By the time I was in, like, 2nd grade I’d already heard the sophomoric variation on the nursery rhyme
There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her foreheadAnd when she was good
She was very, very good
And when she was bad
She was wonderful
Holly of The Pervocracy nicely clasts this cherished icon:
Cosmo asks the question: “Are You Good-Girl Hot or Bad-Girl Hot?” But I’m confused, because all the questions are just about how sexually assertive you are.
I know they don’t literally mean “bad girls” are bad, but I’m still surprised that this quiz asks nothing about charitable contributions, honesty and kindness with others, willingness to support friends and family, or service to your country and community. Because it seems like if you’ve got all that going, your moral standing really wouldn’t be so tarnished by a miniskirt and a few furtive bathroom makeouts. Shit, you’ve earned them.
Yeah, so… there can be good people… usually women in such constructions, and bad ones, but what does that have to do with their sexuality? And when, now that I mention it, was the last time you heard of a man being good hot or bad hot? As opposed to (mostly) not hot or (occasionally) hot?
And finally, while in general I’m strongly disinclined to the idea that anyone ever earns sex, and therefore that they might deserve it where someone else wouldn’t, I really appreciate Holly’s inversion of the notion that miniskirts and makeout sessions makes one undeserving, or, I guess, that wearing prairie skirts and reading chapbooks all day instead makes one very, very good.
Oh, and for the record when I took that Cosmo quiz and making partner-preference adjustments I came up “badass bombshell.” Which doesn’t actually sound much like me at all but the accompanying text isn’t completely wrong
Striking the right balance between naughty and nice, you lure [your type] in by being playfully provocative… to a point. [My preference] are intrigued by [my type] who exhibit a sexy side but not so much that they come off as nasty,” says “Barbara Keesling, PhD, author of “The Good Girl’s Guide to Bad-Girl Sex.” Plus, by not putting it all out there, you keep [my preference] guessing about my sack skills and style. That anticipation is almost as hot as sex itself.
I’m not sure how my answer to the question “...now you’re in dire need of action. You prepare for a night out by” which was “Slipping on jeans, a tee, and a waist-chinching belt for a touch of sexy” makes me a either a badass or a bombshell but hey, it’s Cosmo.
Submitted by 3087 (not verified) on Mon, 2009-07-27 19:09.
That was pretty bizarre.
Don't have much to add to the analysis, although I took screenshots as I went along so if I blog it people can see what happened. Odd thing: found it hard to suppress bi-ness while reading it - the sexually objectifying references to the lust-object men kind of tuned into that side of my brain and thinking "mmmm, yummy guys to date, why not?" instead of "now, invert the gender to my usual preference, and translate gender norms accordingly to my usual projected gender..."
I don't think any of my answers would have been that different (except that I had to make a leap that the questions assumed an environment where it's okay for me to talk to a guy and assume he might be interested in dating/snogging/fucking with me - i.e. it's okay to assume he's gay...)
I used to love doing the quizzes in the girlie mags my sister regularly bought (there was a range of them, the ones I recall are "Miz", "19", "Just Seventeen" and of course the UK version of Cosmo) and seeing what sort of girl I would be!
[Yup. It's gotta be a lot more convenient not having to fiddle one's preferences when the gender binary is in play. I was thinking about those old purity tests from the 1970s and 1980s today and remembering how annoyed I'd get that neither exclusively gay nor exclusively straight people could score as high as bisexual people could. Not annoyed because it was limiting me -- I'm actually moderately "pure" on those tests -- but because, a la Dan Savage, it's pretty bigoted to think anything about actually being bisexual, or, as presented in those tests, gay, is "kinky." Thanks, SE. --fl]
Submitted by 3087 (not verified) on Tue, 2009-07-28 06:11.
... I got "badass bombshell" too.
I particularly liked the first question. Yes, I am "sexy in a smart-girl way"; that's not because I'm a prude (Ha. Ha. No.), but because I'm, um, smart?
I think I got the middle one because Cosmo was having a hard time balancing out "shy nerd" and "makes out in bathrooms."
Also! One of the more "bad-girl" answers involved being Angelina Jolie in her "bicurious knifeplay phase." Nice how being bi is equivalent to being kinky, and both of them mean you're a ZOMG SLUT.
Sorry for the excess of scare quotes, I promise I'll go to a twelve-step program...
Submitted by 3087 (not verified) on Tue, 2009-07-28 12:07.
"when was the last time you heard of a man being good hot or bad hot?"
I thought there was the stereotype of the "bad boy" sex appeal, like in Grease or motorcycle gangs or whatever. And there's the Prince Charming/White Knight, who I guess would be "good hot". There is a gender difference, in that males don't experience the same repercussions for having a "bad boy" reputation that "bad girls" do. But I don't agree that male sex appeal isn't divided into "good" and "bad" like female sex appeal is. Too many negatives in that sentence- do I make any sense?
Submitted by 3087 (not verified) on Tue, 2009-07-28 19:43.
That "shy nerd vs serious kinkster" thing got me, too.
I picked the "knife-wielding Angelina Jolie" answer because I'm a sadist and mmmm knives.
Submitted by 3087 (not verified) on Tue, 2009-07-28 20:31.
I've posted my screenshots, with explanations for why I chose each answer, and a quick analysis of my answer and why I don't like any of its language:
http://afemanistview.blogspot.com/2009/07/good-girlbad-girl-sexy.html
Submitted by 3087 (not verified) on Wed, 2009-07-29 10:52.
Huh. Nice Guy (tm) vs. Jerk?
I half-imagine some woman complaining on the Internet: "why don't guys ever like nice girls, they always sleep with hot bitches who put out, someday they're going to want to get married to a girl like me..."
Submitted by 3087 (not verified) on Wed, 2009-07-29 15:33.
... yeah, not my demographic. I open it up and it asks me which of three celebrities I model after, and I have heard of one of them ...
(Captcha: nuzzle the. Nuzzle the what? Don't leave me in suspense!)
Submitted by 3087 (not verified) on Sun, 2009-08-09 09:49.
I agree with Jessica's disagreeing =) First example that comes to mind is Evan from the So You Think You Can Dance run that just concluded last week. There were many sensual dances where the comments were that he's just too much of a cutie and good guy to get down and dirty enough for the dance. On the other hand he got tons of credit for a more lighthearted dance in which he was following this girl's butt around the stage, but it was played for laughs. So he could be the adorable sweet clown and be sexy that way, but no one saw him as the bad boy. He got tons of votes though and placed third, which is pretty amazing.
There is definitely such a thing as a division between the sweet guy and the bad boy, with both being sexy in different ways.
[The big difference for me, though, is that in Cosmo's approach women have to decide, from day to day if not moment to moment, whether something they're about to do is "good" sexy or "bad" sexy, which itself is an extension of, say, the effect that makes women choose "good" food or "bad" food when dieting. Men's attitude to being good or bad is more a matter of "what did I do?" as opposed to "*which* will I do?" I'm not saying one way's better than the other, or that either is learned or natural, just that they're pretty different and we're expected to operate very differently based on which gender society has constructed for us. Thanks, Monique. --fl]