Hello, World.
A major symbol for a women is their vagina, obviously because they are the only ones who have one. Rape therefore becomes a symbol for female oppression because the vagina has been violated. Female independence and power has been ignored and overcame, and (usually) a male establishes a supremacy through his sexual harassing action. In this sequence, I will be discussing rape: the influences, motivations, consequences, and the male vs. female sides of rape.
The influences of rape and the motivations for sexual harassment are the root of the problem and should be thoroughly investigate to understand both the prevalence and danger of rape. Overall, the increasing number of rape cases is a direct variation with one important aspect of popular life: the media. In The Beauty Myth, by Naomi Wolf, she discusses the impact of societal beliefs and the impact of culture upon men and women. Wolf states that "our culture is depicting sex as rape so that men and women become interested in it," which explains that our culture is the main cause of sex, that the media is portraying this absolutely terrible action as something interesting, even desirable (138)! The subconscious advertisement for rape has become so prevalent that according to Naomi Wolf, "Images of strangled women, women in cages, do no not push any limits; they are a mainstream cliché of a mainstream social order," (164).
In pornography, women are depicted as attractive when they are subdued to some dominance, when male control becomes sexually appealing. Wolf takes it a step further and says that "glamorous rape scenes obviously eroticize the sex war," and that rape portrayed in glamour models or in pornography influences real-life sex, which is ordinarily meant to be a romantic and meaningful action (146).
Now that the media had influenced rape, women who have already been victims of the pop culture and who, thanks again to the media, constantly aim to please men, help drive rape incidents by purposefully depict themselves as submissive, in order to attract men to the idea of control & power because "[their] private submission to control is what makes [them] desirable" (133). As previously mentioned, "Women become interested in [rape],"(138) and "49 percent had submissive sexual fantasies" (141). This situation is extremely dangerous because if the victims of a catastrophe begin to enjoy what they are victims too, the catastrophe is no longer viewed as bad and the oppressors will commit their crimes more comfortably and more commonly.
In fact, hints of this unfortunate conclusion have already started to appear. Wolf says that depictions of rape are "a mainstream cliché" (164) and that rape, something usually so grotesque, disturbing and horrifying is decreasingly bad, "sexual violence against women is not obscene" (138).
In all, the media, including pornography, is an important influence for rape. Depictions of submission & male control is increasingly popular and women are now not only beginning to choose to depict themselves in those manners, but are beginning to enjoy sexual violence. This is dangerous and frightening because at the rate we are going, rape will soon be just as enjoyable as a walk in the park, a family dinner, or even worst, romantic sex. As Naomi Wolf puts it, "we often see rape where sex should be" (137).
Goodbye, World.
No comments:
Post a Comment