Goth

[Homicidalheathen]

Goth, Wannabe, and Christian Sexuality

by Amy Wilkins on November 19, 2008

Published under:abstinence Christian college dating goths relationships

“Freaks” dressed in all black. “Easy” white girls who date the “wrong” guys. “Good girls” who’d rather pray than date.

Goths, Puerto Rican “wannabes”, and Christians are all seen as “odd”, as “freaks,” or as “posers”. Outsiders think they wear the “wrong” clothes, have the “wrong” emotions, and—perhaps most alarmingly—make the “wrong” sexual choices.

But young people in these groups are not so different from us, anyone who has ever wanted to improve their appearance, have fun, be noticed, or be seen as authentic rather than fake. Like us, these teens are all engaged in efforts to remake their identities in ways that help them feel good about themselves. Although goths, wannabes, and Christians each have a distinct approach to sex and sexuality, sexuality is central to identity-making in each group. In various ways, goth, wannabe, and Christian sexualities challenge expectations for young women (and men, though they aren’t the focus of this piece), but each subculture also valorizes romance in manners that offer both payoffs and costs.

The Groups

At the Sanctuary, a weekly dance night in the Northeast, Goths (who, in this group, are predominantly white, middle-class, and college-aged) get together for a night of dancing, hanging out, and forming “cuddle circles.” Proud of their freaky personas and dark style, they wear fetish wear, leather and PVC, dog collars, and leashes. A man walks through in chaps and a thong. Other men “gender blend” in make-up and skirts, but the women are dressed in sexy, clearly feminine outfits. On the sidelines, pairs and groups of people kiss, caress, suck on each other’s necks.

At the Sanctuary, they tell me, the rules are different: People are free to kiss who they want, even if they are in relationships with other people. And women are the sexual aggressors. Men are “ostracized,” *Hyacinth says, if they hit on women too overtly. Goths value these rules, describing the “meat market” scene of hip-hop clubs as “repulsive.”

“I really, really liked it [about the Sanctuary],” Hyacinth explains, “that nobody tried to grab my butt.”

A few towns south, one of those hip-hop clubs is in full swing. Much more racially diverse, Black and Latino men dominate the edges of the dance floor, while women dance in the center. *Jaclyn, a young white woman, works the place like she owns it. She rarely dances but instead cases the club, looking for a Black or Latino man worth flirting with. Jaclyn, as usual, is dressed to the nines in a tight hip-hop inspired catsuit, her hair dyed black and gelled back in a style worn by local Puerto Rican girls. She is labeled a “Puerto Rican wannabe” by other young people, who call her a “hootchie” and complain that her adoption of a style associated with young Puerto Rican women and her interest in Black and Puerto Rican men means she “doesn’t act like who she really is.” Jaclyn scoffs at this label, arguing that she “dates interracially as a lifestyle” because, raised in a poor family in a middle-class community, she has more in common with Black and Latino men.

Nearby, a university-sponsored group of evangelical Christians get together for a weekly meeting in which they sing, pray, and listen to talks about Christian life. Dressed in conservative college gear, they scorn both the sexy Thursday night partying attire worn by most of their female peers and the drunken hooking up they associate with the party scene. After the meeting, they go to a local diner and hang out.

*Molly, one of the student leaders, tells me that she “used to be, like, boy crazy, which is something I’ve been trying to get under God’s control ’cause I don’t want to be that way.” To that end, she is not only sexually abstinent but also “romantically abstinent”. Like her Christian peers, Molly doesn’t date at all.

The Problem

In the 2008 hit movie Juno, Juno’s father tells his teenage daughter, who has just disclosed that she is pregnant, “I didn’t know you were that kind of girl,” to which Juno replies, “I don’t know what kind of girl I am.” Like Juno, contemporary girls and young women know that “what kind of girl” they are has a lot to do with sex, but the sexual rules are much less clear.

Gone are the days when good girls “don’t” and bad girls “do.” Now good girls might, sometimes, depending on their feelings for the guy and who the guy is. Good girls, according to current cultural norms, should be concerned with how they look and express interest in boys, and they probably shouldn’t be too uptight about sex. And aren’t girls supposed to want to get their needs met, at least a little, too?

These rules, murky as they are, can also backfire. Girls can end up pregnant like Juno (or Bristol Palin), they can inadvertently cross the slippery boundary between “hot” and “slutty,” or they can be victimized and subsequently blamed for it. And though for girls, figuring out how to follow the rules can bring respect, status, and protection from peers and adults, it also means that their own sexual desires and priorities take a backburner to the desires and perspectives of boys and/or adults. How can girls and young women identify and make their own sexual choices while also being the “kinds of girls” they want to be?

The Solutions

Each subculture offers young women a different solution to these dilemmas.

Goth women value sexual agency, pursuing sexual and romantic relations with multiple partners, both men and women, and experimenting with “freaky” sex. They describe their sexuality as empowering, arguing that they are in control of their sexual choices, that they are free from the objectification that occurs in other clubs, and that they are able to be sexually and emotionally authentic without stigma.

When *Siobhan, a Catholic high school graduate, found the Goth scene, she recalls, she felt that “maybe [there was] already a part of me that was Goth—the open sexuality and confidence being sexual openly. . . . It’s very liberating to be around that kind of thing coming from a repressed background sexually.”

Wannabes don’t embrace the sexual openness of the Goths. Instead they go after the “wrong” guys—Black or Latino men, rather than the presumably safe white boys they’re expected to date—and do so in the “wrong” ways: by adopting the dress and grooming styles of local, low-income Puerto Rican girls, as Jaclyn does. That the “wannabe” behavior is perceived as scandalous is evidenced by the label itself and by the alarm and disgust of their white peers, who claim wannabes are “too sexual” and date the wrong guys.

In contrast, the Christian women embrace the “good girl”. They use the sexual double standard to opt out of both sexuality and dating, explaining that they are “saving themselves” for their husbands. On the other hand, for most white college women getting and keeping a man, or at least establishing their heterosexual desirability, are powerful expectations and opting out of heterosexual gaming is odd indeed. In this way, Christian women are too good. By not dating at all, Christian women are able to concentrate instead on academic and leadership skills and on building close friendships with other Christian women. They are also able to sidestep the risks of social rejection and unwanted sexual experiences.

In different ways goth, wannabe, and Christian women challenge the demands of the young adult sexual marketplace. Goth women explode the behavioral constraints of feminine sexuality by claiming desire, experimental sexuality, and the right to have multiple partners. Wannabes reject expectations about what kinds of boys are appropriate for white girls by going after guys of color. And Christian women claim the right to be more interested in God, themselves, and their women friends than in getting men.

These responses are all powerful and distinct assertions of young women’s right to define their own sexual choices: to decide with whom, how, or when they will be sexually engaged. But they are also each imperfect solutions.

The Costs

The Goth, wannabe, and Christian strategies come with similar costs. Despite their challenges to some of the limitations on feminine sexuality, sexual double standards are alive and well. As much as goths and wannabes experiment with being “bad,” they, too, don’t want to irrevocably tarnish their sexual reputations—at the least they want to think of themselves as different from girls who are really, really bad.

Goth women explain that being sexually open does not make them slutty. For example, *Beth explains that being goth means being able “to dress in a way that’s sexy without people assuming that [they’re] there to get laid.” And goths routinely distinguish “true” polyamory (simultaneous involvement in more than one intimate relationship, which many of them practice) from “just sleeping around.” They explain that “in its purest form, it’s not about sex, it’s about love” and that they “don’t want to be associated with people who are irresponsible.”

Wannabes also distance themselves from girls and women they see as really bad. Jaclyn says that she is “not easy” and angrily tells me “there’s a lot of white girls [who] give some white girls a bad name, and it’s true. Because Black men think that white girls are easy.”

As they claim sexual agency in different ways, both groups of young women run head-on into old cultural scripts that devalue women as sluts.

Christian women more obviously rely on sexual double standards. Indeed, they use the trope of the good girl to buy their (short-term) independence. For many of these women, trading sexual freedom for other kinds of autonomy is a grand solution—they don’t want sex anyway, at least right now. But it is a solution with both personal and collective costs, as it not only limits their sexual options if they change their minds but also shores up the idea that women deserve respect and social recognition only if they’re sexually pure.

Despite their different sexual styles, the women I interviewed all valorize romance. Goths and Christians explain that their sexual choices are better paths to romantic intimacy. For goths, polyamory forces them to develop better communication skills, to be more honest, and to trust each other in new ways. All this creates better, more authentic relationships, they say.

Christians use a logic that assumes that wasting romance on a relationship that doesn’t end in marriage means that there will be less romance left over for the marriage itself. For them, delaying dating and sexuality ensures unparalleled intimacy with their (anticipated) future husbands.

A bit differently, wannabes explain that they aren’t just having sex with Black or Latino men because they’re cool, but because they truly, deeply love them—and they work hard to create enduring romantic relationships rather than sexual ones. For them, romantic relationships are the key to securing community membership, while purely sexual relationships mean that they will be dismissed as “easy white girls.”

This emphasis on romance comes with costs.

Despite, or because of, their challenges to sexual rules, none of these groups of women challenge the inequities in cultural scripts of romance. For example, *Zoe, a goth woman, notes that “there seems to be a double standard—girls in heterosexual relationships can date other women but not other men,” while the men are free to date whomever they want. *Lili, who is in one of those relationships, is less inclined to see this as a problem. She explains that she doesn’t see other men, but her boyfriend of seven years, Sean, sees other women because he feels more threatened than she does. Although Lili has more sexual options than most other women, her unequal responsibilities to her relationship mean that she still has fewer sexual options than her male partner.

Moreover, both goths and wannabes maintain their dependence on men for their identities and self-worth. In this way, the Christian strategy is in some ways, and unexpectedly, powerful, as it at least pushes back the pull of romance altogether. But the emphasis on early marriage among evangelical Christians means that this pushback is temporary. By investing in romance, these very different young women limit their attempts to carve out sexual space.

Although our focus is often on girls and young women’s sexuality, the problems they face are not limited to their sexual behavior but are also shaped by the ways in which sexuality intersects with other cultural scripts—scripts that continue to value romantic relationships over sexual ones, treat romance as more important to girls’ identities than to boys’ identities, and keep the burden for making romantic relationships work on girls. We must examine these other constraints if we are to help women increase their chances of creating not only greater independence but also, ironically, greater sexually agency.

*Names changed to protect identities.

http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/article/goths_wannabes_and_christians

[Rev.Reverence]

...long...............interesting read.

[TitsMcGee]

Very interesting indeed. Although I would like to point out a flaw in the christian girls grand plan. To get a husband, one generally has to date.

[taysteewonderbunny]

Goth, Wannabe, and Christian Sexuality

by Amy Wilkins on November 19, 2008

Published under:abstinence Christian college dating goths relationships

“Freaks” dressed in all black. “Easy” white girls who date the “wrong” guys. “Good girls” who’d rather pray than date.

... ...

As they claim sexual agency in different ways, both groups of young women run head-on into old cultural scripts that devalue women as sluts.

... ...

Although our focus is often on girls and young women’s sexuality, the problems they face are not limited to their sexual behavior but are also shaped by the ways in which sexuality intersects with other cultural scripts—scripts that continue to value romantic relationships over sexual ones, treat romance as more important to girls’ identities than to boys’ identities, and keep the burden for making romantic relationships work on girls. We must examine these other constraints if we are to help women increase their chances of creating not only greater independence but also, ironically, greater sexually agency.

*Names changed to protect identities.

http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/article/goths_wannabes_and_christians

Wow. Thank you. Bingo. It's been bothering me for a very long time. I'm tired of this bull. I want sex and I don't want to be hated for it. I'll design my own perameters, thanks. And take love when I'm good and ready for it.

[Homicidalheathen]

I found a lot of truth in this article as well

double standards...stereo types...

unfortunately women are sometimes worse than men when it comes to LABELING as in slut and whatnot

Hell I found through equality now, when it comes to FGM it is often women who perpetrate the problem

I noticed it starts in JR high and really doesn't get better with age. In fact, I think people get more catty.

[taysteewonderbunny]

I found a lot of truth in this article as well

double standards...stereo types...

unfortunately women are sometimes worse than men when it comes to LABELING as in slut and whatnot

Hell I found through equality now, when it comes to FGM it is often women who perpetrate the problem

I noticed it starts in JR high and really doesn't get better with age. In fact, I think people get more catty.

Agreed, much of the pressure DOES come from the same gender. Subtle comments, consistent threats of being ostracized are tactics as prevalent today as ever, present from kindergarten to the grave. In junior high, yes, but I've felt the effects of those pressures (not necessarily directed towards one's sexual behaviors) since kindergarten, as I've said. I don't know if they get more catty steadily or if there are peaks that correlate with typical life-stages, but I think deviation from the expected norms, especially in the case that a woman exhibits an inclination to a greater amount of sexual activity than what is practiced by her peers, elicits the most negative responses no matter her age.

[TheOsakaKoneko]

Was this article written by someone on dgn? Just curious.

[Destroit]

Was this article written by someone on dgn? Just curious.

Doubtful, I think it's from an out of state .edu (i.e. College) webpage.

It was an interesting read, but I was a little pissed that whomever the author is automatically claims that goth people are all polyamorous and that goth women sleep with both men and women, because it "empowers" our sexuality . Stereotypical and HIGHLY inaccurate, makes us look bad, imo.

[TheOsakaKoneko]

Doubtful, I think it's from an out of state .edu (i.e. College) webpage.

It was an interesting read, but I was a little pissed that whomever the author is automatically claims that goth people are all polyamorous and that goth women sleep with both men and women, because it "empowers" our sexuality . Stereotypical and HIGHLY inaccurate, makes us look bad, imo.

I was only curious because I wanted to make sure I didn't step on any toes when I said that DAMN that is such an undergraduate's unresearched and badly written term paper. I wanted to claw my eyes out.

[TitsMcGee]

I was only curious because I wanted to make sure I didn't step on any toes when I said that DAMN that is such an undergraduate's unresearched and badly written term paper. I wanted to claw my eyes out.

lmao