I read this article the other day.
One of the many, many unexamined assumptions this article has is that relationships with men are an either/or proposition. That is either a man will be charming, handsome, and infinitely sexually appealing but temporary or he'll be steady, responsible, and not terribly sexually exciting but marriage material. The implication is that if one wants to marry, one has to settle. How depressing. No wonder I don't hang out with normal people. Their views of life are so morbid.
The first problem with this either/or mentality is that it is demeaning to all parties involved. It suggests that a husband is something that is caught, like a large sea bass on a fishing expedition, and then hung on the wall of one's living room.
"My Cheryl, what a fine looking husband you have. He's quite the catch."
"He certainly is, Marge. You wouldn't believe the trouble I had snagging him. He fought me tooth and claw. In end I was forced to bash him over the head with a rock."
"I lured mine in slowly. The trick is to get him used to your scent first while leaving out food. At first he wouldn't even let me touch him, but by Spring, he would curl up on the couch with me, lapping up the cream."
"You're a magician, Fern. Mark was so feral!"
"He still is. Rowr."
Yes, snagged, bagged and dragged to the altar. Because of course no real man wants to be married to a woman. That's preposterous! Surely, the only men who are willing to tie themselves to one female are either so pathetic marriage is the only way they will get laid on a regular basis or because they have been utterly bamboozled by one's feminine wiles.
Now, I grew up Mormon . . . sort of. But that's not the point, the point is that there was an infamous tome that was circulated among Mormon women in the 1960's, the 1970's and even into the 1980's called Fascinating Womanhood. It circulated elsewhere but that is the context I know it from. This book was a guide for already married women on how to "fascinate" their husbands into a better marriage. The best part of this book (which is both disturbing and hilarious) is that many of the examples of fascinating women are taken from works of great literature. Characters from both Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo appear as prominent examples. The authoress (because aren't they always?) Helen Andelin also wrote a book for young, single women called Fascinating Girl which was all about how to go about this very snagging. I believe her husband, Aubry, wrote a book called . . . wait for it, people . . . A Man of Velvet and Steel. Yes, yes he did. I know.
The point . . . and I do have one . . . is that we aren't that far away from the conception that in order to be happy in marriage a woman must: 1. Settle for someone she may not be in love with or even sexually attracted to 2. trick him into proposing and 3. fake her way through the marriage via a series of deceptions, falsehoods and emotional manipulations.
Love in this paradigm, doesn't exist. They, being those authors and proponents of these sorts of texts eg. The Rules and the vast majority of articles in Cosmopolitan, don't really believe in love. In many ways, love is like Christian faith: it requires of us the belief in grace. That is that inspite of our fallibility we are saved; that we are loveable and loved. People don't really believe this. They look at themselves in the mirror and think "Eww"; they are universally aware of how they fall short of the ideal. The only way people think that they can be loved, can garner approval is by painting themselves as the ideal even though it is false. They must trick, fool and exploit others into loving them. The ironic part is that if you are loved for you facade your remain as unloved as if you had been rejected for your true self.
Love is not a Pygamlion project in which the beloved is a real fixer-upper. Love is not love if you love the other for what they can be or what you want them to be but never for what they are. If we force the other to reflect back at us the best of our own ego, that is not love; it is narcissism.
Though it seems to me that if 1out of 25 Americans is a sociopath then narcissism is rampant. That's also pretty depressing.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Questions about Virginity
I am in the midst of reading Hanne Blank's excellent new book Virgin: The Untouched History. I would recommend that you get yourselves to the bookstore or library immediately and at least read the very interesting and incisive introduction. For excerpts and other fabulousness go here.
It occurs to me that the problem with virginity is that you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don't.
In fact, Virginity is a non-value. Whether it is valued in our culture today depends on who you are standing next to at the time. Are they conservative or liberal? Promiscuous or prudish? Do they view the empowerment of women as denying men what they want (that being sex, obviously) or as taking what women want (also sex)?
Therefore, Virginity isn't really about sex. It is about power; who has it and who does not. Does retaing my virginity free me or enslave me? Does losing my virginity make me powerless or powerful? If you wait, does that make you a fool? If you are picky, does that make you a feminist or a patriarch? Does a woman's power come from withholding sex or giving it away? Is it possible for a woman to ever take sex or does being penetrated preclude the female from ever being truly dominant despite other factors?
Can a woman's identity ever be made free from her sexual choices? Or is it eternally predicated on some conception of chastity?
Take Anne Coulter, for instance. Here is a woman who has made a name for herself as a bastion and pundit for a political party not known for the progressive policies on women's rights. And yet, Coulter herself is not only a powerful figure but a virginal one as well. In a culture where most famous women are aligned in some manner with a man, I can honestly say that I know nothing about Anne Coulter's personal life. I have know idea if she is married or not, in a relationship or not, has children or not. I think not, but I don't know. When I see her spoken of her or talked about, the private nature or her sex life is either a non-issue or mocked as sign of her frigidity and backwards thinking.
Yet, I am fascinated by the fact that Coulter's power is unattached to any specific male but rather is part of aligning herself with a vary male-centric poltical ideology. It is the very same sort of Virginal empowerment that intrigued me when I read about Elizabeth I. Of course, neither Coulter nor the Virgin Queen are actually virginal but it is a virginity of presence; of being powerful without any man in sight; of having a public position that ought to belong to a man; of being both single and singular.
America is a culture of extremes. We veer from one end of the spectrum to the other without finding a balance in the middle. I wonder if there is a place between Virgin and Whore and what it is like to be there.
It occurs to me that the problem with virginity is that you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don't.
In fact, Virginity is a non-value. Whether it is valued in our culture today depends on who you are standing next to at the time. Are they conservative or liberal? Promiscuous or prudish? Do they view the empowerment of women as denying men what they want (that being sex, obviously) or as taking what women want (also sex)?
Therefore, Virginity isn't really about sex. It is about power; who has it and who does not. Does retaing my virginity free me or enslave me? Does losing my virginity make me powerless or powerful? If you wait, does that make you a fool? If you are picky, does that make you a feminist or a patriarch? Does a woman's power come from withholding sex or giving it away? Is it possible for a woman to ever take sex or does being penetrated preclude the female from ever being truly dominant despite other factors?
Can a woman's identity ever be made free from her sexual choices? Or is it eternally predicated on some conception of chastity?
Take Anne Coulter, for instance. Here is a woman who has made a name for herself as a bastion and pundit for a political party not known for the progressive policies on women's rights. And yet, Coulter herself is not only a powerful figure but a virginal one as well. In a culture where most famous women are aligned in some manner with a man, I can honestly say that I know nothing about Anne Coulter's personal life. I have know idea if she is married or not, in a relationship or not, has children or not. I think not, but I don't know. When I see her spoken of her or talked about, the private nature or her sex life is either a non-issue or mocked as sign of her frigidity and backwards thinking.
Yet, I am fascinated by the fact that Coulter's power is unattached to any specific male but rather is part of aligning herself with a vary male-centric poltical ideology. It is the very same sort of Virginal empowerment that intrigued me when I read about Elizabeth I. Of course, neither Coulter nor the Virgin Queen are actually virginal but it is a virginity of presence; of being powerful without any man in sight; of having a public position that ought to belong to a man; of being both single and singular.
America is a culture of extremes. We veer from one end of the spectrum to the other without finding a balance in the middle. I wonder if there is a place between Virgin and Whore and what it is like to be there.
Friday, February 8, 2008
On the Nature of Virginity in Heroines
The majority of heroines in historical and regency romance novels are without doubt, virginal. This overwhelming slew of virtuous women is bothersome to many modern readers who feel that a woman's worthiness should not be determined by chastity. They are right. Virtue is not synonymous with an intact hymen. However, I do believe this consternation is missing the point about what virginity means in the tradition of Romance; meaning not just novels of the paperback persuasion but in the full sense of that term when applied to literature and narrative structure.
Let's begin with some general observations about the historical nature of virginity. It has been argued elsewhere that virginity in women is a valued characteristic of a patriarchal society because it perserves the hierarchial order of inheritance from father to son. Therefore virginity in women is prized because it maintains tribal and economic purity. I don't dispute this. However, a simultaneous truth to this argument is another; namely that motherhood is both dangerous and cumbersome. Pregnancy, both historically and presently, can lead to death. Childbirth killed many, many women. It was and is a risk. If one happens to survive the process, a woman then has a child, a child that needs to be feed and bathed, loved and hugged, cared for and protected. A woman invariably becomes tied to her child. Having children, as my father is wont to say, is like giving hostages to fate. What he means by this statement is that having children puts your life at the mercy of their destinies. Your destiny is suddenly tied up in their well-being on a level and in such a way that does not exist with any other person. As rewarding as the endeavor can be, there is a certain loss of freedom in having children. There is at the very least a certain loss in the ability to be entirely selfish and spontaneous.
Sex, being the predeterming factor to motherhood, is therefore troublesome to women. Add into that the fear of veneral disease (pox), the variety of social and religious pressures to refrain and sexual desire becomes a treacherous place for women (I would argue it is a treacherous place for men as well but that's a different blog.)
Romance is a love story but it is also, fundamentally, a narrative embedded in the idea of journey; of going from the safety of home to the adventure of the world. The virginity of the heroine is therefore a metaphor for several things besides good character. Northrop Frye in The Secular Scripture briefly discusses the concept of Virginity in his chapter on heroines. Without having the book in front of me, I paraphrase that he says virginity is to a woman what honor is to a man: the identifying feature of her freedom and her status as an independent person and not a slave. So like the goddess Artemis, a virginal heroine is neither mother nor wife and therefore has the liberty to go where she pleases when she pleases and act as she pleases. Retaining her virgnity is then an act that maintains her independence from the world of men.
Advances of in medical science since the Enlightenment, particularly since the advent of the pill, have changed our views about the nature of female sexuality. There have been, previous to this century, many more consequences for unprotected sex for women than for men (there still are.)
Besides this, it concerns me that having sex or not having sex is the determining factor of whether a heroine is considered strong. As if somehow by choosing not to have sex (or conversely choosing to have sex) makes you a victim of your circumstances, of the ideologies of the patriarchy or the religious right, when it may in fact have very little do with either and be a choice made more by inclination, temperment and sexual desire.
The point is that virginity in heroines is not necessarily some outmoded model of behavior romance novelists are foisting on their reading public in order to proselytize a conservative party line for the benefit of a universal and fundamentalist morality. That said, I think it would be more beneficial to ask the question of what this particular state of being does in the narrative structure of a particular story and for the character development of a particular heroine rather than simply repudiate her virginity as some sort of moral judgment of loose women everywhere.
Let's begin with some general observations about the historical nature of virginity. It has been argued elsewhere that virginity in women is a valued characteristic of a patriarchal society because it perserves the hierarchial order of inheritance from father to son. Therefore virginity in women is prized because it maintains tribal and economic purity. I don't dispute this. However, a simultaneous truth to this argument is another; namely that motherhood is both dangerous and cumbersome. Pregnancy, both historically and presently, can lead to death. Childbirth killed many, many women. It was and is a risk. If one happens to survive the process, a woman then has a child, a child that needs to be feed and bathed, loved and hugged, cared for and protected. A woman invariably becomes tied to her child. Having children, as my father is wont to say, is like giving hostages to fate. What he means by this statement is that having children puts your life at the mercy of their destinies. Your destiny is suddenly tied up in their well-being on a level and in such a way that does not exist with any other person. As rewarding as the endeavor can be, there is a certain loss of freedom in having children. There is at the very least a certain loss in the ability to be entirely selfish and spontaneous.
Sex, being the predeterming factor to motherhood, is therefore troublesome to women. Add into that the fear of veneral disease (pox), the variety of social and religious pressures to refrain and sexual desire becomes a treacherous place for women (I would argue it is a treacherous place for men as well but that's a different blog.)
Romance is a love story but it is also, fundamentally, a narrative embedded in the idea of journey; of going from the safety of home to the adventure of the world. The virginity of the heroine is therefore a metaphor for several things besides good character. Northrop Frye in The Secular Scripture briefly discusses the concept of Virginity in his chapter on heroines. Without having the book in front of me, I paraphrase that he says virginity is to a woman what honor is to a man: the identifying feature of her freedom and her status as an independent person and not a slave. So like the goddess Artemis, a virginal heroine is neither mother nor wife and therefore has the liberty to go where she pleases when she pleases and act as she pleases. Retaining her virgnity is then an act that maintains her independence from the world of men.
Advances of in medical science since the Enlightenment, particularly since the advent of the pill, have changed our views about the nature of female sexuality. There have been, previous to this century, many more consequences for unprotected sex for women than for men (there still are.)
Besides this, it concerns me that having sex or not having sex is the determining factor of whether a heroine is considered strong. As if somehow by choosing not to have sex (or conversely choosing to have sex) makes you a victim of your circumstances, of the ideologies of the patriarchy or the religious right, when it may in fact have very little do with either and be a choice made more by inclination, temperment and sexual desire.
The point is that virginity in heroines is not necessarily some outmoded model of behavior romance novelists are foisting on their reading public in order to proselytize a conservative party line for the benefit of a universal and fundamentalist morality. That said, I think it would be more beneficial to ask the question of what this particular state of being does in the narrative structure of a particular story and for the character development of a particular heroine rather than simply repudiate her virginity as some sort of moral judgment of loose women everywhere.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
