Forum: Slutty feminism

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

Unlike most of my female college classmates, I was never a fan of the show "Sex and the City." My roommates would rent the videos and buy cheap champagne and watch them.

I watched the show with them one night. After barely stomaching two episodes, I declared the show would be better titled "Sluts and the City," then went to bed.

I wish other students had followed my lead. Instead, they chose to usher in a new wave of feminism: Slut feminism, where the new test of gender equality is how openly promiscuous a woman can be without judgment or penalty. Wouldn't the suffragettes be proud to see how far we have come?

Across the nation, other female students were falling in love with the "slut feminism" Carrie Bradshaw and her sex-obsessed cronies in "Sex and the City" epitomized. Student newspapers started running sex columns, featuring college women publicizing their sexual exploits just as the Carrie character publicized hers. USA Today reported, "From 'Between the Sheets' at Tufts University near Boston to 'Sex at the Beach' at California State University in Long Beach... college students talk about, dispensing tips and offering advice on sex, dating, sex, love, sex, relationships, sex and sex."

After some research, I found the topics a little more limited. Mostly written by women, the recurring themes seem to be the female anatomy, female orgasms, masturbation and oral sex, which, thanks to Bill Clinton, isn't considered sex, according to most of these students.

From Cornell University's "Cornellingus," to Princeton's "Vulvagraphy" and Yale's "Sex and the Elm City," it seems the Ivy League isn't immune to this trend. The so-called "best and the brightest" are becoming the best and the brightest of the porn industry. How proud their parents will be when they start their careers writing for Playboy.

You can't even judge them. In their world of moral relativism, no one has the right to judge others. In Columbia University's sex column, "Sexplorations," Miriam Datskosky explains why the all-too-common "walk of shame" shouldn't be shameful at all. She argues that, men and women should be able to go out and have sex whenever and with whoever they like, and when walking home the next morning -- wearing the same clothes from the night before, their make-up smeared and their hair a mess -- they shouldn't be judged: "It is not up to a random stranger to make you feel ashamed." Moral relativism and the sexual revolution had a baby, and boy is it ugly.

She says: "Every single one of us has the right to choose. That right deserves respect." Respecting someone's right to choose to be promiscuous and respecting their actual choice to do so are two different things. I'm not advocating outlawing promiscuity, but I do support holding people morally responsible for their choices.

There's not much parents can do. Most student newspapers are independently run. And, any attempt to have these columns removed would certainly stir accusations of censorship by students so indoctrinated they don't understand obscenity is not protected by the Constitution.

Students, on the other hand, have some options. With the help of organizations like the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, they can bring conservative women leaders, such as Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter or Phyllis Schlafly, to their schools to challenge this type of thinking.

For now, unfortunately, it seems women lead slut feminism, considering they are the only authors of these columns.

But this shouldn't come as a surprise when you have a play like "The Vagina Monologues" performed on almost 600 college campuses. The play's main message is that women are nothing more than their sexual anatomy. Many of their parents, having come of age in the 1960s, might be thrilled with what the seeds of their "sexual revolution" have finally developed.

Sexual freedom has turned into sexual obsession. Perversion and promiscuity are applauded, morality and chastity condemned. Female college students of the slut feminism camp are finally equal to the men. It's a shame, though, that they view equality as an equal number of notches on their belts.

MONIQUE E. STUART

A program officer at the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute in Herndon, Va.