feminism and promiscuity

8/17/2019 Feminism and Promiscuity

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FEMINISM AND PROMISCUITY

Linda LeMoncheck

The strength and unifying vision of a feminist philosophical inquiry into sex-

uality and sexual preference is its recognition that women’s sexuality can beexploited as a powerful tool for women’s social, economic, and political sub-ordination. Many feminists point to the pervasive sexual harassment, rape, prostitution, pornographic degradation, and spousal abuse of women, as wellas women’s struggle to secure reproductive choice and adequate childcare, asstrong evidence of the prevalence of powerful social institutions supportingmen’s subordination of women through heterosexual sex. (See Barry, 1979,Brownmiller, 1975, Griffin, 1981, Dworkin, 1974, and MacKinnon, 1987).According to this view, women’s erotic desires and sexual preferences, aswell as their reproductive choices and responsibilities for childcare, are care-fully circumscribed and controlled by cultural sanctions aimed at maintainingheterosexual male power and privilege. Such sanctions are patriarchal, accord-ing to Marilyn Frye, when they form part of “institutions, relationships, roles,and activities [that] are male-defined, male-dominated, and operate for the bene-fit of males and the maintenance of male privilege” (Frye, 1983, p. 96).

Many feminists claim that, when women live in a patriarchal society,their sexual exploration, pleasure, and agency become targets for their sexualrestriction, repression, and violation (Vance, 1989, p. 1). A feminist philosophy of sex explores the nature and extent of this oppressive environment and

seeks to expose women’s sexual subordination in an effort toward change.Thus, a philosophy of sex is uniquely positioned to benefit from a feministanalysis, as it is a philosophy of those very relations in which women’s auto-nomous voices are often submerged, if not silenced altogether. (For feministanalyses of women’s sexuality under patriarchy, see Snitow, Stansell, andThomson, 1983, Ortner and Whitehead, 1981, Heath, 1982, Suleiman, 1986,Moi, 1985, and Leidholdt and Raymond, 1990). In her fascinating discussionof life as both modern artists’ muse and contemporary ceramicist, BeatriceWood writes:

In a way, my life has been an upside-down experience. I never madel h I i d d I did h I l d I d


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10 LINDA L E MONCHECK

Women’s heterosexual subordination by men is a subordination of iden-tity. In a patriarchal society, women are defined in terms of their heterosex-uality and reproductivity in order to serve the needs and maintain the privi-leges of men. Therefore, women’s sexuality under patriarchy must be verycarefully circumscribed, lest it gain an independent credibility and power ofits own. Men’s ideal of women is that they be sexual only in a certain way.

America’s good girl/bad girl stereotype defines the parameters of ac-ceptable sexual behavior for women, circumscribing their identity as womenunder conditions of male status and privilege. Sheila Ruth calls this stereo-type one of the heterosexual “serviceability” of women, to emphasize howmuch a woman’s identity is defined by her sexual access to men: the sexually“serviceable” woman is the heterosexually available mistress or lover, sen-suous, responsive, and receptive (Ruth, 1990, p. 87). Wives sometimes fit thisstereotype, but only when their husbands have not grown sexually bored withthem. The sexually serviceable woman is the sexually “good” woman, playfulyet submissive, eager, perhaps slightly mysterious. As a playmate fantasy, shecan be even more independent, experienced, exotic, or dangerous. She is to be distinguished from the non-sexual “good” woman/mother/wife who is nur-turing where the sexually serviceable woman will be challenging, virginal

where the sexually serviceable woman will be carnal. The stereotype of thesexually “non-serviceable” woman is the bitch-temptress, immodest, coarse,and demanding. She is a promiscuous woman who, despite her sexual availa- bility to men, is non-serviceable, because she is sexually ungovernable, indi-scriminate, and selfish. The seductive lustiness of the serviceable woman be-comes salacious, lewd, and uncomfortably lascivious in the non-serviceablewoman. Her non-sexual counterpart is cloying, manipulative, and catty. Anon-serviceable woman is “bad.”

The irony in these distinctions is that they are arbitrarily and ambiguous-

ly applied (Ruth, 1990). Feminists not only object to the content and restric-tiveness of the stereotypes, but they also object to the fickle, tenuous, andoften contradictory ways in which women are asked to instantiate them. Awife may be congratulated by an ambitious husband for the way she success-fully flirts with his boss at a company cocktail party. Having lost his chanceat promotion, he may regard her identical flirtation as an insensitive assaulton his masculinity or refer to her as “the bitch who can’t shut her mouth.” Ifher clothes are not sexy enough, she is “frumpy.” When in those very sameclothes, she seduces the wrong man, she is “sleazy.” Many husbands want a

wife who is simultaneously sexually available and chaste, the virgin who is awhore in bed. A woman is “bad” whether she strays on purpose or by acci-dent because like a servant she is supposed to know what is expected of her


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Feminism and Promiscuity 11

setting is not guarantee of future success, even in the very same setting. Thefeminine stereotype of an anxious woman fussing over her appearance, caringmore about her hair than her opinions, is testimony to the insecurity of her position, not merely personal vanity. By being required to fill contradictorysocial roles whose demands women cannot confidently predict, they mustinevitably fail to be “good.” The above quote from ceramist Beatrice Woodrepresents the feelings of many women who hear the mixed message that thegood girl is bad, and the bad girl is good. What difference does it make, whenno matter what she does, she does not get it right?

Sexual terms commonly used to describe women are terms used to de-scribe the promiscuous woman: “trollop,” “vamp,” “slut,” “hussy,” “whore,”“pick-up,” “Jezebel,” “tart,” “bawd,” “vixen,” “floozy” (See Morrison, 1992).Such a woman is loose, easy, and indiscriminate, a non-serviceable womanfor men, to use Ruth’s phrase. Not surprisingly, these terms are used by men primarily to insult or denigrate women, since a woman who is promiscuous issomeone “bad.” Women are so closely identified with these terms, that theyare used, by both women and men, to insult women outside of any explicitlysexual context. (“Who does that hussy think she is, humiliating me like that?”or “The slut brought me ham when I ordered sausage.”) Sexualized terms for

women like “broad,” “skirt,” and “tail,” do not necessarily connote promis-cuity, so they are often used to refer to “serviceable” women, as in “That’s anice piece of tail,” or “Now that’s a broad!” When feminists object that suchlanguage reduces women to sex objects, men often react in disbelief, com- plaining that women are taking offense at a compliment. (“But I like broads!”or “What? You don’t like being sexy?”) Where feminists see a woman’s sex-uality reduced to her serviceability to men, those same men see a “good” girl.

Still, women can never be certain of their sexual serviceability even ifso-called sexually complimentary terms are applied to them, given the deval-

uation of their behavior in such phrases as “Whoever let those broads on thehighway ought to have his head examined!” The term “bitch” is always nega-tive, since it refers to an animal in heat, an animal that indiscriminately and promiscuously copulates, certainly non-serviceable when applied to women:“I refuse to take orders from that bitch!” Not only are women being male-identified sexually by such terms, but they are also being identified with atype of sexuality than demeans them. Women might object less to an identityexternally imposed, if the value of that identity were positive. But their prom-iscuity has become so imbued with negativity, and their sexuality so filled

with contradiction, it is no wonder that Beatrice Wood regards her life as an“upside-down experience.”I am not arguing that words used to describe the sexually active man


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they fail to live up to particular men’s sexual expectations of them, no matterhow eccentric or contradictory. Furthermore, because women’s identity under patriarchy is a function of their sexuality, such condemnation strikes at thevery core of their self-image as women. Some men are lechers and overbear-ing. Women are broads because they are overbearing.

In addition, special condemnation is reserved for sexually promiscuouswomen, which is not matched by terms used to describe promiscuous men. A promiscuous woman is referred to as “dirt” in virtue of her sexual profligacyalone. A promiscuous man is “dirt,” when, in the course of being promis-cuous, he has been deceptive, disrespectful, exploitative, or mean. His prom-iscuity alone is rarely sufficient reason for condemning him. Indeed, the pro-miscuous man is often regarded as appropriately fulfilling the expectations ofhis masculine sexual stereotype. The “dirty old man” who does no more thanleer at young women is reviled by men and women alike, not because he is promiscuous (although he would like to be), but because elderly men are ste-reotypically confined to an asexuality that makes their sexual objectification ofwomen appear out of place. One might speculate that there is no comparable“dirty young man,” because it would be oxymoronic to sexually vilify a manstereotypically expected, if not outrightly encouraged, to be promiscuous.

Indeed, a dirty old man wishes he were a roué for good reason. A pro-miscuous man is often referred to as a “stud,” a “stallion,” a “man of theworld,” a “man of experience.” A young, promiscuous man is “sowing hiswild oats” or is a “hot rod.” He is not described as “used goods,” “loose,” or“in the gutter” the way a promiscuous woman often is. Once a woman is hete-rosexually promiscuous, she must justify her behavior as in some way “servi-ceable” to men or be called a slut. Feminists like Mary Daly believe that theonly way for women to empower themselves sexually is to reconceptualizeand reevaluate women’s sexuality, with new terminology, if necessary, so that

their “pure lust” has meaning for them (Daly, 1984). Clarissa Pinkola Estes believes that there are “wild woman archetypes” throughout history thatwomen need to regain access to in order to fulfill their sexual destinies aswomen (Estes, 1992). In both cases, sexual empowerment for women is afunction of eschewing patriarchal definitions of their sexuality in order toredefine it in women’s terms.

Here we confront a fascinating paradox: in a heterosexual and male-dominated society, women are both valued as sexually accessible and devaluedfor promiscuous sex. Yet, should not the heterosexually identified female be

uniformly praised for doing what her patriarchal culture—with its Playboy centerfolds, push-up bras, and Seduction (“lip-plumper”) lipstick—encouragesher to do namely have as much sex with as many men as possible?


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triarchal society, this is precisely the role reserved for the heterosexually ac-tive male. In such a society, women are sex objects, not sex subjects. Womenare to be dominated and controlled through sex, not free to pursue an un-abashed love of sex untainted by degradation or shame. If sexual promiscuityis sexual agency, that is, the active pursuit of sex by an autonomous subject,then the sexually promiscuous woman is ipso facto attempting to take controlof her sexual life. But this is anathema to a system of power in which the op- pression of women through sex is a primary means of establishing and main-taining dominance over them. Thus, the harsher criticism that a patriarchalsociety lodges against the sexually promiscuous woman can be understood asintended to inhibit her pursuit of the kind of sexual activity that has long beenthe exclusive preserve of men and as that which signals rebellion against heroppressor. It is a striking feminist irony that the expression “loose woman” is both a symbol of women’s degradation and a testament to women’s attemptsto liberate themselves from the sexual dominance of men.

What the above uses of language suggest, is that, in a culture whose power and status lie in the hands of men, sex is a badge of honor for men, asign of power, dominance, and possession. However, race, class, and sexualorientation intersect with gender in the social construction of promiscuity to

narrow the range of this dominance. Sex is a badge of honor for white, afflu-ent, heterosexual men. African-American men are often sexually stereotyped by white men and women as primitive and dangerous sexual animals withenlarged penises, a sexuality threatening to many white men and commonlyused to degrade and straitjacket blacks. When a black man marries a whitewoman, he is often regarded by his black community as a traitor to his raceand by whites as appropriating and defiling one of a white man’s own (con-sider, for example, the common complain that if Mike Tyson had been whiteand affluent, he would not have been charged with rape). When a black man

pursues a woman of his own race, he may be regarded by whites as typical ofan oversexed primitive in search of an equally lusty partner. If an African-American man is homosexual, he may be burdened with the additional hete-rosexist presumption that he is a rabid transmitter of debilitating, if not dead-ly, sexual disease. Sexual conservatives and liberals alike have singled outgay men of all races and ethnicities as paradigms of performance-oriented, promiscuous sex seekers whose lifestyle of casual or anonymous sex is re-garded as the primary cause of the spread of AIDS (for discussion see Seid-man, 1992, chap. 4).

Outside his cultural community, an Asian or Asian-American man is of-ten presumed to be sexually reserved where his African-American counterpartis sexually unbridled However Asian communities are notorious for a cultu-


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tion for membership in an otherwise exclusive club of white, male, hetero-sexual power and affluence (see Greenfeld, 1992).Latinos are frequently categorized in sexual terms, as passionate but ul-

timately self-serving Don Juans who display a machismo that defines theirmasculinity in terms of their sexual prowess. However, their Anglo class ste-reotype as coarse and uneducated often makes these very same macho mensexually unappealing to affluent, white women determined to find a man whowill maintain, if not enhance, their social status. Many affluent white men seelarge Hispanic families as no more than welfare recipients. (For ways inwhich Mexican men reinforce the macho stereotype and attract Americanwomen, see Rodriguez and Miller, 1992.)

All of these stereotypes derive their pervasiveness and staying powerfrom the social status and authority conferred on white, affluent heterosexualmales in patriarchy. A black man’s sexual stereotype of white men as stiff andineffectual lovers will be of little consequence to the wealthy white manwhose institutionalized power gives him a sexuality all his own. “He’s sorich! Isn’t he sexy?” Unlike white women and people of color, affluent, whitemen represent success objects who have become sex objects without becom-ing sexually subordinated or vilified. A rich African-American or Hispanic

man may also be made sexy by his money, but whites’ stereotypes of himhave notoriously restricted his social stature to that of the successful drugdealer, pimp, or professional athlete. Similarly, an affluent Asian man’swealth alone does not eliminate whites’ perception of him as a sexualwallflower. Even less well-to-do white men can ignore blacks’ stereotypes ofthem simply in virtue of an entrenched racist social standard that marginalizesthe perspectives of people of color of all classes. Sexual stereotypes exist both within as well as across social categories, but the prevalence of any onestereotype is determined by the power of the stereotyper to define the parame-

ters of the category.Women of color may be multiply oppressed in a patriarchal society,

both by the appropriation of their sexuality by men and by the particular sex-ual stereotypes associated with their race or ethnicity. Specifically, in additionto being typed as heterosexual, many women of color living in a patriarchalsociety are sexually stereotyped as promiscuous. If they are poor women, theymay be further victimized in virtue of their economic status. African-American women are frequently stereotyped by whites as wild and untamedsensualists who can offer white men a kind of exotic sexual thrill that white

women cannot. When a black woman chooses a white lover, she is often con-sidered by both black men and black women as a traitor to her race, and, ifnot already affluent someone trading on her sexual stereotype to upgrade her


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black man, she may also be warned by other white women of the dire socialconsequences to the children of such a union but may be asked to considerwhether her partner, not her, is attempting to upgrade his social status, even ifhe is already affluent.

Asian and Asian-American women are commonly typed inside and out-side their cultural community as docile, submissive, and restrained sexually,making them tempting targets for men whose more sexually assertive or eager playmates fail to reinforce men’s sense of dominance and control. It is fre-quently assumed that Asian woman eschew promiscuity, only tolerating sex because it is required of married women or forced on them by unscrupulousmercenaries in the commerce of prostitution know as “sex tourism.” The sex-ual willingness of geishas does not dispel this assumption, since they are typi-cally regarded as women for whom sex is a job, not a joy. In addition, an un-derlying social prohibition against women’s adultery reinforces the presuppo-sition that Asian women much prefer monogamy or no sex at all (for discus-sion, see Zhou, 1989 and Wolfe and Witke, 1987).

By contrast, Latinas and Native American women are stereotyped bymany Anglos as poor, illiterate, and eternally pregnant. Single young Latinasare often categorized as promiscuous, despite the acknowledged sanctions of

the Catholic Church to which many Latinas belong, but especially when thosesame sanctions discourage contraception or family planning. Affluent, whitemen attracted to the sexual fecundity of the Latina stereotype often also ex- pect a feistiness they associate with a fiery and sexually exotic Latin spirit.Ironically, many modern Latin households maintain traditional double stan-dards whereby husbands may have affairs, but wives should be virgins priorto marriage and faithful afterwards. On the other hand, the machismo imageof the Latina’s peers makes it especially difficult for Latina teenagers to sayno to sex when young Latinos buy into their own stereotype (Espin, 1989).

Many heterosexual men regard lesbians as sexually frigid and unattrac-tive women who could not land a man if they tried. When model-beautiful,lesbians are often propositioned by men who cannot understand what suchwomen are doing “wasting their looks” on other women. Poverty makes lesbians and heterosexual women alike especially vulnerable to abusive menwho propose financial security in exchange for sex. Women’s vulnerability insuch situations is exacerbated not only by their limited economic options, butalso by what they have been taught to believe is expected of them as sexually“serviceable” women. Because each woman has a social location defined by

her race, class, and sexual orientation in addition to her gender, her oppres-sions multiply when she is not white, not affluent, or not heterosexual. Herage her physical ability or attractiveness even her willingness to wear make-


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promiscuity degrading, if not life-threatening in an era of AIDS. Men andwomen both suffer from strict sexual stereotyping; but the cultural expecta-tion that women be sexually subordinate to men undermines many women’sself-respect in a way that expectations for men to live up to the sexual domin-ance and agency definitive of the masculine ideal do not (LeMoncheck, 1985 pp. 63–66; 92–94).

Many feminists regard the sexual liberation movement of the 1960s and1970s, as well as its contemporary vestiges, as serving primarily the interestsof men, precisely because the movement made more women sexually available to men without affording women enough of the economic and politicaltools to escape being sexually subordinated by them. According to this view,sexual liberation convinced women that sex without love or marriage was agood thing, without giving women the opportunity to define what good sex isfor women (Seidman, 1992, pp. 78–81, 97). Heterosexual and lesbian femin-ists alike have argued that truly liberating sex for women requires a funda-mental reconceptualization and reevaluation of women’s sexual exploration, pleasure, and agency (Seidman, 1992, chap. 3).

A woman’s control over her body has been one of the most important political platforms of the women’s movement. To tell women that they cannot

or should not be promiscuous seems to run counter to the feminist effort togain sexual subjectivity and self-definition for women. Should a feminist re-conceptualization of women’s sexual desire include a sexually promiscuouslifestyle? Or are promiscuous women simply appropriating a masculine sex-ual value that is ill-suited to their temperament as women? What exactlycounts as promiscuous sex and what, if anything, can promiscuity contributeto women’s sexual exploration in an environment apparently exploding withsexual violence, disease, and death? Exploring such questions is essential, ifthe sexual agency that feminists seek for women is to be truly liberating.

Works Cited

Barry, Kathleen. (1979) Female Sexual Slavery. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Brownmiller, Susan. (1975) Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. New York:Simon and Schuster.

Daly, Mary. (1984) Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy. Boston: Beacon Press.Dworkin, Andrea. (1974) Pornography: Men Possessing Women. New York: E. P.

Dutton.Elliston, Frederick. (1975) “In Defense of Promiscuity,” pp. 222–243. In Philosophy

& Sex Edited by Robert Baker and Frederick Elliston Amherst N Y : Prome


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Frye, Marilyn. (1983) The Politics of Reality. Trumansburg, N.Y.: The Crossing Press.Greenfeld, Karl Taro. (1992) “The Broken Dreams of the Blond Geishas,” Los An- geles Times Magazinem, 8 (November).

Griffin, Susan. (1981) Pornography and Silence. New York: Harper & Row.Heath, Stephen. (1982) The Sexual Fix. London: Macmillan.Kingston, Maxine Hong. (1989) China Men. New York: Random House.Leidholdt, Dorchen, and Janice G. Raymond, eds. (1990) The Sexual Liberals and the

Attack on Feminism. New York: Teachers College Press.LeMoncheck, Linda. (1985) Dehumanizing Women: Treating Persons as Sex Objects.

Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld.MacKinnon, Catharine. (1998) Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Moi, Toril. (1985) Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. New York: Me-

thuen.Morrison, Patt. (1992) “War of the Words,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, 6 (Decem-

ber).Morton, Patricia. (1991) The Historical Assault on Afro-American Women. Westport,

Conn.: Greenwood Press.Omolade, Barbara. (1983) “Hearts of Darkness,” pp. 350–367. In Snitow, Stansell,

and Thompson, eds., Powers of Desire.Ortner, Sheryl, and Whitehead, Harriett, eds. (1981) Sexual Meanings: The Cultural

Construction of Gender and Sexuality. New York: Cambridge University Press.Rodriguez, Cecilia, and Marjorie Miller. (1992) “Muy Macho,” Los Angeles Times

Magazine 6 (December).Ruth, Sheila, ed. (1990) Issues in Feminism, 2nd. ed. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield

Publishing Company.Seidman, Steven. (1992). Embattled Eros: Sexual Politics and Ethics in Contempo-

rary America. New York: Routledge.Simson, Rennie. (1983). “The Afro-American Female: The Historical Context of the

Construction of Sexual Identity,” pp. 229–235. In Snitow, Stansell, and Thomp-son, eds., Powers of Desire.

Snitow, Ann, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson, eds. (1983). Powers of De- sire: The Politics of Sexuality. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Suleiman, Susan, ed. (1986) The Female Body in Western Culture. Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard University Press.

Vance, Carole. (1989) “Pleasure and Danger: Toward a Politics of Sexuality.” InVance, ed., Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. London: Pandora.

Wolf, Margery, and Roxane Witke. (1978) Women in Chinese Society. Stanford, Ca-lif.: Stanford University Press.

Wood, Beatrice. (1987) I Shock Myself: The Autobiography of Beatrice Wood . SanFrancisco, Calif.: Chronicle Books.

Zhou, Xiao. (1989) “Virginity and Premarital Sex in Contemporary China,” FeministStudies, 15, pp. 279–288.


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