The Gatekeepers of Sex

When I was in high school I remember having a conversation about sex with one of my guy friends, let's call him Ernie. He was frustrated because he was seeing a girl who wouldn't "go all the way" and he really wanted to. Ernie was basically saying that it's not fair, because boys only get to have sex when girls decide to. Boys say "I wanna have sex" and then they wait and wait for a girl to say yes. Girls say "I wanna have sex" and they can find a willing penis in their immediate vicinity. Girls are, essentially, the gatekeeper of sexy times. Girls have it easy. Well let me tell you, being the gatekeeper is not a fun time, and it's not something that we chose; society threw this on us and we have to figure out how to wade these extremely tricky waters.  

Pressure. Think of all the pressure that girls feel to have sex. One of my friends hooked up with a guy she was dating. They just fooled around a little, no sex, and he literally told our entire class every single detail, including some very private and semi-embarrassing things. Then he turns around and tries to get her to go further, and she's left with a dilemma: Should she respect her own boundaries and tell this guy to go jerk off in a bathroom stall, or does she go a little further than she's comfortable with to stop the rumors and appease this guy she still sort of likes? She's getting pressure from all angles. Her friends are saying "well he's so hot and he totally didn't mean to spread stuff about you", her critics are already labeling her a slut, the guy is telling her it will bring them closer, and his group of friends, the popular guys, are paying more attention to her than they ever had before. What a frigging mess.

We can all read that scenario and say that we'd put the guy in his place and walk away with our heads held high, but do you honestly truly think that it would be that easy? Think of the repercussions, the social exile, the rumors, the pettiness you'd encounter every day. There's no way to avoid pressure as a woman; there is no way to be immune to its influence.

Ideals. There's this weird balance that girls have to somehow figure out, if they want to be deemed attractive. They have to find this bizarre middle ground where the ultimate girl resides.

• She can't be a naive virgin, but she also can't have a high kill count (kill means people you've boned)
• She has to be intelligent, but not more intelligent than her counterpart
• She has to be funny enough to make people laugh, but not funny enough to draw attention away from the man, or make jokes that would take away from her sexuality (i.e: I'm sweating my balls off)
• She can't be too fat but she also can't be too skinny
• She has to be flirtatious, but not slutty
• She can't cover herself head to toe but she can't reveal to much skin either

I'm not saying that all men think this way; in fact I know some choice gentlemen who love an extremely intelligent woman or a girl who can crack jokes with the boys, but this ideal is nevertheless present in the way that women are socialized. There's a quotation from Marianne Williamson that rejects this whole notion, stating that "your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you." This is the challenge women must face every day; being unapologetically brilliant, encouraging other women to find the same sense of confidence, and hoping that the men around them can respect this, embrace this and maybe admire this.

Shame. Where the eff is all this body shame coming from? It's all over the place. From that perfect vagina in pornography (see post: Touch Yourself!) to the size 0-2-4 phenomenon (see post: Poutine Diaries vol. 1), we encounter it every day. One of the places that I see this is in sports. I play on a ball hockey team and I grew up playing ice hockey. Both of these sports are sweaty and gross and awesome, and both of these sports are played by guys too. After the game though, when we're in our separate locker rooms, boys strip down naked, hop in the shower, towel off and leave. Girls keep their sweaty bras and underwear on, throw their hair in a bun and shower when they get home. There are showers in the girls' locker rooms; this isn't what's stopping us from getting cleaned off before going home. I don't really know what it is, but I have a feeling that there's this looming insecurity that we'll all be judging one another's bodies. Moreover, there's a feeling that we shouldn't be showing our bodies to one another. That we aren't supposed to be naked in front of another living soul. That our bodies need to be covered up so that our femininity remains intact. I just don't get how guys have no problem with this (hey, maybe you do - post a comment if you do) but girls are super protective of their nakedness.

At what age are young girls no longer allowed to run around topless? I feel like my friends and I did that until i was like 7 or 8, because we had no concept that our bodies were sexual; we didn't even know what "sexual" was. If we wanted to run through the sprinkler on a hot summer day and we didn't have our bathing suits, well then we'd just strip off to our underwear and have at it. Now even 7 and 8 year olds have become sexualized. Not just with creepy creepy shows like Toddlers & Tiaras, but at school, on the internet, everywhere. We started getting the "cover-yourself-up" message and it sticks with us for life.
Now it's not just about putting on a shirt though; it's about covering up cellulite with longer hems, or wearing sleeves if you've got big arms, or buying looser tops if you've got some belly pudge. And it's about being a gate keeper.

In high schools now they're banning yoga pants all over Canada and the U.S. Not because they're unprofessional-looking or showing underwear or anything like that; several schools say that they are a "distraction for boys" or that they show "too much of the curvature of their behind". All I hear when I read crap like this is that they're putting the responsibility on women instead of men. Why teach the guys to respect women when you can get women to cover up their bodies? Why teach men to work past the distraction of a delicious booty when you can just get women to change their clothes? They are creating an environment where it is shameful for a woman to dress in a certain way. They are creating an environment where, if a girl is sexually assaulted in yoga pants, a finger can be pointed at her.

Gate Keeper. Being the gate keeper of sex is not an easy task. It's not something that goes away after high school, or university, or in stable relationships. I've only highlighted 3 areas that bother me, out of the dozens I am sure exist. Pressure. Ideals. Shame. It is a lot to handle. I wish someone had told me this when I was younger, because during that conversation with Ernie years ago I just turned to him and said "yeah, she's totally being a prude, what's her problem?"