TNA in The Daily Caller: the Over-Sexualization of our Teens
August 15, 2010
by The New Agenda
|The New Agenda’s Amy Siskind was interviewed by The Daily Caller for an article, The West’s over-sexualized culture is feminism’s byproduct. The article questioned Hugh Hefner’s quote in a recent New York Daily Newsarticle in which he declared, “women are sex objects.”
Here’s some highlights from the article which appeared on the front page of The Daily Caller website:
Amy Siskind, co-founder of The New Agenda, an advocacy group for women, told The Daily Caller that while she wasn’t ready to attribute Hefner’s attitude to feminism, she did believe over-sexualized imagery to be a byproduct of third wave feminism gone awry.“The first wave of feminism got women the right to vote,” Siskind said. “The second wave, with women like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, gave women permission to make choices and enjoy sex. But the third wave — kind of the 1990s and on…was the idea that there is empowerment in being defined by our sexuality.”
And:
According to Siskind, Friedan’s primary objection is what is now the norm. “Unfortunately the chicken has come home to roost as we’ve seen a surge in teen dating violence and things like sexting because the whole notion is ‘yeah, we own our sexuality now and wear it on our sleeves.’ Which might be fine for some women,” Siskind said, “but for many others its not. So our girls now think that is how they define themselves, not how smart or accomplished they are.”
Read the full article here.
The issue isn’t that women own their sexuality — it’s that they’ve tried to “own” a sexuality that is male-defined, and it’s backfired. The only image we have of sexuality is indeed a male-defined one, where women pose and men look.
Put bluntly, a picture of a chesevake-sexy naked MALE says more about women’s sexuality than a cheesecake-sezy picture of a name woman ever will. Yet where are these images?
If men won’t do it, then we’re in a bind because the entire thing WILL be stopped dead. If women really DON’T like looking at images of sexy naked men, then we should stop acting as if there is a feminism and just resign ourselves to playacting male fears and desires, because ours don’t count, even to us.
Even images of men are male-defined. Sure, there is a tiny portion of women for whom muscle-bound clydesdales are sexy, but the vast majority of us still like something much prettier. Yet what we see is what MEN admire on other men, especially nowdays. I listen to a lot of music, and the VAST difference in what was promoted as sexy for straight men (in other words, for the delectation of the female audience and considered acceptable to men) has shifted seismically. It’s been a long, ugly road from this and this to this, and because women have been resigning ourselves to taking what little we can get since the dawn of time, we’re bullshitting ourselves that the second is better than the first.
Teenaged girls are generally the ones who hasn’t yet been brainwashed, so they are the ones who are still swooning over the first. They haven’t yet hit their skulls against the reality that they will never get that, so they’d better learn to pretend to like hairy, ugly, and mean.
Man, talk about typos:
Put bluntly, a picture of a cheesecake-sexy naked MALE says more about women’s sexuality than a cheesecake-sexy picture of a naked woman ever will.
Janis, is cheesecake, um, a sexy food and therefore a sexy term?
I had been referring to my favorite characters as a cheesecake, so have I been using a sexual term without realizing it actually/already was a sex term?!
Cheesecake is just the general term used to describe sexy pictures of women. Beefcake is used for me, but there is a HUGE difference in the general term. Beefcake is the man’s man. Cheesecake is the man’s woman, or more the man’s girl. There is no term for the woman’s man, of course — cheesecake is the best adjective I’ve found to describe images of men for women’s delectation since it has this flirtatious, cutesy connotation to it that does not at all adhere to the term beefcake.
It’s also funny/sad to read comments on various boards like YouTube left by young girls to stuff like Queen music videos. It’s like they had no idea that straight men could look like that. Nowdays, the ONLY men you see all tricked out and pretty are openly gay. It’s a step forward for gay men and lesbians to be able to be in the entertainment industry and be themselves, but for straight men, it functions as a nice excuse to sequester all the tight pants on the other side of the fence while they walk around looking like ugly, violent thugs.
And yes, I know Freddy was gay.
The entire band wasn’t.
The subject of the article, is over sexualized western culture a byproduct of feminism, I’d have to say NO. However, I think it is a by product of liberalism, of movements that began in the 1960′s. The resurgence of feminism back than was actually triggered by women getting sick and tired of being objectified, by women recognizing that free love was sure turning out to be a male centered thing.
One problem is that feminism and liberalism became too entwined, so for the past few decades we haven’t been able to tell one from the other. Just as women were deceived by messages telling them they couldn’t say no to sex with men without having hang ups or being a prude, girls more recently have been mislead into believing they must expose and sexualize themselves to feel empowered. It’s really not a new thing, just a continuation of what’s been happening for half a century already.
Feminism is certainly not to blame, except for aligning themselves too closely with another political movement ( dominated by men) and for forgetting to put women first.
Feminism is definitely not to blame — I agree with yttik. The general idea behind it was entirely reasonable: women SHOULD be able to enjoy a sexuality without being labelled or judged just for having done so.
This attitude caused a sudden flowering of female sexuality … but because the past of least resistance was for it to flower in the direction that society wanted it to go — shimmy-shimmy for the boyz — that’s the direction it followed. Just because that was the downhill flow, the path that was easiest for it to move into. Water flows downhill, and it takes work for it to go the other way. It started flowing, and got channelled right into the shape society wanted before it knew what happened.
Attempts were made to support a female-centered sexuality, but they were often made by men and in male images. Men like pictures of people they’ve never seen before who look like men’s men, so women must like that, too. I commend and admire Bruce for his efforts in this direction, but I have never in my life been interested in the types of bodybuilders that showed up in male strip joints and skin mags.
And yes, I know I’m — me, the obnoxious one who doesn’t want shit to do with men — am talking about men. In this case, I think very strongly that putting men in front of the camera as objects is the one thing that we have not done, the one forbidden thing along with putting women BEHIND the camera as observers (which is why most products with males as the commodity in question are for the gay male market). We don’t even know what it means to have a man for the delectation of women ONLY — not a man posing so other men will think he’s getting laid, but a man posing FOR WOMEN.
The right wing seems to say “Sex is objectification for women, and it’s just your sad lot in life, so cry and sigh and endure.” The let has said, “Sex is objectification for women, and that’s wrong, so don’t partake of it,” and the new left said, “Sex is objectification for women, and it’s just like ssssooooooo empowerfulating, like y’know! For $49.95 plus tax, we’ll give you pole-dancing lessons!”
They all agree on the part of the sentence that comes before the comma-and, though — don’t they?
And until that part of the sentence in rewritten, the water will flow in that direction.
Feminism is not to blame for the problem. Corporate Media that is run by only men is to blame. Sexualized is how they see women, that is how they portray women and they are so dumb they don’t even see the 52% of the population that is the female audience and the profits they lose by not serving the majority audience.
Pornography is the monetization of sex. If they move their male audience away from having sexual attraction for real women and into desiring sexualized images then the men are hooked on something unnatural like being hooked on a drug and Corporate Media rakes in the profits. In their minds women audiences are asexual or don’t have money apparently.
See Corporate Media, run by men, have defined sex for us….it is pornography. So men’s content has pornographic images mixed in to it regardless of if it is sports or comedy or whatever. Women’s content consists of “helpful” information on how women can best buy products that help them fit into the pornographic model and assume their position. They sell this sh!t as American Culture however it is nothing but Corporate Media. Most people don’t believe it and women do not watch their “women’s content” channels. The only way channels like Oxygen stay on the air is because of gatekeeping which means the 5 or so corporations who own all the TV channels and the delivery system do not allow any channels by independent programmers on the cable delivery system. In fact they don’t even allow programs developed by independent programmers.
“Corporate Media that is run by only men is to blame.”
Absolutely. The second wave idea that women’s sexuality was not evil and was (or should be) under our control and in service of our appetites was a revelation that burst onto the scene and caused a huge flowering of energy.
Unfortunately, there was only one trellis that that rose bush could climb, and it quickly climbed it. No one thought to build another trellis. No one realized the trellis existed.
What I find interesting is the Twilight hunk fest phenomenon in terms of current sexual revolution. Yeah I know Bella is a weak heroine until the last book when average Bella kicks ass but what I like is the fact that the girls in the audience are expressing the half of their sexuality that Hefner and Playboy and pornography has expressly defined out of existence in their silly little world. That is the half where average girls sit happily on their sweat panted bums and check out hot men. Oh No, Playboy and the old men can’t have that! Fully clothed women lusting over men! Women expressing their sexuality for their own enjoyment in a manner that doesn’t benefit men! Why that is taboo! And have you ever seen how offended guys get over Twilight? By God in their minds it shouldn’t even exist.
Here is another thing that bugs me, How come it is taboo for pornography to show a man and a woman equally naked having sex however it is OK to show anything else. What a bizarre taboo.
But I have to say that their is some (not much) benefit to pornography. Obviously there is about 25% of the population of men that no woman is going to date for whatever reason, ugly, no social skills, not understanding the concept of deodorant…whatever. And to have these guys self select themselves for a life of lustful interaction with their computer screen limits their breeding potential and that is clearly a favor to the human race.
I’m skeptical of how well that cheesecake for girls thing will translate to later on in their lives. The overwhelming attitude about teenaged girls lusting after pretty men and boys is that they are immature for it and will grow out of it as they get older. Amazing — according to our society, awakening sexuality is something that a female is expected to grow out of and leave behind as she gets older. She’ll learn that she hasn’t any of her own but can only expect to embody men’s sexuality. That’s the only trellis her rose bush can latch onto, and they will keep it that way. Hugh and his buddies feel that women’s sex drives will either grow in the direction they want them to grow, or else they will not be permitted to grow at all.
Young girls are also sneered at for liking mere nonthreatening men. As if they will grow up, resign themselves to their fate as mere women, and decide to make do with the threatening ones.
There’s a term for women who pair off with threatening men. They’re called “battered wives.” Anyone who chuckles at how their silly little daughter likes nonthreatening men had better hope she keeps that attitude as she grows up, or they will be identifying her body in the ER in twenty years.
Well the other thing to keep in mind about girls who go for the alpha jock model of man. They often do it as a way to keep other men in check and away from them. Girls who are born with the set of looks that men idealize are stared at and bothered by men non stop. If they accept the attention of the alpha jock then he will keep the other males out of his territory and the girl has more freedom. Sure he may be a Neanderthal when it comes to relationships but what the girl really wants is protection and she gets that.
Mmmm … to be honest, for my 20s and 30s, I’ve been one of those women that men bug nonstop (it’s slowly tailing off finally thanks to the grey hair showing up), and having one very close by to bug me 24/7 wasn’t worth keeping the rest of them away.
I would think by age 27 or so most women would agree it’s not worth it but girls with THE look start getting bothered by age 15 and at that age having one guy who occupies himself with shooing away other men is useful. Of course it is nice to have an older brother or brothers but if you don’t have one the Jock boyfriend can serve a purpose.
You know what I’m thinking … I went to a girls’ high school. That probably insulated me during my teen years a bit better, until I got to college and promptly became far too focused on academics to give a rat’s about a dance or a prom.
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