{"id":105,"date":"2009-12-11T10:00:45","date_gmt":"2009-12-11T10:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/?p=105"},"modified":"2015-03-12T11:19:41","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T18:19:41","slug":"decode-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/2009\/12\/11\/decode-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Decode This!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hallelujah! <\/strong>We are finally starting to talk about it. Sex, that is. We\u2019re admitting that it\u2019s out there, that it happens, that we\u2019re curious. Wom\u00aden are proudly declaring themselves sexual beings beyond the roles of wife or mother.<\/p>\n

While it is important to cel\u00adebrate this discourse and recognize the progress made in past years, one should also remember to consider how the issue is addressed and what kinds of messages about sex are fighting for (and winning) our attention.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve glanced at a Cosmo recently, or for that matter, practi\u00adcally any magazine seeking a female audience, you\u2019ve probably noticed ti\u00adtles offering \u201c8 Things That Drive Men Wild In Bed,\u201d \u201cBody Language Decod\u00ader: how to know what he really likes\u201d or \u201c263 Juicy Answers from Guys.\u201d It seems that from every direction we are being urged to decipher the ever-baffling behavior or desires of men so that we can better suit their needs. This discussion of sex doesn\u2019t feel too liberating, but rather uncomfortably familiar.<\/p>\n

Many of these articles bear a striking resemblance to the format of advice features or advertisements of\u00adfered to women over fifty years ago regarding how to be a better wife and caretaker. Many of which, both past and present, employ the same use of idealistic pictures: a couple sharing a Kodak moment or a woman offering a coy sideways glance like she has a daz\u00adzling secret.<\/p>\n

They also share a tongue-in-cheek instructive style, designed to make the audience feel that the ad\u00advice is both informative and devilishly fun. In a 1948 advertisement for a fa\u00adcial cleanser entitled \u201cHow to Escape the Dreaded Phone Call: \u2018I Won\u2019t Be Home Tonight!\u2019\u201d a woman is depicted (adjacent to the column of advice) smiling in her form-fitting dress and heels as she gracefully chops at a tele\u00adphone pole. Both these and contem\u00adporary sources urge their readers to prepare carefully for an interaction with \u201ctheir man\u201d and to present them\u00adselves as flawlessly as possible. Both are guilty of an injurious perpetuation of male and female stereotypes.<\/p>\n

The fact of the matter is that sex is both more and less complicated than popular magazines make it seem. Where these magazines fall short is in portraying and valuing non-heter\u00adonormative relationships. The bright, capitalized titles screeching at us in the supermarket checkout line assume a very narrow range of experience. If you don\u2019t aspire to achieve Katherine Heigl\u2019s cleavage or find yourself unable to relate to the uncannily handsome heterosexual couples merrily flirting in their best sets of undies, you\u2019re plum out of luck.<\/p>\n

Popular culture also convo\u00adlutes the act by trapping consumers in a perpetual quest to disentangle the desires and intentions of the opposite sex. As women, we are constantly be\u00ading told that we need advice and guid\u00adance to \u201carouse him like crazy\u201d or \u201cfind out his true feelings.\u201d Regard\u00adless of our sexual orientation, this is a slippery slope.<\/p>\n

The back cover of a 2006 revised edition of Tim LaHaye\u2019s book Understand Your Man: Se\u00adcrets of the Male Temperament <\/em>boasts, \u201cBestselling author Tim LaHaye has the answers. In Understand Your Man<\/em>, he ex\u00adplores the four distinct person\u00adality types from a male point of view. He shows women that these traits are ingrained before birth and that it is hopeless to try to change who a man is.\u201d Wom\u00aden\u2019s Health Magazine <\/em>is among one of the many resources to which women turn in order to solve such behavioral myster\u00adies, perhaps using the \u201cDecode Him\u201d feature on their website, which provides instant transla\u00adtion services promising to provide \u201cyour guide to guy talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, the U.S. Depart\u00adment of Labor published a survey announcing that women account\u00aded for 51 percent of all workers in high-paying management and profes\u00adsional occupations, a strong affirma\u00adtion that American women are proudly establishing themselves outside the home. Although most of us consider ourselves under significantly less pres\u00adsure than our grandmothers to domes\u00adticate, we should still be wary of the forces urging us to see our partners and our bodies in a specific light.<\/p>\n

At the recent \u201cI Heart Female Orgasm\u201d talk, speakers Marshall Miller and Melissa Lopez drew our attention to the sad reality that many women know far more about male pleasure and bodies than their own. While we can likely name the most sensitive areas of the penis, our own clitorises seem to occupy some irretrievable space, maybe floating around with all sorts of lost socks and Pok\u00e9mon cards.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to be more critical of the images we consume everyday that urge us to be very specific types of women with particular kinds of part\u00adners. It\u2019s time to learn a little more about what goes on down there and not for anyone\u2019s benefit but our own. True, we may have to do it without the aid of 12 simple deciphering steps, but we can handle that, right?<\/p>\n

While it is important to cel\u00adebrate this discourse and recognize the progress made in past years, one should also remember to consider how the issue is addressed and what kinds of messages about sex are fighting for (and winning) our attention.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve glanced at a Cosmo recently, or for that matter, practi\u00adcally any magazine seeking a female audience, you\u2019ve probably noticed ti\u00adtles offering \u201c8 Things That Drive Men Wild In Bed,\u201d \u201cBody Language Decod\u00ader: how to know what he really likes\u201d or \u201c263 Juicy Answers from Guys.\u201d It seems that from every direction we are being urged to decipher the ever-baffling behavior or desires of men so that we can better suit their needs. This discussion of sex doesn\u2019t feel too liberating, but rather uncomfortably familiar.<\/p>\n

Many of these articles bear a striking resemblance to the format of advice features or advertisements of\u00adfered to women over fifty years ago regarding how to be a better wife and caretaker. Many of which, both past and present, employ the same use of idealistic pictures: a couple sharing a Kodak moment or a woman offering a coy sideways glance like she has a daz\u00adzling secret.<\/p>\n

They also share a tongue-in-cheek instructive style, designed to make the audience feel that the ad\u00advice is both informative and devilishly fun. In a 1948 advertisement for a fa\u00adcial cleanser entitled \u201cHow to Escape the Dreaded Phone Call: \u2018I Won\u2019t Be Home Tonight!\u2019\u201d a woman is depicted (adjacent to the column of advice) smiling in her form-fitting dress and heels as she gracefully chops at a tele\u00adphone pole. Both these and contem\u00adporary sources urge their readers to prepare carefully for an interaction with \u201ctheir man\u201d and to present them\u00adselves as flawlessly as possible. Both are guilty of an injurious perpetuation of male and female stereotypes.<\/p>\n

The fact of the matter is that sex is both more and less complicated than popular magazines make it seem. Where these magazines fall short is in portraying and valuing non-heter\u00adonormative relationships. The bright, capitalized titles screeching at us in the supermarket checkout line assume a very narrow range of experience. If you don\u2019t aspire to achieve Katherine Heigl\u2019s cleavage or find yourself unable to relate to the uncannily handsome heterosexual couples merrily flirting in their best sets of undies, you\u2019re plum out of luck.<\/p>\n

Popular culture also convo\u00adlutes the act by trapping consumers in a perpetual quest to disentangle the desires and intentions of the opposite sex. As women, we are constantly be\u00ading told that we need advice and guid\u00adance to \u201carouse him like crazy\u201d or \u201cfind out his true feelings.\u201d Regard\u00adless of our sexual orientation, this is a slippery slope.<\/p>\n

The back cover of a 2006 revised edition of Tim LaHaye\u2019s book Understand Your Man: Se\u00adcrets of the Male Temperament <\/em>boasts, \u201cBestselling author Tim LaHaye has the answers. In Understand Your Man<\/em>, he ex\u00adplores the four distinct person\u00adality types from a male point of view. He shows women that these traits are ingrained before birth and that it is hopeless to try to change who a man is.\u201d Wom\u00aden\u2019s Health Magazine <\/em>is among one of the many resources to which women turn in order to solve such behavioral myster\u00adies, perhaps using the \u201cDecode Him\u201d feature on their website, which provides instant transla\u00adtion services promising to provide \u201cyour guide to guy talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, the U.S. Depart\u00adment of Labor published a survey announcing that women account\u00aded for 51 percent of all workers in high-paying management and profes\u00adsional occupations, a strong affirma\u00adtion that American women are proudly establishing themselves outside the home. Although most of us consider ourselves under significantly less pres\u00adsure than our grandmothers to domes\u00adticate, we should still be wary of the forces urging us to see our partners and our bodies in a specific light.<\/p>\n

At the recent \u201cI Heart Female Orgasm\u201d talk, speakers Marshall Miller and Melissa Lopez drew our attention to the sad reality that many women know far more about male pleasure and bodies than their own. While we can likely name the most sensitive areas of the penis, our own clitorises seem to occupy some irretrievable space, maybe floating around with all sorts of lost socks and Pok\u00e9mon cards.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to be more critical of the images we consume everyday that urge us to be very specific types of women with particular kinds of part\u00adners. It\u2019s time to learn a little more about what goes on down there and not for anyone\u2019s benefit but our own. True, we may have to do it without the aid of 12 simple deciphering steps, but we can handle that, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hallelujah! We are finally starting to talk about it. Sex, that is. We\u2019re admitting that it\u2019s out there, that it happens, that we\u2019re curious. Women are proudly declaring themselves sexual beings beyond the roles of wife or mother. While it is important to cel\u00acebrate this discourse and recognize the progress made in past years, one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,233],"tags":[44,119,120,66,15],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feature","category-vol-2-issue-1","tag-claire-calderon","tag-cosmo","tag-i-heart-female-orgasm","tag-media","tag-sex"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}