Things to talk about 1. In Peterson's article, the defense attorney for one of the men accused of rape says of the victim, "You will also hear that [the victim] wasn't such a good girl after all. You will hear that she skipped school. You will hear that she smoked marijuana. You will hear that she willingly skipped school to go smoke marijuana with two boys she had just met." Given that the victim had been severely beaten, and the question of consent thus apparently settled, what is the defense attorney trying to accomplish here? What good does he think that these words will do for his client? Why might he think this effort will be successful? 2. In Peterson's telling, what does she mean when she says that she and her friends had been prepared against rape, but not against not-rape? What are the causes and consequences of this? 3. In Jervis' "An Old Enemy in a New Outfit," what is the basis for the argument that something called "gray rape" exists? Why does she argue against the validity of this concept? 4. What is the slut? What are her qualities? How does the existence of the slut privilege men? Why can't men be sluts? 5. What might "purity" look like for men? Why do you think that this concept doesn't exist? 6. Try to remember when you first heard a girl at your school called a slut. What caused her to be called this? 7. Our culture has father-daughter Purity Balls (father-daughter dances at which daughters pledge to remain sexually abstinent until marriage & fathers pledge to protect their daughters' 'purity') at the same time that it has child beauty pageants (of the kind made notorious in the JonBénet Ramsey murder case and the Toddlers & Tiaras reality show). In what way are these things produced by opposed social forces? How might they be part of the same system of social control? 8. In what ways does Millar describe the Nice Guy™ as a participant in the culture of sex-as-commodity? How might Millar critique the concept of the friendzone? 9. Describe as precisely as possible the all of the relationships of power inherent in what Valenti labels the "purity myth". 10. How does Millar argue that the commodity model of sex facilitates sexual assault? How does he propose that a performance model for sex will improve upon this? 11. What are the fundamental differences between conceiving of sex as a thing to be exchanged and thinking of it as a collaborative performance? How might men benefit and women be disadvantaged by the conceptualization of sex as a commodity?