On friday night, I was with a group at a pub. We were all talking anarchism, when a middle-aged guy who wasn’t an anarchist came up to talk about music and culture. Ok, cool. Then he stated that women were ‘more sexually free than men’ because women ‘can wear skirts, and heels’ and ‘dress sexily’ when they want to. Supposedly a man can’t. Well, ok, a heterosexual man might get bashed if he wears high heels under his cargo pants, and that would suck. But men do dress sexily - they do it all the time in the queer scene, and in the transgender scene, and in the mixed-sexuality diy stripping scene. Straight men dress sexily when they want to attract and impress women. I feel sorry for men who feel that they need to dress from the Lowes and Elliots all-nylon range, but dagginess in male dress doesn’t equal sexual freedom for women.
“Slut, ho, whore, unclean bitch” were all nice words I remember from my pre-sexual days. Why does a 10 year old girl get called a “slurry” when she doesn’t even have sex? This was the first clue in my life that men use sexuality to dominate women. I had never had sex, yet I was called a “slut” for expressing my thoughts opinions. My sexuality would always be available for others to judge me on. If I had sex with men (or even a man), I would be a whore. If I didn’t I would be a “prude”. If I had sex with women, I would be a “shame”, or a “waste”. If I display sexually by wearing lipsitck and going on a diet, then I might be “hot”, or “alright”. And I’ve got large breasts, so my face doesn’t matter so much to some. But if I let myself get fat, or am in fact unattractive - I’d be a “dog”. Given that I am surrounded by images of beautiful, sexual women who don’t look like me, I believe that I’m a “dog”. So yeah, given the options, a woman might chose to display, and dress sexily, to invite all others to look and maybe to touch. She might feel her sexual power of attraction and selection and mistake this for a real power. But sexual power ends at satiation. If she doesn’t fuck, a woman becomes a “prick tease”. The ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ dilemma that women face is actually a continuing plane of oppression that women are daily lashed to by media, by men’s attitudes to women, and by womens attitudes to other women and their attitude to themselves.
Women are pitted against each other in the sexual arena (a very sexy-sounding thing, but an ugly reality). The hierarchy of attractiveness is a complex sum based on age, quality of visage, fatness, and willingness to sexually display. This hierarchy is increasingly commodified and women are also judged on their style and brand of clothes, makeup, shoes, purses and haircut. Who hasn’t got one of those ugly fake Gucci bags? Everyone knows they’re fake and ugly, but carry them for the status they might attach. Supposedly alternative images of womens’ sexuality as found on Suicide Girls is nothing more than a tattooed re-invention of pandering to male fantasy about women. Just look at the comments attached to the SG podcast (”Good stuff. I just can’t wait till they start video casting”) (my emphasis). The sleek and pretty things who parade on SG do nothing but add another layer of curiosity to the sexual performance that is a woman’s daily life.
Women use sexuality against each other. Women enforce the sexual mores of the time - by disciplining other women who don’t meet the standard. And by comparing themselves to each other in order of attractiveness or achievement. The bible story of “Rachael and Leah” is still a current example - two women compete to outbreed each other; breeding becomes the marker of their success as women. Today women size each other up according to waist line, breast size, prettiness and willingness to conform. If you don’t understand, try not shaving your armpits, or talking about menstrual blood to your galpals - are they into it, or are they disgusted? Cleo and Cosmo say they’re meant to be disgusted. Though once upon a time, only “whores” would shave their pits, today its mandatory.
It doesn’t matter who is enforcing the sexual oppression of women. The gender of the oppressor might lead to a feeling of being betrayed by ‘the sisterhood’, but is not material to the fact of oppression. The fact is that women are tied to their sexuality for better or for worse.
This is the key to the ‘women have more sexual freedom’ mythology. A woman does not have sexual freedom until she has freedom from being sexualised, either positively or negatively.
