

on their own terms, things would fall apart. Entire segments of the corporate porn and entertainment industries would crumble because it would no longer be taboo (and therefore thrilling) to see girls “going wild.” Society would have to rethink its indulgence of ”boys will be boys” behavior, if “girls could be girls,” too. Homophobia would lose some of its grip , because it would no longer be a scary, vulnerable thing to be “like a girl.”

No wonder it’s easier to just tell women to “be careful” and create safe-ride programs. But there are costs to asking women to police our own safety, beyond the basic and profound unfairness of the thing. The first is pleasure. Because I gotta tell you: Indulging your wild side can be pretty fun. That’s why we do it. For the ecstasy of merging our bodies with the sweaty, throbbing crowd on the dance floor. For the thrill of meeting someone’s eye for the first time and indulging our desire to find out right now what their skin feels like.

…

Sure, there are plenty of ways drinking and/or sexing can be bad for you - any pleasure can be manipulated or abused for any number of reasons. But there’s nothing inherently wrong with either, and when you force women to choose safety over pleasure in ways men never have to (and when you shame them for choosing “wrong”), you teach women that their pleasure is not as important as men’s. And that’s a slippery slope we all need to stop sliding down.



-In Defense of Going Wild by Jaclyn Friedman