It's not like her experience is extraordinary. Entitlement is everywhere. In Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Marco, a Peruvian man (weird coincidence) calls the character Esther a slut and tries to rape her because she took his diamond. Before the rape attempt, he jokes. "Perhaps I shall perform some small service worthy of a diamond". Huh. What a service. She took something of his, he is entitled to take something back. She's left bloody and beaten and exposed.
And then of course are the women all over the world still killed for not producing proof of virginity. The men are entitled to have their honor kept intact and not destroyed by a wayward woman. A dead woman is better than a dishonored man, right?
My god, we think. How horrid. How dare a man feel entitled to do such things!
Well, maybe because everything we say and do promotes that kind of thinking. Let's take a look at this completely harmless cute little pink ecard here I saw online.
"For all the women who brag about how many men want them, just remember... the cheapest prices attract the most customers."
Cheap. Price. Customers.
The problem with this kind of money language is that it's fully admitting we see a woman's sexuality as a commodity, one that men desperately want. It's a message to women that they need to set the price high and make men work for it. This card tells us that we have cheap women and expensive women. Cheap vaginas or expensive vaginas. Not to mention referring to men as customers who buy. This isn't looking good for anyone.
Men buy, women sell. Men are the only ones that want sex, women only use it as a power trip. There might be something wrong here.Yeah, so maybe we don't see a lot of murder in America over virginity, but the concept behind it all is still the same.
Let's look at a scenario. A girl sits in a bar and shakes her head in a disgusted manner at the girl who let a guy buy her drink and is now putting on her jacket to go home with him. The girl thinks, my god she's cheap. One drink and she gives it up. I would never do that. I'm WORTH MORE!
So the girl waits for things to be done properly. Eventually a guy calls her up, asks her out. He pays for dinner and drinks, and even the taxi home. Wow, I found a really nice guy, thinks the girl. We won't go all the way, but all that is worth SOMETHING. He paid for everything, we gotta make out for at least five minutes on the porch before I send him home. That's the trick, leave him wanting more, let him know I'm not CHEAP.
Still a commodity, still a price.
Let's say she does everything right. More dates, more making out on the porch, eventually a proposal and ring. Perfect wedding, perfect cake and perfect first night. She has proven to the world that she is one expensive dame.
I'm not against abstinence. I'm against women who stay abstinent because they are too scared not to be, who do it because of the fear of being called a cheap whore instead of actually having convictions. My heart hurts for women who keep the mindset that their worth is dependent upon their virginity, that they won't be wanted or valued because of a decision they made. I hurt for the women who did have sex and now listen to the lies that they are dirty, easy and worthless. People kill and abuse over this stuff, or just use shame as a weapon. Value, worth. Same economic language as before.
Ladies, if we keep believing in the price tag between our legs, we are destroying ourselves and our men. The guy who raped his girlfriend because he bought her dinner and she still didn't want to put out-that guy believed in prices and entitlement. I paid for it, give it to me. The ecard about cheap women probably isn't helping that viewpoint.
Add in the "cheap" or "expensive" clothes. The girl was dressed like a slut, she deserved to be raped. The miniskirt means she was offering herself at a "cheap" price, so men can't be blamed for buying. And the ladies who called her a slut in the first place- of course that has nothing to do with it. There's no way women are helping perpetuate violence against women, right?
I don't know what happens to the girl in our scenario. Maybe she has a great marriage. Maybe it's rough. Maybe the guy stops being romantic because he got what he wanted and now doesn't have to try so hard. Maybe the girl struggles with her value and identity because her virginity was power and that's gone now.
But bottom line is, stop putting a price. Ladies, decide what you want to do and when and why, and don't base it on fear or lies.Gentlemen, treat a woman right because it's right, not because of what you might get out of it. And everyone, if you hear your friend refer to a woman as a cheap whore, do us all a favor and slap them over the head.
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