Sort of academic so might be boring and sorry for not using a cut

[oanja]

I'm reading an interesting book called 'The Will to Change - men, masculinity, and love' where the author talks about partiarchy and how that has shaped men and how they are allowed to feel or express their feeling. (or to put it in other words; how they aren't allowed to do any of that) I think I will write more about this once I finish reading it but she quoted another book and I really wanted to write it down.

Attention to the meaning of the central male slang term for sexual intercourse- "fuck" -is instructive. To fuck a woman is to have sex with her. To fuck someone in another context... means to hurt or cheat a person. And when hurled as a simple insult ("fuck you") the intent is denigration and the remark is often a prelude to violence or the threat of violence. Sex in patriarchy is fucking. That we live in a world in which people continue to use the same word for sex and violence, and then resist the notion that sex is routinely violent and claim to be outraged when sex becomes overtly violent, is a testament to the power of patriarchy.
-Robert Jensen

 

And now that I'm sort of talking about sex I might as well mention something else that has been bothering me. I was thinking about the Harry Potter books and how they are meant to be read by kids. Not necessarily very young kids but kids none the less. In the HP books a lot of people die in pretty horrible ways, people get injured because someone wanted to hurt them physically, people are tortured. Violence is not presented as something entirely bad though, in some cases it is the right thing to do (as in when fighting evil) Nobody curses in HP books and nobody has sex in them either ("on screen") Why is it okay to have murder and torture in a kids book but not sex or even cursing?
- Kids might imitate the way the characters speak and start cursing. Eh? But they don't start torturing and killing people when they read about it.
- Kids might start having sex. Um... Like they wont do that in any case. Shouldn't there be examples in books for teenagers to see what a loving relationship is like sex included. I think it would give them a much better example than watching porn online, or hearing sex clinically explained in sex ed.

Why is sex such a taboo in books and on TV/movies? Why don't we even blink when we see a character get killed on screen but if there is a sex scene it can cause an outrage, (especially if children might see). How does that work? Even showing a character naked is a big deal. Sex is supposed to be a natural part of being human, it's even considered a good thing in general and yet we aren't allowed to see it. I get that it's supposed to be personal and private but at the same time I want to ask 'why is it so private?' Isn't torturing and murdering people sort of personal and private too? What makes it okay to see one but not the other?

(Then again, sex scenes make me personally uncomfortable if I see one in a movie etc. However, I have watched porn, where seeing people have sex is the whole point and that didn't bother me. Have I just been socialized to see sex in the media as a bad thing? Also this aversion I have only extends to seeing heterosexual couples having sex. I watched the L word and the sex scenes didn't bother me and neither have the ones I've seen in gay movies or shows like Queer as Folk. This makes me think it's just something personal in my own case. And this whole paragraph isn't really making any sense so I'll just stop now...)

I generally think there is too much sex on tv/movies and I don't like how they usually depict women. So does that make me a hypocrite? Especially when I don't feel that way about violence in the same context. I don't like horror movies or scenes where someone is tortured (particularly if they do something to the persons hands or teeth) but in shows like CSI or other crime shows I pretty much like watching people get killed/murdered. And how messed up is that when you actually write it down... Some of my favourite characters in movies and TV are murderers/torturers or they have at least assaulted someone. If they were real I'd never want to get closer than a hundred meters of them. Double standars much...

Waah~ I can't express myself the way I want to! *flails* But if any of this made any kind of sense to you or if you wanna tell me how you feel about the topic(s) I'd love to hear it! \0/

P.s. Livejournal spell check doesn't think patriarchy is a word. Are we being oppressed? Or am I writing the word wrong? There are always more questions than there are answers. *nod nod*

~*~

Also completely off topic but I had a nose bleed today... So weird. O_o
And! I'm going to see Sherlock Holmes tomorrow! woot!
edit: lol someone posted a secret on fandomsecrets  that was about the same thing as my last post, (the whole objectifying men thing. =D)

Comments

[nerakrose]

my brain's too tired to come up with a smart reply to your entry. but i agree. or something.

BUT! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH HAVE FUN! :DDDDDD i don't get to see the movie until next month but ugh i can't wait. :DDDDDDD
(if you're interested in the holmes/watson fandom here's holmeswatson09 :D)

[oanja.livejournal.com]

Heh~ brains get that way sometimes and anyway, it's not like I'm here to demand answers from everyone. ^_^

It was really fun and entertaining, not to mention how slashy it was... (which in my books = a very good thing) I was already getting really impatient because it came out ages ago in the States, so it was about time it got here. *grumble grumble* Also, thanks a lot for the hint, of course I had to join it as soon as I got back from the theatre. =D

[nerakrose]

good good XD

yeah it came out here december 25th too but i didn't have time to go see it until like mid january, and then i just failed at it. and now i have no monies so i have to wait until next month :P (a week! eeeh!)
the comm is full of pretty art :D i haven't checked the fics out much because i haven't seen the movie (but i am reading the books) but the art mmmmhhh ♥

[pi-ankh.livejournal.com]

The whole western way of thinking is based on Christian way of thinking [which is obviously based on Jewish thinking what comes to The Old Testament]. In the beginning we are given the whole Paradise, with one condition: Not to do one thing, not to eat from The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Till that point we don't carry any "sign" of sin in us, and our soul is pure. But then Eve is seduced to eat from the Tree, and though she knows it's wrong, she does it. [So human wasn't that pure in the beginning?] And Adam isn't that much better than her as he eats the fruit, though he knows it's not allowed. Till that point the pair was totally innocent, like little kids who don't see anything wrong running naked around the house, because they haven't learned what is "sinful".
Then they realized they were naked, and to them it was horrible. At this point it's good to point out that in the end the Bible is written by human beings. Everything written there can't be historically accurate, people at time had no idea about science as we have now. Maybe this was their "guess" why we have to wear clothes, if you get my point.
But let's not get stuck to that. In the Bible, God set a marriage between a man and a woman to secure their future, as in they can trust each other and have a family. And here we come to sex part. As sex is really intimate thing and a way to make children [especially the last part] it was considered to belong only to marriage. Especially in medieval times sexual intercourse was considered as a sin which had to be done to have children. Why so? Because after Eve and Adam's mistake everyone of us has the Original sin, separation from God, which makes us able to make sin. This belief was brought to our Western thinking in the medieval period, thanks to Catholic Church and their interpretation of the word of God.
Basically, what I'm trying to say is, that we are brought up in such way, that nudeness and sex are a bad thing. Or well, more like sin. [The whole western way of thinking is based on the "sin dogma", but in eastern way of thinking is based on honor or not loosing your face, that's one reason why nudeness and sex aren't that much of a big deal in Asia as it is in western countries] They belong to marriage and they should not be talked about, especially in public, as it's considered as sin. But then on the other hand, in medieval time it was only a good thing to go and kill the heretic Muslims to protect the Holy Land. Killing is also a sin, but in their way of thinking, killing to protect God was okay. [Which only shows that the Church was pretty damn greedy...]
Why then there are differences between the Western countries way of seeing nudeness more or less taboo. When America was being inhabited, most of the people were strictly religious, and to them nudeness was something really terrible. And as time goes by the world changes, but some things remain, usually old habits and ways of thinking. For Finns nudeness isn't a big deal, because for hundreds of years we've bathed in sauna, naked and together. One might think that so did the people in ancient Greek. Yes they did, and then they were thought with Christianity and they became more or less fanatics. Where as for Finns Christianity was in the beginning just a bit more gods. Priests weren't able to get rid of our habit of bathing naked, one reason could be that sauna wasn't anything that sinful. [It was place to get clean and to give birth, not to have sex.]

Okay... This became something rather incoherent, I apologize :D

[oanja.livejournal.com]

I mean I know how much Christianity has affected Western thoughts about sex and sexuality but it seriously baffles me how it is still actually a concern. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I see no reason why sex or nudity should be considered as bad things (or as sinful like you pointed out). Although this point only appplies as long as we are talking about consenting adults (or teenagers, just no kids or animals please)

But thanks for pointing out this side of the debate. I think it plays a very big role in the USA especially, where they still have value conservative values and where religion plays such an important and public role. Even and especially in the media. (I mean look at the whole nipple!Gate thing that happened a few years back at the Superbowl with Janet Jackson and what a huge outrage that caused. and now I will stop rambling)

[sherg.livejournal.com]

Yeah I've been thinking the same thing about how showing violence in telly is ok but people having sex is always somehow shocking or something. And I agree, I don't like full frontal shots in the middle of my movie but why is it that this Tarantino-effect is so popular?

I mean how violence covers sex in his movies, there's always this intense atmosphere but it is created by shooting people's brains out or abusing one sexually (as in Pulp Fiction's cellar scene). It can be seen as monumental speech against violence but when he keep doing movies like these and keeps making money with them it's starting to feel like yes, it's perfectly fine to make some cash with killing people in screen in most bloodiest way.
Watching a burning movie theater full of Nazis I couldn't help but wonder if his exploitation of our feeling of righteous revenge getting into me. The answer is no. I felt underestimated as a watcher.

So yes, this is very confusing topic since we know there's something wrong with the way they keep showing pictures into our faces but still the way we think is 'should' go feels quite off also. We've been brought up in the middle of this brainwash of TV and movies so it's hard to break the habit, ne?:)

[oanja.livejournal.com]

Is this by any chance inspired by some media studies book or something similar? *curious*

So is your point that you think we have become desensitized to violence and that movies are becoming more and more violent because of that? And you are against violence in movies? (sorry I might have missed your point somewhat...)

[sherg.livejournal.com]

Well hmmm no books or anything like that. I just remembered how someone somewhere said/wrote about how Tarantino movies have very little sex but violence and that came in my mind when I started writing the answer.

Yeah something like that. That Tarantino for example keeps doing these very violent movies and they could be interpreted as speech against violence but I don't think they are. And I'm trying to say that in theory I SHOULD be against violence in movies but because I've been brought up in the middle of Hollywood explosions and guns I am not. And that bothers me.:D And at the same time I'm bothered watching sex scenes in movie theater as you. Twisted.

So.. More Big Bang Theory and less explosions.^^

[jadesun.livejournal.com]

Then again, sex scenes make me personally uncomfortable if I see one in a movie etc. However, I have watched porn, where seeing people have sex is the whole point and that didn't bother me. Have I just been socialized to see sex in the media as a bad thing? Also this aversion I have only extends to seeing heterosexual couples having sex.

To be perfectly honest, I think we're all socialized to see sex as unacceptable in general media; sex is the point of porn, so of course we accept that as fine. And as for the heterosexual sex vs. homosexual sex, I think that's a mixture of our socializing and personal preferences, too. I'm in the same situation, really. I hate watching a movie with my family, for example, and then they cut to a sex scene. I feel uncomfortable and awkward. I suppose that could be seen as a sort of commentary on the types of relationships and subjects that are acceptable to the American family. Of course, because of this, I'd feel uncomfortable no matter what gender was having sex with what gender.

When I'm on my own, in contrast, I tend to just roll my eyes at the male/female sex scenes. I don't know if it's because it's always soft-core porn music with the woman in lacy lingerie, and she's always the main focus of the camera, or at least what's getting done to her... and I'm just not interested. If it's two women, I roll my eyes, too... but if it's man/man, I'm THOROUGHLY interested.

So I see this as our own socializing, not wanting to accept sex scenes in the general media, but then the patriarchal society saying "yes, but when it happens, we'll just focus on the female" (which disgusts me! why the hell don't the women have the chance to view the male body during these acts? Why is only the female deemed appropriate to focus on?) I guess we are only slightly socialized as to homosexual acts, so once a person has overcome the aversion to thinking about them, we probably become more intrigued (because it's so conventionally naughty).

But my personal preferences kick in again, because I'm sick and tired of seeing naked women all the time. Perfect women in supermodel form. Lesbian sex is like more of the same thing. Why MORE naked women, and this time, times two? So my real interest goes to male/male sex, where the focus is FINALLY the male body and there's no stupid female to get in the way of focusing on the men. In addition, the "naughty" aspect of such a union in the societal view adds a particular kink... and that's why, for me at least, I'm intrigued with male/male sex, and either disgusted or have some sort of aversion to any other type of sex in the general media.

[oanja.livejournal.com]

Yeah watching a movie with my mom will get really awkward real fast if there is a sex scene in the middle of it, haha~ So it's not just American families...

I agree with you on the whole male/female sex scenes and how they are portrayed. The camera will always adopt a male view of the scene and concentrate on the female body, this in a sense forces women to view other women as sexual objects or at least as subjects of sexual desire, which in on it's own is weird if one is a heterosexual female. This for me isn't really the thing I object to most of all because I'm at least to some degree bisexual so I like looking at beautiful women. What I usually end up disliking is the roles that are given to women in sex scenes. They almost always place women in a sort of passive roles where the man always eventually ends up on top (the whole missionary style things... ew)

So because the camera is in all intents and purposes a male character in the scene it would be awkward if it would pay too much attention to the male body (also making heterosexual men uncomfortable, which is ridiculous because why is it okay to put women viewers in that position then...) But I agree with you on this as well, I'd like to see men portrayed as the object of desire and made available for a viewing that is sexually charged.

Of course if one is watching something where there are only two men having sex it also eliminates the competition from the female viewer. Women don't have to compare themselves to the women on screen and feel jealous/inadequate by comparison etc.

Wow, okay I rambles a lot... And might have missed your point or at least gone off tangent. ^_^; Sorry about that. But thanks a lot for this comment! It's really cool to talk about these things and see what other people think. Also, I added you to my friends, dunno why I hadn't done it before...