Then in 2010, a non-authorised sex tape featuring former
Playboy
Playmate, Kendra Wilkinson, was released. The film had been made in 2003 when she was 18 years old and before she had breast implants. In the footage it is clear that she doesn’t want to be videotaped and she says so on a number of occasions. In virtually all these cases, the women have been subjected to vicious character attacks, while those responsible for distributing and consuming the images have gone largely uncommented on.
Aside from the impacts on the individual women, the danger in these cases is that they reaffirm the idea that it is acceptable to pressure a woman (including a drugged woman) into sex, to film that sex against her wishes, and to circulate that footage without her knowledge, let alone consent. The other implicit message in these cases is that women who have sex or who live or work in the public eye, have somehow surrendered their right to privacy and respect – and worse – that individuals who download and watch such material are somehow absolved of all personal and ethical responsibility.
It is against this backdrop that condones female degradation as sport, that teenagers are now picking up cameras and filming themselves.
So while digital technology and social media have no doubt enhanced many aspects of our lives, they have also extended the ways in which women and girls can be violated, humiliated and abused. To deal with this will require more than mere education for young people about the risks associated with technology. It will require an entire cultural shift which, as its starting point, acknowledges and seeks to redress the ingrained misogyny, sexism and degradation of girls and women that underscores so much of our current culture.
___________________________
1
<
http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/sextech/
>
2
Cited in ‘Girls, what you see is not what you are, or what you can achieve’ published in
The Age
, 12 March (2011) by Suzy Freeman-Greene, <
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/girls-what-you-see-is-not-what-you-are-or-what-you-can-achieve-20110312-1brps.html
>.
3
For a photo to be sent ‘willingly’ it must be sent of one’s own volition without any pressure, force or coercion. ‘Pressure’ under this definition does not only include pressure deliberately or inadvertently exerted by an individual, but it also includes pressure that results from cultural paradigms, peer groups or social contexts.
4
‘Sexting’ refers to the production and distribution of sexualised personal photos via mobile phone or online.
5
<
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/05/3183128.htm?site=canberra
>
6
<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2-Yy2pMsnQ
>
Diane L. Rosenfeld
1
Who Are You Calling a ‘Ho’?: Challenging the Porn Culture on Campus
In the fall of 2008, a fraternity rush chairman (the individual responsible for recruiting new members) at a small, liberal arts college, sent out an email intended for potential ‘rushees’
2
that leaked to and was forwarded to others, and quoted in the school newspaper (Rosenfeld, 2008). In describing the party scene for the upcoming weekend and bragging that his fraternity threw the best ‘lodge’ parties, he wrote, “Off-campus party at our house … So bring your favorite freshman skeezas
3
so they can get a cock thrown in em by whoever. Hopefully, if you brought em u can finish the deal.”
In October 2010, 45 men, members and pledges of the Yale chapter of the Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) fraternity, surrounded the dorms that house most female freshman students, and loudly chanted: “NO MEANS YES! YES MEANS ANAL!” and “My name is Jack, I’m a necrophiliac, I fuck dead women and fill them with my semen!” (Gasso and Greenberg, 2010). As the pledges
repeated these taunting chants, other men in the background instructed “Louder!” and the pledges complied. The account of this aggression was widely circulated through listservs, and the chanting was posted on YouTube.
4
In March 2011, a Kappa Sigma brother at the University of Southern California began a weekly ‘Gullet Report’ email to educate his brothers on how to be a ‘Cocksman’. The primary purposes of the ‘Report’ were to “strengthen brotherhood and help pin-point sorostitiutes [sic] more inclined to put out.” ‘Sorostitute’ is a term used by fraternity brothers as shorthand to refer to sorority members as prostitutes. The author included a note to explain his reference to females as ‘targets’: “They aren’t actual people like us men,” he explained, “Consequently, giving them a certain name or distinction is pointless.” The email goes on to define pertinent terms (such as ‘Blackberry’, meaning a ‘black target’), a rating system (women ranked below 4 are ‘filth’), and important tips: for example, “Non-consent and rape are two different things” (Hartmann, 2011).
Each of these examples provides a glimpse into the current social climate on US college campuses.
5
Adding to this culture of an aggressive and threatening atmosphere is a socially accepted practice on many college campuses called ‘pimp and ho’ parties. At these gatherings, men dress in ‘pimp’ outfits – long coats, jewelry, ‘bling’, fur, fake gold teeth, black curly wigs (stereotyping African American males), and women often dress up in revealing clothing, lingerie, stilettos, fishnet stockings and heavy make-up.
Dressed as pimps, the men evaluate the women at these parties, rate, and rank women and their potential economic value as ‘hos’, and offer to buy and sell them as commodities. These events are usually held at fraternity houses where the balance of gender power favors the men who live there – they control the guest list, they know the architecture of the building, they control the access to alcohol and they control the social hierarchy. The men also determine which freshmen women are going to be targeted. Like large animals in the wild, these upperclassmen often target and prey on the younger, smaller, weaker, and more vulnerable members of their society (Lisak, 2011).
Pornography plays a powerful role in creating images that glorify ‘pimp and ho’ culture as sexual, exciting, and desirable. It creates a critical backdrop to sexual culture on campus. The 3 examples offered above are united by the sexually derogatory way in which the men refer to women as objects to be raped, used, and whose will is to be disregarded. What is striking, but not immediately apparent, is the role that pornography plays in the construction of these attitudes.
The reason this violent sexual campus culture matters is twofold. First, these attitudes contribute to the astoundingly high level of rape and sexual assault on campus. Government studies in the United States estimate that 1-in-4 or 1-in-5 women will be sexually assaulted during her time in college (Krebs et al., 2007). There is an “inextricable correlation between men’s consumption of pornography and corresponding misogynist attitudes about women, sexual harassment and rape” (Jarrett, 2009, p. 1). When such attitudes are allowed to exist – if not prevail – unaddressed on a college campus, women are clearly at risk of sex discrimination that will affect their educational experience.
This chapter interrogates the current sexual culture on US campuses. First, it asks what men mean when they refer to women as ‘hos’, and how they construct female sexuality in all-male spaces, such as fraternities and in pornography, as reflected in the 3 examples. It focuses on the ubiquitous theme of ‘pimp and ho’ parties as representative of the cultural attitudes and social behavior relating to sexuality on campus.
6
Second, it asks what it means for women to participate in a culture that refers to them as ‘hos’? The constant designation of women as ‘hos’ leaves little space for alternative definitions of female sexuality. Moreover, participation in this party culture makes women more vulnerable to being sexually assaulted, while simultaneously diminishing their ability and entitlement to complain about their victimization. If she dresses up as a ‘ho’ to attend a party and is assaulted, she is more likely to face victim-blaming questions than to be respected and feel comfortable asserting her rights to bodily integrity and sexual autonomy.
Third, the chapter asserts that women have a right
not
to be prostituted. Quite simply, referring to women in sexually derogatory terms fosters inequality. In the United States, Title IX of the Civil Rights Act confers a right to equal access to educational opportunities. Vice President Joseph Biden recently articulated this important civil right when he announced new guidelines to schools
on preventing and addressing sexual violence.
7
The establishment of the new guidelines coincided with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announcement that it was investigating Yale University in response to a complaint filed by 16 current and former students detailing the sexually hostile environment on campus, culminating in the ‘No Means Yes’ chanting described above. Thus, the chapter concludes with the recommendation that women bond together, supported by their schools, to reject the designation of themselves and one another as ‘hos’ – sexually devalued objects rather than humans with equal rights.
1 ‘Bros w Hos’: How Men Talk About Women in Male-Dominated Spaces
To change the culture of pornography use on campus, we need to confront directly what goes on in all-male spaces. Fraternities and locker rooms, as key spaces for male bonding, are important places to examine, as attitudes towards women and gay men are often the basis of jokes and male bonding activities. The privacy men have in these spaces allows them to talk uninterrupted and without consequence, ensuring unimpeded transmission of misogynist attitudes.
Athletes and fraternity members are more likely to commit gang rapes (Kimmel, 2008, pp. 238–239). Membership in these exclusive groups “confers on them an elite status that is easily translated into entitlement, and because the cement of their brotherhood is intense, and intensely sexualized, bonding” (Kimmel, 2008, pp. 238–239). I have seen a tremendous rise in the number of multi-perpetrator sexual assaults over the past few years,
8
correlative with the rise in ‘gonzo’ porn, that involves several men taking turns penetrating, or penetrating all at once, one woman (see also Jensen, 2007, p. 59). Rather than being spontaneous cases of drunken misbehavior, evidence indicates that the vast majority of these rapes (around 71%) are premeditated and even scripted (Kimmel, 2008, p. 239). Acts of sexual violence appear not to be random, unrelated events, but rather central,
even necessary, to the bonding that supports the sexual culture. The men seem to be operating on the principle that ‘Ain’t no fun unless we all get some’.
9
A particularly troubling aspect of the Yale example was that it required men to proclaim the willingness to rape and disregard a woman’s will in order to gain admission into the exclusive all-male group. It also reflected the proliferation of anal sex that is increasingly common in mainstream pornography (Jensen, 2007, pp. 58–59).
Michael Kimmel, evaluating porn use by college men, reports: “The guys I interviewed consistently spoke of women more with contempt than desire. Women were ‘hos’, ‘bitches’, and ‘sluts’…” (Kimmel, 2008, p. 182). Men’s attitudes were, “You don’t have sex with women because you desire them; sex is the weapon by which you get even with them, or, even, humiliate them” (Kimmel, 2008, p. 182).
Pornography is intricately related to other forms of commercial sexual exploitation, such as strip clubs, escort services and other forms of prostitution (see Jeffreys; Bray; Farley; this volume). Some commercial sexual exploitation is marketed particularly towards fraternities. For example, Centerfold Strips, an adult entertainment booking agency, tweeted in February, 2011 (an important month for fraternity spring recruitment): “Frat rush party specials available – impress your pledges with hot strippers from Centerfold Strips!” Fraternities throughout the nation incorporate ‘Stripper Nights’ into their ‘rush’ recruitment week, despite Interfraternity Council (IFC) regulations that ban such practices. One Website, Bachelor Party HQ, provides a list of colleges and universities where fraternity members have hired women to perform at rush events. The list includes over 80 campuses.
During these rush shows, women who strip typically engage in interactive behavior with highly pornographic themes. One performer, Nevaeh, who strips at Cornell rush parties, has described some of the acts in detail. “The guy will lay down,” she explained, “and we’ll get them into 69 position and someone will pour beer down my back and into their mouths.” In addition to the ‘anal butt chug’, the boys might also compete to eat a Hostess cupcake out of the performer’s crotch the fastest, or watch as the women engage in, or simulate, girl-on-girl conduct, such as oral sex (Ensign, 2007).
Pornographic themes do more than simply sexualize gender inequalities. They often work to sexualize racism and other forms of degradation as well. At Princeton, fraternity brothers were required to travel to Philadelphia for the express purpose of, among other things, “receiving a lap dance from a black stripper” (Westmoreland and Wolff, 2010). Similarly, the author of the USC email distinguished each potential ‘target’ by race: a ‘Blackberry’ is a ‘black target’, a ‘Lemon Meringue’ is Asian, a ‘Pumpkin Pie’ is Latina or Mexican and so on.
Racist references to women sometimes garner more public criticism than merely sexist ones, such as when the radio host, Don Imus, referred to the Rutgers women’s basketball players as ‘Nappy Headed Hos’, a term taken directly from pornography (Picker and Sun, 2008). Yet, the racist and sexist messages in mainstream pornography often escape critical analysis because they are about sex, thus deemed private sexual behavior, shielded from public scrutiny. However, we must breach this imaginary boundary in order to stop the perpetuation of the discriminatory attitudes expressed in pornography.
2 ‘Sorostitutes’ and Theme Parties: Pornography and the Party Scene
The party scene on college campuses provides an important lens into sexual relations. Fraternity-sponsored theme parties often dominate the social scene because of easy access to alcohol and social spaces. According to ‘College OTR: Your Online Frathouse’, “[w]hen it comes to frat parties, a good theme is everything. If the theme is right, the girls will get drunk, naked, and you’ll have more ass than you know what to do with” (College OTR, 2009). Furthermore, the ‘right’ themes have highly pornographic elements. One aspect of the seemingly infinite iterations of the ‘pimp and ho’ party remains constant: men remain in a position of power while the women are simply ‘hos’.
The nickname of sorority women as ‘sorostitutes’ says it all. This term directly equates sorority sisters with prostitutes. What do women do in response to being referred to as prostitutes? If they object, they risk being derided as ‘too serious’, unable to take a joke, or just not the right kind of feminist.
10
In order to rationalize their designation as sexual objects for use by their male counterparts, they choose to believe that the men are just kidding, and can tell them apart
from the ‘real’ prostitutes. They are the good girls having fun – and, as such, do not expect to be subject to unwanted sex or violation by their friends. Byron Hurt challenges the reality of the attempt to reconcile this conflict. In his 2006 film,
Beyond Beats and Rhymes
, Hurt looks at misogyny, homophobia and racism in hip hop music. The segment called ‘Sistahs and Bitches’ includes an interview with a woman who claimed that when men refer to women as bitches and ‘hos’ “[t]hey’re not talking about us. We know who we are.” But unbeknownst to this woman, just moments earlier, a man in the documentary had been talking about her and her friend when he discussed his plan to be “getting up on those bitches.” Hurt makes an apt comparison to racist remarks, stating that if “George Bush said something about all those N**s, you wouldn’t say, well, he’s not talking about me. He is. He is talking about you!” (Hurt, 2006).
Anne,
11
a recent college graduate who was active in the Greek system, said:
Theme parties were the easiest way of coercion. Like my boyfriend’s fraternity would bring in a dump truck filled with sand and pour it all over the first floor of their mansion so they could get the girls to come over in bathing suits in the middle of winter. Another fraternity had a ‘Saran Wrap’ party where you literally had to create an entire outfit out of Saran Wrap. These were the cool guys, not just the dirtbags. It was really everyone, athletes, smart guys, everyone. Theme parties could be the conduit to sexual coercion, but at the time, you don’t think of it that way. It’s only if you step back (interview with Anne, on file with author, March 2011).