Have you ever been at a party, having a great time focused on nothing but your two-step when you realize something larger is going on around you? This happened to me a few nights ago when I went to a fraternity-hosted party at a hotel in Boston. It might sound random but last year when I was foolish enough to believe I could be a Social Studies concentrator (no offense to the lovely individuals in that department), I was most struck by Karl Marx's work, which flashed back to me that night. In his texts, he talked about the insidious nature of capitalism and the way it compels all of us to compete in a market system whether we explicitly give consent or not. Since I read his work and, tragically, took an Economics course, I have reevaluated my views on competition and have realized its inevitability. And also its extent: you can even see it in Americans' sex lives.
How do I reckon this? Well, first of all, I believe we can see it both in the sex industry and on the dancefloor. As my economics professor discussed, most goods are more valuable the more rare they are. That's why diamonds cost way more than chocolate. Though hand me a piece of chocolate at the right point of the day and I might be yours forever. Daydreams aside, though, rare and in the American case, extreme, things are typically favorable. Pornography, for example, was once something disseminated in a few films, images and magazines. Now in 2010, the public has access to and consumes pornography easily and frequently. The more twisted and violent the films are, the more they are watched. This fad of new and unseen ways to abuse women is so popular, in fact, that it has its effects on everything from erectile dysfunction (ever that seen that Sex and the City episode where Miranda's lover can't get "ready" without porn playing in the background?) to changing gender norms in dancing.
Mainstream pornography, not specialized fetish films or imagery, is increasingly pushed to extremes that often focus on excessive violence towards women. Choking, slapping, and brutal language are no longer reserved for BDSM films: they are the norm in mainstream films and clips that are easily accessible for free with the help of basic internet connection. They are ever-present in the most popularly consumed films.
The funny part about all of this is that while it's simple to dismiss these films purely as fantasy, we don't take the time to stop and ask why these are our fantasies in the first place. Why in the past, when women had less financial or social power, was porn less hostile towards them and why, in a new era in which double duty as mommy and career are more present, do we fantasize and sexualize violence against women?
One of the clearest examples of the fact that porn does not remain purely a fantasy but instead affects our reality is the popular trend of grinding during dances. For all the freaky-deaky clips you can find on Youtube of people dancing wildly on Soul Train, for example, in the 70's, you'll be hard pressed to find images of women turning around, bending over and grinding with their male partners.
However, if you're a college student in Boston or any part of the country, you can expect to see this display on any dance you show up to. As a result of the undying competitive part of my nature and the fact that I've grown up in a capitalistic society that compels each individual to compete for what you want, regardless of the personal or ethical costs, I've regularly behaved in ways that compromise my feminist values for the sake of getting male attention. While I'm not exactly the wildest of wild things, I participate in this ritualized trend along with my female and male peers mostly because it is a learned behavior and because we grew up in a time in which it was all we've ever known.
Why does it seem natural to our generation, though, for women to bend over for whomever shows interest in them and for men to expect that they can do this to whomever suits their fancy at a given moment at a dance? Why do we expect that it's more important for men to receive pleasure without women getting anything in return (except, perhaps, for the emotional and psychological reward of knowing someone momentarily wants you)? I believe it has to do with a culture of pornographic films which feature women being treated in a way that often has more to do with them being hurt than pleased. As I've witnessed at many parties (I could also be hitting up the wrong parties but seeing as I've witnessed this many a time at a variety of parties with a variety of demographics, I believe it's a widespread thing),I know it is a common cultural phenomenon that reflects changing attitudes towards women: if you belong to a patriarchal society, one of the best ways to degrade the rising power of women is to sexualize their pain and subjugation and to carry that over into dancing practices.
If you see a bold, powerful, outspoken woman on campus, for example, who speaks her mind and who seems to have a strong future ahead of her 5 days out of the week but you see her bent over, faced away from a man without the man kissing her or doing anything to try to please her sexually every Friday and Saturday, you re-think how much security the woman has. On the one hand, she might just be confident in her own ability to separate the sexual from the personal but on the other hand, she might be a girl who has been made insecure enough by society to see herself as an inevitable pawn in a capitalistic, sexist, and patriarchal practice of one-way pleasure. Why is this something we've allowed ourselves to accept and why isn't it expected that men are supposed to do us ladies right, too? What's up with that?
