How feminist theory and gender roles are used in film, literature and society.

Hate Your Body and Find Happiness 

I was recently severely criticized for attending an adult entertainment convention.  I mostly went out of curiosity because after all, if I write about the relationship between women and their bodies and sexual identity, this event is relevant to my research.  The event itself was quite disappointing.  Mainly erotic videos, a few gadgets and one very good performance/bondage-oriented sponsor.  However, I had to defend my business there to several people who morally condemned me for attending such an event.  This has lead me to thinking about the way dialogues related to sex and sexual identity operate in our society.  Just the revulsion “good, upstanding citizens” have towards industries like adult entertainment and novelties displays a deep-seated anxiety with the realm of the body.  It seems the excoriating of the body constitutes an abusive power.  This is a harsh reality for a lot of women.  When we are growing up, we are taught to beware our bodies and feel shame at genital areas and bodily functions.  It a mass hysteria to cover up the body—seal it, remove it from sight.  At the same time, we are bombarded with media advertisement pushing very restrictive canons of beauty—the tall, ultra-slim supermodel with perfect features (an update to the Victorian maiden in distress).  Basically, do not unveil unless it is perfect.  Then we wonder why women are so obsessed about their bodies.  Why do they compulsively diet?  Why can they not accept themselves?    It is in part because being a woman in this society requires a hatred of what it is to be female—biological sex, gender difference and sexual identity.  Somehow women enter the realm of sexuality with many hindrances.  To begin with, after seeing all these films where women have spectacular orgasms after intercourse, first time sexual experiences are often disappointing.  This is partly the result of a male-oriented economy of sexual pleasure.  Men are not required to satisfy the woman, especially if she is a novice.  If she does not reach orgasm, the she MUST be frigid.  He has the penis and the penis is infallible.  It’s never his fault, nor his responsibility, according to social standards for heterosexual intercourse.  As the woman sexually matures, she might discover that she is fully capable of attaining orgasm.  Of course, exploration of the body through self-pleasuring might not be respectable for some.  Buying a sex toy might attract dirty looks at some stores and, if you are open about it, disgust from men and even other women.  Obviously there must be something terribly wrong with you if you are “addicted” to sex to the extent you decide to invest money on your pleasure. 

Now, with such limited discourse on such a basic, natural subject matter as sex, many people seek information in secret and with self-disgust.  Porn is a way to address questions regarding sex if other more rational means are not allowed.  So are films and books.  It is always someone else’s version of sexuality we take on.  As a result, we construct our sexual identity after highly regulated canons within the heterosexual matrix.  Although gay and lesbians have established a media presence, most films, whether “clean” or “obscene,” focus exclusively on heterosexual relations of dependence.  The woman always becomes tamed at the end.  She starts a relationship, gets married and lives happily ever after.  If she likes sex, she usually “sleeps around.” Thus, she does not deserve to live and is killed off as in many horror flicks where the “dumb bimbo” has a survival rate of less than 5 minutes.  The question then becomes: Why is there such a stigma on female sexuality, especially the ability of achieving pleasure from sex?  Social conventions doubly frustrate women in this regard.  First, by setting the body as an object of impurity and negativity.  Then, by creating a paranoiac self-consciousness about the female body and the canons of beauty.   We are forced to become strangers to ourselves.  It is always an obsession with someone who does not exist—the perfect woman, who happens to be desexualized, at least from the female standpoint.  For men, the perfect woman is a fetish object, a way to assert their manliness by responding to socially controlled stimulus without getting their penises too dirty.  Now, deviate from that and the family tradition and you become “the pervert.”  There is great resistance to accept the materiality of the body.  We can deal with images of nudes, sexual narratives, basically anything at an intellectual level.  But show the body in sexual action and the world closes its eyes.  It is frightening to think we have become so disenfranchised from our bodies throughout Western history.   From the age of the Enlightment to modern philosophy, bodily sensation opens the way to spiritual damnation, lack of intellectual status, darkness, filth and class declension.  Women’s bodies were referred to as inhabiting the realm of the “Dark Continent” by the Father of Psychoanalysis himself, Sigmund Freud.  Well, our skins are so dark, we do not really exist.  We are pictures or mothers. When do we become individual beings with freedom to “appear” in society—not as the damsel in distress or the waif model--but organically and intensively bodily, proudly claiming our rightful part of sexuality?

 On Being a Vegan

I chose to become a vegan for various reasons.  Some of them were health-related, but my decision was strongly influenced by the meat industry's deplorable treatment of animals at the time.  I hold onto this position and salute animal rights organizations like PETA for their brave work on behalf of animals.  There are individuals who would like others to follow a similar road and become vegetarians.  I am at odds with this position.  I am a great believer on our Constitutional right to personal choice.  Coercing meat eaters to become vegetarians would impose on this crucial right and thus we would violate the basic premises of democracy.  Instead, I encourage individuals to be informed on the cruel practices of the meat industry and other health and social issues related to eating meat.  If consumers demand a cruelty-free environment, meat manufacturers might have to adhere to this concept or else go out of business.  When it comes to the business world, we must remember money is the ultimate drive and the way to bring about change most rapidly can be to target a manufacturer's capacity to make a profit from an industry or product.  Vegetarianism as a lifestyle should be an informed choice, not a way to force others to think in the same manner and have the same moral and ethical values. 

My Duty to Animals 

When we see an issue on television about an abused child or poor starving children in developing countires, we get all teary-eyed and demonstrate our contempt for the criminals perpetrating such crimes.  Sometimes, people do not take animals seriously.  They see them as lower species unworthy of dignity and respect.  If an animal is abused, some individuals might be squeamish or shocked, but they might not see the abuser in the same way they see a man who has murdered a child or, for that matter, another adult.  Unlike children, animals do not have constitutional rights.  They need someone to speak for them.  To say, “We won’t take it anymore!” or "We are sentient and can feel pain and discomfort to the extent of any human."  It is my social responsibility to be that voice.

 On Animal Rights

 Animal rights is one of those issues where people tend to take extremes.  Either one holds a position that animals have no rights and the are only useful as the means to human ends (Kant), or the other extreme is to see non-human animals as entitled to full constitutional rights.  The latter is often compared to freeing slaves and giving minorities and women constitutional rights.  This might be taking it too far.  Non-human animals should be treated with respect and dignity.  They should not be made to suffer pain, anxiety, hunger in the same manner man should not be tortured or killed.  Now, should my cat be allowed to vote?  I adore my cats.  In fact, I usually refer to them as my "children" and they enjoy the same or more priviledges than any ordinary human child.  However, we should draw the line at some point.  Although I consider their intellegence superior to that of many humans I have met, I realize they have their limitations.  The relationship between people and people and people and animals are two different issues, as Cora Diamond has argued.  We cannot make a parallel transition between giving rights to Blacks, for instance, and giving the same rights to animals.  A human being can become independent within social constraints if allowed, a nonhuman animal cannot, although it can survive in the wild.  Domestication and industrialization, which have changed the immune capacities of nonhuman animals in a similar manner to those of humans, become handicaps to Darwinian survival.  We have to look at the whole picture, not just the pieces that neatly fit into our argument.  As it stands, I do believe animals should be entitled to be defended in court and not only on the basis of intense mistreatment and cruelty.  They require social responsibility because we share the environment with these creatures great and small.  From elephants to insects, a sentient creature should not be made to suffer either physically or psychologically.