Update on this earlier story: bowing to protest, the administration has removed all the filters on faculty computers. We can now access any site we want without hindrance. We have been told, however, that the administration will continue to monitor our computer use. Will we be asked to justify our visits to certain sites? Who knows. Still, it’s a minor victory for faculty rights.
We had a good discussion this morning in women’s history about something that for years I’ve been calling the "triangle of desires." We’ve been talking about changing sexual behavior in the 1920s and 30s as a result of cultural and technological innovations like the automobile, the movies, and the greater availability of contraception. Using my favorite text, Joan Brumberg’s The Body Project, we’ve been talking about the ways in which young women in the 1920s — and today — struggle with conflicting and contradictory messages about their sexuality. Brumberg uses the diary of a woman she calls "Yvonne Blue"; Yvonne wrote at length about her adolescent sexual experiences in the late 20s and early 30s:
Despite her honesty with herself about the pleasures of petting, Yvonne was not totally at ease with her emerging sexuality. Although petting was commonplace among adolescents of her age and class, she still worried about her reputation, because she knew that she had a lower opinion of other girls whenever she found out about their sexual exploits… Because Victorian notions of propriety still had some resonance for her, Yvonne felt the need to clarify in her diary just how far she had gone. "I’m still technically a ‘nice girl’", she wrote, but she vacillated between feeling guilty and happy about the experiences she had. "Once in awhile I feel slightly ashamed of myself for indulging in the greatest American sport but something must be the matter with me because while I think it’s wrong I really, really can’t feel that it is". (Emphasis in original).
Yvonne wrote that in 1930. Three quarters of a century later, I saw more than a few young women nodding their heads in vigorous agreement when I asked whether Yvonne’s words could have been written by young women today. Several of them admitted that like Yvonne, they too had a "lower opinion of other girls" who had "gone too far". Others admitted that like Yvonne, they felt both shame and pleasure together, and often had difficulty reconciling the two.
The phrase "triangle of desires" describes, I think, the experience of many young people, especially women, when it comes to sexual decision-making. Triangles have three points. Young women, in Yvonne’s era and now, may often struggle with three different sets of desires making different demands upon them. For one, they’ve got the desires of their male partner (presuming heterosexuality) with which to contend. In a culture where we expect young women to set the limits of sexual activity, many girls are trying very hard to manage and control the desires of their boyfriends. At the same time, these young women have their own very real desires, both sexual and emotional. Those wants and needs may, or may not, be in synch with the fellows with whom they are sharing a bed — or a back seat. And of course she’s also internalized the third point on the triangle, the desires of what I call "the them": her parents, her church, her peers and so forth. Trying to enjoy oneself when one has all of these conflicting messages racing through one’s head can be, I suggest, immensely difficult!
I am not saying that all young women experience this "triangulation of desires." I’m also not suggesting that young men don’t experience something at least somewhat similar. But I do think that in a culture that, since the 1920s at least, has suggested that the ideal women is both "sexy" and "virginal", both a "nice girl" and "exciting", a cruel double bind has left countless young women struggling with feeling overwhelmed and ashamed. Is it any wonder that a great many young women, both in the 1920s and now, report that alcohol plays a vital role in sexual decision making? When the backseat (or the bedroom) is crowded with so many different and competing voices, all making impossible and contradictory demands, a certain level of intoxication can provide a welcome and blessed — if only temporary — relief.
Though I talked about this with my students today in terms of the shifting moral landscape of the 1920s, I’m going to work this in to some future discussions with my kids at youth group. I want them to acknowledge that an ethic that simply emphasizes "doing what you want" isn’t very helpful when so many of us carry within us these competing and conflicting longings. I realize that though I am not prepared to argue for abstinence (yet), I’m prepared to say that my kids, both boys and girls, deserve to experience sex without being overwhelmed by various and contradictory voices vying for their attention. They deserve to have sexual experiences where both parties are fully present (meaning not intoxicated) and where they aren’t haunted by the spectres of disapproving grandmothers or pastors or classmates.
One of my married students pointed out today that even as a married woman having married sex, she still sometimes felt guilty, still wondering what her grandmother would think! The stories I’ve heard over the years suggest that her experience is very, very common. (Gosh, the expression on the faces of some of the girls whom I know to be advocating abstinence when they heard her share that — priceless!) It’s important to remember that waiting till marriage is not a magic bullet that destroys sexual guilt and shame and self-doubt; our psyches don’t recover easily from the traditional message of "sex is dirty, save it for someone you love"!" The abstinence-only crowd doesn’t explain that postponing sex in many cases simply postpones (rather than eradicates) these feelings of shame and inadequacy.
That’s not a defense of promiscuity, either. What we continue to need is more dialogue, among women, among men, and between the sexes, about issues of desire and responsibility. We need to do a better job of making young men stewards of their own sexuality, just as we need to do a better job of allowing young women to experience their sexuality without shame.
Is this what I’m supposed to be doing in a college classroom? In a youth group? Judging by the responses I get, and the interest it generates, I suspect it is. I surely hope so. But Christ almighty, sometimes it feels like a hell of a lot of responsibility. Then again, I volunteered with enthusiasm.
I’ve rambled enough. I’m off.
