THE SEX ACCORDING TO MAÏA
Almost exactly ten years ago, the concept of “Slut-shaming” appeared in the media to designate the guilt of “sluts” (sluts in English). If the expression was born in 2011 in Toronto during the organization of SlutWalk (demonstrations defending the right of women to go out in the outfit of their choice), she quickly conquered the whole world.
Why did it take until 2011 to name the slut-shaming ? No doubt because the repression of female sexuality has long seemed not only normal, but “natural”. It is indeed nature that we spontaneously invoke to justify the difference in treatment between adventurous men (don Juan) and adventurous women (sluts).
The argument generally falls into two blocks: a biological aspect, and a social one. On the biology side, the men would be “programmed” to spread their semen, while the women would be “programmed” to choose a male, only one, capable of ensuring their protection while they mother their babies. An “evolved” woman should therefore be sexually exclusive. The social aspect completes the demonstration: even if it means protecting a woman, men must ensure that the latter is indeed carrying their offspring (and not that of the pizza delivery man) – hence the need for control of female sexuality.
Genetic competition
To this is added a third argument, deployed in a very recent and very successful essay: In the beginning was sex, by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha (Alisio, 416 pages, 24 euros). For its authors, psychologist and psychiatrist respectively, it is in genetic competition that the justification for a real “War on female libido “. Because if women were free, many men would not have access to sexuality or reproduction. the slut-shaming would therefore serve to maintain social cohesion by distributing access to sex, via monogamy.
For all these reasons, repression would have flourished in the depressing forms that we know: compulsory chastity before marriage, confinement in the home or in a convent, camouflage of the body and / or hair, excision, increased punishment in the event of adultery. , ostracization of prostitutes and women perceived as non-virtuous, honor killings, feminicides, etc. Violence to which we will add “benevolent” forms of sexism: family and conjugal surveillance (“ Don’t come home alone, stay reachable, take a taxi instead “), institutionalized paternalism (like this tweet published by the national police last March, which suggests to women not to take pictures of themselves naked).
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