On the train to school yesterday, I got into a discussion with a couple of colleagues, both of whom are mothers of young children, about how best to raise kids in our hyper-sexed society. How best, that is, to raise them so they end up with healthy attitudes toward sex? Our conversation quickly turned to female sexuality, and how frequently external forces, even in free Western societies, try to control it.
What should parents do? Should they plunk their children down when they turn nine and explain that Lady Gaga isn’t what a real woman is all about, or should they laugh and go with the flow? Should they say things like, “In our family, we don’t dress and behave like those half-naked teenagers you’re staring at on that billboard”? Should they just relax, learn to enjoy the hyper-sexed environment, and leave their children to do and think what they want about it? Or should they go entirely the other way, and strictly control their kids’ access to the Internet or TV? At the end of our 45-minute train ride, we were no closer to answering any of these questions than we were when we started.
It takes work to negotiate our messy, mixed-up sexual terrain, and it can’t be easy for children to figure out how they’re supposed to behave, and what they’re supposed to aim for, once they become adults. With women, children need to learn to live with perplexing contradictions. For while the women a child admires in real life—a mother or a teacher—behave one way, the women that same child admires in the popular culture behaves entirely differently.
My colleague who teaches philosophy pointed out that modern classical liberalism, which most of us embrace at least to some extent, is partly responsible for this problem. If society values individual autonomy above all else, where is the ground for criticizing the sexual dress or behavior of others? While never exactly teaching the philosophy of “anything goes,” by placing such heavy emphasis on individual freedom, liberalism points decidedly in that direction. As long as there’s no harm, according to the gospel of liberalism, we should learn to ignore bad behavior in others.
Unlike women who came before them, modern women are not forced to dress or behave according to any dicta. They’re certainly not forced to abide by any preordained notions of female modesty. For the modern woman, the idea of “female modesty,” then, is an anachronism. It’s an outmoded social construct, imposed on women by men who are intent on controlling their bodies.
I recently read that in Iraq—which under Saddam Hussein had been tolerant of a range of female attire—basic female modesty is no longer enough. Many Iraqis—men and women both—are so contemptuous of the West that even the most modest, high-necked, long-sleeved, long-skirted dress, if Western in style, is unacceptable. The only modesty that counts is Arab-style modesty, the kind where men go about in whatever they want while women wear the loose-fitting, all-covering, black abaya.
Rousseau observed that to understand a given society, one need look only at the morals of its women. He neglected to mention that in societies in which female modesty is enforced, the morals of women always appear strong, while the suspicion of women, and second-guessing what they’re up to, always runs high. In societies where women are free to dress and behave in any manner they choose, there isn’t anything to be suspicious about. There, women as a whole always tend to look a little out of control. Second-guessing what they’re up to, however, never seems to go away.
Later on, I thought about how odd it was that there have been moments in the history of the West when a glimpse of a female ankle could instantly evoke a supremely erotic flush of excitement. As to how to raise children in today’s hyper-sexed world so that they end up with a healthy sexual attitude, there is, I’m afraid, no answer.
