Sexy Tofu

I found this great article from the NY Times on porn that I wanted to share. Basically it discussed how our society’s constant access to porn has created all sorts of problems, but not the ones that were originally believed to occur (a bunch of animalistic, sex-crazed men running around demoralizing and raping women). Instead, our cultures preference to porn  has lead to the demystification of sex and the loss of confidence in women, as they are aware they are constantly being compared to porn stars and are unable to meet the same standards. Read the article, it is very interesting. However, what I want to talk about now is (for once) not porn but a reflection on something mentioned in the article that struck a chord for me.

The author, Naomi Wolf, did a lot of her research for this article with college aged men and women. She found out that college aged women feel pressure to live up to men’s sexual expectations, most of which have been set by the porn they are seeing.  Wolf writes “college girls are expected to tease guys at keg parties with lesbian kisses à la Britney and Madonna.” However, our society’s access to porn has trickled down into other outlets of media as well. Growing up, an rated R movie was anything slightly hot-n-heavy or with a string of cuss words, and now you can see partial nudity in a pg-13 movie and hear a variety of nasty words in pop songs played on the radio or in movies shown on daytime TV. You also see scantily clad (and I mean really really scantily clad) women on billboards all over the country where anyone, even  little girls who still play with dolls, can see them. Now they won’t have to wait until highschool or college to feel insecure about their bodies. And so the corruption of our youth begins. Now not only is sex demystified for people who are at the ripe age for partaking in it, it is also being flaunted to our country’s children. I will never forget the day when the six-year-old girl I was babysitting turned to me, flashing her adorable gap-toothed grin and said “you look really sexy today.” In horror, (although the grin was very cute) I asked her if she knew what sexy meant and she replied “no, but I know that it is a good thing to be.”

Even more terrifying is the following video which I stumbled across on the Facebook page of one of my former professors. She was commenting on the fact that after seeing this clip she decided her daughter (who is under a year old) should be homeschooled.

These girls are seriously talented dancers, but at seven years old they should be wearing tutus as they prance across the stage to music from The Nutcracker. The fact that our society seems to be alright with this kind of behaviour coming from children is disgusting, but what is more disgusting is the parents who not only allow but encourage it. Where can we possibly be headed if this is what is going on when these girls are seven? In Wolf’s article she is worried about sex being demystified to college students, but at the rate the media puts sex in front of our kids, sex will be no big deal come early middle school if not sooner. Parents will have to put in some serious effort to shield their kids from sexuality in the media, a feat that may be nearly impossible with the progression of technology. Keeping our children children is only going to become more difficult.

Tags: Porn, Porn addiction, sexuality in the media, Sexy billboards