By Erin Riedel
Shortly after my BDSM column appeared, I received an e-mail from a concerned reader who believes that my column establishes an expectation for sex in relationships between college students, which can be harmful for everyone involved. I took his comments to heart. As a feminist, I believe that women and men should be able to express their sexuality in whatever manner they desire, and this includes the option to abstain from sexual activity, for whatever reason and period of time they choose. My column is addressed to people who are either engaging in sexual activities or are interested in reading about them. Though it is not my intention to pressure anyone to be sexually active or to establish such activity as the norm, I am aware that I am contributing to a culture that is chock-full of mixed messages about sex, particularly toward women. If you don’t have sex, you’re uptight, a prude or a religious nut. Have sex too soon, too often, or with too many people, and you’re a slut.
This is a point that was driven home for me this week while reading “Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen” by Alix Kates Shulman for my Reading Second Wave Feminism class. Throughout the novel we follow Sasha, the protagonist, through a long series of sexual experiences that leave her feeling more confused than satisfied or loved.
Though Sasha was having these experiences in the 1950s and 1960s, I was struck by how little has changed. Women remain, as Sasha says, damned if you do and damned if you don’t. While I want to be careful not to stereotype men, I’d venture to say that most women have had at least one experience of being pressured to go further sexually than they were comfortable with. In the best cases this results in a pouty, frustrated date, and in the worst cases, date rape. But conversely, don’t you dare want sex as much as he does! You might be as hot and ready as he is on the first date, but if you sleep with him you can forget about hearing from him again.
All of this produces a confusing maze of sexual expectations for women to wander through. We agonize over how long we should wait before we sleep with someone, while men can be ready for sex at any point in a relationship without repercussion. We keep careful track of how many partners we’ve had, trying to strike a balance between woefully inexperienced and “easy.” We are made to feel old-fashioned or like we’re “teases” if we don’t want to have sex. And until the culture changes, we are going to continue to be trapped by these expectations in which the “right” decision is so narrowly defined.
And how do we change culture? Slowly, and with great difficulty. But I believe that the first step is for women to reflect on themselves and decide what they want. Sometimes this is a matter of saying, “If I’m hot for a guy on the first date I’m going to sleep with him, and if he doesn’t respect me, to hell with him!” And other times this is a decision to abstain from sex, until marriage or indefinitely.
Women must make sexual decisions on their own terms, not based on what is expected of them by society or by individual men. Women must also accept and respect the sexual decisions of other women, whether or not they personally agree with them.
Only when we resist outside attempts at defining our sexuality will we begin to change culture in a way that will allow women to be accepted for who and what they are as sexual beings, whoever they may be.
Erin Riedel is a graduate student majoring in Women’s Studies and a staff writer for The Louisville Cardinal. E-mail her at: volvita@livejournal.com.
