The Myth of Sexy
[Ed. note: I'm a lot peeved 'cause Blogger crashed as I went to publish this. Can you say pissed? Anyway, hopefully it'll work this time.]
The guys at work were discussing CBC's Marketplace last week. The topic was buying into sexy -- how media and marketing are encouraging little girls to want to be sexy. Both of my co-workers have young daughters and they are concerned that their little girls are going to be influenced by all the images that are broadcasted and printed.
Look at any magazine rack at Indigo or Shoppers' Drug Mart. Ashlee Simpson -- a 'singer' (I had to put it in quotations, have you heard her live? Nails on a chalkboard, boy) marketed to young girls -- on the cover of Cosmo. Cosmopolitan. Sigh.
The magazine that's goal is to give me 25 ways to drive my man wild in bed. Good grief. If it floats your boat, go ‘head, I ain’t mad at you.
But really, when Ashlee Simpson is on the cover, who the heck do you think is buying it?
Not me.
I think that girl’s at minute 14 and a half of her 15 minutes of fame. But, then, she’s not marketed to me.
Girls who adore her are probably buying that issue up in droves. Girls who have absolutely no life experience and consider The Simple Life real life.
These children, 10- and 11-year-olds, are buying a magazine that focuses entirely on sex and sexuality.
Yes. Yes. I know, we can't blame the ills of society and the degradation of youth on media alone. I’m not trying to do that. Parents do play a huge part in influencing their children, but let's keep it real. Did you have any long conversations with your parents about sex and sexuality over hot chocolate like in some old school ABC Afterschool Special? Neither did I.
Parents can and should talk to their children about sex and sexuality and make sure the lines of communication are open. But many children learn about sex and sexuality from their friends and the media.
BET, MuchMusic, TV shows like The O.C. and Degrassi influence young teens about what is and isn't sexy and cool. And it seems like right now, hoochie is cool. So, what kind of message is Cosmopolitan and all these other images sending to little girls? Being sexy rules! And being sexy means wearing as little as you can and having a lot of boys like you.
Ashlee is also the spokesmodel for Candie's shoes. In the CBC documentary, they asked the boys what they thought of Ashlee Simpson's Candie's ad. Do you know what they said?
“Damn she’s hot!” says one. “Look how hot that girl is!” “She has nice legs," one boy whispers to his friend. "She’s horny!” another says with a giggle. The message is everywhere – in their favourite music, sports, and video games. Boys are consuming a bimbo image of women.
The girls thought that Ashlee looked confident and pretty. The little boys thought she looked horny -- two very different messages coming from the same ad. So, when these girls dress up in Ashlee Simpson’s outfit – the bra showing, the knee high fishnet stockings and the high heels, they believe they look confident. The boys that they interact with are going to think they are horny.
Back in the day when I was a teenage in Montreal, I was wearing a cut-off t-shirt and my belly button was exposed. Some guy in the metro started talking to me and getting really fresh.
“Excuse me? I’m not interested in that.”
“So, why all your navel exposed?”
I thought I looked cute, like Janet Jackson in the That’s The Way Love Goes video and wanted to show off my flat stomach. He thought I must be a girl of ill-repute because my stomach was out.
So, to hear the discrepancy between what little boys and little girls think of sexy images doesn’t shock me, seeing that I consume a helluva lot of bimbo imagery of women.
And it still affects me – yeah, I’ve tried to perfect Beyoncé’s booty shake in the privacy of my home. But I'm a grown up -- I have my own definition of what sexy is and it isn’t coming to work in a tube top and hipster jeans. I know if I walk the streets of Toronto with my ass at the door, I will get unwanted comments, not from LL Cool J, but from some random, gross, toothless man.
I think women -- not little impressionable girls, but hard back women, in their 20s and 30s -- are totally buying into the myth of 'sexy'. Some of us are totally objectifying ourselves because we want that attention from men. That's what it comes down to, does it not?
Some women say, "I’m wearing these thigh high boots because I think it's sexy, not because someone else does!"
I say, "That's a load of crap."
We have to wear clothes, yes. And many of us wear nice clothes because we like nice clothes and we think we'll look good in that dress, pants, skirt, whatever. But when I see a woman wearing a micro mini skirt, stiletto heels, a tube top and a small faux fur jacket to a club in Toronto's frigid -20 winter weather, don't fool yourself.
You ain't doing that for yourself.
You're fully doing that to get some attention.
People, men and women, do things because we expect to get a reaction from other people. Why do you think Lil’ Kim showed up at some awards show in just pasties? Why do you think Britney Spears is forever half dressed in her videos? What about Janet Jackson (really, Chris Rock had it right when she cussed her for exposing herself at the Super Bowl), Christina Aguilera (who can sing for real, but resorts to being dirty), Christina Milian (dripping in mud in the Dip it Low video. Come on now. If that’s not a cry for some attention, ‘men look at me! Don’t worry that I’m absolutely drop dead gorgeous and talented, let me be your sexual fantasy!’ I don’t know what is.)
My biggest question: why do I see people’s hard pubic bone in Brazilian cut jeans? (I swear, some of those same people must have to shave areas to wear those pants.)
The objectification of women is so blatant today, and it's not just the teenagers. Grown women, slaves to hoochie fashion, are trying to make themselves into every little boy's dream and are accepting stereotypes of sexy. Men have obviously bought into the myth of the bimbo.
Big booty video model (I don't like the term video ho, it's just so... tasteless), Vida Guerra was featured in FHM a couple of months ago and the same guys who were watching CBC Marketplace nearly fainted from heart palpitations looking at her. They were pretty much acting like the little boys the CBC interviewed.
The picture I chose was probably one of the tamest on the girl's site. But Vida and her co-video... umm... errr... ho... mies (Melyssa Ford who has done turned respectable as a show host on BET), help to fill out your random hip hop guys video wet dream. Not to disrespect Ms. Guerra, she's a beautiful woman with a banging body, but, heck, is that the only image of sexy out there?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being sexy. Embrace your sexiness – it’s a part of you. But, if I see another girl walking down Yonge St. wearing pants with cutouts in the backside, exposing her butt cheek, I ain’t lying, I saw it on Caribana Friday night, I will slap her.
The sad thing is, when a women buys into this myth of sexy, men think she must be horny, slutty and nasty. If a man embraces society’s definition of sexy for himself, he’s a hero whose had a lot of women. The double standard still exists and we’re totally buying into it.
No matter how much Sex and the City you watch and how great you think Samantha is.
No matter how sexually liberated you think you are.
Meh. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say.
posted by Urban Sista @ 2:36 PM
5 Comments:
What can you say my girl? I studied all of these things in University and what amazes me is how womyn think we have come so far but really it's just trickery. I think you noted the issue well but what's the solution. I don't believe in sensorship and the reality is that things won't change as long as the men in charge make money off of this stuff. My answer has been to be sure to sexualize men as much as womyn.
I don't know what the solution is. Like you say, as long as people keep making money off the objectification of women, things are going to stay the same. It just seems like it's getting worse and worse. At 12, I was playing with my Jem doll. I couldn't twist my mouth to tell my mom or dad one 'bout sexy.
But then, I didn't have access to BET or MuchMusic. Teen magazines were BOP and Teen Beat. Teen stars were Debbie Gibson and New Edition. Nothing overtly sexual about them.
Today's kids are a lot more knowledgeable than we were. If I was a child today, my outlook would be totally different.
And all of us are brainwashed to an extent -- so it's easy to ask the questions, not so easy to find the solutions.
I'm just gonna lock up any child of mine until he or she is 40 ;)
well I aint toothless and I aint LL but if I eva see you on the streets of toronto wid ya "ass at de door" (nice bajan term by the way lol) I would say something like 'but wait looka urban sista wid all she boxy expose. wha i din know she used ta dress so fa true? I kno dat she mudda muse aint see she leff the house looking so." :-)
seriously though you made some good points in this post. Last month I was in a bookstore and saw this random magazine which was on Chess the board game not the stuff on your body). Now I'm not a chess player but why it caught my attention was that the girl on the cover was showing off all her chest, breasts that stuff. Guess she was some decent chess player (i din really look to find out) but clearly she was being exploited to sell the magazine with sexual images.
As old as I am, but mother would still drop some hot lashes in me if I tried to be naked on the street. My sister may drop some lashes too. My dad would drop down, clutching his heart, bawling, "Lawd! Where I did go wrong! I lef myself out for dese thrildren! Iffin' I dint try!"
I just think it's so sad that the people in charge of these publications feel like they have to resort to being overtly sexual to get attention. You and me, will look at that for what it is -- someone's using this woman's sexuality to sell a magazine. A young person isn't going to think like that.
I hear you, Urban Sista. The problem is that people want to look like other people on TV. There is no comfort in individuality. You know who I think is sexy? Queen Latifah, and not just cuz baby got back, but if even if she was skinny, it wouldnt matter because, it's not how you look, it's how you feel. What makes a person sexy is not what they wear but how comfortable they are in their own skin. You have to love yourself, then you wouldnt have to degrade yourself to fit other men's expectations of what is sexy.
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