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The Saint and the Whore
There are girls you marry, and girls you don't.
Right?
Ask any man, he'll tell you. There are girls you have meaningless, raunchy sex with, gorgeous girls with a tinge of sleaze about them, strippers and porn stars, or even just the co-ed party girls looking for a good time. These are the girls that populate a young man's twenties, who breeze in and out of his party-going adolescence, notable only for the outrageous or kinky anecdotes they provide for him to regale his buddies with later in life.
Then, of course, there are the Marriage Material girls. They are quieter, more serious, less sexually experienced and more maternal. They are the women that know how to balance a chequebook, keep track of appointments, do income tax returns and care for children. Motherhood only intensifies the glow from their haloes - once the babies are born, these women become almost asexual, bastions of maternal morality that a man wouldn't dream of throwing over the arm of the couch and taking from behind. She gave birth to your children, it's sacrilegious to think of hot sex with her.
This duality has existed for centuries. As long as there have been courtesans and cultured women, prostitutes and proper ladies, there has been a dichotomy in the minds of some men, and many women, a split between the desirable and the decent. It has been referred to as the Madonna and the Whore, the Saint and the Sinner, or the idea that most men want to go to bed with a nymphomaniac and wake up with a virgin. Whatever it's called, however it presents itself to the men who believe in it, this idea is baseless, patently unreasonable, and ultimately destructive to women and the men who want to love them.
Telling men that they only desire women they don't marry, and only marry women they don't desire, cannot possibly lead to a fulfilling romantic life for anybody. It leads men to question their own morality when they find themselves highly sexually aroused by someone. It also leads them to suppress their sexuality when they meet a woman they want to marry. In both cases, something is suffering. If he's drawn to a woman he himself thinks is immoral, his own sense of self-worth deteriorates. If he subverts his sexual drive because he thinks its wrong to feel such things for his wife, his natural desire to express love and affection through sex deteriorates. It's a no-win situation.
It isn't much better for women, either. Telling women that sexy women aren't moral and that moral women aren't sexy leaves many women perplexed. Women who would like to enjoy sex freely find themselves holding back out of shame, or out of concern that they'll be condemned as whores. Women who ignore cultural prejudice and flaunt their sexuality would like to be appreciated for their other qualities as well, and not be declared stupid or vain because they enjoy being a woman and enjoy sex.
But our culture is not yet prepared to embrace a woman who is both moral and sexy, and punishes severely anyone who tries. Vanessa Williams lost her Miss America title several years ago because she had posed nude for Penthouse. The judges decided, I presume, that a woman who would be photographed nude couldn't possibly engender the character traits of intelligence and morality so crucial to the mandate of Miss America. I can imagine how ashamed she must have felt; not because she posed nude, but because a group of people decided that the simple, harmless act of showing us her nude body effectively negated all her other fine qualities, and was enough to warrant public humiliation and scorn.
Even though Vanessa has gone on to a successful movie and recording career, is a wife and mother, is as beautiful and charming as she ever was, and in no way reflects immorality or indecency, our society still hasn't advanced enough to allow all women to enjoy their sexuality and be moral at the same time. Perhaps it is because there are so few people willing to advocate such acceptance. Bodyinmind.com actively endorses and celebrates moral sexuality, and stands alone as the only voice of reason in this morass of outdated and harmful sexual mores. To read one of Bodyinmind's excellent essays on appreciating a woman's sexuality, please visit here.)
Men are not the only monsters in this scenario. Other women can be far more vicious when it comes to condemning a woman for being sexy, and for deifying those who aren't. The fact that some men follow their lead and vilify the very women they find themselves drawn to does not imply that this problem originates with men. It is far more common to see men who gaze lovingly at exotic dancers and dream of marrying them one day - and to see groups of angry women picketing outside the strip club demanding the place be shut down - than it is to see a man insult a sexy woman and another woman defend her. Men who do insult sexy women are probably those whose mothers shielded their young eyes from nudity on tv, or who wouldn't let their sisters wear short skirts to school. And women who defend the sexiness and beauty of another women are probably those who are wise enough to know that in doing so they are also defending themselves.
This attitude, this line in the sand between morality and sexuality, has to be erased within each of us. Women have to learn that being a sex goddess and a matronly homemaker at the same time is not only possible, it's a lot of fun. They have to learn not to look down on other sexy women, or teach their children that good girls don't and that girls that do aren't good.
Men have to learn that the woman they have hot steamy sex with is the same woman who sings to their children at night -where do you think the children came from? - and the woman who makes them chicken soup when they have a cold is the same woman they can explore their sexual fantasies with. She is one and the same, a whole woman who has many facets, many moods, many aspects of her sexuality.
She can be hot in bed and cool under pressure, a dream slut and an ivory goddess, a friend and a one night stand all rolled into one. She is a saint and a whore. She is the girl you marry.
If you're smart.
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