 "Photo: Courtesy Photo")
Within the past three years, three successful American female celebrities have written bestselling novels and had America's jaws dropping: Porn star Jenna Jameson, actress Pamela Anderson and heiress Paris Hilton.
Though many hail these women's accomplishments, author Ariel Levy believes they, along with their fans, are the reason women in today's culture are hopelessly oversexed and sadly underpowered.
"Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture" is Levy's first novel and her attempt at exploring why today's women are "eagerly defend(ing) their efforts to be 'one of the guys.'"
I was initially attracted to this book because it challenged my opinions about sexuality. Levy is a contributing editor at New York Magazine, and I hoped that perhaps the statements in her book would change my open perspective regarding sexuality.
The only thing Levy made me aware of is there is nothing worse than a woman who criticizes women for finally enjoying their sexuality. Levy explains that feminist crusaders such as Edith Wharton and Susan Sontag (both writers) inspired her views.
Nonetheless, Levy resembles the likes of documentary muckraker Michael Moore more than a powerful feminist social critic. "Female Chauvinist Pigs" is an irritating barrage of stereotypes, generalizations and baseless criticism.
According to Levy, our society is full of women who are so sexually perverted, they belong in Sodom and Gomorrah. Come on, are all women obsessed with Jenna Jameson? I doubt it.
She insists "Girls Gone Wild" videos have reached near-epidemic proportions, and women enjoy sexual exploitation because deep down we want to be like men.
Meanwhile, Levy presents few statistics regarding just how many women actually fit the label she calls the "female chauvinist pig."
Levy indirectly pats conservatives' back by saying, "Despite the rising power of evangelical Christianity and the political right in the United States, this trend has only grown more extreme and more pervasive."
Has she forgotten that only 80 years ago women couldn't even say the word "sex" without being ridiculed? Perhaps she was too focused on her generalizations to mention that the last time this country endeavored to be "clean" (the 1980s), the AIDS epidemic spread across America.
She doesn't even begin to mention any of the positive aspects of today's sexual liberation, one being women's ability to control her own sexuality. Levy instead focuses on condemning bikini waxes, lipstick lesbians and men's magazines.
Nonetheless, Levy does make a few good points about what's missing in our culture. She states that our idea of sex is unrealistically porn-happy, and people are focusing less on the love portion of sex. It's a double-standard that while talented female athletes are gracing the covers of men's magazines, there aren't any male Olympians showing off their unmentionables for "Playgirl" magazine. But is this trend nearly as horrendous as she makes it sound?
A glimmer of truth does surface when she mentions President Bush's (an Evangelical Christian, by the way) arrest of sex education in schools; unfortunately, this opinion doesn't surface until the end of the book.
Levy assumes most pre-pubescent girls are getting their education from Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" and women are silly for unabashedly enjoying female nudity. But she wants to have her cake and eat it too. She professes masturbation is healthy, yet scorns "Sex and the City's" influence on our culture.
Admittedly, this country does have an alarming teen pregnancy and high STD rate but that will only be alleviated when sexual ignorance is. Though she does address the most obvious problems this country faces, Levy offers no solutions and points the finger in so many directions that it left me feeling a bit queasy.
-Christy Castellanos is a performance emphasis theatre arts major and senior staff writer for The Daily Aztec.
-This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.
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