Gossip Girl and Virginity Loss : Cads, Dads, and The Urgency Script

In Taylor’s article, “Cads, Dads, and Magazines: Women’s Sexual Preferences and Articles about Sex and Relationships” Taylor states that depending on framing (either recreational or relational) a women will choose the romantic partner of a “Dad,”  the type of guy whose characteristics include emotional stability, being romantic, and being dependable, or a “Cad,” a man who is attractive, sexually experienced, lacks inhibition and, is more aggressive (Taylor, 2008). At the beginning of the Gossip Girl series Chuck Bass starts off as a Cad. He has serious money, good looks, and lacks a great deal of inhibition. He skips school, drinks during the day, orders prostitutes, and is extremely aggressive in his sexual escapades. While he does all of this, it is clear that the character of Blair Waldorf is the apple of his eye and the dream sexual conquest. However, Blaire is incredibly “out of his league.” She doesn’t sleep around (she actually is a virgin), has very high standards, and is always chasing after “prince charming.”

However, there is obvious sexual chemistry between the two, and Blair ends up loosing her virginity to Chuck in the back of his limo one night. The loss of Blair’s virginity to Chuck seems partly due to the fact that she is irresistibly attracted to his Cad qualities. After she looses her virginity to him Blair makes it quite clear that she does not want to date him just because he took her virginity. This is interesting because it is stereotypically assumed that most women want the man who takes their virginity to be/become their boyfriend. It is hard to tell if it the fact that Chuck’s sexual prowess and Cad qualities of attractiveness, wealth (they are in a limo during the deed), and sexual experience (we all know he’s got experience), makes him so irresistible that he is able to knock down all of the barriers that Blair has set in place previous to the act, or if it is the underlying urgency to simply have sex that leads Blair to this choice.

The entirety of the first season, previous to Blair and Chuck’s backseat-limo-bang, involves Blair dealing with her ex-boyfriend (Nate) cheating on her with her ex-best friend (Serena). The rational behind the reason that Nate had sex with Serena is that Blair would not have sex with him, therefore creating a sense of insecurity and shame within Blair. 

That being said, one could make the case that Blair’s decision to have sex with Chuck reflects the urgency script, a particular way virginity narrative loss is shown in the media that depicts virginity loss as “necessary to affirm a gendered identity as a sexually sought-after individual, to be perceived by others as desirable, and to achieve social status" (Kelly, 2010 p. 482). Blair feels like see needs to have sex because she feels inadequate socially and as a “woman” compared to Serena, and therefore does so with Chuck. Gossip Girl is one of the only media examples I have found where a female character choses a Cad character to loose her virginity to. Even though Blair and Chuck end up together at the end of the series, during this first season Blair deals with a lot of consequences relating to loosing her virginity to and continuing to hook up with a Cad character.  Gossip Girl perpetuates the message that Cad characters are strictly for recreation which may be a possible reason that when women think about things in the frame of recreation they continually choose a Cad type over a Dad type.

It is not until Chuck bass later reforms and turns into a more dependable, emotionally stable, and romantic Dad character that the relationship turmoil between Chuck and Blair begins to fade. The messages that the relationship between Chuck and Blair send, specifically in regards to virginity loss, act as a kind of PSA to the adolescent group the show targets perpetuating the already held idea Cads are for fun and Dads are for the future.

References

Kelly, M. (2010). Virginity loss narratives in “teen dramas” television programs. Journal of Sex Research, 47(5), 479-489. Doi: 10.1080/00224490903132044

Taylor, L. D. (2008). Cads, dads, and magazines: Women’s sexual preferences and articles