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| moana (profile) wrote, on 4-4-2006 at 12:58am | |
| Music: Apocalyptica - Romance Subject: So the chicken turns around and says... |
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| I have way too much to say on gender roles in sexuality in past and present. I have even more to say on who is saying what. In theory, gender roles are static expectations held together by rigid social structure to ensure that every man and woman knows “their proper place” in the general scheme of things. Utilized in fiction, poetry and even religion, gender roles have always served the purpose of either enhancing or denouncing sexuality based on your sex. Women, particularly prone to criticism for their sexuality and the expression thereof, have taken great leaps and great recessions in the past century, leaving the mind bewildered, captivated and angry. Possibly the worst double standard that comes to mind, the social view of sexuality, defined as the freedom to act out sexual desires or fantasies or express sex appeal, holds drastically different depending on whether the subject is male or female. What’s more, the views themselves change depending on whether the critic is male or female. Over the past century, both men and women have repeatedly changed their views on sexuality, though the main subject of this persecution remained women. In earlier works of poetry, women were warned that their sexuality would cause them sadness. Mckay’s “The Harlem Dancer” spoke of the tragedy in the eyes of an erotic dancer, forced by circumstances to use the power of her own youth and beauty, the power of her sexual appeal, to make a living. Brave for its time to speak of such things, the poet went on to describe her beauty, to applaud her skill, applaud her “perfect, half-clothed body” and “her voice… like the sound of blended flutes” (McKay, 405). For a moment, one could almost be hopeful enough to believe that a woman’s pride in her sexuality could be applauded also, but the bottom line drove the wrong point home: she was terribly unhappy there. Even if one could argue that it was a male’s perspective that she was so unhappy, and that, as told by Cary Nelson, “there is no guarantee that the speaker in the poem reads the dancer's feelings accurately, facial expressions being notoriously open to multiple interpretation”, the fact remains that that is the interpretation the larger audience will read (“The Fate of Gender in Modern American Poetry”). Women, too, have had their say on the unhappiness caused by a woman’s freedom in sexuality. Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote of the loneliness of a woman who had lived herself out in “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed”, telling of how “…there stirs a quiet pain/ For unremembered lads …” (Millay, 405). Had this woman lived her life the way society would have appreciated her to, would she have ended up so lonely and with a quiet pain in her heart? Would she have spared a thought to those ‘unremembered lads’? Fast forward to the present – and the future – and poetry is now heard in the songs broadcast over every radio station in the world; songs that speak of love, of money and – above all else – of sex. Far from the modest poems of “lovers” in the early nineteen hundreds, the spit and wipe lyrics from the hiphop and rap era blatantly talk about what they want: sex. In a grotesquely explicit manner, rapper Tupac asks a woman to “open your legs now” because “you want me to lick it and even worse” (Fair Exchange). More and more apparent in music videos is the objectification of women, “…in submission/ Freaky positions” – objects; or, as Tupac would call them, “Partners of passionate sex/ A place to put my erection” (Fair Exchange). The thought process goes on to tell a woman that she deserves harsh treatment. The song says “What you scared of? Didn't you come over here to get fucked?/ You ain't come over here for me to be strokin, and all that bullshit/ You came over here to get fucked/ Shit, if I ain't fuck you thug style/ Bitch you'd leave my house talkin bout, ‘Tupac can't serve me’” (Tupac, Thug N U Thug N Me). Now the woman is not only subjected to sexual violence, but she is subjected to it because she deserves it, because she wants it. A woman who appreciated a sexual encounter is considered vile, a ‘slut’. On the other side of the coin, the women – and a select few men – demanded something else: pride in sexuality. Missy Elliot demanded that “Girls, girls, get that cash/ If it’s not a foul shakin that ass/ Ain't no shame ladies, do your thang/ Just make sure you ahead of tha game” (Work It). In her own right, Tori Amos talked back to the followers of Tupac, challenging “So you can make me cum/ That doesn’t make you Jesus” (Precious Things). By establishing that women are not slaves to their sexuality, Liz Phair picks up the ball and goes on to suggest the ultimate comfort in a woman’s sexuality. She flaunts to her lover, informing him that “Every time I see your face/ I get all wet between my legs” (Flower). In this role reversal, everything that Tupac said to the women Liz Phair said back to the men. In similar explicitness, she talks to her lover, telling him of all the things she wants to do to him, “I want to fuck you like a dog/ I’ll take you home and make you like it” (Flower). If taken literally, this song is just as lewd as the men it is meant to be fighting against. Instead, this song should be approached with sarcasm and the ability to see women in a different light. Even men have expressed that women should take no shame in their sexuality. Paul Banks of Interpol sang of the love he had for a prostitute in the song “Stella was a Diver and She Was Always Down”. While making it unashamedly clear that “she was my catatonic sex toy, love-joy diver,” he also stops to repeat three times, “Stella, I love you” (Interpol, “Stella”). Stella the prostitute “knows there's people watching”, much the same way that the Harlem Dancer knew there were people watching her, as well. Similarly, “she once fell through the street/ Down a manhole in that bad way”, forced by circumstance to go down a different road, again, also like the Harlem Dancer. Stella, however, is “all right… she broke away” from what tied down the Harlem Dancer, forcing her to be unhappy. Stella is just fine. In the last soft fading of the song, Paul Banks talks to his memory of the girl he loved, telling her that “There's something that's invisible/ There's some things you can't hide/ Try detect you when I'm sleeping/ In a wave you say goodbye” (Interpol, “Stella”). The singer tried to stop her as she left, but only caught a glimpse of her wave as she left in his sleep. Here the prostitute had the option to be loved, but chose to continue her life the way it had been lived until that moment. Similarly, Chino Moreno of the Deftones marvels at the ability of a woman to have meaningless physical relations. In amazement he tells us she is “somehow calm as she walks onstage… somehow calm as she walks offstage” (Deftones, “Moana”). Incredulously enough, men and women have changed their minds about sex and sexuality. Where before a man and a woman agreed on at least this one thing, they now differ and argue, bantering back and forth in this new age of poetry about how modest and how sexual a woman should morally allowed to be. Men and women both have blurred the boundaries of who thinks what on women’s sexuality, and the issue, once clear-cut, is now an object of debate. Leaving the mind bewildered, captivated and angry, women have taken off their clothes, done a sexy number, had meaningless sex, and the poets of today are not sure what to make of it; neither is the rest of the world. |
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cowboy67 | 04-03-06 6:49pm that was fucking hot, fajer. the two "body" paragraphs (sex is everywhere!) on music lyrics were my favorites.... nice!
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cowboy67 | Re:, 04-03-06 7:10pm oh, and....
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angelaliberty | 04-03-06 9:30pm very insightful entry, thanks for posting! i enjoyed reading it. :) |
guajiragoddess | 04-04-06 5:27pm HI FAY! *waves*
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