Sexual Liberation or Sexist Exploitation?

After reading two back-to-back entries in A World Made Sexy, it came to my attention that this Eros project seems to be more focused on liberating public opinion on exposing the FEMALE body, and not the human body.  It seems that this project has been mainly focused on the male gaze, and equal opportunity has not been allotted to females.  Let’s look at two examples: Playboy, and Barbie.  It seems that no matter whom the target audience, the obsession is constantly with the perfect, young female and her ‘attributes’.

Playboy was clearly a gendered magazine, meant for the viewing pleasure of heterosexual men.  As was stated in the book, Hugh Hefner was a pioneer for the Eros project through his success in reducing the stigma of women in the nude, and creating a revolutionary magazine which sold a lifestyle of class, indulgence and luxury.  Over time the magazine included many more aspects than just sexualized women; it included sophisticated articles, humour, advice, and other areas of interest.  However, to most the main lure of the magazine was still its erotic essence and glossy centerfold of a beautiful, young (in some cases barely legal) woman who was bearing her goods.   Playboy, as stated in the book, was a masturbatory tool for many.   The women and life style showcased in this magazine acted to nourish the fantasies of many men, and the magazine itself was used to liberate and diminish the taboo of sex – while making money off of it at the same time.   Being a magazine that symbolized the start of a major sexual revolution, was there anything of equal status made for women?  It seems not.

The next entry in this chapter was focused on the emergence of Barbie; a toy whose original design was based on a German sex doll made for men.  Though Barbie was created for young girls, it is obvious by her appearance in modern day Sex Museums, where she is engaged in highly eroticized play and fetishism, that the doll’s features are far from innocent.   Just like the women featured in Playboy, Barbie was “streamlined.  She boasted the style of the classical body: elongated, an extended neck, a tiny waist, extremely long and slim legs, arched feet, no pores . . . jutting breasts . . . [and a] well rounded buttocks.” (Rutherford, 114)  How were there such similarities between women in an erotic men’s magazine, and a young girl’s play toy?   Because of the controversy of such a developed doll for children, Barbie’s sexuality was masked by selling the idea that the toy would encourage good grooming.   The doll did help young girls explore their adolescent sexuality through acting out sexual encounters between a developed Barbie and her boyfriend Ken, or any other combinations of friends.   But how is it that men could explore their sexuality by looking and fantasizing about beautiful young women, while young girls were given the opportunity to explore their sexuality by fantasizing sexual encounters using a replica of these young, beautiful sexualized women.    Playboy sold fantasies of a luxurious life, rich with perfect women; Barbie sold toys by creating desire within girls to basically be just like the girls in Playboy.  Barbie’s commercials “were obviously designed to awaken desire in the hearts and minds of viewers, to make girls fantasize about growing up sexy.” (Rutherford, 120)   Barbie raised more complaints than praise for her influence on young girls.  “She was blamed, for example, for encouraging a deep-seated anxiety about body image: ‘Barbie’s basic problem – her bland homogeneity of feature and anatomy – reinforces the American epidemic of unnecessary facelifts, tummy tucks, breast reduction surgery, breast augmentation surgery, as well as anorexia, bulimia, and diet fanaticism. . . Feminists worried that playing Barbies trained girls to exhibit their bodies, not their brains.  Her posture showed us that being sexual meant being immobile . . . it meant: walk on your toes, bust out, limbs rigid.”  (Rutherford 120)   These expectations that Barbie set for young girls, were virtually exactly what many young men fantasized the perfect female body to be.  It seems that Barbie was really “no less than an agent of hegemony” (Rutherford, 121) – a replica of the male gaze and male desire.

It just seems all too common – whether you’re looking back fifty or sixty years, or looking to the present.  Sex sells – but it’s selling female sexuality, and not human sexuality.  Men have been celebrating sex through the existence of beautiful, young scantily clad women; and females have been exploring their own sexuality by trying to imitate the sexual allure of these exact women.  Whether you’re looking at a heterosexual sex-based magazine aimed at females such as Cosmopolitan, which features more seductive half naked women than men; or a gender neutral teen comedy movie which is rich with sexual innuendo and many young topless women… It is clear that this sexual revolution has capitalized on and commodified naked young women.  It has, in my opinion largely helped men to liberate their sexual fantasies through pop culture, porn culture and the like – while hindering heterosexual females with a lack of equal opportunity and an emphasis on becoming the sexy women that men want.