Posted on 02/16/2005 6:38:05 PM PST by wagglebee
If you watch a lot of cable television, you've probably seen the ads, especially late at night or early in the morning. The "Girls Gone Wild" videos promise to show you coeds behaving badly on the beach during Spring Break or getting down and dirty at Mardi Gras. The formula is simple: find a group of nubile young things drunk out of their heads and induce them to pull up their T-shirts or pull down their shorts and expose themselves to anyone willing to fork over $19.95 for the privilege. The most recent incarnation features gangster rapper Snoop Dogg hawking fresh, young flesh.
Call me old-fashioned, but I just can't imagine what these girls were thinking when they agreed to "show off their assets," as one knock-off video boasts. These young women aren't pros -- they are not part of the pornographic underworld -- but ordinary teens and twenty-somethings who one day will be wives and mothers. One young girl, who was 17 at the time she allowed herself to be photographed topless, has already sued the producers of "The Guy Game," a video game featuring females in various stages of undress. Her suit claims she did not give a "valid or enforceable consent or release" for photos to be used by the video game makers. "Plaintiff is still a teenager and wishes to attend college, develop her career and be active in her community and church." Good luck.
What is most shocking about this phenomenon is that we're not all that shocked by it. Modesty used to be considered a natural female attribute. No more. Just take a look around next time you're at the mall. With warm weather on the way, belly buttons will be popping out everywhere, and thighs will be very much on display, even in church. Back in the day, a pair of tight jeans was enough to earn a girl a bad reputation. Now slutty has gone Main Street.
A recent report by the Independent Women's Forum (IWF) -- "Sex (Ms.) Education: What Young Women Need to Know (But Won't Hear in Women's Studies) About Sex, Love, and Marriage" -- suggests that feminism is at least partly to blame. Female sexual license has become a central tenet in modern feminism, as the IWF documents in its study of feminist academic literature. Popular feminist textbooks, notes the study's author Carrie Lukas, "celebrate feminism's role in changing social mores by increasing the recognition of women's sexuality, bolstering its acceptance, and encouraging greater access to birth control." Early feminists burned their bras as a symbol of their liberation. Could baring their breasts be the newest symbolic act of young feminists?
As Lukas demonstrates, however, libertine behavior exacts a heavier toll on females than males. Women are more susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases than men, for example. A woman is eight times more likely than a man to contract HIV from a single sexual encounter and four times more likely to get gonorrhea when exposed. Women are also more likely to suffer serious damage, such as sterility or cervical cancer, from STDs. And the risks are not just physical.
Many studies show that promiscuous behavior entails greater psychological costs for even the most "liberated" women. One anthropologist cited by Lukas hypothesizes that the uncomfortable feelings many women experience after casual sexual encounters may be a warning system for women not to engage in behavior that would have been "maladaptive in earlier evolutionary eras. Casual sex with men unwilling to invest in them or their offspring is a prime instigator of such negative feelings."
The girls baring all in these low-budget videos may think that guys like this kind of behavior. But as Steven E. Rhoads, author of "Taking Sex Differences Seriously" notes, "Men often prize promiscuous sex in the short term, but they want faithful wives. . . . If a man finds a woman hard to get, he will sense that she is more likely to be faithful after marriage." Plenty of men and boys will buy the "Girls Gone Wild" videos, but they're not likely to invite the amateur strippers home to meet Mom.
As my husband said, "If a girl REALLY wants attention these days, she'll dress like a lady."
Dag!
No pictures of said badly behaving girls.
I'm deeply saddened.
I do not dress like that now and never have on a regular basis. I've explained this elsewhere in the thread.
Oh they say they like it and then show no interest in the guys who do it. I know so many girls 20-25 who are only interested in the bad boy types and then complain ad nauseum about not having someone.
The woman who wrote this is obviously very intelligent, insightful, and spot-on with her point.
I wonder what her boobs look like?
/sarcasm of course/
I dress very simply and now that I'm older won't be dressing in short skirts even if I could. However, go in a shopping mall and see who gets asked out. Actually, not even. I worked in a department store with a boss who was from the Dominican Republic and gorgeous. I used to have men ask me if I could help them get her attention (as if I was invisible). Now I know a lot of guys will say that they want a particular woman for a wife, but that's not what they're looking at and they know it. At this point, I dress the way I want which is nice shirts and calvin klein jeans,etc. with a decent hair style.
Well exactly. I was young once too and did more than a few stupid things while intoxicated. Fortunately, there isn't a photographic record of them and even more fortunately, this photographic record isn't being sold to thousands of people for $19.95 on late night Comedy Central commercials.
I would be willing to bet that if one asks any of these girls ten years from now when they are likely married and have young children if they wished they hadn't posed nude for free on a GGW video, virtually 99.9% percent of them would express regret and embarrasment at what they had done and hope and pray that their husbands or children never run across these videos.
Ultimately though, you are held responsible for your actions, even while intoxicated and this is what is sad is that so many of these otherwise "good" girls will do such stupid things in front of a camera --and receive no financial compensation! Film is forever.
thanks...I will think about what you've said.
they just smoke & deal pot and rob liquor stores and pimp out underaged girls and beat de' ho' when they hold back the money, but outside of that..."
this might come as a real ~FLASH~ to some, but out here in the "REAL world" (outside'a NYNY) "awesome guys" do "none of the above"
THAT is hilarious. Have you ever gone on back-to-back dates dressing in those two extremes?
But a couple of "extreme" observations, Cy:
Stay away from Birkenstocks and sweatshirt emsemble.
Ditch the long cigarette holder and leather mini...hmmm....on second thought ;-)
Much more intriguing and sexy. Assuming the stockings aren't worn with Birkenstocks.
It's burkha time - oh yeah ... wait, what am I saying?
must... drop... the ... stone...
At the time, I didn't get asked out using either approach. Now that I wear plain jeans and a coffeestained tee shirt and a cowboy hat, some guys actually say hello. I DO smoke cigars though. Ya think that could be it? ;O)
,,, you do what with cigars?
Whatever your mind is thinking about right now shag.
A cigar??
Lol, I've NEVER actually seen a woman smoke a cigar. I have hoid dings...
That Urban Cowgirl/Debra Winger look could be kinda sexy. The coffestained tee? Heh! I hope you do the boots with that outfit...
,,, get back on topic. Refer post #109. Pay attention.
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