We have a huge problem when it comes to women having sex. I talk a lot about the need for open and honest communication about sex because I believe that treating sex as if it’s something to fear has done people considerable harm. Sex positivity works to create a safe, stigma-free environment for healthy sexual expression. However, we miss out on a critical aspect of this – how female sexuality is viewed and (mis)treated and how female sexual agency can be established – when we undermine safe spaces and side-step frank conversations about it.
It may seem an odd thing to focus on in our so-called “sex-saturated” culture, but the problem isn’t too much sex. It’s bad sex: too little focus on female sexual agency, not enough emphasis on female pleasure, treating feminine desire as a novelty and trivializing sexual abuse of women. That’s not a comprehensive list. Still, women having and enjoying sex isn’t unfamiliar territory, but women having and enjoying sex for their own sake is. Women enjoying solo pleasure, women having sex on their own terms with partners they freely choose (or freely rejecting sex) and women not feeling obligated to justify their sexual decisions to anyone? A woman making sexual decisions that aren’t pressured or subjected to misplaced concern from outsiders or fraught with emotional tension? That’s almost foreign. Those aren’t things anyone is truly taught are possible for women to have. Outside of women having sex with and for men, in whatever capacity that may happen, female sexuality is conspicuously absent. It shouldn’t be.
What do we feel comfortable with? We’re disturbingly easygoing about sexually abusing women. A rape scene might involve atmospheric lighting. Violent or not, it’ll be glamorized. Rape isn’t always explicitly violent. What’s actually rape probably won’t be shown or taught as such. She’s drinking. She’s ambivalent. She’s not saying no. We’ve heard that countless times. We’ve also heard it doesn’t matter that her body language betrays anxiety, or people who are intoxicated aren’t capable of giving consent, or she might have wanted sex and then changed her mind later. Apparently it’s not rape if she’s married, and so her husband has a right to have sex with her, or she’s a sex worker and he paid up. “It was just a joke.” “I can’t believe she reported him; he had such promise!” Was it “legitimate” rape?
That’s not all “in the media.” We are the media. It feeds us what we feed it. In whatever medium these attitudes and remarks appear in, sidewalk chalk in front of Lloyd Hall, perhaps, or an online comments section, they are absolutely unacceptable. Violating someone’s body in any way, undermining their autonomy, taking advantage of their uncertainty or compromised mental state, forcing yourself upon them, mocking people who are affected by these things – that’s an abuse of basic human rights.
A fundamental respect for women and our sexuality is missing from this world. Emphasizing feminine “purity” has done us no good. It’s only created a culture of blame and shame surrounding female sexuality. Nobody should be afraid of admitting that they were partying or asked if they “really did” say no or told that they shouldn’t have gone out with that person because “what did they expect?” Educating people not to rape, including outlining consent, not equating sex with morality, being open about women’s sexual agency and willing to leave space for it – those are the ways we can learn to value female sexuality. We have to speak up, and then we must listen, but that cannot start until open conversation is allowed.
Samaria Johnson is a junior majoring in history. Her column runs biweekly.
