Girls are like apples.

 

"Girls are like apples on trees.  The best ones are at the top of the tree.  The boys don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of getting hurt. Instead, they just get the rotten apple one the ground that aren't as good, but easy.  So the apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality they're amazing.  They just have to wait for the right boy to come along, the one who's brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree."

This is offensive, that's what it is.  It creates two classes of girls the good ones(IE: purity princesses) who don't sleep around and the bad ones(IE: sluts) who do sleep around.  It says that the girls who aren't as good aren't worth respecting, or waiting for, when in reality they are worth respecting and waiting for, just as worthy as the girls who wait at the top of the tree.

Using examples like this reinforces about a thousand negative things that sex positive people today are working really hard to change.  It tells the purity princesses that someday their Prince Charming will come for them, just sit tight in the mean time and it elates them to think that they're better than the sluts below them.  It tells everyone who isn't a purity princess that they aren't worth as much as the purity princesses simply because they chose to have sex.

It also creates two stereotypes of boys, the ones who are willing to climb to the top of the tree and the ones who settle.  Prince Charming climbs to the top of the tree and plucks the apple of his choice and they live happily ever after all the while teaching the world around them that they are superior to other people of their age group.  If you're one of the common boys plucking up the apples that fall to the ground it does a number of things.  It tells you that the women you choose to be with aren't as good as other women, which in turn tells you aren't as good as other men who pick "better" women.

There isn't anything wrong with having consensual sex with whom you want, when you want, how you want it.  Not a thing.  Don't let anyone shame you into thinking that your sexual preferences, whatever they might be make you worth less than anyone else with different sexual preferences.  There is nothing wrong with you.

Ideas like this simultaneously elate and denigrate different men and women at the exact same time.  Shouldn't we shoot to send messages that boost up everyone around us, rather than just a select few persons?

Something I opted not to talk about in this post is the space that ideas like this create for people that identify as anything but heterosexual.  What do you think the space for GLBT peoples looks like when you have a script like this for sexuality?