Since so many of us live in this paradoxical nation that is both obviously obsessed with women’s bodies, yet has a morbid fear of wardrobe malfunctions, there is no shortage of fascinating discussions online about the interconnections of women and sex and the media. Increasingly it is becoming harder and harder to distinguish between sexual liberation and sexual objectification. And really one person’s objectification is another person’s liberation.
It is interesting though to compare and contrast how women’s bodies are used strategically by Big Business as well as Big Activists.
From the Monthly Review, an interesting discussion about the resexualisation of women’s bodies in the media. In talking about the FCUK line of t-shirts that state simply enough, “Fit Chick Unbelievable Knockers”, Rosalind Gil sees a trend in recent depictions of feminine sexuality:
“What makes these hyper-sexualised representations of women’s bodies different from earlier representations in the 1960s and 1970s is that they are clearly responses to feminism, and, in that sense, I would suggest, are far less ‘innocent’ than earlier sexualised depictions. Furthermore, this pervasive re-inscription of women as sexual objects is happening at a moment when we are being told that women can ‘have it all’ and are doing better than ever before — in school, University and the workplace…”
Compare this to Bitch Magazine’s recent write-up about PETA’s objectification of women. Discussing PETA’s recent “naked truth” protests featuring none other than naked women, Bitch asserts, “It’s clear when you watch PETA’s videos of the “nude news conferences” that the vast majority of the people paying these naked ladies any mind are men. But it’s not clear if anyone really gives a hoot about anything but their hooters. . .”
Which leads to an interesting, and especially contentious thesis about the connections between meat-eating and mysogyny. “What’s similar between pornography and meat-eating is the objectification of another for one’s own pleasure. . .” -from The Sexual Politics Of Meat author Carol J. Adams.
3 responses
Yeah. Because Pornography is to meat as Fur is to a coat in winter. You don’t need porno or fur to live, but at least some of us require meat to live well and, oh yeah, raise our own animals for such. That’s totally the same at kink.com .
85 year old Gloria Vanderbilt just wrote an erotic novel, imaginatively titled, Obsession: An Erotic Tale.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/books/18gloria.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Ms. Vanderbilt looks like she’s fifty. Does she fuck like she’s fifty? Does the diet of a millionaire enhance the libido nutritionally as well as symbolically? I want to know more about her designer drugs. Hormone replacement? Probably. Can she still self lubricate? Has a personal pilates instructor kept her haunches firm and limber?
Come on, Gloria. Spill it. Saturate the inquiring mind with your salacious wealth. I want to drip your stories at parties. I want new acquaintances to lick your lifestyle off me. I know you want it, too.
According to reviews, many of the sex toys Vanderbilt employs are gilt. Others are vegetable. Others are several hundred dollar hairbrushes. Others are unicorn.
If I were rich enough, could I buy a unicorn? I guess it’s a moot point. I’d rather buy myself a sex life in my mid-eighties. I’d rather buy myself INTO my mid-eighties.
http://mlyon01.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/life-expectancy-gap-widens-as-wealth-gap-widens/
Anyone who has been humped by a two-year-old knows little kids are sexual. However, if someone called a two-year-old sexy, questions would surface. This is because there are few people on the planet easier to exploit than a two-year-old. ‘Sexual’ is a subjective state, ‘sexy’ is objective. ‘Sexy’ can be conferred on an inanimate object, such as an enameled hairbrush.
I have a problem with there being a problem with women being “resexualized”. Apropos of the ‘re-‘: women are, were, and always will be sexual. Regarding ‘-ized’: it is a passive construction. It suggests that a woman passively allows sexuality to be constructed in the empty lot of her identity.
Rosalind Gill’s terminology doesn’t frame the issue well. A woman’s worth being determined by her sex appeal is the issue. A woman’s sexuality being exploited for its commercial worth is the issue. Buying sexy off the rack, like Vanderbilt jeans, is the issue. A woman being reduced to a rack is the issue.
It’s wrong of me to use Gloria Vanderbilt’s sexuality to make my point. It’s exploitive. It’s wrong to ridicule a person on the basis of her age for sexual expression. It exacerbates women’s objectification in the media by confusing sexuality with sex appeal and siding with the beauty industry in overvaluing external, physical traits as indicators of sexuality for women whereas power is the indicator for men.
But if I wrote, Obsession: An Erotic Tale, would it get published? Maybe online. It definitely wouldn’t be reviewed by The New York Times: that publication is for consequential matter, like Gloria Vanderbilt.
Very interesting commentary Katy. I think we all have something to add to this endless, and apparently endlessly interesting debate. Even Gloria Vanderbilt, god bless her.
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