The Good News: Things Used To Be Worse
The more women have sex before marriage, the more Americans worry about virginity. It's like weight: the fatter Americans get, the more they fetishize thinness. But here's the thing: no matter how much Americans long to be slender and shame each other for those extra pounds, the social conditions that make them overweight will keep most of them that way. And no matter how much handwringing and slut-shaming and purity lecturing and silver-ring-promising Americans direct at teenage girls, the way we live ensures that girls will continue to have sex. Twenty years from now, young women will no more be shy virgins on their wedding night than average Americans will be as trim and slim as Parisians.
Think of the conditions that kept large numbers of middle-class girls virgins until marriage in, say, the 19th century, and ask yourself how many of them still prevail. Back then, girls were closely chaperoned and stayed close to home with their mothers and sisters; they were rarely alone, they didn't have their own cars or money or go out on dates. They didn't have many opportunities to even meet the kind of boys or men who might not "respect" them. A girl who overcame these obstacles and was known to have lost her "virtue" would have a hard time marrying, which meant social death; if she got pregnant, she might be cast out by her family. Even so, plenty of girls had sex before marriage. So how likely is it today that any force in society -- church, state, school, family -- is going to have much effect on the ability and desire of girls to begin their sex lives before the grownups think they are ready?
It might not seem so from this discussion, and from the many examples Jessica documents of cruelty and hostility and humiliation toward sexually expressive girls and women, but the double standard is actually on the decline. Outside conservative Christian circles, who really expects women to be virgins when they are married? Half of girls start having sex in high school and most of the rest a year or two after that, and much of the time -- most of the time? --it's seen as normal.
We've come a very long way from the days when girls were grounded by their colleges for having a boy in their room after hours. (My sophomore year, I became the last Radcliffe student to fall afoul of this rule. I had invited my friend Warren to come up and read my new poem.) All over the country, mothers take their teen daughters to the doctor or clinic for birth control, and parents let their kids sleep with their boyfriends or girlfriends --parents like, um, Sarah and Todd Palin.
Americans are famous for getting into moral panics and going overboard, but the vast majority, I'd argue, are not sending their daughters off to Purity Camp. They know their kids are having sex, they want realistic sex ed and accessible contraception, and so on. If a daughter gets pregnant, they don't send her away to a maternity home and force her to give up her baby to preserve her reputation, as was the norm in white middle-class families in the 1950s. Now that was slut-shaming.
The virginity cult has gotten as far into the mainstream culture as it has for two reasons. One is the success of the Christian right during the Bush years in leveraging huge sums of money and lots of political power for its abstinence-only, anti-choice, and sexist agenda. The other is anxiety among parents and other protective adults over (I'm trying not to sound stuffy here) the vulgarity, callousness, and exploitation that are features of popular culture and youth sex culture today. Internet porn, misogynous rap,the sexual entitlement of frat boys and athletes, date rape, drunken or drugged sex, "rainbow parties" (let's hope they're just a myth) -- much of what makes the news about teen sexuality is not very girl-friendly or loving. Combine that with the fact that many parents are working too hard to spend with their kids as much time as they'd like and know they may not know what's going on in their kids' lives, and it's not so hard to see why they worry.
Brilliant analysis. We could almost stop with it.
Just a few small additions: The "virginity cult" is also fueled by venerable American traditions of something for nothing, quick-fix hokums slickly marketed as serious solutions, and a national "news media" in thrall to shallowness, titillation, and hypocrisy masquerading as "public debate."
April 9, 2009 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think this is the most sensible we've had so far.
April 9, 2009 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most sensible post, that is. I keep skipping words lately.
April 9, 2009 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see how Katha Pollitt can doubt the reality of "rainbow parties," when they were chronicled by none other than Paul Ruditis, whose previous writing credits include episodes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Katha Pollitt probably hopes vampires are "just a myth," too.
April 9, 2009 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
This take seems about right.
Forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere, I haven't followed this conversation closely, but is there any information indicating increasing concern with virginity outside of conservative circles?
I don't make it to the mega-church that often, so most of the people I know have no objection to premarital sex, or even to cohabitation.
And thanks for the reminder that what plays in the media has little correspondence to concerns in the actual world. After all, who doesn't love a good teen virgin sex story?
April 9, 2009 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is that chicken or fish?
http://www.mtv.com/bands/s/simpson_jessica/news_feature_112103/
April 9, 2009 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I need a meat free option.
April 9, 2009 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that things were worse in the United States and that it's unlikely we will go back to those types of values altogether. But they are still the values in many other countries.
April 9, 2009 9:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're going to make Katha question herself on this post, dude.
April 9, 2009 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
We've come a long way, but we still have really far to go. I spoke with a group of peer sex educators last week, and they told me that most of the kids they talk to, if asked, "Would you feel safer sleeping with someone who'd had two partners without protection or someone who'd had 100 and used protection every time?", the kids said two without protection, even though that's more dangerous. It's not really a false dilemma, but an exercise to get them thinking about how they assess risk---are they using social standards about "purity" as a stand-in for real knowledge about germ theory and risk? The answer is still yes.
The good news is that the kids in this class were shockingly and wonderfully non-hung-up about sex. Even the most liberated people of my generation I know would be taken aback by how relaxed they were. So yes, it's getting better. But for safety reasons, if nothing else, we have a long way to go.
April 9, 2009 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're assuming correct usage and clinical detachment in situations where that's usually considered a mood-destroyer, but oh well.
Besides that, you haven't cited any updated data on failure rates as regards STD (not pregnancy).
Maybe keeping a watch on the following study would be more helpful to readers here than putting out serial comments by people already biased toward liberal discretion in sexual decision making.
University of Windsor, Canada study:
http://lift.uwindsor.ca/tt/ATHENA.uwindsor.ca/units/research/works/rtw.nsf/CatChannel/E85535DB43AAD08E8525756E005AC852!OpenDocument
It used to be liberalism meant liberal economy, liberal social spending, social gospel and other public interest items. Then someone had to make sexuality a political issue by which libertine practices will be legislated as health education for children and defended by the thin latex justification of condom distribution and education.
Libertine practices aren't required even if contraceptive education is; but the extremists in your movement insist on coupling the two. What extremely bad judgment the extremes bring to us. This is an issue that's become politicized such that rationality is destroyed by the fight to "win."
You say we have a long way to go. To where? What is your social vision, and why is it good? Explain reasons with empirical support as to why your particular social vision should be expected to work better than others.
April 9, 2009 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're making the mistake of assuming that liberals are the inverse of conservatives in every way. Conservatives don't want you to have sex at all, or if you do, it can't be too fun. Therefore liberals want.....everyone to maximize their number of sexual partners and shun monogamy. That's simply not true. I'm in a monogamous relationship, which I'm happy with. This doesn't make me a hypocrite. I think that sexual standards need to be those that give people the right to learn and grow, and decide what makes them happy. That usually means going through a few partners until you meet the right one and/or you're ready for that relationship.
Sorry, we're just not as scandalous as you hope. I just don't have orgies in my living room as some statement to irritate you.
April 9, 2009 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't have to mess up your living room to annoy me, but that's immaterial.
You advocate what you don't do and call it 'learn and grow' for others, suggesting you know better than you counsel. I don't think it's hypocrisy, I think it's uncharitable. You don't have to live with the consequences of the mistakes those who find you persuasive will have to face.
The notion that sleeping with different people before you find the right one assumes that the sexual experience on that limited occasion is predictive of lifelong happiness. On the contrary, suppose it's great, you marry that person and you age with them to discover that was the main thing and once it got old he went on with someone else not you. Leaves you with kids, finds a trophy. Not only is there is no evidence to suggest that this method works, it already has some seeds of failure in it.
Look, you don't reconnoiter the coast of Normandy by invading it first then mapping it. You swim up to it carefully being careful not to telegraph, fly over it, review info about it, swim around it, map it, get to know it, photograph it, bounce sound waves off it, and have it over to dinner to meet your folks. You don't have to torpedo it to get to know it! You ought to be able to do that without becoming one with the person then cutting them off. Something valuable and intangible is lost with that for both, not just for the woman.
Once you're well versed about Normandy, then you are prepared to invade if committed to going through all the way to Berlin. If you're not well versed, if you invade, you had better be prepared to carry on if lives are depending on you.
In addition, the marriage is a relationship within the community. What two people do together in the community to contribute to its betterment is also part of the equation. This is the Casablanca illustration where Rick sends Ilsa away once he learns more about her husband and the good they are doing together. Passion with another individual is great to revel in for a while, but it's nothing compared to the joy of saving lives and averting the suffering of innocents in teamwork with a spouse who totally supports it.
April 10, 2009 2:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tortured battlefield metaphors aside (and I won't theorize what analogizing sex or a woman's body to a battlefield might signify), I think this statement is a bit of a joke:
Oh, if people only advocated what they did! (I have a feeling we'd have a lot less hypocrisy that way) But I disagree with the characterization that anyone's "advocating" anything (particularly a lifestyle), other than that people be free to determine what their own needs are, without the moral judgment of others regarding their self-worth. Oh, and there's some theorizing about the way social trends are going (which is not too difficult given the trajectory over the last 30 years).
April 10, 2009 2:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
It isn't a battlefield analogy. It is an invasion analogy. You don't invade someone's deepest levels of intimacy for a test drive, or just because you want to put a notch in whatever case you carry.
April 10, 2009 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Check your facts: the religious right has a higher rate of divorce -- and I suspect of abortion -- than the liberals.
April 10, 2009 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also, empirical support.
Despite methodological issues with measuring proper use, the CDC confidently states that the evidence shows condoms work. (It's true they only work if you use them, but that's true of everything from diets to aspirin to your remote control.)
Reliable contraception raised the age of marriage, the happiness people feel with it, and it lowered the number of children living in poverty. Fewer children in poverty means fewer health problems that are related to poverty.
The golden years you imagine---the highly repressed 1950s---were actually the years of highest teenage pregnancy rate. Sexual liberation, feminism, and contraception lowered the teenage pregnancy rate dramatically to an all-time low in the 1990s. Unfortunately, the rate has started to climb back up in the wake of abstinence-only education that teaches the values you claim are so valuable.
So, yeah. I'm for healthy marriages, lower STD rates, lower teenage pregnancy rates, and lower rates of child poverty. Also, orgasms, which I think is also a public good, because pleasure is good.
April 9, 2009 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amanda, high teenage pregnancy rates in the 1950s reflect the illegality of abortion. Lower teen pregnancy rates that you attribute to liberation, feminism and contraception reflect the legality of abortion from 1973 as well as contraception. Liberation or feminism had little to do with it.
If one is liberated of their choices by the human sacrifice of another, that is not liberation. It's snuffing out human lives because they're inconvenient reminders that others couldn't handle their first choices. Some things call for a change in the culture as much or more than new gadgets or drugs to artificially remove the natural results of what you so frequently point out is natural behavior. Then why not let nature take its course if not suppressing what is natural is a value? Having children is natural.
The 1948 and 1953 studies on extramarital affairs on the sites you cite reflect the number of GI's overseas for WWII and the Korean Conflict separating couples during stressful, fearful circumstances. I wouldn't call that indicative of a comparable period to the 80s and 90s.
In fact, I'd expect the effects of the highly conservative social norms promoted during the Reagan years to have noticeable effects in the early nineties. Then, after the Clinton intern scandal, an ubiquitous impeachment frenzy, and less regulated early years of internet 'exposures', I'd expect people to be so disgusted with the overdose of tawdriness that teens became more chaste.
Your attribution of happier marriages to contraception is not empirical but a cite to an op-ed at alter.net.
I don't deny that contraception has helped women postpone child-bearing and therefore pursue more education and career development, but I wouldn't say it makes them happier. Any data? Here are some figures according to John F. Walker's book "History of the US Economy Since WWII":
(1) two earner households were at about 30% at the end of the 50s; (2) by 1990, some 65% were two earner households. (3) However, increased expenses ate nearly 1/3 of 2nd earner income.
With 2-earner households, there tends to be less parent-time with the kids overall and between the parents.
April 10, 2009 4:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unsurprising that given piles of evidence, you're just going to deny it. I don't really want to play that game. You got the evidence you asked for.
Now, we're back to the values question. I put up another post explaining that I do, at the end of the day, think that sex is good because it feels good. Hostility to sex, especially women having it (at least enjoying it) is rooted in a hostility to pleasure, at least female pleasure. It's about objectifying women---suggesting that we exist to function for others, not to live our own lives for ourselves. Sexual pleasure is something women provide, not have. And our behavior should be determined by what men feel is the best way to use our bodies, not how we use our bodies for ourselves.
Sorry, I'm a feminist. I'm pro-sex for women, because I think women's bodies should exist for women's use, as men's bodies exist for men's use.
April 10, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Evidence has to support what you assert that it does, or else it is not piles of evidence but piles of something else.
April 14, 2009 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you have children?
April 14, 2009 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Would you feel safer sleeping with someone who'd had two partners without protection or someone who'd had 100 and used protection every time?"
I have to tell you that when Aids was first made a big public health issue, public health educators were very careful to state that using condoms was not a 100% guaranteed safe practice. Today, however, it seems to me that politicizing liberals have turned it into some sort of magical talisman that is.
That's pro-sex ideology, not public health education. Just because reactionaries propagate false information, doesn't mean you get to do it, too.
April 10, 2009 6:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
I never said it was 100%. And this is about more than AIDS.
Using a condom is safer than not using a condom. Obviously, abstinence is the safest method in terms of preventing diseases. But you have to weigh your desire to avoid disease against other desires, such as living your life, having romance in it, having sexual pleasure, etc. All of life is a risk. You risk dying in a car crash every time you drive your car---in fact, you risk it a lot more than you risk dying of AIDS every time you have protected sex. But you drive your car, because you accept that living your life means taking risks.
It's only when it comes to sex---at least women and gay men having it---that we claim that no amount of risk whatsoever is acceptable, because we consider the behavior unacceptable, even if it has no risk at all. Because those groups of people don't deserve pleasure, apparently.
April 10, 2009 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll add that the use of the word "tailsman" is misleading. A tailsman is an object that has no evidence-based power over the thing it is fighting. So, I wear a cross to hoard off the plague. That's not going to work.
A condom is comparable to wearing a seat belt to prevent yourself from flying out a window. Or getting a vaccine to prevent a disease. Or eating your fiber to prevent yourself from getting backed up. These are scientifically proven ways to prevent illness, and are not tailsmans. Condoms are scientifically proven to work. 100%? No, but few things are. 98% is better than a tailsman, that doesn't work at all.
April 10, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is sex education nowadays??
"Would you feel safer sleeping with someone who'd had two partners without protection or someone who'd had 100 and used protection every time?"
No wonder so many kids are screwed up and confused, and so many parents turning to bogus non-remedies such as virginity pledges.
Obviously BOTH options are risky. Nobody except maybe a prostitute needs to have sex with 100 different people. No educator with half a clue needs to rely on such idiotically bad examples.
Liberals, conservatives, fake liberals, and fake conservatives need to all take a good look in the mirror. Other wealthy industrialized countries are not as intellectually and psychologically messed up about sex as the USA, and the fault lies with American society as a whole, not in one or another oddball extreme of the so-called political spectrum.
April 10, 2009 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, even though I come at this sympathetic to the opposite point of view, I think the "2 partners/100 partners" is a bit of a false dichotomy, that isn't particularly useful in assessing realistic views toward sexuality. That being said, I think the INTENT was really to challenge the way students thought about this, in that they tend to associate these stereotypes with more sexual partners (irresponsible, poor self-control) that may not necessarily be accurate.
April 10, 2009 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
She must have been thinking of Wilt Chamberlain's claim.
April 10, 2009 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
You came off as wise at the start, then you wrote:
"the social conditions that make them overweight.."
Those aren't social conditions, they're about food saturation marketing, genetics in some cases, and psychological disorders inherent the first.
You claim that American social conditions shame promiscuous persons (you'd say sexually active, as if it were a fitness center discipline - how monotonous and chemistry-destroying) while idealizing virgins with certain demographics and descriptors. Then you claim the virginity and purity "movements" are a cult.
So which is this purity effort, a monolithic societal phenomenon or a small insular group? You're saying it is both.
April 9, 2009 10:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
But it can be both. There are many beliefs expressed in mainstream religions, which are expressed in cults in more extreme versions.
April 10, 2009 12:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Similarity or analogy is too weak a nexus. Cultic is one thing, cult is another. You project cult onto the purity movement because you disagree with it, yet it is a separate set of persons exercising their freedoms. Yet you attack it. Where is the 'live and let live' liberal latitude?
April 10, 2009 1:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think liberals would react the same way if it was a group of neo-shaker adults living away from society in some celibate commune. The aspects of a cult that liberals generally consider negative is pervasive social control that eliminates peoples' ability to decide their life values and needs for themselves (particularly children).
April 10, 2009 3:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look, neither partisan camp has resisted well the temptation toward more pervasive social control. They just specialize in who is controlled more. We have a chasm due to party.
April 10, 2009 4:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Huh? Where's the equivalent liberal cult of fathers forcing their daughters to engage in sex before they're ready? As much as you might try to use the "pox on both houses" argument, it's not valid.
April 10, 2009 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Power is not only that which is imposed. Power is that which should be exercised but is withheld, in this case, parents better supervising their children in a loving, realistic and educational way.
April 10, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I get it. Live freely, just don't talk about it. Shut up, right?
April 10, 2009 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mike -
This is the reality:
It's that simple.
April 10, 2009 12:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
She's predicting as inevitable something that she and others are actively trying to make come true. It's really not some kind of detached historical prediction: it's a propaganda trick. Tell everyone that something is inevitable and they won't question you pushing for it.
April 10, 2009 1:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mike, if it was just a separate set of harmless freedoms, nobody here would be discussing the issue, never mind bothering to propagandize it.
Go back and read Jessica's introduction where she explains how damaging the Purity Myth can be to young women, not only personally but in the legal and social spheres as well. And as the article excerpt below shows, sometimes the myth can even be deadly. It is what happens when a young woman's moral worth is based on her 'virginity' or 'purity', rather than ethical ideals and standards.
That is reality, not propaganda.
April 10, 2009 2:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can see the danger in failing to see the greater purpose of purity, which is to find purity of heart, not pride in the status of virginity. And neither is pride in impurity a way to elevate people.
Worth is better addressed in the present tense serving others, not in a detached arena.
April 10, 2009 4:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Just happened to see this today. From the Cincinnati Enquirer [emphasis mine]:
April 9, 2009 11:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is horrible. It makes me wonder if below the veneer of "decency", people aren't basically just cruel and nasty little beasts. For shame.
April 11, 2009 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
For those who want to know what we're aiming for, it is that a woman should provoke the same societal reaction to premarital sex that a man does. You notice that no one including the right wing christianists have said anything about the morality of men who engage in premarital sex.
There is a Forrester Sisters song about a girl who was shunned by her community for having a baby, but the father of the baby is in church "believing God's forgiven him, and cleansed him of the sin he'll always bear." And no one really expects the father to engage in any support of the kid, either.
When both of the parties are treated equally, we will have arrived at some sort of societal vision.
April 10, 2009 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have said something about the purity of women and men being equally important in recent comments.
April 10, 2009 4:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Comprehensive sex ed makes all this handwringing unneccesary. As long as teens have sex within their age group, and adults the same, what's the big deal? The breakdown of modern society? I don't understand the fear.
April 10, 2009 6:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
In Caral Sagan's "Cosmos" is a chapter is devoted to causes and consequenses of war. Sagan cites an anthropologic study comparing societies' propencity for making war.
Societies inclined to war have some social norms in common. The list includes slavery, subjugation/abuse of women and children, an averssion to touching and at the top of the list is taboo against adolecents engaging in normal sex. The statistics cited (as I recall, can't find my copy) were more than compelling and can only be described as conclusive.
This is obviously a complex psycho/social issue and the case of cause and effect can be debated but it is clear there is a conection between a willingness to use war and the demand that young people remain chaste. It is not coincidental that in USA individuals and groups who think of virginity as an unquestionable virtue also seem to think of war as a ready solution to diplomatic and even economic problems. It does seem to track the liberal/conservative devide.
April 10, 2009 7:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
One problem with that as far as I can tell... Brazil.
They had slavery.
They subjugate their women (still do! Talk about a double standard!!! Sheesh)
They are sexually active early on... Hell, it's seems to be almost expected.
And they DON'T DO WAR. They really seem to be lovers, not fighters.
There may be other examples...
April 10, 2009 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well the sexually active early fits Sagan's model. I don't know squat about Brazil but a friend of mine is married to a Brazilian lady and she is anything but subjugated. She is one of the most dominant women I have known. Then again maybe she left to get away from all those dominating macho men. Also she is from a rather wealthy family and that may be the difference.
April 10, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
So good to hear from Katha Pollitt. Sexism right through the late sixties had a viciousness and smug certainty that's turned somewhat desperate and hysterical as women have made genuine gains in power. Believe it or not, it's better. Having power is better. Men are, on the whole, nicer. At the same time, other socially corrosive factors (stemming from concentrations of wealth and power in a few hands) have made life worse, so it all gets very confusing. Maybe better to concentrate more on money than attitudes - abortion funding under Medicaid, decent sex ed., etc.
April 10, 2009 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the title to this ought to be, "Good news, things used to be worse for the tiny minority that makes up me and my pals".
April 10, 2009 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink