Bitch goes to town blasting a Chicago Tribune article that uses the popularity of the Twilight films to tell us (again) that young women don't like sex and every guy is horndog sex fiend with no interest in relationships.
It's called "Hooking Up's Gender Gap: Men Make the Rules on Sex Today." Barf. I want to puke every time I read an article with hooking up in the title. I'm so sick of misguided essays on what's the matter with girls today. Either they're sluts having sex because feminism told them to, or virginal aesexuals desperate to keep their boyfriends happy in the back of the school bus. There. I just barfed again.
Bitch takes issue with writer Jonathan Zimmerman (Full disclosure: I used to work at the Trib in the 90s) with choice bits like this:
There are enough problems with the Twilight stories and their creepy gender relationships without making women feel bad (again) about being sexual. Shaming women for having sex drives while encouraging them to put out is not the clearest of healthiest of messages to be sending.Apparently, since the dawn of time, men have wanted sex and women have just put up with it in order to get boyfriends/husbands (this is something we've all heard before I'm sure). The Tribune article goes on to say that not only do women hate sex, but that men hate relationships (oh the clichés!) and just want to "hook up" with no strings attached. This is undoubtedly true of some men, but it is undoubtedly true of some women also, just as the reverse is true for men and women (and trans, queer, otherwise gendered individuals, though of course they were not mentioned in the article).
The article goes on to talk about the "good old days" when people had to date or even get married before they could get it on. I guess those days are over, and now teens have to fellate one another before they can even shake hands. Newsflash, Zimmerman: Some people still choose to go the old-fashioned route and get to know one another before sex. Some people don't. Though I am not denying that many teenagers feel pressured to engage in sex before they're ready, I am also not willing to deny that many young people just want to get laid, and they have the agency to make their own choices. Male, female, or in between.
Regardless of how you feel about teenage sexual norms, what on earth does this have to with Twilight? Well, lots of women saw the movie, and the movie is about a young woman who can't have sex with either of her suitors because of their supernatural powers, so that means that young female audiences also want to be in relationships with supernatural beings because they don't want to have sex. It makes sense, right? Um, not really.
Lots of women, including me, saw this movie, and to a lot of them (including me) it looked like one big beefcake sex party. I think the popularity of New Moon, if it signifies anything, tells us that young women WANT sex. What was all the shirtlessness about, if not that?
Note to the authors of all the 'hooking up' books: Give your PR people a nice big raise for managing to convince yet another writer to wring their hands over the wrong issue.
3 comments:
What bothers me about these "Twilight means girls don't want sex" arguments is that anyone who has read the books knows differently. Bella wants to have sex with Edward, and *he* is the one who demurrs. He has reasons of his own, which some of us may not agree with, but they are his own reasons. If we want a woman's reasons for abstaining from or engaging in sex, shouldn't we also have the same respect for a guy's?
In the context of the book, it's much less about chastity-for-chastity's sake than it is about acknowledging the complex nature of relationships. The situation becomes problematic when people try to demonize or co-opt the books on grounds that are spurious at best. (I usually love Bitch magazine, btw, but it's really been getting on my nerves with all the Twilight-hate over the last year or so.)
>>If we want a woman's reasons for abstaining from or engaging in sex, shouldn't we also have the same respect for a guy's?<<
I don't think Bitch is hating on Twilight as much as on the tired Venus/Mars view of sexuality. And I'm pretty sure they would agree with what you say above.
We don't talk enough about the cliches foisted on men, namely that they want sex all the time, have no interest in emotional relationships or love, and would never be inclined to hold off on sex themselves.
Wonderful, wonderful post. Please now attack Twilight's message--that young women are passive nothings who have no hobbies or interests other than being the masochistic toys of the All Powerful Man, who himself is the consummate sadist. This entire series makes me so sick, and the legions of pathetic girls who embrace it--let's remember, it's not teenage boys who inspired the twilight phenomenon--makes me sicker. It is the anti-Buffy, the anti-Harry Potter (or more precisely, the anti-Hermione Granger). And lets not forget that Steffyneee (or however she spells her name) Meyer is a MORMON--you know, those queer-hating, multiple-wife having bigots. It kind of explains Bella's character, as well as her teenage mom-dom. I wish this woman had never learned the alphabet. She has pretty much singlehandedly destroyed the gender perspectives (and future sex lives) of millions of teenage girls.
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