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Third Wave feminist Naomi Wolf wrote about the Gossip Girl books long before the CW morphed them into the Greatest Show of Our Time. “Unfortunately for young girls,” Wolf opined in the New York Times, “these novels reproduce the dilemma they experience all the time: they are expected to compete with pornography, but can still be labeled sluts.” But the Beauty Myth author won’t be voicing an opinion on the TV show anytime soon. For one thing, she’s never seen it. “We’re not allowed to watch it in my house because I have a 12-year-old girl,” Wolf said at Brassiere Ruhlmann, at the after-party for a screening of the Kite Runner. “I’m sure it’s a great TV show, and I can’t wait to watch it when I’m alone sometime, but for now, we don’t.” Is it the fact that the show’s teen characters have sex that makes her want to shield young girls from it? “It’s not the sex,” she replied. “Sex is great. Judy Blume is great. There are all kinds of fabulous teen stories about sexuality and sexual awakening. It’s the skanky sex, the way the sex doesn’t mean anything. It’s just another commodity. It’s just like Daddy’s gold credit card: threesome in the hot tub.” The upside, she says, is that the sometimes awkward sexual exploits of S., B., Lonely Boy, and the crew on the Upper East Side aren’t necessarily any different from what goes on in car backseats across suburbia. “You could have skanky sex anywhere,” she said. “You could have skanky sex in a mall.” Don’t tempt us. —Candace Taylor
Earlier: Why Gossip Girl Is the Best Teen Drama You’ve Been Watching Your Whole Life
