There’s been a lot said on this group about the balance of
sexual control and the power of making the penis a big “no-no-naughty
thing” {to paraphrase the Church Lady} and about whether or not male
marketers will sit still for the sight of a penis on the screen etc.
I think the basic issue is respect and fairness. It isn’t respectful
to women to have women strip down all the time in front of them in the
movies, while the men never take their clothes off. This says
something to them, along the lines of “You are for us to be aroused
by” and frankly men are not specificlly “FOR” women to be aroused by
in movies. The women we see can be smart, accomplished, successful
but when they strip they are still just T and A. The lowest common
denominator. It would be different if men stripped too, when
appropriate, but since they don’t the message stands.
I’m also concerned that maybe men don’t want nude men on the big
screen because they don’t want to have to judge themselves by a
universal physical standard like women do. Women who get naked in the
movies are all of one type - the standard willow thin, big busted,
totally unattainable beautific ideal image. Maybe men don’t want to
be on a date and have their girlfriends stare up at the screen and
then down at them with a knowing leer (this happened to me once during
a nude scene, the jerk actually nudged me and said “do you look like
that?”)
At any rate it’s not fair and it makes me feel like no matter what we
achieve in life - we’re only meat for the parade.
And outside of porn, the amount of male or female genitals ever shown is roughly equal. About zero. The amount of toplessness is about equal too - lots. I’d say there might even be more male waist-up nudity.
I’m not sure if it’s that simple. I think our culture has a
love-hate relationship with the female body, holding it both
as something beautiful and desirable and as something
disgusting and smelly. (Think of how many commercials there
are for vaginal odor and douching compared to commercials
for male genital odor. The only commercials I can think of
that target men for their genitals are those for jock itch.)
It also appears contradictory that in some respects men are
offered less privacy than women (in locker rooms and
bathrooms) in male-only spaces, but more privacy in mixed
spaces. Part of that comes from the fact that more men than
women are the writers, magazine editors, and movie heads, so
we’re seeing the “male view” of things. Of course, hetero
men want to see beautiful naked women in magazines and
films. It’s the near taboo on male nudity that makes me
think that it’s not merely a matter of who the (male hetero)
powers-that-be are sexually interested in, though.
I wonder if not showing male nudity doesn’t come from
several sources.
(1) Our Puritan background still holds the stereotype that
“decent” women don’t want to see naked men.
(2) Homophobia, which scares men away from showing naked men
in the fear that men may just find other naked men not just
aesthetically pleasing, but sexually attractive. Then the
fear that other men may find them sexually attractive.
(Plus maybe women’s fear that men will find other men
sexually attractive.)
(3) A sense that women in general are more public personas
than men. (I think we saw this in the compliments-to-
strange-women thread.) I’m not convinced that men’s bodies
aren’t shown nude because we think they’re ugly, but more
because of a sense of some sort of privacy and selfhood that
both confers power on men and stems from male power. You
can go back to Persian history to read that traitors were
shamed by being stripped naked and paraded before their
executions. Slaves (male and female) in the US were often
undressed so that they could be inspected before they were
sold. Clothing offers a privacy that people can be denied.
In this light, it seems logical that male nudity is shown
during portrayals of rapes of women since it’s very clear
there who has the power. In situations where male power is
less clear, where he can be laughed at or ridiculed or
compared by women to other men, then there will be far fewer
portrayals of nude men.
Well, you’ll be happy to see my next game. “Cabana Boy”. Set at an exotic resort in Antarctica, the male NPCs wear only Speedos and sunscreen, but the women players wear footie pajamas, down parkas, and Elmer Fudd hats with earflaps. The men just run around fetching fruity drinks and extra ammo while the women lounge around poolside and polish their weapons. The actual game part involves shooting penguins or something…it doesn’t really matter as long as there’s a hot guy wearing a banana hammock on the box, right?
It’s the near taboo on male nudity that makes me
think that it’s not merely a matter of who the (male hetero)
powers-that-be are sexually interested in, though.
Evidently Kevin Bacon did not get the memo on this. Good lord. If I have to see that guy’s sausage one more time… heck, I’m probably already gay.
Of course, hetero men want to see beautiful naked women in magazines and films.
I’m not convinced that women are motivated by physical looks like men (and while I’m at it, thank you God for this bit of justice). Even if the men were naked in more movies, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the women shrugging with indifference. How many women go to porn sites? How many women watch porn movies? There’s your neverending stream of naked men, and yet the female audience isn’t there. If there’s no true demand for male nudity from the female audience, why include it? To satisfy the visually-motivated gay men?
Also-- Charlie Morris, what are you wearing right now?
I preceive the explanation to be as follows: male sexuality has no value
(note that in this post I’m talking only about heterosexuality; the
situation in homosexual subculture is quite different). Men will pay
$4/minute to talk dirty with a woman on the phone. Men will pay for
prostitutes, men will be seduced into buying cars or whatever else. The
reverse simply isn’t true. Why is it that male sexuality has no value?
The obvious answer is that it’s so easily available. Any woman who is not
too far off from our culture’s standards of beauty can probably get access to
sex fairly easily. The reverse is not true for men. Men have to be very
agressive and ready to accept rejection 9 out of 10 times. Women certainly
don’t always get the man they want, but they can find some man somewhere.
Why is it that men are so much more readily available? Perhaps the most
important reason is that boys are taught to “score” as often as possible,
whereas girls are taught “good girls don’t”. Girls believe they should
avoid sex, and men believe they should persue it. This creates the
inbalanced sexual demand. I hope that society can move away from this view;
in my opinion, good women assertively seek physical and emotional
saticefaction, and if that means sex with a man, that’s what they get.
Also, we men hopefully will be able to put aside notions of “scoring”, and
learn to focus on what we really want, not what society tells us we should
do.
The other reason I see is a power thing. Women have traditionally been
denied access to financial and other forms of material power, so women have
learned to get power through other means. They use withholding power. They
supress their sexual desires to increase the value of their sexuality. I
believe this is Madonna’s main point. Hopefully as women begin to get equal
wages and more political power, this form of power will become unneccessary.
Wumpus, if I find a particular sunset very beautiful and moving, am I being violated by the sunset? Or by the sun, or the sky, or the dust in the air? The man who gets aroused by seeing some woman he does not know dressed in a way which she cannot know will be exciting to him, is responsible for his own feelings. I know men who find baggy jeans and sweatshirts quite exciting; indeed, for any particular style of dress, I could probably find several men who find it exciting. That is their choice, though, it is not the women who dress that way who are somehow forcing the men to get excited.
Now, if a woman knows a particular man and dresses in a way which she knows excites him, then she is trying to influence him. However, he is not a helpless pawn in the matter - he can choose what action to take about that. She cannot force him into anything. The correct word for this sort of thing is “tool,” not “weapon.” She is not injuring him or coercing him. What if she just gave him a really convincing logical argument to do what she wanted - would that be a weapon?
When you can give me a reasonable answer to that question, call me.
Most women I know well enough to discuss an issue like this with have made it quite clear that…Well, Wumpus is right: Women aren’t – typically, of course, there are exceptions – “turned on” by a visual stimulous like guys are. Women are more into sensitivity, attentiveness, touch, smell…Sight is actually pretty far down a girl’s list. (Typically.) Guys, on the other hand…Well, we all know that’s not the case with guys. Show him a nekkid chick, and he’s ready to go.
