Al.com
1.8.16 | Mallory Anne Porch
By Mallory Anne Porch, a graduate student at Auburn University. She blogs at thisstarling.com.
Richard Armitage. Benedict Cumberbatch. Tom Hiddleston. Yes, the accent is definitely part of the (considerable) draw, but the idea of British men purposely targeting small-town American women for sex, as described in VICE's recent article "The British Are Coming: Meet the UK Lads Who Take Sex-Tourism Trips to Small-Town America," is deeply problematic.
The assumption that women will drop panties at the first sound of a British accent is... demeaning. Demoralizing. Some of you might be saying, meh, it's not a big deal. And compared to some things (female genital mutilation, for example) maybe it's not. But it is symptomatic of a culture that thinks targeting and manipulating women for sex is okay, even normal. This is a culture that can object to "Yes Means Yes" legislation, that can tell women to "follow a code of conduct" in order to prevent harassment and attack, that can reward men and punish women for the same behavior. All of which results in a culture in which person=man and woman=other.
Meet the UK lads who take sex-tourism trips to small-town America https://t.co/CA9ZGUYXuh pic.twitter.com/o9ITGJKVcc
— VICE (@VICE) January 6, 2016
