The Purity Myth Page 7

  The real disservice to women here is that despite the fact that the plastic-surgery industry frames vaginal rejuvenation as “freeing” and benefiting women, the procedure’s real purpose is rarely for women’s pleasure—it’s almost always done for either men’s physical pleasure or aesthetic acceptance.ad Most of the personal stories on surgeons’ websites and in media coverage recall women’s getting the surgery as a “gift” for their husbands or male partners.

  Thirty-two-year-old Lisseth Figueroa of Los Angeles, for example, said in The Washington Post that she got the surgery to save her marriage. “I did it for both of us. . . . Before the surgery I felt really old . . . and ugly. Since the surgery, that’s changed. I’m very happy with it—and so is my husband.”29

  Another woman, on an online forum for women who have gotten or are considering the surgery, says she underwent a hymen replacement so that her husband could “take [her] virginity again.” This goes to show just how silly the notion of virginity really is. After all, these women aren’t actually becoming virgins, they’re just getting the supposed physical characteristics thereof—and even that’s questionable. As Hanne Blank points out in her book Virgin, the hymen is not really an indicator of virginity at all: “Hymens and vaginas vary considerably, as do reactions to vaginal penetration.” In other words, there really isn’t any way to tell if a woman has had sex. So why the hymen obsession?

  We became aware of hymens because we are aware of something we call virginity. We found the hymen because we found reasons to search women’s bodies for some bit of flesh that embodied this quality we call “virginity,” some physical proof that it existed.30

  Interesting to consider, isn’t it, that someone somewhere, at some point in history, decided to figure out a way to measure a woman’s virginity—regardless of the fact that there are certainly other ways to break a hymen? It’s no surprise, then, that hymenoplasty in particular is so intensely tied up with the purity myth: Despite the fact that a virginity/hymen connection is not absolute, women are desperate to have a physical indicator of virginity. That’s how embedded the myth is in our psyches.

  Unfortunately, trying to turn women into little girls doesn’t stop at terrifying genital surgeries. Lest women be seen as too womanly, they can also get “mommy makeovers” right after they give birth. This postpartum plastic surgery gives new moms a tummy tuck, breast lift, and liposuction, all to get their younger, non-mom bodies back. Or there’s also the MILF (mom I’d like to fuck) trend in pop and porn culture, in which “hot moms” are those who look more like college students than mothers. Or schoolgirl outfits for grown women (think Halloween or the popular girl “band” the Pussycat Dolls—those short plaid skirts are everywhere!). And, of course, there’s the prevalence of virgin porn, in which young-looking actresses pretend to lose their virginity (generally to much older men). The valorization of youth, and especially of virginity, is everywhere.

  But for some women, young or old, plastic surgeries and Bratz bralettes are the least of their worries. Too many women struggle just to be seen.

  INVISIBLE GIRLS

  Certain kinds of sexualization, terrifying kinds, affect girls daily and yet rarely make the news or appear on the virginity movement’s radar. When it comes to girls who are trafficked or forced into the sex trade, there’s relatively little outrage or talk about “lost innocence.” Perhaps that’s because these girls weren’t considered innocent in the first place.

  Approximately two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand adolescents are sexually exploited—through prostitution, trafficking, child sex tourism, or pornography—annually in the United States.31 According to Rachel Lloyd,ae founder and executive director of Girls Educational & Mentoring Services (GEMS) in New York City, many of the girls who are being exploited and have no place to go for help are often overlooked because they don’t qualify as “perfect virgins.”

  In a report on how to best advocate for girls who are sexually exploited and trafficked for money, Lloyd notes that in areas like New York City, such victims are often young women of color from low-income communities “who are perceived as inherently ‘loose,’ unredeemable, and hopeless.”

  “These young women are often not just absent from public debate, but actively denigrated and seen as complicit in their abuse,” Lloyd writes.33

  Instead of receiving help, these girls are often persecuted—they’re arrested and punished by a system that sees them not as victims, but as criminals.

  Ironically, if the girls Lloyd helps were smuggled in from China or trafficked from some eastern European country, rather than having grown up in the Bronx, they’d be given federal protection under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. But in New York, the girls Lloyd works with are considered prostitutes—criminals who should be locked up no matter how young they are or how dire the circumstances they come from might be. And because they are overwhelmingly young, low-income women of color, the system is all too happy to oblige. Try to imagine a scourge of blonde teen girls being arrested and thrown in juvenile detention after being raped, abused, and forced to sell their bodies—people would be marching in the street; the media would be outraged. But for the girls of GEMS, there’s only silence.

  Unfortunately, exploitation doesn’t stop on the streets. With the advent of the Internet, more insidious forms of sexualization are broadcast for the world to see—yet remain on the margins of the public’s radar. As authorities crack down on child pornography online, pedophiles are finding new and improved ways to circumvent the law; the latest is child “supermodel” websites.

  Featuring pictures of prepubescent girls posing provocatively in bikinis, underwear (often thongs), or clothing that is, at best, disturbingly inappropriate, these websites promote themselves as child “modeling” sites, though they’re clearly marketed toward a predatory audience.

  Julie Posey of Pedowatch, an online watchdog group aimed at protecting children, recently said in Wired magazine, “Why else would someone pay to see kids in their underwear?”34

  When Wired investigated these websites—which are owned primarily by one company based in Florida—the virtual fan club members’ comments made the sites’ intentions crystal clear:[There are] men with nicknames such as “Cum ta Poppa.” At one of Amber’s fan clubs, “humberthaze” writes: “We only get glimpses of her potential when she does a bit of ‘bump and g,’ but then she quickly relapses into something awkward and childish. Sometimes you can hear the photographer get excited when she gives us what we/he want(s). She’ll do a little killer wiggle and we hear him say quickly, ‘What was that? ’ or ‘Do that again!!! ’”

  One user even complained, “She’s gotten too developed for my taste, I doubt I’ll be an Amber fan anymore.”

  It doesn’t get much more obvious than that, but because these websites don’t show children engaging in real or simulated sex, they’re legal.

  Obviously, websites like these, unlike purity balls or padded bras, are overtly sexual. But the line is surprisingly thin. Think about it: How different is deliberately turning young girls into sex objects by having them pose in underwear from getting them dolled up for a child beauty pageant or a date with Daddy? Yes, the former is meant to elicit sexual arousal, but just because the latter is couched in the language of purity doesn’t make it any less sexual. Either way, the focus is still on girls’ sexuality, and it’s still making them “women” before their time.

  OUR HYMENS, OURSELVES?

  Whether it’s surgery or purity balls, a woman dressing up like a Catholic schoolgirl for Halloween or a child dressing in a ball gown for a beauty pageant, the common theme is that women’s—nay, girls’—sexuality has become our only truly valued personal characteristic. And for America’s invisible girls, that fetishization often means a life of violence and punishment (more on the way women are punished for violating purity guidelines in Chapter 7).

  Any way you slice it, women’s identities are so tied up with whether or not we’ve had sex, or
how sexual or abstinent we are, that it’s become almost impossible to think of ourselves as women outside of that framework. And really, while it’s pop culture that gets the most attention in this regard, it’s the virginity movement that’s reinforcing the notion.

  After all, what’s the difference, really, between the shirt sold at purity balls—a tight babydoll tee that says, I’M WAITING—and the one recently pulled from Delia’s (a clothing store for preteen and teenage girls) that shouts in rainbow colors, I’M TIGHT LIKE SPANDEX? Sure, the Delia’s tee is the more vulgar of the two, but the intent is the same. They both announce virginity and they both make clear that virginity—or at least its assumed physical attributes—is a part of the wearer’s identity.

  In my interview with Durham, she noted that “girls need information, support and nurture as they move into a sexually empowered adulthood where they can make intelligent and intentional sexual choices for themselves.” That’s what we need to be fighting for—a nuanced, respectful, informed vision of sexuality for young girls. Because what we have now—sexualization and fetishization—is hurting girls every day.

  CHAPTER 4

  the porn connection

  “It is commonly believed that mainstream pornography is represented by the centerfolds in today’s men’s magazines. In fact, that is precisely what the ACLU and the sex industry want us to think. But if a man were to go into the sex shops on Times Square or in other large cities in the United States, he would ffnd very few depictions of normal heterosexual activity. Instead, he would see a heavy emphasis on violent homosexual and lesbian scenes. . . . Amazingly, there is a huge market for disgusting materials of this nature.”

  FOCUS ON THE FAMILY1

  ON MTV’S SHOW I Want a Famous Face, nineteen-year-old Sha told the camera that she wanted to look like Pamela Anderson so she could pursue a career as a Playboy model. During the show, viewers watched as Sha underwent surgery to get breast implants, lip implants, and liposuction on her chin—all so she could have that Playboy look. Sadly, Sha’s story is a dime a dozen; the mainstreaming of pornography is influencing young women across the country. Pornish pubic hair (or lack thereof) is inspiring a generation of women to take it all off. Porn star Jenna Jameson’s book, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, spent six weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. There’s even a reality television show on E! that follows the lives of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Bunny girlfriends.

  There is little doubt that pornography is pervasive in America—from Internet porn to PORN STAR shirts for preteens, we’re simply inundated with it. But while this “porning of America”af is vastly more present than the virginity movement and its cultural output, the latter actually relies on the former for its survival. You can’t have purity without perceived impurity, after all. The virginity movement’s success—its ability to appear relevant, even—depends on its having a social evil to rail against. Movement leaders need pornography in order to justify the extreme nature of the purity message they’re pushing. Pornography and purity may make strange bedfellows, but they’re sharing sheet space all the same.

  Naturally, porn culture raises serious questions and concerns about the oversexualization of women and girls (as discussed in Chapter 3) and the societal effects of pornography’s being so readily accessible and so much more hardcore than past porn. But the virginity movement is using what could be a progressive conversation about women, men, and sexuality to carelessly push a regressive agenda. Instead of focusing the discourse on porn itself, the movement simply declares that everything is pornographic—teen clothing styles, books, television shows, even teaching students about birth control. You name it, it’s pornographic and inappropriate. By taking on porn in this narrow way, the virginity movement’s answers are similarly simplistic: Stop having sex. Stop porn. Be pure.ag

  By further promoting the virgin/whore dichotomy, the movement also inadvertently ensures that young women will engage in porn culture—be it through Playboy pencil cases,ah Girls Gone Wild, or simply thinking that porn is “cool.” By erasing any nuance and complexity from conversations about porn and sexuality, the virginity movement gives young women only two choices of who they can be sexually: sluts or not sluts. While the first choice doesn’t seem attractive, I can guarantee you that most young women are going to go with the option that allows them to have sex. And there’s no in-between identity for young women who are making smart, healthy choices in their sexual lives.

  Most important (as evidenced by the quote starting off this chapter), the issues the virginity movement is concerned with aren’t those that have to do with helping women. They don’t care about sex workers’ rights or the objectification and dehumanization of women that some porn peddles in. They care about maintaining the sexual status quo: Men are men, women are subservient and chaste, and sexuality is shameful.

  A PORNED AMERICA

  When I was in college, my then-boyfriend Mike told me how he first encountered pornography. His parents got the Playboy TV channel on cable, and because he had a television in his room, it wasn’t long before he discovered the joys of softcore clips and montages of naked women. Today, a teen boy will more likely come across “2 girls, 1 cup”ai than find his parents’ dirty-magazine stash. To put it mildly, pornography is not what it used to be.

  While the porn film Deep Throat—which was released in 1972 and received accolades from reputable media, like The New York Times—is often credited as the beginning of the mainstreaming of pornography, Sarracino and Scott write that it was Playboy magazine, founded in 1953, that really changed the culture. Before that, porn was cheaply made, illicit, underground, and seedy, but with its quality publishing style, Playboy marked a shift in the way Americans viewed pornography.

  Shame—the shame of poverty, transgression, the shame of the outsider—was in a sense encoded into the early presentations of pornography. Shame inhibits identification. We don’t want to see as “ourselves” those who are socially, morally, and legally stig matiz ed . . . . In the case of Playboy, readers hefted the slick pages of stunning photographs of wholesome, beautiful girls, intermixed with images of and information about high-end stereo equipment, hip apartments, and sports cars, and thought, consciously or not: This is me! This is who I am—or who I want to be!2

  Deep Throat, the plot of which revolved around a woman who discovers her clitoris is in her throat,aj had a similar effect in the ’70s. Instead of following the typical stag-film format, Deep Throat ran the length of a normal movie, featured a script with characters and a plot, and had a starring actress—Linda Lovelace. Celebrities admitted to loving the film, and it’s still the highest-grossing porn of all time.

  But it was in-home pornography—the advent of videotaped pornography and the Internet—that created the porn that we know today: increasingly hardcore, mainstream, and ubiquitous.3 Today, estimated annual porn sales in the United States are $10 billion;4ak in fact, the U.S. revenue from Internet porn alone was $2.84 billion in 2006.5 Of the approximately 372 million pornographic web pages worldwide, 89 percent are produced within the United States.

  Because personal technology—be it a video camera, webcam, or blog—is readily available to most Americans, almost anyone can produce porn in the comfort of their own home. This ease of both making and consuming pornography has exponentially increased the amount of porn that’s created, as well as the acceptability of pornography as part of American culture. (Thankfully, this democratization of porn has also meant an increase in feminist- and woman-friendly pornography—more on this later.)

  There is no doubt that mainstreamal pornography, like most pop culture, is problematic when it comes to the way women are represented and treated. As Robert Jensen wrote in Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, “Pornography as a mirror shows us how men see women. Not all men, of course—but the ways in which many men who accept the conventional conception of masculinity see women. It’s unsettling to look in that mirror.”6

 
Jensen argues that while mainstream pornography in all forms tends to be misogynistic, it’s reality, or “gonzo,” porn—in which the sex workers acknowledge the camera’s presence—that is most disturbing.

  In gonzo, those same [sexual] acts are featured but typically are performed in rougher fashion, often with more than one man involved, and with more explicitly denigrating language that marks women as sluts , whores, cunts, nasty bitches, and so on.7

  It’s hard to argue with Jensen’s contention that the majority of gonzo pornography is made with women’s debasement in mind. It’s what Shauna Swartz called “humilitainment” in a 2004 Bitch magazine article; it’s the kind of porn that revels in coaxing or “tricking” women into having sex, just to spit or ejaculate in their face at the end (as is the case with the popular website BangBus.com, where women are dumped by the side of the road and stranded after they’ve had sex).

  “Tagging these disturbing spectacles of deception and abuse with the ‘reality’ label enhances their allure, as it claims to offer consumers unstaged and authentic action,” wrote Swartz.8am

  Naturally, not all porn humiliates women—there’s a strong feminist porn culture, and mainstream porn that isn’t misogynistic does exist. But in an industry that is constantly looking for the next, biggest, most extreme thing (gang bangs where hundreds of men line up to have sex with one woman, and the stomach-churning “2 girls, 1 cup,” come to mind) it’s near impossible to argue that porn culture isn’t affecting American society detrimentally.