A red flag started violently waving in my head after reading a section of Tolman’s article. It stating that after Thompson collected narratives of 400 girls’ romantic and sexual desires, she found that their own desires were often neglected, or all together absent in the girls’ reflections. Women are taught to focus on a man’s pleasure rather than their own pleasures. How messed up is that? This correlates with what we learned about in class- women see themselves through men’s eyes, and men see themselves through their own eyes. Lame. Women are not getting boob jobs for themselves, they are getting them to please men. Implants can make one lose sensation and sensitivity in the breasts. This shows women lose pleasure at the expense of men's pleasure. Also, how is a girl suppose to know what she likes if she is told to be virginal? Adolescence is the prime time in life to figure all of these things out. Since when is sex a bad, taboo thing? Everyone (well, almost everyone) has sex! What makes sex terrible is when sexist ads are shoved in adolescent girl’s faces promoting one night stands and meaningless sex. The examples presented in class on Tuesday were amazing and completely proves that women are still being oppressed, despite what antifeminists believe.
Having to fight to have sexual education (and it’s bad enough that when sex ed. is available, it is usually only heterosexual and neglects queer sex) is a huge problem. If the media is shoving explicit sexual ads targeting adolescents all around, the least we can do it teach safe sex for god’s sake. How is a girl suppose to grow, love, and explore her sexual preferences and identity with the media blatantly saying being sexy and have sex is cool, while at the same time it’s telling her to be in a monogamous, heterosexual relationship? A perfect example of this was the Miley Cyrus scandal. Someone hacked into her email and found 'sexy photos' she had sent to her boyfriend at the time. The whole world was shocked to find out a teenage girl was sending cute photos to her boyfriend and exploring her sexuality???
How is a girl suppose to figure herself out if she is focusing not on her own pleasure, but a man’s? This is all too much. Reading about these experiences in Tolman’s article showed that women, just as men, have intense sexual desires. Difference is, women have to keep that shit in or they will be deemed slutty and selfish.
“So remember, this is definitely a screwed-if-you-do, screwed-if-you-don’t situation. You just remember to say screw them.”
-J. Valenti
Isn't that the truth!
It shocks me to see that 12 and 13 year old girls are having sex because of the fact that they MUST be doing it solely for the mans pleasure because most young girls don't know what an orgasm is let alone what sex is yet. They haven't explored their bodies yet to know what they like and don't like. They have sex to make their bf happy and wanting them. your statement that women are taught to focus on a mans pleasure rather than their own reminded me of this. Your blog was very interesting, good work!
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