Do we still live in the 1950s? Of course we don’t. It is the year 2012.
But there are people out there who would like to put women back into the roles of the 1950s, all because they have the right to choose what happens to their bodies.
Let me explain…
Slut shaming is the term used when women take responsibility for their actions by choosing abortion and are informed that what they were really doing is copping out.
Slut shaming is the act of stating that sexually active women, whatever they’re doing, should be living up to someone else’s standards instead of their own and making the decisions someone else should make instead of the decisions that are best for them.
It’s the claim that pregnancy and children are the appropriate punishment for sexual activity, instead of a loving choice by people who want them. You don’t have to say the word to be doing it.
People used to blame people for contracting HIV and AIDS. Sometimes, this still happens.
And it’s wrong, antiquated, and spawned out of ignorance of the science behind HIV and AIDS.
Granted, there are still people today who deliberately take stupid risks by having unprotected sex unnecessarily when it could be prevented otherwise and they could knowingly prevent it beforehand. I am not referring to rape. I am referring to consensual sex in which one partner bullies another into not using protection because they whine that they “don’t like the feel of it” or “if they use protection it must mean that they don’t love me or trust me enough”, or “if one partner already has an STI, why bother protecting oneself from other diseases?”. These are examples of things people could hypothetically say as reasons for engaging in deliberate consensual unprotected sex.
It’s even harder, almost impossible, for men to come forward when they have been sexually assaulted by either men or women.
Ever seen Disclosure, starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore?
The most difficult cases are when a man is assaulted by a woman. It happens. Think about the implications in Western society today. A man’s entire socialization is called into question: “If you let yourself get beat up by a woman, you must not REALLY be a man. Maybe you’re queer.” (I am pro-queer, by the way. I use this as an example of how hard it is for men to come forward and the kind of bigotry they face in doing so.)
As Winona Ryder’s character said in Girl, Interrupted: “How many girls would a guy my age have to sleep with to be considered promiscuous? Ten, twenty, one hundred? And how many guys would I have to sleep with to be considered promiscuous? Three, five, ten?”
Example of slut shaming in literature: Fantine in Les Miserables. She is fired from her job at Madeleine’s factory in Montreuil-sur-Mer because her boss (the woman supervisor) believes that Fantine is immoral for having a child out of wedlock and then not telling her employer, who we are told, hires only “virtuous” women and doesn’t want unsavoury types mixing with them and “corrupting” them. Fantine, desperate for money, sells her hair. Then she sells her two front teeth. Finally, she sells herself…and is further shamed by Inspector Javert when a prospective client attacks her. Fortunately, Madeleine is made aware of her predicament and rescues her from being sent to prison.
In April, 2011, a woman was ticketed and berated by a policeman in New York…for wearing a short skirt while cycling. As the article points out, wearing a short skirt while bicycling is “entirely legal and common”. While I do not approve of the title referencing Saudi Arabia (because it suggests racial profiling of a Muslim country as repressive, when that is not the case with all countries), the article gets the point across.
Sexual freedom, freedom of choice about our bodies and the freedom to wear what we want when we want – are our choices. Not the government’s.
