Shrinking Women

I just ran across an amazing video of a slam poet, Lily Myers.  Check it out:

Shrinking Women

Here's the text:

Across from me at the kitchen table, my mother smiles over red wine that she drinks out of a measuring glass.
She says she doesn't deprive herself,
but I've learned to find nuance in every movement of her fork.
In every crinkle in her brow as she offers me the uneaten pieces on her plate.
I've realized she only eats dinner when I suggest it.
I wonder what she does when I'm not there to do so.

Maybe this is why my house feels bigger each time I return; it's proportional.
As she shrinks the space around her seems increasingly vast.
She wanes while my father waxes. His stomach has grown round with wine, late nights, oysters, poetry. A new girlfriend who was overweight as a teenager, but my dad reports that now she's "crazy about fruit."

It was the same with his parents;
as my grandmother became frail and angular her husband swelled to red round cheeks, rotund stomach
and I wonder if my lineage is one of women shrinking
making space for the entrance of men into their lives
not knowing how to fill it back up once they leave.

I have been taught accommodation.
My brother never thinks before he speaks.
I have been taught to filter.
"How can anyone have a relationship to food?" He asks, laughing, as I eat the black bean soup I chose for its lack of carbs.
I want to tell say: we come from difference, Jonas,
you have been taught to grow out
I have been taught to grow in
you learned from our father how to emit, how to produce, to roll each thought off your tongue with confidence, you used to lose your voice every other week from shouting so much
I learned to absorb
I took lessons from our mother in creating space around myself
I learned to read the knots in her forehead while the guys went out for oysters
and I never meant to replicate her, but
spend enough time sitting across from someone and you pick up their habits

that's why women in my family have been shrinking for decades.
We all learned it from each other, the way each generation taught the next how to knit
weaving silence in between the threads
which I can still feel as I walk through this ever-growing house,
skin itching,
picking up all the habits my mother has unwittingly dropped like bits of crumpled paper from her pocket on her countless trips from bedroom to kitchen to bedroom again,
Nights I hear her creep down to eat plain yogurt in the dark, a fugitive stealing calories to which she does not feel entitled.
Deciding how many bites is too many
How much space she deserves to occupy.

Watching the struggle I either mimic or hate her,
And I don't want to do either anymore
but the burden of this house has followed me across the country
I asked five questions in genetics class today and all of them started with the word "sorry".
I don't know the requirements for the sociology major because I spent the entire meeting deciding whether or not I could have another piece of pizza
a circular obsession I never wanted but

inheritance is accidental
still staring at me with wine-stained lips from across the kitchen table.

"giving up" privilege

Is it possible to "give up" privilege?  Or, would it be more useful to think of ensuring privilege for everyone?  

In thinking about these questions, an analogy popped into my head: if we all try and "give up" our privilege it might be like trying to play soccer without ever travelling with the ball.  Whenever we were given the ball (privilege) we'd have to kick it away.

This way of thinking (of "giving up" privilege) also seems to suggest action based on avoidance, possibly guilt, feeling bad about oneself, and maybe even ignore-ance.

Additionally, thinking of privilege as something one can "give up" is problematic because it suggests it is a personal choice.  Often, privileges are given to us socially, and not something we could give up.  For example, a (white, upper class, straight) male privilege is being able to look at the U.S. House of Reps and see himself represented (see #7).  How could a man who isn't an elected official give this up?  He could, of course, vote a female in.  And perhaps less men could run for office, or better: encourage their female colleagues to run.  But I'm not sure where thinking of "giving up" privileges gets us in this situation.

Or, continuing, if a man sleeps with a bunch of women and isn't called a slut (#13), how could he give this up?

It seems to me that a more useful perspective that allows for and encourages more social justice is to think about ensuring the privileges we are aware of having for everyone.  We shouldn't have to feel bad about them - rather we should acknowledge them and work toward making it possible for everyone to have them.

For a great primer on privilege, check out White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, By Peggy McIntosh.  I've blogged about this before.

This is still something I'm still working on figuring out, so if you read this and are intrigued...or think I'm wrong...or can help with a next step, do let me know by leaving a comment!

On rape jokes

1 in 4 people.  1 in 4 refers to the number of reported sexual assaults of women on college campuses during their undergraduate years.

This happened. In a nutshell, a comedian, Daniel Tosh, made some sort of rape joke, a woman (COURAGEOUSLY, by the way) stood up and said that, "actually, rape jokes aren't funny," to which Tosh responded along the lines of, "wouldn't it be hilarious if this woman got gang-raped right here."

Then this good article (and several less good ones) was written.

Some key quotes from the Jezebel article include:

• "The world is full of terrible things, including rape, and it is okay to joke about them. But the best comics use their art to call bullshit on those terrible parts of life and make them better, not worse."
• "We censor ourselves all the time, because we are not entitled, sociopathic fucks. ...A comic who doesn't censor himself is just a dude yelling." (*Could be "herself" and "a chick" yelling...)
• "It's really easy to believe that "nothing is sacred" when the sanctity of your body and your freedom are never legitimately threatened."
• "It's like the difference between a black comic telling a joke about how it feels to have white people treat you like you're stupid all the time vs. a white comic telling a joke about how stupid black people are."

The author of the article also has a paragraph that explains the importance of the *context* of sexism and patriarchy that surrounds this joke, by making up an analogy that might help people understand it at some level.

Sexual Objectification

What follows is a nice analysis of sexual objectification with some disturbing (because they're real) examples from pop culture. The post (and blog) are run by a professor of politics. Part one describes objectification and part two shows that "We now have over ten years of research showing that living in an objectifying society is highly toxic for girls and women"
1) http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/07/02/sexual-objectification-part-1-what-is-it/
2) http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/07/06/sexual-objectification-part-2-the-harm/

 Interestingly, part two cites a study regarding the effects of objectification on political efficacy (I suppose you could think of it as involvement). Here's an excerpt from its abstract:

 "The normalization of female objectification in American culture has given rise to self-objectification, the phenomenon of girls and women seeing themselves as objects of desire for others. ... This research examines the political effects of self-objectification and finds that it is negatively related to both internal and external political efficacy. The democratic implications of this finding are considered." 

A particular quote from the trailer to Miss Representation in the second post sticks with me: "The fact that media are so derogatory to the most powerful women in the country ...then what does it say about media's ability to take any woman seriously."

 Just some food for thought on a steamy Saturday (at least in IL) -- and if you want to continue the conversation or have questions (or outrage!) in response to reading, share your thoughts!

Deconstructing Old Spice

I live in a house with a lot of people, so there's never a shortage of discussion-generating diversity (of ideas, opinions, backgrounds, etc.) This week I was taking a shower and noticed someone's Old Spice body wash, and I really can't help but comment. Here's what I'm thinking:

"3X Clean Net:" I'm not even sure what this means. Was there some sort of "clean net" that was included in this package? Are they trying to say that you're 3 times cleaner, by net weight? This is just confusing. Or, perhaps "net" means "clean" in French. Looking at this a little closer, perhaps that's it, but I'm not sure.

Next: "Doesn't leave you feeling dry or rob you of your dignity." So, it moisturizes your skin and reassures you of your ineffable human goodness? I'm not quite sure exactly how these two go together. However, one might be able to take a few leaps to assume that a loss of dignity might come from a flowery/fruity scent, which this is clearly trying to avoid, nonetheless providing desirable moisturization...

"Like wearing an armor of man-scent" -- Is this a good thing? So this "man-scent" armor protects you from what, exactly? Also, hat tip to Luke for pointing out that this is slightly homo-erotic, suggesting that a man (presumably heterosexual) might not want to be covered in man-scent, or, at least, wouldn't want to be judged by this type of thing in a heteronormative society.

Finally, "Drop-kicks dirt, then slams odor with a folding chair" Even though I've never seen WWF/WWE, I sense that this may be a reference to it. So now even your body wash is a pro-(fake)wrestler in the epic battle between dirt/odor and...old spice?

Ok, I just had a few questions in response to these Old Spice sayings that showed up in my shower.

Also, I can't help but be reminded of Hyperbole and a Half's awesome segment on making showers exciting again, there are many more hilarious cartoons here.

privilege: a poem

privilege
a poem for men who don't understand what we mean when we say they have it

D.A. Clarke

reprinted from Banshee, Peregrine Press

Copyright (c) 1981

privilege is simple:
going for a pleasant stroll after dark,
not checking the back of your car as you get in, sleeping soundly,
speaking without interruption, and not remembering
dreams of rape, that follow you all day, that woke you crying, and
privilege
is not seeing your stripped, humiliated body
plastered in celebration across every magazine rack, privilege
is going to the movies and not seeing yourself
terrorized, defamed, battered, butchered
seeing something else

privilege is
riding your bicycle across town without being screamed at or
run off the road, not needing an abortion, taking off your shirt
on a hot day, in a crowd, not wishing you could type better
just in case, not shaving your legs, having a decent job and
expecting to keep it, not feeling the boss's hand up your crotch,
dozing off on late-night busses, privilege
is being the hero in the TV show not the dumb broad,
living where your genitals are totemized not denied,
knowing your doctor won't rape you

privilege is being
smiled at all day by nice helpful women, it is
the way you pass judgment on their appearance with magisterial authority,
the way you face a judge of your own sex in court and
are over-represented in Congress and are not strip searched for a traffic ticket
or used as a dart board by your friendly mechanic, privilege
is seeing your bearded face reflected through the history texts
not only of your high school days but all your life, not being
relegated to a paragraph
every other chapter, the way you occupy
entire volumes of poetry and more than your share of the couch unchallenged,
it is your mouthing smug, atrocious insults at women
who blink and change the subject -- politely -- privilege
is how seldom the rapist's name appears in the papers
and the way you smirk over your PLAYBOY

it's simple really, privilege
means someone else's pain, your wealth
is my terror, your uniform
is a woman raped to death here, or in Cambodia or wherever
wherever your obscene privilege
writes your name in my blood, it's that simple,
you've always had it, that's why it doesn't
seem to make you sick to your stomach,
you have it, we pay for it, now
do you understand

Hell yes, science!

A scientific article:

The Interpersonal Power of Feminism: Is Feminism Good for Romantic Relationships?

Laurie A. Rudman & Julie E. Phelan (Click for full text)

Published online: 6 October 2007

Abstract Past research suggests that women and men alike perceive feminism and romance to be in conflict (Rudman and Fairchild, Psychol Women Q, 31:125–136, 2007). A survey of US undergraduates (N=242) and an online survey of older US adults (N=289) examined the accuracy of this perception. Using self-reported feminism and perceived partners’ feminism as predictors of relationship health, results revealed that having a feminist partner was linked to healthier relationships for women. Additionally, men with feminist partners reported greater relationship stability and sexual satisfaction in the online survey. Finally, there was no support for negative feminist stereotypes (i.e., that feminists are single, lesbians, or unattractive). In concert, the findings reveal that beliefs regarding the incompatibility of feminism and romance are inaccurate.

Keywords Feminism . Close relationships . Feminist stereotypes . Intergroup relations . Gender attitudes

Citation: Rudman LA & Phelan JE (2007). The interpersonal power of feminism: is feminism good for romantic relationships? SEX ROLES: Volume 57, Numbers 11-12, 787-799.

TSA scanners and gender

"After all, masculinity implies sexual privacy -- the privilege of moving through life unmolested. Or unnoticed. The most powerful, and to men, mostly invisible, sexual privilege of masculinity is the ability to remain unaware of oneself as a body."

I suppose I never included that in my concept of male privilege, but it seems dead on.

Quote from an interesting (and concise) take on the TSA scanners:
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=screening_for_gender

Pinkwashing

Couldn't have said it better myself, so here's a quote:

I want to get serious about breast cancer. I want to raise awareness and find a cure. How will pink kleenex on my desk and pink toilet paper in my office cure breast cancer? How does wearing pink lipstick to work and adorning our suits with pink scarves and pink ribbons change the survival rates for women in our country?

If we really believed in eliminating breast cancer — and all cancers — we would have radically overhauled our health care system in America. We would rethink the relationship between consumers/patients, hospitals, research centers, and pharmaceutical companies. And we wouldn’t try to sell pink clogs and pink candy to raise breast cancer awareness in our country.

From thecynicalgirl.com.

1 in 5

One in five American men between the ages of 18 and 29 believe having sex standing up prevents conception:

Reposted from here. I just found this site and I like it a lot!

Why I’m a feminist, or THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE

First and foremost, I call myself a feminist because my vision of the world includes men and women on equal ground. I reject those attempts to try and make “feminist” a dirty word, making it seem like braless, unshaved women who think men should be kept underground. To me the word feminist represents a vision of equality, one which women still are striving toward, regardless of what undergarments they wear, who they sleep with, and whether or not they shave. I’ve met some people lately who don’t seem to understand that this is still a struggle we women face daily. Here’s what I mean, and this is just off the top of my head, by no means an exhaustive list.

I’m a feminist because:

• I (and all people) should be able to walk down the street not fearing rape. Most men have the privilege not to fear being forced against their will to have sex with someone else, and this may be an altogether unfathomable concept for many men. However, it is rare that I am able to walk down a street at night not aware about the lighting, the other people walking, and calculating the best, safest route home.
• I (and all people) deserve reproductive rights: the right to choose what happens to my own body. I’m talking about the right to abortion (if that’s what I so choose), and I’m talking about the right to choose when and how (at least partially) I want to have sex.
• I am a feminist because it is unacceptable that 1 in 3 women is sexually assaulted in her lifetime. If you think you don’t know these women, it’s because they aren’t talking, not because it didn’t happen. 1 in three: that’s either your grandma, your mom or your girlfriend. It’s your classmate, the women on the street, the woman next to you on the bus. It’s a third of us: the numbers are clear.
• I (and all people) deserve equal pay for an equal job. I still can’t believe this is denied to women.
• I (and all people) deserve to be respected and not have my perspectives discounted because of my gender.
• I’m a feminist because “woman” is a dirty word in our culture. I watch “The L Word,” “Sex in the City,” and virtually any other pop culture movie and hear women -- ages 20 to 65 call themselves and be called “girls.” What is this? Are we so afraid of our womenhood that we can no longer freely use the word ‘woman’ to describe ourselves? That it feels weird to use it to describe myself is motivation for me to keep using it. Woman isn’t a ‘politically correct’ word: IT IS WHO I AM.
• I’m a feminist because I’m tired of this bullshit standard of beauty that’s constantly being fed to me and that I am compared to. Belittling me will not make me buy your stupid product.
• I’m a feminist because I’m fucking pissed off that men feel justified honking, whistling, yelling, and making kissing noises at me on the street.
• I’m a feminist because it’s so hard to find a significant other that respects me. For not being a feminist, for not being outspoken, I am used and abused. I must speak up to be respected: this is what experience has taught me.
• Also, I know that being a (passing-as-white) woman, and being a feminist in the United States is probably a whole lot easier to do than most of the rest of the world and probably a lot of women of color in my own country. I am also a feminist in solidarity with these women; though we have vastly different experiences, we share the common experiences of womanhood.
  

For if I do not call myself a feminist, that means I accept the current state of women, and I simply, utterly, and to my core do not. It should not be a struggle for half of the world population to achieve basic rights: of respect, of choice, and of equality. These rights are still being denied to us women, and we all must work together to bring them to all people. This is feminism.

Rape...fantasies?

So I was reading Dan Savage's advice column, and recently a self-professed feminist man was asking about enacting a rape fantasy with his feminist girlfriend.

I don't understand this idea of "rape fantasies." It seems sort of like an oxymoron - a situation in which one consents to have their consent removed. Rape is sex (of any kind) without consent. And in the case of a "rape fantasy," people talk this over with their partner(s) beforehand? (Also, as a side note: what kind of feminist are you who would continue to perpetuate this culture of disrespect toward women?!)

It's a very tiny little bit like asking someone to "act surprised" after they already know what the surprise is.

Oftentimes I've heard the idea of "rape fantasies" being nested in the BDSM category. I'm not really sure why this is the case, except for our society's convolution of rape and violence (though this is certainly not the case for all rapes, probably not even the majority).

On the other hand, my first response is to associate "rape fantasies" with the "rape culture" in our society, not BDSM or other deviant sex acts. (Here's a great post on Rape Culture 101, for those unfamiliar with this term. Check it out!) To me, it signifies a misunderstanding of rape and an insensitivity to the experience of rape (to the experience of having one's consent ignored, disregarded, and/or forcefully prevented).

"Rape culture is pervasive narratives about rape that exist despite evidence to the contrary. Rape culture is pervasive imagery of stranger rape, even though women are three times more likely to be raped by someone they know than a stranger, and nine times more likely to be raped in their home, the home of someone they know, or anywhere else than being raped on the street, making what is commonly referred to as "date rape" by far the most prevalent type of rape."

So I'm pretty sure my negative reaction to this idea of "rape fantasies" doesn't come from a prejudice against deviant sex acts, but rather my understanding of it as a logical flaw. Oh and that it is insensitive to the experience of rape, yeah.

What do you think?

I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

I read this today for the first time:
"I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees."
I love this!

It reminds me of another Neruda morsel I have written in my room:
Eres para mi suculenta | You are for me succulent
como una panaderia | like a bakery.             

Here's the full poem including the title quote:

Every Day You Play

Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Pablo Neruda

Gendered TED

'ingenious' - click for bigger version

check out the genders of the people on TEDs 'beautiful' and 'ingenious' tags. a friend and i were looking at the videos tagged 'ingenious' on TED and noticed that they're *all* men, and i jokingly said that 'beautiful' would be all women. unfortunately it was.

'beautiful' - click for bigger version

i'm not trying to place blame on TED or anything, because i'm pretty sure these are user-generated tags, just pointing out (because someone should) that it's a little sexist...

Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

I just finished reading Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I like his nonchalant way of describing situations, and the visual quotidian imagery he employs. Here are a few quotes that made impressions on me:

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.

The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks, and not only with the electric clocks, but the wind-up kind, too. The second hand on my watch would twitch once, and a year would pass, and then it would twitch again.

The Germans and the dog were engaged in a military operation which had an amusingly self-explanatory name, a human enterprise which is seldom described in detail, whose name alone, when reported as news or history, gives many war enthusiasts a sort of post-coital satisfaction. It is, in the imagination of combat's fans, the divinely listless loveplay that follows the orgasm of victory. It is called "mopping up."

Every time he inhaled his lungs rattled like greasy paper bags.

...He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this:
     American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
     The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened the bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again and made everybody as good as new.
     When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did the work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them in the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody every again.
     The American fliers turned in their uniforms and became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.

...He had a tremendous wang, incidentally. You'll never know who'll get one.

...There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces.

...She applied her power brakes, and a Mercedes slammed into her from behind. Nobody was hurt, thank God, because both drivers were wearing seat belts. Thank God, thank God. The Mercedes lost only a headlight. But the rear end of the Cadillac was a body-and-fender man's wet dream. The truck and fenders were collapsed. The gaping trunk looked like the mouth of of village idiot who was explaining that he didn't know anything about anything. The fenders shrugged.

Letter to the Editor

I'm trying to clean out my closet of random things I've pack-ratted away during 4 years at college. I ran across this:


Campus sexual assault should not be tolerated
April 24th, 2008

What kind of society do we live in when women are not allowed to walk home without being in fear?

I was walking home from a library after a few intense hours of paper-writing. Around midnight, I decided to take a well-lit street home. As I walked past a dorm, a young man yelled at me, threatening to anally rape me. I didn't dare flinch nor look in his direction. A few seconds later, another man demanded me to answer. I spent the next few blocks walking fast, my heart racing, looking over my shoulder.

This story is not rare, nor an exception to the rule. It is ludicrous that it continues.

We must no longer tolerate this kind of behavior. It is a direct violation of the University's policy on sexual harassment; perpetrators must be held accountable to provide the safe environment promised to students on campus. What is the state of our campus community when students feel so confident to publicly commit such acts of sexual assault? It is essential that this not be tolerated on any level. Individually, it could be as simple as telling people you know about your experiences, rather than silencing them. Speak out against this.

We must come together and address the issue of sexual harassment, assault and violence as a community and commit to taking measures to end it. We should develop and promote education efforts that can be taken seriously by all students.

We must start respecting each other. Only from a profound lack of respect for fellow community members can one verbally threaten strangers on the street, and we must meet this disrespect with a steadfast will to overcome it.

This is not acceptable; our campus should not condone its continuance, and we should cultivate respect for one another.

Ari Sahagun
Senior in LAS

As for staring at my sister's ass

First, why do guys think I give a shit about how hot my sister* is?? Or that it isn't offensive...I feel some mature part of myself suppressing the inevitable rant so I can actually tell you something coherent, and I've been trying to think how to word it. It goes something like this:

Privilege has a history that the privileged are often blind to. It would be one thing, let's say, in a vacuum society with a blank slate, for a man to look at a woman's ass. It's biological, sexual, evolutionary. Completely guilt-free, and, well, natural. Same with the reverse (woman checking out a man)(EDIT: or a woman checking out a woman or a man checking out a man).

However, in our society, that is not the case. The case is that for the past few hundred years (maybe even thousand), women have been constructed as objects in mens' minds. We have been forced to act according to man's will. We are told how to dress, how to walk, how to please him. We are fed a history of lies - of how we are made from him (Eve from Adam), of how we are not as holy as He (no female Priests, Rabbis (until lately), few deities), of how we are not as powerful (no presidents, political leaders, few CEOs), we are told we are weak, we are not artistic or creative (no major female artists, poets, writers, inventors until the past 2 centuries). We are dehumanized, demoralized, and thus dominated by the male psyche. So, when you stare at a woman's ass in our society, that's what you're reinforcing.

When you tell me about staring at my sister's ass, you ask me to justify that, and I cannot.

(* I use this word in the broadest sense possible.)

Sex Education?

So...this is a follow up to the discussion I posted with regard to The Price of Pleasure movie, (the Two Intense Movies post)...

If anyone reads this, what do you think about the following:
How can we learn about sex? How can we get a good education on it? How do we learn what is "right" in a relationship?

Or, more seriously: how can we learn about what constitutes violence or rape in a relationship?

I think we've got some issues as a society when (as I learned from Vagina Monologues) 1 in 3 American women experiences sexual violence in her lifetime. What's our plan to solve this? (Even as individuals?)

Two Intense Movies

The past two nights I've watched two movies: The Price of Pleasure and The Constant Gardener. They were both pretty depressing but at the same time thought provoking. Here are some of my thoughts:

The price of pleasure was about pornography and it's impacts. The aim of the documentary was not to provide a bias or be preachy, but rather its aim is just to get people talking about it, something we usually do not do, no more than the "porn is bad" or "I like/watch porn." The movie included a lot of quotes from porn "users," producers, and actresses. It described a study done to analyze some of the top rented flicks - from the violence in it to racial content. I wouldn't have guessed this but about 90% of the films they analyzed had violent content. (Though I don't know their working definition of violence.) The movie included several porn clips as well, and nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I can tell. It was certainly interesting to see it removed from its normal context.

Seeing the clips out of context, it was even more clear how big a role male dominance is in the scenarios of standard porn. The movie pointed out that when sex is attached to these socially unacceptable (politically incorrect) ideas they can be extremely overt and we don't seem to care as much or at all. The male dominance is one facet, but race (gendered) is also a factor. Extremely over-sexualized black men, docile Asian women, demanding white men, etc., the standard racial stereotypes, but on steroids and very obviously tied to gender. These politically incorrect ideas are overlooked and more acceptable in porn. Why is that?

To me the most interesting phenomenon is how the concept of "normal" is completely altered by watching pornography. For many men*, porn (videos and magazines) is one of the first and perhaps only source for information on sex and relationships. (*I say men here because they are the overwhelming majority of porn consumers.) How then will they ever develop a frame of reference on sex outside of that? In other words, their views on sex are created by the world of porn, and these ideas are too often brought into the world of the bedroom. With no anchor on normality outside of porn, this fundamentally changes what will register as violence, or as rape, in a man's mind.

I do not blame the men who watch porn. Though I think there are healthy alternatives to using porn (like not using it), I find it hard to place blame on the individual men. How so? I think it has something to do with how the concept of normal is altered - it's not conscious. They're not thinking "I'd like to see violent porn and change my perception of violence and then act violently toward my significant other." Furthermore, demonizing or shaming men for doing this would tend to make them more resistant to change. So, though I do not think these individuals are to blame, I do think they are the ones who need to change. Once they realize that their views of sex and relationships are affected by porn, they should question that. It is their responsibility as a part of an intimate relationship to be aware of their ideas of sex and what they bring to that relationship.

And in a free market system where we are not allowed to blame a company for producing porn, I believe we shouldn't put the responsibility on them either, i.e. ask them to censor themselves. I do think it is the responsibility of individuals to have control over themselves. Men need to find a masculinity that is not derived from a dominance over women, and their free market demand should thus requisite less supply.

OH, and HERE'S the bibliography. (It's a PDF file from the Price of Pleasure website.) (There's a lot else at the website, including a trailer and interview w/ Noam Chomsky.)

Ok, well I've been rambling a bit more than I thought I would so I'll come back to the other movie another time. Let me know what you think.