[news] Who's Slutty, Who's Not, and Why

Fri Jan 4 13:17:05 PST 2008

Who's Slutty, Who's Not, and Why  
By Kirsten Anderberg ([http://kirstenanderberg.com][1])  
Written January 3, 2008

Women who dress slutty and women who don't; to what do we attribute these differences? And what is the clear definition of "slutty?" I would argue "slutty" is as much a mindset, a behavior, as it is a way of dressing. But even though we may not have a clear picture of what slutty is, we all seem to be able to recognize it, especially when it is imitated by very young girls, where it stands out as grossly inappropriate. Jon Benet Ramsey's behavior and attire, for instance, repulsed and outraged the public when they saw her dressed up like she was, in lipstick, at age 4 in beauty pageants, due to the sexual overtones. So I guess maybe slutty can be defined as sexual behavior you would never want to see young girls imitating? Even without a clear definition, sluttiness is something that is identifiable in a line up of women to most people on the street. And even though this topic is very controversial, it deserves airing out in the open. So, who values slutty behavior and clothing and who does not? This is a pertinent question. Waitresses dress sluttier on the whole than women attorneys and judges, and women who sing rap music dress sluttier than women in the symphony. Why? News anchorwomen, the women in Congress and the Senate, doctors, and other professional women tend to *not* show cleavage for professional credibility. Some professions require, or at least encourage and promote, women who emphasize cleavage, while other professions do just the opposite. So where is the societal rulebook about this sluttiness factor?

Compare the presentation Aretha Franklin makes compared to women singers such as Fergie, Ciara, or Britney, all of whom are highly sexualized in the typically slutty fashion. There is a consensus that Aretha is exceptionally gifted vocally, she is considered a "musician's musician," and we really do not see Aretha in sexually compromising sexual positions like Fergie or Britney on stage. Aretha does not roll around on the floor for men standing over her, singing about her "lady lumps," like Fergie does. Aretha just doesn't roll around promiscuously dressed on stage or in videos *ever.* Yet I bet every one of the women who do roll around in their underwear on stage wish they had the respect that Aretha commands and therein lies the crux of this article.

I find it interesting that comedian women are not under the same pressure to sexualize as women vocalists. (I have been both in my past.) Compare Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, Ellen DeGeneres, Whoopi Goldberg, Rosanne Barr, and Rosie O'Donnell, to oh, *any* group of popular contemporary women singers and you will see more cleavage in the latter across the board. Why? Does singing require more breast than comedy? How so?

Oprah never dresses slutty and she seems to do that consciously for credibility. Much like Aretha, Oprah doesn't *have* to overtly sexualize herself to get things done, as she has other things working in her favor. It seems like Aretha and Oprah don't have to exploit themselves sexually because they have powers born of their own achievements and talents, they have economic freedoms, and because they are stunning in and of themselves. Their rich content makes them sexy, not vice versa. That last sentence deserves a repeat read. THEIR CONTENT MAKES THEM SEXY; ACTING SEXY DOES NOT GIVE THEM CONTENT.

I have seen more than a few famous, good-looking, well-spoken men openly and genuinely flirt with Oprah, such as Jamie Foxx. I have also seen the highest quality musicians become smitten with Aretha. I believe many men and women find Oprah and Aretha very hot, sexually, but it ain't about them doing spreads in Penthouse Magazine. Oprah and Aretha's sexiness have a content and context, an elegance and grace that would not mesh well with cheap lingerie as a definition of their value and worth. It seems that most women who do use cheap lingerie and porn poses for validity or sexual definition would give anything for the worldwide respect women like Oprah and Aretha have.

Can I think of even one woman who plays the slutty behavior card, who has achieved worldwide respect equal to Oprah and Aretha? No, I can't. Can you? We have yet to cross the threshold of women presidents in the U.S., but women presidents of other countries do not play the slut card *at all, ever*. And Hillary Clinton is certainly not trying to play the slut card in her current run for president. So is some level of credibility or professionalism lost with the slutty look? How? Why?

Would slutty women police officers, such as Officer Clementine on Reno 911 in her buttoned down police shirt, be a sign of "feminist" liberation, of women's sexual freedoms, or is that a backwards movement saying we are not useful in *any* jobs without cleavage? Is sluttiness sexual freedom as some women try to claim, or is it oppression via constant pressure for women to sexualize as impersonal and interchangeable sex fantasies for men? It is interesting which professions reward women for looking slutty, and which punish for it. We hear women in the sex industry argue they make "good money" as pole/erotic dancers, etc., but they are not making anywhere near the money collectively that women attorneys, doctors and business women make. There does seem to be some class politics involved here.

It seems there are two levels for women's prescribed behaviors in contemporary society: on the lower economic level, women seem to be more commonly rewarded and promoted for sluttiness. The more these women cater to male sexual fantasies, the more power and pleasantries these women will have bestowed upon them, and often to the exclusion of other women who have worked much harder on things besides sluttiness, on things that keep operations moving in the workplace. The old concept of sleeping one's way to the top is nowhere near dead for women. Which may be yet another reason some women shun slutty behavior in their careers. They don't want someone later to accuse them of making it on tits, not talent, which is a legitimate precaution to take for professional viability later. But there is a glass ceiling to sluttiness and the opportunities and successes it offers, a ceiling you see Britney hitting currently. Money is not enough to buy Britney respect. You can't get the professional respect that women like Aretha, Oprah, or Maya Angelou command on the sluttiness track. And it is possible that sluttiness prevents success on a higher economic playing field. Sluttiness appears to "cheapen" a presentation or product, or at least that is a very common public perception.

It seems the slutty thing distracts attention from women's intellect and actual skills and accomplishments, and instead focuses on the mere packaging of a sexual/gender stereotype/fantasy. Due to this, there is a perception that women who behave in a slutty manner use the slut factor to distract attention from their *lack* of skill, creativity, intellect, and achievement and they are perceived as not being smart, as not having other options, basically. Thus someone like Maya Angelou or Oprah would see no benefit in centering attention on their breasts rather than their intellect or achievements. This makes it seem as though only women with limited skills and opportunity find a use for the slut factor. Very few, if any, women that I can identify use the slut factor for power once they have reached a level of being respected as the top in their field (sans women working within the sex industry). It is as if professional accomplishment cancels out the need for slutty behaviors in women's careers. It seems like women use sluttiness to get to success, if they are in an industry where that works, then they drop it as soon as they have economic independence. Hell, even Madonna now is writing children's books and she is not promoting them in slutty clothing! Her days of rolling on the floor singing "Like a Virgin" with "Boytoy" on her belt buckle, appear to be behind her, or even beneath her, nowadays. Also the issue of little girls imitating sluttiness plays into things here again, as now Madonna is the mother of a little girl, and she may well not want her own daughter acting slutty for success in the ways Madonna did in her teens. But Madonna's daughters will have an economic freedom Madonna could not afford in her youth, and it does seem that there is a class element to sluttiness in play. It seems much more of a privilege to *not* have to act slutty, than a "liberation" or "privilege" to act slutty.

It does seem that once you are above a certain economic class via solid achievements, and above the glass ceiling of opportunities afforded women via sluttiness, an entirely new hierarchy appears, with a playing field based on merit, intellect, and skill, not sluttiness. If the legal profession required sluttiness for women the way vaudeville does, for instance, I would not waste time changing my professional field from the latter to the former. I find that places with higher economics tend to have less sluttiness present all around, and I wonder why. When my dad took me as a child to our ski lodge, or flew me to Catalina for breakfast, or took me to fancy hotels in Carmel, I did not see any slutty behaviors from women at all. My first exposure to any kind of slutty behavior that I can remember, as a little girl, was slutty behavior from my stepsisters, who had previously been raised by a drunken, child molester father who encouraged his girls to be sexy for him at very young ages. I remember him drunk, teasing my teen stepsister about her breasts not being big enough in front of a whole party of adults and children, and I remember how thankful I was that my dad did not make me be "sexy" for him! I remember even at that young age thinking what *a privilege it was to not have to be sexual* for my father, as it seemed other girls were saddled with that horrific obligation.

Growing up with movies like the Sound of Music, and TV shows like the Brady Bunch, with a feminist mom, and women like Billie Jean King as role models, and a father who wanted me to go to college and have a professional career, and he also trained me as an athlete, I just was not taught to be slutty *at all.* As a young girl growing up, being slutty was not even in my most obscure vernacular. I was taught to be a good athlete, I was taught to be artistically refined, intelligent, and well educated, not to imitate pole dancers behaving in a slutty fashion, and I wonder why some females are funneled down one track, and other females are funneled down another, even as children and teens.

I am seeing sluttiness more and more as a *power* issue that has little to nothing to do with a woman's sexuality, much as rape is about violence and control, not sex. Some people argue that sluttiness is about women being allowed their own sexuality, some people say that topless bars are merely about sexy women having fun, others argue the sex industry is an economic equalizer for the female gender. But there is most certainly a glass ceiling as to how far sluttiness can take a woman in her career. Marilyn Monroe was at the top of the public sluttiness field, as was Anna Nicole Smith, and you can see how young they died and how utterly tragic their lives were. It always amazes me that people hold up Marilyn Monroe as an enviable sex object, when the last dot to connect there is she was a sex object who lived an empty, lonely, tortured life of depression, drugs, and early death. There is a lesson therein, but the lesson is not to invest in stereotypic sexuality as your life content and worth, but rather the opposite.

Somehow sluttiness nearly always has an air of economic dependence with a neediness, even, to it, as I perceive it. Even if women in the sex industry can make more money than minimum wage worker women who don't use sex for their careers (yet make much less income than women attorneys and doctors), they still seem to be working from an angle of dependence and inferiority, somehow serving the master, in essence. It feels like sluttiness is serving the Patriarchy, still cowering to male power, placating male sexual fantasies that even "slutty" women involved find tiresome and repetitive, and aligning with the desires of patriarchy for female advancement, which is certainly one way to go. It also seems like rich, respected, powerful women who make it on merit, not sluttiness, are not only economically independent, but also sexually independent, as their sexuality is free and clear of their careers.

This is a very complex and controversial subject, I understand that. And I have not even brought in the comparison of male and female sluttiness factors in career paths and opportunities, nor have I been able to explore the issue of sexuality versus sluttiness in this article. But I have made the statement that sluttiness is not related to sex, it is related to power, on the whole, and I stick by that assessment. I have never been someone who felt inhibited about nudity (I have performed naked in an artistic context with several performance troupes), and I have no problem with public displays of affection or sex ed in schools, for example. I am anti-censorship, as well. This is not about prudishness or even jealousy. When I was an attractive young women comedian/musician hired to perform at the Oregon Country Fair for decades, I never felt a desire to run around the fair topless with painted breasts in little fairy skirts as many women do. I was noticed, respected, and included, simply due to my stage performances and the talent I had to offer, I did not need or want men leering at my breasts in the aisles, I saw no benefit to me whatsoever in that and I already had power so I did not need to engage in that behavior for perks. I had already gotten all my camping and backstage passes via hard work, I did not need to be slutty for some guy to get me passes and internal access. I had that privilege of *freedom from sluttiness* that I have been referring to, a freedom many of my female colleagues without any marked achievements as entertainers, in an entertainment setting, did not, and still do not, have. My point is I could have run around in slutty attire for attention at the Oregon Country Fair, I was thin and young enough for that activity, but I just never saw any benefit to me in that behavior.

Perhaps today you could spend some time thinking about the top 5-10 women you respect in the world, and why you respect them. Are any of them playing the slutty card? How does that help or hurt them? If none of the women you admire are playing the slutty card, and you are still playing the slutty card, what is the goal again? What should we teach our girls about acting and dressing in a slutty manner? Should girls be taught how to use sluttiness for success and at what age should such training begin? Would Hillary Clinton be more electable, and less "alienating," if she behaved more like Marilyn Monroe? Or would that make her less electable and more alienating? Are women in a Catch-22 here? Is sluttiness a class issue? Is it a gender issue? Is it a power issue? Is it a sexuality issue? I would be interested in any and all comments you have on this topic. You can email me at [kirstena at resist.ca][2]. If I get enough intelligent (or outright outrageous) responses, I will put them into another article on this topic matter.

Postscript: I found it emotionally and intellectually draining to write this article, but I also find it haunts me when I do not speak up about such important issues so I invested many hours into this article simply because I feel the topic is an incredibly important one with regards to the goal of women's equality. For more education on this topic, I highly recommend visiting Media Watch ([www.mediawatch.com][3]).   

    [1]: http://kirstenanderberg.com (http://kirstenanderberg.com)
    [2]: mailto:kirstena at resist.ca
    [3]: http://www.mediawatch.com (www.mediawatch.com)

URL: http://mostlywater.org/whos_slutty_whos_not_and_why