{"id":15540,"date":"2013-05-31T17:08:20","date_gmt":"2013-05-31T21:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=15540"},"modified":"2013-05-31T20:00:06","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T00:00:06","slug":"chocolate-cake-cant-consent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2013\/05\/chocolate-cake-cant-consent.html","title":{"rendered":"Chocolate Cake Can’t Consent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Note: After I wrote this post and slated it to go up today\u2014I frequently write posts in advance and then schedule them\u2014I noticed that Samantha of Defeating the Dragons had just posted an awesome look at it herself.\u00a0Check it out<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I recently came upon a Christian blogger explaining why she doesn\u2019t wear bikinis<\/a>\u2014using all the standard purity culture rhetoric of course\u2014and this one paragraph really stuck out at me:<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s try and put ourselves in a guy\u2019s shoes. I think we can all agree that as girls, exercise is important to us. We want to stay healthy and are often working on getting fit. We work out and stay away from carbs or sweets. We use all of our willpower to\u00a0not\u00a0eat the chocolate cake on the counter! Now, let\u2019s pretend that someone picked up that chocolate cake and followed us around all the time, 24\/7. We can never get away from the chocolate, it\u2019s always right there, tempting us and even smelling all ooey gooey and chocolate-y. Most of us, myself included, would find it easy to break down and eat the cake. And we would probably\u00a0continue\u00a0to break down and eat cake, because it would always be there. Our exercise goals would be long gone in no time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Taken simply, this analogy is very rapey. It seems to suggest that all men are rapists who may break down at any minute and rape some poor woman who wasn\u2019t properly dressed. After all, chocolate cake can\u2019t consent. It\u2019s an inanimate object. You don\u2019t have to get its permission before eating it\u2014you can just take it. And in this analogy, you get so overcome by desire at the sight of it that you \u201cbreak down\u201d and devour it. But women aren\u2019t inanimate objects. We choose with whom we want to have sex, and when. Unless he\u2019s a rapist, a man who is around attractive women in bikinis won\u2019t be able to jut \u201cbreak down\u201d and have sex with them. It doesn\u2019t work like that. This analogy might make at least a little bit of sense if the author was discussing\u00a0a guy being surrounded by attractive consenting women throwing themselves at him. But she\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an alternate interpretation, of course. It could be that the analogy isn\u2019t supposed to be pointing at sex but rather simply at lust<\/em>. The trouble is, that\u2019s a bad comparison too. Actually eating <\/em>the chocolate cake isn\u2019t analogous to lusting after a woman\u2014thinking about eating<\/em> the chocolate cak<\/em>e would be. We women are not consumed when a man thinks about us sexually (or when a man actually has sex with us, for that matter). There\u2019s something else, too.<\/strong> There\u2019s no reason for chocolate cake to be paraded around a person besides trying to entice them to eat it, so the analogy suggests that women dress sexy simply to tempt men sexually, taunting them and keeping them on the brink of \u201cbreaking down.\u201d And that\u2019s both incorrect and an incredibly destructive way of viewing women.<\/p>\n

The blogger goes on to say this:<\/p>\n

Girls are walking around all the time with barely any clothes on at the beach or pool! Guys can never get a break from it, even if they\u2019re trying to see past all the bodies to find the smiles and personalities within the girls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Coming right after the above analogy, this is confusing. There\u2019s nothing deeper in chocolate cake. It has no purpose whatsoever other than looking delicious and being eaten\u2014no purpose but to pleasure the senses. Comparing women to chocolate cake right before arguing that women need to be seen as more than just sexy bodies to be consumed is just weird.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t actually think the author herself was clear on whether she used the chocolate cake example to illustrate how immodestly clad women tempt men to rape or tempt men to lust. And perhaps that elision is part of the story here, part of the problem with the rhetoric of purity culture. The way the author talks about \u201chow easy it is to break down\u201d and eat the cake when it\u2019s staring you in the face is problematic regardless of which way she intended it to be taken.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting to note the ease with which the author can argue that she wants men to see women as people, and not as sex objects, while comparing women to inanimate objects and without ever mentioning the term consent<\/em>. It seems to me, after all, that teaching consent is a primary way we can help ensure that men see us as people rather than sex toys. As long as they keep reading analogies about how women are chocolate cake just begging to be consumed, they\u2019re not going to see women as fully equal individuals who are able to make their own decisions about sex. In fact, rather than seeing them as equal individuals they may even end up resenting women as cruel temptresses who just want to torture them.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s also the fact that covering up doesn\u2019t fix anything\u2014besides adding all sorts of problems, it doesn\u2019t even actually make men stop thinking sexual thoughts about them (remember that picture of those two men leering at a woman in a burka?). Women have breasts and vaginas and hips and curves, and it\u2019s impossible to cover up enough to erase men\u2019s knowledge of that. This makes a good segue into the photo of a \u201cmodest\u201d swimsuit the author included in her post\u2014a photo to contrast to what women look like in bikinis. Here is the photo:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The thing is, that woman is incredibly<\/em> hot. Maybe it\u2019s just my type or something, but she\u2019s extremely<\/em> sexy. And yes, men (and some women!) will feel what the author of this post would call \u201clust\u201d for that woman when they see her in that swimsuit\u2014and, for some, even when they see just the picture. And given that this is the picture the author chose to showcase good modest swimsuits, she must not realize that. And I find that highly, highly<\/em> ironic.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the end, I don’t actually think the author herself was clear on whether she used the chocolate cake example to illustrate how immodestly clad women tempt men to rape or tempt men to lust. And perhaps that elision is part of the story here, part of the problem with the rhetoric of purity culture. The way the author talks about “how easy it is to break down” and eat the cake when it’s staring you in the face is problematic regardless of which way it was intended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[131],"class_list":["post-15540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-purity","tag-modesty"],"yoast_head":"\nChocolate Cake Can't Consent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the end, I don't actually think the author herself was clear on whether she used the chocolate cake example to illustrate how immodestly clad women tempt men to rape or tempt men to lust. And perhaps that elision is part of the story here, part of the problem with the rhetoric of purity culture. 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