I came across a really interesting passage in Chapter 32. Jo and Laurie are talking about flirting. Jo has just told Laurie off for sending flowers to a girl he’s not interested in. Laurie says that, although he flirts, he doesn’t really like the girls who do. He tells Jo that “if they knew how we fellows talked about them afterward, they’d mend their ways, I fancy.”
Jo: “…Knowing you like their nonsense, they keep it up, and then you blame them.”
Laurie: “Much you know about it, ma’am…We don’t like romps and flirts, though we may act as if we did sometimes. The pretty, modest girls are never talked about, except respectfully, among gentlemen…when I see one of those harem-scarem girls, I always want to say…’Out upon you, fie upon you, Bold-faced jig!’” (314).
This passage interested me because it says so much about the virgin whore dichotomy and issues of consent. In Laurie’s world, there are two kinds of girls: the “pretty, modest,” virgins men respect and the flirty whores men only pretend to like. Women are often portrayed as either virgins or whores. Both personas insist that women’s value lies entirely in sex. As bell hooks points out in her essay “Selling Hot Pussy,” “beauty and sexuality [are] desirable only to the extent that [they] are idealized and unattainable” (114). The virgin is the ultimate sex object because she is pure and untouched. No one knows what having sex with her is like because no one has done it. As long as she holds herself aloof, acts “proper,” she is unattainable, potentially perfect. Winning the virgin is a triumph, a status symbol. hooks argues that the whore’s sexuality is “synonymous with accessibility, availability,” deviant and titillating, but not nearly as valuable as the virgin’s because access is not limited (114). When Laurie says that flirts are fun in the moment, but his ultimate reaction is “out upon you, fie upon you,” he articulates this perfectly. Flirts are disposable; good girls have real value.
Jo’s observation that “knowing you like their nonsense, they keep it up, and then you blame them” is extremely astute. It speaks to the stupidity of the idea that men cannot control their sexual urges, so women must be responsible for controlling and policing sexuality: it is their job both to draw men in and to hold them off. Laurie’s girls flirt because they know men like it. If they want to find husbands, they need to respond to male desire. They walk a thin line, however, because if they flirt too much and seem too accessible, they face condemnation because they have crossed the line from virgin to whore. Not only have they acted too sexy, they have failed to protect themselves from supposedly uncontrollable male lust. Because men can’t control themselves beyond a certain point, women are solely responsible for the repercussions. Jo’s comment points out how stupid this idea is.
The most interesting thing about this conversation to me is that it reflects the idea that once a woman consents to one way of being sexual (even flirting or dressing in a revealing way) she has consented to all of them. A girl who flirts too much or wears make-up and a dress that shows off her shoulders (like Meg does, earlier in the book) is a whore. That’s strong language, but I think it’s accurate. Look at the vehemence of Laurie’s reaction to flirts: “Out upon you, fie upon you!” He’s casting them out, expressing disgust (even in a joking context, the word “fie” expresses “mild disgust”). And all they do is flirt a little! A girl who embraces her sexuality and uses it, even in a context that we would consider pretty standard today—flirting, dressing up—is subject to disapproval. She is immediately equated with a whore.
This line of reasoning may sound hyperbolic, but it’s not so far fetched: we hear it all the time at rape trials: “You say your boyfriend raped you? But hadn’t you two had sex before?” “Wait, you were wearing a short skirt?” “You’d had sex with other people though!” The idea that a person who has consented to sex in the past was not raped, or that a person who dresses or acts in a way that suggesting that at some future point they will consent to sex with someone, cannot be raped or should be blamed for a rape, comes up in so many trials it’s almost funny. And this line of reasoning is often successful in getting the accused rapist off the hook. Just look at the recent rape case in Cleveland, Texas. An eleven year old girl was gang raped on film, and many people are saying that it’s her fault, because she went places alone and wore clothes that were too old for her. At the very least they’re blaming her parents for not monitoring her. Few people are actually blaming the attackers or asking where their parents were.
It could be argued that all of this stems from the virgin/whore dichotomy. There are good girls and bad girls. Good girls police male desire and keep it at bay. Bad girls court it and get what they deserve. This line of reasoning is everywhere, even in contexts as sweet and well intentioned as Little Women. I think Jo needs to raise Laurie’s consciousness….
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