Posted on 11/15/2005 4:35:22 AM PST by Aquinasfan
Don't bother to read through this moron's article. Skimming it is painful enough. Just skip to my summary at the end...
I had good reason to look for the Sex Power God posters this past week: A friend of mine had posed for them. Upon finding the posters, I was pleased to discover my friend and 15 other lusty-looking Brunonians in various forms, positions and states of dress.
On Wednesday, however, I discovered something not so pleasing: On Pembroke campus, the SPG posters were now accompanied by a sheet with the Oxford English Dictionary definition of "objectification" typed on it. The definition that the signs use reads as follows:
"2. spec. The demotion or degrading of a person or class of people (esp. women) to the status of a mere object (see OBJECTIFY v. 2); reification; (also) behaviour or an attitude characterized by this."
Seeing as how SPG is generally considered a festival of naked people, perhaps it would also be helpful to include the OED's definition of "sexual objectification" :
"sexual objectification: the regarding of a person or class of people (esp. women) only as a sex object."
Finally, just to make sure that we all have our facts straight, we should include the broader OED definition of "objectification" that the signs do not use:
"1. The action or an act of objectifying something; a material thing which embodies or expresses an abstract idea, principle, etc."
Now, it's quite clear that the SPG posters do fall under this definition, which is likely why the sign-makers (they left themselves anonymous, and so must be referred to under this ignominious designation) chose not to include it. Our bodies, of course, are material things and, as anyone who has ever taken a modern culture and media class can easily tell you, parts of the body are often used as signifiers for other things. In this case, specific images of naked or half-naked people standing near one another in seductive poses signify the broader concept of sex and in particular the uninhibited attitudes that Sex Power God will hopefully bring about. No controversy here.
But what about the definition that the OED vigilantes used?
The first thing that you have to assume if you accept this definition is that the people on the poster are being somehow degraded. I don't think that they believe they are; if anything, their appearances on the poster express a kind of empowerment not seen in most other aspects of daily life. The people on the posters, through their positions, signify an agency with regard to their sexuality that American society wishes to oppress rather than liberate. The SPG gang aren't degrading themselves; they're showcasing their sexual freedom. In a liberal college environment, this deliberate choice (and after all, it was a choice, seeing as how they chose to pose for the posters to begin with) should be applauded rather than condemned.
Now, as for the charge that women specifically are being made into objects: If you look carefully at the posters, you'll notice that there are plenty of men having sex on there, too. The women on the posters are either in an equal power relationship with the men or are even more powerful than them. Think, for a minute, about how the vast majority of art views women as sexual objects through the scope of a male gaze; now think about how empowering it is for women to be able to reverse the trend by taking that gaze out of men's hands and putting it into their own. Think about how powerful it is for a woman to be seen as she wishes to be seen and not as others wish to see her.
As for the charge that the people on the posters are being seen only as sex objects, view the arguments above: Through an expression of their sexual identity, the people assert their independence and make themselves subjects, not objects.
As for the charge that we as a community are somehow degraded by seeing these posters - nonsense. There is nothing wrong with the liberal expression of ideas, especially when they encourage you to form your own.
So what we are left with is a faulty definition posted by people who didn't even have the guts to attach their name to it. In place of "objectification," I would now like to list the OED's definition for another term:
"Free expression: the uninhibited expression of one's thoughts, feelings, creative capacities, etc."
Will I go to Sex Power God? No, but that's my choice, and I love having a choice, which is what the posters are all about to begin with. The sign-makers can express themselves just as freely as the poster-makers can, and more power to them.
But the posters aren't about objectification - they're about free expression. And it's unfortunate to think of them as being about anything else.
Aaron Cutler '08 freely expresses his desire for you to see "The Greeks," playing both this weekend and next weekend at Stuart Theatre.
In other words, upper middle class and wealthy white kids screwing each other like cats in heat is just harmless amusement; poor black kids doing the same thing is the ruination of society.
Odd attitude, I must say.
Hopefully you'd feel differently if a relative was involved, but somehow I doubt it.
(Looks at pictures): Wait a second, is that Mom? What is she doing in whipped cream with Aunt Angela? GROSS!
Nothing changes under the sun - Baal (or Bael?) worship.
Too bad they don't teach the whole part (beginning, middle and end).
(Hey - the could have called it "We're Having a Bael"!)
"And I thought going to college was about getting an education. Silly me."
Well, they are...of a sort...
This sort:
"She has been trained by me to perform quite naturally services one would hesitate to ask from a professional" - the Vicomte de Valmont, Dangerous Liaisons.
And if this is the sort of education you folks want for your daughters, by all means send them to Brown!
There are plenty of religious colleges that do.
"In other words, upper middle class and wealthy white kids screwing each other like cats in heat is just harmless amusement; poor black kids doing the same thing is the ruination of society.
Odd attitude, I must say."
Odd, but true in a sociological sense.
Because out of these upper class white orgies do not come pregnancies, welfare babies, AIDS, or future street criminals. Out of ghetto orgies those things do come.
It's all sin, of course, but socio-economically speaking, in a welfare state, orgies at the bottom are much more damaging than orgies at the top. Incidentally, has anyone ever noticed that the White East Coast Patrician Class of Republicans are the ones who SUPPORT abortion rights.
Now, why, precisely, do you suppose that is, hmmmmmm?
"You wonder what happened to in loco parentis."
The parents went loco, that's what.
**************
Where to begin? Never mind, it's hopeless.
This is so appalling, words fail me. I am not naive that this would go on but to be sanctioned or even advertised by the university??????? Truly, we are in the last days and I don't mean last in the sense of the apocolypse but more in the sense of the fall of Rome - all civilizations fall from within.
The truth is the Lord's name is not God. The use of the "god" word in their title though is very appropos, for they ARE referring to the "god of this world" and, indeed, he does have a name and you are right, it is Satan.
Years of schooling are required to render a person unable to tell sh-- from Shinola.
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Apparently so. God help these children/people when they grow older and look back at how they have behaved.
Yep.
This is why B.O.Riley gets some credit for prefacing his commentary with a sensible distinction between what people do on their own time and their own dime (on the one hand) and what people do when somebody else is paying the bills and cleaning up the mess (on the other).
Take the class-envy crap to the DUmpster where it belongs.
I'm interested. Could ou --- or anybosy else out there ---- help me develop a list of the best "quality trade schools"? Something to hand on to my (16-year-old) son to get him thinking of his future...
"Could ou --- or anybosy else out there ---- help me develop a list of the best "quality trade schools"? Something to hand on to my (16-year-old) son to get him thinking of his future."
Here are five:
The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis
The United States Military Academy at West Point
The United States Air Force Academy
The United States Coast Guard Academy
The United States Merchant Marine Academy
RI Ping!
Providence Gayor David Cicilline must be dang proud of this!
hmmm...i wonder what the percentage of dtudents at Brown holding federally guaranteed student loans is....and what happens to such monies when/if spent in such fashion.....
At the onset of the Sexual Revolution, when Daniel Patrick Moyniham warned of the dangers facing the black family, the black illegitimacy rate was about 25% and the rate among whites was minuscule. Today, the vast majority of black kids are reared by unwed single moms, with catastrophic results for all of us. Meanwhile, the illegitimacy rate for our society as a whole is higher now than it was for African-Americans at the time of the Moynihan report, and with the corresponding rise in divorce, broken and dysfunctional families are becoming the national norm.
So you agree that "The heterosexuals, at least, will raise well-behaved kids who will go to private schools and do just fine." In your dreams. But not in America today. And the parents-to-be who think of orgies as a college extracurricular are going to be part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Your comments are true, well said, spot on, hammer meets nail, and should be repeated over and over again.
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