No Sex Please, We're Middle Class

[Lenticular_J]

This New York Times article was being discussed in another forum I frequent. I found it extremely interesting, especially since it's a woman who believes the idea of gender as a social construct is ideological at best and detrimental at worst. At the very least, it's a good read, eh?

 

WILL women soon have a Viagra of their own? Although a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recently rejected an application to market the drug flibanserin in the United States for women with low libido, it endorsed the potential benefits and urged further research. Several pharmaceutical companies are reported to be well along in the search for such a drug.

 

The implication is that a new pill, despite its unforeseen side effects, is necessary to cure the sexual malaise that appears to have sunk over the country. But to what extent do these complaints about sexual apathy reflect a medical reality, and how much do they actually emanate from the anxious, overachieving, white upper middle class?

 

In the 1950s, female frigidity was attributed to social conformism and religious puritanism. But since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, American society has become increasingly secular, with a media environment drenched in sex.

 

The real culprit, originating in the 19th century, is bourgeois propriety. As respectability became the central middle-class value, censorship and repression became the norm. Victorian prudery ended the humorous sexual candor of both men and women during the agrarian era, a ribaldry chronicled from Shakespeares plays to the 18th-century novel. The priggish 1950s, which erased the liberated flappers of the Jazz Age from cultural memory, were simply a return to the norm.

 

Only the diffuse New Age movement, inspired by nature-keyed Asian practices, has preserved the radical vision of the modern sexual revolution. But concrete power resides in Americas careerist technocracy, for which the elite schools, with their ideological view of gender as a social construct, are feeder cells.

 

In the discreet white-collar realm, men and women are interchangeable, doing the same, mind-based work. Physicality is suppressed; voices are lowered and gestures curtailed in sanitized office space. Men must neuter themselves, while ambitious women postpone procreation. Androgyny is bewitching in art, but in real life it can lead to stagnation and boredom, which no pill can cure.

 

Meanwhile, family life has put middle-class men in a bind; they are simply cogs in a domestic machine commanded by women. Contemporary moms have become virtuoso super-managers of a complex operation focused on the care and transport of children. But its not so easy to snap over from Apollonian control to Dionysian delirium.

 

Nor are husbands offering much stimulation in the male display department: visually, American men remain perpetual boys, as shown by the bulky T-shirts, loose shorts and sneakers they wear from preschool through midlife. The sexes, which used to occupy intriguingly separate worlds, are suffering from over-familiarity, a curse of the mundane. Theres no mystery left.

 

The elemental power of sexuality has also waned in American popular culture. Under the much-maligned studio production code, Hollywood made movies sizzling with flirtation and romance. But from the early 70s on, nudity was in, and steamy build-up was out. A generation of filmmakers lost the skill of sophisticated innuendo. The situation worsened in the 90s, when Hollywood pirated video games to turn women into cartoonishly pneumatic superheroines and sci-fi androids, fantasy figures without psychological complexity or the erotic needs of real women.

 

Furthermore, thanks to a bourgeois white culture that values efficient bodies over voluptuous ones, American actresses have desexualized themselves, confusing sterile athleticism with female power. Their current Pilates-honed look is taut and tense a boys thin limbs and narrow hips combined with amplified breasts. Contrast that with Latino and African-American taste, which runs toward the healthy silhouette of the bootylicious Beyoncé.

 

A class issue in sexual energy may be suggested by the apparent striking popularity of Victorias Secret and its racy lingerie among multiracial lower-middle-class and working-class patrons, even in suburban shopping malls, which otherwise trend toward the white middle class. Country music, with its history in the rural South and Southwest, is still filled with blazingly raunchy scenarios, where the sexes remain dynamically polarized in the old-fashioned way.

 

On the other hand, rock music, once sexually pioneering, is in the dumps. Black rhythm and blues, born in the Mississippi Delta, was the driving force behind the great hard rock bands of the 60s, whose cover versions of blues songs were filled with electrifying sexual imagery. The Rolling Stones hypnotic recording of Willie Dixons Little Red Rooster, with its titillating phallic exhibitionism, throbs and shimmers with sultry heat.

 

But with the huge commercial success of rock, the blues receded as a direct influence on young musicians, who simply imitated the white guitar gods without exploring their roots. Step by step, rock lost its visceral rawness and seductive sensuality. Big-ticket rock, with its well-heeled middle-class audience, is now all superego and no id.

 

In the 1980s, commercial music boasted a beguiling host of sexy pop chicks like Deborah Harry, Belinda Carlisle, Pat Benatar, and a charmingly ripe Madonna. Late Madonna, in contrast, went bourgeois and turned scrawny. Madonnas dance-track acolyte, Lady Gaga, with her compulsive overkill, is a high-concept fabrication without an ounce of genuine eroticism.

 

Pharmaceutical companies will never find the holy grail of a female Viagra not in this culture driven and drained by middle-class values. Inhibitions are stubbornly internal. And lust is too fiery to be left to the pharmacist.

Camille Paglia, a professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts, is the author of Sexual Personae.

[Wizz]

Hmm reminds me of that new "Male Contraceptive" injection.

[pennywise]

What did i just read?

[Giordano]

What did i just read?

[The_Gabe]

What did i just read?

[Zierro]

The author should be writing stories, not articles. I have no idea what her point was.

 

Nor are husbands offering much stimulation in the male display department: visually, American men remain perpetual boys, as shown by the bulky T-shirts, loose shorts and sneakers they wear from preschool through midlife. The sexes, which used to occupy intriguingly separate worlds, are suffering from over-familiarity, a curse of the mundane. There’s no mystery left.

 

What are we supposed to do? Make our own clothes?

[Pirate_Felix]

What did i just read?

[Omar]

I'm pretty sure she meant that white-collar men and women suffer of a lack of libido because pop culture, particularly music and fashion, lack the eroticism that it used to have.

 

What are we supposed to do? Make our own clothes?

Not a bad idea. You could be the designer that crushes the blandness of menswear, Zierro!

[decebal]

which runs toward the healthy silhouette of the bootylicious Beyoncé.

 

That sentence is such a contrast to the rest of this very scientific article...

[obfuscator]

I'm pretty sure she meant that white-collar men and women suffer of a lack of libido because pop culture, particularly music and fashion, lack the eroticism that it used to have.

 

What are we supposed to do? Make our own clothes?

Not a bad idea. You could be the designer that crushes the blandness of menswear, Zierro!

If anything, I'd say society provides an overkill of eroticism rather than a lack or it.

 

What her point was, I've no idea.

[Giordano]

Oh.

 

People want more sex? God damn, when do we stop?

[Omar]

I think she's trying to draw a line between eroticism and bland sexuality, the latter being what we get from the media most.

Under the much-maligned studio production code, Hollywood made movies sizzling with flirtation and romance. But from the early ’70s on, nudity was in, and steamy build-up was out. A generation of filmmakers lost the skill of sophisticated innuendo. The situation worsened in the ’90s, when Hollywood pirated video games to turn women into cartoonishly pneumatic superheroines and sci-fi androids, fantasy figures without psychological complexity or the erotic needs of real women.

[Giordano]

Ah okay.

 

Have you decoded what she suggests to do or was that it?

[nine naked men]

Ah okay.

 

Have you decoded what she suggests to do or was that it?

 

She's not suggesting anything.

 

Just saying pills can't cure the malaise of society. Things are sexy without being erotic, there's no buildup, a lack of foreplay, if you will.

 

Or something.

[Romy]

I'm pretty sure she meant that white-collar men and women suffer of a lack of libido because pop culture, particularly music and fashion, lack the eroticism that it used to have.

 

What are we supposed to do? Make our own clothes?

Not a bad idea. You could be the designer that crushes the blandness of menswear, Zierro!

If anything, I'd say society provides an overkill of eroticism rather than a lack or it.

 

What her point was, I've no idea.

 

I disagree. There's a fine line between erotica and in-your-face-"Sexy"ness.

[boyzloveme15]

Theres no mystery left.

 

psh! the mystery is beyond the clothes woman!

[Omar]

The suggestions are implied I guess, you just have to look at what she's denouncing and do the opposite.

When it comes to music, if artists looked back to the blues-tainted rock that is mentioned in the article and got a sense of the heat that characterized those lyrics, that would be a start. The thumbs up to curves that celebrities like Kim Kardashian give is another. YSL's popularization of pantsuits was beautiful, but a step in the wrong direction in this specific case. The idea is in general to refeminise women (as opposed to men), remasculinise men (as opposed to boys) and bring the eroticism that died out in the 70s back.

[Lenticular_J]

The suggestions are implied I guess, you just have to look at what she's denouncing and do the opposite.

When it comes to music, if artists looked back to the blues-tainted rock that is mentioned in the article and got a sense of the heat that characterized those lyrics, that would be a start. The thumbs up to curves that celebrities like Kim Kardashian give is another. YSL's popularization of pantsuits was beautiful, but a step in the wrong direction in this specific case. The idea is in general to refeminise women (as opposed to men), remasculinise men (as opposed to boys) and bring the eroticism that died out in the 70s back.

Thank you.

 

Many people take the whole gender equality thing as making the genders exactly the same. This is wrong. There are men and women. They're equals, but they're also different.

[magekillr]

The author should be writing stories, not articles. I have no idea what her point was.

 

Nor are husbands offering much stimulation in the male display department: visually, American men remain perpetual boys, as shown by the bulky T-shirts, loose shorts and sneakers they wear from preschool through midlife. The sexes, which used to occupy intriguingly separate worlds, are suffering from over-familiarity, a curse of the mundane. There’s no mystery left.

 

What are we supposed to do? Make our own clothes?

 

She's critiquing the fact that women's clothes, for all intensive purposes, have been tight and fixed to the body, which leaves them feeling they need to live up to a certain standard of fitness and body type. Whereas men's clothes have been made baggy, hiding a lot of the bodies that are less than desired. Basically it's a critique of socially accepted sexism. Not the type of clothes, per se, but it's putting a lot more pressure on women to be models, and men can be less fixated on their own bodies. There's no transition from what they wore as children to what they wear as men. I could be wrong, as I'm reading that quote out of context.

 

That trend is changing, as of late, with clothing being marketed to men as fitting more closely, though.

[Lenticular_J]

To a degree, although I see it more as her saying that men don't try as hard in the looks department, particularly with clothes. They dress the same as they did when they were ten, whereas women are more likely to understand that people are judged by their looks constantly. Might as well put your best face forward.

 

Calling it sexism is a step too far. Really just laziness.

[obfuscator]

The author should be writing stories, not articles. I have no idea what her point was.

 

Nor are husbands offering much stimulation in the male display department: visually, American men remain perpetual boys, as shown by the bulky T-shirts, loose shorts and sneakers they wear from preschool through midlife. The sexes, which used to occupy intriguingly separate worlds, are suffering from over-familiarity, a curse of the mundane. Theres no mystery left.

 

What are we supposed to do? Make our own clothes?

 

She's critiquing the fact that women's clothes, for all intensive purposes, have been tight and fixed to the body, which leaves them feeling they need to live up to a certain standard of fitness and body type. Whereas men's clothes have been made baggy, hiding a lot of the bodies that are less than desired. Basically it's a critique of socially accepted sexism. Not the type of clothes, per se, but it's putting a lot more pressure on women to be models, and men can be less fixated on their own bodies. There's no transition from what they wore as children to what they wear as men. I could be wrong, as I'm reading that quote out of context.

 

That trend is changing, as of late, with clothing being marketed to men as fitting more closely, though.

I'd say the "clothing being marketed to men as fitting more closely" is more of a fad if anything, I can't see that staying the case long term, or at least ever becoming as prevalent in female fashion.

[magekillr]

Calling it sexism is a step too far. Really just laziness.

 

It's sexism because women have to live up to a certain standard, whereas the standard is much more lax when it comes to men; this sexism is expressed through clothing lines. In my opinion fashion models reinforce this by lying about their sizes. Frequently models are sizes 0 and 1, but they say they're a size 3 or 4 just for PR.

 

Anyway, I just realized who the author is (Camille Paglia), and she's most certainly not a feminist. She likes to parade herself around as one, but then disses the feminist movement and calls it a bunch of man haters. Rubbish.

 

WILL women soon have a Viagra of their own? Although a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recently rejected an application to market the drug flibanserin in the United States for women with low libido, it endorsed the potential benefits and urged further research. Several pharmaceutical companies are reported to be well along in the search for such a drug.

 

The implication is that a new pill, despite its unforeseen side effects, is necessary to cure the sexual malaise that appears to have sunk over the country. But to what extent do these complaints about sexual apathy reflect a medical reality, and how much do they actually emanate from the anxious, overachieving, white upper middle class?

 

There is no evidence whatsoever that there is some new sexual malaise that 'appears to have sunk over the country,' and Paglia gives us exactly zero evidence on such a giant change happening over time or in the recent past. Neither is there any evidence that the 'overachieving white upper middle class' is somehow behind the demands for female viagra. Who's behind it? The medical industry, duh. They made a killing off selling it to men, why not try and find something to reach the other 50% of the population? That's a huge market share just waiting to be tapped. This has nothing to do with the level of libidos somehow having dropped.

 

Fascinating how easily an anti-feminist piece gets posted these days in the liberal NYT.

[Zierro]

It makes a lot more sense after reading all of your interpretations. Our modern day culture does seem to go straight for sex, overlooking foreplay which makes the sex they crave even better. Actually, that can be applied to other things about our society aside from sex. People always want to do things as efficiently as possible and then forget what it was really all about in the first place. It makes me think about music and politics.

 

Still, I don't see why she would use that type of rhetoric for an article that she wanted to be heard by society.

 

I'd say the "clothing being marketed to men as fitting more closely" is more of a fad if anything, I can't see that staying the case long term, or at least ever becoming as prevalent in female fashion.

 

Yeah, I'm assuming he was talking about emos and hardcores. That's just a counterculture that exists purely because the norm is baggy pants.

[Range_This11]

The elemental power of sexuality has also waned in American popular culture. Under the much-maligned studio production code, Hollywood made movies sizzling with flirtation and romance. But from the early 70s on, nudity was in, and steamy build-up was out. A generation of filmmakers lost the skill of sophisticated innuendo.

 

Best part of a poorly written, overly-wordy, and haphazardly structured article. Seriously, the article sucked but I absolutely loved some of the points and clever jabs the author threw in. This quote could not be any truer; viewers of movies and television seem to have lost their ability to think about what they are watching and need the punch-line explained to them with nudity and sex. It can't be left to the imagination, which is a shame. Sex and nudity in films *typically* takes away from the film in my opinion.

[Omar]

I'd say the "clothing being marketed to men as fitting more closely" is more of a fad if anything, I can't see that staying the case long term, or at least ever becoming as prevalent in female fashion.

It's here to stay for a while, save for statement pieces, in which case they really will be oversized, not just baggy. Although you're right men won't go as tight as women in the mainstream (most men won't be wearing leggings).

@ 2:12; 6:10; 7:49

 

Yeah, I'm assuming he was talking about emos and hardcores. That's just a counterculture that exists purely because the norm is baggy pants.

Guy, you've got it all wrong. Watch the video above, most of the pants are slim, and the jacket barely even have a lapel.

 

I also think this is a terrible article. I don't see how women have confused athleticism and beauty; maybe they have, but no reason is given. It was almost impossible to understand at first.