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Sexual Violence
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 <Background:
John Stoltenberg (1997b) develops an important critique of male
heterosexuality by focusing on the need for males to take an active role
in creating non-violent relationships. He discusses the need of consent,
mutuality and respect in sexual and personal relationships. He suggests
that men can work to not have their sexuality manipulated by the
pornography industry, drugs or alcohol and that men “start choosing now
not to fixate on fucking” (1997b:227). This last quote situates the
discussion of ads that emphasize sexual violence against women in the
terrain of the personal. An ultimate goal of a free gender society is to
alter the media landscape and eliminate such ads from it, but a more
immediate goal allows men to specifically alter their psychological and
physical approaches to women, or men, in heterosexual and homosexual
relationships. One of the ultimate questions that must be asked when
studying gender and popular imagery is that of causality—what is the
impact of images on people’s lives and their relationships? Of course, it
is too simplistic to assume a “Judas Priest Factor”—that exposure to a
particular form of popular culture will result in a specific behavioral
reaction in individuals—but there is remarkable evidence that the ads
present in our society do impact our psychological understandings of
gender and sexuality. As Lindsey suggests in highlighting previous
research on this subject (Rudman and Verdi 1993; Lanis and Covell 1995),
“males exposed to ads where females are portrayed as sex objects are more
accepting of rape-supportive attitudes and predictive of subjective levels
of exploitation” (1997:315). Clearly, the construction of masculinity
involves a dual defamation of women as sex objects and a maintenance of
male sexual superiority (cf. Hood 1995).
The
Ads:
Consider the disturbing S&M image in 10. This is not an image from a
smut magazine, it's a mainstream fashion image! Have a look at images 16,
17, 18, 19, 20. What are the implications for a democratic society when we
are telling our citizens that its alright to sexually touch and assault
women (does the current Arnold Schwarzenegger controversy seem relevant
here?) Images 33, 36 and 37 are very troubling: what type of society can
we aspire to create when we are not valuing the right of a woman, or
anyone, to SAY NO!? Then there is the issue of ad 64, which for me is one
of the most disgusting images of popular culture I have seen. In some
cases, advertisers use allusions to "not being able to say NO" in ads
(such as in #s76 and 77).
Questions: (1) Consider the following hypothetical situation:
you are debating an individual who says that images such as the ones on
this page should not be censored because they are representative of free
speech. How do you respond? (2) Consider the following hypothetical
situation: you are debating an individual who says that images such as the
ones on this page are simply reflections of the fact that
sensational and shocking images sell products better than less shocking
images. How do you respond? (3) How are the images of sexual violence in
advertising similar to images of sexual violence in pornographic movies
and magazines? How are they different? (4) Do an Internet search for
Andrea Dworkin's work Pornography: Men Possessing Women. How does
Dworkin's work inform the analysis of images on this page? >
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<presented by Scott A.
Lukas, Ph.D.>
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