When I was in high school, my English teacher was quite a rabid feminist. She tried to teach me to have a little back bone, but usually did it by throwing me to the wolves. So in spite of the fact that now I can see she meant well, at the time, I hated her.

She was the only “Ms” that taught me, and she was married to a man with a different surname. This was a matter of significant scandal to our adolescent brains.

When were in year 11 and 12 she spoke constantly about something that she called the ‘Virgin/Whore Dichotomy’. She would say, if you are a woman in this society, your name is Mary. No one sees you, they will just see The Virgin Mother, or Mary Magdalene.

Once you earned ‘whore’ status it was very difficult to go back again, although if you  got married, popped out a kid, and pleased the patriarchy enough, they might let you be seen as a mother. She used numerous examples of women set up as virgins, and then knocked down by the media. Princess Diana was one of her favourite examples (The “If that stupid bitch had been home with her husband and baybeez she would never have died!” line of thought), and we watched hours and hours of footage of Diana, analysing the media’s twist on the ‘fairytale royal wedding’. A more clear example perhaps is Britney Spears, who has fallen from Virgin-dom to Whore-dom in a very convincing manner.

I believe her little sister is pregnant now, but instead of becoming another Magdalene, she is getting a pat on the head from the patriarchy because of her choice to not have an abortion.

I sincerly doubt it will last, but wingnuts do have a creepy creepy passion for pregnant teenagers. *shudders*

*note* I just got to work, and on the bus a woman was reading a magazine in which I spied an article saying that Spears-the-Younger is winning even more patriarchy points, by declaring that Britney won’t be allowed near the child. Sister VS Sister, cos one ‘has seen the error of her ways’ and the other is a DIRTY DIRTY WHORE (and white trash too, just to throw in the classist thing there).

The Virgin/Whore dichotomy isn’t really news to anyone, but I had some thoughts about its relationship with the rape culture, in that it places women in an ‘either/or’ situation with regard to sex.

I wrote the other day that I would ‘fool around’ with guys, but not have vaginal sex with them. (I don’t like it that much, and its really not the sort of thing one should ‘grin and bear’). It occurred to me that by a certain set of social rules, that isn’t actually possible. Either you are a virgin that doesn’t hold hands until the second date, or you are a whore, that will go all the way. There is no widespread cultural script for the behaviour of kissing, smooching, cuddling, and stopping it there… especially if that physical affection is displayed in friendships rather than a steady relationship.

I sleep in the same bed as friends, non-sexually, every now and then. Men and women. Straight and queer. Nothing usually happens… you know, other than actual sleep, and maybe late night gossip.

The idea’s that I grew up with set the situation of sleeping in the same bed with someone as so equivalent to having sex with them, so that often it was seen as inevitable.

Trying to explain to a really conservative Christian that its ok for us to hug, and sleep in the same bed, that no, that doesn’t mean we’ll have sex, and that I certainly don’t *want* to have sex with him was really hard.

I imagine that many people that are steeped in the virgin/whore dichotomy find it very confusing, when they are faced with the idea that they don’t have to go ‘all the way’ just because they express physical affection/intimacy. Hell, I found it damned confusing until about halfway through last year, when I realised that I can actually kiss someone, and have then not expect sex from me the same night.

Beyond that, the virgin/whore dichotomy plays into many of the popular rape myths, by making any woman that is not a virgin, a whore, and a whore is ‘unrapeable’ according to rape-culture. Therefore, any woman that so much as kisses you*, can be raped guilt free and called a ‘cock-tease’.

I am not saying that all people think this way, or that its even taken to this extreme very often. However, I think that the virgin/whore dichotomy is one of the underlying constructions that allows men to control women’s sexuality, and excuse rape.

*Yes, so much as kisses you. I do mean that. Home & Away, a trashy Australian soap, ran a story arc when I was a teenager about a girl who’s rapist got a ‘not-guilty’ in the trial because she had let him kiss her once, and that proved that it was totally consensual, and she just cried rape because her boyfriend found out. (Like that isn’t a tried and true rape-myth, thats been kicking around since Potiphar’s Wife.)