Sex, the City, Whoring, and Abstinence

Yesterday and today two NYT articles have riled me up, and, hey, guess what, they're about sex! These women are basically polar opposites, and I don't understand either one.

The first was about Julia Allison (AKA Julia Baugher), whom I tangentially knew at Georgetown when she wrote the "Sex on the Hilltop" column for The Hoya and I was at The Voice. Whom I knew when she plagiarized from iVillage for the Hoya (a detail that's missing from her Wikipedia entry and the NYT story). And then when she subsequently was asked to leave and tried to get a gig with us, the rival paper. So, I take issue with Julia on many levels, which I sum up as being based on her lack of ethics and self-awareness and surfeit of pink vapidity. As for the article itself...three pages and a video feature devoted to how Julia is the new Carrie Bradshaw? Really? (And to nitpick, the comparison has been made before.) I was also horrified that they would mention her and Edith Wharton in the same article.

I discussed the article with several Georgetown friends, one of whom noted a subtle tone of mockery, particularly in the line "Ms. Allison says with no hint of self-consciousness." A good point, and something I was too blinded by annoyance to pick up on. Bottom line for me, though, is that I'd wish they'd just stop talking about her. She feeds off it.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is a story in the magazine about an abstinence activist. I respect anyone's choice not to have sex. That is not the issue. The main issue, for me, is how they try to play it off as being ultimately feminist. It makes sense on the basic level of "I'm going to decide what to do with my body--I'm making a choice".... but you don't have to be asexual to be a strong woman. Abstaining from sex does NOT mean "Women Reclaim Self-Respect." That logic is just off. What, any woman who has sex doesn't hold herself in high regard? Another issue is how having any sex at all suddenly means you are promiscuous. Guess what? It is possible to satisfy your desires without being an egomaniac or self-hating doormat.