Now that we’ve mentioned all the ways that Jenna challenges the patriarchy, here’s one of her more, shall we say, morally questionable videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU20JnsYiXc

Jenna caught a lot of flak on Jezebel and other feminist websites for this, and to some extent, she deserved it. She blatantly condemns women who choose to sleep with multiple partners as unclean and morally inferior to women who choose to be monogamous. The intentions behind Jenna’s argument are sound: women should respect their bodies and practice safe sex. But she errs when she extrapolates that women who sleep around inherently practice less safe sex and respect their bodies less than women who do not. She especially errs when she implies that if a woman goes home with a man and she ends up getting raped, it’s somehow her and her friends’ fault for not “looking out for her.” That is victim blaming at its finest.

There’s a lot to get angry about here, but mostly, this video just makes me sad. This condemning, judgmental attitude is such a strange departure from her typical tone. She just doesn’t seem happy here, and as a result, she’s not as funny as she usually is (she did just break up with her boyfriend before she filmed this video). However, before we label Jenna as someone who makes “girl hate rants” and “sexist gender scripting videos,” let’s consider all the ways that Jenna has playfully encouraged women to claim their sexuality over the years (pay particular attention to 1:20-1:40 and 3:34-3:50):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPPsf-Mi8FY

First of all, it makes sense that Halloween would be Jenna’s favorite holiday considering her obsession with the masquerade; October 31st gives ehr an opportunity to perform a more exaggerated version of the ironic transformation that she performs all the time. This video is very different because Jenna emphasizes choice. “That’s your choice if you don’t want to be a slut…These girls aren’t sluts every day of the year. And even if they are, you keep on hoein’ you ho…Nothing wrong with being a ho…never feel pressured, but if you are, good for fucking you.” Jenna doesn’t presume to judge a woman for being sexual, and she even seems to imply that women dress up on Halloween for themselves (never once does she mention the attention of men; the dress-up is always “what you want to do”).She frequently makes videos about how women should support each other despite societal pressure to tear each other down. With this in mind, her “slut shaming” video seems particularly strange, because she transforms into one of the “haters” that she so frequently dismisses.

What to make of this? Well, Jenna is understandably confused, because just like all women, she is working out a whole mix of complicated messages about how and when she is supposed to be sexual. Young women receive so many contradictory messages about when to be sexual and when to be naive that it’s not surprising at all when a girl starts to express all of the contradictions.