Friday, April 23, 2010

Sex: The Blind-spots

I’m aware that our society is over saturated with sex. From billboards, to commercials, to magazine articles boasting 5,486 ways to please your man, to television shows and movies where sex is part of the main plot line, we get it, sex exists (hence we do).


Yet, I feel there is a major blind-spot in our sexual consciousness. For example in the documentary This Film is Not Yet Rated, they discuss how the people who rate movies never let a film go by them without at least an R rating if there is a woman showing sexual pleasure, and if that woman shows it more than once, well, good luck getting it to pass the rating system at all.


What we are over saturated with is sexual abnormalities. We never get to see everyday sensuality or affection. On CSI and other like-minded shows, people get murdered if they’re remotely sexual perverse, or if they happen to be women. On Gossip Girl, 90210 etc. sex is always hot hot hot but never real real real. On shows like Parenthood, the characters go into great detail “talking” about their sex lives; they even get to the point where they start at it, but then BLACKOUT, flash-forward, next scene. The couple is happy, giggly even, “glowing”, they both just shared a romantic, intimate encounter, yet we as viewers have no idea how they connected, what made it special, what made them actually “glow”.


And yes, I can use my imagination. But isn’t it fucked up that we can see women brutally murdered, that we are reminded constantly about them being raped and molested, but we can’t see them having a pleasurable orgasm?


I am just so disturbed by this. The media, whether consciously or not, reinforces objectivity and let’s be honest, the acceptance of rape.


When positive affection, admiration, sensuality, personal pleasure (on both parties ends) are completely dismissed from our imagination we are left with negativity, we are left with puritanical values of keeping sex secretive. And though it may be hot to feel dirty, I think I’d rather have daily affection and a centered sensuality.


To be completely honest I do not really know what that looks like. I have to find it for myself which isn’t really very fair when I already know 5,486 ways to physically please my man. What about pleasing each other? What about deeper connection, because it’s not all about the big O.


If sex is supposed to happen as regularly as eating or brushing your teeth why do we never actually see it happen like that? We see people eating, we see people brushing their teeth. We all know what naked people look like, we all understand that our bodies need physical contact from other humans to feel connected to this world. So again, why can we blow bodies up, smash them to bits, cut them open, punch them, smack them, terrorize them, but we can’t caress them, cuddle with them, embrace them, love them?



2 comments:

  1. 'Hot hot hot' post! Ties in well with Sexual Harassment Awareness Month.

    I definitely prefer romance to CSI torture. Video games embrace violence too - one of the multiple 'choice' answers in a game I overheard was, "Demand a reward, or kill her."

    And as for the Motherhood post - I've been dabbling in research related to it because I noticed portrayals of motherhood seeming to take away 'womanhood.'

    So it goes.

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  2. Thanks. Yeah, we're definitely over saturated with violence, which seems to have become a well known fact that no one cares to do anything about. Probably because we absorb it and live it daily, it becomes one of those "things that can't change". Perhaps an attempt at balancing it a bit better with some visuals of affection could be a start? IDK.

    Anyhoo.

    Is your motherhood research stuff on your blog? I really liked your last couple of posts but I haven't gotten any further in my reading :)

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