Sexy Blog

I love and hated Chapter 1 Project Gender. I have been looking for answers and I am finding more questions, but it’s not really Ross’s fault that I am irritated by the contradictions she has forced me to recognize within myself. I am going to try to embrace this personal as political since the reality is, the personal confusion has come from the large of society, mostly media influences, and the social constructions they validate.

I’ve been running around calling myself a feminist, but I am a bad one.

I have been confusing feminist strength with the attainment of the socially assigned status of the masculine and man. I know this is a complex of mine, because I sometimes have dreams that I am a guy.

 I think if I can look hot wearing a tight dress and still throw a mean right hook that means I am equal, I am man and woman, and I am whole. I am irritated when I try to pay for my own beer, or meal and the guy I'm with feels it is his duty to pay, but I also get annoyed when they don’t offer to pay and we go dutch when I haven’t insisted that we do so. I like when a man can cry, but have started to consider discussing my own feelings as weak. I am unhappy with watching men objectify women’s bodies, but do so myself to my own body and others.

 “In a trenchant and well-argued analysis of raunch culture, Levy suggests that although many women profess an interest in strip clubs, pornography, and drinking men under the table, such behavior is less about being one of the girls than about being part of the boy’s club.” (29)

When I read this, I really had to ask myself, is this true? I have been known to defend strippers and porn, and most people know how I feel about drinking. Is any of this really me, or has it been because I am trying to join the boys club. I hate the idea of that being true, but if I am going to learn anything I need to get rid of this ego that insist that my perception of the world couldn’t be so cleverly influenced by media and the social constructs, like gender, media reinforces.

Although, I do have respect for pole dancers because, number one, doing fancy tricks on a pole is hard. I have seen some amazing stuff, and the friction of being half naked does add to the control you have when you are twirling your body around that metal. It can beautiful, physically difficult, an Art. I used to say that all the time, I used to be so sure that that’s how I felt, but now I’m asking myself if I am just encouraging, and myself, objectifying women as a physically pleasurable object to watch. I think it is the dancer inside of me that wants to defend it. I am reevaluating my perspective. Refocusing. But I think it can be beautiful. And I’ve watched it turn into an art. There shouldn’t be a negative undertow lingering behind the idea of a pole dancing just because of its sexual charge.

This is a pole dance competition. Felix is by far one of the most talented women I’ve seen. Her first dance still has the strip club feel, with an extremely sexually charged vibe, but you see the talent, you see the strength. The second half, when the music changes, so does the movements, the feel, the softer art comes out but the sex is still there. I can appreciate it without degrading it because it’s sexy. I respect it.

 (I could be wrong, but her audience sounds like mostly women)

I know this is youtube, and this is a pole dancing competition, so it feels like this isn’t the reality of the “strip club” experience. But the only reason I ended up Youtubing such a thing as pole dancing is because I found myself at a strip club for the first time watching my preconceived notions of a stripper get crippled by a short, long haired stripper named Heavenly. She was talented.

Felix was also on the Tyra Banks show, where Tyra makes it a point to remind you that SHE IS NOT A STRIPPER.

 

 I am always inclined to defend the collision of women’s physical strength and sexiness when others claim it is as trashy, or try to turn it into some sort of defect on women’s part. Apparently the thing Tyra tries to do is take away the sexiness by taking away “stripper” as a label . Stripper has too much sexual charge to it, and it’s true, Felix isn’t stripping, she’s dancing. But the sex is there, the outfit, the heels and the fact that pole dancing came from the strip club. There shouldn’t be shame in that, yet strip clubs started for the eyes of straight men. It was a manifestation of the male gaze, and I might just be trying to join the boys.

I do find sex and physical strength to be powerful, but to what extent, in which situations is that really true for a woman?  Sexy can be dangerous, dangerous for her, which is why I guess I want the physical strength to accompany the sexiness. I am confused now as to how I feel about sexy.

I will never call a girl a slut or hoe bag because of their sexual ways or the way they dress. But I do pity women who wear heels to look good since I know they are painful and they endure this pain for men’s eyeballs. I have been trying to embrace women who are sexually active and expressive. I do see a power in women’s sexuality, if its organic, if you can own it, if it’s from within and not a reaction to the patriarchy. But that’s the hard part.

I have never said it out loud, or would I, to another female,but there are instances where I see a girl, wearing something tiny and flirting her face off and I know that my instinct is to call her a slut. I have anger towards her. But it is this twister anger I have for her because I see the forces driving her actions as uncontrolled by her. I don’t think she is dressing and acting the way she does because it brings her pleasure, but because it brings her the attention of other men, which she needs to feel validated. I dislike her because she needs his eyes to feel worthy and she’ll break her ankles in some stilettos to get that validation. I sometimes want to accuse sexiness, accuse her, us, women, of  succumbing to the male gaze. But what does that mean for a straight or women? That there is no sexiness with out a man looking? Can you validate your sexiness alone ?

I know it would be easier to stop dissecting gender roles in the media and in life and just fall perfectly in place with them. Things would be so much easier. But that’s not what I want or who I am. I am a feminist, even if I am in the infant stages and throwing a tantrum.

Tangent. Ross mentions Lilly Allen a couple of times and I wanted to share a song of hers that seems appropriate, not necessarily to my rant about pole dancing, but about some of the other things Ross touched on.