Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape (9 page)

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Authors: Friedman,Jaclyn Friedman,Jessica Valenti

BOOK: Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape
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The statement “My product is me” is a tricky one. On one hand, it can be taken as an empowering declaration from a woman claiming ownership of her body and sexuality. On the other hand, the statement also equates a woman’s body with merchandise—her sexuality has again become something that’s up for sale. And this does not empower me—it scares the shit out of me.
 
Ford went on to be pretty up-front about the industry. She said that even though her big butt, large breasts, and thick thighs made her body desirable to video directors, she suffered from great insecurities over her looks. “If I were to ever form a sustained, confident image of my body, one that isn’t dependent on outside opinions, I would have to quit modeling and doing videos,” she said. Ford also said she was upset when
The Source
magazine ran photos of her in which her butt showed but her face did not.
 
In the essay’s conclusion, Ford claimed to have more control over her image and career now. “Recently I stopped allowing photographers to shoot my butt unless it serves me financially or in terms of publicity,” she said. She added that she now prefers shots that are sensual and not “too in-your-face” or “all sex.” But she also implies that her images are sending an empowering message to women:
 
“The fact that a woman who looks like me keeps showing ”The fact that a woman who looks like me keeps showing up on magazine covers is justification enough for what I’m doing. What I do sends a message to full-figured Black women that we are a part of the beauty standard even though we’re not thin and White.”
 
 
Ford may have the control over her image that she claims to, and if so, good for her. But the larger issue here goes beyond one woman’s career.
 
What messages are supersexual images from these videos and magazines sending out to young women and society as a whole? Are we teaching girls it’s best for them to use their bodies and sexuality to get ahead? Are we teaching boys to celebrate women for their bodies instead of their brains? And are these hypersexual images teaching boys that women, and their body parts, should be ready and willing to serve them anytime, anyplace, as they appear to be for rappers in videos?
 
There are no easy answers to these questions. My younger brother loves rap, rap videos, and magazines with booty-boasting covers. Yet in the real world he’s one of the most respectful young men I know, treating me, my mother, and his female companions like queens.
 
But an industry that cultivates and encourages the degradation of women is still frightening, because there’s no denying that this treatment can and does continue even when the cameras stop rolling. Ford may have made a lot of money in this industry with her “product,” but in her essay she also recounts a terrifying incident in which she barely escaped being assaulted by a group of men who obviously assumed her merchandise was up for grabs.
 
She writes:
 
“On that same [video] set, I had to wear a short, tight dress. I had some downtime, so I sat in one of the rooms where the food was set up. Soon one guy came in and then another. Within a few minutes, fifteen guys were surrounding me, and I was trapped. I felt like a specimen in a museum. I didn’t want to get up because I knew if I did, they would start making a fuss over my ass. I kept thinking, ‘I’m sitting here with these guys ogling, trying to touch my leg and arm, trying to see what kind of girl I am, see if they leg and arm, trying to see what kind of girl I am, see if they can run a train on me.’ I was so terrified of getting up. The dress was so short and my shoes were so high, I was afraid to even uncross my legs. Eventually a crewmember came in and regulated the situation; he could see how terrified I was about even moving an inch.”
 
 
 
You may think it’s silly to make such a big deal over rap videos, restaurants, TV shows, or magazines. These people are just entertainers and entrepreneurs, after all, not politicians or public policymakers.
 
But the same ogling and catcalls that Hooters girls or Hawaiian Tropic Zone workers may experience at work, I endure nearly every time I walk down a busy city street—and there’s nothing empowering about it.
 
About twice a week I’m approached by a guy who, despite my wedding ring, tries to get my phone number with the help of some lame and often disrespectful line from a popular rap song. And while I’m a girl who loves to dance, nightclubs aren’t much fun when men come up behind you, tell you to “let me see what you got,” and then call you a bitch when you say you’re there to have fun with your friends, not to put on a show for them.
 
I’m not saying that listening to rap, watching wrestling, or eating at Hawaiian Tropic Zone makes you a misogynist. The world is not that black and white. And I, like most feminists, exist in the grays of life—which means that sometimes I’m going to rock out to a Pussycat Dolls song and sometimes I’m going to wear uncomfortable lingerie to turn on my husband.
 
But there is no gray area when it comes to rape. And portraying a woman’s body and sexuality as merchandise, as entertainment, is more than disrespectful. It’s dangerous, because it becomes much easier to demand, even force, a woman to give you her body once she’s been transformed from a person into property.
 
So what’s a girl to do?
 
I should probably stop watching wrestling (but I can’t make any promises). And even though its website casts it as an upscale hangout for young professionals, I probably won’t be stopping by Hawaiian Tropic Zone the next time I’m in New York. I stopped buying rap that degrades women a long time ago, opting for more mature and uplifting hip-hop from the likes of Lupe Fiasco and Common.
 
There are also groups out there working to counter the negative messages pop culture can send to women. Black Girls Rock Inc., for example, is a mentoring and outreach program for young women of color that promotes the arts and encourages dialogue about the way women are portrayed in hip-hop music and culture. The Real Hot 100 is a grassroots media project that celebrates young women who are hot because they’re trying to make a difference in the world, not because they can look cute in a magazine.
 
But I feel like we women need to do something more. While we work to flood society with television shows, magazines, businesses, and music that truly empower women, we need to find ways to build ourselves up individually in the meantime.
 
This leads me to bad feminist confession number three: When I was in college, I wanted to work at Hooters. This was before I ever found my way to a women’s studies reading list and before I had assigned the word “feminism” to my otherwise girl-power attitude.
 
Again, if you want to work at Hooters, go right ahead, but check your motivation. My motives were not cool. I had hips like a boy, B-cup breasts, and a boyfriend who had started to ignore me. I felt like I was the furthest thing from sexy, and I thought that landing a job at Hooters would convince me that I was hot after all. Absurd, I know, but wanting to be desired is natural, for both women and men, and, unfortunately, all types of money-making industries—from diet pill peddlers to restaurants with scantily clad waitresses—have found a way to profit from this human need.
 
I’m happy to report that I nixed the Hooters idea. I became an aerobics instructor instead, and something remarkable happened: I finally felt sexy. Not because my boobs got bigger (they didn’t) or because my boyfriend stopped acting like a jerk (he didn’t), but because my body felt healthy and strong. My focus shifted from what my body looked like to what it could do, and I finally felt fabulous.
 
I felt especially hot when I was teaching my dance-based exercise class called Funk Aerobics. In that class I got to shimmy and shake, and it was fun. I no longer teach aerobics, but I still attend dance-based fitness classes whenever I can. I don’t enjoy these classes because I’m flaunting my fabulousness for men; they are typically filled with sorority girls and middle-aged women trying to get their groove back. I have fun when I dance because I am enjoying my body, not putting it on display solely for someone else’s pleasure.
 
You see, I’m not advocating that women ignore or hide their bodies. A woman’s feeling good about her body and learning to enjoy it can only help her in the journey toward a healthy and satisfying sexual life. So figure out what helps you reclaim your body and your sexiness, and do it. And in the meantime, I’ll try really hard to stop watching pro wrestling.
 
 
If you want to read more about MEDIA MATTERS, try:
• Invasion of Space by a Female BY COCO FUSCO
• Trial by Media: Black Female Lasciviousness and the Question of Consent BY SAMHITA MUKHOPADHYAY
 
 
If you want to read more about RACE RELATING, try:
• Queering Black Female Heterosexuality BY KIMBERLY SPRINGER
• When Sexual Autonomy Isn’t Enough: Sexual Violence Against Immigrant Women in the United States
BY MIRIAM ZOILA PÉREZ
 
 
If you want to read more about SEXUAL HEALING, try:
• An Immodest Proposal BY HEATHER CORINNA
• Sex Worth Fighting For BY ANASTASIA HIGGINBOTHAM
 
5
 
How Do You Fuck a Fat Woman?
 
BY KATE HARDING
 
 
 
You should consider yourself lucky that some man finds a hideous troll like yourself rape-able.
 
 
THAT’S AN ACTUAL COMMENT left on the blog of a friend of mine, in response to a post she wrote about being raped and nearly killed. Every feminist blogger with more than four readers has dealt with comments along these lines. There are certain people who feel it’s their sacred duty to inform us, again and again, that
rape is a compliment.
(Or, more precisely, “Rape is a compliment, you stupid whore.”) Rape is not a violent crime meant to control and dehumanize the victim, see; it’s evidence that you were just so dingdang attractive to some perfectly average guy, he couldn’t stop himself from fucking you, against your will, right then and there! He thought you were pretty! Why are you so upset?
 
All in a day’s work for a feminist blogger, sadly—and when you’re a
fat
feminist blogger, it comes with a special bonus message: No one
but
a rapist would ever, ever want you. In this iteration of the “rape is a compliment” construct, our hypothetical rapist is no longer a perfectly average guy—because perfectly average guys aren’t driven to sexual incontinence by fat chicks. I mean,
duh.
No, the guy who would rape a fat chick is not only paying her a compliment, but doing her an enormous
favor.
He’s a fucking philanthropist, out there busting his ass to save fat girls everywhere from vaginal atrophy.
 
You fat whores would be lucky to even get raped by someone. I hope you whiny cunts find your way on top of a pinball machine in the near future.
 
Whoever raped you could have just waited at the exit of a bar at 3am and gotten it consensually without the beached whale-like “struggle” you probably gave.
 
If any man would want to rape your gigantic ass, I’d be shocked.
 
It’s tempting to dismiss the lowlife assholes who leave comments like that on feminist blogs as . . . well, lowlife assholes. As in, people beneath not only our contempt but also our notice. Problem is, these comments show up frequently enough that they’re clearly not just the isolated thoughts of a few vicious, delusional wackjobs. They’re part of a larger cultural narrative about female attractiveness in general, and fat women’s sexuality in particular.
 
It starts here: Women’s first—if not only—job is to be attractive to men. Never mind straight women who have other priorities or queer women who don’t
want
men. If you were born with a vagina, your primary obligation from the onset of adolescence and well into adulthood will be to make yourself pretty for heterosexual men’s pleasure. Not even just the ones you’d actually want to have a conversation with, let alone sex with—
all
of them.
 
So if you were born with a vagina
and
genes that predispose you to fatness, then you’ve got a real problem. You’ve already failed—fat is repulsive! Sure, there are men out there who particularly dig fat women, and plenty of other men who would be hot for the
right
fat woman if she came along. But those men, the culture helpfully explains, are outliers. Freaks. Even if you chanced upon one—which you could go a whole lifetime without doing, so exquisitely rare are they!—who would want to be with a man who’s so broken, he finds fat women attractive? Besides which, as we’ve discussed, your job as a woman is to be attractive not only to the men who will love you and treat you well, but to
all
heterosexual men. And if you’re fat? Well, as the kids on the Internet say
,
epic fail.

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