Why do you disagree with me, Dys?
Wrong thread, Mon Vieux, i'm disagree with you over in that other thread . . .
I was curious to see this point of view presented by a male. I teach lots of adolescent girls who are very influenced by the media & the images of how they have to be to be attractive to the opposite sex. It's not just the outward appearance, fashion, that they're influenced by, it's also behaviour. I worry like mad about many of them. I over-hear their conversations, sometimes they include me in their conversations ... there's a lot of pressure to look & be overtly "sexy". I worry about the pressure they're under ... a lot. They're much more vulnerable than they appear & act.
Depends on the individual... my daughter is almost 17, subjected to all the pressures that every other girl is... she cares about her appearance but is not consumed by it... and the idea of dressing in a certain way just to attract a boy or appear sexy to him would make her laugh her milk out of her nose.....
Miss Olga, homo sapiens sapiens has been around for forty or fifty thousand years. For most of that time, boys and girls began mating just about as soon as they were reproductively capable. Given that their prospects for living past twenty were slim (if they survived childhood, and if they were not killed traumatically), this was a salutary adaptation for the species.
Now we live in societies which determine that they are not legally adults until they reach an age near what was for many millenia their life expectancy. I find it odd that people decry this apsect of teenagers, when it appears perfectly natural to me.
Good for her, BVT! That's good. The girls I teach couldn't be described as "privileged" (not that I'm saying that you're daughter is). A lot are from broken families, a lot of unemployment, with families on welfare ... often not much stability in their lives, through no fault of their own. It's not an easy school. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is many of these girls are very susceptible to media & other pressures. They desperately want to be cool & accepted. And many of them go along with that sexualized image of what they should be. I see a lot of unhappiness as a result of these pressures.
Oh, I
know about adolescents & hormones, Setanta! Used to be one myself & god knows I've taught enough of them.
Don't misunderstand: I'm not suggesting that they become something that they're not. I'm suggesting that there's a lot of pressure to be more overtly "sexualized" than say, 10 or 20 years ago.
With teenage girls, Msolga, it's not really about sex, it's about being popular. I suppose that is what the commentary involves; just an examination about the preoccupation with wanting to be something that the media has created, and that really doesn't exist.
Good point, Miss Lettybettyhettygetty
This is interesting.
It really makes me think of all the ruckus over Seventeen magazine a few months back when they ran an article called "Vagina 101" which was a health article. Stores removed the magazine from thier shelves, parents were outraged, people called it pornographic.
Meanwhile nobody complains about magazine covers that blare "how to catch and keep a man" or some such stuff.
Yes, I know what you're saying, Letty. And being popular & fashionable & cool right now seems to involve conforming to particular male fantasies pushed through the media & popular culture, as to what is attractive. And as I said before, it's not just image & attitude, it's behaviour, too. (I'm talking about the girls I teach, again.)
I'm guessing that "male fantasies" is a fantasy.
boomerang wrote:Meanwhile nobody complains about magazine covers that blare "how to catch and keep a man" or some such stuff.
Check out some of the popular music videos & see how "desirable" young women are presented. Much of it may be all about male fantasies, but many young girls conform to it.
dyslexia wrote:msolga wrote:dyslexia wrote:I'm guessing that "male fantasies" is a fantasy.
Yes?
Yes
That was my attempt to encourage you to expound further, dys.
You know, folks. I realize that many shrinks love to refer to what they call the "hoary errors of Freud", but I truly think the man was right from this viewpoint. There is energy in every living creature. Somehow that energy must be sublimated.
actually msolga I'm inclined think that it's the young females that have the fantasy and that young males are essentially clueless other than the display of the females fantasy about the males fantasies.
