A TORONTO police officer told a group of university students in January that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” Pandemonium ensued, with the officer’s job hanging by a thread. His honest, indisputable statement has since inspired protests in several cities, some of the more irrational manifestations of the urge to protest. They have been dubbed “SlutWalks” and thousands are anticipated to attend the one in Seattle on June 19. 

So what are the SlutWalkers protesting? They say they are protesting any link between a woman’s appearance and sexual assault. The idea that it doesn’t matter at all in all cases what a woman wears is too laughable to take seriously. And perhaps the protesters themselves don’t take it seriously.

In truth, perhaps they are protesting their own subconscious fears.  It seems these young women are suffering from some basic misconceptions about the dangers to themselves in the modern world and about immodesty itself. In the end, sluttiness matters not only because of the perversions of rapists. It matters because of the normal and healthy inclinations of decent men.

First, before clarifying that point, it’s important to note that these women are unable to make logical distinctions about what the police officer Michael Sanguinetti said. Their lack of thoughtfulness and their hair-trigger emotion are painful to behold. They suggest minds addled by texting and almost constant self-expression. To say that a woman’s dress may give the impression that she is promiscuous and ready for a casual encounter is not to say that most sexual assaults are a result of the woman’s behavior or that any sexual assault is only the result of the woman’s behavior. Nor is it to say that sexual assault is right.

The facts are:

1. Many women dress and act like what was once called a slut. They are not criticized at all. In fact, they are often complimented.

2. Few, if any, accused sexual assailants today are judged innocent because their victims dressed immodestly.

3. Most people don’t hold to the view that it is a woman’s behavior that causes rape.

4. Men react to the physical appearance of women and receive cues from women.

If all this is true, what are these women protesting? As I said, they are frightened. There is such a thing as rape, and they cannot process that reality. They have no way of understanding or making sense of it – and so they protest against it, hoping that outrage alone will make it go away. They want a world in which rape does not occur. Such a thing is not possible. However, there is a way to gain some measure of safety. A woman can protect herself against rape not by participating in protests, especially protests defending sluttiness, but by earning the protection of good men. Men protect women against men. The sensible path for a woman in a dangerous world – and the sensible path for women collectively – is to earn the protection of good men. Protection is not a right, but a privilege.

Women earn the protection of good men by dressing modestly, by recognizing the nature of masculinity, and by remaining faithful. Then their safety increases. Constable Michael Sanguinetti in Toronto was perhaps, without realizing it, articulating this truth. Good men don’t want to protect sluts. Why risk one’s life for a slut? Why care about a woman who is willing to give up nothing for you or for other decent men like you?  

Modesty, both indirectly and directly, does protect women from rape. Sluttiness makes women much less safe in a dangerous world.

 

 

                                                       — Comments —

Jesse Powell writes:

Now, what is the idea behind the SlutWalk? To reclaim the word “slut;” to end the oppression of “slut shaming;” to smash the patriarchal “Madonna/Whore” paradigm of women’s sexuality; in short, to proclaim that there’s nothing wrong with being a slut and that it is sexist for any man to claim otherwise?

John Hawkins, a conservative blogger at Right Wing News, relates a very relevant anecdote from his college years on the dangers that sluthood poses for women:

“One night in my freshman year, I was out clubbing or at party or something until about 2 AM, and afterwards, I headed back to my dorm room. I walk in the door and there’s a girl lying in my bed. She’s a busty chick that I have seen around now and again, but I hardly even know who she is. This girl is completely and utterly hammered. So, she looks up at me from my bed and groggily says, and I quote, “Please f*** me.” Then, she promptly passed out. 

Let me repeat; this girl did not know me from Adam. She was in my bed. At 2 AM. She asked me to sleep with her before she passed out and became completely unable to resist anything I wanted to do to her. 

So, I went a couple of doors down, found my roommate, asked him how this girl ended up in my bed, and next thing you know, there are 5 of us alone with her in my dorm room. All four of the guys other than me are plastered. Someone suggests, joking — I think — that we strip her down and take pictures. Of course, that idea was promptly vetoed and much of the rest of my night was spent trying to get car keys from a drunken idiot from down the hall who wanted to drive despite the fact he could barely stand up. Welcome to college life, folks — and, yes, your kids are probably engaged in the same stupidty.”

So, does the above story imply that women’s behavior, if it is “slutty”, does indeed increase their chances of being sexually assaulted? Of course. Looking at the flip side of the coin, if a woman who is slutty claims to have been sexually assaulted isn’t it more likely that she is lying or “confused” than a woman who makes the same claim but is chaste and does not have sex outside of marriage? I would say so. 

The ideology of the SlutWalk ignores these realities, and other problems in addition, and seeks to remove all responsibility and moral judgment from women’s behaviors. The claim that it is oppressive and immoral for men to make judgments about women’s sexual behavior strikes me as manipulative and abusive. 

Kristor writes:

This glorification of sluttiness is the reductio ad absurdam of feminism; the logical consequence toward which it must ultimately tend. Separate sex from reproduction, womanliness from motherhood, and this is what you get: sluts who insist that they be treated like ladies.

Elise writes:

The SlutWalk movement is coming to Australia.

Women in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide are grabbing their fishnets, stilettos and leopard print to march for the right to wear what they like and behave how they want without harassment in four separate slutwalks.

Notices for the latest slutwalks went up on Facebook only on Sunday, but more than 3500 people have already registered for the protest marches Australia-wide, including 2500 in Melbourne alone.

Laura writes:

This is an international movement. But I guarantee you women in Japan or women in Africa will not be indulging in “slutwalks.” It is primarily the Western white woman who is irresistibly drawn to the sillier and more irrational manifestations of what the reader Josh F. aptly calls “devout dykism.”

Lydia Sherman writes:

One day these girls will regret the time wasted in marching and wish they had learned to sew. Sewing instruction should be available in college classes. How related is marching to anything useful in their future life? Sewing, on the other hand, could be quite useful, even when they are old.

Laura writes:

Ha! This is true.

Not only is the protest not very good exercise; not only is it damaging to character, encouraging one to blame all one’s problems on somebody else and diminishing the capacity for gratitude and love, but it is an entirely useless skill. These young women should learn to sew or to read or to cook or to garden or to paint or to sing or, at the very least, to wait in tender abeyance for all good things to come their way. They are throwing their lives away.

And, if they do feel the need to protest, they should protest the narrowness of their own educations. The should take to the streets and complain that they are not being prepared for life or love.

Brittany writes:

The slutwalk is disgusting. Who wants to be known as a slut? Don’t these girls realize that everybody including the guys they have sex with are talking about them behind their backs? A man may not want a virgin anymore but that doesn’t mean he wants the girl who slept with the basketball team and the fraternity brothers. Also rape is sick and wrong and should be severely punished but women have to realize that they have to use common sense. It’s common sense to lock the door to your car so it is less likely to be stolen.

Buck O. writes:

Laura writes: “Protection is not a right, but a privilege.”

Their right is to self-protection – a right that they give away and then demand from others. 

“Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither” is the distorted quote attributed to Ben Franklin. It’s used frequently in banner form on college campuses and is a “principle” that animates many. 

Ben Franklin actually said:

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I wrote to someone a while back:

Ben Franklin wasn’t talking about the freedom imbued into and demanded by our young daughters to dress like a whore, leaving nothing to wonder, and so – ignorantly and defiantly parking the SUV to flaunt herself as she walks the streets between clubs in Anacostia at 2 a.m. – because it is her right, and she damn well will exercise her right – with mom and dad in principled, but bewildered support. Sure, it is her legal right to do so, but, is she entitled to demand and expect total security and zero loss of liberty? Of course not, that’s an absurd and asinine idea – and Ben Franklin would say so. As would any one with common sense. Yet, that is the logical conclusion that any critical thinking must come to. The modern liberal is a devious hypocrite or a duped ideologue who by attempting to feel his way through life, is killing society and destroying a healthier culture, and is repugnant to anything traditionally American, such as common sense and natural law.

Laura writes:

 “The modern liberal is a devious hypocrite or duped ideologue…” That sums it up.

You mention “mom and dad in principled, but bewildered support.” An excellent observation. Who can adequately probe the delusions of parents today with regard to their daughters’ behavior other than well-trained psychiatrists?

However, I would like to offer one amateur’s explanation for this “principled, but bewildered support.” Parents do not want to impinge on their daughters’ assertiveness because they believe, or perhaps unconsciously sense, that this assertiveness is essential to their daughters’ money-earning potential and financial independence.

The demure woman will always lack the aggression required to attain significant success in a capitalist economy. The sexual degradation of women goes hand in hand with their economic autonomy. The modern woman has been prostituted by liberalism, her purity sold even by her parents.

Buck responds:

I agree. When I wrote about “our young daughters,” I also had a particular daughter and her parents in mind. I was an “uncle” when she was in early grade school. She’s on her way to college next year. She survived inspite of some close calls and a mom and dad that define modern liberal parenting. 

Quick story about Facebook. The daughter put it all out there into the “cloud” – for anyone to see. She was fearless and naive with information and photos. No one objected, until her young an innocent bikini photo popped up on a child-porn site and someone tried to contact her. 

Now her parents are paying attention. It’s an ongoing police investigation. A man, somewhere in Africa, admitted to using her photo. He said that he got it from another porn site. Our county police department now has a cyber officer. He’s dedicated to investigating this emerging growth industry. I hear that all local police departments will soon have in-house cyber investigators. 

Technology and modern liberalism. I don’t remember that episode of The Jetsons. But that was set in 2062. Perhaps are children and grandchildren will have this all straightened out by then.

Laura writes:

The SlutWalk phenomenon is also a reflection of technology. The idea has been spread on the Internet, as with the protests in Egypt and flash mobs. 

A reader writes:

I’m an occasional visitor to your website. I’ve recently heard for the first time about the Slutwalks and I have to agree with you.

What we really need to be doing is following the lead of the Saudis! When one looks at what is prescribed as modest wear Biblically, it is very similar to what Saudi women wear. We obviously should be doing the same. Then of course Saudi women also have the protection of their husbands/brothers etc when they go out. It works in Saudi Arabia; a woman who is modestly dressed there is less likely to be hassled than a woman immodestly dressed. We really should be looking more closely at the Saudi concepts of modesty and a woman’s role in society. Far better to be covered, only go out with a male relative for protection and to stay home mostly than be raped! If you are going out dressed like a ‘slut’ then what do you expect to happen! Do we really expect men to have the self control when faced with a barely-clad woman?

What are things coming to?

Laura writes:

You display the same kind of black-and-white thinking, or lack of thinking, as the SlutWalkers. In your mind, there is no alternative to indecent dress short of Islamic restrictions. You ignore the relative modesty – and freedom for women – that prevailed in much of Western history.

For instance, look at this video of the black soul group Martha and the Vandellas singing the song “Dancing in the Streets” in a park in the early sixties. They are dressed modestly and attractively in their pantsuits. They are singing in a park, not confined to their rooms, as you imagine women must be in any culture that honors femininity.

By the way, just as a correction, many Saudi women do not wear the burka. They also possess large sums of wealth in their own names.

Karen I. writes:

Regarding the “SlutWalk” picture, it does not look to me like any of the women pictured are what men seem to typically consider “hot,” despite the one holding the sign declaring she is. She is just the least ugly of an ugly bunch, but that isn’t saying much. Overall, I see dumpy figures, pasty skin, ugly hair styles and trashy clothes worn a couple sizes too small. If this is what is considered a “slut”, maybe the protests ought to be encouraged so young girls can see that being a “slut” is not worth aspiring to. After all, who wants to look like that?

Reader N. writes:

There are two points that need to be made regarding “slutwalks.”

First of all, they are a glaring contradiction to years and years of feminist dogma. Recall that since the 1970’s feminism has insisted that rape has nothing to do with sex, it is about power.
Now consider that dogma in the light of women dressing in an overtly sexual manner and marching down the street en masse, allegedly to protest against rape.

If rape truly is only about power, why must the “slutwalks” be performed by women dressed like streetwalkers? If it is critical that “slutwalks” be performed mainly by women dressed
like prostitutes, what does that say about the notion that rape is only about power?

The “slutwalks” thus have exposed to the world a massive internal contradiction within feminism. Ironically, the feminists by and large do not seem to have even noticed this, a fact that to me
simply adds to the amusing quality of the spectacle.

Second of all, there is in my opinion a much deeper issue here, and that has to do with the 20-year run of “sex-positive feminism.” It would take too much space to discuss the details of the
“sex-pozzies”, but one of their current objections is to the word “slut”. Indeed, they are much up in arms over this word, because of what it implies…that men are willing to have sexual
relations with “sluts” but they are not willing to have long-term relationships with sluts, let alone marry them.

Look at the women in these “slutwalks”, and see that some of them are clearly of middle age or older; aging feminists 35-40 who are finding that it is not nearly as easy for them to attract men
as it once was. Others, of course, are pretty young women who basically want to have their cake and eat it too – they want to be free to have sex with men they are attracted to now, as much
as they want, but not to be judged later on for that.And that, in my opinion, is the underlying issue that the “slutwalks” are all about. If men are unwilling to marry slutty women, for such reasons as, oh, avoiding disease, wishing to ensure that any
children born are theirs, wishing to reduce the risk of divorce, etc. then that means women who are promiscuous in their 20’s may find themselves alone in their 30’s. This in turn implies that
women’s actions have consequences, and feminism has been opposed to that for a very long time. 

So in my humble opinion, the “slutwalks” are really more about making promiscuous, “slutty”, women seem like the norm. These public walks are about trying to convince men in their 20’s and
30’s that all women are like this, so they really should just not worry about a woman’s sexual history, and just commit to her (when she wants commitment, of course).

“Slutwalks” are a desperate attempt to normalize sluttiness, in order to protect promiscuous women from the results of their own decisions, both short term results and long term results.

In the age of Facebook and other social media, women who participate in these protests are labeling themselves “warning! Potential
danger to men!” in a very obvious way. It will be interesting to see how that works out. It would be no surprise to me if some young men use participation in these events as a “no-way”
filter in the future.

It is a sad thing to see, frankly, because it cannot work in the long run. Promiscuity has harmful effects on both men and women, but it is growing clearer that it hurts women more.

Laura writes:

Regarding your first point, the slutwalks don’t really contradict the feminist claim that rape is about power. Remember, the slutwalkers are objecting to the Toronto police officer’s statement that appearance matters. They are dressing up as sluts ironically and in protest to make the claim that appearance doesn’t matter when it comes to rape or sexual assault. I understand your confusion because as a protest gesture it is bizarre. If they really wanted to make the point they are trying to make effectively, they might march and carry pictures of women who were dressed modestly and who were assaulted. Instead, the whole slut theme is as much an attention-getting gesture than a coherent message.

As for your second point, not only are men not inspired to marry sluts, it is fair to conclude that they are not moved to stand up for them or risk their lives for them.

Reader N. writes:

While I can see your point that these women, young and not so young, are attempting to be ironic, it seems likely that the irony is not lost on only my poor, easily confused brain. Therefore, in the eyes
of many people these women are labeling themselves as “sluts” on purpose. It will be interesting to see how that works out, because even though these manifestations of will get lots of press, it
is obvious that only a minority of women in the relevant age groups participate in them.

As to my second point, it arose in my mind in part due to watching with some sadness a few women in their late 20’s and early to mid 30’s who have suddenly realized that they wish to be mothers
after all, despite years or even a decade in denying that. There is a sad desperation to their demeanor now. I do not know if any of them would participate in such a “slutwalk” or not now, but some of them might have been willing to do so five or more years ago.

I suppose you can sum up my entire contribution to this discussion as simply, “Once again, some women are showing what worthless bill of goods they have been sold by feminism”.

Laura writes:

Their irony (or attempts at irony) aside, it is apparent they do also approve of promisicuity.

Reader N. adds:

Perhaps what draws my attention to these manifestations is the sheer, narcissistic, “look-at-me” nature of them, combined with a willful, “I want what I want when I want it” childish entitlement. No sane man of any age would walk about with hundred dollar bills sticking out of his pocket, and if he were to do so and be robbed, no one would be particularly solicitous towards him.

Yet these “slutwalkers” are essentially claiming the right to go anywhere, in any sort of dress or inebriation, and yet have their risk of harm be kept at zero. They do not wish to accept any
responsibility for the results of their own actions, it seems to me.

Which, come to think of it, makes the “slutwalk” a very accurate manifestation of the modern world.

Eric writes:

Just because a woman dresses as if she is taking on all willing men, does not mean men have any right to treat her as if she is taking on all willing men.

Shame on us. It’s all our fault, really.

Laura writes:

No woman can be anything other than a victim. And when women are held morally accountable for their actions – they take to the streets in protest.

Eric adds:

One of your correspondents wrote that the sluttiness protests were the reductio ad absurdum of feminism. Correction: they are only one of them. Another one is the Dworkin Reduction, “No sex is consensual, therefore all sex is rape, and all men are rapists.”

Jesse Powell writes:

I agree with many of the observations Reader N. made. I personally think the issue of rape is only tangential to the real meaning and purpose of the “SlutWalks”; I think the rape issue is just being used as a shaming tactic against men who object to women acting slutty; the idea is, “Any man who criticizes sluttiness in women is just an apologist and friend of rapists and wants to blame the rape victim for being raped.” The real purpose of the “SlutWalk” is to normalize and universalize sluttiness; to claim that all women are “sluts” or alternatively to say that no woman is a “slut”, that slutiness and sexual promiscuity are irrelevant and don’t matter, that the whole idea of a “slut” is oppressive and restrictive of women’s freedom and choices and is therefore a concept that should be banished from people’s vocabulary or be rendered meaningless. Just looking at the slut marchers walking down the street in their slutty clothes carrying their slutty signs may not communicate this message of “I am a slut, hear me roar!” effectively but if you listen to what the slut activists actually say themselves in their speeches and in their discussions about what they’re trying to accomplish it becomes quite clear that the purpose of the “Slut Walk” is to normalize and universalize and therefore eliminate as a meaningful concept the entire idea of the “slut”. 

It must be remembered; in order for some women to be “sluts” it is necessary for other women to be “chaste”; the term “slut” is only derogatory because it is an unflattering comparison to the alternative and more desirable status of being “chaste”; the purpose of the SlutWalk is to proclaim that all women are “sluts” and that therefore no women are “sluts” so that being a slut in reality will carry no stigma and therefore impose no negative consequences. 

For those that want to study up on this issue more thoroughly I recommend a 15 minute speech given at the Boston Slutwalk, and a 35 minute panel discussion among feminists debating the positives and negatives of the “Slut Walk” concept: “SlutWalks” and Modern Feminism, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, May 6, 2011.

George S. writes:

When it comes to the slut walks and what the cop said, I think there has been a huge loss of an opportunity for the police to give regular citizens important information about criminals. Criminals do not select their targets randomly and this isn’t just true for rape. A criminal will pick a target who is signaling that they would make a good victim.

If I want to pick someone’s pocket it makes sense to target a man or woman listening to their IPod or who is otherwise distracted because there is less chance they will notice what is happening. If I want to follow someone to his car to steal that car, I don’t pick the guy who just came from baseball practice and is carrying an aluminium bat. And if I want to rape a woman, it’s much easier if she’s passed out on the floor either from her own drinking or from the roofie I gave her.

The cop could have made the excellent point that criminals will target you based in part on your vulnerability. Just as important as that, when it comes to rape, most rape is not stranger rape. For the most part if a woman is going to be raped it’s going to be her father, uncle, brother, boyfriend, family friend, etc. and not some guy who jumps out of the bushes.

Of course, this will never happen now. Instead we get “slut pride!”