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drunken moment—not girls who sought out the camera breasts first. I felt bad for them; I even recognized a couple of girls. I had gone to Tulane University in New Orleans my freshman year of college; my classmates’ getting drunk and flashing on Bourbon Street wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. And while tourists were around and there were the occasional camera flashes, I don’t think anyone figured their momentary drunk exhibitionism would be forever captured on film to be sold on a mass scale.
    But now girls are lining up to be part of Girls Gone Wild —flashing their breasts (and more), masturbating, and having girl-on-girl action, all for fifteen minutes of fame and maybe a Girls Gone Wild hat or thong. I’m not going to lie—this bothers the shit out of me. I mean, why in the world would you potentially ruin the rest of your life just so—for a minute—some guy thinks you’re hot?
    Ariel Levy, who wrote the popular Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, argues that a new generation of feminists (ahem) is objectifying ourselves and each other by participating in things like GGW .
    You see, Levy is part of a group of feminist thinkers who aren’t too pleased with some of the theory coming from younger feminists—some of whom say that things like sex
work or stripping can be empowering, because it’s subversive or because hey, it’s fun. We’re making the choice to participate; therefore, it’s powerful. But Levy says that the joke is on us, and that we’re really just fooling ourselves.
    Maybe.
    I understand why GGW is so controversial (or Maxim and Playboy, for that matter). And like I said, it really fucking bothers me. But the assumption that all girls who enjoy the “show” are stupid or being fooled bothers me just as much. Not to mention that for a lot of women, developing a sexual identity is a process.
    In Tesco, a U.K. superstore, you can buy a “Peekaboo” stripper pole in the toy aisles.
    In response to Levy’s book, Jennifer Baumgardner, third-wave feminist icon and coauthor of Manifesta, brought up a supergood point that I think resonates with a lot of women.
    ❂ If pressed, I’d venture that at least half of my sexual experiences make me cringe when I think about them today. Taking top honors is the many times I made out with female friends in bars when I was in my early twenties, a rite of passage Levy much
disdains throughout the book. I’m embarrassed about the kiss-around-the-circles, but if I didn’t have those moments, I’m not sure I ever would have found my way to the real long-term relationship I have today. If all my sexual behavior had to be evolved and reciprocal and totally revolutionary before I had it, I’d never have had sex. 3
    Ain’t that the truth. I’ve had more than a couple of embarrassing moments in my life and sexual history—but isn’t that what makes us who we are? Do we really have to be on point and thinking politics all the time? Sometimes doing silly, disempowering, sexually vapid things when you’re young is just part of getting to the good stuff.
    I guess what I’ve come to—and this is what works for me—is that you have to find your own middle ground. There has to be space for young women to figure shit out on their own. And I think most times young women do figure it out.
    In a recent Salon.com article about the trend of straight girls making out with each other for male attention, one young woman came to an epiphany while talking to reporter Whitney Joiner:
    ❂ “A lot of girls who do want long-term boyfriends will still settle for the hookup because it gives them that temporary feeling of being taken care of and being close to someone,” Julie says. “It’s sad to see that this is what it’s come to—that guys will raise the bar and girls will scramble to meet it. Women just want to know what they have to do to get these guys to fall
in love with them. And if guys will take them home after kissing a girl,