Nudity and Sex Triggers Salient Beliefs

At around 12:30 this afternoon, the TV was playing a re-run of CSI and there was a scene with a mother talking angrily to her 13 year old daughter.  I could hear from the next room that their dialog was escalating, and then I heard the mother say, “You don’t talk to me like that, you little bitch.”  I would like to point out that this is a double-whammy of social conditioning regarding women.  Not only is it targeting little girls to learn their place, that they are little bitches, but it seems like it's even more valid (and hence, “realistic”), since the words themselves are coming from a mother, another female.  And the fact that this show is on TV in the afternoon, I seriously doubt if any parents are blocking the show. I bet there is plenty of access for teen boys and girls to witness this scene, and others like it, ever propagating the norm that we all should be well acquainted with by now, that women are bitches and it’s totally OK to call them that, even if they are 13 years old.

Earlier in the day I was reading the book Delusions of Gender, by Cordelia Fine (2010).  She has countless research examples backing up the fact that people are culturally biased by the information they receive in subtle forms which in turn affects perceptions about ourselves and others.  I have known for decades that seeing naked women all the time in films when we seldom see naked men – and never their sex organs – programs kids, adults, boys, girls, women and men to all have certain assumptions about women as objects of sex and sexual arousal, and to not be salient to think that way about men (even though most women do prefer men and do in fact enjoy sex with them and enjoy their bodies too).

And while there are many arguments to why this is valid and justified in human nature, the fact remains that by programming all media to repeatedly show us that women are supposed to be naked for art, for sex, for ratings, for titillation, for controversy and it’s all OK, because women are sexy and it’s supposed to be this way, excludes the impact this has on female development across many aspects of women’s lives. Showing women all the time depicted in this way, while simultaneously never showing men in a similarly sexualized way, has repercussions besides just being harmless entertainment.

Having naked women showing up in so many movies on TV and in the theater –  and of course everywhere in the hardcore porn that pretty much all guys over age 12 are now viewing regularly – sets people up to have a salient impression of women that involves their roles as objects for sex and sex appeal.  Cordelia Fine points out in her book that women show reduced sense of empowerment and confidence in areas like mathematics when they are first exposed to information that indicates that women are worse than men at math.  Those results reverse when women are told the test they are doing is usually performed better by women.  Just that little tiny bit of suggestion can change people’s self-identity and self-esteem.  Likewise, being continually confronted with messages that tell us that girls are for sex, only girls are sexy, sexual arousal is the domain of female actors, etc, tells boys and girls, and men and women, that it’s a man’s world and that sex is something for men to enjoy and women to perform. Women may matter in other realms, but that our primary role is to be sexy, sexual performers who arouse men, and when we no longer have that capability, that it is only to be expected that younger femaletainment will keep our men interested.

The dialog on CSI from the female adult character to the female child was a powerful tactical reminder to help keep salient the image that women are  bitches – which subsequently is a short hop to related concepts of women as whores, strippers and for sex. Society bombards all people, male and female alike, daily with the information – lest we ever forget or think otherwise – that women are the sexy ones. Women are the images that provoke arousal. It is feminine and “normal” to show women depicted sexually, erotically and naked because it is more “natural”.  Boys grow up learning it and so do girls. That’s why so few people fight it. It has been ingrained into our cultural biases that this is just the way it is.

Yet this phenomenon of media does not take into account the impact it has on women.  The psychological impact is huge and extends over a huge range of women’s lives, from career choices and career advancement, to marital satisfaction, to confidence and self-esteem, to issues of sexual violence at the hands of men, to women’s own sexual identity, confidence and fulfillment.

That women can be – and are – shown fully naked in films regularly, and in any old situation or type of film, often showing up when you least expect it – is a huge reinforcer of cultural bias about the role of women and the status of women compared to men.  Just the fact that it is regarded as socially OK to show women being fully naked and being fully penetrated by men in PG-13 and above films, simply because our genitalia "doesn't show" and naked breasts are “no biggie,”is a huge disrespect to women and in my opinion a violation of our human rights to live a life free of harrassment by males over our sexuality. We don't get to just put erections in every movie, even movies on TV. Yet now full frontal female nudity is showing up on TV even more often than it is in the theaters, creating a huge culturally-conditioned exposure for everybody to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that first and foremost the role of woman is for sex. Inherant in that, also, is that somehow by the 'default' of our place as sexual objects,  this makes us also  mentally inferior.  In fact often times in movie scripts, female nudity goes in conjunction with women who are being depicted as sexual objects and bi-sexual bimbos more than as thinking, articulate, capable, equal human beings.

Unfortunately these perceptions of worth, value and function are hard to shake and are instilled in women and men alike, from our pre-teen years on up. And it’s only getting worse, because there is so much female nudity on TV and the Internet these days.

As I was writing this article, I looked up and there was a film on, kind of thriller that looked interesting and mysterious, called “The Limits of Control”.  It wasn’t long before the mysterious, tall African American stranger in the nice suit was in the presence of a fully naked, twenty-something white woman, for several different scenes.  She lay on the bed with him, artfully juxtaposed against his large, fully clothed frame, she naked, large-breasted and small waist. This was on HBO SG channel from 1:15pm-3:15 in the afternoon.

Her first scene with him focused the camera (and the dialog) on her curvaceous, sensual, naked, near-field rump as she lie on a bed on her stomach.  Then she was fully nude, walking around the apartment. Then she was in a shorty, clear-plastic rain coat, modeling her nakedness beneath. Then she lay in his arms on the bed, in the scene described above. Then there was more nudity prancing around the apartment. All this time, he remained fully clothed while she was nude, slender, young, white, and put there in the film to be intentionally sexually evocative. There are thousands of such images of women providing the role of sex and men as the voyeurs and connoisseurs of sex on TV and in films every day.  People are getting mass exposed to this conditioning, which most definitely makes salient the notion in most people’s minds that women are for sex and for being sexy and that men are for something else, but not that. (A concept which also inherently carries the sinister implication that most ‘real’ women shouldn’t want or need to see naked men, since that's not man's role).

Earlier today I caught a rerun of a Christina Aguilera interview where she says she “never takes the safe route to expressing herself.” She was saying that in reference to being asked about the provocative nature of many of her music videos and costumes.  From her perspective, being daring by showing a lot of flesh and female sexuality is, to her, an example of not “playing it safe” apparently, but I would have to disagree.  Almost the safest bet in media that anyone can take is to sexualize and pornify women.  Everyone expects that and tolerates that, and tons of people believe that it is women’s role anyway, so showing it is just a reinforcement of cultural norms; it certainly isn’t “taking a stand” or doing anything really out there. It is precisely playing it safe.

If anything, it would be way less safe to show male bodies as sexual beings, to depict women enjoy watching naked men on film, to show male nudity and erotica in videos, sex scenes, movie scenes with fully dressed women and naked men, etc.

As long as we continue to inundate generations of people with countless propaganda images that show women’s bodies as the sexual and the arousing, while denying that men are also beings with naked bodies, arousing body parts, and youthful skin that is attractive to look at, women will continue to struggle with identity, personal satisfaction, career inequities, marital jealousy, self-esteem issues, and many more psychological discomforts that affect women all because supposedly we are supposed to primarily be hot and arousing to men and men are supposed to just be horny and reap the rewards of being “more visual”.  It is a violation of women’s rights to have to put up with this one-sided, biased cultural norm we continue to propagate. Stand up to it, ladies!