The Cult of Female Sexual Power: A Boon to Women?

Today I came across a very interesting article: "Aging," by former supermodel Paulina Porizkova.

It seems to me that one of the things radical feminism has done, at least in years past, is to buy into the idea that women gain back power over their sexuality by deliberately flaunting it. It's something the whole fashion industry culture seems to take for granted. An overt, over-the-top focus on the sexual values of a woman's body is presumed to be a boon for women overall in the culture at large. Just look at the clothes in department stores for teen girls for evidence (I don't spend time doing this myself, but many others have commented on this phenomenon).

And closely connected to this is our culture's excessive and unbalanced worship of all things youthful. If it has to do with being young, a thing is presumed to be good. If something has to do with being old (especially looking old), it is presumed to be negative. The modeling and fashion industries, and advertising in general, promote these ideas. And there seems to be at least a kind of loose association in the culture between this and the progress women have made in society compared to years past.

It is true that things have become better in many ways for women over the last century. And this is, of course, a good thing. But consider the following excerpts from Paulina's article. I think she makes very prescient observations.

My first recognition of age setting in was exactly on my 36th birthday. I have no idea why, on this day of all days, I looked in the mirror and realized my face no longer looked young. I didn't look bad: only, the freshness had somehow disappeared. I immediately became hyper-conscious of my looks and went out and bought the most expensive cream on the market. (For your information, it did nothing.) And I began the battle of acceptance, something I have to do now almost every time I face a mirror. 

 And later,

But would I ever have dreamed that I would miss the time I couldn't walk past a construction site unmolested? These days when someone whistles at me, it's mostly a bike messenger about to mow me down.

And,

To me, to let yourself age means that you're comfortable with who you are. Yes, sorry, I do believe that all the little shots here and there, and the pulling of skin here and there and the removal of fat here and there, means you still have something to prove; you're still not comfortable in your skin. The beauty of age was supposed to be about the wisdom acquired and with it, an acceptance and celebration of who you are. Now all we want for people to see is that we have not yet attained that wisdom. Aging has become something to fight, not something to accept.

Contemporary fashion and marketing have made these negative experience worse for women. Does this indicate true progress for women?

According to the messages present in our popular culture (fostered at least in a background way by a radical feminist acceptance of the notion that control of sexuality is gained by flaunting it), the most important thing about a woman is her sexual power (and this is closely linked to her youthful appearance and exterior beauty). But in such a cultural climate what happens to society's valuation of women, and of women's own sense of worth to themselves, as they age?

I would suggest that the contemporary cult of female sexual power--the unbalanced hyper-emphasis of sexual values above all other human and personal values--has not been a boon to women. In the long run, it has turned into a curse, making them more vulnerable to abuse and to being seen as less than whole persons. The tendency to quickly demote and even disregard women as soon as they become less physically attractive with age plainly shows this. Women like Paulina know this. Do the rest of us?

"Sexting" Shows Failure of Radical Feminist Movement

There is a horrible phenomenon going on among American teenagers. It is called "sexting." This is where someone takes a nude photo (probably with a cell phone) of themselves and then sends it by cell phone message to another person, presumably a member of the opposite sex in whom the sender is either interested or is dating.

The consequences of this can be devastating, even to the point of suicide, such as happened with this 13 year old girl.

So many questions surround this. One is do parents have a clue about this? Another is how has radical feminism contributed to creating an environment where this is now possible on a large scale?

How has our society gotten to the point where a large number of teens, including those considered good kids, would even consider sending nude photos of themselves to other kids? This is not merely a function of technology being available (i.e. cell phones). I am quite sure that a mere 20 years ago, kids would never have been open to doing this in such large numbers as they apparently are today.

One of the bad ideas that has emerged from radical feminism is that if women choose of their own accord to embrace sexually provocative activities (e.g. provocative dress, pole dancing, nude photos, etc.), they can thereby "own" more completely their own sexuality. By "owning" their sexuality through acting out sexually, they supposedly somehow deplete the sexual control that men can assert. Somehow, some women have convinced themselves that by this sort of taking back of their sexuality, they can equalize the sexual power game between men and women. No longer will men have the advantage.

This line of thought is utter foolishness. And the fact that it is is tragically demonstrated by the suicides of teen girls (the girl above is not the only one) after they could no longer endure the humiliation by their peers after sexting a photo that got sent (of course) to others they had not intended to see it.

Rather than neutralizing or equalizing sexual power with men, this sort of behavior only makes women the agents of their own further sexual degradation. It makes them agents of their own abuse by men who most want to abuse them. They are handing themselves on a silver platter to exactly the sort of men who want to use and abuse women as mere objects.

But hey, let's just keep on selling sexually suggestive fashions to ten year old girls! Let's dress up 7 year olds in pageants like they are 20-year-olds flaunting their bodies. Let's have school counselors tell teens they can do what they want sexually as long as they are "ready" and they do it "safely." Let's have music videos and TV shows that display younger and younger girls flaunting themselves as sex objects. Let's have special web sites set up by Planned Parenthood specifically for teens that give explicit directions on perverse sexual techniques. Let's have school health classes that instruct, in a clinically neutral manner, how to do certain sexual things "safely" (if you are ready, of course).

The dark spirit behind a strand of radical feminism that is so misguided as to encourage women and girls to flaunt themselves as sex objects is part of the reason sexting is now common. It is merely another form, using technology, of the flaunting that is downright approved by radical feminism as part of the quest to "take back ownership" of their sexuality.

But this whole idea is absurd--that one could "take back" one's sexuality by degrading it and cheapening it.

One does not gain ownership of something by giving it away easily as though it were worth nothing to begin with. The most vile men--the sort who do not care to relate to women as whole persons but only want to use them as sexual objects for their own pleasure--I'm sure, do not look upon a woman strutting herself sexually as "empowered." They look upon her as an easy target, readily handing over to him exactly what he wants with little effort. And I'm sure such men are only too happy to let her believe the silly fiction that by handing herself over by her own choice to be used sexually as an object she is becoming more sexually empowered. Ridiculous. But, so long as she thinks this, she will convince herself not only to continue letting herself be used sexually as though her sexuality were worth nothing, she will tell herself she is happy in so doing. And the vile man smiles and thinks to himself, "What a deal! I can treat her like worthless dirt and she comes back smiling for more! Wow! Hurray for women's liberation!"

Among those teens who are sexting, I wonder which gender--boys or girls--sense somewhere in their hearts that by doing this they are making themselves potential targets for abuse? Thanks radical feminism. You have done such a great job that teen boys can now get girls to deliver sexually explicit photos to them simply by asking! Thank goodness these girls have become "empowered," or they might be easy targets for becoming sexually objectified and treated as things rather than as whole persons.