Girl Secrets

“But little by little, the tease became the truth”


FACT
Between 1992 & 2004, breast augmentation procedures in the U.S. went from 32,607/year to 264,041/year (more than 700%).


Can you love something you don't believe in?
Oh yes.
You can.
You do.
(Don't you?)

I love fairy tales. But I don't believe in them. Maybe it's the scientist in me or the cynic in me or the secret in me. I just haven't seen evidence and I really don't expect to. We make them up to escape the pain of reality, to own and experience the things we imagine should be and really never are. Maybe I love them because they're ideal and untrue--there's no danger in loving something that doesn't exist. It can't let you down. It can't need anything from you. It can make you happy.

The Question of the Week is really part of Karl's blog, but he's going away for the weekend, and it's burning a hole in my mind tonight. So I'll talk about it here (for the possible 0 to .5 people who are tuned into it...). I'll just address Part A: "How do you think woman are viewed in todays sexually twisted society?"

Basically, I'm pissed off and confused and disappointed and a lot of other things along those lines. I let myself think about it a little bit the other day when I was watching a movie where an Irish princess was promised off by her father in various scenarios that affirmed her objectification and subhumanity. That would be very hard to feel like a disposable and sellable resource. Oh wait. (we'll come back to that in a minute).

I let myself think about it a little more as I read the book of Ruth last night. (I read Esther last week). Now, I realize I'm a product of a supersexualized/dream-chasing/human rights-clutching/individualistic culture that assures its members that they have the right to a personalized, idealistic, pleasure-trove of a relationship that will magically develop in each of their lives at some point.....and I don't buy into that. But what then am I supposed to "buy into?" Biblically, (agh I can hardly even say it because I know I'm going to be able to disagree with myself in ten different ways and argue the other side too)...well, sometimes to me as a 22-year-old girl who hasn't exactly had experience with "honorable" or "respectable" men (as in: the majority of guys are products of the culture too...sex-starved, mom-replacer-needing hedonists who aren't exactly looking to take care of a girl Boaz-style)...k well, "Biblically," it seems the standard narrative profile of a woman is...a youthful and productive resource.

I really went to town thinking about it tonight.
Instance A: When Kalen decided that I should marry Bobby so that family get-togethers would be fun for the two of them. Now I love Kalen and I love Bobby, but I felt it was important to point out that their shared glee is probably not going to be the basis for my marriage (should I get past the apparent disdain I am building for the whole "love" scene and actually participate someday). The added fuel to that fire is that the pair of them are quite the public pigs and see acting disgusting and mannerless as something I should get over and embrace. I do not find that attractive or funny, and I am nobody's mother. It really gets to me when guys think they're magical creatures, immune to the standards of decency, who should be supported and loved despite their childish conduct. I am not a ridiculous robot designed to laugh, cook, endure, etc.

Instance B: When a few of us went to 7-11 and some drunken fratboy lurched out of his friend's car and leered shamelessly as I passed by. I'm wearing jeans and a hoodie, just goin' to get a Slurpee with 2 of my male friends, guy...clearly this is not an invitation for you to peruse and pursue me. Basically, I want to scream f-words and angry diminishing intellectual inquiries at guys who do this and at all the women in the past 30 years who have apparently given them permission on behalf of the female gender to cast that same gaze on EVERY FEMALE THEY ENCOUNTER. I just wish that guys could feel the way flesh crawls beneath carefully applied layers of clothing when it feels that kind of gaze boring through the armour. Just because you saw something that looked like me at the store doesn't mean I've sold out.

Instance C: I hardly even want to get into it, it was that offensive to me tonight. I'm not a Family Guy-hater..I think it's pretty darn funny and says some accurate things about/satirizes culture quite well. But one of the best ways to affirm and propogate negative and damaging worldviews is to frost them with delicious humor. The episode we watched tonight made me feel like its writers were asking me to lick that funny frosting right out of the bottom of a urinal. I was literally disgusted. I don't really even remember the point of it, something about Peter and sexual harrassment and having to go to some womens' retreat...Every part of it just completely affirmed (directly and indirectly) the expectation for women to be little more than sexual, servile resources. Even though it was "satirizing" that. It just felt the same as watching a group of kids humor the handicapped kid in their midst...not for his benefit, but for the enjoyment he brings them. One of my favorite unspoken cultural commentaries heavily represented in this particular show (as well as basically every other sitcom) is the physical presentation of the husband/father figure and wife/mother figure: It's totally okay and normal for a guy to become a hidously obese slob with low motivation, standards, intellect, expectations, and basically nothing other than a few sarcastic comments and slapstick moves to offer...but wifey better hit the gym after popping out those 3 little ones, read up on ethics, current events, social issues, and common sense (because she's going to have to comprise 93% of the combined spousal image/knowledge/action), and always be available to have a hot meal ready, change the baby, and have sincere sex with her bloated carcass of a husband.

I'm pretty sure we went on to watch the new Blink 18new or whatever they're calling themselves now video...where I came out with some dark and sarcastic comment (yeah, I don't know where it came from either) ... about how it'd be interesting if these guys got women their own age in their videos. Had something to do with likening women these days to toilet paper. Abundant and disposable.

So as we search for the answers to the Question...of how women are viewed in today's sexually twisted society...I wonder wonder wonder...if boys aren't falling in love with things that don't exist, and if women aren't going extinct as girls become ghosts.




"For Further Reading"

If you are a boy, and are interested in researching the topic of girls and sexuality and the effed-upness of it all...I recommended the book Female Chauvanist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy to Karl...it's amazing and will unlock a lot of doors to you if you're into that kind of thing...here are some selections from a research paper I did last year:

"Because we have determined that all empowered women must be overtly and publicly sexual, and because the only sign of sexuality we seem to be able to recognize is a direct allusion to red-light entertainment, we have laced the sleazy energy and aesthetic of a topless club or a Penthouse shoot throughout our entire culture."

"Sex appeal has become a synecdoche for all appeal."

"Hotness has become our cultural currency."

"In this new formulation of raunch feminism, stripping is as valuable to elevating womankind as gaining an education or supporting rape victims."

"‘I was standing in the shower the other day, picking up my shampoo,’ she said. ‘It’s called ‘Dumb Blonde.’ I thought, Thirty years ago you could not have sold this. I think we have lost consciousness of the way our culture demeans women.’ "

"Gerlach made no bones about wanting to ‘climb the [corporate] ladder’ so she could enjoy life’s ultimate riches, namely Prada, Gucci, and Chanel. The ends justify the means, and the means are ‘great legs’ and ‘great tits.’"

"[Female Chauvinist Pigs] don’t bother to question the criteria on which women are judged, they are too busy judging other women themselves."

"...a person who deliberately upholds the stereotypes assigned to his or her marginalized group in the interest of getting ahead with the dominant group."

(a freshman accused on someone’s LiveJournal of being slutty and easy distributes copies of it to schoolmates)
"…which is not really all that surprising when you consider that appearing slutty and getting recognition for it (she was suspended) are the fast track to heightened female stardom right now, in high school as in life."

"These are not stories about girls getting what they want sexually, they are stories about girls gaining acclaim socially, for which their sexuality is a tool,"

"Adolescents are not inventing this culture of exhibitionism and conformity with their own fledgling creative powers. Teens are reflecting back our slobbering culture in miniature."

"…there is now a rigidly specific message girls are required to convey before they even grasp its meaning."






James Baldwin wrote:

"We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet it is precisely through our dependence on this reality that we are most endlessly betrayed." The cage in which we "find ourselves bound, first without, then within," is the "nature of our categorization." We are defined and ultimately define ourselves, Baldwin argued, by the cultural meaning assigned to our broadest human details—blackness, whiteness, maleness, femaleness, and so on.