From women's lib to 'Girls Gone Wild'

Minneapolis (Red) Star Tribune ^ | January 1, 2006 | Kristin Tillotson

[presidio9]

Current ads for Svedka Vodka feature a fembot made of steel, sporting a curvy backside and a come-hither posture. "The future of adult entertainment," reads the tag line.

There's something deeply disturbing about these ads. It's not the animatron with the blank, moldable expression; she's merely a video-game version of the inflatable sex dolls guys get at stag parties. What's so unsettling is that the tag line could very well be right.

Thirty-odd years ago, women across the United States burned their bras and carried picket signs advocating free love and the Equal Rights Amendment. Today, many of that generation's granddaughters are getting breast implants and Brazilian waxes, and their idea of sexual freedom is flashing and making out with each other for free in "Girls Gone Wild" videos.

When Erica Jong and Nancy Friday exhorted 1970s women to throw off Victorian mores like so many petticoats and pursue their own guilt-free sexual pleasure, they probably couldn't have envisioned that porn-star biographies would become best-sellers, or that teen girls would be taking pole-dance aerobics classes.

From hip-hop culture, where the boys drape themselves in long sleeves and baggy pants while the girls wear the equivalent of sequined Post-it notes, to the retro chic of Playboy and the proliferation of lad mags such as Maxim and Stuff, nearly every subcategory of post-feminist pop culture has seemed to work against the de-Bunnyization of women. When protests arise, young eyes glaze over; the naysayers are sooo uptight and out of touch.

-snip-

If you have a repressive society like ours right now, we can all manage to turn our attention to gay marriage. If you have a country this panicked about that, you can't say we're libertine hedonists."

-snip-

[ClearCase_guy]

Once upon a time, women were seen as "different" from men. They were put on a pedestal. They were worshipped. They got special consideration. Those were good times for women.

The Feminists took it all away.

[woofie]

I got some free love once ...but it cost too dam much

[Fierce Allegiance]

Pics? (GGW Only!)

[Fierce Allegiance]

were the penecillin bills killing you?

[presidio9]

Be careful what you wish for I guess, but once the genie is out of the bottle, how do you ever put him back in?

[StarCMC]

You are a bad, bad boy! ROFLMAO!!!!

[woofie]

[Ninian Dryhope]

"Why are a growing number of women paying thousands of dollars for the next frontier in body alteration, painful vanity surgery on their genitals?"

I wonder what this involves?

[Bob]

From the article:

"Foreign reporters often ask me how it's possible that this is happening alongside such a conservative administration, and when 80 percent of the schools teaching sex education advocate abstinence-only," she says.

(emphasis mine)

Is that figure anywhere close to being true? Somehow, I don't think so.

[Xenalyte]

Today, many of that generation's granddaughters are getting breast implants and Brazilian waxes, and their idea of sexual freedom is flashing and making out with each other for free in "Girls Gone Wild" videos.

So if they had the chest and short 'n' curlies that God gave 'em, and made out with one another for money, that'd be okay?

[presidio9]

We're talking feminists here.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Thank you!

[ClearCase_guy]

The genie can go back in. In England, during the Regency (early decades of 19th century), things were pretty wild. Lots of drinking, lots of outrageous behavior (Lord Byron sleeping with his sister, etc.). But this was followed by the Victorian Age, as a reaction against the excesses of that earlier time.

I'm hoping for a new Victorian Age. The science fiction novel "Diamond Age" by Neal Stephenson envisions this happening.

[presidio9]

[handy]

Well thanks to you my New Year's Resolution not to eat at the PC lives. That picture ruined my appetite.

[Fierce Allegiance]

OK, I have become numb to the HT pics, but reno is just so nasty I get the piss shivers.

[sauropod]

When Erica Jong and Nancy Friday exhorted 1970s women to throw off Victorian mores like so many petticoats and pursue their own guilt-free sexual pleasure, they probably couldn't have envisioned that porn-star biographies would become best-sellers, or that teen girls would be taking pole-dance aerobics classes.

Sorry Kristin. If you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind.

[Xenalyte]

Okay, that's just plain nasty. ;)

I'm still trying to figure out how leg-waxing became a sign of decadence.

Someone please help me out, because I'm gonna shave my legs when I get in the tub in a little while, and I'd hate to think that I'm just a tool of the male corporate oppressor patriarchy.

(Yeah, I know, I said "tool.")

[StarCMC]

Blech!!

Next thing we know you'll be posting a picture of old crusty.