Continuing my education in Feminism, I’ve been reading this, mind-blowing, book – Female Chauvinist Pigs, by Ariel Levy (Amazon). Essentially it’s about how the sexualization of women and the increasing sexual promiscuity of women is not female liberation. To be clear, the book is not anti-sex. It’s pro-sex. But, sex for pleasure and not for celebrity. If sex is a performance, we have for show or because it’s how one becomes popular, but our own sexual pleasure is not even considered… that is not freedom.
“…I would be happier if my daughter and her friends were crashing through the glass ceiling instead of the sexual ceiling. Being able to have an orgaism with a man you don’t love or haveing Sex and the City on television, that is not liberation. If you start to think about women as if we’re all Carrie on Sex and the City, well the problem is: You are not going to elect Carrie to the Senate or to run your company. Let’s see the Senate fifty percent female; let’s see women in decision-making positions —that’s power. Sexual freedom can be a smoke-screen for how far we haven’t come.”
Erica Jong (author of Fear of Flying – a book I found on a shelf and started to read as a teenager, but could not finish, I think I found it dull), quoted in the Female Chauvinist Pigs.
This book was an eye-opener for me. I’ve not bought any books by porn-stars and I don’t measure my worth in the number of men I have “conquered”, but I definitely enjoyed Sex and the City. I think one of the most fascinating points was about sex education in the US – abstinence is the big one (insert usual metrics about ineffectiveness, ignored by conservatives here), but the liberals message is merely “sex is ok”, at no point are teenager girls encouraged to take ownership of their own pleasure. Pleasure doesn’t even come up in the list of reasons they give to have sex.
So – at times explicit. Somewhat depressing. But, really, fascinating. Highly recommend.