Damned if you do... damned if you don't...

As one of the few women in her 20s who's still proud to call herself a virgin, I'm pretty sure I do not fall under the category of “slut.”

However, between my cleavage-baring dresses and my inclination towards drunkenly making out with French men, I don't think “prude” describes me either.

Where does that leave me?

In today's culture, women are often shoved into the categories of slut or prude, despite most women falling somewhere in-between the two. This dichotomy is hardly a new concept. Around 600AD, Pope Gregory “The Great” designated MaryMagdalene a whore, a repentant whore, but a whore nonetheless. Since then, she has stood in stark contrast to the Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus. And women have been expected to identify with one of the two Mary's ever since.

As this blog post describes, women have been struggling with this dichotomy for some time.

From the late 1800s: “...By the end of the century, diverse reformers—women, doctors, vice crusaders, free lovers—engaged in heated debate over who should regulate sex: the individual, the family, or the state.”

From the 1920s: “Public discourse absorbed both currents, the condemnatory and the celebratory, and new sexual conventions grew in tension between the old (Victorian) and the new...”

From the 1970s: “We are simultaneously bombarded with two conflicting messages... that sex is dirty... the we should be free, groovy chicks.”

Who needs feminism?

The virgin/whore (prude/slut) dichotomy has evolved, but it continues to persist, despite women trying to free themselves from it. Why?

Our culture is obsessed with labels. We want to categorize everything, especially big, complicated issues. I don't know if we're too lazy to try and understand an individual, if we're too self-centered to discover a different perspective, or if it's another problem altogether. Whatever the issue at heart, it's easiest just to slap a label on a person without getting to know him/her as an individual. Especially when it comes to sex and sexuality. (Don't get me started on the bisexual bashing... another post for another day...)

Labels are hard to escape, especially when we're surrounded by them in the media and pop culture. I think I'm a fairly enlightened feminist, and I still find myself jokingly calling myself a slut or a whore. It's like I'm desperately trying to fit in with some shallow, preconceived notion of socially acceptable femininity. But then I'll put on some sweet and innocent facade with a different group of friends. I'm aware of the prude/slut dichotomy, I want to rebel against it, and yet, even I end up buying into it.

Tracy Clark-Flory puts it best. "Are you a prude or a slut? You know what, I'm neither... I'm not a political caricature, and neither is my sexuality."

I wish I had an answer to this problem. I wish I could say, “All righty, take what you've learned here and go educate the world.” But I don't, and I can't. All I can do is hope that my readers will think twice next time they start to judge a woman based on her sexuality.

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