Women's Sexuality and Women's Oppression: Intimately Linked

This weekend, I facilitated a discussion of the Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti at the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood. This discussion reminded me once again of all the ways that women's oppression is located within our bodies. Our bodies are legislated, debated, and regulated.

Proof of this can be found in countless court cases. Judges have ordered C-Sections against a woman's will, and have declared that women do not have the right to say no to sex after they have said yes. The root of these ills is the distrust of women's bodies, and ultimately the fear of women's sexuality.

Controlling women's sexuality is a way to "protect" the morals of a nation-- women, since Victorian times, have been seen as the bearers and markers of morality. In this context we have become not fully human.  Our morality has rested on chastity and fidelity instead of on our words, actions, and good deeds.


The Purity Myth deconstructs the virginity movement for what it is -- a movement that focuses on women's sexuality by demanding women's lack of sexuality until marriage. This movement, although no longer federally funded, is alive and well.  There is a generation of young people who did not have comprehensive sexuality education (and many who still do not receive it); "Purity Balls" -- an elaborate prom like evening where girls as young as eleven pledge to allow fathers to be the keeper of their virginity until marriage are being held across the nation and in nearly every state; purity pledges, rings and born-again virgins can be found on the internet, in pop culture, and even in politics.


According to Valenti, there are serious consequences to the focus on women's and girl's sexual purity. The most blatant of which is that women's value is tied to their ability to refrain from sex, creating two distinct types of women and girls, those that are "bad" and those that are "good".  In addition the myth of purity:

• Marks only select  women are valuable - namely white, middle, and upper class women who live up to the image of the perfect virgin. 
• Takes away women's ability to control their bodes leading to the reversal of many reproductive rights.
•  Blames the victim in cases of sexual assault -- if you are sexually active, you cannot say no to sex, you must have WANTED it.
• Reinforces the myth that men can not be responsible for their sexual actions and that men can separate sex from love and that women cannot. 
•  Designates heterosexual sex as the only sex that is valuable and valid and only within the context of procreation. Non-hetersexual sex, and indeed, anything other than penetration for the purpose of reproduction is ignored and subjugated.

These messages are insidious and pervasive. We have not escaped the "virgin /whore" complex where women and girls are either they type a man "brings home to Mom" or the type that they leave in the bedroom. Sex and sexuality are much more complicated, and much more full of potential than this dichotomy suggests. In fact, there is no actual medical definition of virginity, despite our assertion that this is an actual physical state. (Think of all of the commercials for tampons or other feminine products that assure a woman is a virgin even if she uses the product).

In reality, purity and virginity (like almost all things, I am convinced) are socially constructed.  We have constructed a meaning of purity that is different for men and women.  It is women’s sexuality that is seen as impure and dirty, whereas men are seen either as not able to control their sexual urges (boys will be boys) or as studs if they engage in sex.  There is no equivalent to the virgin/whore complex for men in our culture. 

What is the alternative you ask?  The alternative , is to ACTUALLY TRUST WOMEN AND GIRLS. Trust women and girls to know, and have control of, their own bodies. Allow women and girls to have access to adequate and real information about sex, love, life and reproduction so they can make decisions about their bodies.  Don't tell girls that their value is based on purity and then sell them writhing teens in music videos.  Don't tell girls that if you aren't pure, then you must be a whore and wonder why they dress in scantily clad clothes. 

I believe this issue is so important because if our oppression is located in our bodies, then our liberation is as well.  Our bodies are what allow us to move, act in, and experience the world. We cannot control our destinies if control of our bodies is denied to us.