Welcome to 2018: where slut-shaming is alive and well

THE old-school attitude — that women are frigid, sluts or nice — was captured in 80s classic film Puberty Blues. And 37 years on, the double standard hasn’t changed, writes Jill Poulsen.

WHEN my friend called to say she had an awkward date story she had to share I settled in for what I was sure would be a good laugh.

She’d been seeing this guy for a few weeks and things were going well.

He was funny, conversation flowed easily and they had similar values, it looked “promising”, she said.

Their third date, dinner at the pub, started off well until out of nowhere the 34-year-old man asked: “So how many men have you been with?”

It was delivered with all the casualness as if he had just simply inquired about what her favourite colour was.

The shock was enough to cause the mouthful of calamari she’d just had to become momentarily lodged in her throat.

You could be forgiven for thinking she’d just stumbled on to the set of 80s cult classic Puberty Blues.

Nell Schofield as Debbie and Jad Capelja as Sue in the 1981 film Puberty Blues. (Pic: Supplied)

But no, this was indeed 2018 in a suburban Brisbane pub and there was not a Chiko Roll in sight.

Thankfully the coughing fit provided just enough time to come up with the perfect response: “I’m not sure exactly but I’m glad you’re not among them”.

He apologised for offending her by asking such an intimate question so soon after meeting and tried to get the conversation back on track by telling her an interesting story about his work.

She didn’t have the energy to interrupt and explain that the real offence lay in the fact he believed her answer could have helped him get an idea of what kind of person she is — it was clear their values weren’t that similar after all.

It’s impossible to guess what the magic numbers old mate had worked out in his head were in order to put her in the three usual categories people like this think women fall into: frigid, slut and “nice”.

It’s been 37 years since the film Puberty Blues was released as a movie and co-author of the original book Kathy Lette says plenty has changed since then.

“When I was a surfie chick, all you could do was fetch the Chicko Roll, mind the towel and massage the male egos,” she said in an interview with Channel 10 around the time the movie was turned into a TV series.

“Now it’s the girls out carving up the waves.”

But what hasn’t changed are the double standards when it comes to sex, she said.

“Men who are sexually active are still referred to as ‘stud muffins’, ‘spunk rats’, ‘Romeos’.

“Women who have the same sexual appetites as a man are still ‘sluts’, ‘tarts’, ‘molls’.”

My friend and I ended the conversation with a feeble attempt to write it off as one bad date but you’d be beyond naive to think this backwards world view was from a fringe dweller and not part of a continuing societal problem.

You need only look at the ongoing treatment of our female politicians to get an idea of how deep the problem continues to runs.

Senator David Leyonhjelm’s grubby attempt to take bark off of fellow Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, ironically enough during a debate about the safety of women, and then again on Sky News is a prime example.

Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has spoken out against the slurs directed at her. (Pic: Mick Tsikas/AAP)

The idea that her sex life, real or made up, could be used as an effective and embarrassing slur is tragic.

Why should it matter whether she chooses to have a different sexual partner every night of the week or has no sex life at all? It has absolutely no bearing on her abilities as an elected official.

Unless, say for example, she was abusing tax payer’s money in order to carry out her private life or if she was behaving hypocritically.

Not all of the bipartisan sexism is as overt as that disgusting display, if you type Julie Bishop’s name into Google the first suggestion that pops up is “Julie Bishop partner”.

If you do the same for our deputy PM the first suggestion is “Michael McCormack Twitter”.

Australia’s first female prime minister was subjected to a disgusting level of vitriol over her private life — she wasn’t married, her boyfriend’s job wasn’t manly enough and who could forget the “deliberately barren” gibe from former senator Bill Heffernan in order to claim her choices proved she had “no idea what’s life’s about”.

Whether it’s how many sexual partners a woman’s had, her marital status or whether she has decided to have children or not, all of them are used as a yard stick to decide not only her character but her competence.

Sure, plenty has changed since the ‘80s for women in Australia — the number of females entering politics has increased and surfing is no longer a boy’s domain.

But the message is clear: you can be whatever you want — just don’t enjoy shagging as much as the next man if you want to be taken seriously. .

Jill Poulsen is a Courier-Mail senior writer.

@jill_poulsen