Our gal Courtney went mano a mano with serious wingnut Laura Ingraham on the O'Reilly Factor. Click here to watch Courtney drop knowledge. (Isn't she brave?)
I'm especially glad she got to make this point on Fox News:
Courtney: I believe we live in a culture where the pop messages are sex, sex, sex everywhere. They tell girls, your body is your power. Then, we have the federally funded abstinence in sex education that tells girls, your bodies are dangerous. Do not ask questions. After interviewing over 100 women, I believe we are struggling to decipher those messages. In the real world, how do we create state boundaries for ourselves? How do we have good relationships with our bodies when we are caught between extreme arguments?Laura: You said, having relationships with our bodies. You said, there are people up there who tell young girls that their bodies are dangerous. I talked a lot of families, too. I never hear a mother tell her daughter that her body is dangerous. I do hear mothers tell their daughters, you'll be better off, less likely to commit suicide, less likely to take part in drug use, if you abstain from sex during your high school years. Do you disagree that that is a good thing for girls?
Courtney: I believe our education system is sending a message that girls should cut themselves off from their authentic identities.
Laura: What does that mean? If you are 12 years old, you do not know what color of shirt to put on.
Courtney: That's not true.
Doesn't she rock? (Courtney, that is...)
Rest of the transcript (which contains some typos -- be warned) is below the fold.
TRANSCRIPT:
Laura: A theory that puts young girls right in the middle of the culture war. Here is the argument: getting girls to abstain from sex may actually cause them to develop eating disorders. I am not making this up. Research shows more than 90% of people suffering from eating disorders are women between the ages of 12 and 25. Courtney Martin is the author of a book that says sending mixed messages about sex might be what is leading to the eating disorder epidemic. She joins us from our New York studios to explain this.
Good to see you again. You were on my radio show last week. The e-mail response to that segment was overwhelming. I was shocked to learn that you actually believe that telling girls to abstain from sex, especially in their high school years, is somehow putting a damper on their development and their creativity. This then leads to eating disorders. Can you explain further?
Courtney: Sure. I believe we live in a culture where the pop messages are sex, sex, sex everywhere. They tell girls, your body is your power. Then, we have the federal- funded abstinence in sex education that tells girls, your bodies are dangerous. Do not ask questions. After interviewing over 100 women, I believe we are struggling to decipher those messages. In the real world, how do we create state boundaries for ourselves? How do we have good relationships with our bodies when we are caught between extreme arguments?
Laura: You said, having relationships with our bodies. You said, there are people up there who tell young girls that their bodies are dangerous. I talked a lot of families, too. I never hear a mother tell her daughter that her body is dangerous. I do hear mothers tell their daughters, you'll be better off, less likely to commit suicide, less likely to take part in drug use, if you abstain from sex during your high school years. Do you disagree that that is a good thing for girls?
Courtney: I believe our education system is sending a message that girls should cut themselves off from their authentic identities.
Laura: What does that mean? If you are 12 years old, you do not know what color of shirt to put on.
Courtney: That's not true.
Laura: You are telling young girls today, in this book, if it feels good, do it, explore your sexuality at age 12.
Courtney: No, i am saying that you need to articulate state boundaries.
Laura: That is mumbo jumbo. Young girls need to keep understanding that you will be a sexual commodity if you come on to young boys. Good luck to that young girl when she is 35. Do you think that is a good thing?
Courtney: There is a government study this week that said that half of the teenagers that get abstinence-only sex education have sex within one year. It causes more sex. Is that which you want?
Laura: What i want is for young women to feel that they're so special and important, they are a creature made by god. They do not have to be a commodity for boys. They are beautiful for who they are on the inside, not the outside. If your theory holds true, devout Muslims should have granted problems with eating disorders. Did you find that in your research?
Courtney: You are simplifying the issue. That is absolutely not the issue.
Laura: What about a devout Mormons or Catholics --
Courtney: They have to know what their options are.
Laura: Her options with a boy how old?
Courtney: It is an irrelevant question.
Laura: You put it out there. I am trying to figure of what you' re talking about. You talk about this terrible problem, millions of women suffering from eating disorders. The messages that are put out there now, have sex, do what you want, that is the problem.
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What I hate about 'debates' like this is that the parties are encouraged to talk past each other and no real dialogue ever starts up. Courtney makes good points and Laura refuses to engage with them. It's too frustrating to watch, really.
Props to Courtney for staying articulate and on target through that. I don't think I could make half as good points with someone babbling "creatures of God" "Muslims don't get eating disorders" and whatever at me.
Laura wasn't listening at all; she was just babbling incoherent statements. Props to Courtney for keepin' it real.
Ugh......Courtney is awesome. Laura makes me want to punch something.
This made me so angry that I had to stop watching.
Courtney Rules Laura Drools. (that is about as mature as I can be right now I am THAT MAD!!!!!!)
And unfortunately, that's how you "win" debates like this. And unfortunately in this case, I'd say Laura "won."
The standard of the game is to articulate your position and rally your base on national TV. That's why participating in these debates with nut jobs who won't listen is a complete waste of time.
The problem with anti-sex religious extremists like Ingraham is precisely that there's no dialogging with them. They're not interested in facts. They're the confirmation bias personified.
The only thing we can do is try to reassert our values and win the culture war.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that there's a transcript of The O'Reilly Factor out there. A transcript that's not close to being verbatim, but a transcript nonetheless.
I think Ingraham gives way too little credit to girls. I had my first period when I was 12. I knew how to put the pads on. I knew how to track my cycle. I knew what was happening in my body. And I knew how to dress myself. I think the only way that Ingraham's point could stay afloat is if she makes preteen and teenage girls out to be stupid people who don't know anything about themselves.
The point that always gets lost is, 12 year-olds have the capability to make girls pregnant and get pregnant, so learning how to protect yourself early and often is the only way to protect everyone from unwanted pregnancy and STDs. The existence of birth control doesn't make people want to have sex any more or at a younger age than if birth control wasn't there. Humans don't learn about sex -- sex comes naturally to us. People need to be taught how to protect themselves the moment they're old enough physically to have sexual drives that actually involve other people. Calling your body a temple but not knowing how to take care of it and protect it from disease isn't at all empowering.
And one more thing, what abstinence-only education really tells people is that they don't want to have sex. That confuses kids on a biological level. It's basically telling teens to ignore the physical signs of sexual arousal like they're not there or that they don't mean anything or that they're bad. I think that's the point Courtney was trying to get across, that girls in particular are taught that their bodies aren't something to be explored, that they're something to be feared and ignored and considered dirty. Girls knowing how reproduction actually works and how to avoid reproducing when you don't want to reproduce does not encourage anyone to have indiscriminate, irresponsible sex.
I have to agree with Teresa. No matter how articulate and well stated/backed up Courtney's positions are, the Fox audience isn't going to give a damn. Laura talked over her, inserted her incoherent points, and all in all, ended the interview as if she had "nailed" Courtney, to use the Colbert. It doesn't matter that her counterpoints are irrelevant and made no sense, the audience at home is going to say, "Laura showed that crazy feminist who wants our 12 years olds to have rampant sex."
I've never seen a more clear illustration of someone not understanding the difference between correlation and causation than Ms. Ingraham demonstrated right there. I'm waiting for her to pop out that since so many high school girls have eating disorders, sex, and commit suicide, the answer is to stop sending girls to high school.
Bravo, Courtney! I'm always amazed when the Feministing women appear on TV to go head to head with these nutters and stay on topic, calm, and clear. I don't know if I could do it! So I bow down to y'all.
This Laura woman just comes off like a ranting, raving, hyperventilating lunatic completely divorced from reality, logic, and evidence. So I'm unsure how she could have "won" in some people's eyes.
I applaud Courtney for taking a stand against Laura, even though on Fox the "base" is going to think she "lost" the debate.
Perhaps in the future someone can ask why we aren't peddling this "sex ruins you" to young boys? No one says any boy who has sex at a young age is "damaged" goods when he's 35. And why abstinence only education is primarily aimed at young women and girls and teaches them that their sexuality is a bargaining chip, the same as what pop culture is teaching them, except with abstinence your body had damn well be in pristine condition.
StringBean: She comes off as a rampant lunatic to us. If you come into the discussion agreeing with abstinence only sex-ed, no matter what others say, you will come away thinking she won. And, the Fox demographic loves crazy, rambling, lunatic pundits, but they don't seem to see them as crazy, rambling lunatics.
UltraMagnus: I was taught sex ed as abstinence only in middle school. They had a girl from the class go up to the front and hold a construction paper heart. Then they had four guys come up and rip pieces off of the heart, until all the was left was a sliver. The message was general, "when you sleep with someone you leave a piece of your heart with them," but the "example" was a girl sleeping with guys. Thinking about the sex ed and drug education I received in middle school pisses me off so much.
FemiDancer, me too. I remember one exercise where the sex-'ed' teacher brought in a cookie and got all of us to pass it around. At the end, she asked, "Who wants to eat the cookie now? If you sleep around, you'll no longer be appetizing." Fuckers, all of them.
All you have to do is put yourself in the shoes of your average Fox fan and voila!
But I still think you did an excellent job, Courtney!
"And that's why you should always wear gloves for handling food."
(But seriously, if I found out my kid had been in a sex ed class like that, I would kick up the biggest fuss since the Wars of the Roses and if I couldn't get an apology and a retraction I'd be seeing about getting her taken out of school.)
of course laura isn't going to engage anyone who disagrees with her. that's not the point--this is fox news, not a neutral platform for real debate.
courtney did an admirable job of articulating her sensible points on the show and calmly called ingraham out when her questions were irrelevant and stupid and that's really all she can do. nice job, courtney!
All we got in high school by way of abstinence only education were "speakers" who would come and tell us to wait for marriage and there was one time this woman handed out cards that said, "My body is a temple, not a trash can" that you were supposed to hand out to whomever approached you for sex (what was odd was we only got one card each, so I guess after handing the card to said subject we were supposed to politely ask for it back).
I hated that crap. Sex is not dirty and marriage doesn't magically make it "clean" it's still the same damn act. And yes, they always go after the women who give away their "heart" because no woman can ever separate sex from love and no man will ever become emotionally attached to a woman he has sex with. That's how oxytocin works people! /snark
Congrats to Courtney for appearing on the show. But I do feel like you put yourself at a disadvantage by using too many "jargony" terms. I know that terms like "set boundaries" (which for some reason was rendered in the transcript as 'state boundaries', confusing the heck out of me) and "authentic selves" have specific meanings, but most of the people listening to the show will have no idea what you're talking about. Or the fact that the terms aren't familiar to a lot of people makes it easier for Laura to caricature you "that's mumbojumbo"--because to a lot of listeners it is.
And these are really universal feelings/ideas that lots of people, including people who wouldn't normally agree with you, can relate to if they're expressed in terms that make sense in their lives. Look at the way Laura talks--she's crazy, but she's using very simple words and common idioms. You spent time talking to 12 year old girls from conservative backgrounds--how would you introduce your ideas to them?
Good work Courtney! Admirable, certainly, and you have more guts than I.
This whole conversation is is really making me think about the different ways people are introduced to sex and are taught about it. I think I was really lucky -- even though I grew up in a super conservative area where all school-taught sex-ed was abstinence-only, my folks were really clever about supplementing that. They were married really young, but didn't have kids for 8 years, so they were able to keep the context of waiting for a serious relationship, but were also able to give me excellent information about the pill, condoms, spermicide, and what types of services and sources of birth control were available to young people who didn't want (or couldn't afford) to go to the regular doctor.
Fuck I hate Laura Ingraham. As a media major its disapointing to see American media on such a immature propagandist level. The only way she got to be an anchor on the "O'Reilly Factor" was probably by having phone sex with O'Reilly. I hate these right wing lap dog women. The only way they get any representation is by being a boy in the boys club. I hope this generation can change things with our media.
pearls before swine...
Laura's problem is that she completely ignores the reality that girls have sexual desires. Any sexual activity for her is "commodification for boys," because why else would a girl have sex?
Both messages that Courtney critiques center around what boys want. Pop culture says "be sexy! or boys won't want you!" Ingraham et al. say "be chaste! or boys won't respect you!" How about making decisions *not* according to what boys want, but according to what *you* want?
@AnnaSoror
And Laura completely ignores the fact that kids are already exposed to sexual inuendo long before they hit high school.
Pop messages totally conflit with both educational and parental messages. Hell, most parental house holds do NOT talk to their kids about sex period; they just make them feel like it's something that is "wrong and unmoral"
When I look back at the sex education I was taught in school, even my teacher lied to us. She did scare tactics instead of just objectively informing us of our bodies.
I think parents need to take a stand on this one. We can't leave it up to the educational system or the media. That's our job as parents.
And sadly, some of us aren't doing it.
*coughslikemyparentscough*
Since everyone else is sharing their experiences: my sex ed lessons at primary school were as awful as anyone's. In high school, however, we had the great good fortune to be taught by possibly the most awesome biology teacher ever:
http://marnanel.org/writing/pamela-taylor-my-erstwhile-biology-teacher
http://marnanel.org/writing/another-memory-of-miss-taylor
I love how LI (purposefully?) starts out by completely mis-stating the argument liberals make:
Here is the argument: getting girls to abstain from sex may actually cause them to develop eating disorders.
She makes it sound like gangs of liberal lesbians, and skeevy straight guys pretending to be liberals to get laid, are lurking around high school campuses (campi?) saying "if you sleep with me, you're less likely to develop an eating disorder" (and yep ... some conservatives believe this is what liberals are after ... ever hear them talk about "the gay agenda"?) ... when the point is the mixed messages we send to girls (as even LI admits at the end of her intro ... but by then the framing is established, so admitting the actual thesis is just so much lede burying dishonesty).
Indeed, if LI is sincere when she says this:
What i want is for young women to feel that they're so special and important, they are a creature made by god. They do not have to be a commodity for boys.
she would be lining up with all of us in the anti-abstitence only crowd. It's the abstinence only types who are always framing sex as something women give to men and woman's bodies as objects that should be kept pure until marriage.
Courtney: abstinence-only doesn't work and may even be counter-productive.
Laura: b..b..but GOD!
Yeah, I'm loving those examples of abstinence only sex "education". Somehow, equating my vagina with a cookie or a piece of paper to be used up by others commodifies my body more than the healthy relationships I had in high school.
How is it not damaging to tell girls that they must protect, in pristine condition, the "product" that is their body, otherwise OMG, MEN WON'T WANT THEM!
"If you are 12 years old, you do not know what color of shirt to put on."
What the absolute hell? As the child of a parent who taught middle school for 3 years (before she got fed up with it and switched to high schoolers), I can say with 100% certainty that 12 year olds DO know what color shirt to put on.
Assuming what this woman says is true (which it clearly isn't), why does she make the assumption that only young women regret losing their virginities before they're married? Does she honestly think there's not a young man in this world who had his heart in a relationship with a woman he thought he would marry only to lose his virginity to her and have his heart broken when the relationship didn't work out? Does she honest-to-god think men are totally immune from broken hearts?
Not only does she paint the picture that young women need to be protected from sex, but she also paints the picture that young men are selfish horndogs who only want to fuck a woman and then dump her. Women enjoy sex too, dammit! And jeez, I want to give young men more credit than that. Implying that men and boys do not invest themselves emotionally in relationships denies their humanity, and implying that women are too weak to protect themselves from themselves is patronizing and insulting.
And for the record, I think that 12 year-olds having sex is disturbing, but what would disturb me more than a sexually active 12 year-old is a 12 year old who is either pregnant or has an STD because crazy Christian dominionists like Laura Whateverthefuck her name is think that sex education and contraceptions should be withheld from them.
Great job Courtney! You did your best, but unfortunately women like her are stuck in their deluded little 17th century bubbles.
Good for Courtney. Speaking truth and holding it together while Laura I. spits a FOX-brand nonsensical tirade at you, and the cameras are rolling, is no easy feat. You really held it down, my friend. Props to you.
Akeeyu: The same sex ed course that had the construction paper heart, also told us that men wanted to marry virgins/men were looking for good girls to get married. That was also my mother's line when I went to college. "Men want a party girl now, but when it comes time to get married, they're going to want a girl they know hasn't been around." It's all the same message of don't sully yourself so that you can get a mate later. I expected it from my mom (very anti-sex Christian), but I can't believe I was told, "a guy won't want to marry you if you aren't a virgin" in a public high school.
I have to agree with theresavaldez that Laura "won" the debate. I find it disturbing at the thought of 12 year olds being sexual (I KNOW that some are..) Courtney unfortunately to me came across as one of those who would encourage 12 yr old girls to 'ifitfeelsgooddo it'. I wished that she would have expressed some reservations about very young children being told that it is okay to be as sexual as possible. On the other hand some of the above commeters stories about sex ed classes are disturbing. Sigh...I just wish that we had a happy medium. Where kids are given all the information that they need without it seeming like and endorsement of early sexual behaviour..
If I ever become the slightly famous forensic psychologist I'd like to be, I will never go on Fox News. For exactly the same reason I don't want to work for the government. Nobody would listen to me.
Thanks for all the support and feedback crew! With regards to language, I would actually love readers help on rephrasing to avoid sounding elitist (although I do have to say that Laura, directly after making fun of me, used the word "coddified"). What would you say instead of "authentic sexuality"?
Courtney -- Were you promoting a book with this topic as the subject, or where invited on because someone heard your theory and didn't like its implications? If it's a book, what is it called? I feel like Laura kind of skewed the point, but I think it's a really interesting hypothesis and would love to read more about what you have to say (minus stupid questions and statements by the god-luvvin folk at fox).
Courtney... I think you did really well considering you were set up to fail in that situation. You stayed on point and called her on lies as they flew out of her mouth. You could only do better if it was a forum in which anyone was interested in your ideas. You didn't have that here.
Instead of 'articulate state boundaries' I guess what I would like you to have been able to shout before being cut off would be something more detailed, like, "I want girls to be empowered by knowledge of their bodies and themselves. I want them to learn what they do and don't want, independent of unrealistic horror stories, and I want them to be able to state what they do and don't want without shame. If girls own their bodies and know themselves they won't be open to the kind of exploitation you seem to be describing. Ignorance and failed abstinence programs will only serve to keep girls powerless and will victimize them in the long run."
Of course, you would be shouted down after the first sentence with some gobbledy-gook about God and all those used up whores who had sex as teens. And your points would be lost anyway.
FemiDancer, your horror story about abstinence-only sex ed makes me want to share another.
My younger sister came home from school and said "You will never believe what they told us in health class today. My teacher held up a condom and said that sex before marriage is sinful and we'll burn in hell. Then she went on a rant about how condoms are evil." She laughed, but I was horrified. I told her that I hoped she didn't actually believe such crap, and took a few minutes to try and give her some real facts. I told her if she wanted to know more, I would go to the library and get some materials for her.
I did my best. And I wish I could say the same of that moronic teacher, but...I can't.
Widen the lens....this isn't about 'abstinence only' sex ed...this is about a 'dominator value system' that over-rides every system on the planet. Men over women, white over black, rich over poor....Laura, unknowingly, is supporting this dominator system--and since this system 'rewards' women who 'know their place', Laura sees no reason to listen to Courtney--cuz she's already convinced she's on top.
Riane Eisler, in The Chalice and the Blade and now, her new book, Real Wealth of Nations--exposes this dominator value system and shows how all of us play a part in it. The fact that in 2007 we're still teaching about sex as if it is a power struggle is just one simple example of this.
However, there are solutions once you see how it impacts every system. We once lived on this planet under a more egalitarian system--and women leading today, can create it again.
But let's not waste our time arguing with the dominator system--As Buckminster Fuller once said, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."