The Beauty Myth (47 page)

“You might imagine that copulation was such a basic and ‘instinctive’ process that it would be very little affected by learning and imitation . . . but as far as sex is concerned, you would be wrong, at least about primates. Harlow and Harlow’s experiments in the 1950’s proved beyond doubt that if a baby monkey is reared in isolation, unable either to experiment with coevals or to observe its elders copulating (which young primates do, with great curiosity and often at hamperingly close quarters, whenever they can), then, when it grows up, it hasn’t got the faintest idea how to go about it, and if it is a male, it dies without issue.”

136
Jack Sullivan: Quoted in Jane Caputi,
The Age of Sex Crime
(Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1987), p. 63.

136
Siskel: Quoted ibid., p. 84. Life and art converged in the 1980s: In the novel
Confessions of a Lady Killer
, a sex killer stalks feminists;
Tightrope
, the hero fantasizes strangling a feminist rape-crisis counselor; in December 1989, a man shot fourteen young women in Canada, shouting, “I hate feminists.”

137
France: “French Without Fears,”
The Observer
(London), September 17, 1989.

137
Screen Actors Guild: “Actresses Make Less Than Men, New Study Says,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, August 2, 1990.

138
Next to
Time:
Susan G. Cole,
Pornography and the Sex Crisis
(Toronto: Amanita Enterprises, 1989), p. 37.

138
The authorities in Sweden: Anita Desai, “The Family—Norway,” in Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 24.

138
Spare Rib
censored: Caroline Harris and Jennifer Moore, “Altered Images,”
Marxism Today,
November 1988, pp. 24–27.

139
Judy Chicago: Jonetta Rose Barras, “U.D.C.’s $1.6 Million Dinner,”
The Washington Times,
July 18, 1990.

139
Canadian women’s film was banned: Caputi, op. cit., p. 72.

140
Fantasy lives: Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 66.

141
Less likely to believe a rape victim: Neil M. Malamuth and Edward Donnerstein, eds.,
Pornography and Sexual Aggression
(New York: Academic Press, 1984).

141
Desensitizing: Dolph Zillman and Jennings Bryant, “Pornography, Sexual Callousness and the Trivialization of Rape,”
Journal of Communication,
vol. 32 (982), pp. 16–18.

141
Trivialize the severity: Donnerstein and Linz: “Pornography: Its Effect on Violence Against Women,” in Malamuth and Donnerstein, eds., op. cit., pp. 115–138.

141
Violence alone: Edward Donnerstein and Leonard Berkowitz, “Victim Reactions in Aggressive Erotic Films as a Factor in Violence Against Women,”
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
vol. 41, (1981), pp. 710–724.

141
Wendy Stock, “The Effects of Pornography on Women,” testimony for the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, 1985.

141
Carol L. Krafka, “Sexually Explicit, Sexually Violent and Violent Media: Effects of Multiple Naturalistic Exposures and Debriefing on Female Viewers,” doctoral thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1985.

143
Consumerism: Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs,
Re-Making Love: The Feminization of Sex
(London: Fontana/Collins, 1986), p. 110.

146
Orgasm: For statistics on orgasm, see Shere Hite,
The Hite Report
(London: Pandora Press, 1989), pp. 225–270.

146
Kaplan: Helen Singer Kaplan,
The New Sex Therapy
(New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1974).

147
Seymour Fischer: See
Understanding the Female Orgasm
(New York: Bantam Books, 1973).

147
British women: Wendy Faulkner, “The Obsessive Orgasm: Science, Sex and Female Sexuality,” in Lynda Birke et al.,
Alice Through the Microscope
(London: Virago Press, 1980), p. 145. See also R. Chester and C. Walker, “Sexual Experience and Attitudes of British Women,” in R. Chester and J. Peel,
Changing Patterns of Sexual Behaviour
(London: Academic Press, 1979).

147
Danish women: K. Garde and I. Lunde, “Female Sexual Behaviour: A Study of a Random Sample of Forty-Year-Old Women,”
Maturita
, vol. 2 (1980).

147
Sudanese women: A. A. Shandall, “Circumcision and Infibulation of Females,” Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum; cited in Taylor et al., op. cit., p. 61.

149
Foolishly decides: Alice Walker, “Coming Apart,” in
You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down
(San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981), pp. 41–53.

149
I fantasize: Nancy Friday,
My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies
(London: Quartet Books, 1985), p. 147.

150
Strongly dissatisfied: Dr. Thomas Cash, Diane Cash, and Jonathan Butters, “Mirror-Mirror on the Wall: Contrast Effects and Self-Evaluation of Physical Attractiveness,”
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
, vol. 9 (3), September 1983.

150
Hutchinson: Jane E. Brody, “Personal Health,”
The New York Times
, October 20, 1988.

153
The old man kissed her: Miles, op. cit., pp. 97, 141.

158
Swept away: see Carol Cassell,
Swept Away: Why Women Confuse Love and Sex
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984); for a psychoanalytic explanation of the overdetermination of the female body, see Dorothy Dinnerstein,
Sexual Arrangements and the Human Malaise
, (New York: Harper Colophon, 1977).

159
48.7 percent of U.S. abortions: “Paths to an Abortion Clinic: Seven Trails of Conflict and Pain,”
The New York Times
, May 8, 1989.

159
1983 random survey: Report of the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women. See Page Mellish, ed. “Statistics on Violence Against Women,”
The Backlash Times
, 1989.

159
By her husband or ex-husband: Diana E. H. Russell, cited in Angela Browne,
When Battered Women Kill
(New York: Free Press, 1987), p. 100. For U.S. marital rape figures of one wife in ten, see David Finkelhor and Kersti Yllo,
License to Rape: Sexual Abuse of Wives
(New York: The Free Press, 1985). Menachem Amir’s figures, now thought to be too low, showed rates of rape for black women to be 50 percent; for white women, 12 percent, or one in eight. See Menachem Amir,
Patterns in Forcible Rape
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), p. 44. See also Diana E. H. Russell,
Rape in Marriage
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p. 66.

159
Dutch families: see
Geweld tegen vrouwen in heteroseksuele relaties
(Renee Romkers, 1989);
Sexueel misbruik van meisjes door verwanten
(Nel Draijer, 1988).

159
Sweden: Research by Gunilla Bjarsdal. Stockholm: Legenda Publishing Research, 1989. For an international overview of the prevalence of marital rape, see Diana E. H. Russell, “Wife Rape in Other Countries,” in
Rape in Marriage
, pp. 333–354.

159
Canada: Caputi, op. cit., p. 54.

159
England: R. Hall, S. James, and J. Kertesz,
The Rapist Who Pays the Rent
(Bristol, England: Falling Wall Press, 1981). Spousal rape was not a crime in Canada until 1983, in Scotland until 1982, and is not yet a crime in England or in many states in the United States.

159
London women: Ruth Hall,
Ask Any Woman: A London Inquiry into Rape and Sexual Assault
(Bristol, England: Falling Wall Press, 1981).

159
Epidemic: Mellish, op. cit. Also Lenore Walker, “The Battered Woman,”
The Backlash Times
, 1979, p. 20. Walker estimates that as many as 50 percent of all women will be battered at some point in their lives.

160
Harris poll: See Browne, op. cit.

160
94–95 percent of cases: Ibid., p. 8.

160
Assault each year: Ibid., pp. 4–5.

160
One quarter of violent crime in United States: M. Barret and S. McIntosh, in Taylor et al., op cit.

160
Researchers in Pittsburgh: Browne, op. cit., pp. 4–5.

160
Canadian married women: Linda McLeod,
The Vicious Circle
(Ottawa: Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 1980), p. 21. One woman in Canada raped every 17 minutes: See Julie Brickman, “Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault in Urban Canadian Population,”
International Journal of Women’s Studies
, vol. 7 (1984), pp. 195–206.

160
NIMH study: Browne, op. cit., p. 9.

160
Incest: Kinsey et al., op. cit.,
Sexual Behavior in the Human Female
, cited in John Crewdson,
By Silence Betrayed: Sexual Abuse of Children in America
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), p. 25.

160
Diana Russell: Reported in ibid., p. 25.

160
Bud Lewis: Ibid., p. 28.

160
Worldwide research . . . year out: Taylor et al., op. cit.

161
Anorexics . . . sexually abused: Deanne Stone, “Challenging Conventional Thought,” an interview with Doctors Susan and Wayne Wooley,
Radiance
, Summer 1989.

161
Elizabeth Morgan: Quoted in Joyce Egginton, “The Pain of Hiding Hilary,”
The Observer
, November 5, 1989.

161
Sexual pleasure . . . not from a good place: Caputi, op. cit., p. 116.

162
Theorists . . . of pornography: See Susan Griffin,
Pornography and Silence
(London: The Women’s Press, 1988); Susan G. Cole,
Pornography and the Sex Crisis
(Toronto: Amanita, 1989); Andrea Dworkin,
Pornography: Men Possessing Women
(New York: Putnam, 1981); Gloria Steinem, “Erotica vs. Pornography,” in
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983), pp. 219–232; Susanne Kappeler,
The Pornography of Representation
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986).

163
12 percent of British and American parents: “Striking Attitudes,”
The Guardian
, November 15, 1989, citing
The British Social Attitudes Special International Report
by Roger Jowell, Sharon Witherspoon, and Lindsay Brook (London: Social and Community Planning Research, Gower, 1989).

164
MTV: Quoted in Caputi, op. cit., p. 39.

164
Alice Cooper: Adam Sweeting, “Blame It on Alice,”
The Guardian
, December 1, 1989.

165
Ms
. magazine: Robin Warshaw,
I Never Called It Rape: The
Ms.
Report on Recognizing, Fighting and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape
(New York: The Ms. Foundation for Education and Communication with Sarah Lazin Books, 1988), p. 83; research by Mary P. Koss, Kent State University, with the Center for Prevention and Control of Rape.

165
Relate directly to acquaintance rape: Ibid., p. 96.

165
“I like to dominate a woman”: Survey was conducted by Virginia Greenlinger, Williams College, and Donna Byrne, SUNY-Albany; cited in Warshaw, p. 93.

165
8 percent of college men had raped: Ibid., p. 84. The pornography that respondents read consisted of:
Playboy, Penthouse, Chic, Club, Forum, Gallery, Genesis, Oui
or
Hustler
.

165
58 percent of college males: John Briere and Neil M. Malamuth, “Self-Reported Likelihood of Sexually Aggressive Behavior: Attitudinal versus Sexual Explanations,”
Journal of Research in Personality
, Vol. 37 (1983), pp. 315–318.

165
30 percent rated faces showing distress more attractive: Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr., Emory; Maura P. Loftus, Auburn University; cited in ibid., p. 97. See also: N. Malamuth, J. Heim, and S. Feshbach, “Sexual Responsiveness of College Students to Rape Depictions: Inhibitory and Disinhibitory Effects,”
Social Psychology
, vol. 38 (1980), p. 399.

165
Among 3,187 women: Warshaw, op. cit., p. 83.

166
Heart attacks: Ibid., p. 11.

166
Auburn University: Ibid., pp. 13–14. Also at Auburn University, Professor Barry R. Burkhart found that 61 percent of male students said they had sexually touched a woman against her will.

166
Did not call it “rape”: Ibid., pp. 3, 51, 64, 66, 117.

166
Violence from dating partner: Browne, op. cit., p. 42.

167
Fourteen- to eighteen-year-olds: See study by Jacqueline Goodchild et al., cited in Warshaw, op. cit., p. 120.

167
A recent survey in Toronto: Caputi, op. cit., p. 119.

169
Preoccupation with face and hair: Daniel Goleman, “Science Times,”
The New York Times
, March 15, 1989.

172
William Butler Yeats: “For Ann Gregory,” in
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
(London: MacMillan, 1965).

173
Mary Gordon:
Final Payments
(London: Black Swan, 1987).

174
Gertrude Stein: Quoted in Arianna Stassinopoulos,
Picasso: Creator and Destroyer
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988).

Page

181
Woolf: Virginia Woolf,
A Room of One’s Own
(San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981); reprint of 1929 edition.

182
Anorexia and Bulimia Association: cited in Joan Jacobs Brumberg,
Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease
(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 20.

182
AIDS: “AIDS Toll Rises by 50 percent,”
Glasgow Herald
, January 7, 1990.

182
5 to 20 percent of women students: Brumberg, op. cit., p. 12.

182
50 percent of college women:
Ms
., October 1983. A recent University of California at San Francisco survey showed “
all
[italics added] the 18-year-olds said they currently use vomiting, laxatives, fasting, or diet pills to control their weight. [Jane Brody, “Personal Health,”
The New York Times
, March 18, 1987.]