Blogging While Female

Free Love: Was there a price to pay?

Usually I really enjoy Brian Alexander's columns. His America Unzipped series paints a really interesting portrait of American sexuality and its changes.

His latest article, however, smacks of sexist, judgmental tripe. Exhibit A:
But there is no question that we are still living with the “free love” fallout. Everything from the rise of Viagra to “Girls Gone Wild” and feminist porn, to the sex education debate and the Christian fundamentalist backlash, bears the mark of that bohemian sexual revolution.
"Fallout" certainly has negative connotations, and just about everything in that list is abhorrent to somebody (except maybe Viagra - I don't think it's an inherently evil product. What's evil is its marketing. And how insurance providers wouldn't cover birth control until it came around and they wanted to cover that). Perhaps this instance is simply irresponsible editing, rather than out right idiocy. Let's read on.

The first page of the article is about all of the bad stuff we now have to live through all thanks to those dirty hippies. STD rates skyrocketed, abortion became legalized...but, oh wait, hippies weren't singlehandedly responsible for the new sexually liberated culture? Playboy had been around for 14 years? Masters and Johnson had published "Human Sexual Response" a year earlier? So...really we should just go back to blaming Hugh Heffner. Except that the concept of "Free Love" had been around since the 19th century (I'd argue earlier: look up John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, in the 18th).

So really, the hippies didn't do anything new. Let's just hate on them anyway; it's the 40th anniversary of the summer of love.

Half way through page two we get to some actually positive things that came from the Summer of Love. Feminism took to the streets, as women realized that "free love" meant men got to have sex with whomever they wanted without responsibility.

Oh, and here's where we get to the extremely debatable parts of this article:
The age’s radical feminist notion of eliminating marriage never materialized, but demand from 40 years ago to have “the freedom to love, to chose whom to love and how to love,” written by Goldfield and her essay collaborators Sue Munaker and Naomi Weisstein, is taken for granted by the young women — and men — of the MySpace generation.

I realize that I'm on the older end of the MySpace generation (OT: I realized last night that I am getting old when I was playing a game at a high school summer camp and no one knew who Captain Planet was), but our choices in who we love are still rather limited: interracial relationships are still relatively rare and god knows that you'd better love someone of the opposite sex! Making out with a girl in a picture to post to MySpace so you'll get knew friends is completely different from marching in a Pride parade. Or fighting for the right to marry your girlfriend.

“Some [people] are monogamous, but they are choosing to be, rather than following some script. Maybe they are not having sex with 10 people at a time, but now they are following their own script,” says [Eli] Coleman [Director of the Program of Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota and editor of the International Journal of Sexual Health].

I'd argue that monogamy is pretty much the norm. Unless you stumble on some interesting websites, the only way you're going to be exposed to the modern tradition of polyamory is if you're in a large city. We still largely follow the sexual role scripts in our society. (Alexander claims that studies support Coleman's statement...by citing a survey from 1994 that says 64% of women born between 1963 and 1974 had co-habited before marriage. That has nothing to do with multiple sex partners and everything to do with pre-marital sex. NOT the same issue)

Word, Trojan.

Apparently Trojan's latest commercial is too hot for TV - at least if it's CBS or Fox TV.

Yes, because Fox is totally the moral network. I avoid Fox TV shows whenever I possibly can because 99% of them are exploitative pieces of crap. The other 1% are either unappealing to me for other reasons or are House. Yay House. (Which is actually produced by NBC, I believe, considering that it's replayed on USA. What's up with that? But that's for another time...and probably another blog).

So CBS and Fox's big objection to this ad seems to be that it's focusing on preventing pregnancy rather than STI's. Personally, I think they were looking for excuses. The ad doesn't focus on any one reason to use a condom; it's simply saying that using one is the smart thing to do.

Here's my theory on why CBS and Fox really rejected the ad:

The focus is on a woman finding someone appealing for a sexual fling.

Let's face it: most of us don't go to bars to look for our soul mates. You might pick up someone who could become a soul mate, but generally we're looking for a good time in the here and now. And if you're smart and you end up going home with your new friend (or your new friend comes home with you) you'll use a condom. For reasons including BOTH STI and pregnancy prevention.

The main focus in the ad (the commercial, anyway; the print ad is slightly different) is the beautiful women. The guys who aren't sexually responsible are unattractive (literally pigs). The one guy who has bothered to pick up a condom is suddenly beautiful and attractive to the woman.

Clearly she isn't looking for a night of stimulating conversation. She's a woman who knows what she wants: sex. And she knows how she wants it: safe.

That's what's shocking and apparently so dangerous about this ad: it's presenting a woman who knows what she wants when it comes to sex, and she isn't afraid to go out of her way to get it.

So while Trojan is willing to go out there and promote women having a healthy sex life (they also produce the Elexa condoms which I enjoy, though I wish they were easier to find!) network television is telling us once again that we shouldn't be feeling so liberated, using blatantly false reasoning for why they won't accept this commercial (as Feministing points out, neither Fox nor CBS has had a problem featuring Viagra/Cealis/Levitra ads during big sporting events. It's apparently not harmful to the kiddies to hear about four hour erections, but even suggest that women might want to enjoy risk-free sex and alarm bells go off).

Also worth noting: the title for this entry comes from a phrase that's all over the new Trojan site. And it is SO TRUE.

Mycoplasma genitalium "can cause inflammation of the urethra (the urinary passage from the bladder), in men, and inflammation of the cervix and the lining of the uterus in women, possibly leading to infertility. However, it seems many cases of the infection are symptom-free."

Also, "the prevalence of Mycoplasma genitalium infection was 11 times higher among individuals living with a sexual partner, seven times higher among blacks and four times higher among those who use condoms during sex."

So would that mean that I'm 15 times more likely to have this (living with sexual partner + using condoms)?

Most people think that condoms will protect you from STDs, yet this article could be read to imply that condom users at four times more likely to get this particular STD than their non-condom-using peers. Despite this fact, the article doesn't explain how one might end up with this particular STD that, while many people may not display symptoms, could affect something as important as fertility. Wikipedia says that it's spread through unprotected sexual contact.

I am so confused. And a little irritated at MSNBC for leaving so many holes in their article.