Posts Written by sophia
By sophia • 11 years ago

Once more: where are the men?

A SYTYCB entry

In November, when news broke of Jerry Sandusky’s acts of sexual assault at Penn State, there was an outpouring from men across the country. Some scrambled to defend a program whose leaders had quietly turned away from the violence for years, others chewed over what their own hypothetical reactions might be to similarly bearing witness; many expressed genuine anguish.

These kinds of stories, however, are all too familiar to women who face the threat of violence regularly and often devote a dismaying amount of energy steeling themselves against it. Perhaps as a result, some of the loudest reactions came from men for whom the daily threat of violence—particularly sexual violence—is not a reality. There are many complicated explanations for the unprecedented deluge of men’s responses to the Penn State abuse, but one of them is that when it comes to sexual assault, men have the privilege of distance.

There are, of course, many male-identified people for whom sexual assault is not simply a distant possibility, but for most white, cis, heterosexual men (from whom many of the Penn State reactions appeared to come), the reality of sexual violence is unwelcome news. It threatens previously intact establishments that are deeply beloved by them, like Penn State’s football program. It forces them to consider an experience from which most of them previously enjoyed a comfortable removedness.
By sophia • 12 years ago

Tell Wódka We Won’t Tolerate its Misguided Billboard

Last weekend, I was traveling back into New York by way of the West Side Highway when I passed this billboard:

This ad is particularly insidious because parsing out its (many) missteps first requires that we tackle its problematic foundation: that sex work is not a legitimate occupation and that its illegitimacy permits us to freely belittle and degrade those who in engage in this work – while using wildly offensive, incorrect language to describe them. As if the premise of the billboard wasn’t troubling enough, the Miami Marketing Group (MMG) – the company responsible – further dehumanizes its subjects by suggesting that there is a material difference in value between an “escort” and a “hooker” and that this difference is ...

Last weekend, I was traveling back into New York by way of the West Side Highway when I passed this billboard:

This ad is particularly insidious because parsing out its (many) missteps first requires that we tackle its ...
By sophia • 12 years ago

The Ides of March: Another tired, inaccurate story about young women who have sex

*Spoiler alert*

I went on Friday night to see The Ides of March to get my requisite dose of dreamy Ryan Gosling and also in the hopes of seeing a smart political thriller. Instead, the film provided further confirmation that mainstream representations of female sexuality are still woefully out of touch with real women’s experiences with sex and the various decisions that having sex often entails. In the film, Ryan Gosling plays Stephen, a savvy, cutthroat political aide to George Clooney’s character, a Pennsylvania governor named Mike Morris who hopes to win the democratic seat for the presidential candidacy. Evan Rachel Wood is Molly Stearns, a pretty, punchy intern on the campaign who soon starts sleeping with Stephen. In the second ...

*Spoiler alert*

I went on Friday night to see The Ides of March to get my requisite dose of dreamy Ryan Gosling and also in the hopes of seeing a smart political thriller. Instead, the film provided further ...