Absti-oops

There was an article in the NYT magazine this weekend discussing a chastity club, made up of a merry band of Harvard celibates. Janie Fredell, the president of this student-run club, had an interesting but skewed opinion on why abstaining until marriage is best. She believes women suffer from having premarital sex, "due to a cultural double standard, she said, “which devalues women for their sexual pasts and glorifies men for theirs.”

I certainly agree that society devalues sexually active women, just look to Lena Chen, also cited in the article, for evidence! She is a "student sex blogger" who was quoted during a lunchtime debate with Fredell, saying, "being a strong woman means not being ashamed that I like to have sex." Post-debate, campus editorials called her anything from a "slut" to a "whore whore slut," merely for advocating her enjoyment of sex.

The irony in Fredell's argument stems from Chen's example. If society says "don't have sex before marriage because it makes you a whore," then not having sex before marriage is simply living within the confines of society. Fredell claims that being a strong woman is having the power to say no, and that being abstinent is being feminist, but in reality, she is accepting the double standard that society is placing upon her. A true feminist would stand up against these norms and say, "Having conscientious, rational, and consensual sex out of my own free will does not make me a slut!"

*Marissa and I apologize for not posting in over a month and concede that we are "bad bad dogs"*