If you are looking for a book recommendation, you are in the right place! This past week I’ve been down in Florida on a brief sabbatical from my ever-so-challenging life, spending my days poolside in the blistering sun while my skin turns to leather- and one thing about me is I’m gonna read by the pool. So, I took a book off my night stand that I got months ago and has been collecting dust (I am actually kicking myself for not picking it up sooner). I am currently reading, “How to Make Love Like a Pornstar” written by Jenna Jameson with Neil Strauss. Not only am I absolutely shocked that a person could experience so many hardships before the age of 20, it’s genuinely so exciting and funny. It is a raw, emotional, tale about a determined, exceptional woman navigating life on her own while trying to make it in the world of adult entertainment. I highly encourage any woman out there to read this book, there are so many important messages about dating, self-image, family, addiction, and harassment; though some aspects of the book may be triggering, I think it’s important to know the struggles that women face in relation to sexualization at an early age. This book, though I’m only half way through, got me thinking about the expectations for young women in our American society, as well as the multitude of double standards for women versus men. This week we will be tackling a beast I have been wanting to write about for a very long time, and this book gave me the perfect excuse. Pour yourself a cocktail, get comfortable, or continue secretly scrolling on your phone while at work… and let’s get into it.
I have said this before and I will continue to reiterate it, I absolutely love to binge reality tv. Specifically dating shows, but I also am an avid fan of the Bravo universe, and after indulging in “How to Make Love Like a Pornstar,” I now love to watch Girls Next Door. Something I can’t seem to ignore in all of these shows, whether they are about finding love on an island or spending a summer in a shared house, the average looking man gets away with far more than any woman could even try to. The standards we as a society have for men lower with each rise and set of the sun, meanwhile the long list of expectations we have for women continues to grow. A man could cheat, lie, steal, and maybe even attempt murder and society would still give him a shot at a comeback tour. A man could cheat on his girlfriend of nine years with her best friend and rather than taking any accountability, we will call her nasty names for not wanting to shoot a scene with him. Somehow women are always held accountable for men’s lack of consideration or human decency; It’s not just society though, it’s us girls too. I have found myself in a few too many situations making excuses for boys who have taken advantage of me or my kindness. Maybe I was giving him the wrong impression, maybe I shouldn’t have done this or said this, etc. It’s always why did you allow him to do that? And never why did he think it was okay to do that to me? Wanna know my answer? It’s due to the way we raise girls and boys to fit into the society we have accepted to endure. Rather than raising children to be the change, we raise them to conform; with that comes a sh*t ton of problems that worsen the state of the patriarchy. Just this Saturday, my sister and I went out to one of our favorite bars in Florida and we had to leave because a creepy man who smelled like vomit kept harassing us. Even after a security guard told him to leave us alone, it was still uncomfortable so we ran outta there… literally ran.
There is a ridiculous amount of double standard in our heteronormative society between men and women, causing them to be at odds with one another: shaving, weight, pay, chores, sexuality, emotions, career choices, familial desires, etc. Today however, I am simply going to be focusing on dating and sex. In one of my last posts I mentioned a phrase, this is one that I despise: boys will be boys. The ideology that men and boys can behave however they like solely because it’s who they are, or in their nature is complete and utter bullsh*t. But what is truly worse is that we have allowed that behavior and lack of consequence to continue on for so long due to complacency. There are countless women who speak up about their dreadful experiences with men and we still continue to push blame on women. Recently in the unfortunate world of podcasting we have seen a surge of men with microphones whining and b*tching about how men have to “be strong” and to “be providers” and boo hoo that’s so hard. I am by no means negating the experiences of men, however it’s kinda laughable to see grown men complain on a couch about how hard it is to be a man in this society when women’s reproductive rights are being stripped away. You live in a world, more specifically a country, that was founded on the belief that men have more value than women solely by birthright- I’m so sorry it’s tough for you. I think we spend too much time trying to justify people’s feelings rather than laying down facts. Don’t get me wrong there are great men out there, I have the best father in the world; but somewhere down the line chivalry did die. The fact of the matter is, we live in a society that coddles men in hopes it will raise them to be strong leaders. We also live in a society that victimizes and degrades women in hopes it will raise them to be submissive, that really teaches women to be strong and independent while forcing them to support themselves.
This week alone the amount of double standards I have seen placed on women compared to men (on television) was actually mind-boggling. The idea that women should have a “low” body count, but men can be as high as they’d like has always blown my mind. Often referred to as the key vs lock saying, a key that opens many doors is a master key but a lock that can be opened by many keys is a bad lock. This saying is so idiotic because essentially you’re saying women lose value if they have slept with “a lot” of people, but you’re not saying men lose value by sleeping with “a lot” of people- a double standard that makes no sense because nobody loses value by having sex. I have never agreed with the notion that sex or anything intimate is on a “give and take” basis. Why can’t it be mutual enjoyment? Why does everything that involves romance, or connection for that matter, have to be interchangeable? I think this is dangerous and teaches girls at a very early age that the only thing they have to offer is their body, but they can’t share their body because then they won’t be pure. I think I was in middle school, probably earlier though, when I realized that my body was being perceived in a “transactional” way. My body is a temple with a fixed amount of value, if I share my temple with people I lose some of that value, but if I don’t share I am a tease who then loses value because I won’t give things away. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Yeah I think it was middle school because that’s when we learned about the birds and the bees in health class and we spend a sh*t ton of time on the bees and maybe 20 minutes on the birds. We watched a video of a woman giving birth in an inflatable pool and were told, “you’re gonna get your period,” which I already knew all about. That was really it, I’m summarizing but there were no details and really no education. But did I learn how to put a condom on a banana? Absolutely. I often wonder if health education is so limited to keep people in a state of fear. If more women knew the truth about their bodies and their abilities maybe more women would be more reluctant to reproduce. Did you know that, “According to the Mayo Clinic, 10–20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, but the actual number is likely higher. This is because many miscarriages occur early on, before people realize they're pregnant. Some researchers estimate the overall rate is closer to 40%.” That is approximately 1 in every 4 pregnancies, I found that out this year- I’m 22. But I have always known that if men go too long without sex they get blue balls, and they will blame you for not meeting their sexual needs.
I had a full set of braces and really thick, long blond hair when I was 14. That was when I was back in high school when all I wanted to do was get a callback for the school musical and get invited to a basement party at my friend Maddy’s house. That was also the age I was when a 19 year old man pinned me to the ground and kissed me, ruining my first experience kissing a boy (I don’t count the time I played spin the bottle at an 8th grade bonfire). I remember running home and crying after because a moment I was told “is supposed to be magical” was gross and sweaty, and predatory. Unfortunately that was my first experience with boys crossing a boundary of mine, and even worse it was definitely not the last. For most of my life I have questioned if my real value comes from how I look or how I act, and it is a depressing balancing act. I often wonder if boys don’t like me because I come across as stand-offish or b*tchy, or if it’s because I don’t have a flat stomach or a tight ass. But then I wonder, why the f*ck do I care why boys don’t like me, at least if they don’t like me I don’t have to worry about them harassing me. That’s a sad thought, but it’s a real one. People always talk about being aware and cautious around strange men, but in my experience the ones that have hurt me the most are one’s I considered my friends. About 1 in every 6 women in the US have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. A common statistic people use to amplify the effect of sexual assault is 97, that’s because 97% of women in the United States who have been sexually assaulted. Do you think men include assault in their body count? Does their key lose value for opening locks without consent? But these aren’t the questions we ask victims of SA are they? No, we wanna know what you were wearing. How much did you have to drink? Why did you just go home? Why didn’t you say no? Why didn’t you speak up sooner? Are you just looking for attention? Are you sure that’s what even happened, you said you were pretty drunk? I know him, he wouldn’t do something like that. I know him too, and he did.
Women are expected to be so many things: maternal, kind, compassionate, sexual, prude, thin, curvy, loving, young, soft, polite, exciting, different, pretty, hot, emotionally intelligent, strong, dainty, funny, perfect. All these things, most contradictory, and yet human isn’t one of them. The second a woman shows any sign of weakness she is deemed undesirable, or uneducated, or not lady-like. A woman who is too independent must hate men or be a lesbian, a woman who is too dependent is desperate and male-obsessed. We are told to be strong, but not too strong because we don’t wanna make men feel insecure, and we are told to be soft but not too soft because we don’t wanna be taken advantage of. Life is chalk full of contradictions, hypocrites, and bullsh*t, the earlier we can acknowledge this the easier it is to fight back. The media is a major blame when it comes to subliminally trying to make people conform to society and “traditional gender norms,” but what’s worse is people’s consumption of said media. I’ve never found explicit sex scenes to be inappropriate or uncomfortable because I saw so much of it at an early age on tv. When I got to college and studied film I learned that Western media depicts sex and the human body in an animalistic nature, a predator vs prey scenario- even when consensual. Other countries depict sex and nudity in a natural manner, oftentimes coming across as intrusive and vulnerable. The media has conditioned us to believe that romance has to be one kind of way, we have become numb to violence and the pain of others for our own entertainment. Women have been treated as objects of entertainment for centuries, and that is okay if it is by their own desires. I have no problem with what other people do with their own bodies because it’s none of my business, but when other people begin to think that my body or other women’s bodies are at one’s disposal, that’s where I have a problem. We expect so much from the women in our lives and we settle for the men, perhaps raising both boys and girls with integrity and morals at the forefront rather than sex and stereotypes we would be in a better place. I understand that men experience hardships too, I am just trying to emphasize our different tolerance levels between men and women, boys and girls. We could sit here for hours and go back and forth about the different expectations of men vs women and people still would say we have it easy. Empathy seems to be fleeting by the day, along with respect and freedoms. I guess a simple summary would be to let women live, but I’ll just offer you “girl, so confusing” by Charli XCX featuring Lorde.
The strongest, coolest, most interesting and intelligent people in my life are women, and my dad but he doesn’t read these. My mother raised me to be resilient and that is what I am, I just want for other women to feel the same way about themselves. That doesn’t mean we have to degrade or tear men down, that’s not what I’m doing. I am simply stating the obvious. In my life the people who have made me feel unsafe, uncomfortable, and unattractive were men. I think we do a disservice to ourselves and other women when we put them in boxes or call them names; I hate the terms “girls girl” and “pick-me girl.” Women are capable of so many great things and by reducing them to their bodies or sexuality we destroy so much of themselves that they’ve worked to build. If a woman chooses to present herself in a sexual manner that is her choice, who are you to judge or degrade her for that? At an early age girls are taught to be palatable to the people around them, I’m sick of being tasteful. This here is base level feminism, simply acknowledging and speaking on the inequalities between men and women. We have to do more if we wanna see any kind of change. But this is just my experience and thoughts on the matter, I can’t speak for the experience of queer women, trans women, or women of color, all I can do is listen and offer support, as well as provide allyship to their communities all the time (not just during certain months). Some of your favorite celebrities can’t even do that, maybe it’s because they fear they will lose likability. I can’t blame them though, women are meant to be likable… aren’t we? Take some time in the next week to acknowledge the double standards between men and women, or even the difference in their depiction on tv. We’ve all heard about the male-gaze versus the female-gaze. I could write a whole nother blog about women’s depiction in horror films, and I did… stay tuned. Till then, stay flirty, stay thirsty, and speak up about what makes you angry or uncomfortable. You are responsible for you, that means advocating for your own safety, health, and rights.
“Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.” - Maya Angelou
See you soon,
Paige B.
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