At the time of writing, bans on Wicked campers' slogans have been introduced by the Queensland govenment, and councils across NSW, and are being considered by the Tasmanian government, following a community campaign.
What is wrong with Wicked and what
isn't, what are the limits of the campaigns so far, and where should
these campaigns be headed? All these bear unpacking. In this post I
intend to confine my comments to understanding one slogan.
“Inside every princess is a slut who
wants to try it at least once” is just one of the many
sexually-referenced slogans emblazoned on Wicked campervans available
for hire and seen all over Australia. They're marketed at a young,
adventurous tourist demographic.
So what exactly is wrong with slogan?
Is it just a joke? Are people who object to it just anti-sex? Or from
another angle, how does it even make sense?
I'd like to start here:
what's wrong with it is not that it references sexual themes.
I get it that people have valid
arguments about not needlessly, endlessly barraging ourselves and our
kids with sexual messaging. But most people are sexual, for at least
some of their lives, and there's nothing wrong with public
acknowledgement of that, in itself. (Tying everything to sex, using
sex and especially female bodies as a marker of sexual desirability,
to sell everything, is worth critiquing – but if that was all
Wicked was doing, it would just sit alongside innumerable other
companies doing that.)
The pressures on women to appear not to
be looking for sex have still not been eradicated, despite the
definite gains of the sexual revolution and women's liberation
movements. So there is something positive about the observation that
many women who feel compelled to present a face of sexual passivity
(the princess) really are or wish to be sexually curious, adventurous
or assertive.
The problem is that Wicked's slogan
completely reinforces the Madonna/whore dichotomy women face as we
negotiate the challenging contradiction between being cast as
sexually passive yet respectable on one hand, or sexually
experienced, assertive, adventurous and confident – and stigmatised
as sluts – on the other.
The generation that is seeking to
re-value the word “slut,” to claim it proudly as sexual beings,
rather than succumb to the shaming it is intended to induce, may as
an act of determination be less vulnerable to the stigma attached to
this particular slogan.
For many, however, the stigma retains
its full force. And more than that, beyond the stigma attached to the
word “slut” are the unstated assumptions of the rape culture this
slogan comes from and perpetuates.
If inside every princess there's a slut
who wants to try it, according to one set of unspoken assumptions,
it's okay to ignore a woman who is saying “no” to a sexual
experience – because she's probably just a princess who can't say
“yes” but secretly wants to.
The trope of the woman who can't say
“yes,” who has to be forced to acknowledge her desires, is an old
one. It provides a self-serving narrative that lets men get sex they
want while ignoring the lack of enthusiastic or real consent of their
partners. But part of its power lies in the reality that –
particularly among women influenced by conservative anti-sex currents
in our culture – some women may find it challenging to acknowledge
their sexual desires and needs (especially when doing so may get them
labelled sluts).
But the corollary of this is not
that such women should have their consent violated, in case otherwise
they'll miss out on a sexual experience they were secretly longing
for. To follow this path – which is where the slogan points – is
to foster the culture and practice of rape that so pervades our
society.
Rather, the corollary of this is that
we need to affirm female sexual assertiveness as positive, not
shameful; not to denigrate women who want to try “it” (however
“it” may be defined); and in every way we can, from the
classrooms to the street to the nightclubs and workplaces to the
bedroom, insist on only fully consensual sex, that (in the words of
the Reclaim the Night chant) “yes means yes and no means no.”
(This shouldn't be taken to exclude consensual role-playing, which is
another thing again.)
And if that insistence on real consent
means that somewhere along the line some princess misses out on some
fun, that's a pity – but far better that, and learn to take the
steps to say “yes” (or go after what you want without waiting to
be asked), than to learn from repeated experience, as so many of us
have, that what we want, our “no,” makes no difference.
In this context “it's a joke”
doesn't cut it. Not when this culture affects something as personal,
powerful and fundamental as our autonomy a sexual beings; not when so
many of us have our experiences shaped and develop as sexual beings
in ways that subtly or resoundingly embed us in unequal and
oppressive dynamics. If it's a joke, it's one that functions to
cement those dynamics in place. I'm not laughing, and neither are
others who see it for what it is.
That's why I support the call on Wicked
to get the misogyny off their vans, and am glad to see people taking
action to challenge them – not because sex is offensive, but
because rape culture is intolerable.
