aware and look out for signs among their peers.
