Revolutions rarely seem to pan out the way their instigators expect them to. Darwinism begot Social Darwinism, Marxism begot Stalinism, and imperialism begot terrorism and exploitation. Ariel Levy argues, in Female Chauvinist Pigs, that we can add feminism to our list. For rather than engendering equality between the sexes, as imagined by its architects, feminism has empowered what Ms. Levy calls the rise of Raunch culture, or the transformation of the female form into a commodity to be consumed by men and women alike.
From Playboy to Girls Gone Wild, from strippers to lesbian bois, Ms. Levy assembles a history of Raunch culture which she connects back to a 1970s dispute between two factions of feminists born out of Womens Liberation. The antiporn faction argued, unsurprisingly, that pornography was smut, a degradation driven by male desire and, therefore, something to be rejected. The sex-positive faction that opposed them advocated for sexual freedom, choosing to define equality between the genders as the ability to be, do and love whatever and whoever they pleased. Though antiporn feminists won a few early victories, Sex-positive feminists won the war, unleashing a culture of women, freed from the chains of propriety, ready to act as they saw fit. Thirty years on, that freedom has been made manifest in Playboy centerfolds and silicon enhancements. It is exemplified by stripper poles and lurid photo shoots. It has penetrated even youth culture where younger and younger girls desire to -- or feel pressured to -- perform for the boys who purport to love them. Is this feminism's legacy? Is this true sexual freedom?
Though Ms. Levy stops short of heaping a full measure of scorn upon Raunch culture, she effectively highlights its shortcomings while leaving open the question of its benefits. In this, she leaves little doubt about the extent to which the commodification of the female form discomforts her. In her defense, it is far more difficult to quantify the benefits of Raunch culture; after all, it's all-but impossible to know how many women have used their bodies to pay for everything from their education to their clothes. Not only can't we generate a number, we can't even know for sure that these women take psychological damage from this exchange. Some women, I imagine, take little or no damage from selling themselves, buffering themselves from its coerciveness with healthy helpings of self-confidence. Others, meanwhile, are surely crushed by it, left exposed to its debasement by past abuse and poor self-esteem. It's much easier to gather graphic evidence on how female commodification has distorted womens bodies and their position in society. Here, Ms. Levy is razor- sharp, deploying scores of interviews to enlighten her readers on a world that makes even this freedom-loving libertarian squirm uncomfortably.
This is a worthy read. Ms. Levy has hit upon an important problem with sex-positive female identity, chiefly that it has permitted women to descend into the superficiality that often characterizes male sexual behavior. But there's an important aspect of this story Ms. Levy neglects.
So long as men desire women as strongly as they do presently, it will be impossible for women to completely liberate themselves from Raunch culture, from commodification. The human experience tells us that everything, from our bodies to our ethics, is for sale, for the right price. Men want from women what only women have and they often want it to the exclusion of almost everything else in their lives. As a result, men are willing to pay an extraordinary price for that female commodity. How is any human supposed to resist that?! Women are handicapped because male desire has set up an unfair game in which women have to resist temptation to profit from the easy road of giving themselves away for financial and social gain. To me, the issues Ms. Levy raises aren't feminist in nature; they are psychological. How do human beings resist commodification when it's so easy for them to get what they want for what, for some of them, may be little cost? I have little doubt that, if the roles here were reversed and women wanted from men what men want from women, men would be commodifying themselves. Men would be descending into Raunch culture. It's just too tempting to do life the easy way.
This is fascinating work. (3/5 Stars)
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