I finally finished reading Guyland! I am glad to have read the book because it was a real eye opening experience to the world that some guys are a part of, and ultimately the world that I live in. I will post something solely dedicated to the last chapter of the book, but in this post, I wanted to discuss chapters 9, 10, and 11. I think there is some really insightful and important information in these chapters that must be addressed. In chapter 9, Kimmel discusses hooking up in guyland, and just what sex means to these men and women in college. This chapter was not so eye opening as some of the other chapters have been because I am in college and know of the sexual practices that some of my fellow students, as well as some friends, partake in. I did find it alarming that so many girls were okay with this form of casual sex because there is very little in it for them. As Kimmel says, the women who are hooking up with these guys are not experiencing great sex, they are oftentimes not even experiencing mediocre sex. The sex is mainly for the guy to have an orgasm, and if the girl can’t find a way to get something out of it, it is her problem. Once again, women have become a tool, a car, if you will, that allows men to get where they need to go. Girls must make themselves available for sex, but not get too attached, as guys do not want to have “the talk” about whether or not the sexual relationship could evolve into an actual relationship. Alcohol, as Kimmel says, has a ton to do with the hook up process(199-200). Liquid courage has become the most important component in sealing the deal, so to speak. It helps to lower expectations and relieve one of their consciences. However, it can also lead to rape, which is discussed in Chapter 10. I feel that hooking up in college is a normal process. That is to say, if it is something that one is doing because they enjoy sex, but do not want to have a commitment. So long as both parties are being safe and responsible and honest with one another, there is nothing wrong with casual sex, in my opinion. But when sex becomes a means to get close to someone or to make yourself less of an invisible entity in guyland is when the problem begins. Women should be able to have casual sex like men can have, but they should not aim to regard sex in the same way as guys in guyland do. As I just previously mentioned, if a woman wants to have sex because she truly enjoys it, then there is not a problem with it. It does not seem that this is the case with these women, however. As Kimmel states, “Most hookups are not great sex” (210). Kimmel explains how in a recent survey, only 19 percent of women reported having an orgasm, while males had orgasms more frequently. So the question is, why do these women hook up with guys if they are not enjoying the sex? Why not just wait until they find someone who can satisfy them? My guess is that they want to appear likeable and relevant in guyland, and if they don’t adhere to the sexual advances of these men, they will be not be remembered. They want to be seen as popular and needed, and what better way to get this validation than to use their bodies to do it? They believe that since they are deciding who they sleep with, that they are in control. But they are no more in control than they ever were. One of the scarier ideas this chapter brings up is why these girls want to be seen as valuable by these guys who obviously do not value anything because they do not value themselves?
Chapter 11 discusses more of the same thing in regards to women in guyland, and the ways that sororities aim to please the males on their campuses. The girls in this chapter believe that if they sleep with the guys, they will become one of the guys, or at least seen as equal. Kimmel says it best when he states, “Whereas guys are permanent citizens, girls are legal aliens at best” (245). This chapter just further states my point about the fact that women must stop trying to use sex as a bargaining chip with these guys in guyland, that they will not be seen as equal to them just because they casually sleep around and binge drink. The guys are described as thinking these traits are not attractive and do not deserve respect, and this is the first time I would have to agree with them. It does not say a lot about a person if they feel their self-respect comes after their need for attention and popularity. It is a fine line between this and sexual assault, because on the one hand, I am saying that I believe that women have a responsibility to one another and most importantly themselves not to use their body to get equality. Their aim should not be to be seen as “one of the guys” because that means that they are perpetuating the idea that male desires are more important than their own. This goes along with not hooking up with a guy to be seen as popular or significant. Like I have said, if a girl wants to have sex because she wants to for her, then there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. However, to do it in order to please a guy, once again reiterates the idea that male desires are more important than the worth of females. However, when a woman gets raped, she is not at fault, nor is there anything she could have done differently. Rape is different in that women are not seeking this to be on an equal level with men, men are using sexual assault to reaffirm that they will always be dominant, and therefore, above women. I just wanted to clear that up.
I decided to group Chapter 9&11 together because they had a lot to do with each other, and then separately discuss chapter 10…
Chapter 10 was a little more difficult to read. It was all about predatory sex and party rape. I have to say that I enjoy the ways that Kimmel weaves these chapters together. Kimmel opens chapter ten by saying that when he was younger, he remembers hearing, “when it comes to sex, never take no for an answer…Look, girls have to say no, even if they want to do it. It’s part of being a girl. So if they say no, they’re really saying yes. They still want you to” (217). It scares me to think that people actually believe this and will tell one another, but it happens. When Kimmel said how he told his class about the idea that one only stops “when she hits you” (217) and his classmate said it was different now, that now you only stop when she hurts you, I was shocked. This was not the end of it. More shocking than this was that women blamed themselves for being targeted and raped. Kimmel states, “They blamed themselves for leading him on, for giving mixed signals, for not really knowing what they wanted, for being too drunk to say no clearly” (221). To have women feel as though they could have prevented the rape from occurring is sad, to say in the least. Although I believe that women can take precautions, such as not drinking at a party where they do not know at least half of the people, if they are going to attend a party of a stranger, to arrive and leave in a group, do not walk to their cars or anywhere alone at night, and never leave drinks unattended at a party. With that being said, a victim of rape cannot make herself less of an attractive candidate for rape. There is nothing that a person does to ask to get raped, no matter what. Kimmel talks about anti feminists, such as Cathy Young and Camille Paglia, who lay blame for sexual assault on the women. “Roiphe, Young, and Paglia all argue that boys will be boys, and that to constrain male sexuality is to do a disservice to young men. As Paglia explains, today’s female students have the temerity to believe ‘they can do anything, go anywhere, say anything, and wear anything.’ Well, she says, ‘No, they can’t.” (221). It is no wonder that so many men feel as though their rough sexual practices are harmless, while women believe they are the responsible for being sexually assaulted. When anyone, especially a woman encourages the phrase “boys will be boys” and links it with rape, they are giving people permission to sexually assault women. If anyone, other than the rapist, is at fault for sexual abuse, it is these women and men who turn rape into a nonchalant practice that is a consequence of “bad decision making” on the woman’s part. These women believe that victims of rape should accept the consequences whenever they make a mistake, meaning that they should accept that rape is their fault.
Kimmel talks about the fact that victim confirmation is a key part of rape cases, but how it is one of the only crimes that victims have to define the crime. He writes, “Yet one has to engage in some strange epistemology to conclude that if they don’t define it as rape, it wasn’t rape. For most crimes, the subjective experience of the victim plays little role in the labeling of a crime. A robbery is a robbery, whether or not you were dressed so nicely that the mugger thought you wanted it. It is still a robbery even if, in your drunken foolishness, you walked through a bad part of town in the middle of the night with an expensive camera around your neck, or if you ‘consented’ in your fright and said, ‘Here, take my money’” (223). I think it is interesting that we are so dependent on proving that a rape did not occur. The bottom line is, if the person says stop and you keep going, you sexually assaulted them. It does not matter how much she had to drink or what she is wearing, she is not asking to get raped. The fact that we as a society cannot all get on the same page with that basic concept bewilders me. Like I previously mentioned, there are cautionary steps a woman should take to protect herself, but ultimately, if she fails to take them, she still does not deserve to be raped. A lot of this chapter can be related back to the chapter on pornography, where men see images of women getting “gang-banged” and think to themselves, “all women really want it and I am going to give it to them.” This is not to say that all men who watch porn are rapists, but it does send this message to some. Kimmel furthers this point by saying, “many men subscribe to what sexual assault counselors call ‘date rape myths’-that women want sex just as much as men do but are socialized to say no even if they mean yes; that women like to be forced to have sex, that drunk women are ‘fair game’” (225).I wonder where they are hearing these myths from and where the idea for these myths started. Could it be in some of the images that are seen in pornography, or is that too much a stretch? Rape happens a lot in guyland, and a great deal of it occurs with Greeks and jocks. Fraternities and athletes are seen as celebrities on college campuses, and with that status comes the entitlement and silence. Some of the members of these organizations feel that it is their right to have sex with any woman they want, no matter how she feels about it. Communities, fellow members, and school administration turn a blind eye to what goes on with these guys, and the whole ugly culture becomes perpetuated once again. I do not want to spend a lot of time with these ideas, as I have covered them in previous posts. I would rather talk about what some schools are doing to change these things from continuing. Schools like USC, Penn State, Ohio State, and Stanford have created mandatory sexual assault prevention programs for their players. To discourage possible recruits in high school from having the opportunity to rape girls (which they are taught is a part of their right as men and athletes by the college athletes), schools like Stanford have the players’ parents attend the recruitment sessions with their sons and they are all housed together in the same hotel. Schools like Antioch College created a new Code of Conduct program that is required for any sexual contact that is not “mutually and simultaneously initiated” (240). The policy states not to take silence as consent because it isn’t. Women seemed to be happy with this new policy, whereas guys are not so excited. They feel as though the code takes away the moment and will be a turnoff, but as Kimmel shows, Canada introduced a similar program and no protests have come up from Canadian men. The program in Canada works just fine. I think these programs are wonderful, and encourage healthy sexual practices. While some students may think they take away from the moment, they are no more of an interruption than sexual assault is, and with these programs, they ensure that miscommunication will not happen.
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