Thursday, October 17, 2013

The necessary unpacking of slut shaming

During the recent and highly contentious exchange between Miley Cyrus and Sinead O'Connor I had the opportunity to have lots of interesting and valuable discussions surrounding appropriation, objectification, and sexual expression. Through these discussions I was able to codify my political stance when it comes to slut shaming.

By far the most simple & frequent critique of Sinead's letter was that she was engaging in slut shaming. I understand where the need for this critique comes. It is important but I chose not to write about the slut shaming aspects of the letter in my post and instead made notes about my resistance to use the term.

Slowly I came to realize that my resistance came from a feeling of incompleteness and that it wasn't just this instance of internet people shouting "slut shaming!" that felt incomplete.

I shy away from the using the term "slut shaming" not because I don't recognize and want others to see the sexist behavior it identifies but because I believe the term itself can and has in some instances become a catch-all for very general array of the sex-related oppression women face. In radical contexts catch-alls can easily become problematic excuses to stop defining and going into the complex detail for that oppression. A catch-all runs the risk of overgeneralizing things that are complex and need complex definitions.

In the example I cite in a previous post a friend was asked by "concerned" parents to cover up her "dangerous" breasts so the group of young girls she was traveling with would be "safe" from lusty European men.

We agree that this behavior is both ridiculous and disgusting. We discussed this a potential slut shaming.

Slut shaming as defined by wikipedia is: "the act of making any person feel guilty or inferior for certain sexual behaviors or desires that deviate from traditional or orthodox gender expectations."

Based on her account and this definition I don't think it was. Or at least not just that. To me it was straight up sexual harassment and body policing at the hands of trusted authority figures. In fact they way she was dressing had little-nothing to do with her expressing her sexuality. It was the parents that assumed her clothing choices were "sexual", so how could it have been slut shaming?

When slut shaming is identified those doing the identifying run the risk of making the mistaken assumption that the subject of the bullying/harassment/shaming is indeed expressing their sexuality. Regardless of what they are wearing we can't know for certain that someone is expressing their sexuality unless they tell us explicitly.

The language of slut shaming is especially problematic in light of recent efforts of some groups to reclaim the word "slut" as an identity.

When "slut" becomes an identity (as some are struggling for it to become through its reclamation) it separates women into categories of sluts/nonsluts. This distinction divides feminists communities and does nothing beyond support individual declarations of identities (which should not be the primary/only function of feminism). 

Instead of dividing women based on sexual identities let's acknowledge that we are all humans and we all experience desire. Do we really need a label that denotes that some of us are willing to express the sexual ones?

When slut becomes an identity the harassment/shaming that is related to the expression of sexuality become about identity. The body/behavior policing, the sexual harassment and the gross slew of things referred to as slut shaming isn't about the identities of those targeted (beyond the fact that they are women). It's about their behaviors and expressions.

Slut shaming is not about "you are wrong" but are about "you are doing it wrong". And by "it" I mean womanhood. Slut shaming is about tacitly enforcing the misogynist rules of womanhood. If we want to be radical (get at the root of things) we need to dig in and figure out what specifically is being denied and why. We can't just be satisfied by just calling oppressive behavior "slut shaming" because it's not just about the (slut/nonslut) identity of the person being shamed, it's also about how that shaming fits into the broader context of oppression.

It's not enough to see the objectifying oppression of a woman and call it "slut shaming". It's a great first step, but it is just a start. In order to combat the complex nature of sexist oppression
we need to continue making space in our politics for corresponding complexity.

2 comments:

  1. Sorry not sorry but I feel the need to correct you on "we are all humans and all experience desire" because aromantics and asexuals exist. Thanks

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for identifying this distinction. It's a very important one! And one I might be viewing incorrectly.

      In my view desire is not inherently sexual (though sexual desire IS certainly, and unfortunately, quite heavily implied in my usage). It is a shame that sex-obsessed culture has come to oversimplify desire as only/predominantly meaning sexual desires.

      Asexual and aromantic folks definitely exist and I believe they do experience desire (for friendship, good beer, and very fancy clothes in the case of my friend). It's a totally erasing bummer that and such desires are not recognized by our culture as being as legit and important as sexual desires.

      In my ideal world sexual desires/preferences will not be held on high as so categorically different from or more significant than other kinds of desire (http://marginaldialogue.blogspot.com/2013/10/i-need-consent-to-be-normal-because-sex.html). That hierarchy of desire is totally busted and disgustingly disparaging of non-sexual/romantic desires.

      Then again I could totally be framing this wrong. Desire could certainly be the wrong term. But it was convenient for me.

      I am not a member of any ace communities, but I'm certain conversations about desire and want within such communities are much more developed than I can pretend to demonstrate. If you have any resources generated by asexual/aromantic people about nonsexual and nonromantic desire/want I would love to take a look at them! (one of my non sexual/romantic desires is for resources/vocabularies written by folks who experience this stuff first hand!).

      Thank you.

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