Pigs in Training, really?

Ariel Levy's chapter "Pigs in Training" raises the point that teen girls are participating in raunch culture, by dressing and acting slutty. The chapter then moves away from this idea, for a moment and discuses the issue of sex, sex education, and the lack there of. If someone where to flip through my copy, they would notice it was bleeding blue. Marked with comments, not all intellectual. However, I hope to go through some of the arguments she makes that I disagreed with as well as some of the ones that I did agree with. (Fair warning... each of my comments may not tie smoothly to the next).

Levy seems appalled that middle school girls are participating in sexual acts. Especially because she sees it not for their enjoyment but to create a "shock value" where they will become some of the most talked about girls on campus. Now, it was too long ago when I was in middle school, and I have to wonder if things have really changed that much. During my time girls who were sexually active whether that meant having sex or just giving oral- where indeed talked about, but not in a good way. These girls were not being praised for their seemed "maturity" they were looked upon as stupid and slutty, and boys gave them attention but not a good kind, and that was very obvious. There were a handful of girls that started off in their sex life at a young age. Some had serious boyfriends, and those girls were not looked upon as slutty or lose, while others did not and just seemed to hope from one guy to the next- those were the ones that got the bad rep.

Levy, again, makes the connection to this type of behavior based on what celebrities are doing and what the media portrays. She asked a girl who she admires and the girl responded Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson. Really Levy? THis is where my biggest problem with Levy lies. She takes peoples testimonies and tries to apply them as though they are universal. So whala this must e the culprit of our societies problems. Some girls may look up to these ridiculous women, yet I believe most are not. Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton are jokes. Their career is based off of superficial things. I'm not saying girls cannot admire them for the life style they lead, they have lots of money, seem to be happy, have the coolest cloths, but I think to look up to them means that you see something in their character of a person that you admire and wish to have. Do girls really want to have huge plastic fake looking boobs, or their sex home video leaked out to the media? I think for the majority that would be a no.

This also brings me to my next annoyance with Levy. She brings up the "swiffer" girl and tries to connect her video that she made for one person as an act of this girl trying to experiment with celebrity. All I have to say is this poor girl, she did something for a guy she liked, and the fool (for the nicest word choice I could possibly give him) disregarded the girls feelings and privacy and sent to to his guy friends who showed it to their friends. This girl did not ask to have her video put on the internet for all to see. Again, she takes examples and twist them to fit her argument.

The next thing I thought was so interesting was her comparison of today's girls to the girls she grew up with. If you look closely not that much has changed. Levy admits that "it was the same in the sense that you always wished you could be the prettiest and the most popular, the one who guys wanted to be with and girls wanted to be...when I went to high school, you wanted to look good and you wanted to look cool" This statement undercuts her whole argument. She actually acknowledges the idea that girls have always wanted to impress boys. However she tries to keep her claim by asserting, "you would have been embarrassed to look slutty." Levy nothing has changed. In your day you wore whatever it was that was seen as cool at the time, these girls are doing the exact same thing. What is seen as cool has changed, nothing else, and even that really hasn't changed all that much. We can all look back and watch movies made in the 70's or 80's and girls are still dressing promiscuous. Therefore is raunch culture to blame and is it even a real thing?

The one thing I need to give Levy credit for is her recognition that many times these young girls are not informed about the many different decisions they can make when it comes to sex. Sexual education for the most part if taught at all is just focused on abstinence. She raises the point that the drive to want sex is something biological, and by not providing education we are harming teens. Peggy Cowan, who I believe to be a physician says she is appalled by the way students act. They are only hurting themselves "One out of Four teens has and STD!" This number startles her and scares her. She worries about her teenage children. She believes she is doing them a grand favor by just telling them to say no. Yet, she herself is actually keeping her children at a disadvantage and allowing them to become part of the statistic. "Every single peer-reviewed clinical study on these issues has concluded that the more people are educated, the less they spread and contract STDs." Get over yourselves people!!!! Teens are going to have sex and experiment with their bodies and others to find out what they like and what they don't like. This is natural, this is life.

There are many more issues I have with Levy's chapter, yet I think these touch upon the main problems of her argument. Again, I find Levy to not be convincing, to undercut her own argument by admitting certain things, and by only addressing the problem at a surface level.