“Making women the sexual gatekeepers and telling men they just can’t help themselves not only drives home the point that women’s sexuality is unnatural, but also sets up a disturbing dynamic in which women are expected to be responsible for men’s sexual behavior,” writes feminist author Jessica Valenti in The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women.16 Everyone loses in this scenario—it prevents women from saying “yes” when they want to and men from saying “no.” And it means rape is always, on some level, the woman’s fault.
