Outdated views of female sexuality deprive women of freedom

By Kathleen Belew
University Wire

America, your daughters are imprisoned. Because your churches
and your schools have oppressed our sexuality since time began, we
can’t leave our homes at night. We have grown up in an age of
eating disorders and implants, an age of complete insecurity about
our own bodies. We have adapted to your world of war, of
man-as-the-aggressor. We have, voluntarily or not, in some respect
accepted your definition of female as weak, passive and quiet.

When we hit puberty we were called sluts if we explored our
sexuality, we were teased about our breasts, we started telling
dirty jokes that we didn’t really understand. We were
confused, because in the public school system, nobody had mentioned
anything about sex until our bodies started changing, for fear of
pissing off the Religious Right.

That was when they began to tell us about rape. They said rape
happens when a strange man forces someone to have sex when she
doesn’t want to, and because he maybe has a gun or he is
stronger than her, he wins. And, they told us, if you are a good
girl and you don’t walk in dangerous places at night by
yourself, don’t worry.

Black-and-white line. No problem, we told ourselves. We just
won’t walk at night.

Then high school happened and life as we knew it changed
permanently. We entered a push-and-pull sexual battle, the hormone
levels running high. The girls who had sex got shame, the guys who
had sex got status. That double standard set the scene for a war in
which the big guns have been added since we got to college ““
now, we face Rohypnol (the date-rape drug), alcohol and the
frightening reality of acquaintance rape.

The line has become blurred.

Now, the problem is impossible to avoid for someone who actually
wants to experience college. In order to “not walk at
night,” which some people still say ought to keep you safe,
you had better not plan any activities or classes in the evening
during fall or winter quarter. No parties ““ Rohypnol may be
in the drinks ““ no dates and no sex. Now there is a
liberated, modern lifestyle.

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines rape as either
“carrying away by force,” “sexual intercourse by
a man with a woman without her consent and chiefly by force or
deception,” or “as unlawful sexual intercourse of any
kind by force or threat.”

I call for a new definition of rape. It has become too hard to
determine what it is. According to statistics, 90 percent of rapes
go unreported, because it isn’t the strange man with the gun
forcing you down anymore. Of the rapes that are reported, 60
percent are committed by our dates, boyfriends, husbands, family,
friends or coworkers.

The numbers are much, much higher than the experts believe.

If you have ever stayed home because you were afraid to walk
somewhere alone or ride the bus alone or go in the elevator alone,
you have been raped of your right to be a free American
citizen.

If you thought a husband, boyfriend or long-time sexual partner
had a right to your body simply because you had slept with them
before, you really have become a possession to him and have been
raped of your individuality.

If you have ever told him no, no matter what the time span, and
ended up having sex with him anyway under pressure or intoxication,
you have suffered rape of body and heart.

This isn’t about never having sex or not walking at night
or waiting until marriage. This is about freedom as American
citizens, which we are, as women, the last time I checked. We have
the right to control our own bodies, and that clearly includes the
right to safe, good, secure and purposeful sex.

Our parents had their sexual revolution in the 1960s, and
despite the drugs and the diseases, that era turned out to be an
incredibly important one in the history of sexuality. Women learned
in the ’60s and ’70s that it was okay to control your
own body, it was natural to desire men and to desire sex and it was
natural to be aggressive to get what you wanted.

Somehow, the same generation of women turned around and
re-instilled the 1950s’ “Boys will be boys, but girls
will remain pure” mantra in their own daughters. So here we
are again, in an age of unsafe, forced, bad and insecure sex.

Let our revolution be different: Try to love your own body as it
is. Be strong in your decisions about sex ““ strong, vocal and
definite. Follow your own sexual impulses to begin with, and take
responsibility for them to keep yourself and your partner safe.