Sexuality & Mixed Messages

Before you read this article, I’d like you to watch the YouTube clip above.  It’s only four minutes and fifty-four seconds of your time, but I urge you to watch it. Stick with it. It gets real interesting around the two-minute mark.

Then, I’d like you to answer this question:

Is it just entertainment?

Because I don’t think it is.

Over the past few months, my interest in various cultural and social trends has expanded, particularly those in direct relation to ideas and notions of gender roles and female empowerment. I have read Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs and Shmuley Boteach’s Hating Women and I have cheered and agreed with their thoughts and opinions.

I believe that clips such as the one above are a very clear indication of where our society is currently positioned. And that frightens me. Some people disagree, some people think that bashing a man over the head with a chair and spanking a woman on stage is simply entertainment, but I have to ask; are we too naïve to believe that programs and events such as WWE are just entertainment? That they have nothing to do with the explosion of violence and raunch culture?

We are becoming so de-sensitisied, so open, so willing to watch and absorb anything, that we’re losing track – not to mention social decency, morals and values. Last week, a debate erupted when clothing chain American Apparel released its latest advertising campaign using female workers from their stores photographed in compromising positions wearing next to nothing. Initially, I found myself wondering what all the fuss was about. And then I realised that was the exact problem. I’m so used to seeing women on posters wearing nothing, I’m so used to seeing “soft-porn” here, there and everywhere that even when it was staring at me, right in the face, I didn’t quite understand what the problem was.

And that is the problem.

Because, is it necessary to have every advertisement for female clothing feature exposed breasts? Is it necessary for David Beckham’s penis to be enlarged on a billboard? Or for a sunglass advertisement to feature six models sprawled across each other?

I’m no prude, but some things are quite clear to recognise. Like the fact that young children are growing up in a world that dictates that being a woman is all about your breast size, and being a man is all about bashing through whatever obstructs your path.

When children watch wrestling, they aren’t just watching ‘wrestling’ – they are watching a series of gender roles on display. Boys, you must be strong. Boys, it’s ok to slap a woman. Girls, it’s all about flashing skin. Girls, it’s all about busting out of your t-shirt.

And, surely, this far on, we know there’s more to each gender than that? Surely we want to inspire, encourage and value qualities like intelligence and humour, rather than just looks? And, more so, surely we want to live in a society that respects everyone within it? When I see programs like WWE, or Girls Gone Wild, I believe that we’ve lost more than self-esteem and self-respect – I believe we’ve lost it. We’ve well and truly lost it.