Sabrina, if you don’t want to be defined by your breasts, you’re doing it wrong!

This is Sabrina:

http://web.stagram.com/n/officialsabrina_xo/

She is a terrible person, who has started an internet meme that expresses hatred for women, disgust with normal human sexuality and a deep and abiding shame about her own body.  Sabrina, you see, would like to live in a world where she is defined by more than just her breasts.  I know, I know.  What a stupid little tart.  Doesn’t she know that modern woman = slut = power = check out these titties!

Oh, Sabrina.  Your boobs don’t go in your shirt, they go out on display, but remember to always watch out for rapists and shriek mightily if anyone ever NOTICES your tits hanging out all over the place.  Now all you breastfeeding ladies, don’t get excited.  Your breasts are disgusting and revolting and feeding a baby is just gross and probably really unnatural, so put your tits away, please.  This doesn’t concern you.

Sabrina sparked a bit of a trend, with other young women expressing discomfort with a wider culture that encourages them to spread their legs, wear skanky clothes and slather their faces with make-up.  You see, some young women do not like slut culture and hate being lumped in with peers who have embraced the whole “your worth can only be measured by your whore rating” .

Now let’s be clear.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with a young woman understanding the value of her sexuality and deciding to exchange it for straight up cash.  A young woman who appreciates the costs and freely chooses to be a prostitute has every right to do so, but there is a huge problem with young women who want to take full advantage of the benefits of sexuality without living up to any of the responsibilities or meeting any of the obligations that sexuality entails.

And what are those responsibilities and obligations?  When you deliberately provoke a reaction in the people around you in the hopes of capitalizing on that reaction, you accept the possibility that the reaction may be more intense or powerful than you imagined.  You also accept that the people around you may decide to provoke their own reactions using the assets they have available to them.  When a young woman deliberately and overtly displays her sexuality in the form of make-up, clothing, attitude,  voice, mannerisms and demeanor, she needs to understand that the objects of her provocation will RESPOND.

Male sexuality is profoundly different than women’s. It is, at the very heart, a very aggressive kind of sexuality.  Women want attention, admiration, to be desired and yearned after.  Walking around with your cleavage spilling out of a Victoria’s Secret bra and your lips painted glossy red is a sure way to get those things, but you are playing with a sexuality that wants far more than just that.  Slut culture posits that female sexuality, and the advantages that can be accrued thereby, are morally and culturally superior to a more base, male sexuality.  Male sexuality is curtailed, castrated and derided as crude, rude and increasingly, illegal.

Young women like Sabrina are saying “hold up!  I’m okay with interacting socially on the basis of something OTHER than sexuality”, although that is never really an option.  Platonic relationships between men and women are historical anomalies, and the current of sexual possibility is never far from the surface of the relational waters.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/07/26/every-man-you-work-with-thinks-you-want-to-sleep-with-him/

Sabina and her ilk are accused of “slut-shaming” because they dare to suggest that maybe breasts are sexually suggestive and it’s a good idea to display them judiciously or maybe not at all, that a woman’s value is determined by something other than spreading her legs, that clothing makes a statement and has an impact on other people and that we are responsible, at least in part, for ensuring that we understand the consequences of our sartorial choices.

If I wore this item of clothing, I would expect to get a reaction:

I would furthermore expect that reaction to be really BAD.  That’s a no-brainer.  But I should be able to wear this and expect NO reaction:

Well, darling, if you are not asking for “it”, what are you asking for?  To live in a world where no one has any reaction to anything anyone else is doing, ever?  I’m not saying you’re delusional, sweetheart, but I hope you brought extra cotton candy for your unicorn, because it could be a long night.

In Magical Princess Fairytime Sparkly World, women can walk around bare ass naked at all times, plastered out of their minds and no one will touch them ever or say anything suggestive or even acknowledge that they exist.  Evidently, there are no men in Magical Princess Fairytime Sparkly World.  Hmmmm. Could that be the point?

Here in the real world, people exists and they have drives and desires and will respond to stimuli and not always in a way you might like.  In this world, you will do well to be aware of the people around you, take notice of the impact you are having and deploy some strategies to make certain you are perceived in a way that values you as a person in your own right.

In this world, your boobs?  They go in your shirt.

Lots of love,

JB

 

PS:  Sabrina, you are a doll!

 

http://web.stagram.com/n/officialsabrina_xo/