How About We End Equal Opportunity Sexual Exploitation?

This piece is part of a larger series on Karen F. Owen’s “F**K List,” a leaked PowerPoint on her sexual activity, which she composed about her undergraduate experience at Duke University.

Karen Owen of The Duke F**K List the female heroine of our time — I think not. If this is the new face of feminism, I want no part in it. As a self-described feminist, I am all in favor of female empowerment. But I don’t find Karen Owen’s sexual escapades to be all that liberating.

The idea of having sex like a man is nothing new. In 1998, Sex and the City made its series premiere with that idea — women having sex like men, meaning sex without feeling.
 
But using the excuse that “men have been doing it for decades” is no excuse at all. We don’t want to stoop to that level. Sure, women have been viewed and treated as sex objects for centuries, but that doesn’t mean we turn the tables, objectify men and justify it by saying, “They had it coming.”
 
Instead of trying to fight against these casual relationships, women have jumped right into them, often bouncing from man to man and bed to bed — as can be seen in Karen Owen’s 42-page PowerPoint presentation.
 
When control is at stake, the power is in knowing where the relationship is going. In the case of a hookup, it’s going to the bedroom and that’s it.
 
If a woman’s going to play the game, it’s going to be on her terms. She’s not going to come out the victim, the one who was used.
 
No, now it’s a mutual agreement to use and abuse men and women alike. So really, who’s playing whom? And are we playing fair?
 
Mutual respect needs to be restored between men and women.
 
If we are truly empowered women, we will know better and pick and choose more wisely what defines our freedom and success. We don’t have to look to men for our model of success anymore, and we don’t have to have sex like a man to validate our sexuality or to prove our equality. There are some levels we don’t want to sink to. If we take Owen as our female model of success, we’ve severely missed the mark of what it means to be liberated women.
 
Seriously, is this scientific, programmed response to men supposed to be liberating?
 
No, but Owen isn’t the only one indulging in sexually promiscuous behavior. We can’t simply single her out.
 
Owen’s story is part of a larger social trend that many of us know about and may have experienced: the hookup culture. We can have pleasure without the emotional pain and sex without consequences or commitment — or at least that’s what the hookup culture would have us believe.
 
Some might say having 13 sexual partners isn’t that many while others are appalled at the number.
 
Unfortunately, we don’t have a “whore-o-meter” to tell us on a sliding scale of one to 10 how much Karen Owen’s behavior actually resembles that of a whore. For that, first we’d have to determine what is an acceptable number of past sexual partners for a woman, and then go from there, also taking into consideration what is an acceptable number for a man.
 
Honestly, how many of us have found ourselves swept up in the hookup culture at some point in our college years? (And just to be clear, my definition of hooking up includes everything from making out to doing the deed.)
 
Collegiettes™ across the nation could tell similar stories to that of Karen Owen. The difference — our stories didn’t get published across an international domain, describing every dirty detail.
 
Still, that doesn’t make the behavior right.
 
Hookups require a no-strings-attached attitude towards sex and the person you’re having it with, and some people might enjoy that, but in the end, you run the risk of becoming calloused and jaded after so many emotionless sexual encounters.
 
Is that how we want to define our relationships and sex lives, all the while getting graded on performance and “mechanical” errors?
 
Numerous forms of media have covered the topic at hand.
 
This past spring CNN released an article titled “No hooking up, no sex for some coeds” by Susan Chen. In the article, Frannie Boyle, who was a junior at Vanderbilt University, is given as an example of one college woman who’d had enough of the hookup scene. She took a stand against it and said, “I’m respecting myself, and I won’t waste my time with some guy who doesn’t care about me.”
 
We need more Frannies and less Karens out there.
 
If you’ve been a part of the hookup culture and have regrets, own up to it, find some self-respect and move on.
 
Before Ms. Owen went MIA, Irin Carmon of Jezebel.com got a statement from Owen concerning the document: “I regret it with all my heart. I would never intentionally hurt the people that are mentioned on that.”
 
But what exactly does Owen regret — the document being leaked, creating the document in the first place or having 13 sexual partners?
 
If you’re going to engage in casual sex, own it. Don’t apologize. Don’t back down. As soon as you start saying sorry like Owen did, you have a lot more explaining to do.
 
In the end, we have the power to choose better relationships than ones that leave us sexually frustrated and emotionally unsatisfied.
 
Exercising that power is true women’s liberation.