The Sexist History of Guilty Pleasure
Of pumpkin spice, Hallmark Christmas movies, and misogyny
At a 2013 Television Critics Association event, Bridgerton executive producer Shonda Rhimes expressed her distaste at descriptions of the shows as a “guilty pleasure.” She shared her understanding of the phrase as “it’s crap, but I can’t stop watching it” and noted that she would prefer viewers not watch her shows rather than characterize them as such. Rhimes’s oeuvre features female-centric storylines, much like the other entertainments often described as guilty pleasures: romance novels, “chick lit,” romantic comedies, or true crime podcasts. The descriptor is also used for food and drink and can encompass feminine-coded treats such as cupcakes, rosé wine, and pumpkin spice lattes—or rich or indulgent foods. Male-coded pastimes such as car collecting, hunting, beer drinking, and sports generally sit outside of this stigma, alongside masculine literature such as Westerns and thrillers. These “manly” interests are seen as culturally respectable, and those who enjoy them may feel free to do so without guilt. Conversely, women’s interests are seen as things one should feel ashamed of enjoying. Men’s pleasures are simple; women’s are guilty.
The basis for this dichotomy, pervasive in contemporary culture, appears in numerous cultural contexts, beginning with the Bible. Seeing Adam lonely without a “helper,” God created Eve from one of his ribs, and so, starting in the Garden of Eden, the expectation is that a woman’s role is to serve. The pair are instructed to “be fruitful, and multiply,” further separating their roles by making Eve responsible for pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering. The phrase “guilty pleasure” emerges for the first time in an 18th-century address by English schoolmaster James Burgh to his male students. Burgh proposes that if one were to go on a “course of guilty pleasure, with hopes of repenting of it afterwards,” the result would be to “hope that he shall suffer 10 thousand times more pain than from shame and remorse than ever he enjoyed pleasure in the pursuit of criminal delights.” After this abstinence-promoting speech, the phrase begins to appear in sermons for both men and women, cautioning all Christians to uphold a moral lifestyle. Pleasure, these sermons reminded parishioners, was only derived from activities ordained by God, such as prayer, attending mass, and charity work. The only permissible sex acts were of the procreative, heteronormative variety. While men were understood and expected to enjoy sex, women were taught to expect pleasure in pleasing their husbands—to have sex for pleasure and not procreation was seen as selfish and, therefore, Godless. The guilt ascribed to those participating in such activities necessitated confession and could keep one out of Heaven.
The phrase evolved in the 20th century, as much of the explicit religious connotation was removed and replaced with a distinctive misogynist twist. By the 1950s, technological and social change meant that adults had the free time and income to make pleasurable pursuits profitable. Advertisers began targeting women with romance novels, televised soap operas, and increasingly inexpensive beauty treatments. The same culture that created and advertised these female-centric products was also careful to remind consumers that these things may be enjoyable but were also less than their male-coded counterparts. Women were supposed to enjoy these things but knew to expect mockery and derision for taking pleasure in them.
Developments in food science popularized the sorts of inexpensive processed and fast foods that many still consider guilty pleasures. Ten of the 25 famous women featured in a 2017 piece in The Cut claimed a specific food as their guilty pleasure. Like sex, eating comfort food can have a chemical reward as dopamine is released. But also, like sex, social conditioning causes women to see food as something to refrain from or to feel guilty about enjoying. Sex acts usually happen behind closed doors, but eating is often a communal activity. In a misogynistic society that ruthlessly judges women on their bodies, enjoying food can become a subversive act—hence the frequent refrains of “I’m so bad” as a woman dares to eat snacks in public. The guilt is multi-faceted: shame at a perceived weakness alongside the unspoken sentiment that women simply don’t deserve pleasure for pleasure’s sake.
By the 1990s, American popular culture developed a defensive sheen of ironic self-deprecation, and a schism between high and low culture mandated that sincerity be anathema to taste-makers. Popular films, literature, TV, and music were all coated in a defensive veneer of meta-commentary. On top of sex-shaming and food-shaming, the enjoyment of straightforward pop culture became embarrassing. Because much of this derided content—pop stars, reality dating shows, the Twilight franchise—was aimed at women and girls, even though it was incredibly commercially successful, it was still seen as lesser. And so enter “guilty pleasure” again: a label to admit and share your love of a thing while simultaneously disparaging it. As Rhimes described the term, it’s more akin to an addiction than a preference, something you know is bad objectively but that you can’t stop enjoying. The pleasure is real and compelling, but societal pressure adds an element of self-hatred.
Our misogynistic culture continues to deride the things that women and girls enjoy, even as they become billion-dollar industries—K-pop music, Lifetime movies, Taylor Swift. Despite persistent stigmatization, female-targeted pop culture is still incredibly commercially successful. Romance novel publishing continued to thrive and grow even as book sales overall lost money; Rhimes’s shows are among the most successful of all time; Taylor Swift’s Eras tour has broken numerous records; and Hallmark Christmas movies lead ratings every holiday season. Yes, because these products are aimed at women, they are considered trivial. In a capitalist society, financial gain is the ultimate goal, but the money consistently earned by these types of media is seen as illegitimate because those paying are viewed as unsophisticated and vapid: They don’t know any better.
Recent Marvel and Star Wars projects have taken steps to cater slightly more to female fans1, including characters like Osha, Mae, Captain Marvel, and Ms. Marvel. In response, male gatekeepers lashed out. Part of their motivation, spelled out in countless venomous Twitter threads and elsewhere, was the intuitive sense that things aimed at women were less than and for Marvel or Star Wars to consider female fans was to devalue both franchises. No wonder it has become safer for fans of female-coded products to label their enjoyment as “guilty pleasure.” You like it… but not really.
In our current context, “guilty pleasure” is both self-deprecating armor as well as self-critique. Misogynist culture continues to perpetuate the understanding that feminized pop culture is less-than and that female-coded interests are inherently frivolous. But if women don’t deserve to enjoy things, then why are so many things marketed toward us? If restrictive diets are superior to indulgence, why do restaurants even serve dessert? The words of the 18th-century schoolmaster who coined the term continue to resonate: Is a moment’s fleeting pleasure worth “10,000 times more pain” after the fact? Or can we, as Shonda Rhimes suggests, learn to find pride and contentment in the things we choose to please ourselves?
VULGAR HISTORY A LA CARTE is the companion publication to the Vulgar History podcast. Click here to hear the latest episode of the podcast.
Ann Foster is a a writer and podcaster. She’s currently writing a nonfiction biography of Caroline of Brunswick. Don’t know who that is? You will soon! She’s represented by Amy Bishop-Wycisk at Trellis Literary Management.
References:
https://www.thecut.com/2017/07/quotes-from-25-famous-women-on-their-guilty-pleasures.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/books/09romance.html
https://www.indiewire.com/2017/12/hallmark-christmas-movies-ratings-watch-1201903198/
A previous version of this article was published in Bitch Magazine issue #81, Winter 2019
And fans of colour, and queer fans, but we’re just talking about women in this piece.
What an excellent dissection of the term “guilty pleasure “. It is sad how many things that are women-coded are derided as not being worthy. It just makes me want to say, “Fuck that, there are no guilty pleasures, only pleasures.”
Thank you for your thought-provoking article.💕
You mentioned K-pop, and I have to say fan culture so strange. A man can be obsessed with a sports team, play fantasy football, talk about his favorite athletes all day...but if a feminine person dares to like a celebrity (e.g., Taylor Swift, but literally anyone), they're automatically an object of ridicule. It's "okay" by society standards to make fun of these people in media, on social media, and in real life, because their interests are considered "silly," "immature," "childish." It's like how an old white man can love The Beatles, but who does he think truly popularized them and supported them?
"Fangirls" (for not all of us are strictly girls/women, but for the sake of the dreaded term) are often the ones who are creating and supporting industries all over, including ones that men consider "theirs." Fangirls were there reading comic books from the beginning, loving the Gundam series...everywhere. But everything we do gets picked apart.
It's interesting that this also goes into fangirls attacking each other, in their own defense. They have to say they like something in the "right" way, to differentiate themselves, to say what other fangirls are doing is "wrong," but don't you worry, they (for they know how outsiders see us as a whole) would never like something in *that* unacceptable way. They're "not like the other girls," a thing so many femme people say they are, are told they are, because being "like the other girls" is obviously a problem.
After all, who would want to be associated with anything "girly"?
I haven't used the term "guilty pleasure" in a long time, and likely won't use it again, but I think my last was Ancient Aliens. 👽