Girls, have some respect for yourselves

The BBQ Pit
101

What does being a female writer have to do with male rap artists featuring women as possessions in their videos? I’m having trouble seeing what your point is here.

Are you saying that women working in the porn industry as actresses are empowered? It may be – I know as much about the porn industry as I know about the music industry. I guess the bottom line would be, would you encourage your daughter to become a porn star?

I used the terms “hoohoo and tatas” because I had just read a thread using those terms before writing the OP, and I liked the tie-in. I am perfectly comfortable calling women’s sexual parts vagina and breasts. I don’t like the word cunt because it was the ultimate dirty word for my generation. I probably never will like it.

If a man demands that a woman do something, and she has a choice of do it or have no future in her chosen career, that’s not empowerment. As I said earlier, I don’t know how the music industry works; I only see the end result. I do suspect, however, that as a young female musician, there are some choices that girls have to make regarding how much skin to show, and their careers are directly affected by these choices. I suppose male musicians face similar choices, but I’m guessing not to the same degree.

Seriously, who is asking anyone to deny their sexuality? My problem is women being portrayed as objects like jewellery and cars, and when I see the videos for male rap musicians, there is no doubt in my mind that that is the intended message. If all the women in all music videos and porn and all female musicians are making empowered choices and they are choosing to do videos in pasties and a g-string as their costume, good for them. I don’t have any particular interest in watching videos of Destiny’s Child dancing around with next to nothing on, but if that’s their empowered choice, so be it. I personally would choose differently if I were a female musician.

The message I’m getting from music videos is that success for boys is becoming a rap star with beautiful, sexually available women at his beck and call, and success for girls is becoming one of those women. I don’t see that as empowering for those little girls.

102

On the one hand I read the OP and think, been there done that so what if some other girl or boy dressed like a girl wants to accentuate her assets and put it all out there. I can understand what happens next…

I now am older uglier and more modest.and just shake my head when i see my beautiful empowered young adult nieces wear their micro slung bottoms. You dont know wether she needs to tug it up or down! the feeling keeps coming back to me that they’re giving something away, on another level.

How does that hurt young or old woman? or does it?

I am a casual observer of how we dress our woman in the public eye compared to the men. It means that every formal gown or attire that you see for woman under 65 from the BUsh twins at the inauguration in their bare armed low cut dresses is lots of skin exposed. No shawls or capes or wraps for the ladies, no they all plod around in silk negligee’s. Remember the photo of Britney’s in maximum exposure when Justin was in turtle neck, like he was trying to compensate for her nakedness. IMO.

At least my awareness is raised,about the connotations of women as legs opened on command sexertainers. I know intimately the beauty of female sexuality, but that doesn’t mean i buy into the marketing and mass consumption of a caricature of it.

103

One last thought (sorry I came back to this thread so late, my son came up for a visit for spring break and I was offline most of the week). Even though I am a woman, aging (and sometimes not going quietly or gracefully), I’ve long thought that the whole “women who dress that way are being exploited and/or are brainless bimbos” was in many cases (DISCLAIMER, of COURSE not all), a shortcut for “They look so good and I’m so jealous, I hate them, therefore I’m going to try to find some way to put them down so that I can feel better about myself”.

104

You can think whatever you like.

105

Well, right now I’m working a dead-end job and struggling to make rent. I try to realize my dreams of making independent short films and travelling- and sometimes I suceed- but the soulessness of my work and the amount of time it takes in my life make it hard. Would my mom encourage me to do this? No way, but it’s what has to be done. If I had it in me to be a porn star, would my mom be disappointed? No more than she is now, and at least she could rest assured that I was reaching some of my dreams. If I was presented with the chance to work for a year or two, and then realize my dreams of travelling around the world, would that be worth being a porn star? It seems pretty tempting. I’m not doing such a great job at self-actualization in the daily grind.

Your already showing your unfamilerity and discomfort with your own genitals. There is a lot more than a vagina down there, although that is what some people have reduced it all to. For future reference, the whole shebang is technically a vulva.

I think you misunderstand how the big music industry works. It’s not a bunch of starry-eyed dreamers with good voices hoping to make it big one day. It’s a bunch of studio execs deciding what the next big thing will be and then casting the parts. The scenerio of “innocent girl with amazing talent is told by slimy studio exec that her career will go nowhere if she doesn’t do her concert in a thong” just doesn’t happen. It’s more like an ad goes up saying “Seeking three girls with large breasts to do concert in thong” and a bunch of people answer.

106

Dr. Drew Pinsky is not a sexologist!

Masters and Johnson were the first to study human sexual response in 1966 and they found that the sexual responses of both males and females are similar except that females have the capicity to have multiple orgasms much more and more often than males. The amount of time needed for either sex to reach orgasm is the same and both sexes use similar terms when describing their orgasms. Since then there have been numerous studies and the current teaching (and what I am learning now) is that male and female orgasms are nearly identical. You can read more here.

You can tell that female orgasm is cultural simply by the difference in American culture between the amount of orgasms reported by females of different races. Laumann did a study in 1994 and found that 25% of white American women always had an orgasm during sex with the primary partner while 40% of black American women did. (The rate for men was 75%). Futhermore, women who worked outside the home were 30% more likely to experience orgasms with each sexual counter compared to homemakers.

I’m having difficulty finding an online source for other cultures. ><

Well, the head of the penis is the clitoris expanded. AFAIK, more nerve endings don’t develop after the 6th week of pregnancy. I am not a biological and I have not studied biology is almost a decade, so if nerves do develop after the 6th week, then that is possible.

107

True, but he is a physician, and there’s something to be said for his 22 years of experience talking to people who are having trouble with sex.

I don’t think that disproves a biological difference at all. If the difference is purely cultural, shouldn’t enlightened women have an orgasm 75% of the time too?

108

The Loveline guy? I can’t believe you expect me to take him as a valid cite over the word of sexologists who have actually researched this issue. :dubious:

No because we live in a society which looks negatively upon female sexuality. Most of the females who have problems having orgasms have psychological difficulties, not biological ones. And if a woman went to a sex therapist and reported having trouble orgasming, I guarentee you that they wouldn’t just chalk it up to non-existant biological difficulties but would set about making the woman feel more sexually comfortable and aware of her own body. 95% of women who masturbate can bring themselves to orgasm easily and whenever they wanted to. And when dealing with the 5%, I’ve never heard of a case where the reason they couldn’t was biological.

109

All right, then show me a society where women have orgasms as often as men.

If a man went to a sex therapist and reported trouble orgasming, do you think they’d try to make him feel more “sexually comfortable and aware of his own body”? Or would they realize that those phrases are meaningless for men and look for a biological cause?

See, you can tell a guy that sex is dirty, masturbation is sinful, and his body is something to be ashamed of, but 99 times out of 100, it isn’t going to keep him from masturbating or make it any harder for him to have an orgasm. He doesn’t need to be taught awareness of his own body; he’ll seek it out whether you want him to or not. That is a biological difference.

And what percentage of all women does that represent?

110

I don’t know about modern practices, but I do know that Wilhelm Reich (before he went a bit nuts) did just that.

111

Have you ever met a guy that had trouble orgasming? I’m dating a guy right now who could not, at the beginning of our relationship, orgasm through intercourse alone. After some work on becoming comfortable with sex and coming to understand his sexual responses, we now enjoy a healthy and normal sex life. It’s actually quite common for guys to have trouble with orgasms and it is usually related to performance anxiety. It’s a pretty simple matter to fix and sex therapists do it all the time.

112

Could it be that the reason they can’t is that a lot of their partners aren’t stimulating them in the way that they themselves know to be effective? And not so much because they aren’t enlightened?

Unless you’re including “haven’t communicated the correct way to ‘do it’ to their partners” in the label of unenlightened that is.

Sorry, not disagreeing with you, just wondering further.

113

Please note that you snipped the part where I said “some women”. I wasn’t speaking of you, or your OP.

114

Yet you felt the need to put it in this thread.

115

Yes, because, as I said in my original post, it occurred to me as a reason for some of this negativity against the more sensual/sexual displays of entertainers by some women.

It occurred to me because of people I know IRL who’ve expressed that sort of negativity when discussing this subject.

A person can bring an aside or ps to a subject without it directly being related to the OP’s opinion, or meaning him or her.

116

Sorry, it’s been years since I studied anthro and I don’t remember the exact names and the connections between the groups. For example, there is a tribe who’s name is Mana___. They believe that women can’t get pregnant without having orgasms and all the boys are taught to how to properly pleasure women because the emphasis on love making is on the female. When I go to school tomarrow, I can try looking it up in the library.

They are not meaningless for men and many men have to be taught to be comfortable with their own sexuality too. There have been many men who have posted on this board asking for sexual advice because they either can’t get hard or can’t orgasm during sex. There was just a thread a few days ago where an individual asked this very question. You’ll notice that several male posters responded and told him to relax and it will come to him eventually. No one suggested that he go see a neurologist.

Yes, it will. Men are not taught to the degree that females are taught but men from very strict environments will not masturbate. I know several men who either do not masturbate or went through long periods where they didn’t masturbate because of their religious upbringing. I once asked a male friend how often he masturbated. He replied ‘twice’ and I asked ‘twice a day? week?’ He had masturbated twice in his entire life.

The male arousal is more noticable than the female arousal. A lot of women deny their arousal levels or don’t notice them. There was a study done where they showed both males and females porn and while they were both equally aroused by it, a percentage of females realized they were aroused compared to all of the men. Unfortunately I do not remember the percentage and I can’t remember the name of the survey.

About 75% which is pretty damn good when you consider that female orgasm has only been ‘discovered’ a half a decade ago. Women who had multiple orgasms were thought to be nymphomanics when Kinsey did his famous study.

We still don’t understand all of female sexual desire. Male sexual desire is based on testosterone and small amounts of it do influence female sexual desire, but there is some other source of sexual desire we haven’t uncovered in females. Individuals with androgen sensativity syndrome (XY males who have female genitalia) can not process testosterone yet still have sexual desire.

Women (and people in general) are divided up into agressive, assertive and passive. Assertive women have better sex not only because they know, understand and feel comfortable with their own bodies, but also because they communicate with men and let them know what they desire and need. Most men seem assume that penile thrusting is all women need. This isn’t entirely their fault, as society teaches this with noted figures once suggesting that vaginal orgasms were better and healthier than clitoral ones. 30-40% of women can orgasm through penetration alone, but the majority of women apparently do not. It is not that hard to stimulate the clitoris during sex and there are also women who can orgasm through other means.

Unfortunately, assertiveness is still regarded as unsexy in a female for the most part, so a lot of women don’t communicate properly.

117

Two people that I went to college with worked together. One was always wearing low-cut tops and showing off her boobs in any way possible, and she was really pleased with herself. She said it was the only way to get men’s respect and attention.

But the other person (my friend) tells me that she wasn’t getting respect at all. Everyone would talk about her behind her back and comment on how sleazy her top was each day. Not just the women.

118

I’ve long thought that there will never be true sexual equality as long as only one gender has to orgasm to conceive.

OTOH, I’d be in favor of abandoning sexy clothes in the music business if it meant I’d never have to hear another Brittney Spears (or Brit-clone) song ever again.