Melania, Nude Modeling, and Misogyny

Yesterday I put up a Facebook post that said this:

I deeply dislike the line of criticism that argues that Melania isn't "classy" because she took some nudie pics as a model.

The Birth of Venus is a nudie pic. The Venus de Milo is a nudie sculpture. Marilyn Monroe was the first-ever Playboy centerfold. Those are all pretty classy things! (Also, I will fight you if you want to argue about Marilyn.)

There are other criticisms one can make of Melania (although, frankly, I'm not a huge fan of those, either), but the nude modeling one particularly annoys me because hey guys, we're supposed to be the enlightened feminist body-positive side out here, and that there is some straight-up misogynist prudery.

Defining "classy" as something that exists in opposition to art or photography or (gasp!) the female body is, in my opinion, not great. I'm not surprised when the right does it; that's what they do. I am, however, pretty disappointed whenever I see it from the crew that's supposed to be about smashing the patriarchy. Because that right there? That is holding patriarchy up high.

Not too surprisingly, it turned out to be a pretty hot-button topic that got a bunch of comments and some spirited discussion. DJT and the people around him are a topic about which lots of people feel strongly; the tangled knot of sex/nudity/decency is another topic about which lots of people feel strongly. For the most part, I felt the discussion was thoughtful, insightful, and as measured as any quasi-political discussion can reasonably be these days, although a few times I had to clarify that my intention was not to defend Melania as a person (my purpose with this discussion was and is to use her as an interesting and challenging prism through which to approach, question, and examine these ideas, not to defend her life choices or hold her up as a figure of admiration), and as with any fast-paced conversation on the internet, a few of the finer points probably got lost in the avalanche all around.

But, again, for the most part I thought it was a good and useful discussion, especially given that the original post was semi-flippant and not too obviously a springboard for a serious examination of these issues. I think that the intersections between modesty and frankness, "decency" and how its varied interpretations intersect with feminism, celebration vs. exploitation of female sexuality, etc., are not discussed often or candidly enough for many people to have clearly separated out why they feel as they do, what they think the salient differences really are between art and porn, moral and immoral, "classy" and degraded/-ing, and so on. Almost everyone has strong feelings about at least some of the issues tangled up in that ball, but few people have really taken the time to figure out why.

And since DJT and his coterie are very public figures, we're all familiar with them and all have at least a basic idea of where the conversation might begin. Accordingly, the current First Lady provides (in my opinion) a valuable opportunity to discuss some of these ideas.

Anyway, things trucked along for a while and then one particular comment thread took a turn that just happened to hit on a lot of the reasons that I made the original post in the first place (namely, my belief that stigmatizing women's sexuality has a lot of negative ripple effects for a lot of people [mostly, although not exclusively, women] throughout society, and that for this reason it is advisable for us all to consider carefully what we wish to criticize in this sphere and why).

I'm indebted to this commenter, because when I saw this comment I wanted to go "YES! THAT'S IT! THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS TRYING TO PUSH BACK AGAINST HERE." But I didn't, because it was around 4 am at that point and I was pretty brain-blasted after a long day at work and I had to take the dogs out. So, instead, I filed it away to write a blog post about later, and now here we are.

Here's the comment that struck me so hard (lightly edited to remove the first and last sentence and insert some paragraph breaks, otherwise reproduced as originally posted):

You can't have it both ways. You can't drive down the street without seeing young girls in shorts up the crack of their ass, boobs hanging out and 4 lbs of makeup. You have music calling them bitches and whores. Magazines that pray upon their opinions about their appearance. We have young girls getting pregnant that are 12 years old and others giving blow jobs. Our society sexualize women from the day they enter the world. 

Most of us would prefer to be valued for character, our heart, our mind. We rant and rave because we are paid less, our ideas and intellect aren't valued. We don't want to be just sex objects. We don't want that to be what young girls learn or how they see themselves. On the other hand you have women like Melania who help teach those young girls exactly what is important. If you are sexy enough, pretty enough, crafty enough, and know how to use your body then men will want you. And if men want you they will take care of you. You can try but you can't separate Melania from that message. 

We all know how this works. We've all had the doe-eyed, big boobed nitwit at the office. Melania isn't some free spirit forward thinking feminist. She's got the oldest game in the book. Sex sells and as long as there is testosterone it always will.

What strikes me most immediately here is how strongly and (in my reading, although I might well be mistaken) unconsciously the argument grants the continued and unchallenged existence of male supremacy in this world, and therefore proceeds to the conclusion that the "correct" course for women is, presumably (and, again, in my reading) to desexualize themselves. I want to argue against that, but I also want to take a moment to pick apart what I think are the essential underpinnings of this worldview.

The "young girls" who put themselves on display are described in terms that portray them as both victims (prematurely sexualized, manipulated into adopting roles and postures they don't fully understand and whose consequences they cannot appreciate) and sirens (painted and underdressed "with boobs hanging out"). The possibility that they might simply be experimenting with and play-acting at adult roles (as preteens and adolescents are wont to do, and as is necessary for eventual adulthood), as innocently and safely as a girl trying out her mother's high heels and lipstick in her own bedroom, doesn't seem to exist in this scenario. Instead, the outcome that's contemplated is that 12-year-olds will get pregnant and give blowjobs. Wear revealing clothing --> turn into a slut, get knocked up.

Curiously, men are absent and yet ever-present in this scenario. Music calls these girls "bitches and whores." Magazines prey on their insecurities. Our society sexualizes girls from inappropriately young ages. But the fact that (predatory) men do have to be involved somewhere for pregnancies and blowjobs is never called out. The focus is not on them, but on the girls for inappropriately expressing their sexuality. Implicitly, the girls are condemned for not doing enough to protect themselves, or for playing with fire and getting burned, but the fact that the "fire" in this scenario has its own moral agency is not contemplated or questioned. It just is, an elemental and eternal fact of the universe, a natural hazard against which girls have to be prepared to defend themselves (by reining in their own displays and presenting an appropriate demureness, but not by challenging the men around them).

The next two paragraphs exhibit similar assumptions. If women present themselves as sexy, that is the reason they're paid less, their ideas are devalued, their worth reduced to sexual appeal. The danger is other women -- and, specifically, other women's sexuality -- not the men evaluating them. The possibility that (predatory) men might not be the arbiters of a woman's worth, or might choose to evaluate their employees fairly -- maybe your boss is a woman! maybe he's a guy who's just a decent person! -- is not entertained. The world is presented as a zero-sum game in which scheming beauties (who are simultaneously empty-headed, "big-boobed nitwits") win by manipulating men at the expense of the plainer but more skilled.

(As a footnote, this also sets up a no-win scenario for pretty women. If a woman happens to be "doe-eyed" and "big-boobed" but is also serious and skilled, where does she fall? Does she, like Emma Watson, become an illustration of the proposition that "our culture cannot handle a woman who is both sexual AND serious"?)

In my reading, then, that comment exhibits a deeply misogynistic worldview. Which is not to say that it's entirely inaccurate in its observations. Girls do get sexually exploited at disturbingly young ages, and there are workplaces that still run on a Helen Gurley Brown-esque, early-'60s model of overt sexual favoritism. Not many (and certainly not any with a half-competent HR department), but they exist.

But, by and large, we recognize these things as unacceptable, and we recognize that the crux of the problem does not lie with the women. I was sexually assaulted on a public bus when I was 10; it wasn't because I was made up or dressed alluringly (I was an extremely plain child, I'd even say "grubby"), but because a random middle-aged dude on a public bus was a pervert. There are workplaces that place more emphasis on women's appearances than their job skills, but generally we recognize that the problem isn't with the short-skirted secretary but her boss.

And -- this is where we circle back to my original post and original point -- I think the best curative to these toxic scenarios is not to condemn the women or tell them to repress their sexuality, but to help them explore and understand themselves without stigma or shame, and also to place condemnation where it accurately belongs: not on a 12-year-old girl experimenting with makeup and clothes, but on the man who thinks it's acceptable to put his penis down her throat. Not on women who were born with big breasts or like to wear false eyelashes, but on the people (men and women) who think that appearance gives them license to devalue those women's ideas and intellect.

My belief is that openness and frankness and tearing away the shame is both kinder and more effective social policy. Broadly speaking, it empowers women, keeps them safer, and breaks some of the levers that are used to hold them down.

Girls are going to experiment. It's part of growing up. The best thing we can do for them is not yank away the lipstick (if you don't get your beginner makeup mistakes out of the way when you're 12, you might wind up making them when you're 22, which -- take it from me -- is way worse), but to give them a space to explore and experiment safely, with clear and calm parental guidance that gives them the freedom to learn without abandoning them to fall too far. We would do better, too, to arm them with the knowledge (about contraception, about STDs, about the emotional and mental health aspects of sexuality) that they need to safeguard themselves. Ignorance never keeps anyone safe; it only makes them easier prey.

And girls are going to make mistakes, as we all make mistakes, because that too is part of life and how we learn. I think destigmatizing those mistakes goes a long way toward neutralizing their corrosive impact, though. So much of the shame and moral panic about women's sexuality is used to coercive effect: the high-school girl who gets blackmailed with her nudie pics; the one-time porn starlet who feels locked into a job she no longer wants because, having been made "dirty," she feels like she can't do anything else; the stereotypical but too-frequently-real rape victim who blames herself because she wonders if wearing a short dress and getting a little too drunk meant she was asking for it.

It's all part and parcel of the same thing. It is all shame and stigma used to strip women of agency, cow them into compliance, and reinforce the patriarchy.

And I will yell about it all day every day forever, if need be.