But how about using an Android phone as a GPS tracker? It may not be the most reliable option, and it does comes with some not-so-insignificant
drawbacks, but it can get the job done if you're desperate. Here's how to turn your Android phone into a GPS tracker.
Note: These instructions are based on a Samsung Galaxy S8 running Android 8.0 Oreo, but the steps should be relatively similar
for most Android devices.
Tracking With Native Android Features
Most Android devices released in 2014 or later have a built-in feature called Find My Device (formerly called Find My Android).
This service constantly pings your device's location back to Google's servers so that
Google knows where
your device is . You can then use Google's web interface to see where your device is at any given time. You'll need a Google
account to use this feature.
How to Enable Find My Device on Android
Navigate to your device's Settings .
Tap on Lock screen and security .
Tap on Other security settings . (This step may be unnecessary depending on your particular device and Android version.)
Tap on Device admin apps . (This step may be called Device Administrators depending on your particular device and Android
version.)
Tap Find My Device .
Tap Activate .
Note: In order to activate this service, you'll need to allow four permissions: 1) the ability to erase all data, 2) the ability
to change your screen unlock password, 3) the ability to lock the screen, and 4) the ability to turn off functions on the lock screen.
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The nice thing about Find My Device is that it's not just a tracker -- it lets you control the device from afar in the above-mentioned
ways. Learn more in our
overview of Find My Device .
How to Use Find My Device on Android
Once enabled, all you have to do is launch a web browser, navigate to the
Find My Device dashboard , and sign into your Google account
(the same one associated with your device).
Once you're logged in, select the device you want to locate, click the Locate button for said device, and it'll show its last
known location and how long ago it was last spotted. It's fairly accurate in my experience, but I live in an urban environment; it
can be off by up to 20 meters in areas with poor GPS visibility.
Tracking With Third-Party Android Apps
If you don't like Find My Device for whatever reason, you can always resort to one of the many third-party alternatives available
on the Google Play Store. These apps are easy to install and you don't really have to do anything beyond creating an account to use
them.
There are two that we recommend:
1. Lookout : Lookout is an all-in-one
security solution where device tracking is just one of its many features. As such, it might be too bloated if device tracking is
the only feature you're interested in. But if your device currently lacks a good antivirus app, you might as well use this one and
kill two birds with one stone.
2. Prey : In practical usage, Prey is very
similar to Find My Device. Its one big advantage is availability across multiple other platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux,
and iPhone, so you can track ALL of your devices from anywhere.
Once your device is set up as trackable, whether using Find My Device or a third-party app, there's only thing left to do: attach
the device to the person or object that you want
to track . Obviously, this is much easier said than done.
Want to know how to track a car with a cell phone?
The easiest and most effective option is to use a magnetic car mount . Most two-piece kits come with a magnetic insert (that you
place inside your device case) and a magnetic base (that you attach to whatever you want to mount). With a good model, the magnetic
force should be strong enough for your phone to "snap" onto the base and stay there securely.
Most political sex scandals follow a predictable narrative: An illicit sexual encounter is
followed by exposé, and then the inevitable apology and atonement.
From what we know about Anthony Weiner's transgressions, the mayoral candidate deviated from
these stages in one key way: With copious use of the web, he appears to have satisfied his urges
without actually having sex. The X-rated photos and explicit messages he exchanged with young
women online don't appear to be a means to an end - no prelude to trysts in seedy hotel rooms or
parked cars (offers of apartments aside) - but rather, they were the end.
Thanks to technology, it's a sex scandal without any sex.
His online dalliances underscore a new age of sanitized sex, where sexual relationships have
been reduced to their most abstract elements and all necessity for physical contact has been
eliminated. In contrast to an earlier generation that experimented with spouse-swapping, group
sex and free-love communes in the 1960s and '70s, today's online generation is embracing sex with
no one. Flirtation, foreplay and consummation can be tidily reduced to a few typed sentences and
graphic photos, or perhaps even a phone call, if a couple really wants to go the extra mile. To
satisfy their desires, a growing number of people, like Weiner, don't need intercourse -
they just need the Internet.
As
Andrew Sullivan observed in 2011, when Weiner's racy pictures first surfaced, "The online
world creates an outlet for the feelings that sexual adultery or sexual adventure create - but
without actual sex, without actual intimacy, without our actual full selves."
Weiner, who
seems to have sent at least one illicit photo to a woman without any encouragement
whatsoever, seems to have a thing for exhibitionism. Some might see in his behavior the online
equivalent to donning a raincoat in an alleyway and flashing women who walk by, but others
suggest he represents something else: A man whose deviance could only exist in the online world,
which makes spontaneous flashing possible without the effort involved in the more traditional
variety. "I'd bet my whole Ph.D. that he wouldn't be standing on a corner doing that," notes
Barry McCarthy, a sex and marital therapist, and professor of psychology at American University.
Instead, Weiner, like so many others online, has become accustomed to on-demand sexuality,
where relationships with another person are convenient, controllable and entirely on his terms.
We're adopting an Amazon.com or Seamless Web approach to our sex lives, expecting that sexual
fulfillment can be ordered up over the Internet like sneakers or pad thai. And Carlos Danger's
dalliances with people like Sydney Leathers suggest that, increasingly, they can be.
"He was never going to take this into the real world, but he wanted to express himself as a
sexual being, and technology gave him the ability to do that," said Cindy Gallop, founder of
MakeLoveNotPorn, a platform for "real-world" sex videos, and author of Make Love Not
Porn: Technology's Hardcore Impact on Human Behavior. "[Sex] is like anything else on the
Internet: It's very easy to get a quick hit everywhere."
It's especially easy to get a quick hit on one's own terms. Weiner minimized the risk of
rejection by relying on social media to serve up the women to him - he generally approached women
who'd followed or praised him on Twitter and Facebook. The web allowed him to form relationships
with real women who were mostly fantasy, responsive avatars that wouldn't spoil the illusion with
annoying habits, physical imperfections or emotional demands. The online nature of the affairs
also allowed him to indulge these fantasies on his schedule, anywhere and anytime he pleased. And
he operated in an atmosphere of unreal reality, just virtual enough to seem innocent and unreal,
and just real enough to make the fantasy a fulfilling one.
These virtual affairs aren't only more convenient, but the crescendo of a sexual relationship
- eliciting desire, stoking connection and eventually reaching orgasm - requires less
participation from the people involved than ever before. There are no rendezvous in
out-of-the-way motel rooms and no heavy petting. Only typing.
What we have seen of Weiner's trysts has revolved around a kind of "sex" that was clean, cold,
practical and utterly efficient. The leaked transcripts of Weiner's chats with Leathers don't
read like the torrid, passionate correspondence of star-crossed lovers separated by circumstance.
They're transactional and to the point. Weiner seemed to indulge a fantasy, then quickly get back
to planning his political comeback.
Though these online relationships may seem as two-dimensional as the sites on which they play
out, their effortlessness and simplicity raise a key question: Will they make offline
relationships seem more appealing, or less? Is the absence of a warm body a downside or more of a
perk? A John Edwards type might have had to soothe his lover's feelings or explain why he had to
leave in the middle of the night. When Weiner had had enough, he could just shut down his
computer.
Except, of course, Weiner's disgrace delivers yet another reminder of another aspect of the
online realm. Just as it beckons as a place full of seemingly unlimited encounters achievable at
any moment, it also functions as the ultimate archive, a repository of every embarrassing
exchange, accessible to anyone connected.
The medium that enabled sexless sex scandals will also preserve them forever.
"... Seen from a French point of view, I must say that this whole Weiner story illustrates to perfection what we can call the "American hypocrisy." On the one hand, you are offended by a man sending a few sextos (which is not a devious behavior!) and promoting virtue whenever you can but on the other hand, you're doing nothing to limit the influence of Hollywood-made erotic and pornographic production, you're watching Jerry Springer trash-talk on TV on a a daily basis and you're delighted to see what teenage icons such as Selena Gomez and Miley Cirus became (they went from being stupid and delicious products to being the latest, outrageous Madonnas with no talent...). ..."
It surely is this summer's major headline! Former U.S. representative and NYC Mayor candidate
Anthony Weiner has been caught sexting with young girls again and again despite the fact he his married
to a caring and supporting woman. So what? Is this really a big deal? Does it really need to be the
most commented subject across America at a time where Detroit is falling down and leaker Snowden
is reminding us of some scary Cold War nightmares?
Seen from a French point of view, I must say that this whole Weiner story illustrates to perfection
what we can call the "American hypocrisy." On the one hand, you are offended by a man sending a few
sextos (which is not a devious behavior!) and promoting virtue whenever you can but on the other
hand, you're doing nothing to limit the influence of Hollywood-made erotic and pornographic production,
you're watching Jerry Springer trash-talk on TV on a a daily basis and you're delighted to see what
teenage icons such as Selena Gomez and Miley Cirus became (they went from being stupid and delicious
products to being the latest, outrageous Madonnas with no talent...).
This is pure nonsense!
There is something America must understand: you can cheat on your wife and still be a good politician.
Remember JFK and Bill Clinton? They both had affairs while at the White House but in the meantime,
they are unanimously considered as top of the notch U.S. presidents. Weiner, Clinton, JFK. These
men illustrate the fact that politics is dirty and so is sex! (And so is 1 in 5 readers of this op-ed
since 1 American out of 5 is said to sext on a regular basis!)
There's another, nearly opposite explanation: casual sex isn't the norm now, and wasn't
before. There are simply always individuals, in any generation, who seek sexual satisfaction
in nontraditional confines.
Part of the negativity, to be sure, does originate in legitimate causes: casual sex increases
the risk of pregnancy, disease, and, more often than in a committed relationship, physical
coercion. But many negative casual-sex experiences come instead from a sense of social
convention. "We've seen that both genders felt they were discriminated against because of sex,"
Vrangalova told me. Men often feel judged by other men if they don't have casual sex, and social
expectations can detract from the experiences they do have, while women feel judged for engaging
in casual experiences, rendering those they pursue less pleasurable.
In the 1990s, against the backdrop of an ascending Age of Neoliberalism, sex offender registration
statutes were passed in the United States. These laws require law enforcement officials to utilize
computer technologies in order to publicly identify individuals who have been convicted of sexual
offenses. In this study, we conducted in-depth interviews with twenty-four respondents who were forced
to register as sex offenders. All of these participants resided within Southeast Texas, which is
arguably one of the most punitive regions within the United States.
The vast majority of the sample
reported moderate to severe forms of harassment as a result of being outed as sex offenders
via computer technologies. We conclude that in the post-Keynesian United States, the Web-based monitoring
of sex offenders will continue to remain a popular American pastime and may even expand to other
industrialized democracies throughout the world.
A lack of control is certainly a prevalent theme in the recent depictions of sex addiction in
mainstream media. For starters, there was 2011's award-winning film Shame, directed by
Steve McQueen, in which Michael Fassbender's character struggles
to function in the midst of a dark, harrowing obsession with sex. Then there was 2012's
Thanks for Sharing, which bizarrely handled the topic as a rom-com, starring
Mark Ruffalo as a sex addict in the twelve-step program dating a close-to-perfect
woman played by Gwyneth Paltrow.
Last year's
Don Jon, directed by and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, depicted a man
whose porn addiction renders him incapable of forming a real romantic relationship. And, in a recent
episode of
Girls, Adam tells Hannah that he once saw casual sex as a way to keep him from drinking.
"... But there's also been
a darker side to my sexual behavior that has felt less fun, and more compulsive. Although I've never
been anywhere near as nympho as Joe-at a point, she's regularly having sex with ten men a day - watching
the film, I definitely related to feeling insatiable, and struggling with intimacy. I continually
sabotaged my chances of forming real, emotional relationships because I couldn't not cheat, and felt
guilty for hurting people, though not guilty enough to change my behavior. Even when I was in a relationship
with someone who loved me, I still craved sexual validation from others. Over time, it's become clear
to me that at various stages of my life, much of my self-confidence and personal validation was (and
still is) linked to sexual attention, and that's something I'm still dealing with. ..."
Nymphomaniac, the new film by Lars von Trier, recounts the extreme, prolific,
and at times risky sexual history of a woman named Joe, a self-proclaimed nymphomaniac. Put simply,
it's one of the best films about being human that I have ever seen. As someone who has, at times,
reveled in my high sexual appetite, and at other times struggled with it, while watching, I felt-as
one does with great films about the human condition-deeply connected to Joe, her pleasures, guilt
and compulsions (albeit, to a lesser degree). Played by both
Stacy Martin and Charlotte Gainsbourg, Joe clearly sees herself
as a bad person-someone flawed, who's harmful to the world. Much of the film can be summed up in
her statement, "Sexuality is the strongest force in human beings. To be born with a forbidden sexuality
is agonizing."
This idea of dark, overwhelming sexuality has recently become a hot topic in mainstream culture-from
a string of Hollywood films broaching the subject to various celebrities checking into sex rehab.
Sex addiction: It's the trendiest new problem! But as I've often wondered throughout the course of
my own sexual experience: Where, exactly, is the line? At what point does one go from just being
really horny to having a legitimate problem? What constitutes too much sex (an amount we're supposed
to feel bad about), compared with the appropriate amount of sex, compared with not enough (which
we're also supposed to feel bad about)?
I've always considered myself a sexually curious person. I welcome all alternate labels-horny,
adventurous, nympho, slutty, etc. I remember at fifteen feeling that my virginity was like a disease
that needed to be cured, impeding my ability to move forward with my intended sexual exploration.
I ended up having lots of sex in cars during school lunch breaks, and in the town's Burger King parking
lot. I had minimal backlash from classmates, aside from a never-ending school rumor that I had "the
clap" (though no one seemed to have a firm understanding of what the clap actually was). But at seventeen,
after getting caught spending the night with a 30-year-old apple farmer, my parents sent me to a
Catholic therapist. It was the first time someone tried to convince me that my behavior was problematic.
She said I used "sex as a weapon"-against my family, and against myself. In my rebellious teenage
mind, however, I thought the concept of sex as a weapon sounded really cool. As if it was the faculty
of a sexual superhero or something.
There's a part in Nymphomaniac when Joe recalls being taught by her friend, as a teenager,
how to seduce men. "All you have to do," her friend says, "is look them in the eye and smile." Hearing
that made me nostalgic. I remember clearly, as I'm sure many women do, the enlightenment that comes
with the realization of possessing such inherent sexual power. Afterward, it becomes a kid-in-a-candy-store
situation. For some, it can be hard to maintain control.
A lack of control is certainly a prevalent theme in the recent depictions of sex addiction in
mainstream media. For starters, there was 2011's award-winning film Shame, directed by
Steve McQueen, in which Michael Fassbender's character struggles
to function in the midst of a dark, harrowing obsession with sex. Then there was 2012's
Thanks for Sharing, which bizarrely handled the topic as a rom-com, starring
Mark Ruffalo as a sex addict in the twelve-step program dating a close-to-perfect
woman played by Gwyneth Paltrow.
Last year's
Don Jon, directed by and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, depicted a man
whose porn addiction renders him incapable of forming a real romantic relationship. And, in a recent
episode of
Girls, Adam tells Hannah that he once saw casual sex as a way to keep him from drinking.
What's strange is that as sex addiction becomes more visible in the media, the worlds of science
and medicine are simultaneously becoming increasingly skeptical of the condition. And actually,
nymphomania is a largely outdated term. As nymph is feminine, the term is predicated
on the Victorian belief that when a guy wants to sleep around, he's a virile Don Juan, yet when a
woman does, something is wrong with her. Today, when referencing excessive sexual desire, it's in
the context of "hypersexuality," which applies to both men and women. However, in 2013, sex addiction
was rejected once more for inclusion in the DSM-5 (aka the bible of mental health disorders,
periodically updated by the American Psychiatric Association) due to a lack of substantial scientific
evidence that one can actually be addicted to sex.
For most of my life, I've found my sexual curiosity a positive trait, and it's led me to have
experiences I'm certain I'll be happy to have had when I die - from Eyes Wide Shut–style sex
parties in hotel penthouses, to being a spectator on porn sets, to somehow ending up in a prisoner-of-war
role play in Munich with a married couple who spoke not a word of English.
But there's also been
a darker side to my sexual behavior that has felt less fun, and more compulsive. Although I've never
been anywhere near as nympho as Joe-at a point, she's regularly having sex with ten men a day - watching
the film, I definitely related to feeling insatiable, and struggling with intimacy. I continually
sabotaged my chances of forming real, emotional relationships because I couldn't not cheat, and felt
guilty for hurting people, though not guilty enough to change my behavior. Even when I was in a relationship
with someone who loved me, I still craved sexual validation from others. Over time, it's become clear
to me that at various stages of my life, much of my self-confidence and personal validation was (and
still is) linked to sexual attention, and that's something I'm still dealing with.
I have friends who turn to alcohol or drugs during particularly rough or stressful periods - not
to the point of addiction, but to a point of excess, as an escape. For me, sex has the potential
to fulfill a similar kind of mindlessness - it's not necessarily done for the pleasure of it, but because
it can be obliterating. I feel sort of embarrassed saying this, but for all this sex I was having
in my late teens and early twenties, I would never come. Though I could come while masturbating,
I didn't have an orgasm during sex until I was 22. It wasn't even expected - I would never even get
close. And as I watched Nymphomaniac, I wondered the same about Joe. For all the sex young
Joe has, you're never certain whether she's actually physically enjoying it, or coming. We see her
moaning sometimes, but more often she's just staring into space or lying there like a dead fish.
When trying to draw the line between a healthy appetite and a problem, it's important to be aware
of how much pleasure one is actually getting from these supposedly pleasurable acts.
But that can sometimes be difficult. How much of the shame or negativity we feel associated with
sex is inherently ours, and how much of it is a social construct? As Zhana Vrangalova,
a sex researcher and
blogger, recently
told me: "It's hard to pinpoint the cause of the guilt, and shame of highly sexually people, because
we live in a sex-negative culture that conflates having a lot of sex with being a bad person. The
result is that the promiscuous are shamed, and dogged by guilt and doubt, and often their friends
and partners inflate this by expressing worry about them, or treating them as if they have a problem."
Of course, there are health risks attached to casual sex, from STDs to the potential danger of
being isolated with a stranger, and these are all things one must be very considerate and careful
about (condoms are an obvious must). And it's certainly possible to have sex in an unhealthy or obsessive
way that's harmful to one's life and relationships. But this is also true for other behaviors beyond
sex, that don't get as bad of a rap. Consider the workaholic who works fifteen hours a day, barely
eats or sleeps, and is obsessive to a point that it hurts her relationships with friends and family,
says Vrangalova. Yet because we live in a society where work is considered a positive thing, very
few people attach guilt or shame to this behavior. Or if there is guilt, it's a puritanical kind
of masochism-the gain is worth the pain and sacrifice.
It all comes back to the quote from Joe: "To be born with a forbidden sexuality is agonizing."
The key word here is forbidden. At the heart of Nymphomaniac is a girl who really wants
something, yet the very nature of her wanting it makes her feel terrible. But what if it was OK to
want it? It's hard to imagine what that would be like, because we've yet to have any real models
of a happy, healthy, responsible promiscuous people. Usually, the story goes that the slut gets punished-whether
she dies or ends up depressed or alone-because that's a narrative our society is comfortable with.
There has yet to be a character in a movie who says, "I sleep with three different guys a week and
feel great about it," because that makes people uneasy. We prefer successful adults to be sexually
privileged, and we associate promiscuity with youth and bad decisions. The "slut" doesn't get to
become a lawyer and live happily ever after (although I hope the
Duke
porn star proves me wrong).
But as much as I want to promote stigma-free sexual exploration and freedom, I understand that
with sex, it's never that simple. We always run the risk of getting hurt or leaving someone broken-hearted,
even if we don't intend to. The New Yorker's Richard Brody, in a
post about
Blue Is the Warmest Color, put it well: "Sex is actually never not a big deal, whether in
movies or in life. Sex is the joker in the deck, the infinite variable that provokes, on screen as
in life, radically divergent and wildly unpredictable responses and consequences."
Think you know the meaning of virginity? You'll be surprised to find out what Jessica Valenti
discovered. In her new book The Purity
Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women, the founder and executive
editor of Feministing.com takes on the virginity
movement, and argues that it's high time we disassociate female morality and sexuality. Recently,
I sat down with Valenti to discuss the book, the myths, and what's going on at those Purity Balls.
So, what is the purity myth?
The purity myth is the lie that virginity or sexual
abstinence has some bearing on who we are as people, as good people, women in particular. More specifically,
what the book talks about is how that lie and how that myth is really a driving force in a lot of
the conservative moves to regress women's rights and to reinforce traditional gender roles. So, how
they're using this myth of sexual purity, this fear of young women's sexuality, to promote their
agenda for women.
You argue in the book that America is obsessed with virginity, female virginity specifically,
and that there is, in fact, an entire movement fuelling this obsession. How exactly do you define
the "virginity movement?"
The virginity movement, specifically, is a group of-and they
certainly don't call themselves the virginity movement-conservatives, anti-feminist organizations,
legislators, all with this really specific agenda in mind for women that's definitely regressive,
definitely old school, definitely traditional. But instead of using the normal ways of pushing their
agenda they're really focusing on young women's sexuality as not only a scare tactic but as a salacious
way to get their point across.
One of the more fascinating things that's revealed in your book is that there is actually
no official medical definition of "virginity."
Right. Isn't that crazy!
How, then, is virginity defined by those who are working so hard to defend the so-called
purity of girls and women?
The virginity movement uses the definition of virginity that's
the most culturally accepted one-heterosexual intercourse. And I think that limited definition of
virginity is probably why so many virginity pledgers have oral and anal sex, because they don't necessarily
see it as infringing on their virginity.
So young people are engaging in sexual activity, and considering themselves still virgins
because they say "If I have oral sex I can still be a virgin..."
Right. And that's what
I found really interesting when I interviewed Hanne Blank who wrote Virgin: The Untouched History,
which is this amazing history of virginity. The reason she started to look into the definition of
virginity was because she was answering young people's questions on this website she ran, and a lot
of the questions were, "Am I still a virgin? I did such and such." And she was like, "I don't know?
Do you want to be?" She told all these really interesting stories of how young people will-I think
she calls them Process Oriented Virgins-make excuses, like "Oh, yeah, I had sexual intercourse, but
that's not really when I lost my virginity. I really lost my virginity when I did this." Or "I really
lost my virginity when I had an orgasm." Everyone has different definitions for it.
In some ways, virginity, as it's defined by the virginity movement-
It's completely
irrelevant.
And, if purity equals virginity then virginity is a myth, as well.
Right. Oh,
I definitely think that virginity is a myth. I think that virginity is a huge lie. Having your first
sexual encounter certainly is important, and I don't mean to demean anyone's understanding of their
sexuality or how they want to think of themselves in that way. And I think that can be a really powerful
experience and a wonderful first thing. But, as a concept it's more dangerous than not, because it
puts us into these virgin or not virgin categories, which doesn't really give us a very nuanced perspective
or understanding of sexuality.
Speaking of danger, what are the things that abstinence only educators are actually teaching
young children, particularly girls, and how are they dangerous?
Oh, there are so many!
I don't think it's any secret that most abstinence only education is medically inaccurate. They lie
about contraception in terms of its failure rate; one class was taught that condoms cause cancer.
What ends up happening for a lot of these kids is that they've been taught that birth control is
ineffective or birth control is dangerous so they don't use it.
Outside of the medical and health dangers there's also a social message being taught in abstinence
only education, which is that boys want sex and they'll do anything to get it and girls own sex and
have to keep it. It's up to young women to be the gatekeepers of sexuality. There's a lot of talk
about dressing a certain way, you control what men think of you. It's this very disturbing message
that somehow young women have control over male sexuality, and that you shouldn't get a guy too excited.
Which, of course lends itself to all sorts of victim blaming and sexual assault situations and things
like that. So, that's also very dangerous.
Recently teen mother Bristol Palin was asked about using contraception and she said, "Everyone
should be abstinent...but it's not realistic at all." Do abstinence only supporters and educators
actually think what they're doing works? Or is there something more to it?
I think there are a lot of folks who believe that it truly works, because they have these kids and
they're pledging their virginity. You know, not understanding that, of course, if you get a 14 year
old in front of their community members and church members and parents they're going to pledge their
virginity. It's not like they're going to say no. So, yeah, I think [they think] they're being effective.
But, they aren't honest about their larger agenda-that this isn't about keeping kids healthy, this
isn't about teaching young people to make good choices sexually and morally. It's about reinforcing
traditional gender roles in a really, really specific, rigid way. It's about relaying specific messages
about sexuality and what's appropriate. And, of course, that's being straight and married and having
kids.
The people behind the virginity movement go to great lengths to connect purity with
abstinence, one of the more shocking examples are Purity Balls - which, you note, are federally funded.
What are Purity Balls and why are we paying for them?
[Laughs] Purity Balls. I could talk about Purity Balls all day. Purity Balls are essentially daddy-daughter
dances where young girls at some point in the evening will pledge their virginity to their fathers,
and their fathers, in turn, will pledge to be the caretakers of said virginity. If you can watch
a video it's very, very disturbing. The language they use is mired in ownership and these really
old school, antiquated norms about daddies owning their daughters. There's one video where the fathers
give the daughters a necklace-it's a lock and a key. She keeps the lock and he keeps the key until
the day she gets married and he gives the key/penis to her future husband. Very, very disturbing.
[Purity Balls are] put on by crisis pregnancy centers, which are federally funded through abstinence
only education money. What's really interesting about them is when people started to complain, "Where
are the mother-son purity balls?" and people started to call them out on their patriarchal bullshit,
if you will, they create something called Integrity Balls. Integrity Balls are mother-son dances,
but instead of the son pledging his virginity to his mother and his mother pledging to protect his
virginity until he gets married, the language is, "I vow to be abstinent because I don't want to
do that to someone's future wife or someone's current daughter." It's still framed in this language
of women-as-property.
Is this rooted in religion?
Purity Balls are definitely rooted in Christianity
and Evangelical stuff, absolutely. But, I don't think it's necessarily relegated to one religion.
A lot of folks are having the purity balls. More broadly, the idea of virginity and women's morality
being tied up with virginity, young women being good when they're virgins, that's certainly not just
a religious thing. It's a pretty culture-wide thing, I believe.
How does feminism factor into the virginity movement?
The most interesting thing
to me about the virginity movement and what reveals their true agenda-that it's not just about helping
women-is the fact that they're so antifeminist, and the fact that a lot of the books that are written
about this, a lot of the speakers, either have ties to antifeminist organizations, like Independent
Women's Forum or Concerned Women for America, or straight up blame feminism for the woes of young
women today. They're very direct in saying that they think feminism is the problem, which I think
is really telling-what does it say about their movement that they think that women's equality is
a problem for women?
Admittedly, I never identified as a "feminist" in my teens and early 20s, and as recently
as last weekend heard a close female friend, who's 30, insist that she's not a feminist. What would
you say to young women and girls who are reluctant to identify as feminist, especially those who
are strong, independent, self-determined individuals? What is it about feminism, or the notion of
feminism, that turns them off?
There are a couple of things. There are a lot of folks out there that don't identify as feminists
because of more political reasons. A lot of women of color don't identify as feminists because of
the racist history of the movement. I get that. But overwhelmingly what you see are a lot of women,
especially young women, who have feminist ideals, who believe in feminist issues, who don't call
themselves feminist because they're afraid of being called a man-hater or they're afraid of being
called ugly-whatever bizarre antifeminist stereotype they believe. Or, they're afraid of being questioned.
This is [true] for much younger women I've spoken to who are like, "I don't really know all that
much about feminism and I don't want someone to be like, what is it about?" Young women already feel
apprehensive in terms of talking about politics, and stuff like that, so [there's a] fear of being
called out.
What I find really interesting about it is, once I do talk to younger women about feminism, and once
you debunk those antifeminist myths and make clear that not only are these myths untrue but they
exist for a reason, that they're really strategic, then they're like, "Oh. Yeah. That's true." So
I think that it doesn't take much.
To get more young women, or women in general, on board...
Exactly. And the truth is there are a ton of young women out there who are doing feminist work who
don't identify as feminists. And that's okay with me, too. You don't need to call yourself a feminist
in order to be doing great feminist work. People often ask me that: Well don't you think it's important
that they call themselves feminists? Not for me it's not. For them, though, there's a real benefit
in calling yourself a feminist because you have access to this community and this support system
that you may not know is there. So that's why I really try to encourage young women to not only keep
believing in those feminist values, keep fighting for them, but also to identify as feminist for
their own sake, and for their own well-being.
You write a lot about pornography in the
book - how does pornography relate to the myth of purity?
Oh, God. So much. Mainstream pornography is very much tied up in the virgin-whore thing. They have
virgin porn, they have barely-legal porn. This idea that the sexiest women are not women, they're
girls. Then, of course, there's the whore porn where you have to do the most dirty, disgusting horrible
things to someone. Porn plays into this dichotomous, binary vision of sexuality, that girls are either
innocent and need to be taken advantage of, or they're whores who just want...I was going to say
something disgusting but I won't. But, of course, as I say in the book, there's a lot of great feminist
porn out there.
Yeah, you argue that there is a progressive approach to pornography.
I do think that. It's difficult because feminist porn is really dwarfed by the mainstream pornography
industry. It's difficult to be like, "Oh it's fine because there's feminist porn," when there are
a couple of feminist porn makers and this huge, multi-billion dollar porn industry. But, the answer
of the virginity movement and the conservative movement has been trying to put it away and hide it
which has not been effective, and just makes things worse. Instead of doing that, why don't we talk
to the women, few as they may be, who are making progressive pornography, who are looking at sexuality
in a complex way. Why don't we look to them for answers, not just about sexuality, but about pornography.
When we talk about pornography why aren't we talking to the people who are actually doing it right?
The purity movement has such a specific idea of what purity means-it's only white, female,
heterosexual purity. Where do homosexuals and women of color fit into the picture?
Well, they are the impure ones. If some of us are pure and innocent, then the rest of us are dirty
and bad. Certainly with women of color I'm not the first person to say this. It's not a new idea
that they're so hypersexualized, that they're never considered the virgin, that they're never considered
innocent. But I would argue that the same is true for queer women. They're queer-they're the "other"
in that way. Any deviation from straight, vanilla, procreative sex is impure, dirty, wrong. That's
why I even think masturbation is seen as impure-because it's not procreative, because it's purely
for pleasure, it's bad. So lesbian sex, or gay male sex for that matter, is wrong, impure, dirty,
bad. Which not only says terrible things about their homophobia and heteronormativity, but also says
terrible things about what they think about sexual pleasure and its place in the world.
There is a moral panic in America over young women's sexuality -- and it's entirely misplaced.
Girls "going wild" aren't damaging a generation of women, the myth of sexual purity is. The lie of
virginity -- the idea that such a thing even exists -- is ensuring that young women's perception
of themselves is inextricable from their bodies, and that their ability to be moral actors is absolutely
dependent on their sexuality. It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people
depends on their being good people, not on whether or not they're sexually active.
A combination of forces -- our media- and society-driven virginity fetish, an increase in abstinence-only
education, and the strategic political rollback of women's rights among the primary culprits -- has
created a juggernaut of unrealistic sexual expectations for young women. Unable to live up to the
ideal of purity that's forced upon them in one aspect of their lives, many young women are choosing
the hypersexualized alternative that's offered to them everywhere else as the easier -- and more
attractive -- option.
More than 1,400 purity balls, where young girls pledge their virginity to their fathers at a promlike
event, were held in 2006 (the balls are federally funded).1 Facebook is peppered with purity groups
that exist to support girls trying to "save it." Schools hold abstinence rallies and assemblies featuring
hip-hop dancers and comedians alongside religious leaders. Virginity and chastity are reemerging
as a trend in pop culture, in our schools, in the media, and even in legislation. So while young
women are subject to overt sexual messages every day, they're simultaneously being taught -- by the
people who are supposed to care for their personal and moral development, no less -- that their only
real worth is their virginity and ability to remain "pure."
So what are young women left with? Abstinence-only education during the day and Girls Gone Wild commercials
at night! Whether it's delivered through a virginity pledge or by a barely dressed tween pop singer
writhing across the television screen, the message is the same: A woman's worth lies in her ability
-- or her refusal -- to be sexual. And we're teaching American girls that, one way or another, their
bodies and their sexuality are what make them valuable. The sexual double standard is alive and well,
and it's irrevocably damaging young women.
The Purity Myth is something I've been thinking about for a long time. When I lost my virginity as
a high school freshman, I didn't understand why I didn't feel changed somehow. Wasn't this supposed
to be, like, a big deal? Later, in college, as I'd listen to male friends deride their sexual partners
as sluts and whores, I struggled to comprehend how intercourse could mean one thing for men and quite
another for women. I knew that logically, nothing about sex could make a girl "dirty," but I found
it incredibly frustrating that my certainty about this seemed to be lost on my male peers. And as
I talked to my queer friends, whose sexual experiences were often dismissed because they didn't fit
into the heterosexual model, I started to realize how useless "virginity" really was.
I started to see the myth of sexual purity everywhere -- though in the work I do as a feminist blogger
and writer, it wasn't exactly hard to find. Whether it appears in a story about a man killing his
girlfriend while calling her a whore or in trying to battle conservative claims that emergency contraception
or the HPV vaccine will make girls promiscuous, the purity myth in America underlies more misogyny
than most people would like to admit.
And while the definition of "virginity" is fairly abstract (as you'll see in Chapter 1), its consequences
for young women are not. And that's why I wanted, and needed, to write this book. The Purity Myth
is for women who are suffering every day because of the lie that virginity exists, and that it has
some bearing on who we are and how good we are. Consider the implications virginity has on the high
school girl who is cruelly labeled a slut after an innocuous makeout session; the woman from a background
so religiously conservative that she opts to have her hymen surgically reattached rather than suffer
the consequences of a nonbloody bedsheet on her wedding night; or the rape survivor who's dismissed
or even faulted because she dared to have past consensual sexual encounters.
My reasons for wanting to write this book aren't entirely altruistic, however. I was once that teenage
girl struggling with the meaning behind my sexuality, and how my own virginity, or lack thereof,
reflected whether or not I was a good person. I was the cruelly labeled slut, the burgeoning feminist
who knew that something was wrong with a world that could peg me as a bad person for sleeping with
a high school boyfriend while ignoring my good heart, sense of humor, and intelligence. Didn't the
intricacies of my character count for anything? The answer, unfortunately, was no, they didn't. It
was a hard lesson to learn, and one that too many young women are dealing with nationwide.
Understanding the Myth
On Love Matters, a pro-life, pro-abstinence website, pictures of smiling young women who are "saving
themselves" are featured next to quotes about virginity and marriage. Kimberly Gloudemans, Miss California
Teen USA 1997, beams under her brunette coiffed hair and a rhinestone tiara. Next to her picture,
the caption reads, "It's been echoed to teens over and over again . . . we have no morals, no dreams,
and no future. But I know I am not a part of that same generation. In fact, millions of teenagers
are finding out the same thing about themselves. . . . We have morals and are standing up for what
we believe in. . . . Because of that I am saving sex for marriage."
I've always found the idea of "saving" your virginity intriguing: It's not as if we're packing our
Saran-wrapped hymens away in the freezer, after all, or pasting them in scrapbooks (admittedly, not
the best visual -- my apologies). But packed-away virginities aside, the interesting -- and dangerous
-- idea at play here is that of "morality." When young women are taught about morality, there's not
often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about
hymens (though the preferred words are undoubtedly more refined -- think "virginity" and "chastity"):
if we have them, when we'll lose them, and under what circumstances we'll be rid of them.
While boys are taught that the things that make them men -- good men -- are universally accepted
ethical ideals, women are led to believe that our moral compass lies somewhere between our legs.
Literally. Whether it's the determining factor in our "cleanliness" and "purity" or the marker of
our character, virginity has an increasingly dangerous hold over young women. It affects not only
our ability to see ourselves as ethical actors outside of our own bodies, but also how the world
interacts with us through social mores, laws, and even violence.
Pure Consequences
Women are pushing themselves and punishing themselves every day in order to fit into the narrow model
of morality that virginity has afforded them. Some of us get unnecessary plastic surgery -- down
to our vaginas, which can be tightened, clipped, and "revirginized" -- in order to seem younger.
Others simply buy into old-school gender norms of ownership, dependence, and perpetual girlhood.
And don't be mistaken about the underlying motivations of our moral panic around the hypersexualization
of young women. It's more about chastity than about promiscuity. T-shirts sold in teen catalogs with
I'm tight like Spandex emblazoned across the front aren't announcing sexiness; they're announcing
virginity. The same is true for "sexy schoolgirl" costumes or provocative pictures of Disney teen
pop singers. By fetishizing youth and virginity, we're supporting a disturbing message: that really
sexy women aren't women at all -- they're girls.
If we're to truly understand the purity myth, we have to recognize that this modernized virgin/whore
dichotomy is not only leading young women to damage themselves by internalizing the double standard,
but also contributing to a social and political climate that is increasingly antagonistic to women
and our rights.
Virginity fetishism has even made its way into politics and legislation. In 2007, Republican South
Dakota representative Bill Napoli described his support for a ban on abortion that allowed no exceptions
for rape or incest by relaying a (quite vivid) scenario to a reporter. He explained under what circumstances
the procedure might be warranted: "A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally
raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until
she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and
is impregnated."2
I found this moment so telling: Napoli couldn't help but let his misogyny and paternalism seep into
his abortion sound bite, because, to him and to so many other men (and other legislators, for that
matter), there's no separating virginity, violence, and control over women's bodies. When it comes
to women who are perceived as "impure," there's a narrative of punishment that underscores U.S. policy
and public discourse -- be it legislation that limits reproductive rights through the assumption
that women should be chaste before marriage, or a media that demonizes victims of sexual violence.
And, sadly, if you look at everything from our laws to our newspapers, Napoli isn't as far out of
the mainstream as we'd like to think.
Toward a New Morality
Women -- especially young women, who are the most targeted in this virgin/whore straitjacket -- are
surviving the purity myth every day. And it has to stop. Our daughters deserve a model of morality
that's based on ethics, not on their bodies.
It's high time to do away with outdated -- and dangerous -- notions of virginity. If young women's
only ethical gauge is based on whether they're chaste, we're ensuring that they will continue to
define themselves by their sexuality.
In The Purity Myth, I not only discuss what the purity myth is and reveal its consequences for women,
but also outline a new way for us to think about young women as moral actors, one that doesn't include
their bodies. Not just because we deserve as much, but also because our health, our emotional well-being,
and even our lives depend on it.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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