I suppose the problem is that the vast majority of Western women just aren’t that turned on by men in revealing clothes. If they were, you can bet you’d see men in short-shorts everywhere, not just in Chelsea.
For years I wondered what the male equivalent to a miniskirt is. I have since discovered that a professional degree works pretty well.
have a sense of humour, this is for the kids amusement!
this is a bit of an ehhh issue for me.
i’m pretty sure that the cause of feminism isn’t being set back by these ladies in skimpy clothes. surely feminism has better things to worry about, such as equality in pay?
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For every nearly-naked woman I see in a video, I want to see one band member wearing nothing but a bandana tied around his wing-wang.[/quote/
anyone seen the cd with red hot chili peppers walking across the pedestrian crossing on abbey road dressed only in socks?
i also recall a blink 182 video with a total of three naked males and zero naked females.
oh, and i’m pretty sure lil bow wow is 14-15 years old. so it ain’t that bad.
Maybe lucwarm, but I’m not so sure. I don’t want this to be a “straight-man keeping me down” thing, but I wonder how much of it has to do with straight men not wanting to see things like that? I know you meant it in fun with the male equivalent to a miniskirt thing, but does that have something to do with it? I’m not pushing an agenda, but I do sometimes wonder if part of the reason we don’t see more of that is that it might cause straight men to feel uncomfortable.
As an example (though maybe not the best): I have heard about the Playgirl issue containing (oh jeez, can’t think of his name) the lead singer from Type O Negative, from tons of people. I know it’s old, but it’s been spoken about like everyone’s seen it but me. I decide to do some searching, and found a bunch of sites with edited pictures of the centerfold. In a lot of the cases the webmistresses made a point of saying they edited the picture under duress. While I’m not complaining that I couldn’t find free pornographic pictures of a naked man on-line, I do see a large disparity.
I’m not saying there is an equal number of people out there who want to see more naked men, as opposed to women, but is it as huge of a gap as this?
I say bullshit to the first paragraph. That form of marketing is not used on women because marketers found long ago (like before 1950) that the way to sell something to women was to undermine their self confidence. Hot men don’t do that; seeing women more attractive than themselves does.
This type of thing doesn’t work as well on men, or at least hasn’t been tried as much. Companies hawking baldness treatments and penis lengtheners sure try their best, though.
If you think about it, demand for these products (along with almost all “feminine beauty products”) is almost almost entirely an artificial creation. Will your life really be any different if you have hair than if you don’t? Will using a particular kind of shampoo actually make you any more attractive than you were? Ask yourself this kind of question about every product you buy, and see just how much useless or grossly overpriced crap you’ve accumulated. It’s very eye-opening.
I think you’re dead-on in the second paragraph, though.
As long as there are any woman who agree or consent or design or plan to, or see a benefit in, use(ing) their tits and vagina to advance some aspect of their life in this world, we will see the consequences of it everywhere.
True ‘equality’ of the sexes will never emerge in any society until all women STOP trading on that aspect of their being as a way to gain power and enrichment.
Until that time, we can only blame ourselves for the value given us by the dominant male structure.
Until that time, testosterone will rule.
They aren’t all professional dancers, y’all. I read an article in Jane that featured one of their writers going undercover and trying out to be one of the dancing girls in a rap video. It was completely depressing.
The girls were solicited for sex and ridiculed, IIRC, and they weren’t well paid at all. It was all very objectifying. I mean, the girls aren’t blameless here, and I know that if I was in their place, I would have hustled my little butt right out of the studio, but still. Rap videos aren’t the pictures of sweetness and light and female pride that some of you would like to envision them as. There’s a huge difference between being proud of your body and using it, and being objectified.
I’m sorry, Pathros–the reason I asked you is that I truly don’t understand why it’s degrading.
I have a subscription to Maxim magazine; my boyfriend and I both enjoy it. We both read it for the articles, and we both like to look at these beautiful women: me, because I like beauty, he, because they turn him on. The Wrong Girl may be right in some cases, but in others, I do know that the women are dancers and are well-paid. In any event, it’s the free choice of the women to do this.
i’d rather be julian casablancas than moby.
First, let me address the Las Vegas showgirls comment I made in the OP. I thought about how that would be received, and decided to leave it in, because although I agree that showgirls are professionals, I would still say that their entire profession is based on objectification. If they’re professional dancers, and people are coming to watch their art (dancing), why do they need to do it with nothing but pasties and a g-string on? I want to make the point here, however, that I differentiate between a profession that objectifies women and the women engaged in that profession. I dislike the profession, not the professionals engaged in it.
I think Lizard has made an excellent point about undermining self-confidence to sell to women (and girls, of course). To muddy the waters further, how damaging are these music videos to young girls (and, in different ways, to young boys)? We’re not a point yet where equality between the sexes every day in every way is so well-established that we can just laugh at these videos for the blatant manipulation that they are.
I also agree with The Wrong Girl; there is a huge difference between being proud of your body and being objectified. A female athlete who poses for nude pictures for a charity calendar in her unbelievably ripped glory is different in my mind than a 16-year old girl posing for gynecological-exam pictures for $XX for a beat-off magazine. Maybe the 16-yo is proud of her vagina and is using it for artistic expression, but I don’t really think so.
Why are ballet and figure skating performed in revealing outfits? To show off the body that’s making those movements.
How do you feel about female athletes who pose for Maxim and Penthouse?
It’s only blatant if you see through the artifice. The existence of this kind of thing is proof that most people cannot. Unfortunately.
How about just being yourself?
I’m myself! 
Myself just happens to have blue hair, long dark eyelashes, soft skin and smells like Dior’s Hynoptic Poison, that’s all.
Amen, preach it, featherlou! I’m all for seeing more nekkid men on the television and in movies and magazines and stuff since it doesn’t seem like the objectification of females is going to stop anytime soon. Now I am not a prude, and I certainly do appreciate the beauty of both the male and female frame; however, I have to also voice my objections to some of these videos, particularly the ones put out by underage singers and the adults who handle their acts. I was just watching a video by Lil Bow Wow, or at least I think that was who it was, on the television last night, and I was just horrified by what I saw. The child don’t look more than nine or ten years old! And some of the little girls they had in that video! There was the most disgusting scene of a little girl holding an apple on a stick with some caramel on it. She held it out next to her and let it drip down, and IIRC a little later she held it over her face and let the caramel drip down on her. Now what in the SamJesus do you think that’s supposed to stand for?! :mad: At that point I had to turn the television off. I don’t care if it is caramel, the folks who designed and filmed that video, ought to be put in jail for producing a simulation of child pornography and promoting it to little children on the television! :mad: This video was aired during a segment targetting kids. And Lil Bow Wow’s parents need a good whack with a clue by four for letting him get up there and perpetrate like he grown. I don’t care if he’s 14-15. He’s still a minor.
You say that like Nancy Reagan says “Just say no.” I can imagine thousands of psychologically undeveloped people out there going, “Oh! That’s all we have to do! Have a little pride in ourselves! It’s so easy now! Thanks!” Do you really have so little understanding of self-respect that you think it’s just that easy?
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They’re neither. They’re whores, selling their bodies. And until we stop treating them like anything but that, nothing is ever going to change. If people keep supporting their prostitution by buying their albums, posters, clothing lines, and assorted accessories, the myth that they are “artists/musicians” who deserve respect for what they do merely continues to muddy the waters.
Don’t give me wrong. I believe in treating people with respect. Until they prove that paying them respect is like pissing in the wind. An artist who has a sexually framed message but still has a message (e.g., Prince) deserves respect. A whore who gets famous and rich because he or she will take off as much of his or her clothes as the censors will permit but simply has nothing to say worth hearing (e.g., David Lee Roth) shouldn’t be listened to for anything serious and shouldn’t be taken seriously or paid any respect.
I’m actually a little torn on this issue, but I have noticed one thing: Female artists can be successful when the only thing they have going for them is showing their tits (Britney Spears), but male artist seem to need to have more to offer to reach that level of success. Incubus and the Red Hot Chili Peppers spring to mind as bands sold on the lead singer’s sex appeal that actually have something to sell, but look at Marc Anthony- not a huge star like Britney and Christina.
Most really talented female musicians seem to avoid selling themselves as sex objects- Alecia Keys is hott, but she keeps her clothes on in her videos, same for Lauryn Hill.
It seems that women aren’t allowed to be sex objects and still be smart, but men are.
BTW, celestina Li’l Bow Wow’s dad is Master P- he’s following in daddy’s footsteps.
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His name is Peter Steele and keep searching. I’ve found the unedited pics online. ::purrs and sings Be My Druidess::
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grendel72, thanks for the heads up. I don’t know who these folks are that children be listening to nowadays. I presume Master P is some kind of rapper too? If he is, then he really ought to be spanked for allowing his child to be exploited :eek: because he knows what goes down in the industry.
IMO complaining about “objectification” in the popular media of the western world in 2002 with the “objects” (ie women) cast as victims of some sort is beyond absurd. Newbie ethicsrcritical made the main point surrounding this issue. If given the slightest opportunity many women have and will, of their own volition and in full possession of their critical faculties, seek objectification as a resource desired by males like a hungry pig seeks a truffle. As far as I can see it’s practically wired into the genome.
With this in mind those complaining about “booty shakin’” can make all the “well I’m not a prude, but…” little old lady noises you want, but you are being prudes and you should own up to it, because someone needs to be a prude when adolescents are miming fellatio in pop culture videos and being admired for it by other children. Won’t one you brave, free thinking souls at least have the courage to put her sandal or Ferragamo up on the greasy, slippery slope of cultural nastiness, and say “Enough!” simply because it’s just plain nasty without needing the PC fig leaf of “objectification” to cover your self image as a non-judgmental person.
Aren’t any of you SDMB ladies brave enough to be an unapologetic judgmental prude about nasty things?
I took Psych of Women my freshman year of college, and we watched a documentary, Dreamworlds 2 (dunno if it was really a sequel) on this very topic. Their premise was that music video objectification of women promotes sexual abuse. The videos imply that women are always interested in sex, are always horny, and always available to men. So it follows that anytime a man wants some, a woman will be happy to give it up.
I don’t know if I agree 100%, but it’s an interesting idea. I’d recommend the documentary to anyone interested.