hmm

So, this has been going around--Justine Musk's post on Bad Girls--and it's a good post, with good things to say about creativity and writing.

But I am suspicious of the idea that being free creatively and in touch with one's wilder, more primal self must always mean one is also the bad girl--where bad girl almost always seems to mean sexy girl who is free with her body.

This is problematic, because I think this vision of the cool girl, the tough girl, the wild and free girl as the one who is also very 'in touch with her sexuality' is pretty much a male wet dream, most often reified by men, and deeply rooted in our cultural memes and media as a figure of male desire and admiration. The good girl/bad girl dichotomy is, in fact, deeply rooted in male ideals of, and ideas and stories about, women.

Those will never be good choices, as far as I'm concerned.

I'm sure she didn't mean it that way, but it still sticks in my craw.