Raunch Culture Rip-Off
Carolyn McCulley
Fade to black; await the next scandal.
That is, until a staff member at one of those porn distributors realizes he could save his boss the money-for the producer of Girls Gone Wild already had sexual footage of this call girl when she was an 18-year-old on spring break in Florida. She loses her million-dollar offer; he likens the archival discovery to "finding a winning lottery ticket in the cushions of your couch."2
And millions of people who had never before seen nor heard of Girls Gone Wild are suddenly made aware of one of the prime showcases for the "female raunch culture" that arose in the third-wave of feminism.
I had only heard of the show a few years earlier, when a critique titled Female Chauvinist Pig: Women and Raunch Culture by Aries Levy was published in 2005. I was intrigued because I had not encountered anyone within the feminist movement standing up to say women were making horribly wrong choices in the name of sexual liberation. So I previewed the book on Amazon, where the featured chapter was about the author's experience with the Girls Gone Wild camera crew. Stunned by the description of the show, I shut down my browser. There was no way I could order the book. I was going to have to derive my understanding of Levy's thinking from magazine summaries and other second-hand sources.
So in this essay I will try to be as discreet as possible (challenging to do!), but if you just want to read the executive summary, here it is: God created sex. It is very good within His design. Outside of God's design, it inevitably causes problems. We are living in the fallout of that every day. Young women who are assaulted with "porn-positive" ideology of third-wave feminism are jaded, cynical, infected, and often deflated about these "freedoms." They are ripe to hear about God's plan for their sexuality. As Christians, we should not shrink from meeting them where they are and boldly demonstrating and proclaiming the gospel. We need to be able to discuss sexuality in candid but redemptive ways. We need to be clear that we are not anti-sex; rather, we are for the passion, trust, and enjoyment of marital sex as described in all its glowing celebration in Song of Solomon. The Judeo-Christian perspective celebrates female sexuality; therefore, we have all the more reason to pipe up when female sexuality is distorted and abused in our culture.
So if you are wondering why young girls wear "porn star" T-shirts, why the paparazzi offer 24-hour coverage of the latest sex scandals of the "train-wreck" stars, why a local gym offers "strip aerobics," and why it's nearly impossible to find attractive yet modest clothing for yourself or your daughters-you are experiencing the effects, in large part, of third-wave feminism. "Sex-positive" or "porn-positive" theories are a large part of third-wave feminism. Third-wave feminists did an about-face, dismantling the opposition to pornography and sex work of the second wave by claiming participants in pornography and sex work can be "empowered." Third-wave feminists have also embraced a fluid concept of gender and rejected any universal definition of femininity.
Girls Gone Wild
Several years ago, writer Ariel Levy-who was born in 1974 in the midst of second-wave feminism and grew up on its logic-started to notice "something strange." Everywhere she went it seemed pornography had gone mainstream, infecting mainstream TV, magazines, fashion, and entertainment. "Raunchy" had become synonymous with "liberated"-a trend that Levy found very confusing:
Some odd things were happening in my social life, too. People I knew (female people) liked going to strip clubs (female strippers). It was sexy and fun, they explained; it was liberating and rebellious. My best friend from college, who used to go to Take Back the Night [feminist antisexual violence] marches on campus, had become captivated by porn stars. Only 30 years (roughly my lifetime) ago, our mothers were supposedly burning their bras and picketing Playboy, and suddenly we were getting implants and wearing the Bunny logo as symbols of our liberation. How had the culture shifted so drastically in such a short period of time?3
So Levy decided to research this trend, which included spending three days with the Girls Gone Wild video crew. In a nutshell, GGW cameras visited party spots like Mardi Gras or spring-break destinations, where they encouraged drunk young women to expose themselves or engage in sexual scenarios. The women who participated and the men who egged them on received either GGW T-shirts or trucker's caps. That's all they got-while GGW's founder, Joe Francis, earned millions from this footage. In one article, Levy quotes Mia Leist, GGW's 25-year-old tour manager, saying, "people flash for the brand."4
Though heterosexual men are the obvious GGW audience, Levy says it no longer makes sense to just blame men. Women are not just in front of the cameras, they are also behind the scenes, making decisions, and making money:
Playboy is a case in point. Playboy's image has everything to do with its pajama-clad, septuagenarian, babe-magnet founder, Hugh Hefner, and the surreal world of celebrities, multiple "girlfriends" and nonstop bikini parties he's set up around himself. But in actuality, Playboy is a company largely run by women. Hefner's daughter Christie is the chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises. The CFO is a middle-aged mother named Linda Havard. The Playboy Foundation (which has supported the ERA and abortion rights among other progressive causes) is run by Cleo Wilson, an African-American former civil-rights activist. A woman named Marilyn Grabowski produces more than half the magazine's photo features. . . . That women are now doing this to ourselves isn't some kind of triumph, it's depressing.5
After spending three days with the GGW crew, Levy was more confounded than ever. "My argument is that women have forgotten that sexual power is only one, very limited, version of power and that this spring-break variety of thongs-and-implants exhibitionism is just one, very limited version of sexuality," she writes.
The marketing of this brand of female sexuality starts at a very young age. Wendy Shalit, author of Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good, says that even six-year-old girls are affected by the intentional sexuality of Bratz dolls, "Hello Kitty" thongs, and suggestive clothing in the girls' department. As she writes, this kind of premature sexualization of girls is startling even to the pros:
Across the political spectrum, many have expressed dismay that the legendary porn star Ron Jeremy was mobbed by families at Disneyland who wanted to have their picture taken with him, or that thirteen-year-old girls told the porn star Jenna Jameson at a book signing that they look up to her as an "icon." Reportedly, both Jeremy and Jameson were shocked to learn of their young fan base.
But if we don't want this kind of thing to happen, then it seems that we need new role models. And we need them fast. For girls to have meaningful choices and genuine hope, the "wild girl" or "bad girl" cannot seem like the only empowered option.6
Unfortunately, many young women feel they have no other option in their relationships. Donna Freitas, a professor at Boston University and the author of Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance & Religion on America's College Campuses, says that many of her students are unhappy with their own behavior when it comes to dating, romance, and sex. In her national college survey of more than 2,500 students, Freitas discovered that 41 percent of those who reported "hooking up" (a range of sexually intimate activities unconnected to any committed relationship) were "profoundly upset about their behavior." The 22 percent of respondents who chose to describe a hook-up experience (the question was optional) used words like "dirty," "used," "regretful," "empty," "miserable," "disgusted," "ashamed," "duped," and "abused" in their answers. An additional 23 percent expressed ambivalence about hooking up, and the remaining 36 percent were more or less "fine" with it, she reports.7
In her class, "Spirituality & Sexuality in American Youth Culture," Freitas assigned Wendy Shalit's book, A Return to Modesty, fully expecting her students to reject it. Instead, she reported that her students are "fascinated" by Shalit's description of modesty as a virtue, especially in the context of religious faith.
The class was equally attracted to some evangelical dating manuals, like "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" by Joshua Harris and "Real Sex" by Lauren Winner, that I asked them to read. They seemed shocked that somewhere in America there are entire communities of people their age who really do "save themselves" until marriage, who engage in old-fashioned dating with flowers and dinner and maybe a kiss goodnight. They reacted as if these authors describe a wonderful fantasy land. "It would be easier just to have sex with someone than ask them out on a real date," one student said, half-seriously.8
This casual attitude toward sex comes with a high price. In March, 2008, the Centers for Disease Control released a study that shocked many: An estimated one in four (26 percent) young women between the ages of fourteen and nineteen in the United States-or 3.2 million teenage girls-is infected with at least one of the most common sexually transmitted infections (human papilloma virus (HPV), chlamydia, herpes simplex virus, and trichomoniasis). The study also found that African American teenage girls were most severely affected. Nearly half of the young African-American women (48 percent) were infected with a sexually transmitted infection) compared to 20 percent of young white women.9
The hook-up generation not only has their sexual health and future fertility at risk, they also are betting on a short-lived commodity: sexual attractiveness as defined by the porn industry. The leaders of third-wave feminism are now in their mid-30s to early 40s, and may soon appreciate the counsel of the generation ahead of them:
At a spring 2008 conference at the University of Baltimore School of Law, academics, activists and students from around the country gathered to talk about feminism and societal change. There was some discussion of what distinguishes second- and third-wavers. When one young women's studies major asked what was wrong with drawing on her sexuality to gain power over men, one of her "elders" reminded her that such power was, at best, temporary, and that education and good employment might provide more lasting power.10
The Porn Wars
There was a time, however, when feminists did not celebrate pornography, but vilified it-saying that pornography denigrates women. Women Against Pornography (WAP) coalesced in the late '70s out of several feminist organizations, and was loosely led by feminist author Susan Brownmiller, who wrote Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, and the militant activist Andrea Dworkin, among others.
Dworkin campaigned frequently on the subject, helping to draft a law in 1983 that defined pornography as a civil rights violation against women. The law was later overturned by an appeals court as unconstitutional. Dworkin even testified before a national commission on pornography that was formed in 1985 under President Reagan. Led by Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and informally known as the Meese Commission, this group included several prominent Christian leaders, including Focus on the Family's founder, James Dobson. WAP's anti-porn efforts were reported in a 1979 TIME magazine article:
Perhaps the basic question is whether pornography really incites men to violence against women, or does the opposite-lets them sublimate their aggressive sexual fantasies in a relatively harmless way. The 1970 report of the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography implied that it did indeed serve as a useful social outlet. But since then, at least one of the study's authors is having second thoughts. Says University of Pennsylvania Sociologist Marvin Wolfgang: "The weight of evidence [now] suggests that the portrayal of violence tends to encourage the use of physical aggression among people who are exposed to it." Backed by such support, Brownmiller and other feminists have every intention of stepping up their fight, hoping to recruit still more converts to their cause.11
Serial killer Ted Bundy could have been their poster child. In the final hours of his life before his execution in 1989 in Florida, Bundy gave a controversial video interview to Meese Commission member James Dobson. In it, he stressed over and over the influence of violent media and pornography on his thinking, and on the thinking and impulses of the other men in prison with him:
I've lived in prison for a long time now and I've met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence, just like me. And without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography-without question, without exception. Deeply influenced and consumed by an addiction to pornography. There's no question about it. The FBI's own study on serial homicide shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornography.12
Bundy claimed he wanted to make this warning about pornography his final message because he had seen the mainstreaming of porn and he was concerned for future generations.
Opposition to pornography was the link between two groups that typically had little else in common: the Christian Right and feminist activists. For a brief period in 1980s, they found themselves on the same page. It wasn't a comfortable alliance for feminists. Nor did all self-identified feminists support the anti-porn activism:
The movement quickly ran into trouble. In 1983, the members of WAP pushed forward a ban on pornography in Minneapolis, which they hoped would serve as a national model. Suddenly, their support dropped through the floor. To many, the campaigners began to look like puritans who were taking things too far, and free-speech activists rose up with a shout. Finally, a few young women emerged with shocking news: They liked pornography. 13
The "porn wars" were the last gasp of second-wave feminism. As the sexual liberation message collided with the victimhood message, the resulting contradiction led to serious in-fighting. As Ariel Levy explains, the anti-porn faction of feminist leaders "felt they were liberating women from degrading sexual stereotypes and a culture of male domination and-consequently-making room for greater female sexual pleasure. [Their] opponents thought they were fighting a new brand of in-house repression. . . . Everyone was fighting for freedom, but when it came to sex, freedom meant different things to different people." 14
Concurrently, porn was becoming more main-stream-first through the VCR and then through the Internet. Just as the Jazz-Age daughters of New Woman suffragists rebelled against the relentless seriousness of their mothers and their causes, so did the daughters of "patriarchy is the problem" second-wavers. The result was the "sex-positive" or "porn-positive" feminism that arose in the third-wave of the early 1990s. It hinges on the idea that sexual freedom is essential to women's freedom, and it opposes all legal or social efforts to control or limit sexual activities. According to one definition, sex-positive feminists reject the vilification of male sexuality that they attribute to many radical feminists of the second-wave, and instead "embrace the entire range of human sexuality," including gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered sexuality.
"Real Women Are Bad Porn"
Some argue that today's raunch culture is a reaction to the omnipresence of pornography. In order to get and keep a man's attention, women feel that they have to act and look just like porn stars. According to a New York magazine article, one Manhattan-based sex therapist says that she's seen many young men coming in to chat about Internet-porn-related issues. "It's so accessible, and now, with things like streaming video and Webcams, guys are getting sucked into a compulsive behavior," she says. "What's most regrettable is that it can really affect relationships with women. I've seen some young men lately who can't get aroused with women but have no problem interacting with the internet. I think a big danger is that young men who are constantly exposed to these fake, always willing women start to have unreal expectations from real women, which makes them phobic about relationships."15
Feminist writer Naomi Wolf agrees. "The ubiquity of sexual images does not free eros but dilutes it," Wolf writes. "Today, real naked women are just bad porn."16
Twenty years down the line from the "porn wars" of second-wave feminism, Wolf notes that part of what was forecasted then has come true now-and part was wrong. In an article titled "The Porn Myth," Wolf writes of running into anti-porn feminist Dworkin at a benefit, which caused her to reflect on what Dworkin had once prognosticated.
If we did not limit pornography, she argued-before internet technology made that prospect a technical impossibility-most men would come to objectify women as they objectified porn stars, and treat them accordingly. In a kind of domino theory, she predicted, rape and other kinds of sexual mayhem would surely follow.
She was right about the warning, wrong about the outcome. As she foretold, pornography did breach the dike that separated a marginal, adult, private pursuit from the mainstream public arena. The whole world, post-Internet, did become pornographized. Young men and women are indeed being taught what sex is, how it looks, what its etiquette and expectations are, by pornographic training-and this is having a huge effect on how they interact.
But the effect is not making men into raving beasts. On the contrary: The onslaught of porn is responsible for deadening male libido in relation to real women, and leading men to see fewer and fewer women as "porn-worthy." Far from having to fend off porn-crazed young men, young women are worrying that as mere flesh and blood, they can scarcely get, let alone hold, their attention. 17
Peanut Butter and Jelly
As I was writing this essay, I met a fifteen year-old girl who had not been exposed to Christian thinking about sexuality. Her sexual experiences to date in her young life are jaw-dropping-and my concept of saving sex until after marriage is equally as foreign to her. She was initially attracted to the idea of men treating women with respect and honor, but when she found out part of that was due to the delayed gratification of sexual activity, she couldn't fathom it. She thought for sure something was wrong with men who could exercise that kind of self-control. And since marriage has not been a future expectation, either, she has had no particular reason to decline the most base offers for group sex and other hook-up sexual activity.
I've been thinking a lot about her as I've worked on this material. Her notion of sexuality and relationships breaks my heart. Her acceptance of how she's been treated by men-who, I might add, have committed a crime because she is a minor-breaks my heart, as well. Though she is an extreme example, she is not uncommon. To her and her friends, sex is a transaction that you negotiate and then discard. I don't know if I will have any opportunities to talk with her again in the future, but I pray I do. There are many things I want to talk to her about, including the Christian perspective on sex.
I didn't become a Christian until I was thirty. I lived a liberated lifestyle, you might say, until that time. My understanding of the Christian perspective of sex was "just say no." So I was pleasantly surprised as a new believer to hear pastors and women's ministry speakers teach openly about God's good gift of sex. They weren't inappropriate, but it was refreshing to hear an unblushing celebration of marital sex being presented to the church. As C. J. Mahaney writes in his book to Christian husbands:
It is regrettable that when it comes to sex, secular culture sees Christianity as concerned primarily with prohibitions. Obviously, sin regularly corrupts God's good gift of sex by divorcing it from the covenant of marriage and trying to create a counterfeit experience. All misuse of sexuality is condemned in Scripture. The Bible's warnings against immorality and the power of lust must never be denied or ignored; so it's right that we keep them clearly in mind. Even in Solomon's Song, we find repeated admonitions against premature sexual activity (2:7; 3:5; 8:4).
But once joined in marriage, things change, guys! In the beginning, God looked upon the erotic union of husband and wife and saw that it was good. His opinion has not changed in the slightest. . . . Sex was created for marriage, and marriage was created in part for the enjoyment of sex.18
This is a message that needs to cut through our porn-saturated media. The timeless solution is the one-on-one mentoring model. The Bible instructs older women to teach younger women how to love their husbands, be self-controlled, and pure (Titus 2:4). Purity is not only for the time before marriage, but also the time afterward: "Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral" (Heb 13:4, NIV). I believe pastors should be teaching the church on Sundays what the Scriptures say about sex, but the one-on-one settings make room for the candor, questions, and confession that elude the larger crowds.
We need to combat any false notions of sexuality and piety by presenting a clear and unblushing portrayal of marital intimacy. A generation that is well acquainted with the physical variations of sex needs to hear about the powerful security, attraction, and emotional freedom that attend monogamous marital fidelity. Young women who are constantly disrespected by men need to hear how marriage is built upon mutual respect and honor-and how that should make a wife feel cherished and prized. They also need to know that God is not ashamed of what He created. "Even though it's intensely physical, it is not the least bit unspiritual," Mahaney writes. "When a married couple is in the midst of enjoying sexual relations, they may not be experiencing holiness in the same way they experience it when praying or worshiping God, but make no mistake-that is a very holy moment. It is God's desire that every Christian couple. . . regularly enjoy the best, most intimate, most satisfying sexual relations of which humans are capable."19
In the popular media, married sex gets no applause. If it is referenced at all, it is the stuff of dull jokes. This is why personal mentoring is important. Older women who have successfully weathered the various seasons of marriage need to give practical sexual counsel. Such as making peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner-a timeless tip from C.J.'s wife, Carolyn:
Recently I had a conversation with a young first-time mother. "Before our baby was born," she explained, "I had plenty of time to romance my husband, clean my home, and cook delicious meals. But now there are days I'm still in my bathrobe at three o'clock in the afternoon, because I've spent all morning caring for our new-borns! So how do I keep my husband a priority when my child requires so much time and attention?" she asked.
"Honey," I replied, "fix your husband a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner and give him great sex after dinner, and he will feel prized by you!"20
As older women mentor younger women in God's design for sexuality, it also presents an opportunity to circle back to basic issues like modesty in clothing and emotional expression.
"His Banner Over Me is Love"
A girl putting on an immodest outfit will think she just looks good-because that's what fashion dictates. Her outfit may not be the true reflection of her values, but it's what she can buy. So she continues to add to the daily accumulation of the raunch culture's visual impact. In the same way, I think many young women imitate porn stars (on a variety of levels-from dress to personal grooming to relationships) because it's what they believe is attractive to men. If it's "hot," it must be good. In the absence of other teaching, there is a certain perverse logic to this.
That's why we must proclaim without apology the beauty of modesty and restraint. As one of my married male friends tried to explain to my sexually active fifteen-year-old acquaintance: "The price of a candy bar is one dollar because that's all that it costs to get it. You don't pay two dollars because you don't have to; one dollar is sufficient. Well, the price of my wife was everything I had and then some. She was not going to part with the treasures of her sexuality, her affections, her romance, and her support apart from my pledging my life and love to her until death do us part. She was priceless, in some ways. And I knew that going in-she demanded my respect and honor. And it's been completely worth it."
I long for young women to understand this principle. It is natural for us to want to captivate a man's attention. But a Girls Gone Wild T-shirt is no symbol of love. It's simply a badge of a tawdry performance. It conveys no lasting security or honor or even attraction.
The bride in the Song of Solomon speaks of something far more precious: "He has taken me to the banquet hall, and his banner over me is love" (Song 2:4, NIV). This bride has received public affirmation and acclaim, and she wears her husband's love like a banner. Instead of insecurity or disappointment, this woman revels in her status: "Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love" (v. 5). She is no hook-up casualty or discarded sexual partner. She is celebrated and prized-and intoxicated with her husband's sexual attention.
This is the message that young women today need to hear. God's original design for sex is still the best.
ENDNOTES
1 This essay is taken from the new book, Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World by Carolyn McCulley (Chicago: Moody, forthcoming). It traces the rise of three waves of feminism, from 1848 through today, and compares feminist ideology with biblical teaching on womanhood. In this excerpt, Carolyn addresses the impact of the third-wave of feminism, which began in the early nineties-just about the time Carolyn herself was converted from feminism to Christianity.
2 "'Girls Gone Wild' founder says Spitzer call girl was in video archives; pulls $1 million offer," Associated Press wire story, Wednesday, March 19, 2008.
3 Ariel Levy, "Arial Levy on 'Raunch Culture,'" The Independent UK, December 4, 2005. Online: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/ariel-levy-on-raunch-culture-517878.html.
4 Ariel Levy, "Dispatches from Girls Gone Wild," Slate.com, March 22, 2004. Online: http://www.slate.com/id/2097485/entry/2097496/.
5 Levy, "Ariel Levy on 'Raunch Culture.'"
6 Wendy Shalit, Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good (New York: Random House, 200 7), xxiv-xxv.
7 Donna Freitas, "Sex Education," The Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2008, W11. Online: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120728447818789307.html?mod=taste_primary_hs.
8 Ibid.
9 CDC press release issued at the 2008 National STD Prevention Conference, March 10, 2008. Online: http://www.cdc.gov/STDConference/2008/media/release-11march2008.htm. The results of this study were later disputed by Neil Munro in "Birth of a Number," National Journal, May 31, 2008. Though some of Munro's critiques are warranted, it would be an error to dismiss the CDC's report altogether. The original CDC release referred to STDs instead of STIs (which is the more accurate term). Critics have also assailed the study for including nineteen-year-old women, which apparently they believe are too old to be of concern. Nevertheless, because of the high rate of sexual activity among 19-year-olds, their inclusion in the study seems warranted.
10 Jane C. Murphy, "The Third Wave," The Baltimore Sun op-ed, March 24, 2008. Online: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.women24mar24,0,500379.story.
11 Unattributed, "Women's War on Porn," TIME, August 27, 1979, as archived on http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920580-1,00.html.
12 "Fatal Addiction: Ted Bundy's Final Interview," Focus on the Family Films, 1989.
13 Eliza Strickland, "Just Desserts," SFWeekly.com, March 29, 2006. Online: http://www.sfweekly.com/2006-03-29/news/justdesserts/.
14 Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture (New York: Free Press, 2006), 63.
15 "David Amsden, "Not Tonight, Honey, I'm Logging On," New York, October 13, 2003.
16 Naomi Wolf, "The Porn Myth," New York, October 20, 2003.
17 Ibid.
18 C.J. Mahaney, Sex, Romance and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband Needs to Know (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 75.
19 Ibid.,14.
20 Carolyn Mahaney, Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), 83.
