I found Rupp's article to be incredibly interesting. First of all it gave me a more worldwide view of sexual preference and sexuality. I had no idea that intersexuality was so prevelant in other cultures and in the worlds past. I had known that ancient Greek men used to have intercourse with young boys and it was not considered "gay" or weird in their society; but in fact was "normal". What surprised me was that places like New Guinea required boys to incorporate semen into their bodies somehow in order to be considered a man. In America, it is the exact opposite. People judge boys or men who have sexual interactions with other boys or men. It is not seen as a factor of maturity, but instead something that scares people because it is different from the "normal" sexual realtionships in society.

I was also fascinated by the hijras in Indian society. The fact that they are important for ceremonial and regilious functions, yet are despised by their society, interested me because of the hyphrocracy. It reminded me of Thailand. When I visited Thailand, I learned a lot about "ladyboys", who are men who had sex changes into women. There is a high prostitution rate in Thailand, and especially with ladyboys. But what surprised me about this ladyboy factor, was that in Bangkok, ladyboys held positions of political power; however, public displays of affection (with both herterosexual and homosexual relationships) are not allowed in society. The most PDA anyone ever did was hold hands, and even that was considered to be somewhat inappropriate. This fascinated me because like the hirajs, ladyboys were accepted in society, but displaying acts of sexuality or sexual relations with another person was not allowed in their society. Thailand accepted something so revolutionary for sexuality in our modern world, but rejected some of the smallest signs of love and relations.

It still amazes me how cultures can look at sexuality and sex in such different ways and incorporate it into their lives. In some ways I think that cultures like New Guinea and Ancient Greece are more revolutionary because they seem to have less prejudices against intersex people and homosexual relations. I think that Americans can learn to be more accepting of other sexual preferences through studying these other cultures.

No Love No Sex, No Sex No Love

This above drawing embodies two assumptions society have internalized and enforced as the norm or the expected role. First assumption, as Rich points out, is relationships are naturally heterosexual--women are attracted to men and men are attracted to women. The second assumption, or stereotype, is that men and women have different motives in relationships--men are sexually driven whereas women are emotionally drive. I find it interesting how Rich explains men's need to control women's sexuality. She states, "It seems more probable that men really fear not that they will have women's sexual appetites forced on them or that women want to smother and devour them, but that women could be indifferent to them altogether. . ." (22). It seem as if society have confined women's actions and always related their action in terms of men--women's primary motive is men.

Rich's articles problematize this notion; "that women need men as social and economic protectors, for adult sexuality, and for psychological completion; that the heterosexually constituted family is the basic social unit; that women who do not attach their primary intensity to men must be, in functional terms, condemned to an even more devastating outsiderhood than their outsiderhood as women" (35). I am extremely disturbed by how rooted our society is in the idea that everything women do is in relation to men, as if women don't have their own individuality. Another point Rich brought up in her article that disturbed me is "I believe large number of men could, in fact, undertake child care on a large scale without radically altering the balance of male power in a male-identified society" (18). This idea simple devalues motherhood, and women in general.

Rich's article in content with Rupp's article brings an extremely interesting shift in our society. I find it fascinating the shift in our view in gays and lesbians. Rich's article describes how unrepresented or unacknowledged lesbians were (especially in relation to heterosexual feminists) whereas Rupp's article explains the acceptance of homosexuality of men around the world that goes beyond relationship. However, it seems that in today's society, we have more acceptance of lesbians than we do for gays. Its like lesbians are positive, whereas gays are negative and looked down upon by society. In addition, I liked how Rupp's article brought up the idea that "sexuality" is an objective word--as a society, we do not have a universal definition that everyone agrees on.

Short/Response Post: Invisible Lesbians

"Compulsory Heterosexuality" is an article discussing how we automatically assume that women and men are innately attracted to each other sexually and emotionally and that it is a universal thing. This term that is discussed in Rich's article is a huge issue among our third wave of feminism. Under this regime, men control women's lives in all different areas. They control their sexuality, labor, child rearing, access to knowledge etc. According to Rich, while all this goes on, we tend to ignore the gays and lesbians and pretend they don't exist. After our discussion in class about Sexual education, It finally struck me how we do tend to ignore this whole other sexuality. I have never heard of a Sex Ed class that has ever taught anything about gays and lesbians or experimentation. Every sexual education class that I have taken automatically assumes that we are all innately attracted to the opposite sex and leaves out homosexuality completely. If we addressed the principles of homosexuality in classes, then the idea of heterosexuality wouldn't be so universal. Maybe there wouldn't be as many suicides and bullying among gays if sexual education for them was given out in school. I am not saying that we need to separate the two divisions of sexuality into separate classes, but I do think that they should address both divisions in one class with all students present, so that way they are not automatically assuming everyone is straight.

Rupp's "Toward a Global History" talks about same sex sexuality. She examines global patterns of same sex sexuality and how the patterns can make this term somewhat problematic. Sometimes age difference class difference and gender difference are more important factors then similarity between genitals. Rupp then goes on to explain a situation that occurred with her colleagues son. The 5 year old boy was playing with a dog with a girl from his school when she said that she would love to marry Lily (dog). She then goes on to say that she couldn't though because the dog was a girl. The boy then responds that she couldn't marry Lily because she was a dog. Rupp uses many other examples to demonstrate the differences that prioritize themselves over same sex sexuality. Another point in her article that I found interesting was the issue of what sex is between females. How can you classify sexual acts as sex if you a penis is not involved? She touches on diary entries that women have wrote to describe their sexual encounters with other females. I remember talking to a friend about how she was a lesbian and she was trying to explain to us her views on sex. She said that kissing and touching were sex to her and now I understand how it is hard for her to consider anything else sex after reading this article.

Hypersexualized Media

First and foremost, I am extremely glad someone has finally brought up the television show "Toddlers and Tiaras." When I cam across this show one day, I was extermely bother by its content questioning myself why would parents do something like that to their child. As Caroline mentioned in her post "Toddlers and Tiaras and Cosmopolitan were the best examples of the corruption and manipulation of sexual freedom," I couldn't agree more. How can a parent rationalize such action? And even a bigger question, how does society justifies and normalizes such image?

As "Sex "R" Us" and "Why Black Sexual Politics?," brings up the obvious theme that society has widely accepted (or tolerated)--sex sells. We have grown up in a society where the producers are fond of objectifying people, especially women, to sell their products; we see such hypersexualized images through all the means of media ranging from television shows to advertisements to the music industry and etc. While we as a society have rationalized so massive representation of sexuality, I am really concerned about what implications our over advertised image of sexuality have and how have this idea sex sells influence they way people, especially the youth thinks?

Both articles touched upon answering the questions I am concerned about, but I just wanted to provided an example from my experience at Colgate. In my American School course, we recently discussed the question whether a female's way of dressing imply something about her action; this question is in light of that 20% of female are sexually assaulted at Colgate. So the question arise, are the females asking/leading the guys on when they dress provokingly? Surprisingly most people answered that they way the girls dressed pretty much justified they way guys treat them. This answer is troublesome because there it lies the assumption that women dress up to impress men and that is not always the case, but society have made it seem as if everything a woman does is in relation to men. And this isn't of surprise since the media have constantly and continuously portray women in such hypersexualize light, that it has allowed people to rationalize such behavior towards women.       


Here is a video that accompanied our discussion. Comedian, Dave Chapelle touched upon some of the topics Douglas' brings about in her chapter (sex advice in magazines), women dress code, and etc.  

   

Main Post

After reading "Sex R Us" and "Black Sexual Politics", I was once again struck by the truth to these articles. In Douglas's "Sex r Us" chapter, she goes into detail about women being sex objects and gives many examples to support this thesis. She talks about Victoria Secret, Toddlers in Tiaras, Cosmopolitan, t.v shows, Calvin Klein and Abercrombie commercials, and much more. I thought that Toddlers and Tiaras and Cosmopolitan were the best examples of the corruption and manipulation of sexual freedom. The fact that 4 and 5 year olds are prancing around stage in sexy outfits is a scary thought. Not only are they in scandalous outfits but they also have makeup pounded on their face. Some of them move their hips in the talent show as if they are trying to be sexy, but the truth is they not only shouldn't know how to dance like that, but they also shouldn't know what make up and being "sexy" is.

Cosmopolitan has gone completely downhill over the years. In 1992 the headlines of the cover were titles such as, "How to make him like you as much as you like him", "How to get over a bad love affair", and "how to survive being dumped". Now every single headline title has to do with sex, "99 SEX FACTS YOUVE NEVER HEARD BEFORE", "BE A SEX GENIUS" and "Little mouth moves that make sex hotter." As a 19 year old women, I still feel uncomfortable reading these magazine titles. The scary part about Cosmopolitan is that ANYONE can read it. A 6-year-old could walk into a store and by this magazine. Actions must be taken to stop the corruption of young children. I think that if anything, you must be 18 or older to read the magazine. How come playboy has this frame on their magazine? Cosmo is informing teenagers around the world how to have sex and is influencing them to start to be sexually action even earlier now a days because the magazine writers make it seem like it is a social norm.

In 2005, a Victoria Secret opened in Tyson's Corner in Mclean Virginia. People were appalled and offended when walking by the store because the owner had a scandalous scene of manikins in the front of the store. One manikin was faced buttocks outwards in a feather thong bending over to fix her heel. 2 other female manikins were on a bed one legs spread and the other climbing over to her. This display was risky because it had the detrimental effect of teenagers thinking that is what they should look like.

In "Black Sexual Politics" the issue of sexual freedom among the black community is brought up. The article argues that black women no how to work it and can't be handled because they are untouchable. The stereotype of black women have booties is brought up and talked about hand in hand with sexual freedom.