Monday, November 17, 2008
Let's Talk about Sex: due Friday, November 21
This week, we'll be talking a good bit about history: the history of sex on screen in Where the Girls Are, the history of reproductive politics from Rickie Solinger's book, and on Friday, we'll talk a bit about the historical treatment of mothers in popular culture. My question for you is: how much has changed? Choose one idea from any of the readings for this week and reflect on what, if anything, has changed about the messages in popular culture about sex, reproduction, and/or becoming a mother. Examples from current television or film might be a good way to illustrate your points.
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18 comments:
Kristen L.
I love the movie Maid in Manhattan, but I as I took a closer look I realized that the movie was reinforcing these stereotypes about single motherhood. Every single mother works low paying jobs and sacrifices alot for her kids. But this movie did highlight the life of a single Spanish American mother instead of a white one, which I thought was a nice change. Jennifer Lopez's character is a hardworking single mother who works as a maid at a very ritzy hotel. She lives with her mother and son in a very low end area. Although she works full time she never misses time with her son, she takes off of work to go and watch him make a speech at his school while his 'out of the picture' father misses it, she also brings him to work with her when his father cancels their father-son weekend trip. She even gives up a promotion at work because she doesn't want to miss out on time with her son. Even though she is a beautiful woman she can't get the attention of the wealthy politician until he mistakes her for a wealthy woman. They end up going for a walk in the park together while J Lo is dressed in the very expensive clothes of a hotel guest. They do fall in love and end up going to a party and sleeping together. Everything is great until someone ruins the whole thing by exposing her true identity. By the end of the movie the politician looks past the whole lying thing, realizes his true feelings and sweeps her off her feet. Showing that Hollywood still thinks that a single mother family can never truly be a complete family, even though their was love between mother and son it wasn't enough for a 'happy' ending, unless a father figure is there.
A recent movie that has dealt with pregnancy recently is Juno. After reading from "Where the Girls Are" I can't imagine having a movie like that made today. If teenagers were constantly warned of the horrible consequences of pregnancy and were told that their lives would be over if they were to have a kid, this movie would turn their worlds upside down. Juno is a 16 year old girl who has sex with her friend in his basement. While it is said that it was his first time to have sex, it is implied that it is definitely not hers. So here we have a sexually active 16 year old who has sex with someone with whom she is not even in a relationship with and to top it all off, they don't use protection, and she ends up getting pregnant. She is unashamed of this unplanned pregnancy and her parents don't even send her off to the home of pregnant teenage girls! The people discussed in the "Where the Girls Are," those who were horrified at the idea of sex being talked about in the media, much less unprotected sex between high schoolers, would have passed out twenty minutes into the movie. And then we find out she doesn't even plan to keep her baby. She could have done the good thing and given up her life to be a good mother to her surprise baby, but she puts it up for adoption. Juno is in charge of the situation, not her parents, and is not sitting at home waiting to have this baby, she is constantly outside showing off her "situation" at the mall and having an usual relationship with the husband of the couple she is going to give her baby to. And then, if the 1950's viewers hadn't turned off the movie by this point, just as Juno is about to pop, the husband leaves the wife because he suddenly realizes he doesn't want to have a kid and all of the responsibilities that comes with it. And instead of doing the good thing, which would be to find another nice married couple to adopt the baby, Juno gives the baby to the newly single woman. This how a 50's viewer would summarize this movie: 16 year old promiscuous, brazen, wise-cracking girl gets pregnant with her friend and is unashamed of it. She is selfish and gives it up to a single woman, which is just as bad. This movie goes against the idea of a good nuclear family and will eventually cause the downfall of society.
Ok, maybe a 50's viewer wouldn't see it as the cause of the downfall of America, but this movie would horrify them. They would not be please, however, with the way Juno's parents dealt with her. When they find out she is pregnant they kind of are like, "eh. what are you going to do about it?" which I think is unrealistic even by today's standards. While my parents would not have shipped me off to a home if I had gotten pregnant at 16, they would have had more to say. And I definitely wouldn't be hanging out at the mall with my friends if I was 16 and 8 months pregnant. So while the 1950's viewers probably would have boycotted this movie until the management gave up and stopped playing it, I don't think we have quite reached the point of comfort when a high schooler's parent would say, "good luck with that." and send her on her way.
Douglas talks about how in the generations before us when a girl got pregnant and was still young most of them would either get married or be shipped off to another place to live while they are pregnant and then give the baby up for adoption. She says, “And if you got pregnant, your whole family would be humiliated and you’d have to either get married immediately or be shipped off to one of those homes where bad girls in angel blouses were hidden until the offending abdominal bulge disappeared. This is not the case now-a-days. Like in the movie Juno that recently came out. A young girl gets pregnant and she and her family are not ashamed of the pregnancy at all. In fact she keeps going to school even when she starts to show. This just goes to show how much things have changed since our parents were growing up. You would never see any teenage girl walking around school pregnant when they were in high school.
Times have changed and they will continue to change. Douglas talks about how in the 1950’s a “nice” girl never went all the way before she was married. If she did get pregnant she would either get married immediately or be shipped off to one of those homes. Nowadays you can walk down the hall in high school and chances are someone in your class is probably pregnant. Getting pregnant early isn’t a good thing, but it is a lot more accepted now than before. I went to a very good Catholic High School and six girls from my graduating class have children now.
Back then, it was very rare for you to see sex or scandalous images in television, magazines, or any other media. Today, sex sells and is used to lure customers into buying products. A very popular television show that is known for its scandal is the show Gossip Girl. Every girl loves to catch up on the weekly gossip and every guy wants to see the scandalous acts that each character will take on. Every week the show displays sex, drugs, and violence. A lot of parents are upset and feel as though the content is too sexy, intense, and inappropriate for the age group it is targeting. Although many people will agree this show is very scandalous, that is what keeps the audience wanting more. In the first episode, the main character, Serena, comes back after she ran away and went into hiding. The reason for this is because she had sex with her best friend’s boyfriend, Nate. They show many times throughout the first season, a replay of Serena and Nate getting hot and heavy with one another. After Serena’s best friend, Blair, moves on she has sex with Nate’s best friend Chuck in his limo. Chuck is known for being the womanizer and sleeping with a new girl every night. I can guarantee that a show like this would not have been appropriate back in the 1950’s.
Another example of a television show that would not have been appropriate is ABC Family’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager. In this show, the main character Amy is a fifteen year old girl who plays in the school band. She gets pregnant after a one night stand at band camp. After she finds out she is pregnant she decides to hide this information from everyone but her two best friends. When she eventually does tell her family, they have to decide whether to send her off until the baby is born or keep her home but take her out of school. She decides to go back to school, while pregnant, and have the baby. She wants to marry her current boyfriend, live with him in his house, and raise the child as if it was his own. Of course this was just season one and it left off with her returning to high school pregnant, so we don’t know what happens yet. I think it’s ironic that they play this show on ABC Family. A lot of times I feel as though they send the wrong message, even though they are trying to help young girls out in this situation. For example, Amy doesn’t tell her family that she is pregnant until what seems like a few weeks maybe even months go by. This isn’t healthy for her or the baby.
Relating to this example, another television show that I enjoy is Gilmore Girls. In this show, one of the main characters Lorelai, gets pregnant at the age of sixteen and decides to have the baby. She does not get married, even though her parents want her to, and moves out to take care of her and the baby on her own. The show beings with Lorelai’s daughter, Rory, at the age of fifteen and how the two of them grow up together. Although Lorelai gets pregnant at an early age and does not go to college or even finish high school, she still has a stable job and creates a good lifestyle for her and her daughter. This show helps young girls see that you can do it on your own.
All in all, these three shows would not have been acceptable in say my mother’s generation, but are what young adults are growing up with today. Some shows offer a lot of scandal and sex and portray it in the wrong way, like Gossip Girl. While other shows, like Gilmore Girls help young women to see that difficult situations can turn out better than expected.
We as young teenagers live in a very sexually attracted day in age. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t see a sex ad on TV or constant TV shows reminding me of sex. Yes, I do believe that sex appeal on television is circumstantial, but it is to an extent. My mother and I had a conversation about the television shows she used to watch when she was younger and how appalled she is of some of them on television today. She and I were flipping through the channels one day and for the first time in a while we actually looked at what was on the TV screen. I noticed that Melina had mentioned ABC Family’s Secret Life of the American Teenager. I actually watched this show for a good while and at the time thought it was a cute show. It wasn’t until after the season had ended that I realized it could possibly be sending out the wrong message to teenagers. I mean don’t get me wrong I am all for parents helping their children out in rough times as of these, but I felt like it was saying that it’s okay to get pregnant at a young age. I remember a young girl in the show always wanting to have sex with anyone. Even after she had seen what it did to Amy, the pregnant teenager. I really didn’t understand what kind of message it was supposed to send out, but I thought that it was uncalled for to premiere on ABC Family. Well as we continued to flip, we finally reached the 50’s channels. At that moment all I wanted to do was just walk out the room. It was a sex talk show and it wasn’t like this channel was in the 100 where the children begin to get bored and just go back down. No, this was a hard core sex show. This old woman was holding two dolls, one male one female, and showing sexual positions! The show was called Talk Sex with Sue and believe me she is a very popular woman because it is what’s “in”. Her ratings were out of the roof. I could not believe that a show like that could even make it on basic cable.
I attended public school my whole life and I believe I was 13 in the 8th grade when I seen my first pregnant girl at my school. By the time I had reached my senior year in high school, I had seen about 30 pregnant girls. Most of them dropped out as soon as they found out, but there were a few that stuck high school out and even went on to college. About 16 of those girls did not know who the father was. It just amazed me how irresponsible some young teens actually are and also how much they do not care. My mother said that when she was in school, if you were pregnant you were kicked out of school. Now days the only thing that happens when you get pregnant is that you get a sticker on your school ID saying you have permission to use to restroom whenever needed. It just amazed me how much things have changed just from when my mother was a teenager to now.
In this chapter, Susan Douglas talked about how girls were not to be expected to do anything but “hold hands” before marriage. The basic idea of that chapter was to inform readers on how sexuality was perceived at that time period. Sexuality has changed so much from the times that Susan Douglas was talking about and I believe that sex before marriage is more acceptable in this day and age then it was back when she was growing up. Even though society is not all the way there yet, sex is talked about and mentioned more in the media. Movies such as Juno probably would have been criticized and banned from the movie theater back then! Shows like the new 90210 feature teenagers that are only fifteen and sixteen years old openly talking about sex and participating in acts. On the pilot episode of 90210, sixteen year old Ethan was receiving oral sex from a fellow classmate in the parking lot. No one in the media even criticized the show for showing this act or for the age of the character who was receiving this sexual act. It is accepted. Also on the show, fifteen year old Annie asked her brother, who is also fifteen years old, for a condom so that she could lose her virginity to a fellow classmate.
Older viewers who watch the show probably think that the topic of sex should be left out because it may encourage teenagers to follow in their footsteps. I think that it is the opposite. I think television shows like 90210 capture how it is to be a teenager and a sexual being. It should open up dialogue between a parent and a teen. This is a very difficult period in a teenagers’ life as Susan Douglas mentions in the chapter. She said that it was a very confusing time because teens have these hormones and feelings and there is numerous sources saying do not act on them. A classmate wrote in their blog about how shows like Gossip Girl portray sex in the wrong way but I disagree. I think that Gossip Girl shows how teenagers really feel about sex. The teenagers on that show portray sex how teenagers do in real life. The only difference is that they are rich and it involves scandal for ratings. It is just the same scale but different weight. Basically, I mean it is the same belief but in a different context.
Wesly G.
After reading Susan Douglas’ chapter “Sex and the Single Teenager,” I am having difficulty imagining a world in which women were not supposed to enjoy sex, a world in which the sex lives of women were never the topic of conversation on television, in movies, in magazines or in music. At first, I wondered if women simply did not have orgasms. Did orgasms not exist back then? Did women just assume the role of a dead fish when it was time for sex? However, after reading Douglas’ chapter, I see that my concerns are ridiculous. Women have always had sex and enjoyed it. What I gathered from class and from Douglas’ chapter is that the idea that women were not supposed to enjoy sex was subject to symbolic annihilation. Women having sex was not promoted or frowned upon; it was just never talked about in the mainstream media.
It is the general impression that the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s was what changed America and turned every one into sexual beings. However, Douglas points out that this was not true for everyone; the sexual freedom of the world’s teenagers, while on the rise, was not as out-of-control as it is cracked up to be. The Sexual Revolution was more of a revolution of the media. The media realized that “sex sells” and set out to sell it. This revolution of the media is important because the media’s commodification of sex has eventually led to, what we call today, the commodification of women’s bodies.
It is very interesting to read Douglas’ description of the movies she grew up with and compare them to the movies I grew up with. In the “pregnancy melodramas” Douglas describes, her generation finally sees hints of a female desire for sex. Today, however, there is no question of whether women enjoy sex. Of course, the act of premarital sex is actually allowed on screen now; we see many more breasts, bare backs, and buttocks that ever before. However, the most significant difference is what happens to the girl after having sex before she was married. In the movies Douglas describes, such as A Summer Place, Susan Slade, or Where the Boys Are, the girl always ends up pregnant. However, in today’s movies, pregnancy is usually not the immediate result of having premarital sex. Girls today see women in movies having as much premarital sex as they want with very few consequences. We have even taken a step toward a wanted pregnancy outside of marriage in Baby Mama. At the end of the movie, the viewer is supposed to be happy that Tina Fey got pregnant, and we are not supposed to care that it was outside of marriage. In our move toward female independence in the workplace, in the home, in society, we have moved toward female sexual independence as well.
In conclusion, the movies of Douglas’ day are very different from the movies I grew up with, but are important to analyze because they mark the beginning of the depiction of female sexuality on the big-screen. It is because I grew up seeing women actually enjoying premarital sex without having to endure the consequences of unwanted pregnancy that I find it hard to understand a world in which women having sex was never talked about in the media, let alone women enjoying sex.
Homosexuality is still a very touchy subject in our present culture but has come a long way. I remember being in high school and hearing about a child who received detention for using a “forbidden” word: gay. He was referring to his mothers. Homosexuality can seem so taboo that even the mention of it brings out a fear in people to never bring it up. I find it to be unavoidable. The fact that it is now being discussed in politics, though usually negatively, is still a step towards understanding. On the recent episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” they try to bring up the topic by revealing that a doctor has discovered her sexuality. I guess it didn’t do much for the show, being that the love interest has been removed. But how many thousands of people, if even for a few weeks, were presented with a topic that they had not previously dealt with? Taking it back doesn’t take away the fact that it happened. Does anyone remember the first prime time television kiss between two women? It was on a soap opera and you can bet that I was there to see it. I can’t tell you the name of the show or the names of the characters but I remember it very well. To finally see real intimacy between people forbidden to be in love changed something for me. Maybe it wasn’t so evil to happen to love differently. If it made me think about it, whom else was it changing? Children in the closet afraid to tell their friends and family? Mothers with gay children who still could not understand them? Adults that had been hiding their secret for years? Whether or not the members of society are searching for this information or attempting to avoid it, the energy that surrounds this movement is growing, and once energy is created it can never be destroyed. A new generation is rapidly replacing the old ideals that have burdened our culture for so long. A new generation more open to love and acceptance. I feel that it is only a matter of time for these issues to be common in everyone’s lives. I know there will be a time, in the somewhat near future, when we can look back and say, “Look what we did. We changed the world.” And when that day comes, our most basic needs for love, sexuality, and acceptance will no longer be such a horrible thing, because to understand love, is to understand ourselves.
Media and the Single Parent
Starting with the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family the media has always had an overwhelming influence on how we as a culture should be or look like as a family. This drastic change from monogamous relationships to the sexual single parent has had great success in Hollywood but is still being portrayed as not being quite good enough for normal standards. Although single parenthood is reflective of our culture, the movies or television shows that do portray the idea ultimately come down to the single mother needing help, or needing to be saved.
In Monica Nolan’s article “Mother Inferior,” Monica describes how the media takes great effort to describe single motherhood as the “destruction of the patriarchy.” In the recent television show “Judging Amy,” that ended in 2004, the main character is a single parent named Amy who gets in a messy divorce, finding herself in trouble and no place to go with her child. She decides to leave New York City and return home to live with her mother. Although this show was very successful, it found success in bringing out the stresses that single parents face such as the struggle of her complex role of being a parent, a mother , a professional, and in this case a daughter; instead of the rewards that it can bring such as a sense of accomplishment.
The television show, “Reba,” also focuses on single motherhood. Reba is a single mother who’s husband leaves her for his younger secretary, leaving Reba with a pregnant daughter, and three other children. In the show, Reba is seen as the motherly figure that everyone goes to. Her ex husband goes to her for advice about his relationship with the secretary, the secretary goes to Reba for advice on her relationship with Reba’s ex husband, and her children and mother constantly come to her for everything. Although Reba always seems to have it all together she usually always has some sort of breakdown in the middle of the show saying how she cant take it anymore and she needs help.
The two television shows, “Reba,” and “Judging Amy,” are in extreme contrasts to the monogamous family tv shows such as The Brady Bunch. The Brady Bunch was formed to present the ideal family, two parents, three boys and three girls. Although the family did have their ups and downs such as the oldest girl Marsha getting hit in the head with a football and Jan wrecking the car these problems of the ideal family are not as extreme as the ones that are presented in single mother television.
Although the media has presented our culture with television and movies that reflect recent family life such as the single parent, “Hollywood is still showing its unproblematic success,” resulting in our culture having a negative outlook on single motherhood. If the media can no longer produce the stereotypical mother and be successful, it now will produce a product that shows our recent culture but with a twist of negativity. Monica Nolan closes her article saying that “her ideal single mom movie has not been made yet,” she refuses to watch another movie which has “Mom winding up with a man. Or lets her kids boss her around, or has not interest in life other than being a mother.” While I wait for the media to produce a product not so degrading to the single parent, I will be eating popcorn with Monica and watching Terminator 2.
The ideas of teen female sexuality in Douglas’s book have changed over the years. However, depending on the kind of school you attended, the ideals from the 50s and 60s may still be apparent.
I attended an all-girls Catholic high school and to them being pregnant was like having leprosy in biblical times. They sent the pregnant girls to a “pregnant girl” school so that they could attend class later in the day and actually fit in the desk. Once the baby was born, they could return to school but the child could not be mentioned or come to school events. And the girl who had the child was not allowed to display any sign of being engaged or married, otherwise she would be asked to leave school. The treatment of pregnant girls at my high school was similar to something straight out of movie from the 50s. Not only did the girl feel completely out of place because she was pregnant, but those feelings were probably worse when she had to leave for a few months because the religious beliefs of the school couldn’t account for the fact that she had made a mistake.
Nowadays, if you attend a public school or a more accepting private school, pregnant girls may be whispered about but none of them are sent away because of their “condition”. When I attended a public school for a month after Katrina, I saw my first pregnant girl, and it left me speechless. I’d been in an environment where being pregnant was completely unacceptable and then there I was with a pregnant girl sitting next to me in class.
Popular culture portrays an image where it’s acceptable for women to be pregnant and raise a child on their own and that contraceptives should be accessed by anyone having sex. If the stars can do, can’t anyone do it too? Being educated in an environment where pregnancy was something to be avoided conflicted with the images I saw everyday of happy, pregnant or single-parent females. As for contraceptives, Catholic school teaches against the use of them because they prevent pregnancy and the point of marriage is to procreate, but only within marriage. Popular culture shows an image of sex being good anytime and anywhere, without the mention of the consequences or risks involved. But the people on TV never got STDs or got pregnant, so why was it so wrong? In school, we were shown grotesque images of the consequences: STDs. That was enough to scare one away from sex for the rest of their life.
The constant confliction between what I saw and what I was being taught left me confused as to what was acceptable for sex. If I was famous it was ok, but as a student it would be a huge mistake. Pop culture and the education system will continue to provide conflicting views of one another until a compromise can be reached or the education system can agree that sex is acceptable but one must be responsible about it.
A good bit of what Douglas focused on was the debate going on in every girl’s head, whether to be a “good girl” or a “bad girl”. While I think the boundaries on what defines a good girl and what defines a bad girl have changed, I still believe that these polarized notions are still the tradition being carried out today. I think that movies such as American Pie exemplify that today’s society does not expect their youth to be virgins until marriage. The movie “40 Year Old Virgin” wouldn’t be here if it did, much less be labeled a comedy. Our nation just had a woman running for Vice President who had a pregnant teenage daughter, that would have never happened in 1950-60’s society.
However, there are limits. In teen movies and TV shows today it is still common to find character(s) that are defined as more or less promiscuous than others. Today I think lessons are supposed to be learned from both; I don’t think the promiscuous girl is painted as evil any more. Clueless, for example, Cher, the lead character was a virgin and was portrayed as who you should want to be. Tai, the new girl, was not a virgin, and was deemed the “project,” i.e. something that needed fixing. However, neither character was painted as perfect or evil and the movie ends with them both happy, in relationships.
I think the big difference today is that the line is no longer black and white; the status of a girl’s hymen does not define you as a good girl or a bad girl anymore. I think today a certain amount of sexual knowledge is almost expected. Again the comedy of a movie like “40 Year Old Virgin” shows this. I think the line between good girl and bad girl today is defined more personally; it’s definition coming from an individual’s personality, past experiences and environment. The same I guess could be said for the girl in 1950, but I think there is no longer a blanket society rule placed on girls today. I think an excellent example of where and how the line gets drawn today, is a story from “Sex and the City.” It has been a while since I’ve seen it but from what I remember, Charlotte, the “good girl” of the show, has been asked by the guy she is dating to perform some sort of anal sex act. She calls Carrie and they have a conference in the back of a cab about whether “should she or shouldn’t she.” I think Charlotte even says something like, “I don’t want to be known as that girl, nobody marries a girl like that.” So there is still a concern about reputation today. There is a line; it is just blurrier these days.
Over the years, the notions of teen pregnancy and unwed motherhood have changed drastically. Today, it is no longer considered a sin by a lot of people, but accepted as part of the changing times. Two very recent movies that deal with this issue are Juno and Knocked Up. In Juno, she is a very young teenager who has sex with her friend just to “try” it, and does not really consider the consequences until she finds out that she is actually pregnant. The scene that stands out the most to me is when she breaks the news to her father and stepmother. They are visibly upset and shocked, but take the news rather well considering how young she is and that she wants to carry the child and put it up for adoption. Their support is becoming more of a natural reaction for some parents these days. Perhaps if Juno had better education on the consequences of having sex, she would have made a better decision. However, it is just a movie, but the reality is that parents are not educating their kids well enough on the topic of sex. In the movie Knocked Up, a girl in her mid 20’s goes out partying all night and ends up taking a random guy she meets at a bar back to her place and has sex with him. She ends up pregnant, decides to keep the baby, and she and the babies father end up happily ever after (although not married). This movie was definitely made to be a comedy, but the message behind it is not very funny. The reality of it is that this situation does happen all the time, and it does not always turn out so well. Some single mothers who decide to have the child end up alone, trying their whole lives for the man to accept some of the responsibility. But the woman is the one who has the baby, and some men think that if the child was a mistake, it is the woman’s mistake to live with. These two movies are good examples of how much controversial issues like these have evolved from how things once were.
The article Double Life, Everyone Wants to See Your Breasts- Until Your Baby Needs Them was very interesting to me, it made a lot of sense and brought up many questions about why society shuns breast feeding in public. In earlier times I would think that breast feeding was looked at as a thing that the woman did behind closed doors and some people still look at it that way. But many people look at it as it is a natural thing and that is what the breasts were made for so why should it be hidden and looked down upon, when it is ok for women to flaunt their cleavage all around town. Well I wish I had the answer, I personally don’t like to see women breast feeding in public especially when I am trying to eat in a restaurant. In the article they point out a couple of instances where women were asked to leave the restraint for breast feeding at the table because of a health code violation.
In today’s society how people look at sex has changed drastically compared to where it was a couple of generations ago. But breast feeding in public has not made that major change. I hardly ever see women breast feeding in public but I see breast advertised at every corner, it is very contradictory, we as society feel that breast are sexual objects that should be flaunted, but as soon as they are not used as sex objects they should be hidden. I understand that if the baby is hungry it has to be fed and it is not always possible to bottle milk before an outing but breast feeding in public to me is something that I do not like to see. I can remember I was younger maybe 15 and I was eating with my family and there was a family sitting next to us in a restaurant and the baby would not stop crying. So the mother whipped out her breast and started feeding the baby right there in the middle of the restaurant with nothing covering what was going, and the funniest part was that she was still eating too. Her husband was embarrassed and tried to talk to his wife but she could not care less what he or anyone else thought. It ruined my dinner experience and many others in the restaurant. I just feel that there is a time and a place for breast feeding and in a restaurant or public place is not the place for it. I do not have a solution to the breast feeding problem that society fixes and no matter what happens not everyone will be happy. I think breast feeding in public is gross but I also understand where the mother is coming from when her child is hungry and needs to be fed.
Alexis Bennettt
To be frank, the views of sex have not changed that much from past decades. Although I will use examples from movies, it is not needed becuase I witness the way mainstream Americans and my peers view sex on a daily basis. In my opinion, it is none of my business what other grown women do with their bodies. I am really more concerned with my own sexual habits and not really in to what anyone else is doing in their lives. Despite my disinterest, I am bombarded with "guess who's a whore" on a daily basis. People are so curious about sex and the women that participate in it as willingly as men that they demonize it because they cannot understand it. They make sex strictly about love and that wonderful man that is going to appear and just because he is the "the love of your life" then your sexual experience will be amazing. Ha Ha Ha...Don't you believe it. This is a little secret kept from all women from ill-performing men; they don't want you to have any other sex partner because they don't want you to compare them to that Greek God of a man that you turned down last week to keep your number below three fingers. Quite hilarious right? Well, have you ever thought about it this way. While women really all have the same anatomy that are involve in sex0. MEN DO NOT!! To tell you the truth if I was an average man of average anatomy, then I would prefer that my wife had not had sex with the guy that seemed to stand in that God blessed with the greatest piece of anatomy of all time. Automatically, I'd feel threatened by her experience. So, men just disreguard the female with these experiences as a whore and I won't marry her. On the other hand, women have it right. Men that seemed to have the most experience are sought after. Why? Women think, "Wow" he must know what he is doing. That same way of thinking scares men to death talking about "they want a woman they can teach". Please give me a brake. You want a woman who is not going to know how much you suck in bed. Anyway, let me digress. The stereotype will never change as long as there are woman scared to explore their sexualiyt freely and see other women just doing it. Jealousy of that woman is inevidatbable. Some people I know have said that if they a free pass for a week that everyone would forget they would have sex with as many men as possible that were very attractive. So, in short, I don't believe the views of sex will ever change.
After reading, "Double Life: Everyone Wants to See Your Breasts - Until Your Baby Needs Them", I was shocked by a lot of the information because I have never heard of some of this before. In this story it briefly discusses about women who were nursing their babies in public places such a park, mall, and grocery store. The women who did that were either harassed by a security guard or kicked out of the store for the plain fact that they was nursing their babies. That is crazy to think that this was looked down upon and to think how far we have come in so little time. Since so many women were being harassed about breast feeding in public they all got together and fought. The California Women's Law Center represented all the women and were able to pass the Right to Breastfeed Act in 1999, "Which guarantees a women's right to breastfeed on federal property". I believe that because of this bill it definitly helped mothers feel more comfortable when they need to breastfeed in public. It is honestly so wierd to me how people used to look down upon this subject and now people are accepting of it. I'm really happy that people are more accepting these days but I believe that the media has helped out in that people becoming more accepting. I remember in the beginning of the semester when a picture of Christina Aguilera was shown on the screen in this class, it was a picture of her pregnant but posing naked with her hands covering up her private parts. It is examples like this that have helped everyone to believe pregnancy is a beautiful and wonderful thing!
The sexual revolution began in the 1960’s with the invention of the bikini, and the legal distribution of contraceptives, sex became the new symbol. In Susan Douglas’s, Where the Girls Are, she talks about how in the 50’s the idea was “that no nice girls ever went all the way before marriage”. Sex was a topic that was strictly taboo, but how has that really changed in the last fifty or sixty years?
I know that in my household sex was a topic that was comfortable to talk about. My mother was always very open about the subject and very informative. Although maybe it is easy for me to talk to my mom, my guess would be that it’s not that way for most kids growing up. My high school boyfriend never talked to his mom about it. To her it was a discussion that she didn’t want to have; In fact he once told me that she has never actually said the word sex in front of him. The only thing she told him was “wait until your thirty five”. Even listening to class discussion on Monday you can see that still parents are not eager to have the birds and the bees talk with their kids. Most of our parents want us to be informed, (sex education at school) but don’t really want to have that awkward conversation.
The media on the other hand has taken the symbol of sex and run with it. Mainly due to the idea that sex sells. Stores like Victoria secret are capitalizing on this idea. Also when we turn on our televisions most shows that are targeted to teenagers are talking about sex. Shows such as Gossip Girl, 90210, One Tree Hill, and the list goes on. Some of these shows give the notion that pre martial sex isn’t all that bad (Gossip Girl), while other shows reveal the consequences of premarital sex (One Tree Hill). While the media gives one impression of sex, that shouldn’t be the only impression we get.
I think that sex is still one of those topics that are considered taboo, but over generation this will change more and more. Most of our grandparents didn’t talk to our parents about sex, so therefore they struggle talking to us about it. When parents do open up to their children about this topic it makes things more comfortable. I believe that the conversation about sex is always going to be an awkward one to have, but over generation it may become easier.
The chapter Sex and the Single Teenager from Susan Douglas’s “Where the Girls Are” is a look at the representation of sex and gender in the sexual revolution of the sixties. One point Douglas’ makes that I believe may illuminate more clearly the change, or lack of change, which has occurred in the representation of sex and gender in today’s modern media, is the notion that “Every girl must decide for herself” (Douglas, 70). Through the use of numerous examples Douglas points out the growing sexual independence of young women in television, magazines, and film. Today, roughly forty-eight years after the release of films like Where the Boys Are, has the role of the young woman compounded upon this ideal of sexual liberation, reverted to its previous state, or regressed even further still? This essay will be an attempt to answer this question in hopes of elucidating the present role of sex, and its relation to gender identity.
One of the greatest contributory factors for the liberation of young women from traditional, puritan, gender roles was the “pregnancy melodrama” (Douglas, 73). According to Douglas, this genre of film not only allowed women to recognize sex as non- condemnatory act, but also established a new feminine “role model.” Douglas describes this new role model as a woman who is, “deeply conflicted and unsure whether to act on her sexual impulses or obey the double standard, a girl inclined to rebel yet still every bit a “good girl” (Douglas, 74). If the validity of this statement is accepted, it may be fruitful to apply Douglas’s definition to a modern day “pregnancy melodrama.” While it is unlikely that anyone would consider the “pregnancy melodrama” a prevalent genre, at least in present day cinema. With the release of 2007’s Oscar winning blockbuster Juno, the popularity of the “pregnancy melodrama” would be hard to deny. Juno is the story of a young woman named Juno MacGuff, played by Ellen Page, is an independent quirky young girl who has decided to have pre-marital sex with her love-interest Polly Bleeker, played by Michael Cera, and has become pregnant. If we can associate the character of Juno MacGuff as the evolutionary decedent of the new sexually liberated feminine “role model,” from the pregnancy melodrama’s of the sixties, an interesting difference between Juno and these previous women is elucidated. Where the “role model” of the sixties was defined as being torn between her sexual impulses and societal expectations, Juno appears to have none of these difficulties. Indeed it is Juno, not Paulie, whom instigates their first sexual encounter. This might not seem different than the sixties films mentioned by Douglas, but what is important to point out about the sexual encounter in Juno is that it is not an unconscious or purely instinctual act, but is a premeditated decision. When Juno is asked when she had decided to have sex with Paulie, she replies, that she had decided upon it over a year before the event. From this statement one can discern that not only was the decision to have sex a cognitive decision, but Juno does not intimate even the slightest hint of an inner conflict, or doubt about the decision to have sex with Bleeker. It would be fair to say that because of Juno’s lack of conflict over the sex act as well as the premeditation of the act, that there exists none of the sexual double standard which dominated the psyche of the woman of those films Douglas refers to. This is not to say, however, that conflict regarding sexual issues does not exist in the film, or even in the psyche of the character Juno. The conflict, however, has become removed from the desire for, or performance of the sexual act, and has become situated firmly on the pregnancy, and the decision to abort or keep the child.
This change from sex to pregnancy is important, even if it is merely a recapitulation of the catharsis, because it dictates a change in societal norms. Where the “pregnancy melodrama” of the sixties conveyed a message of a women’s right to dictate their own sexual identity. The modern “pregnancy melodrama,” has evolved from its historical antecedent, and through a recalibration in emphasis from the sexual act to the issue of abortion. One becomes aware of the way this critiques and illuminates the societal changes which have occurred over the last forty years to transform a sexual oppressive society into a society which accepts sex as perfectly normal part of a young woman’s life.
There have definitely been a lot of changes in the way sex and sexuality are presented from era of the 60s to present day. Every medium has become more forward and outspoken about the topic, pressing the fact that sex sells. From movie scenes becoming more and more risqué, to simple TV commercials, the messages of sex are ever present. I, however, feel like no medium has become more sex driven than the music industry. For example, like Douglas mentions in Where the Girls Are, the Shirelles’ song “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” simply implied the question of whether her man would stick with her and love her as he promised after he had slept with her. Nothing was explicit like it is today, but I would like to compare the Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” lyrics with lyrics from Christina Aguilera’s 2002 Stripped album. The two are very different and show the drastic changes that the music industry has gone through over the past forty years.
The Shirelles’ have lines such as “Tonight with words unspoken”, where as Christina Aguilera (in the song “Get Mine, You Get Yours”) sings the chorus of “Put your hands on my waistline, put your skin up against mine, move my hips to the base line, let me get mine you get yours/ Hang a please do not disturb sign, put my back into a slow grind, running chills up and down my spine, let me get mine you get yours.” The obvious differences are astounding. Although I understand the natural progression of song lyrics from subtle to racy through time, I do find the distance they’ve come to be amazing.
I think another reason things have changed so drastically is because of the sexual revolution. Now it is more acceptable for women to be in touch with their sexual side and they have the right to validate it. In another Christina Aguilera song (this one featuring female rapper Lil’ Kim), “Can’t Hold Us Down”, Christina sings and Lil’ Kim raps about society’s sexual double standard. The lyrics “I don’t understand why it’s okay, a guy can get away with it while a girl gets named” perfectly explain how it is acceptable, even favorable or expected, for a man to get as much sexual gratification as he can, while a woman is ruined by the same actions. Not that I am for the promiscuity of either gender, I absolutely adore this song because it challenges the social standards. Christina even tells women of our generation, “All my ladies come together and make a change, start a new beginning for us, everybody sing”. Here she tells women to stand strong and proud and to challenge to social standards.
I find it truly inspiring how far we’ve come as women sometimes. Although occasionally I do find some lyrics to be more profane than artistic, the fact that it is now acceptable to say/sing such things is impressive. Where as the Shirelles’ lyrics are begging for an answer to the question of whether or not they will still be loved in the morning, Christina (and female artists of the day) are demanding their sexual rights and taking them without hesitation. Again, although I do not condone promiscuity of either sex, I do relish in the fact that at least the playing ground is slowly being leveled.
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