Day: December 10, 2008

Crankypantsing, Ladybusiness

That Joke Isn’t Funny

Shelly

There’s a discussion in the dog groups (which, of course, has bupkis to do with dogs) in which various parents overreact to boys showing interest in their daughters. Not a word, as far as I can tell, about protecting their young sons from the sexual advances of young women.

I just find the whole “girls are either virgins or sluts but boys are always studs” crap fascinating. And by fascinating, I mean cringe-inducing. Parents want to protect their daughters’ virtue, but boys are meant to fool around. It’s sort of a badge of honor, in fact (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more). When girls do the same, they’re promiscuous, trampy whores. Just think of all the negative terms we have for sexually active women, vs. the sorts of terms we have for sexually active men. Sexually active men are admired and praised, while their female counterparts are shamed and denigrated.

And there’s a subtext that’s kind of skeevy. The whole “protect your daughters so that you can hand them over to their next owner with virtue intact” crap that gets celebrated at father-daughter purity balls (no, I am not making this up) is frankly horrifying. It’s one thing to teach your children–all of them–to be responsible, respectful human beings, but quite another to fetishize girls’ hymens.[1]

Anyway, jokes about buying chastity belts for your daughters or threatening to shoot boys who fool around with them make me cranky.

IBTP, of course.

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[1] It’s not just a matter of quaint, harmless tradition, either. When you have fucknecks like Bill Napoli bloviating about how only virginal, Christian girls are worthy of compassion should they have the misfortune to be raped, hymen fetishization takes on a whole new dimension.

Ladybusiness

Panty Sniffing

Shelly

So there’s a discussion in the dog groups (which, of course, has bupkis to do with dogs) in which various parents overreact to boys showing interest in their daughters. Not a word, as far as I can tell, about protecting their young sons from the sexual advances of young women.

I just find the whole “girls are either virgins or sluts but boys are always studs” crap fascinating. Parents want to protect their daughters’ virtue, but boys are meant to fool around. It’s sort of a badge of honor, in fact (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more). When girls do the same, they’re promiscuous, trampy whores. Just think of all the negative terms we have for sexually active women, vs. the sorts of terms we have for men. Sexually active men are admired and praised, while women are denigrated.

And there’s a subtext that’s kind of skeevy. The whole “protect your daughters so that you can hand them over to their next owner with virtue intact” crap that gets celebrated at father-daughter purity balls (no, I am not making this up) is frankly horrifying. It’s one thing to teach your children–all of them–to be responsible human beings, but quite another to fetishize girls’ hymens.[1]

Anyway, jokes about buying chastity belts for your daughters or threatening to shoot boys who fool around with them make me cranky.

IBTP

—————————-
[1] It’s not just a matter of quaint, harmless tradition, either. When you have fucknecks like Bill Napoli bloviating about how only virginal, Christian girls are worthy of compassion should they have the misfortune to be raped, hymen fetishization takes on a whole new dimension.