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-

[usmcobra]

"I wonder what this involves?"

I hear the Groucho look is all the rage....

[presidio9]

Keep talking about you in the bathtub shaving your legs. The visual I getting would really piss Kristin Tillotson off.

[StarCMC]

LOL!!!!

I have the mental image of Mel Gibson waxing his legs in "What Women Want."

Oh the vanity....

[Lorianne]

There has never been any shortage of imprudent young women (or men). The difference "today" is that young women have complete freedom to make an @ss of themselves, just as men have always had. (The Founders lamented the same problem with freedom).

Though I detest the behavior, I champion the freedom.

[perfect stranger]

FWIW

[Lorianne]

LOL, as someone once said: Free love is neither.

[presidio9]

[ChefKeith]

??? And your Webcam address is????

;O)

[Xenalyte]

Wouldn't you like to know! ;)

[ChefKeith]

YES!!!

Happy New Year

[perfect stranger]

Pretty freakin' creepy if you ask me.

I'll stick to my Tito's.

[little jeremiah]

later read/pingify?

[Old Seadog]

What is a Brazilian wax?

[Xenalyte]

And I you! You'll have to get that Webcam address from Laz . . .

[presidio9]

[TheBigB]

A-HEM! As your manager, I say we withhold the webcam addy until all interested parties have paid up (Laz has paid for the next ten years.)

PayPal accepted. :o)

[presidio9]

"People vote for their ideals, and for many people that's different than their own behavior. 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."

[School of Rational Thought]

Women have long been employed in professional capacity and were not just sex objects: Here this woman is shaping young minds while engaged in the noble teaching profession:

[presidio9]

Figure it out.

[applpie]

and when exactly was that? uh, not a feminist here (i actually think feminism is counter-productive) but i was wondering when women were ever put on a pedestal and worshipped? or given special consideration?