After I posted the post
“And Before I Knew It My Boobs Were On The News” I got quite a few emails asking what my
opinion was on women using their sexuality to their advantage.
Now just because I write a blog, that does not in any way, shape,
or form make me some kind of expert on women’s issues and sexuality, but since
so many of you had questions, I figured I could give you my opinion and then
open the comments section for everyone to voice theirs.
Let’s be honest here, sex is one of the major driving forces
in our world. Hunger, thirst, sex, they are all things that people crave and they are
things that heavily influence our decisions. Sex is so important to us that we
have sex doctors, sex medications, sex toys, sex clubs, sex movies, sex
everything, and yet sexuality is still so taboo. There is an obvious reason why
companies choose sexually appealing people to model their cars, their clothes, their
brands. There is a reason why good looking celebrities are splashed all over
the front of magazines. Sex appeal very much has a place in this world and is a
highly influential force in our lives. Many feminists are against women using
their bodies for gain because it objectifies them and while I get that, I have
a different take on the matter.
I’ll say straight out that I am loudly against anything that
signifies rape culture or is outright demeaning to women, but I am fine with
women using their sexuality, under their own directives, to advance in this
world. I feel like a human being is an entire package. You have your brains, your
body, your sense of humor, your morals, different skill sets, etc, and together
they make up the person that you are. I don’t see anything wrong with using any
of these attributes as needed per the given situation. It would be absurd of me not to use my intellect to my advantage. I obviously use my sense of
humor because hello, you are all here. I use my morals and values
while raising my kids. I’d also be lying if I said I haven’t flirted my way in
and out of more than a few situations. I don’t see anything wrong with using my sexuality to
assist in gaining an outcome that I desire. I don’t think that’s stupid, I
think that’s smart.
Now obviously I’m not over here proclaiming “sleep your way
to the top,” I’m just saying that I don’t see anything wrong with using what
you have as long as it is done in a responsible and non manipulative manner. By no means am I saying "not qualified for the job? Bump out the other applicants by sleeping with the department head!" There is a difference between expressing your sexuality and being manipulative in your ways. I'm just saying, in day to day living, I don't see anything wrong with getting your flirt on.
I sort of think of my body like a car. It’s a great little
vehicle that carries around my most precious parts; my brain, my heart, and my
soul. I use it to get from place to
place and if I think it might get me somewhere faster than simply walking, I’ll let it
shine a little. It would be dumb of me to let a perfectly good car sit in the
garage when it could assist in getting me to where I need to go. I don’t mind
letting a friend have a little ride, but I sure as hell am not letting every
stranger on the street corner get in. You may look at my car nicely, but don’t
honk at it and sure as hell don’t touch it unless I have given you permission.
It’s my car, I take care of it, I maintain it, and I will do as I please with
it. You wouldn’t go to a car show and start putting your hands all over the
cars while exclaiming “hey, you were the one showing it off” so why do we
assume that we can do that to our women? I may display my car for visual
purposes when I feel like it, but don’t touch my damn car unless you have
permission. I’m the one driving it and I am the one who gets to decide what to
do with it.
Quite honestly, I love that I have an attribute that is
helpful to me. I love that I am smart, funny, and sexy, just as every woman is.
I find it empowering to be in control of my sexuality. I personally feel like it’s
a great benefit of a package deal. Why ignore my sexuality when I have the
chance to embrace it for the power that it has? If I can be judged on it to the
point where it could destroy me, then it obviously has some power that I can
harness for my benefit.
In order to gain equal rights, I don’t feel as though I need
to deny my gender, deny my sexuality. I don’t see why I can’t embrace it for
what it is and accept the power that it has. Being a woman is a powerful thing.
I may not ever be as physically strong as a man, but I have my own skill sets
in their own gender based right.
Equal can be fair, without being the same.
Equal can be fair, without being the same.
I really think that the first step in protecting ourselves
as woman is not to ignore that our sexuality plays a role in our lives, but to understand the role that it plays and embrace it for what it is. Acceptance brings empowerment and along
with empowerment comes assertiveness. I am a woman, in charge of her own body
and I am free to do with it as I see fit. It is my choice and only my choice in
how I choose to use my body and my sexuality.
I embrace my sexuality for what it is, a gift that I have
been given, one of the many attributes in my life that not only gives me
pleasure, but that I can also use as a well tailored skill set.
So back to the original question “how do you feel about
women using their sexuality to advance in the world?” I personally am totally
ok with it.
What is your opinion? Do you think that it is degrading for
women to use their sexuality for anything other than intimate pleasure?
**Please keep your comments respectful towards the opinions
of others. It is ok to politely disagree with a commentor’s opinion but
personal attacks will be deleted**
Photo Credits
I am also totally ok with using sexuality as a source of power. "If you've got it, flaunt it." (IMO, it's just too bad for those who don't have it.) If everybody handicapped themselves just to be fair to others who don't have the same attributes, this would be a ridiculous world. It's odd though, my sexuality is one of the few things I have always been comfortable with about myself. All the other things, you can shoot me down. For some reason I have always been confident in my ability to pleasure other people and comfortable being sexual. It's a good thing. Great thoughts as always Eden!
ReplyDeleteInteresting point about the handicapping ourselves to be like everyone else. I had never thought of it that way before, but it is true. Very often women are told to dress down so they don't stand out, but then it that same respect we should be telling smart people to dumb it down. That would be ridiculous if everyone set the bar to the lowest common standard.
DeleteThanks for the insights!
Wow, Eden! You're brave to post this after the trollwars of the last two days. LOL
ReplyDeleteThat being said...I totally agree with what you said. If you have a skill or advantage, you should use it (RESPONSIBLY). I love that your default stance is that all women are inherently sexy, because they're women. I have a really hard time wrapping my mind around that. I've always felt somewhat...Uncomfortable in my own skin when it comes to my sexuality (sexual-ness?). I wish I lived closer so I could come take strip classes in your living room! Anyway....Great topic as always. Thanks!
I know!!! As I was hitting "publish" I was taking a HUGE deep breath and thinking "Ok, time to get flamed!"
DeleteAll women ARE beautiful! We don't need to all be skinny, blonde, tanned, or whatever the current trend is to be beautiful. We all have our sexy assets in our own rights, we just gotta learn to own them!
I guess is also okay then to use your skin color and your gender to gain an advantage in life since is also part of the package.
ReplyDeleteWhen I have to fill one of those race forms for job applications I could simply put Hispanic be part of a minority and get an extra advantage instead I simply check white, cause I have too much self-esteem to allow others to give me an advantage for my physical attributes instead of my skills and knowledge.
If I was a model or an escort it would be ok, but since I'm a programmer my mind is all that matters or at least should.
I think that has to be a personal choice based on what you are comfortable with. People use their ethnicities all the time based on various benefits. Scholarships, jobs, government incentives. We each have physical different attributes available to us and by no means is it a lack of self esteem to use them.
DeleteEveryone definitely has to do what they are most comfortable with :)
DeleteI'm in agreement with others. It definitely has to be a personal choice. And like you said, it's not like you're advocating having sex with the boss to land a job you're not qualified to have. You're just working what you've got. I see nothing wrong with that. People work other talents or assets they've got all the time. Why not flaunt your hotness?
ReplyDeleteI've struggled my entire life with trying to accept the way I look. I've got a few scars, two big ones on my abdomen, from surgeries and they've always bugged me. Spending the first 20 or so years of my life being told by my parents that I should more or less hide them away, be ashamed of them, get plastic surgery to lessen their appearance, etc. really didn't help. They both on separate occasions told me I should do everything in my power to get as much plastic surgery as I could to lessen them because no man would ever fall in love with someone with such large scars.
I'm starting to be somewhat okay with them now, but it's a constant struggle. So thank you for this post. And thank you for always reminding us that we're all beautiful. I don't think women get told that nearly enough. :)
Good for you for letting YOU decide what you are ok with and not letting other people pressure you. Who knows, maybe in ten years you will suddenly want plastic surgery. Maybe in ten years you will be so thankful that you didn't and came to love what you had. It has to be what YOU are comfortable with and it really doesn't matter how long it takes you to get to the deciding point.
DeleteYou are no less beautiful or sexy based on a scar or not. Scars are a sexy outward sign of amazing inner strenght. You only get a scar when you have survived and healed from the battle. That is strong!!
Now go own your sexy self :)
I know exactly how you feel, but you should know that it isn't true (what your parents told you.) If somebody really loves you (as opposed to just wanting to "hook up") it will just be part of you to accept, and part of what makes you, you. (I know that sounds corny hokey but it's really true. I'm sorry your parents are so superficial, but they're mistaken, really.) I've had a big surgery scar on my back (wide pink bubbly bisect from side to side, big stitch marks and pull marks like Frankenstein, keloid, extra blob of skin on one side like a boob on my back, you name it) since I was 12. Had a hard time finding a b-suit (and had to be 1 piece), that wasn't too plunge in back (unless I wanted a skirt suit for a Sr citizen...) It did affect my self image too, especially as it was such a messy badly done one but plastic surgery was considered non essential so not covered by insurance. Basically they'll pay for a clumsy essential surgery but not the follow-up to fix it (unless issues are "medical.") So I know how you feel. (And being assured about it at the time that it wasn't looks but what was inside that was important, just made me think I probably wasn't attractive. Really, who says that, or needs to, to somebody who is attractive, right?) But then, later I met a guy missing a hand, a girl who had open heart surgery and a vertical scar from neck to waist, another (otherwise breathtakingly beautiful) girl who'd been pinned under the hot motor in a bad auto accident and had an entire chest and bust of shiny pink tissue paper like pulled puckered scars and melted skin like wax instead of regular cleavage (and wore sundresses!), plus a freshman guy went home for the summer and came back a wheelchair paraplegic with rods in his spine (went off a 100 ft cliff.) And I figured at least I can just wear stuff over my back (or grow my hair really long), they can't do anything about their issues and just have to deal. And I realized we ALL have something. We wear glasses, we have toes that wrap over each other, we have scars, birthmarks, extra nipples (Lily Allen), hearing loss (and hearing aids at 22 are less socially acceptable than at 82, for some reason,) we all have imperfections all over the place. The only "perfect" bodies are in magazines and they have photoshop and airbrush to help. If you ever saw the article where Jamie Lee Curtis (actress with formerly hot bod) showed her real (aging) body in underwear and then what it looks like when the art directors get through with it, you'd realize we're all flawed, from birth, accident, incident, age, whatever. Doesn't really help your own insecurities, I know (believe me,) but it does give you hope to see others with worse issues rise above them and even be popular, well-liked, sexy, impressive, etc., anyway. Lots of books on this actually; may be YA fiction but well written, Izzy Willy-Nilly (pretty and popular high school girl loses leg,) by Cynthia Voight, and the most impressive, a nonfiction memoir, Autobiography Of A Face, by Lucy Grealy (cancer of the jaw and deformed face.) I realize you still focus on those scars and dwell (I do it too myself!) but really, any guy who's worth it is not going to sneer or stare or reject you because of your stomach (tell him before you show him and see how he acts first.) And actually once you get a bit older, you have company there, because a lot of C-sections look pretty big and grim sometimes (depends on why, emergency ones especially.) My BFF had staples from hipbone to hipbone and has to find b-suits that go up above that. (And if you have another baby you have to do it again.) I realize this started out about "hotness", but just to tell you some of those non perfect people I met were pretty damn hot, despite their issues, and in fact sometimes because of them (because grace and class and bravery is impressive and even sexy.)
DeleteWowzers, you know a lot of people who have lived through some pretty traumatic stuff!
DeleteIt's amazing how it's not until we stop looking down at our own scars and start looking up at the people around us do we realize how many of us are going through things just like us :)
I think it was because I went to a small Christian college where they gave extra help and/or scholarships to people who had personal struggles such as those whom I knew there. I was lucky enough to meet a lot of brave and talented people there, many who were rising above a variety of setbacks or handicaps. The place even (and I did NOT agree with that one) gave a full ride scholarship to a young "misunderstood" felon who had attacked a cop (they bought his story about how all the doors were closed to him and despite his efforts and intellect he hadn't had the opportunity to lift himself up, etc., etc.) So they gave him the whole place on a plate, everything free, and he lasted like 6 weeks or less and blew it off, and all he got from it was to thoroughly case the entire college and it is now less safe than it had been before they were so foolish (he had friends, of course, and that little idyllic enclave was not on their scummy gang radar until the administration naively opened their hearts/wallets to him, alas.) That was sad, but one mistake is small compared to how many they helped who really deserved it. And after seeing how many other people also struggle with physical problems and self image issues, I feel like my concerns are just not that big. And that I am not in it alone but that my feelings and worries are shared and experienced by the vast majority around me. (We are all imperfect, we are all human, we are all shining lights in the darkness. We are not bodies who have souls but souls who are in bodies.) :)
DeleteAh, that makes sense.
DeleteIt really sucks when you see people reaching out and trying to help someone and the only thing that happens is that they get taken advantage of :(
Your positive outlook is refreshing :) Keep rocking it girly!!
*hugs*
I agree with you on most of this, especially because women have way less power not only physically, but on a systematic level. Why can't we use what assets we do have to help make up the deficits left in a world that isn't always kind to its women?
ReplyDeleteThese things do concern me, though, in terms of people taking advantage of women and threatening their safety. What all this comes down to is respecting what a person chooses to do with their body. It's like the saying that I could be walking in the street naked and I'm not asking for sex- in any situation, in any context, what's most important is respecting each other's space. There are people who see a woman using her sexuality and try to take it for themselves, and there are others who see that sexuality and try to tear the woman down for it. Neither is an acceptable response. If I see you gettin' your flirt on, you go, girl- it's not my business to tell you what you should be doing, just as I wouldn't want you to tell me what to be doing!
Yea, that is what I have a problem with too. "Well she was showing it off." Well who the hell cares what she was showing off. You wouldn't car jack someone driving a nice car because they were flashing it and you wanted it, would you?
DeleteThat is riduculous and I, just me personally, feel that if more women felt empowered to own what they have that it might put a few more men in their places. But that's just my unprofessional opinion. :)
*hugs*
Actually, some people DO carjack people driving a nice car just because they want it. But generally in society most average people don't. (I know what you're saying.)
DeleteBut yet a lot of guys think if the girl is "putting it out on a plate" in her attire or demeanor then she's "asking for it." I hate that, and the guys who yell stuff at girls when they aren't even flaunting it but just walking by.
There's an old movie I don't remember very well but just the part where the two women get hooted at and propositioned by construction workers and they start yelling back at them and running after them (the guys are taken aback and even horrified) and I always thought that was so funny. (Yeah, bring it on big boy!)
I always wanted to do that myself, when the guy says "show us your boobs" (or whatever,) just say, hey baby, unzip it and wave it for me and I'll see if it measures up!
Or wait, this would be even funnier, if there's several of them being obnoxious, pull out a measuring tape and whip out the first foot of it and tell them all to "pull 'em out, lay 'em down on the bar and I'll check 'em out and pick one! IF any of 'em measure up!" (I bet they'd all turn ASHEN!) :P
Eden, I totally agree. It's too bad society doesn't teach women that you don't have to be completely modest to be taken seriously, and that you don't have to back down to anybody :) We're tough as nails!
DeleteAnon, I like the way you think. We should go to a bar sometime! haha :)
Ha, yes, very true, people do carjack like that! I guess I should have said that WHEN someone gets carjacked, no one blames the driver for flashing his car, they all blame the carjacker. But when a woman gets cat called, its usually deemed her fault for looking that way.
DeleteI totally DID yell back at a guy once. He whistled at me and I turned around and told him that there had better be a dog behind me because "I know you aren't calling me like an animal.'
His GIRLFRIEND got right up in my face and was like "ain't nobody disrespect my man like that!"
No. Words. At. All.
NONE.
Yes, let's all meet at the bar! Lol
Wait, you mean she was okay with her guy whistling at some other woman? (No problem with that part of things, only with your response?) Man, where I come from he'd have been smacked for that! Not defended! (Wow, what did you say back to THAT? Something like, "EXCUSE ME?" disbelieving blink blink?)
DeleteYes!!! She was defending him!!
DeleteI didn't say a word to her.
I am a girl of usually far to many words and yet I was so shocked I didn't even know what to do. The way she jumped up and got right in my face gave me a pretty good idea that she is in fact, crazy. You really can't win with crazy. I just sort of backed away silently lol.
These people were ugly, right?
DeleteUsing one's sexuality is never degrading. But it's such a powerful tool in our hormonal infested world that one has to think at least 10 steps ahead and imagine all the consequences it would have on all the people who will be affected before moving further. If say I wanted to be a porn star (and there's nothing wrong with that! It's a profession, like being an engineer) I would seriously consider using my sexuality to get me to the top. Because that would be a key skill required anyway and while I may, say, sleep with my boss or something similar to prove it, it's actually fair game in this field.
ReplyDeleteBut say I wanted to be a senior image processing engineer (which I personally really really do) and I want to skip my tough competition by using my sexuality I myself would consider it highly unethical. The promotion/post in question demands experience and knowledge on the subject. I could look like the Hulk with diarrhea but if I could merge 100 images and bring out new compression algorithms by Tuesday then I really am man for the job. If I wasn't, and I still try to use my sexuality to get there and I DO get there, I risk a lot - The company's goals, the future of my co-workers, the projects assigned, and ultimately my own career goes for a terrible spin.
That said, I also personally won't stop someone trying to use their sexuality to promote themselves wherever they want to. It would be an interesting challenge if I could still outgun while sticking to my own morals and integrity.
Anyway, good article. First of its kind I've read too.
P.S. Who says men can't use their sexuality to advance too? It's all about knowing what to be and what to say and when to be and when to say and how to be and how to say it. Careful planning and you could be the most popular guy among the crowd ;D
All very valid points!! Thanks for chiming in Srihari!! Definitely gives the readers and I some good perspective.
DeleteYes about the men as well. I think it's definitely done but it isn't looked at as degrading like when the women do it.
Thanks for reading!
*hugs*
I love how you compare our bodies to a car in a car show (especially because I have put my car in a show, hehe)!! It really is perfect - here I am, but that doesn't mean you can touch me just because I'm existing & being all pretty in front of you :)
ReplyDeleteThis post & other comments bringing up men using their bodies as well reminds me of a story my HR person told me a few months ago: We had a current employee who's paperwork was about to expire so she told him she needed to have the new paperwork or we couldn't keep him employed. He was standing, then put both his arms on her desk to lean in a little bit & said "can't you help me out" while trying to look at her with his "sexy face." While telling me this story she said "I can't believe that even happened" & all I could do was laugh my ass off.
Anyways, great post!
Thats a funny story!!! The mental picture is quite awesome lol
DeleteGlad you liked the car show analogy :)
*hugs!*