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The difference between what Rachel is talking about—in my opinion—and stuff like Girls Gone Wild is that some performances are thought out and some are, well, not. (Especially when you consider the inebriation factor for those less-thought-out times.)

Can a performance really be a subversive way of playing with your sexuality? Sure. But I think it’s a really individual thing and depends on how much you’re buying in to the bullshit notions of what sexy is. Rachel is clearly not buying in.

And again, if you want to show your tits just for the pure fun of it—go for it. But I do think it’s incredibly important that we always be aware of why we want to do certain things.

So What’s a Girl to Do?

It shouldn’t be that hard to develop an authentic sexuality—or even personhood, for that matter. But the prevalence of porn/pop makes it pretty frigging difficult to negotiate how we separate good kinds of performance from bad and how we develop an identity that isn’t mired in all of this ridiculous crap.

Some suggestions that have worked for me:

STOP GETTING SO DRUNK

I’m well aware that going out and partying is fun. Shit, I have a hangover as I’m writing this. But my college years taught me well about drinking and participating in sexual activities (whether it’s actual sex, flashing, make-out sessions, whatever). If you wouldn’t do it sober, don’t do it drunk. ’Cause I guarantee if it’s something that really turns you on, it will be more fun sober. Plus, if you’re sober, you can’t use the liquor as an excuse for your actions—because, again, if it’s fun and something you want to do, you shouldn’t have to make excuses. Ever. (And let’s be honest—binge drinking is très gross.)

ARE YOU HAVING FUN?

Serious fun. Not “this seems like a good idea” fun. And definitely not “well, they’re egging me on” non-fun. So much of our personalities get caught up in trying to adhere to what we’re “supposed” to be like, it’s hard to just, you know, relax. When you’re trying to be sexy, virginal, available but not, appropriately lesbian but still straight, skinny, hot, and so on, all of a sudden life ain’t so fun anymore. It takes a lot of work to remain in pop culture character. So make it easy on yourself—if it’s not fun, fuck it.

DOES IT FEEL GOOD?

Yeah, I’m dirty. But you get what I’m saying. Because I really can’t imagine that whole porn-performance thing is too orgasm friendly—after all, performing does mean faking it.

WHY DO YOU WANT IT?

Obviously, everything we do is affected to a certain degree by social norms and what pop culture demands of us. I think it’s fine to go along with these things to a certain extent, so long as you’re always cognizant of why you’re doing it. For example, I wear makeup. I love it. But I recognize that the reason I love it sooo much is that the larger world tells me I need it to be pretty. Would it be revolutionary of me to throw all of my makeup away? Yup. But I don’t want to. I wear it, but I’m aware of why I do.

But Sometimes You Just Can’t Win

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts to work through all of these expectations for ourselves, we’re always going to be judged. If we adhere to the porn/pop standard, we’re sluts (or dumb), even if we’ve come to a place where we’re comfortable with our actions. I don’t say this to be a downer, I just think it’s important to recognize how the same society that enforces these standards will use them against us whenever it can. And in really dangerous ways.

There was a case in California—and you’ll hear more about this in Chapter 4, “The Blame (and Shame) Game”—where a teen girl’s gang rape was videotaped. The defense team said oh no, she just wanted to make a “porn” video. And that logic flew—because the idea of a girl putting on a “show” is pretty normal. You know, ’cause girls just love to go wild and get raped on video.6

This kind of blaming also comes up a lot with the idea of “girls behaving badly”—as in spring break, going