"Land that man, ace that job and look your sexiest ever" is what Cosmo promises, all for the price of a magazine. So there are a woman's goals defined: make a man want to stay with me because I look sexy, and meanwhile thrive at a fabulous corporate job raking in both cash and kudos. "She has it all" they will say with jealousy as I glide by wearing my fabulous new stilettos to the next important meeting with my ruggedly handsome, deeply wealthy boss...
Sex and corporate capitalism just don't mix. Reality rarely meets the impossible goals set, leaving little choice but to either covet a celluloid standard or shrink away in embarrassment. The media floods us with images of sex as sport or power trip while (St. Louis Dispatch, Feb 12 2001) "programs that emphasize sexual risk or responsibility are a rarity on television." The Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported that even in family-friendly shows, over the past few years sexual content has risen by half to 84%. And of course this doesn't count the voyeuristic news reporting on Monica's dress, Bill's cigar or Fill-in-the-Blank's torrid affair. We're saturated with one-dimensional views which deny the joy and responsibility of sex, and which instead educate us to see it as something done best by those good looking, young, wealthy and wearing special clothing.
The outcome of this is logical. We consume media that teach us how to fit a narrow, artificial definition of attractiveness (even though a 1995 study found that three minutes spent looking at models in a fashion magazine resulted in 70% of women feeling guilty, depressed and shameful). We watch TV shows with characters that reflect this unrealistic norm, then buy products to help us achieve it. Sexiness as a purchasable commodity. We covet face creams that help us look young, because since in a capitalist system new is better, young is logically also better. (The explosion in child pornography on the internet makes sense in this system.) Beauty icons are now 17-year-old girls with fake teeth, hair extensions, lip enhancement surgery, and breast implants. Politicians push viagra and normal men ponder penis size increase devices. The message is loud and clear: natural is out, store-bought is in.
The most popular TV show in Japan a few years back was about a "salaryman" who slogged his life through a mundane office job and was so burned out he could never seem to get his sexual impulse strong enough for a rendezvous with his adoring wife. "Gotta Do It" resonated with a nation focused on giving so much to the company that impotence and frigidity were all that was left. (Interesting to note that the number of men in the US alone suffering from impotence tops 30 million.)
So we overstimulate on media and buy the lie that sexuality is a commodity requiring cash, if not medical, infusions—the only alternative voice being right wing moralizing and discussions of holy sin. Meanwhile, important public policy controlling our sexuality (such as the conservative push to deny domestic funds to groups such as Planned Parenthood that provide contraceptive counseling to poor women under Title X) seems to drift by like shampoo commercials on "Sex in the City."
This charade serves no one. It's time to approach sexuality from a realistic perspective, dumping the media/market contrived expectations and religious moralizing. It's time to accept ourselves as sexual beings (cellulite, warts and all), and actively participate in public policy that affects our bodies. It's time to stop faking it.
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