Holding slut-callers to account

In a commentary about the upcoming SlutWalk (4 December 2011) in newnation.sg, one finds this breathtaking bit that says everything there is to say why there’s a need for a SlutWalk:

So what’s a slut? A woman who sleeps around – yes. Who wears her sexual availability prominently – yes. Who is promiscuous – yes. An average slut would be your not-bad-looking-under-strobe-lights, promiscuous skank out at St James on a Saturday night looking for a one-night stand. Ugly sluts exist too, but they’re probably more difficult to come by. Men, as I gather, look for attractive women to have intercourse with.

[snip]

Except that – if the photos plastered online were any indication – a fair bit of SlutWalkers don’t exactly qualify as sluts. So unless these wholesome voluptious women with no business showing their overflowing bits in a overly-tight bra top out in public HAVE actually been called a slut previously, their protest to be called a slut without shame makes no sense. Like a meat-eating person joining PETA.

— newnation.sg, 4 September 2011, SlutWalk: a celebration of the right to be slutty even when you aren’t by Fang Shihan (which I am told is a pseudonym for a female writer passing off as male).

What’s wrong with the above? Everything! If I have to spell it out,

• It tramples on women’s sexual autonomy by laying on thick the negativity associated with promiscuity;
• It reserves to men the right to judge which women qualify for the label;
• It asserts that other women have no business contesting (1) and (2) above.

But what is SlutWalk? It is a protest march — well, it’ll be rather short of that in Singapore, but that’s no fault of the organisers — against the judgemental gaze of men and other self-appointed moralists. Triggered by a misogynistic comment by an officer of the Toronto Police in January this year, the first march was held in that city on 3 April. Similar marches have since been held in several other cities in North America and Europe, and also in New Delhi, Seoul and Johannesburg.

At a 24 January 2011 safety information session at York University, Constable Michael Sanguinetti recommended that women not dress like “sluts” in order to avoid sexual assault, a remark that provoked uproar. While he later apologised for that remark, it was nonetheless felt that those words represented still widespread attitudes, and that more needed to be done to drive home the point that such attitudes are unacceptable.

Singapore’s will be held on the same day as SlutWalks in Hong Kong and Bangalore. More details, including of fringe events, can be found at slutwalksg.com.

As you can see from the pictures below (from Toronto, Boston and Seoul respectively), you don’t have to look like Janine Lindemulder to participate, despite what the newnation writer thinks. Nor is anyone expected to dress in any particular way, least of all the stereotypical one. As Cher Tan, one of the organisers, pointed out: “It would defeat the purpose.”

The point is to press home an idea, and if you agree with it, you have a right to be there.

* * * * *

The notion that women are there for the taking is, to put it euphemistically, as old as the human species. At the same time, all societies had to set some rules, not, in the main, because of any sensibility to women’s feelings, but out of deference to other men’s prior rights. Usually, that would be the father or husband. A lot of present-day male behaviour is descended from that. Men look for visual cues to determine if a woman has been “taken” — the wedding ring being the prime example of that. The flip side is that men also look for visual cues to determine if a woman is available for the taking without risk of conflict with another man. Males learn to associate sexually provocative dressing as signals that a woman is available, and from there, it’s a short hop to the rationalisation that “she was asking for it.”

The corollary to that is that men dislike women confusing the signals. “Ugly” women, in these misogynistic men’s view, should not be trying to dress in appealing ways.

At the same time, a woman who looks both currently available and previously deflowered (to use an archaic term) is considered “cheap”, firstly in the quasi-economic sense that, since exclusive use of her body is not there for the bidding, there’s no need to bid so high against the competition. Different men can serially enjoy the same “goods”. No doubt it will also strike you that “cheap” connotes much, much more than that when applied to a woman. Men have a term for this category: Slut. And as is obvious, it comes with a huge dose of value-judgement.

This is why the comment in newnation is so wrong. It is just putting into glib words these same paleolithic attitudes: that sexual experience cheapens a woman, that men will be the judge as to which woman has a right to be sexually alluring (to make it easier for him, so that he does not get confused who is available for the taking and who isn’t), and if you’re a taken woman, or one whom no man would want, you have no right to protest male attitudes to women whom men consider available. It’s men’s business, not women’s business.

* * * * *

Yet, feminism has long been bedevilled by sex. Many feminists speak of gender equality without wanting to touch the subject of sexual freedom. They’re strong on the right of women to say No, but cannot shake off negative attitudes against those frequently saying Yes.  In this, they are in the same bed as lots of patriarchal men.

I’ve long found this problematic. The control of sex has long been used as a means to control others’ lives, and I cannot see how one can speak of autonomy without overcoming this prejudice against sex.

For example, if one says that sex outside marriage is to be frowned on, it is to demand that anyone wanting  to express his sexuality — which is a very important part of our psychological health — must first take on the legal, economic, social and child-rearing expectations or burdens associated with marriage. It’s a huge load. Imposing that load is to control another person’s life. Therefore, true respect for the autonomy of another individual must include respect for sexual autonomy and the right to say Yes, Yes, Yes to sex with equal facility to saying No. In other words, I can’t quite see how sex-negative feminists are truly feminists.

On a related note, I wonder how different kinds of feminists approach a video like this one, where the men as used somewhat like sex objects to get attention. If the tables were turned, and scantily-clad women were employed to pose provocatively to sell an object or a message to men, what would the sex-negative and the sex-positive ones say?

And there’s another area which I am rather amused about: the discomfort evinced by many feminists when we speak of commercial sex. True control of one’s own body must include the right to determine under what conditions to yield that body — say all feminists. But what about those whose condition is monetary payment? You’d be surprised how many start to shift uncomfortably in their seats when this is raised. There is the usual argument that commercial sex is often associated with the opposite — a loss of autonomy by the women in the trade, sometimes to the point of trafficking and bondage. This is undeniable. But where one would have thought the response would be Let’s deal with the trafficking and bondage and free up those who really want to make money this way, almost always, one hears Let’s ban prostitution.

However, I will concede that in this, I am talking about the frontiers of autonomy. Commercial sex is not going to be a career choice for most people, men or women. Such freedom is a kind of luxury when we’re not even out of the stone age of gender attitudes. Dealing with that must be the first order of business; it’s time for SlutWalk.