I promise this will not be a blog post beating of a recently deceased horse.

The other day my friend Becca e-mailed me an article about the unfortunate collection of student issues that have arisen at Duke University over the past few years. It was ingeniously titled, “The Hazards of Duke” (note: if you include a pun in the title, I will read it). The writer, Caitlin Flanagan, was trying to point out that something is up with Duke based on recent events that include Lacrosse Player Gate of 2006/7, the birth of Duke Law student turned writer Tucker Max, and Karen Owen whose infamous Power Point you’ll remember from last Fall.

Flanagan writes an awesome piece about student culture, college campus oversight, and what seems to make Duke kids tick. I recommend reading some if not most of it.

The reason I bring it up today is because of several points Flanagan makes about Miss Owen that I find particularly poignant. I thought I’d thought everything I have to think about the topic, but this piece brings up some angles that made me think some thoughts some more. One of my thoughts is around the topic of what it means to be a sexually liberated female. The other is about expectations women have around men specific to sexual encounters. Neither looks very favorably on what Karen Owen did, but mine is not a rant against Karen Owen – it’s an observation about all the version of Karen Owen that exist.

Thought one is based on the following chunk from Flanagan’s piece:

“She’s like a fraternity’s ideal pledge: she races around to deliver hot breakfasts to the brothers, drives them to practices, hangs out loyally on cold streets while they work out potential DUI hassles with the cops, listens to them chew over their buddies’ girlfriend problems, tells them—with apparent sincerity—that they’re awesome at spitting Biggie raps, never demands her own turn at Mario Kart. Even her attitude toward (and during) sex seems to have been dreamed up during a Sigma Nu smoker: she’s certainly not the first young woman to perform fellatio in a crowded college library, but surely there aren’t many others who in the middle of this act earned an appreciative—and robustly returned—high five.”

Note: all the examples listed in this assessment of Karen Owen are taken straight from that 40-some-odd-page Power Point. Flanagan isn’t making assumptions based on some behavior Owen referenced.

She goes on to write:

“If what we are seeing in Karen Owen is the realization of female sexual power, then we must at least admit that the first pancake off the griddle is a bit of a flop. What rotten luck that the first true daughter of sex-positive feminism would have an erotic proclivity for serving every kind of male need, no matter how mundane or humiliating, that she would so eagerly turn herself from sex mate to soccer mom, depending on what was wanted from her. “

Flanagan is taking a stab at the many journalists, media personalities, and individuals (from online bloggers to ladies who brunch) who met Owen’s Power Point with a BRAVO! They felt she was a breath of fresh air; that finally a woman was taking her sexual life by the reigns; that this was the kind of attitude we should celebrate.

When I first wrote about Karen Owen I made the point that a woman objectifying men like men objectify women is not something to celebrate. Here Flanagan is saying, a woman bending over backwards (pun potentially intended) to meet the needs of every man she’s looking to conquer is not objectifying him, she’s being his doormat. And when they eventually have drunken sex, that’s not her conquering, it’s her having casual sex.

I think this is an important distinction we need to realize in the conversation about what it means to be a sexually liberated woman. All too often that classification is applied to women who are or seem comfortable with casual sex. Women who – for lack of a better explanation – treat sex like some men treat sex.

Based on the very detailed descriptions of Karen Owen’s 13 sexual encounters, she doesn’t do that. She doesn’t put her sexual wants and needs first or close to first. She doesn’t communicate to her partners what she wants out of the sexual encounter. She’s far more concerned with status and appearance than a sexual connection.

So, there’s that. And it’s important to me because (omg-I’m-becoming-my-mother moment) as young girls start to form an understanding of what it means to be an empowered person making sexual choices, it’s easy to confuse power and control for the total opposite.

Onto the next. Quoting Flanagan here, again:

“Subject 2, who was rated a 1 out of a possible 10, is the impetus for the entire thesis. In fact, at the very end of the whole ugly mess of it, after she has become so good at oral sex that she is repeatedly praised for having no gag reflex, after she has learned to crave sex so rough that she’s left battered, after she’s been cast aside over and over again, the final line of the thesis—before her jaunty “Acknowledgements” slide— is another angry remark about Subject 2. Being rejected by Subject 1 was hurtful and embarrassing, but being treated like a whore by Subject 2 is what broke her heart and her spirit, and if you are the kind of person whose heart and spirit can be broken by a one-night stand, then you may not be the brave new face of anything at all.”

Forgive me, but there’s no less crass way to say this: you don’t get to act like a whore and complain when men don’t treat you like a lady. You put something down – a reputation, a pattern of behavior, a quantity of drinks – and the men you put it down in front of pick it up. PLEASE note, this is not a “she wore a short skirt, she asked for abuse” argument. This is a, “she treated the sex and the men she was having it with disrespect, she can’t be shocked when they do the same.”

I find this topic even more interesting than the former because I think we do this is more ways that the Karen Owen example. We act in one manner but expect the other person we’re dealing with to exist in a control where they’re as chivalrous, mature, and respectful as we’d like. Where we can be whomever we feel like, but they’re supposed to see us a perfect ladies (whatever that means).

Meet a guy when you’re wasted at a bar, and end up furious when he doesn’t call the number you scribbled on his hand. Were you wasted? Do you barely remember what happened? Are you somewhat nervous about what he looks like as a result? Right. So is he.

This is not giving rude, disrespectful people an excuse. Wrong is wrong. But we have to be real about our expectations, and we can’t forget to consider our own actions in the mix.

And with that, we’re done with this topic and all that surround it for some time, I promise.