Brides and Sex: A Tale Of Two Madonnas

I'm deeply disturbed by this article I just read, "MySpace Generation Brides Go For Sexy, Not Virginal." And it's not just the incredibly upsetting comments at the bottom of the page (from the sexist pig who thinks men are smarter than women, from the prissy snot who says she's a "Christian" and wouldn't be "filthy" enough to have sex before marriage, because it would bring "shame on [her] family")— it's just the judgmental tone of the article overall.

Presenting the facts is one thing; setting the facts up as a comparison that puts women in an unfair position is another. Like this sentence: "More vamp than virgin, [brides are] having bachelorette parties that are as raunchy as their fiancés' sendoffs." Here, the insinuated problem is not that the raunchiness is occurring, but that it is occurring EQUALLY— that brides are daring to expect the same experience as their fiances. Or how about this quote from Stephanie Coontz, some social historian who decided to write one of those pop-history books that publishers so love to issue: "I worry that [sexualization] can take over. The message you're sending about your appearance can override other conversations you should be having about your future." The unspoken assumption in this sentence is that sexuality sends a NEGATIVE message about one's appearance, never a positive one.

Did I miss something? Did we somehow warp ourselves back into the 1890s? Why the hell would anyone care if a bride wants to look sexy?

I didn't want a particularly vampy look at my wedding, but that's just not my style. I DID wear a strapless dress, though, with a lace-up bodice. Does that make me, the minister's wife, a whore?

The strange thing about this article is how it seems to draw some sort of parallel between the sexualization of children and the sexualization of brides. It's almost as if the article conflates the two states, and presents this image of child brides standing at the altar in corsets and fishnets.

I understand the line of thinking they're presenting— that the sexualized behavior that children learn in adolescence can manifest itself in adulthood— but I don't agree that this way of analyzing the subject draws a reasonable conclusion. This line of thinking assumes a pre-existing condition that hasn't existed since the 1800s, at least: that there is no time gap between childhood and marriage. It's as though they expect women to move directly from girlhood to wifedom without any mitigating non-married adult life in between. Obviously, people haven't done marriage that way for a good long time— why can't we acknowledge that brides are grown-up women, not Disney characters or Barbies, and that they have every right to be in control of their sexuality?

Bizarrely enough, the article even acknowledges that the gap between childhood and marriage exists, saying that women are getting married later and later (as though this were a bad thing!), usually around 28 or so. But somehow it still attempts to make this connection between teen sexiness and grown-up sexiness: "In American society now, you see little girls being sexed up...You can't disconnect that from the way the wedding industry is going. We have 13-year-olds getting makeovers and having oral sex." (A quote from another pop sociologist— geez, they just let anyone major in sociology these days, don't they?)

Wait...you don't get to justify your logic by using the word "can't." This woman is pretty much just saying that you "can't" ignore the connection between teen sex and sexy weddings because teens have sex and women get married in sexy dresses. That's not the way an argument works, my dear. That's like if I said: "Obviously, eating mangos can give you a heart attack. You can't ignore the connection; people eat mangos, and people have heart attacks. It's simple."

Y'know, I hate to tell you, but my generation— the generation I assume they're discussing— ISN'T THE MYSPACE GENERATION TO BEGIN WITH. Didn't the author do any research? The "MySpace generation" is my fifteen-year-old sister's generation, and they're not getting married yet; my generation was ALREADY GROWN UP when MySpace and Facebook came around. Guys, that's like calling forty-year-olds the "Pruis generation" just because they happened to be alive when Pruises were invented. That doesn't even make sense.

Furthermore, the article grossly exaggerates the degree to which exhibitionism contributes to bridal sexualization. The author, while mentioning in passing that boudoir photos are usually only taken as a gift to the groom, seems to deliberately mislead the audience into imagining that such personal pictures would be displayed at the ceremony or posted in public forums. Boudoir photos (a recent movement that I found confusing in my bridal days, but which seemed to genuinely empower some women) are almost always intended to be given privately to the husband-to-be after the ceremony, almost as a dual bridal gift— the wife has fun shooting the pictures, and the husband enjoys looking at them. It's not my cup of tea, but if other people want to do these things privately, who's to tell them they're wrong? It's not like they're forcing family and friends to stare at their thong-clad behinds. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that the real exhibitionism comes with virginity rings and purity balls and all the other silly ways women have come up with to broadcast the fact that they enjoy commodifying their virginity.

It's this weird fusion of the feminine and the childish that bothers me. So does the article's way of repeatedly contrasting sexualized brides with Disney princesses. The piece never actually explains why its author seems to imagine that grown women would WANT to look like princesses when they get married. We're not nine years old, are we? So why would we want to look like Prom queens instead of healthy, happy, sexual women?

This fusion also bothers me because it intimates that one cannot be opposed to teen sex without also being opposed to grown women having sex. Let's go over this concept again, shall we: there are some things that are good (or at least acceptable) for adults and bad for children. Drinking, for example. Having babies. Owning homes.

It's like cosmetics— grown women use them, but kids shouldn't. I don't think kids should wear makeup— not even teenagers— because I think you need time during your teen years to become comfortable with how you look. If you've been wearing makeup constantly since you were twelve, you won't have any idea what you truly look like— or how you truly feel about your natural, naked self— when you're, say, eighteen. I had a friend in high school who once told me, when we were both sixteen, that she couldn't fathom the idea of walking out the door without makeup. "I feel so ugly without this stuff on my face," she said. "I don't want people to see what I really look like." She was a smart, straight-A student who is now studying law at UPenn, so it's not like she was a shallow creature. She just hadn't learned, at age sixteen, to like herself for herself. I've lost touch with her, so I don't know if she ever found out how to do that.

That's what I think sex is like— having it too young means that you prevent yourself from learning important things about who you are. In order to learn the right lessons about your sexuality, you first have to reach that state of comfort in your identity, even if you don't fully understand that identity. And while I've never met a teen who didn't think they were perfectly comfortable with themselves and who didn't assume that they could handle anything the world could throw at them, I've also never met a teen who was right about those assumptions.

But just because it's not a good idea to do it before you graduate from high school doesn't mean it's not a good idea at all. That's just silly, folks. I mean, my sister is fifteen, and I don't think she should be having sex at her age. But if, when she graduates from high school and she's at least eighteen years old and she's begun college, she comes to me and says, "Should I have sex with my boyfriend?" I wouldn't necessarily say no. I'd probably say, "You should think about it, and you should make the best decision you can. I can't tell you what to do, because you're an adult now, and you have to make these choices yourself." And then I'd offer to take her to get some birth control, and I'd tell her everything I know about the pill and condoms and STDs and abstinence and the emotions and consequences associated with sex. Teen sex and grownup sex are different, and I think, in our hysteria over the supposed "culture wars," we're forgetting that.

Furthermore, why aren't we MORE disturbed by women who want to live the "Disney princess" fantasy instead of exploring their sexuality in a healthy way? I'm more disgusted by that phenomenon, because that really IS trying to conflate childhood innocence with virginal purity in adulthood. And even then, why does it have to be a choice between these two extremes? On such an important and meaningful day, why does a bride have to choose between the Madonna and the Madonna? Why are there only two paths— Cinderella or Roxanne? What's wrong with being sexy AND proud— moral AND empowered?

I guess, when it comes down to it, I'm disappointed that this article even exists. If the whole piece had been written as one of those fluffy, look-at-this-month's-fashion-trends type of things, I wouldn't have even cared. But I felt as though this piece was written with a certain agenda, under certain assumptions, and with a certain disdain for women in general. The whole time I was reading, I felt vaguely insulted.

Why is it still news when a woman is unafraid of sex?