lock and key: the lock

“A key that opens all locks is an awesome key, but a lock that all keys open is a shitty lock.”

the lock

if something is compared to a lock it is implicit that it is protecting something. And if something is protected then it must need to be protected, which is to say it is desirable; it is a commodity. To say that a woman’s vagina is a lock is to say that it is “protecting” her sexuality, which, we are taught, is a commodity that is only supposed to “open to” one man. So in the metaphor, the lock is shitty because it not “protecting” the commodity (her virginity/sexuality) from other men.

this idea does a number of things. For one it completely denies women’s right to their sexuality; it is a commodity that belongs to men or a man. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, really. There are few things that our culture excels at more than propagating the myth that women are not sexual (except inasmuch as they exist to please men). According to this concept, a woman’s sexuality is locked away except when the one man who is “her key” wants it.

but if he wants another “lock” in the mean time and can get it… high five dude! You tap that ass!

of course the whole concept is unquestionably male in origin: women don’t need “protecting” from other men (rape being the obvious pit-fall but in the interest of time I will leave that for another post). We don’t need to “lock” ourselves up to keep men “out”; being that we are autonomous individuals (in theory at any rate) we are fully capable of choosing whom we want or don’t want. And we can make that decision based on a long list of criteria, in the same way a man can choose who he wants for a mate. (Of course choosing doesn’t always mean you get the one your go after.)

but the point is, a woman only needs “protecting” if she is the exclusive property of one man. This is an ancient concept, which can be traced back to basic evolutionary roots: the only way for a man to ensure the offspring is his is to “own” the woman. In today’s world, however, this is an obsolete, discriminatory practice, which could arguably be called a form a slavery.