This is a good article from the UK's Daily Mail about the hyper-sexualization of British youth specifically, and Western youth in general. The author, Olivia Lichtenstein (see right, with daughter), makes some very good observations about the various causes of the complete lack of self-respect and inhibition displayed especially by young women. But I think that she, like so many others who have finally seen or heard something that has shocked their "open-minded" sensibilities, is unable or unwilling to go far enough in here criticism.Some of her good points are the following: social networking, obsession with celebrities, and "reality" T.V. have all degraded our culture's sense of the private and the personal. Thus, whereas bad behavior amongst youth is no new thing, its widespread dissemination and online permanence is. The conflation of the private realm with the public is dangerous for a whole host of reasons, and Lichtestein rightly highlights it as a problem. Unfortunately, she seems more concerned with the openness of the new slut chic, than the actual activities which define it. Throughout the article she describes all sorts of lewd and lurid behavior, but her real concern is with the fact that it happens in the open, or is videotaped with the knowledge of the participants, or is being shared with the world via youtube. When it comes to the activities themselves, she begins to show the same cognitive dissonance that has led to the very situation she now laments.
Lichentstein says, in discussing a book called Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy, "feminist terms such as liberation and empowerment, that used to describe women's fight for equality, have been perverted. Now the freedom to be sexually provocative or promiscuous is not enough - now it can mean the freedom to be an exhibitionist". I submit that there is almost no difference between being sexually provocative/promiscuous and being an exhibitionist. If there is any difference it is certainly only in degree and not in kind. Lichtenstein asks several times whether young girls today know anything about feminism. They probably couldn't tell you anything explicit, but they clearly have internalized the sexual logic of radical feminism, which I think is what Lichtenstein refers to when she talks about the values (hehehe) of the 60s and 70s.
The sexual narrative goes something like this: Since time immemorial, women have had to put up with the infamous double standard, which says roughly that promiscuous men are studs, or at least normal, while promiscuous women are sluts. Besides being morally incongruous, the double standard had the more subtle effect of strengthening the patriarchal stranglehold over womankind by putting strict limits on feminine sexuality while allowing and even encouraging male adventurism. This meant that the only acceptable roles for women were a virginal childhood, sexually repressive life as a nun, or the faithful and powerless wife/mother. In pre-Christian times there was also the possibility of being a temple prostitute, which was kind of like being a nun and a sex slave all at once. The feminist response to all of this was to demand that women be held to the same (low) standards as men in their sexual activity, thus resulting in sexual liberation/empowerment, which would have advantageous repercussions in every area of male and female interaction.
This is a very quick summary, and no doubt many people would argue with some of the characterizations, but my intent is not to defend the entire synopsis, but only analyze the rationality of the feminist response. If there are two groups of people, and one group is allowed to do something wrong, while the other group is not, how does allowing the the prohibited group to also engage in the wrong behavior make the situation better? It seems to me that it doesn't. The equality that is being aimed at here is of the most superficial sort. It also displays an understanding of freedom as license, as opposed to freedom as the ability to live a good life. In any case, the empirical results of the radical feminist sexual offensive are clear: the weakening of sexual discipline for women has almost destroyed it for men.
This is not to say that there is no truth in the previous narrative. Women have indeed endured oppressive inequalities throughout history, especially in environments in which a cultural premium was placed on aggressive assertion, physical power, and the virtues of war, areas in which men have a natural advantage. The problem with the extension of the radical feminist critique into the area of sexuality is that it essentially cedes the battleground to the men. It's like complaining of gender segregation between men's and women's basketball and then merging the WNBA into the NBA and ending up confused as to why the women lose every game. Moreover, when young women are told that basketball is the only sport that real women play, then we should not be surprised when these girls become more and more obsessed with the game at younger and younger ages.
Unfortunately, this analogy does not capture the full danger of 'postmodern' or more accurately, non-thinking sexuality. To get a sense of the actual dangers, imagine that all the men and women of history are holding a giant boulder, and the half the men are screwing around, not holding their portion of the weight. The boulder represents the physical, emotional, spiritual, and societal responsibilities and consequences inherent in sexuality. Half of the women, instead of finding someway to make the wayward men take up their share of the load, decide to join the losers, a move which then prompts some of the previously dependable men to also join the non-supporters. The result is that a much smaller proportion of men and women are left holding back the boulder that affects everyone equally.
Radical feminism has essentially advocated this abandonment of responsibility for sexual discipline that men and women must share, and it has done so in an attempt to get back at men for the historical sins of their sex. Olivia Lichtenstein is right that the manifestations of this policy have become more and more upsetting, shocking, and public. However, it makes little sense to bewail the effects of first principles and not commit to a serious reconsideration of those first principles themselves. Instead, Lichenstein seems to remain committed to the supposed liberation of sexuality that the 'good' feminism provided, which supposedly showed men that they couldn't treat women as less than equal anymore. Unfortunately, as her own article attests to, "according to a sample group of 17-year-olds [she] spoke to, there is an enormous double standard between the sexes. Boys treat sex as being a sign of ‘laddishness’ and masculinity, they say; promiscuous behaviour on their part is an achievement. Girls, on the other hand, are caught between a rock and a hard place". So basically nothing has changed from the pre-liberation times except for today's vastly higher rate of unexpected pregnancy, abortion, STDs, sexual abuse, and broken families. Some solution...
At heart, the problem is that Lichtenstein wants to treat feminism, in all of its complexity, as an unalloyed good, and that is simply impossible. A rational society would view the legion of problems lurking in the sexual realm as overwhelming evidence that something has gone wrong. I submit that the entire sexual program of the radical feminists has been a disastrous and surprisingly childish version of pulling the hair of the kid who pulled yours. Many men have treated many women abominably throughout history, and have demanded higher standards for them then for themselves. The radical feminist answer was for women to become as brutish, disrespectful, and sexually cavalier towards men as the worst men had been towards women. Unfortunately, they seemed to have forgotten even the most basic the cliche of playground morality: two wrongs don't make a right.
This poor girl is such a fool. If you haven't heard, she is 
