Room 101 and Money

I’m back with yet another Room 101 post, and I have to thank Poetic from Stranger Than Fiction at http://po3tic.com
for providing me with the idea – THANK YOU Poetic!!!!!

Room 101 posts; I write about what I hate or dislike about one topic. In my post I have to try to persuade you, the reader, that the points I have raised are valid enough to consign the topic to Room 101. Therefore, you the reader have to get involved, leave me your opinions and decide if this topic is worthy or Room 101. After this, please then leave me your ideas for further Room 101 topics.

Further note: I would ask all contributors to be RESPECTFUL to the opinions of others. This is not an opportunity to ‘shout’ others down or forcibly exert your own opinion over anyone else’s. THANK YOU.

Room 101 and Money: What I Hate about Money (or the root of all evil).

Money makes money, and while the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. What I dislike the most about money is the inequity it can bring to people and to life.

Let’s be honest, money does in fact make people’s life easier.

With money more opportunities, possibilities and doors are open to you. With money you don’t necessarily have to prove your worth, other than by flashing your cash (your literal worth). It seems that if you have wealth, you’re somehow more important to everyone, and those with wealth are very nearly untouchable. Unlike the rest of us, many of the wealthy aren’t always subject to the same laws, rules, governance and so on that dominate our lives and circumstances.

It seems that having money elevates you and your standing in the world; which seems so superficial and cold. I cannot quite understand how anyone can be measured solely on one element of themselves, and that element is strictly material based. Sometimes it seems that people value money more than their own self or ‘soul’. Without money, it seems that you are merely left behind in the world, and the division money creates in life only increases between those who have and those who don’t have.

This division is very clear when we consider the daily and force-fed media messages we receive. Telling us all that we have to spend money, we have to obtain money and that we have to emulate the life of some rich and powerful person. Money signifies status, grandeur, power, beauty and success and so on, One example of this, and one I particularly hate, is glib programmes regarding the money and lifestyles of the rich; the Russian billionaires, the business tycoons, the footballers, the ‘pop’ stars and so on. I find this type of ‘information’ to be trashy and inappropriate, especially when nearly 1/2 of the world’s population, more than 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty, that’s less than $1.25 a day, and not to forget the 2. 1 billion children worldwide living in poverty.

I know these programmes are supposed to offer escapism from the reality that people are impoverish, and are scraping by in meagre existences. But, it feels as though all of this wealth promotion is just a slap in our already sore faces. All of this wealth culture seems to be saying that ordinary life isn’t good enough, because it is missing something, and that ‘profound’ something is the absence of a large bank account, oh, and a yacht.

For those of us without a yacht we still live a life; why then are we made to feel that we’re missing out? Why is it we are told we have to be wealthy or at least pretend to be? The myth of wealth creation annoys me too, because no one wants to accept that gaining wealth often is a hopeless hope and impossible dream. It is rather like the ‘stick’ the lottery conjures every week to make us yearn for the ‘carrot’. People pin their entire hopes on winning the big ticket so they can change their lives overnight. I actually know people who have a lottery plan, and in this is everything they will do, once they win (good luck with that one). I feel these people are wasting their lives by chasing money that will in reality never be theirs. They seem to believe that without this money their lives are empty and their being is meaningless. Yes, money does have a great power to motivate us all in our lives, so much so that people will kill, lie, cheat, steal, bribe, kidnap and all the other bad things we will do just to get it.

Is it fair that so few have so much?? When you consider that eighty people have as much wealth as 50% of the rest of humanity it kind of makes you wonder why, and who those people actually are and what they actually do?! I am not suggesting that we redistribute wealth. In my opinion that won’t work. Yet when people make money, such gargantuan amounts, do they ever stop to think about those who don’t literally have a pot to urinate in? Do they ever think about how they actually made that money? Do they consider just how privileged they are in the world? Do they even try to make a difference and help others? In many cases I doubt they do, and not because they don’t necessarily have a moral conscience. It is just because if they were so eager to change the system that provided them with money, then they would no longer be wealthy and reside in such a privileged position in life. Money does after all make money, and the system helps to grease the wheels that turn it.

So for me, I suppose I hate what the prospect of money can do. How it can turn people into greedy, lying, cheating, desperate sharks. I hate how money unsettles the balance of power and control in life. I hate how poorer people are often left to founder when there is so much wealth in world. I hate how we value money often more than life and that without money people feel that their life and selves are unfulfilled and stunted.

What do you think??

Let me have your opinions, and let me know if you think what I hate about money deserves a place in Room 101.

Give me your ideas for another Room 101 topic I can post about     

 

The Bored Blogger

I have been absent from WordPress for a little while, and for good reasons, may I add.

I am thoroughly bored!!!!!!!

Blogging has begun to feel as though it serves as no use or ornament in my life; in short, it serves NO purpose for me any more.

I guess I am frustrated. I’m not sure whether my frustrations lie with the confines of WordPress or the fact I have little enthusiasm for the topics being written about. Who can tell!

 

I think I have realised that the more followers I have, the less connected I feel. I assumed followers/following would guarantee interaction, because there would be more people to ‘converse’ with, but I fear I have been wrong in that assumption.

The amount of times I have left comments on blogs, and so on and so forth, and received nothing in return is disheartening. Realising that the comments I take time to contribute mean so little to the person who is blogging just like I am, is harsh! I mean really, why blog if you don’t wish to even acknowledge your readers!

 

It seems everyone is so wrapped up with self promotion, selling something, writing, gaining followers and following blogs (they never visit). Hardly anyone seems to make the effort to really connect, to engage, to really enjoy what is being written any more. This for me is truly sad.

I know there are bloggers out there who do engage, respond and connect – I am lucky that those of you who DO read The Savvy Senorita are such bloggers, and have given my writing great support (which I thank you all for)! I hope that I have done the same for you all too (or maybe you think not)?

Anyway, its just that when I first begun blogging at WordPress, I felt there was more of a sense of real community. I spoke to fellow bloggers regularly, we interacted via trading thought provoking comments and there were so many different topics out there to debate. Now it seems to me that these ‘old school’ bloggers have become out-numbered by more disinterested and aloof types. Consequently, I feel the words have run dry.

 

I can’t help but wonder, why in the Hell do I blog???!!! AND no, I’m not expecting anyone to run the defence of my writing skills, or wise crack over my lack of skills, I am just asking; what is the point in blogging to an absent audience?????

I know I’m not the only blogger feeling disillusioned, deflated, disheartened and fed-up. Other bloggers have confessed to me that they are having similar feelings regarding their own blogs and efforts. Maybe these people choose not to make their feelings public, because they are afraid to broach this subject as they wish to avoid remonstrations, well, I’m not one for holding my tongue!

I know I want to see more of the bloggers who want to write and read and comment and respond and engage. All of that interaction IS blogging; sitting on the side-lines playing a ‘how many likes can I get in an hour’ while ignoring my readers ISN’T blogging!

It makes me question; has blogging become nothing more than a popularity contest gone wrong?????????????

 

Anyway, regardless of the fact I feel most of this blogging malarkey has become pretty vacuous and glib (sorry, but it is how I feel), I do really want to hold out a hope that WordPress will change. I hope it will revert to how I felt it was when I first begun this pointless blog of mine – interesting and connected; a place where bloggers want to be involved with other peoples writing and their readership.

So, if you too are feeling the frustrations let me know!!

If you don’t understand where in the Hell I’m coming from, well, lucky you!

If you think I’m being a malicious mare, just double check the meaning before you make any accusations!!

 

 

 

 

A Dedicated Follower of Fashion – Beau Brummell and the History of the Quintessential Man’s Suit.

The British Regency period (1811-1820: when The Prince of Wales became Prince Regent), has been described as the most explosive and creative.

Akin to the 1960’s; enormous changes in culture and society all fused together in one enormous burst of energy.

The battle of Waterloo was won. London was completely re-designed. Turner and Constable were painting, the waltz was introduced (highly risky dance for that era), and Jane Austen and Lord Byron were inspired by the life surrounding them to write.

The glamour, the tastes, scandal and gossip, opulent aristocrats, blossoming middle classes, monarchs, decadence, the celebrity culture, the drugs and drink (minus the rock and roll); it was a celebration of youth culture and of course the fashions. The Regency era was an age of exuberance and creativity, but also of excess and deprivation.

The Dandy – Dress Etiquette and Suit Style

Amid all of this was there was rise of the ‘Dandy’, a fashion etiquette and new wave of style.

How is this important? Well, the ‘Dandy’ shunned traditional elaborate aristocratic styles of the time; wigs, breeches and powder were replaced by simplistic elegance. In short, this was when the plain black suit and ‘tie’ became the epitome of the male wardrobe; embracing masculinity and not femininity.

The person responsible for introducing and establishing this modern men’s suit, and fashion necessity was the infamous George Bryan “Beau” Brummell (7 June 1778 – 30 March 1840).

Beau Brummell became an iconic figure in Regency Britain. The arbiter of men’s fashion, and also a friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV; this friendship enabled Beau to entrench what might have been dismissed as an insignificant, and fleeting fashion faux pas into mainstream culture. Beau’s ideas were propelled; taking root in society, they had substantial influence.

Brummell was responsible for making a generation rethink their style choices, and ingrained a fresh sense of what fashion was. Men had never before embraced the understated. Perfectly tailored dark coats, polished boots (with Champagne of course), and full-length trousers rather than knee breeches and stockings, and above all immaculate shirt linen with an elaborately knotted cravat; a must of the ‘Dandy’.

The Beau Brummell ‘Dandy’

Beau’s personal habits were as fastidious as his fashion choices. Attention to detail was a prerequisite for any ‘Dandy’, and it was claimed he took five hours a day to dress. Cleaning his teeth, shaving, and daily bathing were part and parcel of achieving the style, just as much as the clothes.

Brummell’s dictum eventually exerted an influence upon the ‘ton’. The ‘ton’ a term used in reference to Britain’s higher echelons of polite society during the Regency era. The word is derived from the French word meaning ‘taste’ or ‘everything that is fashionable’. The full phrase is ‘le bon ton’, meaning good manners or ‘in the fashionable mode’; the characteristics which epitomised the ideals held onto by the British ‘ton’.

Once the ‘ton’ had adopted the style it then became the must for every self respecting fashion conscious man. Brummell’s niche fashion etiquette then became global; making an impression on all fashion from that day to this.

Bronze Statue of Beau Brummell in Jermyn Street, London

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Who Is Being Allowed To Redefine Normal: Women The Endangered Species – A Life In Vain

Google search results for websites:

Those displaying Anorexia – 32,500,000
Those displaying Pro-ana websites – 8,530,000
Pro-ana tips – 2,840,000
Those displaying ‘thinspiration’ – 2,700,000

……And those displaying ‘curvaceous women’ – 3,950,000

Women with ‘lovely lady lumps’ are indeed outnumbered, maybe they are even becoming an endangered species.

I have become quite obsessed with body image lately, seemingly revisiting my own troubled teen years, but looking at it all through very different eyes now I have gained life experience. I am more analytical of what I once took to be the truth about what women should be. I am fortunately no longer crippled with self-doubts and hatred, albeit, even I’ll admit it is difficult to keep a healthy mind and attitude with the constant bombardment of what we now call ‘normal’. It has reached new heights, far and beyond more extreme than it ever it was when I was a teen (which isn’t that long ago let me add)! So, if I struggle as a grown woman to see myself as a complete person, even though I am not a size 8 and below, then how do the teens of today cope?

I have been doing some research, looking at and listening to; websites, photographs, opinions and documentaries. I have looked at UK Parliament Publications, Mind, Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS) Service, B-eat UK and also pro-ana sites (which I am not prepared to name here for concern of promoting such sites). I have seen the fashion shoots of Solve Sundsbo shown in ‘V’ magazine of normal women with curves, Dove’s ‘real women’ campaign and considered the successes of Beth Ditto and Adele. I read about celebrities who struggle with, and eventually succumb to losing the pounds such as; Kelly Clarkson, Kourtney Kardashian, Jennie Garth, Bryce Dallas, Kelly Osbourne; and even Lady Gaga. I have watched ‘Living with Size Zero’, ‘The Truth About Size Zero’ with Louise Redknapp, Dawn Porter’s ‘Super Slim Me’, ‘Dying To Be Anorexic’, ‘Anorexia’s Living Face’ CBS News about Isabelle Caro’s struggle, ‘The truth About Online Anorexia’ with Fern Cotton, Jennifer Livingston’s response to being bullied about being ‘fat’, ‘Supersize v’s Superskinny’, so on and so on.

The amount of information available and the opinions on the content is vast and confusing. It seems starving to be thin is OK, as long as no one really discusses the effects; mental and physical (using Isabelle Caro as an example; how shocked the world was to see what starvation had done to her body, and yet in other ways we are happy to promote such actions. It is all very contradictory, so is there such a thing as too thin? The fashion industry may not think so, but there are people out there who do and are at last being heard.

So why would the average woman, and by that I mean every woman who will by definition of being a woman, have curves; want to destroy her body to re-gain the body of a teen, or of a prepubescent girl? Who would want to have the body and measurements of a seven year old? Why is that deemed attractive, the ideal model and ‘norm’? Why would anyone starve and make themselves so miserable, weak and unhealthy just to have the waist-line of a child; to become a size 8 or below when that is a highly unrealistic goal for them? Since when did exercising daily, eating healthily, taking all things in moderation become the route to being a painfully thin young woman, with unhealthy body and food relationships?

Surely there is still a place for flesh on women’s bones?

Women should have curves, and frankly what is being classed as ‘obese’ these days is ludicrous, and damaging for peoples psyche; hence the confusion over ‘normal’. A size 14 is seen as ‘fat’! Why? When did that become OK as the new rule? Who was responsible for making that rule?

There is no doubt people are being sent mixed messages about what is healthy and normal; vulnerable girls and boys see it everyday, so why do we wonder that so many people are dying to be thin. One minute size zero is terrible, the next, size 14 is obese; who can win the battle of the waist-lines with this destructive attitude being forced on us all. Yet it isn’t just size zero, now we see size 8 as curvy, when I was a teen size 10/12 was the ‘norm’, now size 8 is the ideal of the curvy woman. Yeah, if you happen to be petite, great; I have a niece who is a size 8 and is petite beyond belief, she still eats and drinks like a horse though. The reason, size 8 is her natural frame for her body shape! It isn’t normal for every woman out there though!

If celebrities and people in general stray off extreme diet paths they soon gain weight, and quickly. Yet, the weight gain is more shocking than their lack of weight and the reasons behind it. Maybe their initial weight was too low to be sustainable; their diet and exercise regime too restrictive and unreal. Isn’t having children also a time of normal weight gain for women? Yet even that is shunned and a disgrace.

What then is so abnormal about gaining weight? Every week a new celebrity is seen larger than before, because they are failing to cope with what the world dictates they should be naturally, and they are not! The weight they gain is seen as gargantuan and unhealthy, but no doubt nothing more than again, a size 14, as the camera is said to also add 10 pounds to the body. If in reality everyone is struggling to remain unnaturally thin, and what appears as their natural thinness is a sham, a lie; then their weight gain merely takes them back to the size they should be!

Look at Christina Aguilera at the moment. I applaud how she is embracing her body as a 31 year old mother and enjoying being curvy. I hope she doesn’t cave in to the mounting pressure and relent to revert to her teen image. Which, people also censured as too thin!

Christina Aguilera now

Christina Aguilera as she was in her early career.

I know there are some people who once they gain weight, do become far larger than Christina, but it is no wonder. In the spot light, their heads must be ruined; all the pressure to conform to, the rules they must obey, the ideals of others they have to attain. How can they know what a healthy food relationship is? Yet, it is as equally unhealthy to starve; eating only 800 calories a day, exercising obsessively, seeing protruding bones, skin and hair falling from the body and having no periods. Being ‘obese’ or too ‘thin’; neither extreme is healthy, yet one gets more encouragement as normal, acceptable and healthy than the other.

I know there will always be people who think ‘fat’ is bad. Kate Moss may believe the mantra: ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’, but then whenever I see a picture of her face (without airbrushing), it tells the true story of not eating, clearly enough. She maybe a size of a child, but her face isn’t as youthful. It is just so darn sexy substituting food for alcohol, drugs and nicotine! It’s a glamorous life she leads, yeah, the life of an addict; substituting food for every other prop she can find. Ralph Lauren may have famously airbrushed a model to look so thin that her head was wider than her waist; it says freak show to me, it says he likes to make women look like a joke. It is not a ‘must have’ look, it is not healthy or sexy!

It is the insistence that thin is healthy, and fat of any description is bad, which perpetuates ‘sick’ and destructive thoughts in the younger generations. People can insist they are a size zero and don’t starve themselves, but after watching Louise Redknapp and Dawn Porter both struggle to try to become a size zero, I’m not so sure. Losing weight, restricting calories below a healthy level, and exercising 52 hours a week, hearing what the experts said people do to become a size zero; how unhealthy it is, what damage it causes and how it can kill them. Well I think that is not how a healthy life should be led. Why is eating so unhealthy? People eat, as humans we should, because without it we’d die. It is normal not to eat, but not normal to survive off apples and cucumbers, black coffee and cigarettes!

There are pro-ana and thinspiration sites which help to encourage extreme thinness, as opposed to being a healthy weight. As I have already mentioned previously, I won’t give the addresses or names of these websites in this post. On these sites ‘fat’ women or girls, are encouraged with hints and tips, and the mutual bonding, and understanding of a friendly support system, so they can shed astronomical pounds. It is basically camaraderie of death that is being publicly flaunted. Then there are message boards on ordinary sites in response to articles about weight issues; how distorted people’s views are about being ‘over weight’! I was shocked to read them! People don’t realise that thin models can be ill, anorexic, bulimic, and airbrushed. It seems at every turn normal women are being rejected by an ever harsher societal view of once again, female beauty.

Yet, who is anyone to be a judge and jury; no one is perfect. To blatantly authorise women to kill themselves in pursuit of thinness is ghastly though; morbid and akin to genocide. We ignore these issues every day, and everyday someone becomes victim to anorexia and someone will die as a result of that illness. How is that OK, but being ‘curvy’ isn’t?! Priorities and very wrong, spring to mind.

What is this hate campaign waged on normal women? Lack of food and nutrition kills too, not just ‘obesity’, and it will store up trouble for any woman in the future; low Estrogen levels, infertility, brittle bones, heart disease, wasted muscles (including the heart), kidney failings, and so and so on.

No wonder our children suffer with body issues if the media and world at large project this ‘norm’ onto them. We have a responsibility to readjust body image back to healthy, but we refuse.

We keep reaffirming there is a boundary between; merely thin, losing a bit of weight, counting our calories, increasing the exercise, avoiding eating in public, and being anorexia, but I don’t know anymore. What constitutes a disorder, what qualifies you to fit into food disorder statistics? Is it merely a BMI under 18? There isn’t one person I know who hasn’t some issue with food in one way or another, or issues with themselves and their own body image; so what do these statistics mean when everyone is engaging in some form of abnormal act or relationship with food and their own bodies? Are what we see on thinspiration sites, ordinary chat sites, celebrity sites that pull women apart for being a woman to blame; or is it complex internal and genetic issues that spark food and body issues? Who can be sure for all cases?

So much nonsense saturates into the public domain every day, now our view of ‘normal’ is skewed. What people aspire to be is skewed, as we as a society have become increasingly; obsessed, restrictive, and denying our bodies nutrition for the sake of thinness. So what is so unnatural and wrong if we are seeing it promoted everywhere, hearing about and seeing websites dedicated to extremely thin ‘inspirational’ role models?

Maybe this is the new normal; thin, ill, underweight and so on? It will be, if we cannot curb our hatred towards difference and real women, and quit the morbid fascination with skeletal women.

I’m not saying naturally thin women should be scorned or reviled with disgust either, but neither should everyone above a size 8! Who perhaps doesn’t fit this thin mould we are all pressing as the norm. If we continue this way then it will be the norm for young people from now until eternity; always subjected to hating themselves, pulling their minds and bodies apart, making themselves ill, punishing others to succumb too, and even killing themselves. This viscous circle will never end.

If we are happy with that, happy to kill off the next generation of women and men who become afflicted by body issues, then we should by all means carry on this way. Yet, I would rather see someone eat, be happy with themselves and to live their lives; rather than starve and be miserable, feel pain, waste their lives revolving around food and body issues, only to then die an even more miserable death. All of it in vain.

Is this image grotesque? Does it portray a ‘fat’ or ‘normal woman?’

What about this woman?

Are these images inspirational? Is this the face and body of ‘normal’?

Below are some interesting statistics on Eating Disorders; food for thought for us all –

UK Parliament – Publications:
The amount of people suffering has increased from 419 in 1996-97 to 620 in 2004-05.
These figures only represent individual cases admitted into NHS hospitals in England (not the whole of the UK).

Clinical Knowledge Summaries (CKS) Service:
The highest rates of anorexia are seen in female teenagers aged between 13 and 19, with 51 per of 100,000 cases being seen each year.

Approximately 10% of cases of anorexia arise in men.

Around 5% of cases of anorexia will be fatal.

Currently, in developing countries and black communities, anorexia nervosa appears to be somewhat rare.

Mind UK:
In the UK, 1 in 100 women aged between 15 and 30 suffers from anorexia.

Reports show girls as young as five years of age have weight concerns, and think about going on a diet.

There are many documentaries on Youtube regarding children anorexia sufferers. Very upsetting, but honest.

B-eat UK:
‘The most accurate figures we are aware of are those from the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence. These suggest that 1.6 million people in the UK are affected by an eating disorder, of which around 11% are male. However, more recent research from the NHS information centre showed that up to 6.4% of adults displayed signs of an eating disorder (Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, 2007). This survey also showed that a quarter of those showing signs of an eating disorder were male, a figure much higher than previous studies had suggested’.

Thank you for reading my post, I hope it has given you something to consider?
Leave comments below please!

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The Media and Double Standards – The Joke Is On Women.

I was watching an interview with Writer Seth MacFarlane a few weeks ago, whilst answering one of the questions asked him, half way through he uttered an expletive. The interviewers were aghast and immediately lurched forth with profuse apologies for MacFarlane’s mistake; insisting he hadn’t meant it and that he hadn’t realised what he had said was wrong. MacFarlane was shocked by their response, you could visibly see it; I suppose he hadn’t realised UK audiences are ‘anal’ about swear words being spoken on television. His retort to all of this panic was something I have always agreed with, but it has never been said as a response on television; ‘oh so I can’t say a rude word, but it is OK for breasts to be shown in UK newspapers and magazines’. Needless to say the interviewers didn’t reply to this.

Yet, it is a question that needs answering as it is a contradiction we all accept. It is pathetic and unjustified; no swearing and yet there are far worse things getting aired via the media, oh, and going on daily throughout the world! For Heaven’s sake people, get a grip, it is ONLY a word (swear)!

Double standards? I think so, but yet the UK seemingly thrive on that! Actions speak louder than words, and I’d prefer to hear a swear word being used than see the constant objectification of women on every advert, and in every magazine shoot! Hell, you only have to switch to MTV for a little bit of sex education; between gyrating and semi clad women to the explicit lyrics, sex is everywhere! However, I don’t see that being apologised for; but as usual any swear words mixed into the lyrics which glorify having sex, sex and more sex, are ‘bleeped’ out! Swear words are just a step too far, too obscene for viewers! The videos are OK though; women stripping, lap-dancing, being a sex object, being a sex toy, being cast as a dumb fool; but if they swear, well that won’t be tolerated!

Hey, no problem it is great demonstrating to everybody, mainly the young and impressionable that these ‘MTV’ roles represent all women are, and want to be. This is a must for every 5 year old’s education I am sure. MTV has no ‘watershed’, anyone can watch at any-time and be inundated with images of what women are good for, sex. Great self-esteem boost for all women out there; thanks MTV for pimping women as a ride!

I suppose people think I have a prudish outlook, you know what, I don’t care. The measure of me is not just my body parts, my female gender; I am a human and want to be treated with respect, and as a person with a brain! I personally don’t live my life to be in servitude to a man’s penis, although I do like sex, I am not an object!
I feel it is what we are subjected to daily that makes us believe what we see is acceptable, and is then adopted as the norm. We have been drip fed naked flesh and provocative images for so long we can’t remember life without them all. I just want to know why it is deemed necessary to sell; shower gel, coffee, trainers, washing powder, chocolate and God knows what else, with naked flesh and sexual invitation? Why does all this nakedness appear mostly on adverts aimed at women? Why are these images of rampaging, semi clad and sexually desperate women supposed to sell things? Who is identifying with them? What has any of it got to do with washing powder?

If you look at adverts from 10 years ago, there is a marked difference in today’s variety; the barriers of what is normal and accepted by the public are being pushed all the time. So subtle are the changes and developments that we don’t see it, we just accept it as the norm, see it as what society is like and we don’t question why. How further can it go? Will women just end up like meat on a stick; not human, but just worth their flesh?

I suppose we can’t now escape naked forms, and our enjoyment in seeing them all the time, well then, let’s have some fair sharing and distribution. More men on display and the ‘HOT’ variety please! Naked women are on show everywhere for everything; dancing to the tune of male advertisers and marketing execs, DJs, Rappers and so on and so on; if their lack of clothing has no link to subjugation, sexual pressure, objectification or dominance of fully clothed males over naked females, then why are there so few naked men?

If naked bodies and sex are cool, and the world is OK with them, why aren’t there more naked, gyrating men selling women products? Men in adverts, on television, in photo shoots; pandering to women’s sexual fantasies, being women’s sex toys, being objectified by women, losing dignity and self-respect for women’s needs. I wonder if those ridiculous double standards have anything to do with it; or maybe, it is because more men hold positions of power to decide what gets published, televised and so on? For example, the penis, adverts about condoms, the contraceptive pill and sexually transmitted diseases aren’t aired on the television or in magazines. Why are such things relegated to specific times and places; late nights, certain channels and magazines? I mean sex is everywhere, so surely we should see the other half of the species who have sex too, and not just the women of world being stripped bare? Surely we should all know about the male penis and condoms? We see sanitary products on the television all the time, but no condoms, no penis.

I wonder why half the population, who are women, are happy with this flaw. Liking sex, liking men, enjoying being seen as attractive or sexy, looking after your-self; all of this has nothing to do with despising objectification and subjugation. Being seen as a woman should be on your terms, not what a faceless industry tells you, no dictates that you are or should be. To me it seems they are destroying femininity, unpicking it with smut for money. It’s a cheap and nasty joke, which women are the brunt of. You’d think these industry men would have another punch line by now, but then, ‘small minds’ and all that!

Sexual, prude, foolish or subjugated; women’s limited roles in the media.

Copy Right Notice:
© Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Bex Houghagen and The Savvy Senorita with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.