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I've entertained the discussion of women as Marilyns or Jackies, generalizing to describe problems of misaligned expectations between partners, but it wasn't until I finished reading America's Queen, Jackie Kennedy Onassis' biography by Sarah Bradford, that I realized how wrong these assumptions are, and how damaging they are to women who fall into Marilyn versus Jackie discussions.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, by most accounts, always strove to be a good mother to her children. That much is true. What is not mentioned is that while she was not a sex icon as Marilyn Monroe was perceived, she was not a prude. In the sixties, she is said to have embraced the counterculture and had her share of one-night stands. The accounts and photos of the early years of her marriage to Aristotle Onassis in particular, describe a woman who was comfortable with her body, and who very much enjoyed pleasure. Friends she made later in life describe her as someone who not only enjoyed herself, but freely talked with them about their escapades.
Madison Young as Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe, on the other hand, while idolized as a sex symbol and desired by many men, including Jackie's husband John F. Kennedy, did not live the fantasy life most envision. In the days before her death in 1962, she made tapes for her psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson, discussing the difficulty she had in achieving orgasm:
What I told you is true when I first became your patient. I had never had an orgasm.
I well remember you said an orgasm happens in the mind. You said there was an obstacle in my mind that prevented me from having an orgasm; that it was something that happened early in my life about which I felt so guilty that I did not deserve to have the greatest pleasure there is; that it had to do with something sexual that was very wrong, but my getting pleasure from it caused my guilt. That it was buried in my unconscious. Through analysis we would bring it to the conscious mind where we could get to the guilt and free me to be orgasmic.
She would eventually achieve orgasm after learning to masturbate and finding a lover who took his time, but the quest for pleasure wasn't the only thing on her mind, either. Investigations into her involvement with the Kennedys by CBS would decades later paint a picture of Monroe as a woman who was not only informed but passionate about the politics of her time.
My point is that these two women against which so many of us have measured ourselves are not points on a spectrum between virgin and whore, good and naughty, mother and home-wrecker (Marilyn may have slept with JFK, but Jackie became close to Aristotle Onassis during her sister's affair with him and never stopped competing for his attention with his lover of nine years, the soprano Maria Callas). No, these women aren't points on a two dimensional plane, they're complete beings, with their own motives, drives, goals and stories. Just like every one of us.
THE HOLY MOTHER
The most damaging aspect of the widely believed Jackie/Marilyn dichotomy is the notion that being a sexual being is incompatible with motherhood.
At BlogHer ’10 last year, where I was part of an interactive panel about sexuality, we drew a good crowd, but more women seemed able to share after the discussion than during it. Afterward, talking with different moms, they would all confess that they had wanted to voice opinions or ask questions, but felt unable to do so because they didn't know if there were readers in the room and they didn't want to give the impression that they were there for reasons that by and large went far beyond simple curiosity.
"We view mothers as a-sexual," my friend Sara, 34 and mother of two, said one afternoon when we talked about the disconnect. "We have all these magazine articles, these huge industries, telling us to reclaim our sex lives and giving us tips on how to get our pre-baby bodies back and feel sexy again, but it's all just lip service. You’re not really allowed to do it. These goals are just dangled in front of you as something you should try to achieve in the same way they dangle photographs of Beyonce for hair color. It's one more thing we’re supposed to strive for, but never get, because God forbid if we do manage -- that's a sign of moral turpitude."
She pointed
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