NEW WORLD AND
OLD PROBLEMS
What gives you a reason to live? It sounds as an old song. But, seriously, what really gives you a reason to live?
Your job and your lifestyle? Think:
(…) no one in Britain is feeling particularly secure about their jobs right now. I was recently on holiday with a friend, a features editor at a glossy title, when she got a text from a friend within the company saying how sorry she was about the closure of that magazine. Between ordering breakfast and our eggs arriving, she’d become jobless.*
It is the reality nowadays. No job, no money, no sex? Well, you can be rich and you will never be sure about the feelings of any person. It is hard. But think again. Fake orgasms. What about sex and power? Well…
"Many people avoid using words during sex because words of desire make them feel too naked and exposed. I can feel that my lover's touch makes me hot, but if I say to him, 'your touch makes me hot,' now I am sure that he knows, and now I am more vulnerable. My words give him power over me, power that comes from knowing his seduction has been successful, from knowing that I want him."**
People worry with the thoughts of the others. People like power. Therefore, they use seduction and sex to get the attention of another person. Today there is a "lad culture":
“To dismantle "lad culture" and minimise the negative effect it has on students, the girls who are shh-ed in class, the links to boys' depression and suicide, the violence, the answer is to build and highlight alternative cultures. To encourage students to drink and kiss in places that don't advertise with posters of tits. Just because the problem is serious doesn't mean the solution must be dry.”***
However, the answer is not so simple. It is a complex social problem. There is all kind of violence against women. Some people use sexism as the answer, but it is wrong:
“‘Boys will be boys’, explained an American prosecutor to the mother of a five-year-old rape victim last week, and suddenly everything was OK. Wasn't it. Boys, silly boys, with their rape and their evil and the dominant harassment gene that they carry with them in their low-slung pockets and shaven DNA.”***¹
DNA and ideology. Youth with no jobs. Fashion. Girls want to show their bodies. They like to seduce. They like modern cars and expensive gifts. How can boys (without jobs) satisfy the wishes of the young ladies? When did all this started? After World War II, people wanted freedom and pleasure.
“(…) post-war fashions were to do best minimize the secondary sexual characteristics which distinguished women form men visibly, by cutting and eventually cropping traditionally long hair, and making their chests look as flat as was physically possible. Like the short skirts, the abandoned corsets, the new-found ease of movement, all these were signs of, and calls for, freedom.”***²
They wanted a new way of life. Beatnik movement. Rock and roll. Sexual revolution. Feminism. The world changed. There was a personal computer in 1976. Internet. Life was not the same anymore. However, it is still the law of the capital. It means the economic side is the most important. Technology was used to cut jobs. Homeless and poverty were not problems only in the third world countries. Yes, life changed but it did not mean good news for the majority.
(*)Anna Hart The new ambition: the generation redefining their careers. The Telegraph, 16-03-2014. (**)Barbara De Angelis, em 1995, no seu livro: "Real Moments for Lovers" (apud, James R. Petersen, Playboy, September 1996, p. 42.
(***)Eva Wiseman. How can we curb laddism? The Observer, 2 March2014.http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/02/how-can-we-curb-laddism
(***¹)Eva Wiseman. How can we curb laddism? The Observer, 2 March2014.http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/02/how-can-we-curb-laddism
(***²) Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, p. 217-218.
What gives you a reason to live? It sounds as an old song. But, seriously, what really gives you a reason to live?
Your job and your lifestyle? Think:
(…) no one in Britain is feeling particularly secure about their jobs right now. I was recently on holiday with a friend, a features editor at a glossy title, when she got a text from a friend within the company saying how sorry she was about the closure of that magazine. Between ordering breakfast and our eggs arriving, she’d become jobless.*
It is the reality nowadays. No job, no money, no sex? Well, you can be rich and you will never be sure about the feelings of any person. It is hard. But think again. Fake orgasms. What about sex and power? Well…
"Many people avoid using words during sex because words of desire make them feel too naked and exposed. I can feel that my lover's touch makes me hot, but if I say to him, 'your touch makes me hot,' now I am sure that he knows, and now I am more vulnerable. My words give him power over me, power that comes from knowing his seduction has been successful, from knowing that I want him."**
People worry with the thoughts of the others. People like power. Therefore, they use seduction and sex to get the attention of another person. Today there is a "lad culture":
“To dismantle "lad culture" and minimise the negative effect it has on students, the girls who are shh-ed in class, the links to boys' depression and suicide, the violence, the answer is to build and highlight alternative cultures. To encourage students to drink and kiss in places that don't advertise with posters of tits. Just because the problem is serious doesn't mean the solution must be dry.”***
However, the answer is not so simple. It is a complex social problem. There is all kind of violence against women. Some people use sexism as the answer, but it is wrong:
“‘Boys will be boys’, explained an American prosecutor to the mother of a five-year-old rape victim last week, and suddenly everything was OK. Wasn't it. Boys, silly boys, with their rape and their evil and the dominant harassment gene that they carry with them in their low-slung pockets and shaven DNA.”***¹
DNA and ideology. Youth with no jobs. Fashion. Girls want to show their bodies. They like to seduce. They like modern cars and expensive gifts. How can boys (without jobs) satisfy the wishes of the young ladies? When did all this started? After World War II, people wanted freedom and pleasure.
“(…) post-war fashions were to do best minimize the secondary sexual characteristics which distinguished women form men visibly, by cutting and eventually cropping traditionally long hair, and making their chests look as flat as was physically possible. Like the short skirts, the abandoned corsets, the new-found ease of movement, all these were signs of, and calls for, freedom.”***²
They wanted a new way of life. Beatnik movement. Rock and roll. Sexual revolution. Feminism. The world changed. There was a personal computer in 1976. Internet. Life was not the same anymore. However, it is still the law of the capital. It means the economic side is the most important. Technology was used to cut jobs. Homeless and poverty were not problems only in the third world countries. Yes, life changed but it did not mean good news for the majority.
(*)Anna Hart The new ambition: the generation redefining their careers. The Telegraph, 16-03-2014. (**)Barbara De Angelis, em 1995, no seu livro: "Real Moments for Lovers" (apud, James R. Petersen, Playboy, September 1996, p. 42.
(***)Eva Wiseman. How can we curb laddism? The Observer, 2 March2014.http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/02/how-can-we-curb-laddism
(***¹)Eva Wiseman. How can we curb laddism? The Observer, 2 March2014.http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/02/how-can-we-curb-laddism
(***²) Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, p. 217-218.