Sex and Sailor Moon
Before I go into this I would like to acknowledge that I am 100% aware that Sailor Moon and its ilk is rife with ideas and sentiments that can be detrimental to it's young female audience. It's hard to miss really, it screams all it's bullshit right at your face. However, there is one aspect of it that recently came to my attention that I wanted to share:
“J.K. Rowling once made a really interesting point about the Narnia books: 'There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She’s become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.'
[Sailor Moon is] the amaranthine avatar of goodness and love and serenity in the universe-she is every cherished ideal we hold of what it means to be a “magical girl.” She stands for truth and freedom and hope. She wears floaty pastel clothes and enormous pigtails and her weapons are covered in hearts and stylized angel wings. She’s often drawn with angel wings herself! And she has sex. It doesn't make her dirty, or suddenly inappropriate as entertainment for young girls. She doesn't lose her power or her magic.”
Sailor Moon is the embodiment of innocence and purity and this includes being sexual. I prodded some of my non-art school friends to see their reaction to this idea, and none of them could wrap their minds around it. Pure AND sexual? Innocent sexuality? Impossible!
The idea that sex is impure, dirty, or just straight up evil has been with us for so long that a lot of people seem to have lost the ability to separate “sex” from “bad”. At least for women, anyway.
Looking into media tropes for female characters it becomes painfully obvious how synonymous EVIL and SEX are for us ladies. Make up is evil. Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains. (I remember pointing out this trend in 6th or 7th grade. Less clothing = More evil). Blondes are evil. Femme Fatale. The Vamp. Blah blah blah
Or in more colloquial terms, a “Bad Girl” is generally defined as a girl who enjoys various sexual activities and is not ashamed of that. It's right in the name, bad girl. A girl who is bad. Liking sex, and having ovaries, means you are a bad human being. As opposed to the "Good girl” who is obviously chaste and sweet and what-the-fuck-ever. (And a "secret" bad girl now?)
This goes back to the Madonna-whore complex, which, less about psychoanalysis, is pointing to the roots of religion and how it has been used to control womens sexuality for some time now. And why is that? Paternal security. And why that? ANIMALS.
Recently the notion of “The Good girl” has fallen out of fashion - it's stuffy, over religious, conservative. (Some. Examples.) What's in now? Embracing the “Bad Girl” title and just being bad. (But even then, only in certain situations. “I'm bad! I'm wild! But only for you sweetheart.”)
I still have a major problem with this because embracing 'being bad' means you're accepting that being sexual and enjoying it IS STILL BAD. No! You missed the goddamn mark. “ooh, I'm so naughty. So dirty. Take THAT cultural norms!” This isn't doing anyone any favours. I personally don't like referring to any sexual act that I may or may not perform as being inherently 'dirty' or 'naughty'. It's demeaning.
That's why this little write-up about Sailor Moon was so refreshing. Yes, it really is possible to be innocent/pure and sexual.
As a closing thought, it might now be pertinent to explain my understanding of the word“pure”. I personally hate the word as it is typically paired up with the ideas of “perfection”, and a whole big mess of religious garbage. If I could personally re-define the word I would coin it to mean “without corruption”, or “having integrity” in morals, actions, and such. It's still not great, but it's a lot more palpable this way.