I kissed a girl. Because I had something to sell.

Over the weekend, I was listening to some radio gossip program talk about how Rihanna’s new video has her pashing some hot female model and has been banned in America. I’ve never heard or read anything before about Rihanna being gay or bi. But what does that have to do with pashing a girl these days if you’re a celebrity?

Christina Aguliera sings “I’m kissing all the boys and the girls” in her latest single and demonstrates said kissing in her accompanying video. Britney often kisses girls in her videos and Lady Gaga does the same in Telephone. And then some.

It certainly got me thinking about how girls pashing girls has become a fairly cynical marketing exercise for popstars. Madonna was the first to do it, quite famously in one of her early videos (was it Justify My Love?) but she was fairly open about the fact that she had had sexual relationships with women. Ditto Gaga.

But the rest? It would seem it’s less an authentic expression of female sexuality and desire than just another contrived way to be sexy. Or is it a very cool thing that girls kissing girls is practically pop cultural wallpaper these days?

And then yesterday, at the MTV movie awards, Sandra Bullock and Scarlett Johannson pash on stage. Oooh. Ahhhh. You can watch it here. Her speech is kind of cool and very endearing but if you just want to see the kiss, go to the 3:30 mark.

26 year old Nina Funnell is a researcher in the Journalism and Media Research Centre and a regular contributor for The Sydney Morning Herald, I asked her to write a guest post

Nina writes

The kiss

First it was Madonna and Britney Spears. Now Sandra Bullock and Scarlett Johannson have locked lips on stage at the MTV awards. What is going on? Since when did kissing- a sensual, pleasurable, flirtatious activity- turn into a faux-lesbian publicity stunt for female celebrities experiencing a career slump?

Now don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with public displays of affection. Nor is there anything wrong with straight women wanting to engage in sexual experimentation with other women. But that is the point. These kisses have nothing to do with affection or sexual exploration at all.

These kisses are highly contrived, choreographed publicity stunts performed for the benefit of viewers, not for the women actually involved in the lip locking. Yet again, female sexuality- or more specifically- displays of female sexuality have been comodified for the pleasure and enjoyment of just about everyone except the women actually involved.

We see this all the time. Early on in their careers both Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson pledged to remain virgins until marriage. Meanwhile they would writhe around in their video clips wearing next to nothing, while singing highly suggestive lyrics. It seemed that just about everyone was getting their rocks off over these two women except for the women themselves.

The paradox is that women are expected to appear sexual and sexually available, but they are not expected to actually have sex (or orgasms), lest they be caste as promiscuous ‘sluts’.

In fact while female sexual performance is everywhere, actual female sexuality is one of the last taboos. Especially female masturbation.

In multiple states in America it is legal to buy a handgun over the counter but it is illegal to buy a vibrator. Better bullets than female orgasms apparently.

I recently toured around Australia speaking to young women about sex and I was astonished to learn that many could wax lyrical about how to perform the perfect oral sex on boys, but when I asked them about their own orgasms and masturbation they would clam up and say things like “ewww! Gross! Girls aren’t meant to masturbate” or worse, one girl actually commented “only sluts have orgasms”.

It seems that young women are being taught to construct and value female sexuality purely in terms of its performance value for men. I am also concerned that some young women are being taught to locate their sexual value in the approval of others, while failing to learn about their own sexual pleasure.

Right now I have the following books on my bookshelf; So Sexy So Soon, The Lolita Effect, What’s Happening to Our Girls? and Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both.

All of these books are concerned with how our sexualised culture is impacting on young women. And there are legitimate concerns.

But before we go condemning every young woman who takes a pole dancing class or engages in exhibitionism at a party, lets all remember that it is not the behaviour per se that is the problem. Rather it is the motivation behind some of the behaviour that is of concern.

There is nothing inherently wrong with women who want to parade around in skimpy outfits or make pelvic grinds on the dance floor. It’s important that we avoid policing women’s sexuality and sexual expression. When women engage in these behaviours for their own enjoyment and fun, I have no problem with it.

But when women engage in exhibitionist behaviour because they are pandering to a cultural expectation that dictates that women must do this in order to be acceptable or desirable, we have a big problem on our hands.

Similarly, when women do this only to garner male approval all women lose out because the view that men have the right to judge and sexually assess us is being legitimized.

Finally though, instead of asking “what impact is raunch culture having on young women?” we should ask “what impact is raunch culture having on people– both male and female?”

While young women are damaged by cultural pressures placed on them, young men are also damaged by a culture that teaches them to relate to a woman as nothing more than a sexually available object. This socialisation process damages men’s capacity to relate to and enjoy the company and personalities of women.

So by all means, let’s critique raunch culture. But let’s stop policing young women’s sexual behaviours, and instead, let’s start looking at the varying motives behind those behaviours