sexualizing

 

Welcome to the third installment of "Ms. Opinionated," Bitch's new advice column, in which readers have questions about the pesky day-to-day choices we all face, and I give advice about how to make ones that (hopefully) best reflect our shared commitment to feminist values—as well as advice on what to do when they don't.

Today: Advice for a woman who wants other feminists to stop dressing so sexy so she can respect them.

The ever-brilliant Kate Harding brought this train wreck to my attention via her post on Jezebel:

Let's discuss after the jump!

I opened a big can of feminist worms on Thursday with my post I Blame Porn, In which I talked about how the mainstreaming of mass-produced hetero porn is starting to influence—negatively—the cultural perceptions of what’s sexy, particularly among teenagers. I was stunned by the number of Bitch readers who shouted me down, proclaiming that bald-vadge, facial-cumshot studio-produced porn isn’t misogynist and doesn’t have any effect at all on sexual behavior. The most common reason it couldn’t be bad or misogynist? Because they like it and imitate it and they choose their choice! Free will FTW! Guess what, folks? You can choose your choice, but you do not live—or fuck—in a vacuum. No matter how liberated you think you are, the truth is, your sexual development did not just happen spontaneously. We are having different sex than our mothers did. They had different sex than their mothers did. Why? The changes in their sex lives reflected the huge changes in the culture that they lived in. When society shifts the way it regards sex—and women—our sex lives change. Whether those cultural changes are due to birth control, women's lib, the destigmatizing of gay and premarital sex, greater access to written erotica or internet porn, there's no doubt that when it comes to our sexual behavior CULTURE MATTERS. If you think your sexual desires and behavior just sprang up sui generis because you are a unique individual with free will who's completely uninfluenced by society, you are kidding yourself.