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concrete.features@uea.ac.uk
Issue 287
Features
22/10/13
22/10/13
Issue 287
concrete.features@uea.ac.uk
“Stud” vs “Slut”: sexual double standards
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Without us fully acknowledging it our culture is promoting a double standard that is alarmingly unequal. Features writer Silvia Rose argues that we must be aware of this inbalance in order to prevent it Recently, a friend told me that he has decided to remain celibate for two months. He revealed that the reason behind his decision was that he finds himself ‘getting bored of girls quickly’. By giving his vigorous libido a rest, my friend believed that it would help him to fully appreciate the next pretty young thing that comes along. It wasn’t his inability to remain monogamous, or his disposable attitude towards women that troubled me. Rather it was the freedom he had to express these things without the fear of being judged. I asked out of interest, ‘So what would happen if a girl stood up and said the same? That she too got tired of the same men, so was always on the lookout for some fresh action?’
“Everyone knows the cliché about men thinking about sex every seven seconds. But this sentiment has gone beyond cliché, and is treated almost as a permission for men to act a certain way” My friend confirmed without hesitation, that yes, she would seem a bit ‘easy’. This double standard is so subtly ingrained into our culture that people are not even shocked when it is
pointed out. Ever since the rise of the contraceptive pill, women have had more freedom and control over their sex lives. Eliminating the risk of pregnancy means that women can share their beds with whoever they want, whenever they want. Sex shops such as Ann Summers have become the norm on our high streets, and there is no shame in buying a gadget designed purely for pleasure. Women’s magazines frequently boast ‘the hottest sex tips’, encouraging us all to channel our inner sex goddesses (as well as become great cooks). Nobody is denying that women like sex. However, there seems to be an impression that women’s sexuality is not wild and innate, but submissive, only occasionally simmering into action with an outside male influence. Everyone knows the cliché about men thinking about sex every seven seconds. But this sentiment has gone beyond cliché, and is treated almost as a permission for men to act a certain way. Well of course he’s cheated on that girl, you know what men are like, they think with their dicks! Why do women not get the same excuse of thinking with their vaginas? There is an evident bias in favor of when men make reckless decisions based on their horniness. They are given jovial
banter and a slap on the wrist. Women get cast out of friendship groups and labelled as damaged goods. There is an ignorant image of men as being helpless when faced with the promise of sex. Therefore, all the power is apparently in the woman’s hands. Does she initiate it? Is she the one acting keen? This image becomes even more troubling when it is used in rape cases as defense for the rapist. The women are ‘asking for it’ by dressing provocatively. Even that language used insinuates a lack of control on the male side. By dressing provocatively it is as if the woman ‘provokes’ a man into a dumb, glazed-over state of arousal. The media, as always, is a powerful and insidious influence on social prejudices. Consider the rule about ‘not sleeping with someone on the first date’, drilled-in by numerous romcoms and teen dramas. If the guy is a total arse hole, then he might perceive you as being ‘too easy’, and therefore he is clearly not worth pursuing. But there’s no reason why your captivating personality and sexual confidence can’t entice him into a second meeting. Why can’t women be strong and independent whilst wanting sex? Why is there this idea that a woman ‘let’s’ a man have sex with them, as if it is a chore or a commodity? And more
Photo: kohlmannsascha
worryingly, that the ability to abstain from a few hours of fun means that you are worthy of a relationship? I am not advocating careless, self-destructive flippancy towards who you share your body with, but a clarity and strength towards pursuing what you want, and having the courage to act on it. All of these double standards I have encountered through my own personal experience. What happens when we look at it from a more scientific angle? I recently read an extract from Daniel Bergner’s new
“We need to start viewing women as sexual creatures too, not just in the context of male satisfaction, but with deep-rooted desires that deserve to be fulfilled book, ‘What Women Want’, where he describes an experiment investigating sexual arousal in men and women. Participants of both sexes were shown various pornographic videos of straight couples, homosexuals and bonobos. The blood flow to their genitals were measured at each stage, and they were also asked to rate their level of arousal. The male scores matched completely, their bodies and minds were in
Huffpost tune. What is interesting is that the women were aroused- physiologically speaking- at every clip that was shown, yet denied that they were turned on by them all. This suggests that there is much more to female sexuality than we might think. Bergner suggests that this indicates a suppression of desire, stemming from the conviction that women are not as inherently sexual as men. This belief has subordinated women in society for centuries. Women’s sexuality is not a commodity, it should not be objectified or used as an indication of moral worth. We need to start viewing women as sexual creatures too, not just in the context of male satisfaction, but with deep-rooted desires that deserve to be fulfilled without judgment.
A biased media and it’s representation of gender
Features writer Anna Walker explains how the mass consumption of media has influenced our ideals of gender, and what we must do to stop it. The omnipresence of the media in our lives through the internet, television, video games, film, advertising and music videos means we saturate a constructed world of gendered ideals at an alarming rate. On average, girls aged 11 to 14 see up to 500 adverts a day, and this overwhelming influx of media exposure must surely be taking its toll on the way we view gender and gender relations. From how we treat our body hair to the food we eat, the media’s influence knows no bounds. For the large part, it is a media controlled by the minority, and as women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream media, by almost exclusively men. It would be essentially impossible to spend a day of average media consumption without taking in sexualised images of women. These media images constantly inform us that a woman’s value intrinsically
Photo: goldsardine
lies in her appearance as opposed to her thoughts and intellect. This dehumanisation often takes place even when a company is aiming a product at both genders; for example the unisex range produced by American Apparel. A quick glance at their most popular product, the “unisex flex fleece hoodie”, indicated that while men like to wear their hoodies fully dressed, strolling
about the park, women far prefer to wear the item whilst completely naked, or in bed, or wearing thigh high socks. Through this type of double standard advertising, American Apparel and other companies show men to be three dimensional, functioning humans, while women become mere sex toys, flattened into an objective existence limited only to the sexualisation of the product their bodies are there to sell. Posing men as functional beings and women as sexualised objects functions as a tool of anxiety, manipulating the consumer into a monetary purchase through fear. It’s not just women this is affecting. Throughout the advertising world, men are continually pressured to conform to an ideal of masculinity that grounds itself in control, power and consumption. As Snickers screams at men to “get some nuts” and McCoy’s proclaims itself “man crisps” it seems
most advertising aimed at men urges them in some way to become more primal and assertive. Aftershave adverts, such as Paco Rabanne’s One Million, embody the constant media attempts to appealing to men through the promise of instant gratification of every supposedly masculine desire; sex, hunger and material want. This prescriptive gendering of the media world works by making us feel abnormal, and by manipulating those fears in order to convert them into economic gains. Obsessions with an idealised sexualised female beauty continue in many other elements of advertising, including the market of hair removal products. In every case, shaving adverts see a smiling woman glide her razor up a completely hair free leg, enhancing the idea that women not only should remove body hair,
but that it is unnatural or unsightly that they even have it in the first
“Posing men as functional beings and women as sexualised objects functions as a tool of anxiety” place. This concept of the naturally hairless woman doesn’t emerge through advertising alone however, as with much of media influence it functions through a multiplicity of influence. Television programmes such as Game of Thrones, well known for its frequent nudity, perpetuate this ideal of the immaculately groomed woman. Despite Westeros having all the appearance of a medieval inspired fantasy world, all the women we see nude, even the Wildlings, are perfectly hairless without so much as a Kings Landing Strip in sight.
This universalised media world where the same gender anxieties emerge again and again contributes to a society in which sexual anxiety is ever present. If we can’t escape these ideals of male and female beauty, even in the television of fantasy, then the all-pervasive media ideals of the physically perfected woman becomes a haunting presence in the mind of all genders on an everyday basis. These ideals are not only fabricated, but often unachievable and result in a multitude of men and women feeling inadequate. The sense that we are not normal emerges from these carefully controlled, ephemeral images of perfection. With such a vast array of media influences shaping our gender perceptions, it can be hard to visualise how we can ever hope to salvage a healthy gender image from the
Huffpost rubble of toxic portrayals. It seems the best way is to remember that we can’t become what we can’t see. The importance of positive role models, of teaching media literacy and of opening up the media industry to allow a greater balance of genders influencing
what we see is paramount. The media has the potential to be a huge engine of change. It’s the most powerful and all-encompassing influence out there and to harness that potential for gender equality would be something very positive indeed.