I Like It on the Dining Room Table

But then, favoring diversity, I also like it on the kitchen counter, leaning against the quilt stand, or even on my desk at work.

Say what?

Well, if you are a Facebook user then you’re probably familiar with this particular breast cancer awareness campaign. An e-mail (I’m not sure where it started, though some outlets are reporting it was a grassroots effort) circulated a few weeks ago suggesting women post messages on Facebook saying where they like to put their purses when they get home.

Last year’s Facebook awareness campaign asked women to post the color of their favorite bra. These campaigns use sexually suggestive one-liners to capture attention (especially of men) to start a conversation that ultimately leads them to learn more about breast cancer.

Does it work?

Well, the campaigns did go viral, as many news outlets reported. This coverage, in turn, provided more publicity for breast cancer prevention and treatment. While people debate whether this technique is a wise one to use in raising awareness, I have to laugh. How long has the advertising community used the old adage “sex sells” to promote products? This little bitty sentence with its hint of naughtiness has circled the globe, and more people are talking about breast cancer than they were the day before.

But is it the right thing to use a potentially naughty thought trigger to grab attention for an important issue such as breast cancer?

Promotions like this can do some good. From personal experience — my own gentleman friend told me the campaign was the buzz of his office and that most male colleagues knew it was related to breast cancer after hearing about it from their partners or co-workers. That was right before he paused and asked if I had scheduled my regular mammogram. He knows my sister’s story and never wanted to ask about what he considered a sensitive subject. Score!

Now don’t get me wrong!

I don’t condone using sex as a sales tool. Sexual marketing portrays women as objects. And how many women have developed low self-esteem because of the constant expectation to look like models on TV or in magazines — many to the point of making themselves ill or even committing suicide? See some stats about these effects at Melissa Wardy’s blog: 54 percent of women would rather be hit by a truck than be fat, and 67 percent of women would rather be mean or stupid than be fat.

What can we do to publicize breast cancer issues without falling into this trap?

For now, spread the awareness in any manner you feel comfortable. After all, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Learn as much as you can for your own health as well as others’. Did you know that men can suffer from breast cancer too?

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Sex Columns Need Value, Not Dirt

The first edition of George Washington University’s student newspaper this year brought two surprises for me, a new graduate student.

One, the newspaper featured a column called “Let’s Talk about Sex.” (All right!) Two, the first sex column was a dirty, clichéd, likely made-up story about sex and the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. (Excuse me?)

Is that what the GW Hatchet intends for “Let’s Talk about Sex?” If so, let’s not.

The author — writing under the pseudonym King Salmon — starts out by saying he wants to disprove the thought that men only think about sex, but he concludes with the statement that men only think about sex unless it’s Shark Week. In between, he writes about a booty call, a tongue ring, and a mid-sex rejection of a woman in favor of watching Shark Week programming.

Maybe the Hatchet didn’t give King Salmon the column to challenge stereotypes or gender roles or to talk about STDs or sexual harassment. Recounting real sexual experiences can be enlightening. But this writer’s dramatized, fictionalized story says nothing constructive about sex or about people. If King Salmon doesn’t have anything real to say about sex, why give him a column?

I’m not arguing for censorship here but rather for a proper place for King Salmon’s dirty stories. He is free to publish a blog or a Facebook note for the viewing (dis)pleasure of his friends, but his column doesn’t have any value and therefore doesn’t belong in the student newspaper. A column, regardless of the topic, should at least add to the discourse.

I also take issue with allowing the writer use a pseudonym. To my knowledge, the sex columnist is the only one allowed to write anonymously at the Hatchet. What kind of message does that send regarding conversations about sex? Allowing a pseudonym for a sex columnist only adds credence to the argument that we’re not supposed to talk about sex.

Being open and genuine about sex and writing under your own name in a public forum such as the campus newspaper may sound scary until you consider that everyone who writes a political column or about issues like racism, sexism, or classism also opens herself or himself up to critique without the cloak of anonymity. Sex is personal — but so is talking about who you are and what you believe in.

I get (or at least I think I get) that the column was supposed to be funny. Feminist graduate students laugh about sex, too. Sometimes we even laugh as we’re writing a letter in response to a column that shouldn’t be in our campus newspaper.

But we didn’t laugh during King Salmon’s column. And, as a woman in my program said, he ruined Shark Week for us.

This blog post was written by AAUW Communications Fellow Elizabeth Owens, a master’s student in women’s studies and public policy at George Washington University.

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