Posted on 11/05/2007 3:40:48 PM PST by wagglebee
Tila Tequila has been Playboy’s Cyber Girl of the Week. She has self-published singles titled “F--- Ya Man,” and “Playgirl Central,” where she proclaims “I don't want no love, I just wanna get screwed!" She’s got more “friends” than anyone in the history of MySpace. She recently announced her bisexuality, and stars on a popular new MTV reality show. Tila has become a sign of the times.
Tila Tequila and her career have prompted ruminations on the nature of celebrity in The New York Times, and she’s been profiled in TIME magazine. But more than anything, the Tila phenomenon highlights a pernicious trend in American culture: Celebrating young women only for their “sexiness” and their willingness to flaunt it -- rather than for character, intelligence, or talent.
On “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila,” both straight men and lesbians vie for Tila’s affections. To do so, they engage in a variety of sexually explicit activities features lewd behavior among the contestants, encouraged and applauded by Tila herself, including group sleepovers and raunchy rounds of “Truth or Dare.” It is the most popular show in its time period among people 18-34, and no doubt has many younger viewers.
Certainly most young people understand that what they’re watching is more than a little over the top. But seeing the behavior also normalizes it – and allows women like Tila to set standards for young people all across the United States. When the culture tells girls that sexual decision making comes down to nothing more than “if it feels good, do it,” they become pressured to conform to a sexy ideal that’s as unwholesome as it is difficult to attain.
That’s quite a contrast from the days when American society (and media of all sorts) reflected a consensus that took into account the dangers – not only physical, but also emotional, psychological and even spiritual – of giving too much too soon. Now, girls have lost much of the social support that once buttressed decisions to abstain from sex, and parents and clergy are left trying to protect them from a culture that glamorizes sexual promiscuity and exhibitionism. Because of the example set by “celebrities” ranging from Tila Tequila to Paris Hilton (who came to prominence after the release of a sex tape), it seems more difficult to resist the advances of boys interested in nothing more than sex, appropriate to wear revealing clothes, and acceptable to behave in suggestive ways that would have been unthinkable even twenty years ago.
The results are devastating. Giving too much, too soon can result in girls confronting emotions including regret, anxiety, guilt, shame, and lack of trust in males. In fact, recent academic research has suggested that even modest sexual experimentation increases the risk of depression for girls, so it’s worth asking: Does the widespread sexual behavior celebrated by teen culture explain in part the CDC’s latest report finding that suicide rates among preteen and young teen girls had spiked by a whopping 76%?
It’s not easy to fight the pernicious messages being purveyed by the culture – but making the effort is important for the mental, physical and spiritual health of America’s girls. And as difficult as it may seem to bring about change, it is possible to create a more wholesome teen culture if people realize that their objections to the status quo are hardly idiosyncratic. After all, concerted effort and dedication on the part of environmentalists have brought us to a point where retailers are beginning to package detergents in smaller, more “earth-friendly” bottles and businesses brag about how “green” they are. Government involvement is unnecessary (and, when it comes to free expression, unwise) when Americans themselves are willing to confront the sexual saturation of the culture and demand something better.
It’s high time for a change. After all, a culture in which someone like Tila Tequila can be vaulted even to the outermost rings of the celebrity galaxy isn’t anywhere that America’s girls belong.
You have stated the essential irony of feminism.
The problem here is that the damage is often permanent. It’s not enough to stop slutting around. A young person who starts in on this lifestyle during adolescence and continues into young adulthood severely stunts his/her emotional maturation and, therefore, emotional capacity.
Promiscuity can and often does lead to a lifetime of being emotional detached and unable to be truly intimate with another human being.
You, of course, decide what you watch.
But the fact is that, based on what you choose to watch, you also influence what is available for other people, including young people, to watch.
IOW, your choices are part of *our* exercise of self-government.
Is what you choose to watch what you think is good for the country as well?
Again, it’s a choice and it should be an individual choice. But a responsible individual realizes that his choice affects our culture, not just him.
But the fact is that, based on what you choose to watch, you also influence what is available for other people, including young people, to watch.
How so?
I agree with you 100%.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to jump on you like that, I was out of line. I just get tired of the nanny-staters and victimcrats who expect the government to solve every one’s dilemma. When you brought up purse snatching I thought you were implying that the government is needed to protect us from ourselves.
When liberals and conservatives say the phrase “for the children” I know my rights and my money is about to be taken away.
BUT some of these "reality TV shows" make it to overseas markets. And what results is things like AmericanInTokyo or other eyewitness friends, traveling in parts of Southeast Asia or South Asia meeting people, and incredulously hearing from person after person that they truly think "all American women are cheap, easy sluts" that can be picked up, sexed with on the spot, and brutally disgarded. Just cheap properties, nothing more.
They truly think this....many many men in Asia.
Single women from the USA on vacation in parts of Asia, innocently backpacking, doing charitable work, study-abroad, etc. and the like, have been "felt up" or even raped as a result of it by local lechers who truly think American women are just for the taking.
Thanks, American Liberal Media Establishment. Great legacy you got going there internationally. I hopeyou are really proud of your clever selves. /sarc
I think you meant to spell “WHORSE” as “WORSE”...
Thanks, American Liberal Media Establishment. Great legacy you got going there internationally...
Maybe we should take the hint of some of the Japanese hentei manga, like Rape Man.
Because, you assert such filth only may have a negative effect on the individual who watches it.
Yours is the classic "Just Turn The TV Off" if you don't like it argument.
The problem is, whether or not we who do not want this stuff rammed down our throats do elect to turn it off, "it still POLLUTES, it still CHANGES the larger sociological and moral society around us which we still have to live in" which we then have NO choice over.
There is erosive effect on the popular society at large--take a walk through a mall some time. Read the statistics, too, on teens today.
It is not as simple or easy as a non-complex, libertarian personal decision as you seem to outline.
How do you solve this problem with coercion?
Until raped, or diseased, or broken hearted in or by their 20s.
Then anti-male in their 30s.
Then deep seated, resentful men-hating HILARY voters by the millions in their 40s.
This seems to be one of the patterns.
How could any conservative, let alone libertarian, turn a blind eye to this phenomenon and give it a "pass" is beyond me.
Yeah, the gubmint should do something.
>>The problem is, whether or not we who do not want this stuff rammed down our throats do elect to turn it off, “it still POLLUTES, it still CHANGES the larger sociological and moral society around us which we still have to live in” which we then have NO choice over.
There is erosive effect on the popular society at large—take a walk through a mall some time. Read the statistics, too, on teens today.<<
1. Those are individual choices and yes the cumulative effect does have effects. That doesn’t mean you take away personal choices.
2. Violent crime and sex crimes are way down.
Today’s “famous” people are famous simply for being famous. They have accomplished nothing of note. They are irrelevant, and no one will know who they are in a couple of years.
Those are bad, too. A long way to go. At least J TV after 11 p.m. has cleaned up dramatically since the early 1980s.
I don’t want to live in a country where we have religious police like they have in Saudi and Iran that go around beating people for watching Tia Tequila.
How about if they used comically large rubber mallets on people who watched Jackass?
How do you eliminate crime or urban blight?
You throw people in jail for breaking real laws. Such as rape, murder, and stealing my money to buy votes.
The government was not created to save us from ourselves. Right now my TV is off, because I have control over my life and I can turn off the TV.
I have been to Taiwan which is pretty conservative, If I wanted to do so, which I didn’t, I could have gone down to the Shilian night market and bought a porno dvd.
I feel you are misunderstanding what is happening in media. There are a lot of things going on.
A)Traditional media is fragmenting to a very, very large degree. Much smaller shows and movies for very targeted audiences. The spectrum has widened. Are there wholesome shows out there? Yes, more than ever before. But there are also shows of questionable taste.
B)The means by which entertainment is delivered and consumed has multiplied. Entertainment is portable. You can watch movies on an iPod. This impacts viewing habits and tastes, as does things like movies on demand and DVRs.
C)Entertainment companies are in a death match for viewship. More competition from video games, the internet, etc.
D)Idiot parents have not taught their kids how to consume entertainment. It’s a product, not unlike a lot of other products, yet kids have no idea how to use it.
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