Sunday, May 6, 2007

Hyper-sexuality: a Discussion of Femininity & Society

A woman's leg coils around an erect metal pole while dozens of entranced men stare at her greased body. A female teenager in a miniskirt and revealing halter-top struts past a group of drooling high school boys. By passionately embracing traditional notions of feminine sexuality and allowing herself to be admired by others, is a female obtaining social control and personal empowerment or is she consenting to her own objectification? While adhering to traditionally feminine ideals of beauty and sexualized social roles (by, for instance, wearing a short skirt or deciding to pose topless for pay) is not necessarily problematic, adhering to models of extreme femininity and hyper-sexuality in dress, behavior, and speech may challenge female social equality. Since one of the keys to equality and empowerment is respect from both others and oneself, perhaps women should exercise their femininity and sexuality moderately so as toa appear and feel respectable. This does not mean that a female must act like a man to succeed in society; however, presenting herself as a feminized, sexualized object ready for consumption may fail to earn a woman genuine respect for her personality, her feelings and opinions, or her personal rights.

Although most feminists would agree that patriarchal societies have suppressed female sexuality for centuries, feminist thinkers have formulated a wide range of opinions regarding how women should experience themselves as sexual beings. Current feminists, so-called “postmodern feminists,” would argue that a woman who takes advantage of her powerful feminine sexuality harbors a great deal of control because she can easily persuade others—especially men—to give her exactly what she wants. On the other hand, traditional feminist thinkers may label this tactic mere manipulation, claiming that the best way for a female to obtain social and personal power is to reject traditional feminine aesthetic ideals and established gender roles. Postmodern feminist thinkers, in response to this viewpoint, may accuse traditional feminists of expecting women to adopt normalized masculine characteristics and thus deny their unique feminine instincts, but traditional feminists would shoot back that permitting others to view oneself as an object leads to both one's dehumanization and powerlessness.

Several sources illuminate this ongoing debate. In their 1998 book Feminism and the Female Body: Liberating the Amazon Within, S. Castelnuovo and S. R. Gunthrie argue that the female body is an important vehicle for female empowerment because both women’s minds and bodies are sites of patriarchal oppression, and that women may most effectively assert control over their bodies through physical discipline. The authors advocate bodily strength and wellbeing over the weak prettiness and “restrictive body beauty norms” that they perceive “mainstream feminists” (131) to encourage, and they reference female bodybuilders and martial artists as women who experience physical and mental liberation because of their engagement in “empowering physical practices that challenge the feminine body beauty discourse” (62). Castelnuovo and Gunthrie are proponents of women finding power within themselves and meaning in their lives not by adhering to traditional norms of beauty or by emphasizing their feminine sexuality, but through mastery of their physicality. This concept does not claim that women should look or behave like men, but instead encourages females to develop their own unique physical strength.

Holland, Ramazanoglu, and Sharpe similarly claim in their article Power and Desire: The Embodiment of Female Sexuality that society wrongly assumes the female body to have a fixed essence of femininity; the body is socially constructed, according to the authors, which causes women to feel pressure to adhere to a prescribed ideal of physical femininity. Other women, however, have embraced patriarchal notions of female physicality by practicing sexualized behaviors usually reserved for erotic dancers. According to the post “Housewives, Pole Dancing, and Empowerment?” from the blog Feministing.com, middle-aged suburban women across the United States have recently embraced a form of aerobic exercise based on pole dancing. The craze has so thoroughly penetrated the nation that The Sopranos and Desperate Housewives have both displayed characters engaging in this type of aerobics, and pole dancing itself has become normalized to the point that mini-poles can now be found at extravagant bat mitzvah parties (Feministing.com).a
The females who participate in this activity claim it to be empowering because groups of women do it together for fun and for each other’s gazes only. Joan Price, author of Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty (2006), explains that she and other proponents of pole dancing aerobics do not find the activity to be degrading because of the clear difference between women choosing to strip in front of men to avoid poverty, thereby putting themselves in demeaning and potentially dangerous situations, and middle-class women throwing single-sex pole dancing parties. Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, disagrees with this mindset. According to her, many women have internalized men’s objectifying views of themselves and now strive to embody these fantastical ideals to feel empowered. This has led to the rise of what Levy labels a “raunch culture” in which women harshly critique each other’s bodies and strive to exude sexuality; however, raunch culture fails to empower women, Levy states. For females to truly experience empowerment, she advises that women invent their own forms of sexual expression not based on the male gaze.
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MILPH (Mothers in Life, Passion, and Health), a company created by entrepreneurial housewife and mother Amy Deming to help middle-aged mothers feel sexy again, is a perfect example of the raunch culture about which Levy writes. According to Paul Liberatore of the Marin Independent Journal, author of “Liberatore at Large: Sexy Startup Hopes to Empower Mothers,” the organization was inspired by the slang acronym M-I-L-F, meaning “Mom I’d Like to [expletive],” which is applied to attractive middle-aged women who young men consider sexually appealing. Ms. Deming explains to Liberatore that she wants to help moms everywhere feel sexy because of her own former perception of herself as being as an unempowered suburban housewife; after years of letting herself become “frumpy” and “drab” (Liberatore), Deming finally came to the realization that she needed to regain control over both her body and her sexuality. To encourage mothers to similarly embrace their sexiness, the MILPH website features extremely provocative photos of petite middle-aged models as well as produces calendars each year featuring twelve scantily-clad “MILPHs.”

Most aof these pinup-worthy women in the calendar and on the website, however, are “professional models and actresses” (Liberatore) that MILPH carefully selected from a large number of mothers from across the globe. This fantastical representation of housewives is problematic because it implies to both middle-aged mothers and society at large that the most successful housewives are extraordinarily attractive, which reinforces the stereotype of the sexy "trophy wife" and would harm the average housewife’s self-esteem more than it could guide her towards empowerment. By displaying oversexualized rare beauties that happen to be married mothers over the age of thirty, MILPH has created an unrealistic standard of physical appearance to which middle-aged women associating themselves with the company may feel intense pressure to adhere.

Unlike these newly conceived MILPHs, however, strippers have long been known for their hyper-sexualized behavior; consequently, they are the subject of many feminist debates about the effects of women overtly displaying their sexuality. Some argue that strippers are powerful because they are highly in control of their own sexualities and are able to completely captivate viewers, while others claim that a stripper is powerless to the whims of the men she is visually stimulating. In her article "The Dialectical Gaze" from the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, author Alexandra G. Murphy recognizes both of these possibilities by discussing how strippers are simultaneously subjects and objects of the male gaze. She begins her article by describing various viewpoints regarding females’ degree of agency within the sex trade—radical feminists believe that female sex workers are hurting not only themselves but also all females by encouraging the objectification of women, whereas liberal feminists consider strippers to be “subjects with power” rather than “objects of power” (Murphy 308) and benignly view sex workers as simply people looking to capitalize economically by selling their bodies.

According to Murphy, strippers are constantly negotiating their power relationships in the workplace and therefore are neither completely powerful nor devoid of control. When females allow themselves to be “sex objects,” they do not passively become the fictitious embodiment of male desires and fantasies; rather, as the author explains, strippers actively construct themselves as being fantastical sex objects. Women actively perform the role that they think men want them to play but are not intrinsically the “objects” men desire. Therefore, women are not submissively allowing themselves to be objectified but are employing discursive strategies to maximize profits. Men may seemingly exert control over strippers by making them the subjects of their gaze, but males are simultaneously controlled by their own spectatorship because they act as passive witnesses to the actions of their subjects.a

Strippers develop complex methods of deception in order to maintain control over their customers—they build a false sense of intimacy with the men they interact with so that the male customers will tip more generously. In one stripper’s words, “I am making so much money off these guys that are stupid enough to spend it. That is power. What is more power than that?” (317) Furthermore, strippers, like their customers, employ gazing strategies; they are constantly watching customers to figure out which men have the most money to spend. On the other hand, according to the author, female strippers must put up with various inappropriate behaviors in bowing to the whims of male customers: “[a man does] not have to be witty, nice or smart for these female bodies to serve and entertain him. To make money in this occupation, dancers must stand almost naked in front of fully clothed men and tolerate their insulting and degrading comments, daily sexual propositions, roving hands, and even some physical threats” (314). As Murphy explains, while exotic dancers may have some discursive control over their customers, they must pretend not to have any power and are forced to be extremely accommodating to the wishes of even the most brutish males they serve.

Are today's females more willing to sport hyper-sexualized appearances, and if so, why? According to Claire Hoffman, reporter for the Los Angeles Times, modern American popular culture is saturated with sex and exhibitionism thanks to media sources. In her article “Joe Francis: ‘Baby, give me a kiss,’” a story on the mastermind behind the Girls Gone Wild soft-core porn empire, Hoffman describes that, after speaking with many scantily-clad young women in clubs who bared their breasts for the GGW crew, she realized that today’s youth—accustomed to cheap video technology and reality TV—consider the camera a source of validation. Some American women believe that striking racy poses for a film crew may “catapult them to Paris Hilton-like fame” overnight (Hoffman). Young females may also feel validated by receiving a man’s selective sexual attention; as one GGW participant named Jannel Szyszka explained, “Whoa—Joe's, like, trying to talk to me, like, out of all the girls in here” (Hoffman).

Because of the intense social pressure to be physically attractive that is encouraged by the existence of stylish celebrities and anorexic models, some American women may believe that flaunting their bodies and accentuating their sexuality are the most effective ways to entice others—both men and women—to like and “respect” them. Females feel that they must correct the "flaws" in their appearances and draw attention to their most attractive qualities by employing makeup, hair dye, high heels, certain clothing, and even plastic surgery. Although these tactics may seem to attract positive attention on the street, aespecially from men, they have the opposite effect in other places—for instance, the workplace.

According to the ABC News article "Can Sexy Women Climb the Corporate Ladder?" by Eric Noe, if a woman is interested in holding a position of power, she will be looked down upon by coworkers of both sexes for emphasizing her sexuality or putting blatant effort into improving her physical appearance; this is because people often immediately judge women who obviously strive to appear attractive as being unintelligent and promiscuous. Unfortunately, when a female has lower status in the office than others—such as a woman in a secretarial position—far fewer of her coworkers will care if she presents herself in a highly sexualized way or not (Noe). In fact, a woman in an inferior position may be expected to dress and act accordingly to gender stereotypes due to traditional gender roles.

The experience of the title character from the film Erin Brockovich (2000), based on an actual woman's story, provides a key example of this phenomenon. Erin (played by Julia Roberts), who becomes passionate about law because of the injustice occurring in her community, begins working with a seasoned male lawyer to challenge the corporation at fault. Although Erin’s work is incredibly thorough, the male character chastises her several times for wearing revealing clothing. Instead of seeing Erin as a dedicated coworker and person—in which case, gender should not matter—the man is constantly distracted by Erin’s overt display of her feminine sexuality. Similarly, the conservatively dressed female corporate defense attorney makes a negative remark about Erin’s clothing upon their first meeting. The corporate defense attorney did not respect Erin because she was shocked by an appearance she perceived to be inappropriate.

According to Noe, people associate positions of power with masculine characteristics because men traditionally and most frequently hold these positions. Therefore, high-ranking women in the workplace who flaunt their femininity and feminine sexuality are immediately looked down upon; coworkers may assume that such women are not actually qualified for their jobs and, thus, are showing off their more redeeming qualities. As is the case when it comes to sex, the author of "Can Sexya Women Climb the Corporate Ladder?" points out that there is a “double standard” for men and women in this situation. A man who strays from the stereotypical image of a professional businessman, perhaps by looking slovenly in a wrinkled, partially-buttoned shirt, may receive scornful glances from his peers at the office; however, his intelligence, competence, and personality will probably not be doubted simply because of his appearance. For a woman, on the other hand, wearing exaggerated makeup or revealing clothing can severely harm her career advancement.Women interested in climbing the corporate ladder must acknowledge the existence of this situation and dress accordingly. This does not mean that businesswomen must dress like men, but it does mean that they must dress and behave sensibly to garner respect as office authority figures.

Women who choose to overtly display their feminine sexuality in behavior or dress could profess to be reclaiming activities originally used to please men in order to mock or show apathy towards patriarchal ideals—a strategy similar to that of African Americans who refer to each other as “nigger” to dispel the term ’s racist connotations or women who call each other "whore" to dispel its sexist connotations—but this intention may not be apparent to other men and women. For instance, a woman who claims she that likes to wear a short skirt “for herself” when she goes to bars is probably not coming across as a sexually empowered woman to male strangers; instead, her appearance is most likely encouraging others to view her as a consumable sex object. If some women truly feel self-respect when they take on a hyper-sexualized appearance (perhaps they are proud of their bodies or strongly believe that looking sexy is empowering), then they should dress and act in whatever manner makes them feel most comfortable. However, they must remember that their actions could potentially be slowing the movement towards complete social equality for women; other people may form immediate judgments about their personalities, sexual habits, etc., that could turn into negative stereotypes of females in general. Wearing revealing clothing can be exciting because it elicits male attention, but, again, women should be wary that an oversexualized appearance may cost them genuine respect from others.