The Devout and the Dirrty: Consumer Choices in Bewildered Times

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Condemning those who don’t jump aboard her bandwagon of emancipated womanhood as “not here to party”, or “uptight”, Aguilera’s crusade is pitched as the struggle of freedom versus conservatism. One of the most potent and whimsically dispensed themes in western culture, the brand is sold as the next frontier of personal liberty. Alongside freedom of speech and a fair judicial process sits ‘Dirrtiness’, our right as citizens of a free democratic society.

In her racily entitled Stripped album, Aguilera works hard to sell herself as the genuine article, (“No hype, no gloss, no pretence/ Just me/ Stripped”, intro Stripped). The title is intended as shorthand for her supposed authenticity; the stripping away of clothes, a metaphorical shedding of pretence and inhibition. The theme continues, with her 2006 album, Back to Basics.

For a world drowning in simulations of itself, veneers of authenticity are clung to for dear life. Just like the new religious youth, we all wade through the swathes of artifice, searching for something real, however flimsy. But with ‘Dirrtiness’ there is nothing behind the metaphor. The liberal assault on traditional morality has been rendered a shallow eagerness to get ‘em out for the lads.

This trend needs to be recognised for what it is: Not the defeat of traditional morality at the hands of freedom and truth. Rather the defeat of traditional morality at the hands of consumerist gratification. Whilst the force of this defeat has been occasionally positive, winning certain oppressed groups greater recognition, here it greets us at the most trite and impotent chapter in its demise.

What is the secret of ‘Dirrtiness’ as a marketing heavy weight? Aguilera and her subsequent torch carriers summon “red-blooded males” with the moaning, thrusting nympho; at the same time women are appealed to with the visage of the strong and feisty goddess, resisting the rules without having to contemplate the murky realms of unkempt body hair. Contrasting against the classically modest and demure maiden, Dirrtiness has succeeded in claiming the monopoly on sexual empowerment.  Making other forms of erotic expression invisible, this trend spits in the face of the very freedom it claims to stand for.

Younger and younger girls are invited to share in the power possessed by the alluring vamp, exploiting and controlling modern man, held captive and enfeebled by his libidinal cravings. To control the penis is to control the man and therefore triumph in the gender wars. Well, it certainly beats having to wilfully incinerate costly undergarments. But what confronts us here is equality’s hollow husk: The forever available yet “feisty” vixen, guiding an enslaved lad’s mag generation by its penis.

Men and women should stand side by side in their discontent at this insulting tableau. Deeply ingrained sexism was never going to be shooed away by this dumbed down, tarted up simulation of sexual liberty. And neither does it have the brawn to launch an ethical blow at religion. The once discordant call of conservative morality becomes ever more appealing as ‘Dirrtiness’ lodges itself in our ears as its front running competitor.

Other than an aversion to this hyper eroticism, what lures so many young women into the arms of the chastity movement? Does it offer a nourishing alternative to ‘Dirrtiness’? Woven intimately into their rhetoric is the language of valiant princes and damsels in distress waiting to be “saved and “discovered”.

In the world of The Silver Ring Thing and other such groups, every female is a “princess”. Chastity makes it case by appealing to romantic ideals more heavily than it does moral ones. Rather than the quest for enlightenment or virtue, leaders talk of the quest for True Love. Not unlike Aguilera, chastity promises a truth and authenticity so scarce in Western society. The inevitable hangover from a culture where sex has become tawdry and love fleeting, comfort is being sought in the fairy stories of yore.

Glance at the mainstream romance genre and we are reminded these are fairy stories which few women have fully put to sleep. Even the cynical can sit contentedly through the latest Julia Roberts or Cameron Diaz offering without having to make a dash for the vomitorium. And our fondness for Jane Austen style corsetted romance shows no sign of waning. (Women may have loved and admired Sex and the City’s Samantha, but more of them identified with her drippier cohorts.)

True love, says Jason Evert, a leading spokesperson’s term for female immodesty, can only be achieved when women accept their delicate nature and forever relinquish the crime of “man-begging”. There is nothing new being offered by the chastity movement. Just the same oppressive and stifling gender roles repackaged in a hyper modern exterior. Roles which women only a generation before had fought so hard to throw off.

Youth cultures can have dangerously short memories. Evert makes no bones about his stance; “personally I love gender stereotyping. Men should be men and women should be women”.

Never one to miss out on the latest trend, the hot language of empowerment was more than the movement could pass up. Their success has been in convincing girls that in the role of the modest maiden lays empowerment: A defiant stance against the voracious decadence of modern society. Which again is nothing new.

Throughout the centuries philosophers and religious thinkers have encouraged women to feel grateful for their subordination. It’s only against the red light of ‘Dirrtiness’ that the chastity movement could ever have struck us as fresh.

How can our love of Dirrty culture exist as we continue to wield the slut stick?  We have embraced the consumerist fantasy but not the flesh and blood reality. We adore and revere the hyper simulation but fling into the stocks any woman who embodies the example. Exhibitionist videos, nude photo shoots and turbulent publicly aired sex lives are lapped up hungrily.

But the music stops, the makeup smudges and a hostile silence falls. Britney, Madonna, Jodie Marsh and Lindsay Lohan are just a few examples. One moment, inducing fond stirrings in our hearts and loins and the next toppling from the tightrope at a great height. The mask slips somehow. We glimpse their crude organic mortality or their personal vulnerability and the appeal sours: They are sluts. And for sluts no punishment is too brutal.

Our acceptance of these celebrities is tenuous, our adoration shallow and our respect almost non-existent. Like any other consumer goods, we toss them to the wayside the moment they become outmoded or worn. Purchasing something and respecting it are not the same.

Men need no longer be clandestine about their penchant for pornography and strip clubs. But most would still shiver at the prospect of their daughter, sister, or any other woman they deem worthy of humanity taking to the porn set or pole.

To consume something is to posses it. As viewers bask in the dominant role of consumer, the threat posed by woman as sexual aggressor is muted. Emasculating anxieties are extinguished. The vamp can be enjoyed, conveniently freed from all the probing questions and power struggles which the lesbian, the nympho and other “dangerous” women would have once impelled. Synthetic sexualities packaged for mass consumption, the status quo is only sated. Women remain the spectacle and men the autonomous spectators.

And of course the versions of “sexiness” being celebrated by stars such as Aguilera are lifted straight out the pages of FHM and Nuts. Since the mainstreaming of Dirrty, we size one another up with a stricter and more infectious scrutiny. It is the male voyeur who continues to set these rigorous physical standards. For those judged to be too old, too fat, too frumpy, or just too unattractive, the door to this somewhat exclusive club of “empowerment” slams closed.

Never far from Dirrtiness is the scent of its intimate bedfellow, consumerism. Fall short of this unattainable physicality, as women are bound to, and out billows the genie from the bottle, the omnipresent beauty industry, promising miracles. And herein lays the logic of this new flavour of “post-feminism”: Identity, power, self worth, all accessible through the radiant avenues of consumption. In other words, you can be the saucy and strident lipstick feminist, providing you can fork out the £15 for the Max Factor lipstick.

In the everyday world of girl meets boy, sexually assertive women can look forward to the age-old catalogue of onslaughts. Dispelling the nagging weight of their own conflicts, women have turned on one another. In this modern day witch-hunt, we cry ‘slut’ to save our own skin. The ethos of empowered, postmodern sexiness has failed to deliver where it really counts.

It’s worth mentioning the beacons of light bucking this trend. Missy Elliot and Peaches are two of the best. Both use their wit and imagination to probe the politically charged terrain of female sexuality, unintruded upon by the male gaze. Invaluable is their contention that erotic exploration might amount to more than a shopping spree down Ann Summers. Let’s hope for more pop icons that encourage women in their right as sexual subjects.

Consistent to both warring youth camps is the overarching grasp of consumption. Sociologist Max Weber famously linked the protestant ethic with the spirit of capitalism. Never have they been more entwined than with this new religious youth.

Peruse the websites and you’re met with the trappings of any successful media product: Bright colours, seductive language and a heavy emphasis on merchandising. The silver ring is only the most notorious of a host of commodities allowing kids to pledge their religious devotion.

The immensely popular Christian rock stars of the US and UK will not be caught dead riding into town on any donkey. Rebelling against sexual frivolity, these teens remain obedient to the god of spending. Just like their pro-raunch cousins, they trade in add-to-the-basket identities.

In a world of infinite choices, where fluid selfhood is supposedly up for grabs, women are still caught between the Madonna and the Whore. The Whore might enjoy mainstream stardom and the Madonna access to a snappier wardrobe, but the bind remains.

As the economy falters and our spending powers are curtailed, it will be interesting to see whether cracks appear in this shimmering façade of freedom. But for now the game continues, business as usual.