"Whose Sexuality is it, Anyway?" (from "ISSUES: The Opposite of Everything I was Taught")

13 WHOSE SEXUALITY IS IT, ANYWAY?

My older daughter grew at a faster pace than most girls her age. Because of this, she was sent home from school more than once because of an outfit of hers that was deemed ‘inappropriate’ – even though all of the Dress Code guidelines in the school handbook were followed to the letter. In fact, we took the time every single school day to measure skirt and shorts lengths and shoulder strap widths. What a waste of time that was if I still had to take time out of my day to go to her school to argue with the Vice Principal about her clothing. Why? The answer I got from the vice principal was that her outfit “looked different on her” than it did on other girls in her class.

- how fucking stupid was he to actually come out and say that? I guess that depends on your perspective, doesn’t it? Just how was her teacher looking at her?

Is that her fault? Is it her fault if she looks ‘different’ in her outfit than other girls do?

School dress codes are the most insidious form of female objectification because they are enforced the moment girls begin their first real social interactions. What they are taught by schools is that they are responsible for thoughts and actions of others, and that that responsibility is more important than their own education.

How funny is it that we are taught that we are powerful enough to distract other people from their studies or cause them to act out in lustful delirium, and at the same time told that have no real power when it comes to matters of authority? Which is it? One would think if we were truly that powerful, all men would be cowering at our feet from the moment we all turned 10.

One of the most common arguments in favor of the dress code is that there should be a standard of what’s deemed appropriate. What standard would that be? Hide the sex organs?

If that were the case, then hands and mouths should be hidden, too. I don’t know about you, but I use both of them during acts of a sexual nature. But they are not considered sexual. Why? Is it because they have other, primary, functions? Technically speaking, the body parts we have deemed sex organs (at least on the outside of the bodies) are not primarily for sex. Breasts are necessary for milk production and delivery. Both the penis and the vagina have other, more important uses that make any sexual traits secondary; you won’t die from not having sex, but you will die without proper waste disposal.

Every little girl has that moment when she asks for her first bikini. When is told she can’t have one, the reason is almost always that she is too young.

Too young for what? To be recognized as a girl? Why? Is that something she had control over? Is that something she should be ashamed of? That’s effectively what we are telling them.

Do you know why most little girls want two-piece bathing suits? Because it’s easier to go to the bathroom in them! You ladies know exactly what I’m talking about.

And yet the women’s body is subjected to rules that imply ownership by anyone else other than herself.

Hide your boobies, honey; you’re not old enough for them. They have a power that you are too young to know how to control.

Women are told that there are times and places for allowable breast visibility.

Show me your tits, honey!

-- Whoa – are you breastfeeding? That’s disgusting! Put those things away!

We are taught that there are specific allowable times and circumstances that breast visibility is allowed:

1.      First, she must be over the age of 18. We wouldn’t want to send a man to jail because he was lured under false pretenses.

2.      When tending bar. Boobs are a huge draw to the bar crowd.

3.      In movies, music videos, video games, etc. i.e., for someone else’s entertainment.

Breast visibility is not allowed:

1.      During primary functional use. Breastfeeding ruins the male fantasy, and we can’t have that, can we?

2.      When the woman is over the age of 30 (unless her breasts are younger than she is).

3.      When they ‘belong’ to someone else.

Little girls cannot show signs of having breasts or feminine figures, because little boys are taught that they are their playthings - and what little boy doesn’t want his Christmas presents early? Any sign of sexuality is only allowed for someone else’s entertainment.

We are teaching little girls that their bodies are not their own. Little girls’ bodies are the devil to little boys, unfairly tempting them just by being there, distracting them from their school work, making them think all kinds of impure thoughts and act out aggressively.

Apparently, the only way to keep a boy out of trouble around girls is to hide the girls.

Yes, honey; it’s your fault. Without even trying, you made little Johnny daydream about/start at you during class and he did not pay attention enough to pass his test. Because of that, you are to be banished to your home until you learn that his grades are more important than yours. I’m sorry that you have breasts at your age. What was God thinking by giving them to you before you graduated high school? With all those boys we have to worry about getting promoted? We may have to stop your dance classes, too, if you want to still be able to wear shorts in the summer. You are too young for your legs to look like that.

The same people that tell us that women have to hide their sexuality are the same ones who applaud Hollywood’s sexiest – that is, of course, if they are the right age. The boyfriend or husband who doesn’t want ‘his woman’ to dress a certain way is the same one ogling the girl in the tight skirt. The gentlemen of old who would lay down their jackets over a puddle for a woman had wives and mistresses. The two men who would duel over a woman’s virtue were the two who were interested in getting a chance at taking it – duels were never fought over the honor of a woman the men didn’t know, or just women in general.

The fact that we were never told to ‘sow our wild oats’ says a lot. Even in the 50’s, when a man stepped out on his wife, it was her fault. Alcoholism and abuse were not allowed to be spoken about. If a girl was raped, someone always said ‘she asked for it.’ A woman should go to her husband a virgin. If you terrorize people, you will win many virgins. Was a man ever told to worry about keeping his woman happy at home to make sure she didn’t stray?

Sexuality wasn’t something women were supposed to reveal, and sex wasn’t something we were supposed to like (unless you were a slut, of course); it was something you had to keep carefully guarded until the time was right to ‘gift’ it to someone who didn’t need to reciprocate in the same manner. For a long time we weren’t allowed any powers, voices, or freedoms – yet our sexuality would be used against us in justification of the thoughts and actions of others.

For the record, anything can be viewed as sexually attractive, by anyone, at any time. It is not about the object that is found desirable, it is about the person looking at the object. And that is solely the responsibility of the observer, and not what he or she is looking at. It is time to stop giving girls the mixed signals about sexuality and sex, and the blame (and shame) for being female.

Let me tell you a secret: I happen to think that men's forearms can be sexy. Since I may or may not be a sexual deviant, and because I may not be the only one who thinks like this, wouldn't it be wise now to make sure all boys start wearing long-sleeved shirts? (#coverthosearms)

What this has done to us is to make us afraid for our daughters, attempting to curb their own exploration of body-consciousness and self-esteem by instilling in them that girls always have to worry about what and how other people are going to think about them. Only a mother would understand the torment of trying not to come out and say to a very little girl, “You can’t wear that because men might look at you the wrong way.” But when that little girl gets older that is exactly what we tell them. How do we raise girls that are brave, with a strong sense of self and positive self-esteem, if we instill the fears on them that we were brought up with that other people’s thoughts and actions are allowed to dictate their lives? How can we teach them that their bodies are nothing to be ashamed of?

Has it crossed anyone’s mind that maybe if young girls were allowed to be and explore their sexuality as it came up naturally and not on someone’s time schedule, that Halloween would have less sex appeal? Of course girls are going to dress ‘like that’; it’s the only night they don’t have to be what everyone else expects them to be.

            Everything about our bodies has been under someone else’s jurisdiction. That is the main blockage to healthy self-esteem, body-consciousness, and self-love – and it is the first blockage. Remember that the baby’s first praise has to do with looks. When a girl’s body starts changing and she has to worry about how she looks to someone else – to everyone else – she will never be able to accept herself fully as she is, because she will always disappoint someone.

The worst of the fallout of the debated ownership of women’s sexuality is the in-fighting that is happening between women. The social, familial, and religious imprinting of what is ‘proper’ for a woman is so generationally ingrained that many of us are unaware of how much we’ve bought what was sold to us. We then attack each other for breaking the unwritten laws of others that should have no bearing on how we live our lives. You aren’t beautiful unless you are a certain size and look a certain way. Self-expression, self-confidence, and self-esteem are not as important as what others think about you.

We follow the dress codes that are laid down for us, turning a blind eye to the fact that they were really just rules for girls, so that boys won’t get distracted. We use the school dress code as the base model of the dress code we ourselves created for purposes of getting into the business world – more manly and complete with stick up ass. Basically, we decided that to be able to compete with men in the business world we had to hide the fact that we were girls (again), because everything that made us girls was just too sexual (as perceived by others) – and feminine sexuality (just being a girl) is not to be taken seriously in matters of business.

How’d that work out for you, Ladies? You bossy bitches, you!

Sexuality is in the eye of the beholder. We should be giving ourselves the permissions and respect of honoring and appreciating what we were born with, however that may be, and give other women that same permission and respect as well. But we can’t because of our shame and our learned feelings of responsibility that healthy body-consciousness to us is sexual to another, and that is what we teach our daughters and enforce on other women around us.

We are catty to each other, and overcritical. Usually the first criticism of another woman has to do with how she dresses. When we attack the outfit of another woman it can usually be because:

·         We were sold a vision of how it was supposed to look and who was supposed to wear it, and how dare she attempt something that Macy’s says she’s not qualified for?

·         We are jealous – not because she ‘looks better’, but because we don’t have appreciation for our own body type. We envy her confidence more than her visual appearance.

·         We worry that she in that outfit could steal our man. (Forget that you are blaming her for the fact that your relationship is not stable.)

I hope you all noticed that all of these reasons are based in outside opinions – even the jealousy of the other woman’s self-appreciation, because she ‘shouldn’t be able to feel that way’.

Ladies, do you remember when you were younger and thought everything was possible for you? Even if your childhood was not rosy, didn’t you believe deep down inside that you would still win out in the end?

Do you remember the joy in wearing an outfit you felt really good/beautiful/confident in?

Do you remember, too, if you were made to feel any shame in it? What did that do to you? If that happened to you, then you must be totally aware of the power you have over your own daughter’s self-view.

Every single group that has been under a forced oppression of any kind will usually reach a point where they fight back, and the weapons they use are those qualities or aspects of theirs that had been specifically denigrated.  And they will do so in a big way. How many jokes had there been many years ago about how easy Catholic school girls were outside of school? Or divorced women?

Hell, the only reason any of us would even think to use sex as a weapon is because we grew up being shown that it was an effective one.

Why do women call each other ‘Bitches’? Part of any fight against being marginalized is to first take over the language and wording. A woman was called a bitch as an insult. Now, we have taken that word, mocked it, and made it our own. There is no power to it anymore. (Think about that; there are other words that have been appropriated for the same reason. It’s quite effective.)

The best way to disarm the enemy is to use their own words and weapons against them.

Another method is to take unwanted thoughts, behaviors, and speech to the extreme. You may not want to be as overtly sexual as Madonna, Beyonce, and Miley Cyrus, but they are doing all of us women a great favor by helping to desensitize the stigma against our being as ‘sexual’ as we want to be. And, they’ve given us all a little more room to move freely around in with less fear of judgment. Women will start to come out more when they see other women doing the same, and their fear will be lessened by the consolation that the small steps they take on their own are not as drastic as those pioneers.

I’m not condoning the battle of the sexes, I’m just pointing out the obvious. Race and gender rights … human rights … are being fought for. Still. That really is a shame.  It would be nice to live in a world where we are all accepted for who we are, and allowed to shine as bright as we were meant to, however we feel we were meant to, without being told we were wrong for it. These battles are signs of people’s desire for that change to occur. Eventually, we will work our way back into love. I do believe that.

But still, and despite all the steps we have taken forward, there is still a large measure of thought that women are ‘second’. Thank you, Adam. How nice of you to give a rib to help create the woman that ultimately distracted you.

And now, we have more dress codes. Apparently, your age matters in choosing clothing more than whether or not those jeans still fit. You can’t wear short skirts after age 30. You shouldn’t wear this if you are a mother. You shouldn’t dress like that if you are someone’s wife. You’re too young to wear that. You’re too old to wear that.

Still, our validation and ability to be taken seriously is reliant on our dress and physical appearance first. What happened to the idea of dressing to express ourselves?

I guess we are only allowed to say so much.

I admit, it is tough when we are the parents of little girls and we know ‘what’s out there’. Even women have used the “she’s asking for it” argument based on how a girl dresses. Yes, there are people who operate out of negative thinking. However, we can acknowledge the existence of the negative without marginalizing ourselves and our actions in deference to them – the bottom line is that girls get raped no matter what they are wearing or doing. It is not because of their clothing or how they look; it is because of what is in the other person’s mind. We need to stop thinking that ‘removing temptation’ is better than fixing wrong thinking. The standard behind the dress codes is flawed because it makes one group responsible for another. I don’t care how many years we’ve invested perpetuating it; maintaining a status quo because it’s there is as bad as staying in an abusive marriage because of a document you signed – nothing gets better.

Changing a generations-old set of standards is not as hard as we think, either. In actuality, it will only take one generation – the newest group; if they are taught differently, all the rest that follow will be different.

But if you need to follow a dress code:

What Not to Wear

• ·         Too-tight clothing: Clothing that interferes with your breathing is not good, because breathing is necessary for a lot of things.

•      Stiletto heels: There’s a time and place for high heels, even when you’re not standing on them; however, they should never be worn when swimming, jogging, or skiing, they’ll weigh you down, they don’t have a lot of traction, and you could slip and fall. They should also not be worn when riding a motorcycle; it’s just not practical.

•    '  Mom Jeans’: I hate to break it to you, ladies, you’ve been wearing Mom Jeans since you gave birth. If the jeans are hers, and she is a Mom, her jeans are Mom Jeans. Transitive Property. Do the math.

•      Miniskirts: These should never be worn when walking a tightrope or climbing a ladder, because others will be able to see your underwear. It’s probably not a good idea to wear them out in the snow either, because it’s cold. Be careful on slides. Hot slides can burn - especially those old metal ones.

•      Short-shorts: Like miniskirts, these should not be worn out in the snow, either; they are made for warmer weather.

•       Long, dangly earrings:  These can be dangerous if worn during sports or on rollercoasters – one could chip a tooth or poke an eye out.

•      Flip-flops: See Stiletto heels. But please, please, don’t wear socks with them. That’s just wrong.

•        Bright nail polish: If you wash dishes without gloves, or your hands are in and out of water a lot, bright nail polish isn’t a good idea; this type of activity will cause the nail polish to chip faster, and bright colors show off chips more obviously than the blander colors.

•         Sleeveless tops and dresses: If you have a sunburn on your arms and shoulders, you should not wear anything sleeveless if you are going back outside. Keep them covered until the sun goes down.

•     Belly button rings: These may only pose a problem if you work a job with high-level security or spend a lot of time at airports, as some of the metal in certain jewelry pieces may set off alarms in metal detectors. Do you want to spend the extra time removing your belly ring while taking off your shoes, taking your laptop out of your bag, and emptying your pockets?

Imposed dress codes are not Universal Law. Ignoring them will not cause you any harm like, say, ignoring the Law of Gravity might.

Your responsibility is to wear whatever makes you happy at any time, for any occasion. What others think is their own.


BUY THE BOOK HERE