Fauxmenism

Avert your eyes, dear.
Nice girls should be ashamed to look at female breasts!

I find myself very uncomfortable with the type of sentiment found in the rash of articles on a book by a New Yorker named Ariel Levy. Salon, the SMH, and OpinionJournal.com are three perfect examples.

Ms Levy's book 'Female Chauvinist Pigs' sounds off about the phenomenon she refers to as 'Raunch Culture', into which she lumps Playboy, pole-dancing lessons and 13 year olds wearing 'porn star' t-shirts.

While I can understand peoples' discomfort with 13 year olds wearing raunchy t-shirt slogans, one of the reasons I personally dislike such t-shirts is because of the hypocrisy in our culture that merely tut-tuts a 13 year old for wearing one, while severely stigmatising the grown women who make up the profession as whores and victims. Also I don't know if most of these 13 year olds have had much of an exposure to porn, let alone enjoy it, but as it's not legal for them to access it I don't think the t-shirts should be encouraged either.

Another thing I find particularly annoying is the blame placed upon men for women who drink too hard, engage in 'meaningless' sexual encounters or read Playboy. According to Levy, they are trying to be like men. I'm sorry, but if meaningless sexual encounters were ever the sole domain of men at any point in human history that would make them all homosexual- after all, who were they having these encounters with? Society's disapproval of women engaging in sex outside of marriage is reflected in numerous surveys of males and females on their total number of sexual partners, number of sexual partners in the past 12 months and number of times they have cheated on a partner. Seemingly without exception, the females answer to fewer partners, fewer episodes of cheating and fewer partners in the past 12 months. Assuming the males aren't artificially inflating their numbers out of a desire to appear more macho and virile, either the females are lying or there is a very small group of very busy women out there who satisfy all those cheating men.

The Salon article by Christine Smallwood is possibly the worst. Of Playboy she says:

For some women -- those who are turned on by other women, for example -- the license to consume Playboy is unquestionably an advance; for others, though, you might wonder what they get out of page after page of identical bodies with identically parted lips. For instead of celebrating the diversity not only of shapes, but of desires, Playboy and its kin have commodified female sexuality into a series of recognizable poses that have been reproduced and repeated until they are now the very definition, the only definition, of sexiness. Hefner argues that female Olympians posed in Playboy as a way to tell the world that they "don't think that athleticism in women is at odds with being sexy." Interesting then, that to prove their sexiness, these athletes posed as soft, sedate pin-ups, not in action on the court.

According to Smallwood, the fact I'm not turned on by other women means I should have stuck to my 'proper' place as a woman and not subscribed to Playboy. I happen to find Hugh Hefner's current ideal of female beauty pretty damn unattractive. The women literally all pretty much do look the same: blonde hair, implants, anus-lipstick... but as anyone who has actually read the magazine knows, there are usually only 3 pictorials- the rest of the magazine is made up of articles on politics, and current affairs, some of the best interviews around, book, DVD and game reviews, a fashion section... Ooh, somewhat like a women's mag, in fact! I don't want to denigrate Playboy in any way- I have read a lot of women's mags, and Playboy is about a million times more intelligent and informative. You mean it's not all tits and ass? Now here's a novel idea, Christine- researching your article!

As for the US Olympians pictorial- I have that particular issue, and soft those women ain't. They're more hard-bodied and tough than almost any man you'd care to name, and they looked it. Sure, they have nice bodies and a lot less insecurity about them than your average woman. They were photographed in poses appropriate to their sport- on the court, as it so happens. Personally, I think it was a great pictorial, but then again, I actually saw it. The only thing that disappointed me about the pictorial was the complete lack of diversity; the women were all white, and nearly all blonde. Playboy alleges they asked many female athletes from different countries to take part, so I can only assume that the lack of diversity is because of a cultural stigma regarding female nudity in many countries.

Again regarding Playboy, Levy says "The FCP asks: Why throw your boyfriend's Playboy in a freedom trash can when you can be partying at the Mansion? ... Why try to beat them when you can join them?".

I shouldn't have to say it, but Gam had nothing to do with my subscribing to Playboy. I wouldn't say he has 'benefited' from it in any way either, because the women simply aren't his type. Up until a couple of years ago I had always assumed Playboy must be pretty hard-core. I was brought up in a nice, conservative, church-going household where Playboy was only mentioned in the same breath as 'moral decay'- although my father did admit to having a subscription at some time during the 70s (I wish he'd kept them- they're worth hundreds per issue now, and I'd love to collect them!). Anyway, finally one day a year or so after I'd left home I decided to buy one. To say I was surprised at the content would be an understatement. I'm not the sort of woman who is offended by female nudity- either my own or others, but now when I hear things such as the gossip-column item a while back that Courtney Cox Arquette made her husband David throw out his complete collection of Playboy issues from the past 16 years because he had to 'be a grownup now' I just assume that the silly woman has obviously never read an issue of the magazine in her life. David must have been a little miffed, particularly when all the headlines read that she forced him to 'throw out his porn collection'. Maybe I'm jaded, but Playboy is hardly pornographic. Then again, according to Levy I'm only saying that to fit in.

The SMH article borders on outright silliness. One choice claim is that "Now, every highly sexualised female singer is considered an empowered role model - even Britney Spears". Are you kidding me?! She is white trash, she married white trash and she had a baby white trash. Who considers that 'empowered' and a 'role model'?

On women paying for pole-dancing lessons you can practically hear the author gasp as he reveals that women pay $230 for bunch of lessons in "a style of dancing that was once synonymous with sleaze and exploitation". Funny how the supposedly seedy business was kept alive by regular guys buying lapdances. Calling stripping sleazy and exploitative is merely playing to a stereotype. The only thing even funnier is that strippers are now getting loads of money out of women as well as men. What I really don't get, however, is why women taking pole-dancing lessons or subscribing to Playboy are painted by Levy as symptoms of a societal disease, as falling victim to 'typical male' behaviour by becoming like 'them'. There's nothing worse than a feminist who wants to tell women what to do with their lives. That's just about all of them, I think.