Another Study to State the Obvious

"2. Have a look at the article. Have a nice long look. Look at the photo that accompanies it. Click on it, so it's nice and big. It's a photo of some women who pose for Playboy magazine photographs' bums. Not heads, or legs. The focal point of the picture is bums." I think this is the point, not whether the study was conducted by fetishists. I'm no sexual prude, mind, but I think Mary Whitehouse had some points about sexuality and the media (not many, yes, but some). My main gripe is that most of the sexuality that is used in adverts, music vids, etc. is pointless and far removed from any kind of context where sexuality is *actually* necessary in the depiction. Contextual sexuality is fine if it delineates a theme; otherwise, it's a bit like a Scorsese film: violence for the sake of violence; sex for the sake of sex. Kids are rather susceptible to media influences (I ripped holes in all of my clothes after watching 'Flashdance'). If female sexuality is forever portrayed as either lacking any agency of its own (eg women in g-strings being fondled by gangstas in a video), or, on the other hand, predatory in nature, girls of a certain age won't know where their personal boundaries should be. If male sexuality was portrayed in the same way and with the same volume (in terms of exposure time, so to speak) things might be different. But it's the same old lopsidedness, dressed up as women's 'sexual liberation'. Bugs me, it does.

Spoken like a man with no experience of being a woman, clearly. 2Lou, I love Pink as well. In some ways she's the perfect media role model for today's teenager: mouthy, talented, attractive without cosmetic enhancements, hates her parents, and intelligently media-savvy. As the mother of a boy AND a girl, I worry about the teenage years lying ahead, and what sort of rubbish I'm going to have to keep an eye out for. I was horribly susceptible to media influences and got very little guidance from my own mum as to what was appropriate or not. So I had to figure it out through experience, much of which was unpleasant and involved lots of boundary issues in terms of person and self-esteem. I wouldn't wish it on either of my kids.

"...male attempts at seduction are usually portrayed as rather pathetic." I would agree, Jack; perhaps that 'have or have not' goes hand-in-hand with the OTT women's sexuality, although with the male 'have-nots' the portrayal is at least made comical, rather than as an reason to purchase an expensive face cream or have breast implants. I dunno. It's a very complex issue, and something of a chicken-and-egg as to whether the media reflects a certain cultural zeitgeist, or if the zeitgeist is created by the media. It certainly runs a lot deeper and is potentially more harmful than many of the current 'PC' complaints.

'a' reason, I should have said...