What Do About Female Promiscuity (Why Daughters Need Fathers As Much As Sons)

Jerusalem Post ^ | 3/31/04 | Shmuley Boteach

[goldstategop]

American culture grows more crass by the day. One of the most successful American TV shows is The Apprentice starring Donald Trump, a man loaded with money but bankrupt of class. The highlight of the show is when Trump humiliates potential employees by barking at them, "You're fired!"

One can only grieve over a culture that promotes a coarse womanizer who has dumped a wife or two in favor of young models as its symbol of professional success.

Indeed, watching people be humiliated is big business on American TV. Shows such as American Idol feature judges like Simon Cowell – known as Mr. Nasty – who shoot the middle finger at contestants they don't like. Public degradation has become as American as apple pie with programs like Fear Factor garnering huge ratings by having participants eat bugs and swim with dead mice. But perhaps the most disturbing example of the culture of crassness is the growing trend of famous young women going through the rite of passage known as the nearly naked photo spread.

Such recent graduates of the you-may-think-I-have-a-brain-but-let's-instead-focus-on-my-bust school of celebrity include Scarlet Johansson, who acted superbly in Lost in Translation, which made her famous enough to qualify for a cleavage-bearing photo op. Janet Jackson, of course, joined the club when she decided to have us all forget about her dancing and focus instead on her nipples, while Britney Spears is, of course, the club's founding member.

The reduction of talented and intelligent women to two breasts and a vagina has reached its apogee with the Girls Gone Wild videos, in which tens of thousands of college girls, often on spring break, flash for the camera, their sole remuneration being a feeling of deep satisfaction that they have played their God-given role as entertainment for lecherous men.

Why have millions of young American women abandoned the feminist dream of being taken seriously by men and instead decided to gain male attention with degrading spectacles of their bodies? I am convinced that the principal cause is an increasingly weak link between fathers and daughters.

IN OUR society, we have it all backward. Too much is made of the father-son relationship at the expense of the father-daughter one. The image of a boy being taught by his dad to catch a baseball or throw a football is commonplace, while the only mainstream image of a father interacting with his teenage daughter is telling her not to come home too late when she goes out with her boyfriend. Pop tarts like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, who use partial nudity to advance their careers, are often close to their mothers, who may even serve as their managers, while their dads are nowhere to be seen.

Where you do read about a father's central involvement in his daughter's career, it usually leads to respectable women like Steffi Graff and the Williams sisters, who have resisted the offers for provocative photo spreads even after they became famous as tennis stars. This is not because mothers don't love their daughters but because men are much more successful at protecting their daughters from other men. And when a daughter receives strong masculine validation from a loving and caring father, she is usually not desperate for sexual attention from manipulative and hormonal men.

Recently the New York Times ran a front-page story about a 15-year-old girl who refused to have sex with her 16-year-old boyfriend. He promptly cheated on her. When the girlfriend found out, she told her boyfriend that they should cut class and go and have sex. She did so, she said, "in order to keep him." When I read this story, I wondered Where is this girl's father? Had her father been a strong male presence in her life, she would not have been so desperate for the affection of a scoundrel.

EVEN WHEN I go to a Yankees game, I take my five daughters along with my older son. True, they often don't know the names of the players or even the score, but they know their father loves them and hates being separated from them. There is a special connection that daughters have with their fathers that even a mother cannot replicate, which grants young women a startling immunity from compromising themselves with jerks.

Indeed, when a daughter is close to her father and respects him as a man and a dad, she begins to judge other men by that same high standard. When she dates men, she will not judge them by their smooth talk but by the depth of their commitment because her own father was not a talker but a doer. She will not jump into bed with a man just to please him. She has high self-esteem, and she expects the men in her life to make an effort to please her rather than the reverse. Her idea of a relationship is not going down to the guy's level but raising him up to hers.

THIS IS why it's so important for a father to remain the most important man in his daughter's life until she is at least 20. I always lament witnessing the deterioration of the homes of my friends whose teenage daughters are always out, either with girlfriends or boyfriends. My daughters will not date until they are of marriageable age – in our communities from 19. Up until that time, my own love for them will sustain their need for male attention. They will not be forced at too early an age to worry whether they're pretty enough, smart enough, sexy enough, or attractive enough. To their father, they are just perfect. And they will internalize that message in their most vulnerable years so they can grow into confident and robust women who attract men out of strength rather than weakness.

As for the criticisms that too close a relationship with your daughter will impede her ability to later form close connections with romantic partners, exactly the opposite is true. A young woman with an involved and loving father gains the confidence in herself to sever the childhood ties with her father and begin a loving relationship with a man precisely because she has learned to trust men. She has no fear of being vulnerable – a prerequisite for romantic love – because her father has shown her an example of a man who can be trusted and relied upon.

But if she feels betrayed by her own father, she will often run to another man more to escape pain than to find love, which is what usually makes her a prime candidate for that revealing photo spread.

[Tax-chick]

I have one of those traffic-stopping gorgeous daughters, too ... she'll be 6 tomorrow. Since she has four brothers, we can keep her surrounded by armed men until we find a worthwhile husband for her!

[Wright is right!]

"Shows such as American Idol feature judges like Simon Cowell – known as Mr. Nasty – who shoot the middle finger at contestants they don't like."

Can't believe that all you posters - and, indeed, his editor let this one slip by unchallenged. It's in the Bash Limbaugh Category - criticizing Rush without ever having listened. Simon Cowell does NOT flip the bird to contestants - EVER. Someone made a minor flap about the way Simon placed his hand on his right cheek while Paul Abdul was praising a contestant Cowell didn't like. But it wasn't the bird.

This one line stopped me from reading what was probably a decent, thoughtful article. It shows a laziness and a disregard for journalistic integrity.

Michael

[VRWC_minion]

but because men are much more successful at protecting their daughters from other men

Since my daughter was little, I carefully taught her that "all boys are scumbags".

On a serious note I did experience a transistion time with my daughter before she got romantically involved with boys which I wasn't expecting. She wanted to cuddle with me. While watching TV or reading she would snuggle up like she did when she was a little girl. Something told me that my presence was helping her in a way that I didn't quite understand.

[jtminton]

Here's a good solution to raising a daughter. Tell her that she can date after she reads the entire Bible aloud to you, and you have to option to stop and discuss what she's reading at any time.

[KC Burke]

How your daughter percieves you is very important. However, a different impression can be left with her prospective boyfriends:

< Ron Perlman Voice >Son, I just want you to know, I've got nothing against going back to prison. < /Perlman >

[MrB]

Since my daughter was little, I carefully taught her that "all boys are scumbags".

Ms Steinem? I didn't know you were a FReeper!

[Taliesan]

when a daughter is close to her father and respects him as a man and a dad, she begins to judge other men by that same high standard. When she dates men, she will not judge them by their smooth talk but by the depth of their commitment because her own father was not a talker but a doer. She will not jump into bed with a man just to please him. She has high self-esteem

Much truth in that.

The feminists started out objecting to women as sex objects. By helping to devalue masculinity (and therefore fatherhood) they have produced an entire generation of girls who only know how to be a SEX OBJECT.

Nice job, Gloria. You should be proud.

[Texas2step]

EVEN WHEN I go to a Yankees game, I take my five daughters along with my older son.

My daughters, now 13 and 11, always go with me to hockey games and we watch them on TV, as well. We've been doing that since they were 9 and 7, and they LOVE hockey.

Definitely important, BUT, we fathers not only have to allow our daughters into our worlds, we have to go into theirs as well. Go to "teas". Go to "cast parties" after ballet performances. Go "shopping" with them.

Take an interest in their lives. Much harder to do, but much more effective than trying to get them interested in something in which we are already interested.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Good article. I always wanted a daughter since I come from a family of seven sons. But got a couple of knuckleheaded boys instead. Guess I will just have to that what God gave me.

[Fury]

There is a lot of this in this area --- and that 15 year girl sees her 32 year old mother doing the exact same thing. They grow up seeing mom bring boyfriend after boyfriend home, no standards or restraint at all.

You should see the stuff I see at the college where I am currently assigned. Mothers walking with their daughters, the daughter is only perhaps 16-18 and has several tattoos, piercings, etc. So does the mother. I attribute this to perhaps a mother wanting to be "best friends" with her daughter?

The same for dress. And no, I'm not looking back at the "good old days", as I've worked around colleges in some form, on and off for going on 16 1/2 years. When they held summer school here at the college, it was not unusual to see high school girls with no bras, low-riders, etc. Very "in your face" dressing. How parents let their kids leave the house like that is amazing.

[Darnright]

>However, a different impression can be left with her prospective boyfriends:<

My little precious' father simply sits on the front porch, cleaning his 12 gauge nonchalantly. (c;

[Keith]

One of my favorite movie lines is the dad in "Clueless"

"Kid, I got a 45 and a shovel, and I don't think you'll be missed."

[nmh]

You are so right.

[Centurion2000]

Why have millions of young American women abandoned the feminist dream of being taken seriously by men and instead decided to gain male attention with degrading spectacles of their bodies? I am convinced that the principal cause is an increasingly weak link between fathers and daughters.

I blame feminazis and the media culture war that is being waged against fathers.

[nmh]

But that's where Dad has to be firm and see manipulation for what it is.

[Just another Joe]

Indeed, when a daughter is close to her father and respects him as a man and a dad, she begins to judge other men by that same high standard.

Right on target.

And when a father is distant, removed, and not deserving of respect, the Grandfather should step in.
Oh, I forgot, the, "old people", are shipped off to a retirement home, aren't they.

The death of the extended family will hurt us in more ways than one.

[Ciexyz]

Lovely article. The writer's daughters are lucky to have such a caring and concerned Dad.

[Centurion2000]

The solution for daughters and problems with dating. Hand this to every boy/man she dates.

Rule One:

If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up.

Rule Two:

You do not touch my daughter in front of me. You may glance at her, so long as you do not peer at anything below her neck. If you cannot keep your eyes or hands off of my daughter's body, I will remove them.

Rule Three:

I am aware that it is considered fashionable for boys of your age to wear their trousers so loosely that they appear to be falling off their hips. Please don't take this as an insult, but you and all of your friends are complete idiots. Still, I want to be fair and open minded about this issue, so I propose his compromise: You may come to the door with your underwear showing and your pants ten sizes too big, and I will not object. However, in order to ensure that your clothes do not, in fact, come off during the course of your date with my daughter, I will take my electric nail gun and fasten your trousers securely in place to your waist.

Rule Four:

I'm sure you've been told that in today's world, sex without utilizing a "barrier method" of some kind can kill you. Let me elaborate, when it comes to sex, I am the barrier, and I will kill you.

Rule Five:

It is usually understood that in order for us to get to know each other, we should talk about sports, politics, and other issues of the day. Please do not do this. The only information I require from you is an indication of when you expect to have my daughter safely back at my house, and the only word I need from you on this subject is "early."

Rule Six:

I have no doubt you are a popular fellow, with many opportunities to date other girls. This is fine with me as long as it is okay with my daughter. Otherwise, once you have gone out with my little girl, you will continue to date no one but her until she is finished with you. If you make her cry, I will make you cry.

Rule Seven:

As you stand in my front hallway, waiting for my daughter to appear, and more than an hour goes by, do not sigh and fidget. If you want to be on time for the movie, you should not be dating. My daughter is putting on her makeup, a process that can take longer than painting the Golden Gate Bridge. Instead of just standing there, why don't you do something useful, like changing the oil in my car?

Rule Eight:

The following places are not appropriate for a date with my daughter: Places where there are beds, sofas, or anything softer than a wooden stool. Places where there are no parents, policemen, or nuns within eyesight. Places where there is darkness. Places where there is dancing, holding hands, or happiness. Places where the ambient temperature is warm enough to induce my daughter to wear shorts, tank tops, midriff T-shirts, or anything other than overalls, a sweater, and a goose down parka - zipped up to her throat. Movies with a strong romantic or sexual theme are to be avoided; movies which features chain saws are okay. Hockey games are okay. Old folks homes are better.

Rule Nine:

Do not lie to me. I may appear to be a balding, middle-aged, dimwit. But on issues relating to my daughter, I am the all- knowing, merciless god of your universe. If I ask you where you are going and with whom, you have one chance to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I have a shotgun, a shovel, and five acres behind the house. Do not trifle with me.

Rule Ten:

Be afraid. Be very afraid. It takes very little for me to mistake the sound of your car in the driveway for a chopper coming in over a rice paddy near Hanoi. When my Agent Orange starts acting up, the voices in my head frequently tell me to clean the guns as I wait for you to bring my daughter home. As soon as you pull into the driveway you should exit your car with both hands in plain sight. Speak the perimeter password, announce in a clear voice that you have brought my daughter home safely and early, then return to your car - there is no need for you to come inside. The camouflaged face at the window is mine.

[John O]

Since she has four brothers, we can keep her surrounded by armed men until we find a worthwhile husband for her!

The perfect plan. Unfortunately, due to various medical difficulties my daughter is likely to be my only child. No brothers to protect her so I'll have to do it all.

I'm kind of leaning towards bars on the windows and locks on the doors until she's 18. Then I'll institute a work for date program. It'll run something like this. "So you want to take my daughter on a date? Here's a brush. Paint the garage. When you're done I'll inspect your work and decide"

She may go out but at least I'll have much less work to do.

(can't resist posting a pic even if it is an old one. She was actually about 2 1/2 in this pic)

[freedomlover]

My daughter goes to the gun range with me.