After reading Valenti's thoughts about the slutty virgin idea of having to be both a porn star and a virgin I take issue with her argument that the mass media has sold virginity. I don't think there is a champion of virginity any longer. The closest we get is Taylor Swift and while I agree that her videos are very suggestive of her trying to be a virgin, she does not go around telling people she's a virgin like Britney, Jessica Simpson, and Mandy Moore did.
In fact every time Taylor Swift is asked she strictly issues a no comment. While I understand it isn't an admission of guilt, there's not much to go off there either as far as her being a virgin. And I think that girls get far more ideas about just being a dirty slut now than trying to be both.
The top 4 female artists right now (excluding Britney because of what happened) are all viewed as very raunchy and dirty. Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Katy Perry and Rihanna all have songs that explicitly talk about sex and none of their videos or interviews would give off any notion that they are trying to be virgins. There are songs about kissing girls (which is fine but isn't thought of when talking about the normal heterosexual virgin), being aggressive when it comes to men (and not being shy/passive like virginity would imply), and even sadomasochism.
I think right now virginity is pretty much on a decline, at least musically. People like seeing female artists being very dirty, and that's it. There's no expectation for them to straddle the line like there was ten years ago or even five years ago. However I think normal girls still very much have to deal with it, and there's been no sort of trickle down effect that has occurred. I'm not sure why it hasn't affected society as a whole because you would think that the damage that media and advertising does that it would be able to make a difference in this aspect.
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