The Huffington Post has long been a haven for progressive lectures in sensitivity training. Case in point is Leora Tanenbaum, who has a history of ranting about the evils of "slut-shaming" and its ties to oppressive sexism.
In a Wednesday post on "The Truth About Slut-Shaming," Tanenbaum defined the concept as "the experience of being labeled a sexually out-of-control girl or woman (a "slut" or "ho") and then being punished socially for possessing this identity." One of her examples was the occasion in which "Monica Lewinsky was called 'a little tart' in a Wall Street Journal editorial in 1998."
Tanenbaum insists this is "sexist," in part because "only girls and women are called to task for their sexuality, whether real or imagined; boys and men are congratulated for the exact same behavior. This is the essence of the sexual double standard: Boys will be boys, and girls will be sluts."
Has Tanenbaum ever read the story of David and Bathsheba? Both commit adultery but it was David who got the blame. This might be news to Ms. Tanenbaum, but there are sizeable number of people who reject this "boys will be boys" nonsense and think all promiscuity -- both male and female -- is shameful and should be "socially punished." They are called social conservatives.
On some occasions they are more angry at the men who sexually misbehave than the women. In fact, when the Lewinsky scandal broke out, the bulk of the Religious Right’s fury was directed at Clinton, rather than her.
This slut-shaming is confusing "heterosexual" girls and women by telling them "If you refrain from any expression of sexiness, you may be written off as irrelevant and unfeminine. But if you follow the guidelines, you run the risk of being judged, shamed and policed."
Aside from the curious "heterosexual" adjective, this is a good observation, but Tanenbaum seems ignorant of the confusion men face. Contemporary culture tells males that if they are promiscuous, women will flock to them and men will treat them as heroes. Men who are virgins and wait until they earned the heart of a woman are told they are losers. One might say they are "virgin-shamed."
She dismisses the obvious solution to slut shaming, "abstaining from sexual expression," by claiming that even non-sexual assertions by females can provoke similar reactions of shaming. She invokes the case of Ashley Judd, who was subjected to sexualized insults and threats of sexual violence following what Tanenbaum described as her "innocuous comment" during March Madness, "I think Arkansas is playing dirty."
For these reasons, Tanenbaum concludes that "slut-shaming is not really about women's sexuality. It is grounded in the belief that men get to assert themselves, and women do not...[it] is really just a catchy way to signify old-fashioned sexism."
While none of these sexualized comments or threats are defensible, and they deserve the condemnation they receive, it should be pointed out that even Judd concedes that her comment was not as "innocuous" as Tanenbaum claims, "I said something that, if I were in a more calm state of mind, I might have phrased differently." This was not a case of punishing someone who was "labeled a sexually out-of-control girl." It was just internet haters in their natural habitat using whatever insults came to their basement dwelling minds.
In the end Tanenbaum, like many before her, is angry at monumental injustice. The sexual revolution has given her a world where women who sleep around are called "sluts" while men who sleep around are called "studs." She lives in a time where she has "yet to meet an American woman under the age of 25 who has not been called a 'slut' or a 'ho' at some point in her life."
However, she takes refuge in the wrong solution.
She aims to remove shame from female promiscuity in hopes of making it equal with its male counterpart, as opposed to reversing the sexual revolution by shaming all promiscuity from both camps.
