Who is the greatest person in human history? Wrong! It’s his mother!

Quick!  Name the greatest person in human history! 

If you’re like most people, you probably repeated the name of someone you’ve read about in a book or you’ve seen on t.v.  Or you mentioned someone who reflects your family’s belief system: FDR, Tommy Douglas, Ronald Reagan, Jesus Christ, your great grandfather, etc.  And, if you’re like most people, the person you probably chose was a man. 

And, most likely, a white man. 

(Some of you may have chosen a woman or even someone of a third gender, and/or someone who was not white.  If so, your definition of “greatness” is probably more nuanced and sophisticated than it is for most of the rest of us here in North America.) 

But most of us, when asked the question Who is the greatest person in human history?  will likely just repeat what we’ve always been told makes for greatness:  Alexander the Great.  Christopher Columbus. Abraham Lincoln. Winston Churchill.  John F. Kennedy. 

(To believe that that there could ever even be just one “greatest person” in history, or even a handful of them, or even dozens of them, is to buy into the “great man” theory of history:  the notion that what actually makes up “history” are the few discrete acts of “the great men.”  That military conquest, industrial enterprise, and political success are indeed great things, and, furthermore, that they are among the very few acts that we can actually count as great.) 

But what about having a baby – the awesome act of bringing another human life into this world?  Well, most historians treat that as not even worth noting.

It is the ultimate patriarchal fantasy that any man who rises to greatness does so all on his own.  That nothing – and no one – who came before him much matters.  Especially not his mother.  After all, what the hell did she contribute, really, to his success in life?

(Other than everything!)

My failed attempt to try to celebrate the historical mother of us all.  A couple of years ago I was taking a course on how to teach history to high school students.  The professor teaching the course asked us each to come up with (and then argue for) what we each thought was “the most important single event in world history.”  At first I thought that the professor was joking.  Certainly this person could not be  actually suggesting that we teach history to young people as if it were just a series of disconnected, discrete, and yet somehow massively impactful events?  As if history were “facts” that are somehow utterly disconnected from one another, removed from the currents and tides of human existence and natural processes?  That history is merely the individual acts of individual people (the vast majority of whom are men)? 

I soon realized that the professor was (unfortunately) not joking, so I set out to think about what single “event” in world history could be considered to be the most important ever.  And I kept going back to “well, this certain event would not have happened without that event preceding it, which was in turn preceded by another event…”  It goes on and on and on and on, ever backward in time, which to me points to the futility of the entire exercise.  But for the assignment I did have to come up with something.  And for me that would mean a discreet event that was difficult to go back further from.

In retrospect perhaps I should have chosen “God’s Creation of the Universe” (even though I don’t personally believe in that story).  But choosing it makes about as much logical and scientific sense to me as choosing any other single “most important historical event” that has occurred since then!

But what I decided to argue for was “The Birth of Mitochondrial Eve.”   According to genetic analysis, “Mitochondrial Eve” is the woman who is our most recent common matrilineal ancestor.  A mother of us all.  She would have lived approximately 200,000 years ago in East Africa.  And although one can argue about the relative importance of this individual in the course human development, I chose her birth for two reasons:

First, we are nothing without our mother.  Without her, we do not even exist.  No matter what you have ever accomplished in your life, it simply would not have happened without your mother.  Without your mother – regardless of whether she was the dearest mommy or “Mommy Dearest” – without her nothing happens for you.  You do not live.  Your father may have been involved in your life.  Or he may have contributed nothing more than a sperm cell.  But your mother shared her very body and blood with you.  A deep and incredibly generous gift.  And that was before she even gave birth to you – an action that throughout most of human history – and in much of the world to this day – presents incredible risk to women’s lives!  Yet it remains an act at which most historians simply yawn.

Second, this Mitochondrial Eve from whom we are all descended was no doubt a black woman.  This is a critically important issue because it shows that we are all part of the same human family, and that the scourge of racism is a totally artificial – and wrong – human construct. 

I was once at an anti-racism training led by a black man who asked the crowd: “How many of you are of African descent?  If you are of African descent, please raise your hand.”  A few hands went up.  At that point he said:

“Every hand in this room should be raised!  We are all of African descent!”   

People! We are all descended from black folks.  I pray that someday we all come to understand that fact.

(For another example of how race and racism are totally artificial constructs, one need just look at the fact that, due to migration and the early branching of the human family tree, modern “black” Ethiopians are much closer genetically to “white” Europeans and to “white” North Americans than they are to “black” Nigerians – their fellow Africans on the other side of that large continent.)

Eve banished (yet again).  Of course choosing Mitochondrial Eve was itself kind of a random act on my part, since she too had a mother of her own.  But the professor was requiring that we choose a specific event.  So as artificial as it was to draw this line, it was the one I chose: Eve’s birth.  The birth of the woman from whom genetic evidence shows that we are all descended.

But the professor rejected my choice, and gave me a low grade.  Why?  Because the event itself – the birth of Mitochondrial Eve – could not be dated specifically enough.  And hence it was not, the professor said, enough of “a historical event.”   So even though we know that it happened, we don’t know exactly when.  And that wasn’t good enough.

Score one more win for “history as patriarchy!”  Or is it “patriarchy as history!”?  Or are those two things still so intertwined that distinguishing between patriarchy and history remains yet impossible? 

Women die giving life.  In that class some of my classmates argued for other events.  I think in the end the debate came down to whether the invention of a movable type printing press (by a European male) was more or less important than Martin Luther (another European male) nailing his Theses to the church door. 

But you know what strikes me as I think back on that debate?  Historians don’t really know when Johannes Gutenberg (the printing press guy) was born.  Sometime around 1395, they think.  But you can bet that his mother, Else Wyrich, knew!  And without her sharing her very body with him for nine months, without her giving birth to him, without her raising him, there simply would have been no him.  There probably would have been some sort of movable type printing press eventually.  But it was Gutenberg who invented it.  He gave it to the world.  But it was Else Wyrich who gave him to the world.  And as exciting as it must have been for him to invent that press, the most important day in his life was not the day he first put that machine together.  It was the day that his mother brought him into the world. 

Martin Luther’s mother, Magarethe Luther, like Else Wyrich, is largely invisible to history.  (Luther’s critics later tried to tear him down by saying that Margarethe Luther had been a whore.  Those (apparently untrue) allegations are pretty much all that what we know about her.

It was very brave for Luther to nail his Theses on the church door criticizing the Pope and essentially founding modern Protestantism.  He risked ruin, and was ultimately excommunicated from the Catholic Church.  But you know what else was brave?  How about going ahead and giving birth to him like his mother did in 1483, at a time when the rate for maternal death in Europe was as high as 3% per birth, a risk that remained the same for each child delivered.  The overall death rate for women who experienced five pregnancies (as Martin Luther’s mother did) was 10%! http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Me-Pa/Obstetrics-and-Midwifery.html    

How many men ever do things that have a 10% risk of killing us?

The list of prominent women who have died throughout history during childbirth is startling.  These women include Jayne Seymour (wife of Henry VIII), Catherine Parr (another wife of Henry VIII), Sarah Lincoln Grigsby (the sister of Abraham Lincoln), Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt (wife of Teddy Roosevelt), and the early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, who died right after giving birth to her daughter Mary, a daughter who would later become known as Mary Shelley, and who would write the classic novel Frankenstein. 

You can find a list of these prominent women here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_women_who_died_in_childbirth

But the vast majority of women who have died in childbirth were every-day people.  They were nobody “special.”  And until the 20^th century, death as a result of giving birth was incredibly common worldwide.  Take a walk through any old graveyard.  Before long you will encounter headstone after headstone indicating where a mother and her baby are buried together.    And while maternal death is now relatively rare in the industrialized world, it is still a common (and mostly preventable) tragedy in much of the developing world.  Maternal death rates in some regions remain over 100x that for the rate in the United States -- which itself has a maternal mortality rate that is still five times higher than the world’s best countries!

Motherhood is not just about birth.  And of course motherhood is not just about bringing children physically into the world.  It is also about raising them – whether they are a woman’s own biological children or not.  The raising of children is something that has historically fallen almost entirely to women.  Because the men are off doing, you know, “more important things” – the things that get their names written into the history books!  And, you know what?  By and large we men still are out in the world, leaving the raising of our young to their mothers or to other women.       

So not only are women bearing the children, they are tasked with raising them as well.  In most cultures it is still the women who socialize, civilize, and humanize the kids.  Without our mothers (or our mother figures) most of us would be nothing.  But most historians still see this area of life – the family, the raising of children – as unworthy of note. It as if no one ever gave birth to or raised Alexander the Great.  Or Christopher Columbus. Or Abraham Lincoln. Or Winston Churchill.  Or John F. Kennedy.  It is as if these men just suddenly materialized at about age 20.  As if dropped on earth by aliens. 

And the love and the labors of their mothers and mother figures is simply erased. 

The care that women provide in our society is unparalleled in its generosity and yet shockingly dismissed as totally unimportant by most historians.

On this Mother’s Day, I would like to thank all of the mothers and mother figures out there.  You, in your everyday acts of courageous love and domestic heroism, are making history! 

And I would like to end with a passage written by a woman who does not have biological children of her own, but considers herself to be a mother even so.  She writes: 

This Mother’s Day I also want you to consider every Foster Mom, every social worker, every woman unable to conceive, every woman who has miscarried or lost a child, every Teacher, Nurse, Step Mom, Aunts who love their nieces and nephews like their own, owners of beloved pets, and every woman who embodies feminine, nurturing love. http://www.miramichionline.com/a-childless-mother/

Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Why do men play where women die? (Thoughts on recreational travel in misogynist regions.)

This spring there was a lot of press coverage of two high-profile assaults on female travelers who were brutalized at the hands of local men in the countries they were visiting.

The first incident was a vicious assault on a Swiss tourist who was on a bicycle tour in rural India with her husband. After setting up camp for the night, the two were attacked and robbed.  The man was beaten. Five local men then gang raped the woman.

The second story involved the murder of Sarai Sierra, a 33 year-old American woman who chose to travel to Turkey by herself. Her disappearance led to a frantic search, and the subsequent discovery of her body resulted in a lot of public commentary, including some very harsh inquiries about why a married mother of two would ever go off alone to someplace like Turkey – or any place where unaccompanied women are known to sometimes encounter very abusive treatment at the hands of male strangers.

Asking all the wrong questions. Other questions that came up (questions that were either asked explicitly or strongly implied) were: Should women travel alone to such places? Why would a woman ever want to do that? Why would women want to travel alone, anywhere, anytime?  Don’t they know better? Don’t they know how dangerous it is?  What could explain Sierra’s utter lack of judgment?  What did she expect? 

But I think these are very unhelpful lines of analysis.  When it comes to addressing the issue of violence against women, when it comes to women’s safety, these are the wrong kinds of questions to be asking. Instead of blaming the victim, instead of focusing on the motivations and choices of women who are merely trying to exercise their basic human right of freedom of movement, we need instead to be asking questions about what can be done to make this a world where women in fact are able to exercise their birthright to explore this beautiful planet and all that it has to offer.  We need to be asking other questions, instead.  Different questions. 

Questions that include:

Why is it the case that women who travel alone typically face greater risk than men do?

Why?  Because much of the world is colonized by a male supremacist rape culture that hates women.  That sees women and girls as objects to be used and abused and disposed of as men see fit.  That rapes them (or threatens to) in order to keep them in their place.  And a woman alone is easier to prey upon than is a woman who is travelling in a group or with a man.

I’m a man.  A white man.  A cisgendered man.  A man who is “read” as heterosexual.  A man who is at the moment still relatively able bodied.  And as such I can pretty much go anywhere I want, any time I want (provided I can find the money to do so).  If I need to go get some peace and quiet I can just go off and find it.  If I want to head out on the highway (lookin’ for adventure!) I can just jump in my car and go!  Let my mind and my body be free.  And women can do this too.  But in a culture where all women – but especially women out on their own – are seen as possible prey, women have to worry about safety in ways that I never do. 

I have a female friend who, when she was a university student, would at the end of each school year ride her motorcycle half-way across North America in order to get home.  She loved the freedom of the open road.  That sense of feeling like a part of the landscape she was passing through.  But her sense of freedom was limited by the fact that she always felt that she had to carry a loaded pistol on her person as she traveled.  Not because she liked guns.  But because she feared rapists.  And a woman who is stopped by the side of the highway in the middle of nowhere with a broken down bike is at great risk from any predatory male who happens to pass by. 

If my friend wanted to head out on the highway lookin’ for adventure, she needed to do it with a loaded gun.  And it’s ridiculous that she should have to do that. 

(And unlike all those right wing yahoo males who go out of their way to flaunt their large guns in some sort of paranoid hypermasculine penis-enhancing display, my friend actually had real reason to worry.  She was simply trying to keep herself safe from predatory men as she sought an experience of freedom.)

Even the wilderness is not safe.  I have a young daughter.  And I despise the fact that as she goes thought her life she will face increased risk of attack simply because so much of the world sees people of her gender as legitimate targets of physical and sexual violence.  As people to be raped.  If she ultimately winds up sharing my love of the outdoors, she will always have to think twice before venturing out into the wilderness alone.  Not because of the wild animals she might encounter out here – but because of the “civilized” ones!  The extremely dangerous – and all too commonly encountered – human male.

And I am not talking about India here.  Or Turkey.  I am talking about right here in North America.  In 2013.  The fact that girls and women still face the threat of rape and murder at the hands of men in this so-called modern age -- in this so-called advanced society -- is an utter disgrace.

Are women who travel with men necessarily safer than women who travel alone?

In a word: No.

Having a man along didn’t help the Swiss tourist who was gang raped while on that bike tour in rural India.  And having a traveling companion who is male can present its own risks.  In fact, women most often face threats from men they know rather than from strangers.  There are a huge number of women who have been raped by male travelling companions -- but you don’t hear about those attacks in the media. These are women who thought that having a guy around would help keep them safe.  And what they discovered was that it did not keep them safe.  It hurt them.  Being attacked by a stranger is always terrifying. But to be attacked by a trusted friend -- which is a far, far more common event -- brings a whole other level of shame and betrayal.

Insisting that a woman always travel with a man is no guarantee of her safety.  And it is infantilizing.  It sentences her to a form of captivity.  A kind of custody that is not always protective.

How about travelling with a group of women? Doesn’t that help?

Not necessarily.

Sarai Sierra had originally planned to go to Turkey with a female friend, but her friend had to back out for financial reasons. So Sierra went alone -- a decision that she has since been posthumously criticized for.  (Apparently the admonition to never speak ill of the dead does not apply when the agenda is to victim-blame a woman for the male violence that has befallen her.)

Might Sierra have been safer had her friend gone along? Who knows? I myself was travelling in Turkey many years ago, and as I made my way up the coast toward Istanbul I kept running into a group of European women travelers.  At one stop where I met up with them I saw that they all looked really stressed out. It turned out that they had travelled inland to an ancient tourist attraction. They stayed at the inn that their student guidebook had recommended because the owner was, the book said, “a great guy.”

But while they were there, this supposed “great guy” decided that it was time for his teenage son to “become a man.” He proceeded to lock one of the women in a bedroom with the young man. The teen attacked the woman as her friends yelled and screamed from outside and tried unsuccessfully to break down the door and get into the room. Meanwhile, trapped behind the locked door, the woman repeatedly fought the guy off.  He finally stopped his attacks and let her go.  

In a misogynist culture where women are treated as property (or prey), not even an army of women can always keep you safe.

Are some cultures really more violent toward women than others?

Actually, yes. 

On average, places like Turkey and India do experience higher rates of violence against women than a place like North America.  And we need to be able to talk about that fact.  Because it is a reality of life on our planet that some cultures are indeed worse for women. And to pretend otherwise makes it impossible for us to begin to have meaningful conversations about just what makes one place better than another for women – about just what makes that place better for all of us, actually, because when things are good for women, they are good for all of us!   If we can talk about this fact, then we can figure out what can be done to ensure that all cultures become places of safety for women. 

Sometimes people are hesitant to discuss this reality (that some places are worse for women than others) because they fear that it lets those of us who live in places like North America off the hook.  That it allows us to deny our own levels of violence against women.  But it doesn’t.  According to the work of cross-cultural anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday (who is no apologist for violence against women in North America!), when it comes to violence against women, cultures range from extremely dangerous to very peaceful.  Some cultures lean toward being “rape free” (and many actually are rape-free), and others are “rape prone.”  (You can read more about her here http://billsprofeministblog.blogspot.ca/2010/09/achieving-rape-free-world-its-not-that.html and here: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~psanday/rapea.html ) 

North American cultures are about half way down the list between “rape free” and “rape prone.”  When it comes to rape, we’re just about in the middle.  Only average.  And that’s nothing to feel good about.  When it comes to rates of rape, being average still represents a failing grade!

Are there easily-identified practices that make some cultures safer for women and girls?

Yes!

Recognizing that cultures experience different levels of violence against women allows us the opportunity to begin to imitate those that do better than we do when it comes to the safety of women and girls.  We can adopt within our own cultures the very practices and principles that promote women’s safety -- which just so happen to be the very same practices that promote women’s empowerment! 

Funny how that works, isn’t it?  But it makes total sense when you think about it: violence against women is a crime that both reinforces and is in turn reinforced by sexist oppression.  It keeps women in their place.  Cultures where women have higher levels of social, political, spiritual, and economic power are also a lot less risky for women and girls.

Want to stop violence against women in your culture?  Then you need to work to increase women’s social status in every possible way.  In those cultures where men do not rape women, women are not always treated exactly the same way that men are, but they are never considered to be in any way inferior to men. 

We simply can’t continue to oppress women financially, educationally, sexually, reproductively, politically, socially and spiritually and yet somehow expect society to lessen its violence against them!  It’s the whole damn thing that needs to shift!

Want to stop rape?  Empower women in all ways.  Always. 

It’s that simple. 

The continuing existence of a rape culture -- any rape culture -- merely represents the choice of the men of that culture to maintain male supremacy by holding women down.  Socially.  Structurally.  Physically.  It all goes together.

But why do men still enjoy recreational travel in highly misogynist cultures?  Why do men play where women die? 

A lot of the commentary (chatter) about the murder of Sarai Sierra questioned why a woman would choose to go to such a place that has so much violence against women.  The implication was that women should just not travel to such places -- and certainly not alone.  But as I read these attacks on Sierra’s judgment (and, by implication, the judgment of all women who travel alone pretty much anywhere), the thought that kept occurring to me was this: 

Why are we only talking about the choices that female travelers make?  Why are we not asking why male travelers remain perfectly content to still tromp all around through misogynist cultures having the time of their lives  -- as if the mistreatment of women in those regions doesn’t impact them at all?

The answer’s relatively simple.  Because it doesn’t impact them.  Not directly. 

Why do we men wander blissfully in lands where our sisters would likely be raped and possibly even sold off into sexual slavery?  Places where such things are happening right in front of our faces?  (Has anyone else been to Thailand or Cambodia and walked right by the brothels full of young girls with numbers pinned on them so a man can order the one he wants without having to bother to even learn her name?) 

“I’ll have number 3, please.  She looks young and innocent.”

Do those of us men who do not actually enter into the brothels ever bother to notice the women sitting there waiting to be selected?  The young girls who were probably sold into that life of slavery?  Or the children who follow us down the street asking if we want a “companion” for the night?  Our vacation spot is their tragic destination.

Why do we guys traipse through this world like it is our candy store?

Because we can.  It’s one clear example of male privilege: that most of us can go anywhere anytime and not give a shit.  That we men can go to a place and not even notice the way women are being treated there!  That we can experience a place that treats women like dirt as if it were still an Eden.  A paradise where we can play obliviously while women die. 

I have met a number of heterosexual couples who have travelled together in India.  And when I have spoken to them about what travelling in India was like, I usually hear words like:

Amazing!  Incredible!  Life changing!      

And that’s wonderful.  But I have also had the experience -- over and over again -- that as the conversation continues, the woman (often speaking out of earshot of her male travelling companion) will soon drop the Amazing! Incredible! Life changing! language and talk painfully about the harassment, the groping, the hassling of her as a woman -- simply because she was a woman trying to make her way in a culture where misogyny runs so strong.    

When each member of the couple feels free to speak honestly, the men and the women typically report fundamentally different experiences of their time in India.  The guys loved it!  The women, not so much.

So what can we do?

What can we do?  We can work to empower women globally through cooperation with international feminist organizations that have partnerships with groups that allow local woman to shape their own destiny. 

And on an individual level, if you have the money for foreign leisure travel, why not go to places where women are treated even better than in your own country?  Make an active effort to learn something there, and bring those lessons back with you!  Rather than going to some place that you only imagine to be a paradise, why not go to places that actually are modern Edens?  But real Edens -- untroubled by patriarchal teachings.  Where man has not fallen.  And where woman is still honored.

And I am not talking about limiting travel to rich countries.  Yes, poverty and privation play an immense role in contributing to social misery.  But you know what? Most of the cultures that Peggy Sanday identifies as being rape-free are themselves quite poor.  Certainly much poorer than Europe or North America.  So it ain’t about money.  It’s about honoring women.  About honoring the earth.  About honoring nature.  About cultures that see everything in creation as having a sacred place.  Including women. 

And if enough people do this, pretty soon it will have an impact.  Tourist industries in misogynist cultures are highly sensitive to drop offs in numbers of visitors.  (Tourist numbers are already way down in India due to the high profile assaults that have occurred there this year.)  If they take a hit in the pocket book, those governments will take notice.  And when they begin to understand that travelers are staying away because of the misogyny, they will take action. 

And things for women will start to change.

In praise of sluts, whores, and other promiscuous women.

 

Okay, first, let’s get one thing settled:  just how much sex someone else is having is none of my damn business.  And in an ideal world, no one else would make it their business, either.  But this is not (yet) an ideal world.  This is a world where women who are sexually active -- or who are merely thought to be sexually active -- are still often harshly attacked, viciously criticized, demeaned, diminished, loathed.

And I am sick of it.

These attacks come mostly from men... or from other women who are busily doing the patriarchy’s work for it by seeking to limit their sisters’ freedom -- sexual and otherwise. 

I am sick of this abusive behavior -- this sexually abusive behavior -- of calling a woman bad names because of how she looks/how she dresses/how she acts/how many people she has been sexual with/how many people you think she has been sexual with/for no reason at all... 

This stuff has real consequences.  It significantly and unnecessarily complicates sexuality for the majority of us.  And it greatly interferes with the ability of adolescent girls and young women to explore and experiment with their sexuality in a context that is safe from others’ judgement.  And in its most extreme form, it leads to the death of women and girls, either through their murder at the hands of an insanely jealous partner, or through suicide, as recently happened with the tragic incidents in Nova Scotia and in Northern California, where young women were reportedly raped at parties and then were then called “sluts” and “whores” by their peers when photos of the attacks were circulated. 

So then they killed themselves.

Not only was calling these young women “sluts” and “whores” a totally erroneous understanding of what happened to them -- they were raped, dammit! -- those are horrible names to call any woman or girl -- anywhere, anytime.   

Does the concept of a “slut” or a “whore” even make sense?  Personally, I don’t think so. 

Heck, we can’t even figure out what these terms actually mean!  According to Merriam-webster.com, a whore is a “a woman who engages in sexual acts for money: prostitute; also: a promiscuous or immoral woman.”  It is derived from the old Norse from hōrr, meaning adulteress.    

But according to Wikipedia, on the other hand, the English word whore derives from the Old English word hōra, from the proto-Germanic kohoron (prostitute), which derives from the proto-Indo-European root kā meaning "desire," a root which has also given us the Latin caritas (love, charity) and the French cher (dear, expensive).

So a “whore” is a woman who takes money for sex.  Or maybe she doesn’t.  Or maybe she is an adulteress.  Or maybe she is just someone who is promiscuous.  But regardless, she is someone whom we all desire!

Clear as mud, ain’t it?

As for a slut, Merriam-Webster says she is “a promiscuous woman; especially: prostitute."    (Again we seem a little unclear on the whole money piece.)  And, according to Wikipedia, “Although the ultimate origin of the word ‘slut’ is unknown, it first appeared in Middle English in 1402 as slutte (AHD), with the meaning ‘a dirty, untidy, or slovenly woman.’  Even earlier, Geoffrey Chaucer used the word sluttish (c. 1386) to describe a slovenly man; however, later uses appear almost exclusively associated with women. The modern sense of ‘a sexually promiscuous woman’ dates to at least 1450. Another early meaning was ‘kitchen maid or drudge’ (c. 1450), a meaning retained as late as the 18th century, when hard knots of dough found in bread were referred to as ‘slut's pennies.’”

So, a “slut” may or may not have sex.  She may simply bake bread.  She may be just physically dirty.  And she may or may not take money for any of the sex that she either does or does not have.  And until the mid 14th century, she might even have been a he, but now she is exclusively a she.

So the case for either of these terms is looking pretty weak. 

Albert Einstein once said: “If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” 

Personally, I prefer an updated version of that notion that I once heard someone say: 

“If you can’t explain something simply, it’s either because you don’t know what you’re talking about, or it’s because you’re full of shit!”

And it seems that when it comes to defining the terms whore or slut, we really don’t know what we’re talking about. 

And that when we use those terms to disparage women or girls, we’re full of shit.

And we’re also being sexist.  I am utterly sick of watching men (and some women) tear down women and girls for their sexual choices -- when most of us will celebrate those exact same choices when they are made by men!  I am sick of a world where a woman is called a “slut” for the exact same behavior that makes a man a “stud.”  I am tired of attacks on women who are merely exercising (or who are merely perceived to be exercising) their sexual liberty. 

The mixed messages endure.  There is an old saying that what a (straight) man wants in a wife is “a woman who is a lady in public and a whore in the bedroom.”  But that’s not entirely true.  A lot of us men are troubled by any woman’s overt expressions of enthusiastic desire -- even if she is our partner, and it’s inside of the bedroom!

“Good  women” -- and “good mothers” even more so -- are simply not supposed to be sexually voracious.  In our patriarchal, puritanical culture -- still stuck as we are in a Madonna/whore dichotomy -- many men find it difficult when their female partner expresses unbridled sexual enthusiasm.  Many men will still see her as a whore.  And it troubles them.  And this difficulty is greatly magnified when the woman also happens to be the mother of their children.  Because in a patriarchal society, mothers aren’t supposed to act “slutty.”

And even if we straight guys are totally okay with a female partner’s expressing herself sexually, we will still almost certainly claim her sexuality entirely for ourselves, demanding that she not engage in any sort of sexual interaction that does not also involve us – not even flirting.  Because in our society we hetero guys still believe that “the girl is mine!” 

And should she ever want to go out in public dressed like a “slut,” well, she is really only allowed to do that on Halloween.

(Have you ever wondered why so many women choose to dress in an overtly sexual manner on Halloween?  Could it be because that is the one day of the year when women have social permission to let their hair – and necklines – down, and to hike their skirts up?)

The hook up tightrope.  Even the “hook up culture” that has emerged on many college and university campuses -- in which women theoretically have a high level of sexual freedom -- is fraught with mixed messages.  Guys can pretty much hook up as much as they want, but women still must walk a tightrope -- lest they become known as a “whore.”  (And research suggests that a lot of hook up sex isn’t all that pleasurable anyway, and rarely results in orgasm...  for the woman, that is.) 

An interview conducted by Tracy Clark-Flory with author Leslie C. Bell about her book Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom discussed the perilous path that young women still must negotiate even within this context of supposed sexual license, and the fact that the relative freedom of “hook up culture” all too soon comes to an end: 

Q: This conflict between sex and committed relationships seems reminiscent of the wife/whore dichotomy, that we’re not able to conceive of a woman being desirous within a relationship.

A: Absolutely. I think we’ve not come a great distance from that dichotomy. It still is very easy to fall into. I think people feel on the one hand, you’re supposed to have lots of sexual experience, [but] you really have to be sure to rein that in before the specter of “the whore” comes in... I think the 20s are a moment where people do feel a little freer to have first experiences, but again it’s sort of punctuated by this date by which they’re supposed to become wives. It’s psychologically difficult for people to think about themselves as sexually agentic and enjoying sex and being a wife or a partner at the same time. Those are not very easy ideas to hold on to [simultaneously]. (http://www.salon.com/2013/03/03/finally_a_nuanced_look_at_hookup_culture/ )

So the conflicting messages remain very strong -- the tightrope is thin and shaky.  So a lot of women choose to get off -- and to forgo getting off.

Why do we hate women’s sexuality?  Last year the American political figure and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said:

“Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me.  But they all seem to.  They want to control women. They want to control how we dress, they want to control how we act, they even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and bodies.  Yes, it is hard to believe that even here at home, we have to stand up for women’s rights and reject efforts to marginalize any one of us..."

She’s right.  Male supremacists -- wherever they are -- want to control women.  And an immense part of controlling women is trying to control their sexuality.

There seems to be little else in modern life that draws as much patriarchal scorn as the woman who is sexually self-possessed.  (Another target of vicious attack is the unapologetic gay man.  Because both of these lived identities upset the traditional social order in very profound ways.  Because these folks don’t need us patriarchs.  And they refuse to submit to our domination.)  

Any woman who pursues pleasure and sensuality on her own terms is a deep threat to the patriarchy.  We straight men simply cannot control a woman who is sexually powerful.  She challenges our entire social structure because one of key tenets of male supremacy is the notion that women’s sexuality (to the degree that it is allowed to exist at all) is entirely a performance that is put on for the benefit of us heterosexual men.  That women’s bodies were put here on earth only to please men. 

So we attempt to locate any overt female sensuality only in the prostitute, the whore for hire, the slut for sale.  A woman who, although sexual, is only for our use and disposal.  A woman we can control.  A woman we can buy.  A woman we can own.

A sexually self-empowered woman, on the other hand, is sexual in the ways she wants to be, when she wants to be, and with whomever she wants to be with.  We can’t control her!  And the final slap in the face of the patriarchy is that the “with whomever she wants to be with” just might turn out to not be us! 

And that enrages us.

And it is this fear of female promiscuity (and, I would argue, the fear of female strength in general) that contributes to the mutilation of female genitals throughout too much of the world.  To the attempted sexual destruction of women.

Reclaiming the words.  Reclaiming the world.    The other day I did a radio interview about the tragic suicide of Rehteah Parsons, a young Nova Scotia woman who killed herself after being “slut shamed” after having been raped.  During that show I said that we need to disarm the words slut and whore.  That we need to remove their sting.  That we need to stop judging women’s sexuality.

And there are some women who are actively trying to reclaim the terms slut and whore.  They are embracing the words.  Embracing the identity.  There is of course some controversy about whether these words can even be reclaimed.   Just as there has been around people trying to reclaim racist and homophobic slurs. 

As a white, straight guy, I don’t have an opinion on the issue of reclaiming racist, homophobic, or sexist names.  That’s not my battle, and I do not have the lived experience necessary to have an informed stance.

So what makes me think that I have the right to chime in on women’s sexuality at all?  After all, I have not lived a woman’s experience.  And, as I said at the beginning, just how much sex someone else is or is not having should be none of my business.  But I do feel a need to speak up because so many other men -- so many of my hetero brothers -- are so busy harshly condemning and viciously attacking women and girls for their expressions and enactments of sexuality. 

We still live in a world where people call young women “sluts” and “whores” for having been raped! We still live in a world in which a proposed United Nations statement against violence against women was condemned by conservative men around the world for insisting, among other things, that girls be granted sexual freedom and provided with contraception!  We still live in a world where grown men call for the stoning of a young Tunisian woman who dared bare her breasts on a website because, it was said, her actions were likely to cause “epidemics and disasters” and to destroy society! 

(You can see an excellent piece on the global situation here: http://www.womenundersiegeproject.org/blog/entry/womens-bodies-cause-of-epidemics-and-disasters#.UVRWkBFLSaA.twitter )

We still live in a world where most good men respond to these outrages with only silence.  But good men need to start speaking up.  We need to call out -- and call off -- our misogynist brothers.  We need to do our part to help to make the world safe for an empowered female sexuality! 

I have a young daughter.  I want her path to adult womanhood to be easier than it was for her foremothers.  And this includes in matters of sexuality.

Unapologetically “promiscuous.”  I think part of the antidote to all of this misogynist anti-sex poison is to hold up images of women who are unapologetically sexual.  Who are empowered.  Who don’t care if they are seen by others as being “promiscuous.”

Merriam-Webster rather conservatively defines “promiscuous” as being “not restricted to one sexual partner.”  But I prefer another definition – the one that defines promiscuous as “anyone who is having more sex than you are!”  Because that definition shows just how subjective and relative the term actually is!

Throughout history there have been women who have actively resisted society’s attempts to control them, their bodies, and their sexuality.  Women like the 19^th century French novelist Amantine Dupin, who wrote under the pen name George Sand.  Dupin had numerous male lovers, and, quite likely, at least one lover who was female as well.  She often dressed in men’s clothes because of their practicality, and, shockingly for the time, she also smoked tobacco in public!  She was unapologetic about her lifestyle, even though she was harshly attacked for her behavior by the moralists of her time.  (Who are not so different from the moralists of our time!)

Another prominently pro-sex woman was Mae West, the American stage and screen actress who boldly asserted her right to have sex on her own terms.  As a young woman she penned and staged a play that was actually called Sex.  In 1927 it was shut down on moral grounds, and West was sentenced to jail for 10 days for harming the morality of the youth of New York City.  But, if anything, the morals charge only emboldened her, and she made a career out of being daring. 

Some of her more famous quips include:

Marriage is a great institution.  I’m just not ready for an institution yet.

When I’m good I’m very good, but when I’m bad I’m better.

A hard man is good to find.

I go for two kinds of men, the kind with muscles, and the kind without.

I go for two kinds of men, foreign and domestic.

Too much of a good thing... can be wonderful 

Why don’t you come up and see me sometime...  when I’ve got nothing on but the radio.  

I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.   

To err is human, but it feels divine.   

Those who are easily shocked should be shocked more often.   

When choosing between two evils, I always choose the one I’ve never tried before.   

Save a boyfriend for a rainy day.  And another, in case it doesn’t rain.

Good sex is like good bridge. If you don’t have a good partner, you better have a good hand!

I’m the lady who works at Paramount all day, and Fox all night.

Both Dupin and West have gone on to their eternal reward -- perhaps on Cloud Nine?  But another woman who still asserts her sexual appetites unapologetically is the country singer Dolly Parton.  In interviews she has hinted at the fact that she and her husband have an open marriage.  And in a recent issue of Vanity Fair she answered the magazine’s “Proust Questionnaire” with the following responses:

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
 

Snow White, because she slept with the seven dwarfs and got away with it.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
 

Monogamy—I’m sorry, I meant monotony.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?
 

My husband, Carl Dean—we have been together for 47 years.

Who knew that sweet little Dolly Parton likes to get around?  And she’s totally unapologetic about it, too!  And totally devoted to her husband.

Safe sex requires sexual safety!  People who teach sexual health often focus on “safer sex” techniques, practices, and products.  And while their work is absolutely essential, sometimes I feel there should be more attention in that work paid to issues of consent.  Because sex that isn’t fully consensual isn’t psychologically safe.  It hurts people, regardless of how much latex is involved. 

And we also need to raise our field of vision, and to look around at the hazards that are present in our entire sexual environment as well.  Our sexual environment is badly contaminated by puritanical, patriarchal attitudes that attempt to strip women of their sexual power.  Which is both tragic and ironic.  Tragic because the vast majority of humanity would very much like to be able to fully embrace and thoroughly inhabit our sexual selves.  But society tries to deny that right to women.  And it’s ironic because a woman’s clitoris is the only part of the human body (male or female) whose entire purpose is pleasure.  And even in societies like ours, where the clitoris is generally spared any ritual physical cutting or destruction, we still seek to deny females the option of pursuing their own pleasure on their own terms!   

How much sex any woman (or man) does or does not have really is none of my business.  But I believe that confronting a patriarchal society that attempts to control and/or kill women’s sexuality is my business.  Because I need our society to be a sexually healthier place.  I need that for all of us, but I especially need it for my daughter, who will soon grow into a young woman.  And as she increasingly negotiates her way through the culture, she will see how the terms “slut” and a “whore” are used to bully, to brutalize, and to humiliate women and girls.  And I need that shit to stop.        

We need to help to build a world where people of any gender – and this includes women! – feel free to have just as much (or as little) sex – good sex – as they want.  And by good sex I mean sex that is enthusiastic, consensual, safe, and ethical.  (“Ethical sex,” according to Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, the sexual liberationists who argue for reclaiming the term slut in their book The Ethical Slut, means not deceiving anyone about your activities.  You don’t have to broadcast to the world what you are up to, but you don’t lie about it, either.)   

Building such a world means creating a social context where people of all genders – and again this includes women! – have the social permission to have a whole lot of sex, with one partner or with many!  Or to have just a moderate amount of sex with a modest number of lifetime partners – even just one!  Or to not have sex with anyone else at all! 

And any choices that a woman makes along that rich and varied continuum of human sexuality need to be totally okay.  Without her having to encounter any kind of judgement or criticism from anybody. 

Without having some misogynist jerk call her a slut or a whore.