English Version | It’s Eva’s fault

Since time immemorial, women have been accused of a crime that never prescribes, the legal basis for which was created by the same twisted minds that gave birth to such fables as Adam and Eve: she succumbs to the charms of the serpent and hands him the forbidden fruit, condemning him and all mortals to an eternity of suffering and redemption. In the 21st century, the female sex continues to pay for this sin by being constantly judged for her sex life. Times change, but mentalities do not.

“That chick? She's a skank”, “Stay out of it, she's a tramp”, “That one's not for marriage. She's run over forty, and that's what we hear, imagine how many there must not be”, “She's disgusting, she sleeps with everyone.” If these phrases shock you, don't read on. You may not yet be prepared to be confronted with these kinds of offenses, that you have probably already uttered -- several studies show that almost all of us have done so, even if the intention of hurting the victim in question was not conscious, even if, out of immaturity or the influence of a “pack” feeling, we have allowed ourselves to be drawn into idle talk that end up with someone as a scapegoat, with no notion of the damage that such incendiary dialogues can cause. “Whore, she's a whore”, “She's a cow, if you stay with her you'll get diseases”, “The list of guys she's been with is longer than who knows what. She's a promiscuous slut of the worst kind.” Shocked? You're supposed to be. In everyday life we don't even notice it, but the ease with which a woman earns these kinds of labels is simpler than it seems. All you have to do is to appear to have a free and open sex life, without taboos, and that's halfway to buying a war with the puritanical minds that live in almost all of us. It is sad. It is revolting. It is the truth. 

Try this exercise: go back to your high school years and think: how many girls were called “slut”, “skank”, “bitch”? I'm sure there were at least five or six. It was, and still is, like this in every high school in the world, regardless of geography or social status. The girl who innocently kissed more boys in the game of “foot tapping.” Joana and Matilde who, in the broom dance, insisted on “rubbing themselves” against the boys, provoking them. Vanessa, who when playing darkroom gave (too many) kisses to Antonio. They all ended up being associated with something unkind, they allhad their lives turned upside down because they gave vent to their basic instincts - which, at the time, were still just that, basic. They were all victims of slut-shaming, widely recognized as the act of condemning a woman for her sexual behavior and her subsequent social punishment for it. As in a macabre dystopia, slut-shaming does not apply to men. They are not, have never been, accused of anything. Quite the contrary. This is a crime that only applies to women.

Nine. It is the number of sexual partners that, on average, a person has over a lifetime. The World Population Review website reports that surveys on this topic started being done regularly in 2005, but that the results can fluctuate significantly from country to country, as “cultural norms can have a significant impact on the number of people someone has sex with.” Cultural norms and, we would add, the truth. A woman will almost always tend to reduce/omit the number of sexual partners, whereas a man usually exaggerates these “values.” Such proved a 2015 study by the World Health Organization, which left two important questions up in the air: are women hiding some sexual experiences for fear of social judgment? Or is it the men who sin by excess, in order to underline their masculinity? In either case, the problem is intrinsically social. It is all wrong from the root, from the beginning. They are condemned, they get pats on the back. They are hailed as “heroes”, they are “plucky whores.” Very briefly… why? This was the question we put to Bernardo Coelho, sociologist, researcher and university professor. “The phenomenon of which you speak becomes more understandable starting from the idea that sexuality is an important sphere of our daily lives (like work, school, family, friendships, etc.), whose most fundamental structuring axis will be gender. [...] The effects of gender on sexuality become evident through a moral/sexual double standard. Since this double moral standard is an effect of gender on the organization of sexuality, it makes evident the hierarchization and inequality of gender. In this way, it produces a legitimately expansive, experimentalist, hyperactive, controlling masculine sexuality (in control of oneself, of the other person and of the course of events in an erotic-sexual encounter). In counterpoint, this dual morality presents women with a sexuality that, to be legitimate, must be contained (few partners), emotional (taking place in the context of affective/love relationships), passive, expectant (not demonstrating initiative).”

James Bond (007). Don Draper (Mad Men). Tony Soprano (The Sopranos). None of these characters have been questioned for their sexual advances, their unexpected advances, their long list of amorous conquests. Quite the contrary. All of them are applauded for their “charisma” (one of the most used words to characterize machismo) and for their “masculinity” (another great term when what is in question is a clear lack of control over the lower limb). Let's go in parts: neither Bond, nor Draper, nor Soprano should be excoriated for living their sexuality to the fullest - or at least Bond, who has always been single, as Draper and Soprano have jumped the fence at least once. That's not the point. The shoe pinches in the double standard towards their female counterparts: Samantha Jones (Sex and the City), Hannah Horvath (Girls), Edie Britt (Desperate Housewives) have rarely received plaudits, both in fiction and outside of it, when sharing their sexual exploits. Casual sex, one-night stands? They had “zero shame”, they just enjoyed all that casual sex has to offer. Bernardo Coelho explains: “The inequality in the conception and experience of sexuality goes along with the systematic and structural devaluation of women (in all spheres of life: from the world of work to the family, from sports to political participation), the definition of the place of women as the lesser other, the systematic and permanent construction of the idea that women are passive and fragile, the erasure of women as social protagonists, as individuals, as citizens, as authors of their lives and of society, as owners of their bodies. In other words, the double moral standard prescribes what a proper woman and a proper man should be in the framework of sexuality. Failure to comply with these normative and moral precepts has/can result in judgment, loss of honor, discredit, humiliation, devaluation.”

The differences are clear, and they are all in plain sight - of us all. “For men it will be honorable and have positive identity effects in defining their masculinity (and in fitting that masculinity to the archetype) to multiply sexual partners, or at least to construct narratives producing the idea that one lives a hyperactive sexuality (the typical case of the braggarts). In turn, the moral/sexual double standard erases women, obliterates their sexual agency, diminishes their condition as citizen-sexuals (i.e., people capable of deciding, choosing and expressing their desires and/or non-desires of erotic-sexual nature). This is precisely what is at stake when the way of experiencing sexuality becomes an insult to women: the ‘whore’ or the ‘bitch.’ It is the fear of this accusation/insult/humiliation that is at stake when women are unwilling or afraid to reveal the way they live or would like to live and experience their bodies and their sexuality.” As is well known, the consequences of this duality can be devastating. In addition to belittling and disregarding the needs of women as human beings, this duality often nullifies them as active agents of the sexual game. If we add to this the social objectification - which can be fatal - it is imperative to view slut-shaming not as a “secular tradition” about which there is nothing to be done but rather as a serious problem that must be addressed. 

Is it so strange that all this happens? After all, girls are (still) taught, from an early age, to have manners, to behave well, not to soil their white dresses, not to talk dirty, not to talk about things that are “ugly and unclean.” Not to sin. Boys don't. Boys are born strong and invincible, endowed with a magic ticket that allows them to do everything. In adolescence, they leave their toy cars to brag about the little black notebook where they write down their achievements. Girls don't. They continue to be seen as celestial beings, reduced to cooking and housework. Desires are erased at birth. In the view of the conservative paradigm that still persists, girls who show interest in exploring sex, who talk openly about their (various) partners, are whores. Without quotation marks. That's what all the frustrated people who can't see that the sexual freedom of one person ends where the sexual freedom of another begins. But why is it so difficult to break with this unequal logic? The word to Bernardo Coelho: “First of all, it is important to note the profound changes in the way women live and express their sexuality in contemporary Western societies. These changes have occurred in the sense of the construction of equality and in the rupture with stricter visions of the moral/sexual double standard. We need only refer to the way in which female sexuality was perceived in the middle of the 20th century - and the claims that this gave rise to in the second wave feminist movements - with the reality experienced today. [...] In this sense, the vision, conception and experience of sexuality becomes more similar, more equal and egalitarian, between men and women.”

Even so, is it coherent to say that we are light years away from thinking that we have arrived there, that everything is fine? Unfortunately, yes, Bernardo asserts. “If individually each woman can live in a logic of equality and sexual citizenship, it is still true that the cultural matrix of evaluation of the sexual behavior of men and women persists (if not consciously, at least not in a conscious way) in the contexts where we circulate and among the people with whom we interact. We need only ask ourselves if women, living sexuality in a logic of equality and citizenship, would share this vision or report their experiences to all their friends, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they don't, precisely because they perceive the persistence of the double moral standard in other people's heads and eyes. In this sense, women's experience of sexuality continues to be experienced unequally. [...] Why is this inequality? Because men have never experienced, nor do they experience, any of these pressures.” Just as Adam will never be blamed for eating the apple – deep down, it's Eve's fault - men will never know what it's like to put on the shoes of a woman who is called, repeatedly, a “whore.” And as long as no miracle happens, nothing will change. As Bernardo stresses, “since it is harder to subject ourselves to judgment and potential prosecution and insult, since there are more symbolic gains in complying with these gender norms or morality applied to sexuality, we tend to persist in practices that reproduce what is stereotypically / conservatively expected of them.” Even if they are wrong. Even if they give force to a crime that has no force and no legal support. Unfortunately, in the middle of the 21st century, the adage still endures: “Boys will boys, girls will be sluts.”

Translated from the original on Vogue Portugal's The Innocence Issue, published February 2023.Full story and credits on the print issue.