Never miss a talk! SUBSCRIBE to the TEDx channel: http://bit.ly/1FAg8hB Jane Langton is an adult sexual health educator aiming to transform the views and conversations on healthy sexuality. Jane is committed to educating people about how general health and sexual health are intertwined.
Attitudes
Three legal parents.
From the CBC:
Della Wolf is B.C.'s 1st child with 3 parents on birth certificateB.C.'s new Family Law Act is the first to allow birth certificates with more than 2 parents By Catherine Rolfsen
A Vancouver baby has just become the first child in British Columbia with three parents listed on a birth certificate.
Three-month-old Della Wolf Kangro Wiley Richards is the daughter of lesbian parents and their male friend.
"It feels really just natural and easy, like any other family," said biological father Shawn Kangro. "It doesn't feel like anything is strange about it."
B.C.'s new Family Law Act, which came into effect last year, allows for three or even more parents.
Della's family is the first to go through the process, and they finalized the birth certificate registration last week.
B.C., which is celebrating Family Day on Monday, is the first province in Canada with legislation to allow three parents on a birth certificate, although it's been achieved elsewhere through litigation.
Moms wanted a dad, not just a donor
The story starts when Danielle Wiley and her wife, Anna Richards, were faced with a problem many couples encounter: how to get pregnant.
"Both of us, from the beginning, wanted to have a father that would actually be a participant," said Wiley.
"I know a lot of other lesbian couples don't want that. They want an anonymous donor. But both of us liked the idea of somebody who could actually be involved, and who could be a father figure to our children."
Kangro, an old friend of Richards, seemed like the obvious choice.
"When Anna and Danielle approached me, I think instantly I thought I was going to say yes, even though I had to debate a lot of things in my head first," said Kangro.
Before Della was conceived, the three started creating a written contract, outlining how their family would work.
Wiley and Richards would have custody of Della, as well as financial responsibility.
Kangro would be a guardian, with rights to access.
Wiley became pregnant with Della without the help of a clinic, using what she describes as the "homestyle" method.
Sex strike in Japan.
From the Daily Star:
'Sex strike' against leading Tokyo governor candidate
TOKYO: Women in Tokyo are threatening a sex boycott against any man who votes for the front-runner in this weekend's gubernatorial election, in protest at his claim that menstruation makes women unfit for government.
A Twitter campaign group based in the capital which bills itself as "The association of women who will not have sex with men who vote for (Yoichi) Masuzoe," has garnered almost 3,000 followers since it launched last week.
Although the founders have not identified themselves, in their profile they said: "We have stood up to prevent Mr. Masuzoe, who makes such insulting remarks against women...We won't have sex with men who will vote for Mr. Masuzoe."
Masuzoe, 65, a former political scientist who became a celebrity through TV talk shows before getting involved in politics in 2001, is widely seen as an establishment figure in a country where gender roles remain very distinct.
In 1989, he told a men's magazine that it would not be proper to have women at the highest level of government because their menstrual cycle makes them irrational.
"Women are not normal when they are having a period... You can't possibly let them make critical decisions about the country (during their period) such as whether or not to go to war," he said.
Masuzoe has the backing of the conservative ruling party of hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and is seen as likely to pip his nearest rival, former prime minister Moriyoshi Hosokawa who is standing on an anti-nuclear platform.
All 16 candidates in the poll are men, with many of them aged in their 60s or older.
But Masuzoe's comments about women, as well as other controversial remarks on taxing the elderly, have triggered a backlash.
Another website was launched on Wednesday by a group of women also seeking to prevent Masuzoe from becoming Tokyo governor -- that site has drawn 75,000 hits per day and 2,800 people have signed its petition.
"Masuzoe is an enemy of women...He doesn't love Japan. He loves only himself," said one comment on the site, by a woman who identified herself as Etsuko Sato.
On the Twitter campaign feed, a post by manatowar3 said: "I'm an old man. But I cannot tolerate him (Masuzoe) from a man's point of view."
Despite high levels of education, many women in Japan leave career jobs when they have children, and social pressures to play the homemaker remain strong.
There are very few women in senior political positions -- Abe's 19-member cabinet has only two -- and company boards are overwhelmingly male.
Speaking in Davos last month, Abe pledged that by 2020, 30 percent of leading positions would be occupied by women. However, most independent observers suggest this target is unlikely to be met.
Not quite what Putin intended.
From the CBC:
Could this be the gayest Olympics ever? LGBT rights, sexual identity at forefront of Games despite Russia's attempt to silence activism By Matt Kwong
A rainbow-inspired Google Doodle. Openly gay delegates sent to Sochi by foreign governments. A viral PSA promoting inclusiveness of LGBT athletes.
This could be adding up to be the most LGBT-conscious Games in history, says former gold-medal Olympic swimmer and openly gay athlete Mark Tewksbury.
"I don't know if it's a watershed moment, but it's certainly a bit of a tipping point. It shows that the world as I knew it back in 1992 as a closeted athlete has changed," he said.
If it wasn't already clear from global press images of demonstrators hoisting signs depicting President Vladimir Putin in drag, the 2014 Sochi Winter Games has been unable to shake the gay-rights controversy.
The uproar was also Russia's own doing, stemming from the country's passage of legislation last June to punish people for the spread of homosexual "propaganda." The law drew condemnation around the world for being vague and stigmatizing gay identity.
"Sometimes things backfire," Tewksbury said. "Trying to make this a non-issue, well, guess what — it's a huge issue."
Referring to Sochi mayor Anatoly Pakhomov's declaration to the BBC that his coastal town has no gay residents, Tewksbury said, "You cannot tell me there wasn't a single gay person in that opening ceremony."
Commentators already pointed out the use of gay composer Tchaikovsky's music during the show, as well as a performance from faux-lesbian singing duo t.A.T.u.
Tewksbury noted it was unusual for an International Olympic Committee president to make political overtures at an Olympic opening ceremony. He was surprised, then, when the IOC's Thomas Bach seemed to address the controversy over Russia's anti-gay laws during his remarks at Sochi's Fisht Olympic Stadium.
Weeds: Masturbation.
A great example of changing attitudes about masturbation. NSFW language:
Increase in pubic hair grooming injuries.
From the New Republic:
Pubic Hair Grooming Injuries Have Quintupled
The Brazilian wax has been on its way out for a while. But what may be its final death throe comes, according to the Atlantic Wire, in the form of unshaved mannequins on display at American Apparel.
Feminists and women who don't like pain have reason to celebrate, but here's another group that should embrace the natural trend: doctors. American society's aestheticization of hairless female genitalia apparently came at the cost of a veritable epidemic of grooming-related injuries. And while the Brazilian trend got lots of attention, the attendant carnage did not. Luckily, a team of doctors led by Allison Glass of the University of California, San Francisco, was on the case. For a 2012 paper in the journal Urology, theyanalyzed Emergency Room data on relevant injuries caused by pubic hair grooming related injuries and found:
- "Between 2002 and 2010, the number of injuries increased fivefold.
- Of the cohort, 56.7 percent were women. The most at-risk group was women aged 19 to 28.
- Shaving razors were implicated in 83% of the injuries.
- Laceration was the most common type of injury (36.6 percent).
- The most common site of injury was the external female genitalia (36 percent).
The dick pic critic.
From The Hairpin:
What I've Learned From My Side Job Critiquing Dick Pics By Madeleine Holden
In September this year, I woke up to an excellent dick pic. I can remember it quite clearly: it was a low-lit shot of a firmly-erect penis straining sideways through boxers, and I was thrilled to receive it: it was subtle, it wasn’t unsolicited, and it was unusually sexy for a Snapchatted cock shot. It also changed the trajectory of my life. I don’t want to send anyone’s ego out of the stratosphere by saying that, but it’s not really an exaggeration: after I received that photo, invigorated and shot through with dopamine, I tweeted about how rare and encouraging it was to receive a decent dick pic. That sparked an online conversation about how to improve the dismal state of dick pics—I would classify them as generally dull, artless and unsolicited—and that lead to my rise as the Internet’s most beloved dick pic critic.
I started Critique My Dick Pic(Not! Safe! For! Work!, and that goes for all links throughout) that same day; a blog with a simple, self-explanatory premise: men (and other people with penises) send me pictures of their dicks, and I critique them with love. “With love” refers to my policy of being neutral about the size of someone’s dick and refusing to shame sender’s bodies, but it’s not about being saccharine or coddling: I don’t mince my words when someone sends me a thoughtless, lazy shot (although I do still try to be somewhat encouraging and constructive).
The fact that I don’t critique actual dicks is difficult to fully communicate to men: I still get dozens of emails asking me for private dick reviews, and requests to describe the “perfect penis." That’s pointless to me, and I’m never going to do it. Just imagine it: imagine, for example, if I decided that the perfect dick is shaped like a coke can, and it’s uncircumcised, and it has visible veins (but not too many), and it’s rock hard and dead straight. Where does that leave people with thin dicks? Veiny dicks? Dicks that veer to one side? Are they supposed to feel shitty and miserable about a body part they can’t change because of the idiosyncratic ideals of some woman from New Zealand they were never going to fuck anyway? It’s nonsense. I find the idea of a “perfect dick” reductive and insidious, and I often have to underline the fact that I’m not here to critique dicks, I’m here to critique dickpics.
Read the rest here.
Artificial hymen kits.
There are several online sources for artificial hymen kits. From the Hymen Shop:
Restore your virginity in five minutes with this new technologically advanced product. Kiss your deep dark secret goodbye and marry in confidence for only $29.95 … no surgery … no needles … no medication … no side effects …
[…]
An artificial hymen also known as artificial virginity kit (and popularly referred to as a "chinese hymen" or "fake hymen") is a type of prosthetic membrane created for the purpose of simulating an intact human hymen.
Since hymens can be broken via physical activity or even by the use of a tampon, many women are concerned about restoring their virginity. Hymen repair, hymen reconstruction, hymen surgery or revirgination are all terms that refer to Hymenoplasty - cosmetic surgery that restores the female hymen. While the Hymenoplasty procedure requires admission to a clinic and can cost thousands of dollars, the artificial hymen provides much cheaper and convenient way to become a virgin again!
How it Works
Insert the Artificial Hymen into your vagina carefully. It will expand a little and make you feel tight. When your lover penetrates, it will ooze out a liquid that appears like blood, not too much but just the right amount. Add in a few moans and groans and you will pass through undetectable! It's easy to use, clinically proven non-toxic to human and has no side effects, no pain to use and no allergic reaction. Here is close up photo of the Artificial Hymen:
And a really poor-quality video of how they work:
Canadian porn habits.
in Attitudes, Pornography
From the Huffington Post:
Canadian Porn Habits Revealed, Thanks To Pornhub (NSFW)
Western Canadians like their “teen” porn, the prairies are into MILFs and central Canada is all about lesbian sex.
Those are some of the sordid details of Canadians’ porn habits, as revealed by porn streaming site Pornhub (link is safe for work).
Canadian visitors to Pornhub, which bills itself as “the world’s largest porn site,” searched for “lisa ann,” “massage” and “yoga” more than any other search term, the site finds. Among genres of porn (if you can call them that), “teen,” “MILF” and “babysitter” came out on top.
But there were notable regional differences for the top search term [see photo above].
This actually makes Canadians fairly normal. Worldwide, Pornhub found the most common terms to be “teen,” “milf” and “anal.” So apparently Canadians are slightly less into anal, and slightly more into yoga, than other countries. (Check out the worldwide stats here.)
Canadians also spend somewhat more than the average amount of time on the site, lasting an average of a bit more than 10 minutes and visiting an average of eight pages. That compares to a global average of eight minutes and fifty-six seconds.
Mondays are the busiest days for porn viewing in Canada, the site says, which is also the case for most other countries surveyed. Weekend days generally see the lowest porn traffic.
But there are events that cause porn traffic to plummet. What could pull people away from their smut? Well, in Canada, hockey games definitely can.
During an Ottawa-Pittsburgh semi-finals game last year, porn traffic in major cities dropped by more than 20 per cent, with traffic in Ottawa down nearly 50 per cent, the site notes.
“If that’s not love, [we] don’t know what is. Spezza, congrats, your fans really love you!” Pornhub exclaims.
Skiing in the buff.
Letting it all hang out, literally (NSFW - Not Safe For Work):
Hyemenoplasty.
The procedure is explained near the end:
Documentary: The Purity Myth.
From the Media Education Foundation:
Produced & Distributed by the Media Education Foundation Featuring Jessica Valenti
In this video adaptation of her bestselling book, pioneering feminist blogger Jessica Valenti trains her sights on "the virginity movement" -- an unholy alliance of evangelical Christians, right-wing politicians, and conservative policy intellectuals who have been exploiting irrational fears about women's sexuality to roll back women's rights. From dad-and-daughter "purity balls," taxpayer-funded abstinence-only curricula, and political attacks on Planned Parenthood, to recent attempts by legislators to de-fund women's reproductive health care and narrow the legal definition of rape, Valenti identifies a single, unifying assumption: the myth that the worth of a woman depends on what she does -- or does not do -- sexually. In the end, Valenti argues that the health and well-being of women are too important to be left to ideologues bent on vilifying feminism and undermining women's autonomy.
The trailer:
And an interview on Anderson Cooper:
Short: Why Blowjobs Are More Intimate Than Sex.
From College Humor:
Winning bidder pays $42,000 for an hour-long cam session with dominatrix.
From Kinky.com:
The Art of the $42,000 Webcam Show
If webcams are the future of porn, they may just have had their moon landing. While the tech world hovers over the Consumer Electronic Show in Vegas, Maitresse Madeline, San Francisco-based domme and Kink.com porn director, has auctioned off a private hour-long webcam show for an astounding $42,000. Beat that, Bitcoin.
The bidding in the two-week long auction began in the hundreds of dollars, but quickly escalated to thousands — and then tens of thousands of dollars. The winner, who wishes to remain anonymous, will get a one-on-one webcam session with the femdom director.
[…]
A lot of people will think $42K is an incredible amount of money for an hour’s work — it puts you on par with Lady Gaga and Oprah in terms of earning power. What do you tell people who wonder how it can be worth it? Again, people are paying for something they don’t get in their normal life whether that’s a fetish that they are afraid to live out in real life or maybe their partner won’t give them what they desire and they look to cams to fulfill that missing part of their sexuality. People want to remain anonymous and they pay for anonymity. Some men are looking for financial domination and that’s what gets them off. Often it’s a chance to get to know your favorite performer. Whatever your reason is, it’s a custom made experience just for you in real time with no strings attached, whenever you want.
Read the rest here.
Art: Vaginal Knitting.
From the Huffington Post:
'Vaginal Knitting' Is The Latest Feminist Performance Art - But Does It Open Discussion Or Close It? By Brogan Driscoll
Meet Casey Jenkins, the feminist performance artist - or 'craftivist' as she prefers to be known - taking the internet by storm with her latest work 'Casting Off My Womb', where she spends 28 days knitting from her vagina.
Yes, you read that correctly. Vaginal knitting.
"I'm spending 28 days knitting from wool that I've inserted in my vagina," Casey explains. "Everyday I take a new skein of wool that's been wound so that it will unravel from the centre and I stick it up inside me... and then I pull out the thread and knit."
The piece, dubbed 'Vaginal Knitting' by Australian TV channel SBS2Australia, hopes to break down boundaries surrounding a taboo subject: the female genitals.
"If you take a good, hard look at a vulva, you realise it's just a bit of a body. There's nothing that is shocking or scary... nothing that is gonna run out and eat you up," she says.
The performance hopes to be an honest exploration of the female body and an unflinching demonstration of its capabilities - Casey admits that the knitting can be arousing at times and vows to not stop knitting, even when her period comes.
"The performance wouldn't be a performance if I were going to cut out my menstrual cycle from it," she reasons.
According to Gawker, Casey and her peers at Craft Cartel work to combat misogyny and closed government through their art.
"I hope that people question the fears and the negative associations they have with the vulva," Jenkins says.
Read the rest here.
And the video (a little bit NSFW):
Retired sex worker can't get work.
From the Huffington Post:
Dear God, I Need a Job: The Struggle to Find Employment After Sex Work By Eric Barry, Comedian, writer and creator of the 'Full Disclosure' sex podcast and blog.
Right now I'm scared. I'm terrified. I have not had steady employment in over three years. I've burnt through my entire 401(k). I'm on food stamps. I've paid my last two months' rent on a credit card, and have no means to pay this month's.
For the life of me I can't seem to get a job. On average, I apply to about 10 a day. From copywriting gigs to my local grocery store, most inquiries go unanswered. For those jobs which I seem an impeccable match for, even garnering a form rejection letter feels like a win.
It hasn't always been like this. I used to work for Google. I used to work for Goodby, the most acclaimed ad agency in the world. I graduated from UC Berkeley in two and a half years.
At 23 years old, I was making $74,000 a year -- considerably more than my peers. But it never felt right. I wanted to think that my years of hard work and scholastic aptitude had led me to a place of both personal and monetary satisfaction, but the truth of the matter is that nearly every morning when my alarm went off, the first words out of my mouth were "fuck me."
[…]
You see, I was a sex worker when I was in college. I had sex with men for money. If I held back on my podcast -- if I was unwilling to express my own vulnerabilities, if I was scared or ashamed to reveal who I was -- what did it say about those who I was asking to do the same? Nearly every person I've interviewed who's been a sex worker is exceptionally intelligent, well-rounded, and ambitious. But they've all used fake names because they're terrified of what may happen should their personal identity ever be revealed. They're worried they may never find work if they leave the sex industry.
I wanted to change that. I decided to lose the pseudonym and come out publicly about being a straight male who was a gay escort. I wanted to show the world that sex workers can be educated, intelligent, well-adjusted people. People who went to Berkeley. People who worked at Google.
And now that information was out there, at one with the foreverness of the internet. And it was googleable. And that's why I think I was fired.
Go read the rest here.
Giving sex workers the support they need.
From the Guardian:
Sex workers need support – but not from the 'hands off my whore' brigade
Prostitutes need better allies than French men focused on their own sexual freedoms – but too often, feminists only make their lives harder.
By Selma James
The 343 French intellectual men who signed a statement – "Hands off my whore" – defending their right to buy sexual services has infuriated women and caused wide controversy. Not only does it tell us what they think of sex workers, but of women generally and particularly what they think they can get away with saying publicly at this moment in time.
I have just signed a feminist statement opposing France's attempt to criminalise clients. The proposed law would impose a €1,500 fine on those paying for sex, double for a second offence. My motive for opposing it is entirely different from that of these men – not men's sexual freedom but women's ability to make a living without being criminalised and deprived of safety and protection. Driven further underground, women would be at the mercy of both those clients who are violent and those police who are sexist, racist and corrupt and like nothing better than to persecute and take advantage of "bad girls". For this is the inevitable consequence of such laws. Sex workers are the first to suffer from any proposals that make it more difficult, and therefore more dangerous, to contact clients.
The fact is that sex workers have not been able to count on prominent feminists to support their long struggle for decriminalisation. Instead, establishment feminists have spearheaded attempts by governments to make it harder for women to work. Their stated aim is to abolish prostitution, not to abolish women's poverty. That is an old story and it is painful that it is now enhanced with feminist rhetoric: disguising its anti-woman content by proposing the criminalisation of men.
Read the rest here.
More Stoya on porn.
in Attitudes, Pornography, Sex Work
From a Vice article on feminism and porn:
As entertainment, mainstream pornography is no more responsible for educating viewers about sexual health and etiquette than Lions Gate is responsible for reminding kids that it’s actually not OK to kill each other despite what they may have seen in The Hunger Games. It isn’t Michael Bay or Megan Fox’s job to mention in every interview that giant robots from outer space are fictional, nor is it the job of every pornographic performer to discuss the testing protocols we use or how consent is given before shooting. I do feel the need to discuss these sorts of things, and there are other performers like Jiz Lee, Danny Wylde, and Jessica Drake who seem to feel a similar need to highlight the context already available for adult films and provide further context.
But what about the wider reaching cultural effects of pornography? I can’t entirely discount the accusation that seeing a video in which I go from giving a blowjob directly to being pounded in the ass has inspired the occasional man to rudely shove his penis into his partner’s rectum without discussion or care. Whoever those guys are, they could probably use a refresher in the difference between TV and real life. In contrast to these butt-burgling-boogey-jerks are the messages I get every week saying that seeing my body or vagina portrayed as some kind of sex symbol made someone feel more comfortable about their own body. Also, the people who’ve said they didn’t realize that things like syphilis can still be transmitted even with a properly used condom and now see the benefit of regular testing and asking to see the tests of their partners in addition to barrier use.
As long as I continue to enjoy performing in pornography and the positive social effects seem to outweigh the negative ones I’m going to keep doing it, but let’s not pretend that performing in mainstream porn is any sort of liberating act for all womankind.
Read the rest here.
The reality of porn.
From the Scavenger:
What is ‘fake’ and ‘real’ in the sex industry?
Porn has hijacked our sexuality, according to anti-porn author Gail Dines. Her sentiment is not unlike that of other ‘raunch culture’ commentators – the sex industry is damaging because it represents ‘fake’ pleasures and ‘fake’ bodies. Both queer and feminist communities have produced porn/magazines/performances aiming to represent desires, bodies and acts that are ‘authentic’, ‘genuine’, ‘documentary’ and ‘real’. But is this line between ‘fake’ and ‘real’ so clear-cut? Zahra Stardust explores the issues.
by Zhara Stardust [bio in link at bottom]
As someone who works in the sex industry – in spaces that purport to be ‘real’ as well as spaces that are accused of as being ‘fake’ – it seems like there is no distinct line between the two. As someone who works with a body that is sometimes perceived as ‘real’ and other times read as ‘fake’ – it seems that the bodies which move across these spaces are equally fluid.
As someone whose pink bits have been airbrushed in magazines, but which have also been on explicit display; who performs both with and without make-up; whose ‘real’ name is my stage name, distinctions between ‘fake’ and ‘real’ don’t always make sense.
[…]
At the same time, websites that purport to depict ‘real’ or ‘redefined beauty’, often seem to be just as conventionalised as the mainstream genres they criticise. ‘Alternative’ nude modelling site Suicide Girls gives calculated instructions on their website about the kinds of photos, make-up and aesthetic sets they accept: ‘tasteful’, ‘picture perfect’ shoots with ‘a little bit of face powder and mascara and freshly dyed hair’, but specifically not ‘cheap wig[s]’, ‘top hats’, ‘stripper shoes’, ‘food’ or things that look ‘cheesy’, ‘gross’ or ‘creepy’.
Similarly, the ‘girl next door’ look of the Australian all-female explicit adult site Abby Winters represents an alternative to glamour photography, featuring make-up-less, ‘amateur’ adult models – but models are still required to cover up hair re-growth, remove piercings, and not have any scratches, marks or mosquito bites for the shoot in order to appear ‘healthy’.
Other sites I’ve shot for speak about the importance of models representing their ‘own’ sexuality, but then go on to qualify: “We might get you to tone down the eye make up a bit”, “Maybe don’t talk about politics”, “Lesbians don’t really use double-enders do they?” One company asked me repeatedly to stop wearing frills.
In doing so, these sites produce bodies of a particular class, size and appropriate femininity, which are marketed as ‘real’, but which are equally constructed, conventionalised and cultivated. This fear of replicating ‘cheesy’, ‘predictable’ mainstream porn means that depictions of ‘real’ sexuality are often similarly clichéd, albeit with a different set of aesthetics.
[…]
Sure, we may play with, embody and embrace hyper-femininity, but we are no less ‘authentic’, or political, or real, because our lip gloss is hot pink instead of ‘nude’. We don’t need to ‘tone-it-down’ to be any more queer, radical or ‘real’. Our bodies may look ‘unrealistic’ to you, but the labour of preparing for work gives erotic performers a sentient, working knowledge of gender performativity.
Much of the time, our work is far from glamorous. I return from work with smudged mascara, sticky lube, patchy fake tan, knotty hair, smelling like sweat and vaginal fluid – and the customers experience this up close and personal. My vagina certainly isn’t airbrushed when I get it out at buck’s parties, complete with shaving rash, discharge and blonde hair caught in my clit ring.
[…]
The irony is that you can never win – ‘appropriate femininity’ is unachievable. We are either too much or not enough. Our hyper-femininity is often so far beyond normative feminine ideals that it brings us social censure – our make-up is too thick, our heels are too high, our breasts are too large. As Rosalind Gill writes about women in media, our “bodies are evaluated, scrutinised and dissected” and are “always at risk of “failing.”
Read the rest here.
Female (sex-related) aggression.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society just released an entire issue of the journal devoted to female aggression (you can read all the articles for free by clicking here). It has drawn substantial attention. For example, the New York Times summarized some of the findings in an article entitled, A Cold War Fought by Women, written by John Tierney. Here are some excerpts:
[…]
The existence of female competition may seem obvious to anyone who has been in a high-school cafeteria or a singles bar, but analyzing it has been difficult because it tends be more subtle and indirect (and a lot less violent) than the male variety. Now that researchers have been looking more closely, they say that this “intrasexual competition” is the most important factor explaining the pressures that young women feel to meet standards of sexual conduct and physical appearance.
[…]
To see how female students react to a rival, researchers brought pairs of them into a laboratory at McMaster University for what was ostensibly a discussion about female friendships. But the real experiment began when another young woman entered the room asking where to find one of the researchers.
This woman had been chosen by the researchers, Tracy Vaillancourtand Aanchal Sharma, because she “embodied qualities considered attractive from an evolutionary perspective,” meaning a “low waist-to-hip ratio, clear skin, large breasts.” Sometimes, she wore a T-shirt and jeans, other times a tightfitting, low-cut blouse and short skirt.
In jeans, she attracted little notice and no negative comments from the students, whose reactions were being secretly recorded during the encounter and after the woman left the room. But when she wore the other outfit, virtually all the students reacted with hostility.
[…]
The results of the experiment jibe with evidence that this “mean girl” form of indirect aggression is used more by adolescents and young women than by older women, who have less incentive to handicap rivals once they marry. Other studies have shown that the more attractive an adolescent girl or woman is, the more likely she is to become a target for indirect aggression from her female peers.
“Women are indeed very capable of aggressing against others, especially women they perceive as rivals,” said Dr. Vaillancourt, now a psychologist at the University of Ottawa. “The research also shows that suppression of female sexuality is by women, not necessarily by men.”
Stigmatizing female promiscuity — a.k.a. slut-shaming — has often been blamed on men, who have a Darwinian incentive to discourage their spouses from straying. But they also have a Darwinian incentive to encourage other women to be promiscuous. Dr. Vaillancourt said the experiment and other research suggest the stigma is enforced mainly by women.
“Sex is coveted by men,” she said. “Accordingly, women limit access as a way of maintaining advantage in the negotiation of this resource. Women who make sex too readily available compromise the power-holding position of the group, which is why many women are particularly intolerant of women who are, or seem to be, promiscuous.”
Indirect aggression can take a psychological toll on women who are ostracized or feel pressured to meet impossible standards, like the vogue of thin bodies in many modern societies. Studies have shown that women’s ideal body shape is to be thinner than average — and thinner than what men consider the ideal shape to be. This pressure is frequently blamed on the ultrathin female role models featured in magazines and on television, but Christopher J. Ferguson and other researchers say that it’s mainly the result of competition with their peers, not media images.
“To a large degree the media reflects trends that are going on in society, not creates them,” said Dr. Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University. He found that women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies did not correlate with what they watched on television at home. Nor were they influenced by TV programs shown in laboratory experiments: Watching the svelte actresses on “Scrubs” induced no more feelings of inferiority than watching the not-so-svelte star of “Roseanne.”
But he found that women were more likely to feel worse when they compared themselves with peers in their own social circles, or even if they were in a room with a thin stranger, like the assistant to Dr. Ferguson who ran an experiment with female college students. When she wore makeup and sleek business attire, the students were less satisfied with their own bodies than when she wore baggy sweats and no makeup. And they felt still worse when there was an attractive man in the room with her.
Read the rest here.