at used to be called the sexes before we started talking about "constructed genders"? (One shudders, by the way, to recall that "reckless eyeballing" got black men lynched in the Jim Crow South if their eyes wandered the "wrong" way toward a white woman.) Perhaps the best way for me to introduce Roiphe's text is to recall a recent experience of my own. I was in Colorado, visiting family, and I picked up the "Welcome Back to Campus" edition of the newspaper of a large state institution in Northern Colorado. There were the usual greetings to students from all the local merchants; the usual upbeat message from the college president; the usual detailed information about registration and the rest. But there was also a full page, put out under the auspices of something called the "Equal Opportunity Developmental Office," listing some twenty pointers about sexual harassment and date rape. The one that caught my eye read: "Do not believe that if you dress provocatively, drink to excess, and go to a boy's room you are asking for sex or to blame if sex occurs." Say what? Let me see if I get this straight. I dress provocatively. I drink, not a few drinks, but "to excess." I go to a boy's room. Then I wake up the next morning and accuse him of rape? Is that the plot line? You bet it is. What is pernicious about this sort of business is that it "constructs" the young woman as a wholly irresponsible agent whose one act of agency consists in accusing...
