June 3, 2012

A Reply to Panic Over Young Women Having Casual Sex Isn’t New

Quote from the article:

“The reason Roseann Quinn’s death terrified people wasn’t that she was a freak or a hippie. It was that she was steadily employed, modestly dressed, well-liked. She was normal. But she was a new normal—one that, decades later, we’re still trying to deny or scare away.

What is the moral of Little Red Riding Hood’s tale?

“Children, especially attractive, well bred young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf,” Perrault concluded. They may. But they often don’t. Women go to work, go out, and meet people to have sex with. Complications, we know, ensue. Corpses, usually, do not. The fact that Goodbar still haunts us—it’s been used as an argument against everything from 50 Shades of Grey to Craigslist—may point to a deeper fear than we’re willing to admit.

Maybe what scares us isn’t that girls are putting themselves in danger.

Maybe what scares us is simply the fact that they’re putting themselves out in the world at all.” (x)

MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE THE WORLD IS STILL FILLED WITH PEOPLE SAYING IT’S OKAY TO RAISE LITTLE BOYS TO GROW UP TO BE DOUCHEBAGS.

Just sayin’.