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Highly attended talk by conservative 'modesty' author Wendy Shalit draws big crowds and even bigger questions

In print | April 3, 2008

Controversial author of “Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It’s Not Bad to Be Good” Wendy Shalit spoke to an eagerly expectant audience in Lang Performing Arts Center on Wednesday evening about sex, modesty and alternatives to a culture she perceives as forcedly inculcated toward unauthentic casual encounters.

Claiming that we live in a society that is hostile to modesty, Shalit encouraged those uncomfortable with what she calls the hookup culture to rebel against what has become the new norm and actively work to breakdown what she perceives to be a modern day phenomenon of equating privacy with shame.

“Today, modesty has become taboo. It’s misunderstood as having to do with shame, but it’s about setting boundaries and protecting the intimate center of a person,” Shalit said.

Sharing letters and personal stories with the audience, Shalit insisted that the majority of college students are actually unhappy with the hookup culture and then went on to encourage those who felt pressured to conform to what she perceives as the unnatural, media-indoctrinated hook-up culture to make their voices heard. “Don’t underestimate the impact you can make by speaking out,” Shalit said. “By deciding to no longer hookup and raising your standards, you’re standing your ground and letting others know that an alternative is possible.”

Students reacted viscerally to Shalit’s speech, finding, in particular, much of her language problematic and offensive.

When Shalit encouraged both men and women to rebel against equally low standards and return to modesty, Brianne Gallagher ’09 spoke out in frustration, arguing that we should be pushing for equal standards for men and women rather than for equally high or equally low standards. She was promptly met with agreeing applause from the audience.

During the brief question and answer session that followed Shalit’s speech, Jeremy Freeman ‘08 asked Shalit to provide evidence for her claims about the innateness of modesty, and when Shalit went on to suggest that children’s usual reactions to the mention of sex — embarrassed giggling — is perhaps significant because it indicates that sex is something that should be private, a member of the audience called out to ask Shalit if she was aware that infants masturbate.

Anna Phillips ’10 raised a concern that, as the rapturous applause that followed her question suggested, many students seemed to share, challenging Shalit to explain where the queer community fit into the heteronormative paradigm that she put forth in her talk.

“Respecting boundaries refers to everyone because we’re all human,” answered Shalit. “It’s part of having human emotions — that dosen’t change because of sexual orientation.”

Dermot Delude-Dix ‘09 levied a similar objection of marginalization against Shalit, asking: "If you’re critiquing feminism, why do you think it’s a good idea to drop any notion of the political from your analysis or any analysis of class, queerness, or race?"

Though Shalit attempted to defend her argument against these objections by elaborating upon the ideas she put forth in her speech, she was met with a murmuring crowd, furrowed brows, repeated applause in support of the questioners’ objections and continuous stream of interruptions.