Inside Every Princess

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.