Female chauvinist pigs - do they exist?

[puddle]

Interesting article in the Guardian today about Ariel Levy who has written a book called "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture"

"My book is not an attack on the sex industry," says Levy. "It's about how the sex industry has become every industry...."

....as illustrated by for eg with phenomena such as pole dancing, breast implant surgery being routine, the new fashion for brazilians, playboy merchandise being targeted at schoolchildren, Ann Summers on the high street.

She calls women who are willing not just to accept this culture, but actively to participate in it: taking up pole dancing as a hobby for instance as "female chauvinist pigs", which she defines as "women who make sex objects of other women and of ourselves".

I read the article this morning and it really struck a chord with me. especially this quote

"If you happen to be a person for whom this incredibly specific form of sexual expression [the ultra-consumerist porn-star ideal] is authentic," she says, "then this is your moment, and you should enjoy it. But if you're anyone else, then you may as well be back in the 1950s, because there's no other sexual model on offer to you."

Interested in what others think. Is this another example of women beating up each other and blaming ourselves for society's ills? An ultra conservative critique?

Exactly Expat!....good comment.

I suppose I'm wonderingif there are women out there (custy?) who would be completely happy for their DPs/DHs to spend and hour or more each day wanking while fantasising about these womenthat aresupposedly free and liberated and are happy for their images to be used (abused?) in this way. The sad fact is that many men who get into this lose the abilty to derive real pleasure from touch, intimacy and real life stimulation, which results in their partners feeling lonely, rejected and as though they're not attractive enough. These partners are the so called 'sisters' or sexually liberated women we supposedly are.

My personal view, which I know many may not agree with, is that these men are mentally raping them when they do this. This is how my personal boundaries affect my relationship.

I think the idea that we have somehow 'won' the sexual revolution is the biggest con of our generation, there must be so many sniggering men out there behind the scenes ecstatic that they don't even need to try anymore to get women involved. It's like moths to a flame, the temptation of fame and wealth draws women in but instead people get hurt, and some die.

I completely agree caligula. When men and women are equal things might be different. And when a drug addict, or gambling addict, or a person who overeats have as much power as\the corporations and dealers that suck them in, then the world will be a better place too. Anyone see that pig that flew past just then?

A friend of mine is a professional photographer and it was scary to see how easily he can artificially enhance and image of a woman. So really, even the women.t that are being objectified aren't 'good enough' in real life - surely they must feel some sense of inadequacy that their image has to be altered in order to made saleable?

I'm not sure that there are many little girls out there who want to become pole dancers, glamour (yeah right!) models or prostitutes when they grow up. The reality is that for most women in these professions the overriding factor in making the decision to enter into these jobs is desperation (for money, approval, affection etc. etc.). There is nothing empowering about desperation. It immediately puts these women at a disadvantage and the men paying for any of these services have the upper hand.
I can see exactly why men would be delighted at the so called liberation that is the ladette culture. A women getting completely plastered, wearing next to nothing and flashing her boobs on a night out gets far less gratification than the men around her. The RnB artiste in a mini skirt and bikini top shaking her arse around in front of the camera might make some money but becomes just another pair of tits to the blokes watching MTV. What's empowering about that?

I analysed a few photos for my dissertation and even Angelia Jolie is digitally enhance to fit the super stimulated statistics of Lara Croft. Not even the most beautiful women are up to the ever increasing standard of femininity, apparently.

That might be so Yeahbut but magazines like Nuts and Zoo contain pictures every week of young women in clubs getting their tits out for free. These women parrot the empowerment rhetoric that we hear from Jordan and Pam Anderson and yet they are gaining NOTHING for it. The magazines on the other had are making a shed load of money.

The first of this years BB evictees came out and announced Jordan and Anderson as her role models. The majority of young women might not want to expose themselves, but they are surrounded by messages that say they can, they should and that it is good for them. And even though it's probably only a few hundred girls a year that do strip for free for these magazines, their pictures are then disseminated around the country in their hundreds of thousands - that creates the illusion that a a lot of women are doing this, and that it is a true reflection of female sexuality, when it is not true. The editor of Nuts was quoted recently saing that women were 'gagging' to be in his magazine. He can only get away with saying that because of the illusion his magazine and other like them (and porn) creates in our culture.

That's my point MT - whether a woman is paid for it or not, she's not the one that gets the most out of it. Yet it is the look / behaviour that young women are being conditioned to aspire to.

"I suppose I'm wonderingif there are women out there (custy?) who would be completely happy for their DPs/DHs to spend and hour or more each day wanking while fantasising about these womenthat aresupposedly free and liberated and are happy for their images to be used (abused?) in this way."

so if its less than an hour a day is that ok?

can i wank to sexualised images - or is that sordid and degraded too?

or is it ok for me to wank but not dh

are we allowed to use this material together for a hot fast fuck ?

should i be lighting candles and playing celine dion ( shoot me) and fucking mills & boon stylee - another marketable fantasy.

No you should be doing it with no deodorant and your DH with a beard and the Joy of Sex open beside you, complete with offputting illustrations.

lmfao!

a ginger beard would just be too much - there should be legeslation against it

with an unkempt ladee garden too!

Yes, they almost imply that if your laydee-garden isn't completely rampant, you're somehow not as in touch with your sexuality.

should i dye it henna rouge?

"Women who appropriate male sexuality don't do them any favours."

You see that's what i think. But I feel obscurely guilty or inadequate for thinking that. I feel that we live in a commercially sexualised society where having loads of amazing sex is somehow occupying the same ground as driving a beautiful car or wearing designer clothes. ie it's a commodity that says something important about yourself, without which you are somehow lacking. This is independent of whether you actually want the sex.....you HAVE to want it. And to get the sex (or to appear to be getting it) you have to be the right shape, size etc. The reality actually being that you can look like a cow's arse and still get laid if everyone has drunk enough ....but it will probably be a unpleasant or more likely neutral experience but at least you can can say you had it. Quantity being the issue not quality....or have I been talking to too many teenagers??

I think that's pretty much spot on Joelallie

Well I think you can look like a cow's arse and still get laid sober.

If someone loves you
If they're used to you
If they know all cats look grey in the dark
If you are charismatic and sexy even though you're ugly
If you have loads of money and/ or fame and the participant wants a load of that

etc.

"If they know all cats look grey in the dark"

Dp just failed on that one..

Anyon ein London going to this tonight?

Gosh I forgot I started this! what an interesting read.

Monkeytrousers you put the arguments brilliantly, particularly your comments on the Nuts and Zoo type magazines and the 'real' girls they feature. To be honest although I dislike porn I can deal with it being on the top shelf. The problem is that porn aesthetic has filtered down so far into the mainstream.

I think that the problem with porn is that it is desensitising. It's like watching too many violent films - you have to keep upping the ante and getting more and more gory because what you see doesn't have the same effect after a while. It's a fantasy world and exposure to it warps your view of how adult sexual relationships should be. IMO.

Good posts monkeytrousers and puddle.

Just as an aside, I think there is a danger in viewing and understanding many things such as sex and relationships via the simulacra of the media, which includes porn. Anyone in advertising will tell you that shock tactics only work in the short term ? people become desensitised to them and hence, like you say Puddle, the ante always needs to be upped.

You see it happening with depictions of rape on film and TV. People expect real rape victims to behave how they?ve seen actors behave on the TV. If they don?t, bizarrely, it somehow doesn?t ring ?true?. If trauma isn't demonstrated people don't seem to believe it.

There was something interesting in the paper a few weeks ago talking to teenagers about sex. Most of the boys had seen pretty hard core porn, hence their expectations of what might be a 'normal' (for want of a better word) request in the bedroom were completely skewed by this. The girls were talking a lot about what was expected of them, how they sometimes felt they were acting during sex and mimicking the kid of behaviour they had seen depicted as a 'good' sexual experience. Not a lot said about love or relationships.

Have read through most of this thread. I too have had the feeling of drwoning in a sea of plastic tits and forced-feeling lesbianism recently, but as someone who always had a high libido and was sexually adventurous, I have felt somehow inadequate about not enjoying this new "openess" and "freedom".

I have managed to miss the writings of Ariel Levy and her like and feel quite relieved to find that I am not alone and I probably haven't just turned into Mary Whitehouse because of middle age.

Puddle, can you give any further details of the article you mention about teenagers and the effects of porn.

I have an eleven year old boy...

I find the phrase "Female Chauvinist Pigs" very lazy and overly combative though. The majority of the "women" in question are teenagers or early twenties - people who are discovering their sexuality and are on the whole keen to be accepted. Because young bodies are most desirable and sell best and also young women are more maleable than older ones.

As other posters have pointed out, it is the corporations which are the real beneficiaries and the "chauvinist pigs".