More Girls

I thought I was done… but I’m not- was spurred by a few annoying things I read today: here are today’s short words on raunch culture.

The other problem with raunch culture, other than invalidating alternative kinds of femininity not defined by beauty- is what I kept creeping around in my last post but didn’t state explicitly: Raunch culture removes power from women specifically because the basis upon which power is offered is always a fundamentally invalidated one. 

For example, I read an article of the Miss Universe Australia pageant that mentioned that one girl was eliminated from competition for having posed topless for Ralph magazine, made worse apparently because the accompanying article had the contestant proclaiminng her love of sex and sunbathing topless.

In this situation, the girl is afforded power because she has chosen to indulge in a sexy personality- a trait apparently, appreciated in women.  Subsequently we can assume, she might have felt proud of her attractiveness and sex appeal.  Men (and perhaps women) are allowed to admire her, desire her, but significantly it becomes obvious, only within the context of the pursuit of sex.  God forbid she should want respectibility, or dare attempt to gain appreciation via other less sexy avenues. 

The fact that a beauty pageant no less, was the one to take the moral highground in this instance, makes it clear to me there is line women are supposed to skirt, but, I say, it is a line that it is virtually invisible.  For instance, where is the line between Jessica Alba’s proclamations that she won’t go topless, with the probable glimpses of nipple allowed by her skimpy bikini routines?  The line here of course, is that Alba gains kudos for what is essentially a meaningless show of modesty.  Thus the fact remains women are allowed to only be so pretty, so sexy or deal with the consequences. 

But why?  I say bottom line is this:  when women present themselves as sex objects in whatever context, they will likely be treated at some stage, to some degree, with the hypocritical notion that they are unworthy of being respected because they have chosen to ’disrespect’ themselves.  That is, they deserved to be dismissed for acting like a slut.  In effect, in using their bodies in so explicit a manner, they become punished for fulfilling their roles too well. 

I reckon the fundamental issue with drawing the line between the respectable woman and the pariah is simply a matter of verisimilitude: let us pretend there is a line to be crossed, and we can pretend that women on the ‘right’ side of the line actually wield power not only over others, but over their own sexuality.    

Final word of today: raunch culture thus occupies this non-existant grey area between sluttery and morality.  However even though it is hanging onto the ‘good side’, any girl that is embroiled within raunch culture is already a joke.  The very power Christina Aguilera claimed to acrue from her outward displays of ‘Dirrtyness’ remained a nice idea, but was always denigrated until she married and groomed herself away from the clutches of raunch culture.  The hypocritical truth remains that power derived from Raunch (for women particularly) is a vacuous promise, precisely because women and sex are rarely a combination truly transgressive enough to overcome its patriarchal boundaries. 

 Ok, I really am done for now.  Cue more frivolous fodder in the next couple of days.