On Madonnas And Whores
Thanks for inviting me to take part in this discussion and thanks to Jessica for writing the book on which it is based: The Purity Myth.
As Jessica notes in the book, purity of women is a very old ideal which may have its roots in the exchange value of young women in traditional societies. It is also part of the three important traditional ethical rules for women: purity, chastity and obedience. That at least two of these three are about sex is noteworthy. That all of these are still operative rules in some contemporary cultures is equally noteworthy. Just think of honor killings, say.
But surely none of this applies to the United States? Jessica makes a convincing argument that the concept of female purity is well and alive even here and that the demands it makes on girls and young women harm them. Not only are sexually active single women labeled as dirty, but women's ethical agency is seen as limited to sexual gate-keeping. You are a good girl if you don't have sex before marriage. You are a slut if you do (or even if you don't, because 'slut' is a powerful term to use to punish someone).
The topic of sexual purity is in many ways like one of those pictures where you can see two different things depending on whether you focus on the foreground or the background. We can focus on female purity in the foreground or on a background of --- what? Male impurity (can men be sluts?)? Sexuality in general? Impure women?
I found myself flipping back and forth in this way while reading The Purity Myth, which most likely was Jessica's intention. A focus on women's sexual purity is at the same time a focus on women's sexual impurity. It is the old Madonna/Whore dichotomy, updated with Purity Balls and Girls Gone Wild.
In what ways is this new incarnation of the old dichotomy different? Or is it?
I think the Madonna/Whore idea goes way back to the stone age. At some point, it had to occur to people that the strong drives and emotions generated by sex tended to complicate attempts to develop a well-ordered society. (I think it's actually a Madonna/Wife/Whore trichotomy, but never mind that for now.) In particular, I suspect that women who could generate feelings of helplessness or compulsion in men tended to scare the bejeesus out of them.)
The Garden of Eden Myth seems like an attempt to explain the problem and present some sort of way to move forward--not a very good one, unfortunately. (You're both bad, but she's worse!)
In the just-past-stone-age philosophy, the man has to win. So: it's ok for a man to overcome a woman, but not ok for a woman to overcome a man, causing him to lose any of his strength, societal standing, or cut his hair or anything like that.
We can do better, but for a variety of reasons, we didn't really approach the issue until the past century.
April 6, 2009 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, I googled "Purity Balls" and was relieved to discover that they do involve dancing, at least in religious circles that approve of dancing at all.
Couldn't these people run the name through the Double Entendre Checker before they went out and registered the domain?
April 6, 2009 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fag is a term often used by women to punish men.
April 6, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course men use it on men too, usually as a form of subjugation. It strikes me that this is an attachment of negative connotations in general, to the feminine. The words slut and fag are attacks used to dominate.
April 6, 2009 8:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
wrong thread?
April 6, 2009 8:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, I googled "Purity Balls" and was relieved to discover that they do involve dancing, at least in religious circles that approve of dancing at all.
I know. It's sort of funny.
At some point, it had to occur to people that the strong drives and emotions generated by sex tended to complicate attempts to develop a well-ordered society.
Sure. But the solution does appear a bit one-sided in terms of who gets to bear its burden.
April 6, 2009 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yup. It's as one-sided as all get out. No argument there.
I was just trying to say that the dynamic predates the development of those traditional societies in which women have exchange value. It's a "we don't understand the why sex has the power to make us crazy so we better keep those women in check" thing.
(A strange aspect of all this is that women have sometimes actively participated in our own subjugation, probably indicating that sex makes us crazy as well.)
April 6, 2009 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I addressed your concerns in my post, explaining that the "women's sexuality is dangerous" myth is straight up misogyny, and the "protect women from their own dangerous sexuality" myth is just a variation on a theme. Women's sexuality is dangerous in ripe imaginations bent on justifying oppression. It's not in reality.
April 7, 2009 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Not only are sexually active single women labeled as dirty"
Where? In Nauvoo Temple?
"but women's ethical agency is seen as limited to sexual gate-keeping."
Generally "limited to caretaking," I might buy on the historical trajectory of various forms of feminized labor--which virtually all devolves on caretaking--but "limited to sexual gatekeeping," and *nothing* else, no.
If anything, you're saying women have not been ethical agents in the realm of sexual activity, because they have "no choice"--they must be obedient. Someone who *must* be obedient has *no* agency, "ethical" or otherwise.
But, to state that that's the general state of affairs in the US today, without qualification or reference to particular contexts or situations or lack of resources, is simply wrong.
Now, I might buy that a 12 or 13 year old doesn't really have an adequate basis for exercising an ethical agency in the realm of sexual activity, but that would be a different kind of discussion than a discussion about "single women."
April 6, 2009 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
But, to state that that's the general state of affairs in the US today, without qualification or reference to particular contexts or situations or lack of resources, is simply wrong.
My comment wasn't about the general state of affairs in the United States. I should have framed it more carefully. It was intended to refer to the Purity Ball type movements and the way they frame the division of labor in abstinence. Jessica gives some examples in her book. Here's a quote from Darren Washington, an abstinence educator:
Your body is a wrapped lollipop. When you have sex with a man, he unwraps your lollipop and sucks on it. It may feel great at the time, but, unfortunately, when he's done with you, all you have left for your next partner is a poorly wrapped, saliva-fouled sucker.
April 6, 2009 9:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
If someone said that to my kid, I'd be tempted to kick him so hard in the purity balls that they'd break his teeth on the way out of his mouth.
Which I guess would move me squarely out of Madonna territory.
April 7, 2009 1:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if all those tea baggers who have been in the news lately go to purity balls?
April 7, 2009 3:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would like to see some studies on the social and medical history of sexually transmitted diseases, but I suspect not enough attention is being paid so far to the role of venereal disease in the formation of the traditional attitudes about madonnas, whores and purity.
Sexually transmitted disease remains widespread, but prior to the creation of antibiotics these diseases were both more widespread, and generally incurable. This circumstance would tend to lead to a sharp social division between those who are infected with them and those who are not.
But since venereal disease is also a major cause of infertility, it is not surprising that the distinction between those who are infected with sexually transmitted diseases and those who are not would track with the distinction between madonnas - potential or actual mothers - and those who are not potential or actual mothers.
And given the patriarchal economic structures of traditional societies, where there are very few options for women to secure a livelihood outside of marriage and motherhood, it is not surprising that those who lacked the potential to be mothers would end up in "the oldest profession".
And there is still a widespread application of the metaphor "clean" to those who are not infected with sexually transmitted diseases.
If these speculations are correct, it shouldn't be seen as surprising at all that traditional societies would fuse the distinctions of clean/unclean, pure/impure, mother/whore.
Perhaps we have too much of a tendency to reach for sociobiological and deep psychosexual explanations of attitudinal phenomena whose basis is somewhat mysterious to us, but would have been very obvious to earlier generations.
April 7, 2009 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you nailed it right there Dan K.
We have a tendency to project our culture/context/era onto the past as we look backward.
In the age of antibioctics - heck even a working theory of infectious disease for that matter - all of the 'totems and taboos' of the past seem like nonsense.
Yet even today, there are lots of 'hard' (sorry) consequences of promiscuity. Cervical cancer rates are higher for women with a long list of partners - that's just as one example.
Look at Africa. If you live in a country where something like 25% of the populace is HIV positive, you would probably prize purity very highly. Maybe abstinence and purity AND piety haven't really lost their place after all.
I realize I'm speaking as an 'old' person (40) but when I look around at the 'skanks' my age who have have been hard partyin' girls for all of their adult lives, I see a lot of regrets, missed opportunities and empty pleasures.
Presented with the stark choice of To be or not to be a skank, I think it's pretty obvious.
OK,now having said all this, I must end by noting that Liberty can mean the freedom to make 'bad' choices
April 7, 2009 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wanted to check the statistics on cervical cancer rates (I don't know enough about it) - and I came across this from the American Cancer Society:
"Also, women who have many sex partners (or who have sex with men who have had many partners) have a greater chance of getting HPV."
I found that really interesting and disheartening - a woman may not be partnered with many men at all, but if the man has, she's still at risk!
As for the rest of your post, I think it's entirely subjective. Some 'hard partyin girls' have regrets, and some don't regret a thing. Some women who wait until marriage to have sex regret missing out on other experiences and can become unfortunately curious, some women who wait are perfectly happy. There's no way to quantify that.
April 7, 2009 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting point, but I don't think it's entirely true - the point Jessica made in her first post is that it's only ever women who are considered impure. Your historical and medical explanation of the clean/dirty or pure/impure dichotomy would work if it applied equally to both sexes - but it hasn't been, and that's why we have to look for other explanations, I think.
April 7, 2009 9:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "honor killing" phenomonon holds great interest for me, considering that about a year after I got married, I found out my wife had shot her first husband, not for failing, as I had first supposed, to get the can out to the curb in time for pick-up, but rather, for telling her, as she stood in Lucite high-heeled slippers and chiffon peignoir on the porch, that the garbage truck would come back and get it!!
And on that basis ("Men, they all tell the same stupid lies" was Her Honor's words) she dismissed the case.
But she only wounded him, so is that really an "honor killing"? We argue about this constantly.
April 7, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I addressed your concerns in my post, explaining that the "women's sexuality is dangerous" myth is straight up misogyny"
You don't know my wife, obviously. Many's the night I have fluttered like a wounded bird in her boudoir, while her kohl-rimmed eyes held me fast in their grip. "But-but, Mama will scold me cause she told me it was naughty and I am saving myself for the man I marry" I stammered, to Noah Vail. Why the hell he was there I don't know, but that's irrelevant. A merciful syncope released me from the guilty knowledge of my own moral downfall, with a hey-nonny-nonny and a ha-cha-cha. So don't tell me women's sexuality is just like Mother makes, the hell it is. It's hot stuff, and only to be handled by experts.
April 7, 2009 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Say, that reminds me; What's grey and carries a trunk?
April 7, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Against my better judgment, I'm intrigued. :)
April 7, 2009 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Now, I might buy that a 12 or 13 year old doesn't really have an adequate basis for exercising an ethical agency in the realm of sexual activity,"
JTFaraday
That's true, JT, but the age-of-consent laws can get real sticky. Be careful! I suggest sports coaching or religious ministry if you want to go that way.
April 7, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink