Sunday, June 21, 2009

Sex. No big deal

So I'm sitting here watching Sex and the City.  It's immoral and trashy and whatever.  I don't care, I love it.  It's fascinating!  Living in New York in an amazing apartment with not a care in the world besides wearing hot shoes and going on dates with great looking guys so you can write a weekly column for a mediocre newspaper and then somehow become famous through a book that's essentially an autobiography of your love life.  It's ridiculously unrealistic.

The only problem is it gives completely unrealistic expectations (about a career in journalism because face it, noone respects someone who writes about sex) about love.  You can't just have sex with someone and make them fall in love with you -- it just doesn't happen.  You can't have that Carrie Bradshaw cute, coy, R-rated Audrey Hepburn personality and attract men and sleep with them and then suddenly be in perfect love! Obviously people know this...I think.

I mean really.  Sex is EVERYWHERE.  A few years ago church moms raged about how inappropriate Abercrombie ads were, banning their children from shopping there because girls were shown half-clothed and the traditional 6-pack abs featured in the mens jeans ad led to lower and lower waistlines...I guess it was bad but it didn't seem like such a big deal.  Now?  I can't flip through a Marie Claire without running into half-naked women all over the pages.  Cosmo, that's typical, but my Marie?!?!!  Oi.  And for clothing ads.  How much sense does that make?  Let's advertise our clothing by showing naked people everywhere, because somehow people think they'll be in shape by buying our clothes.  Yeah I've tried that one and let me just say thighs don't get slimmer by buying expensive jeans.  People don't think you're sexier either.

Like back to the underwear thing.  You can wear Victoria's Secret "Very Sexy" Underwear, but when you're a sweaty hot mess at the Y sporting those undies they don't make you're smelly butt any sexier.  Or like sephora lip gloss.  You spot a cute guy from across the room and brush on a little bit of the "Chic Sexy Jungle" lipstick because you know, he'll probably notice when you get up to purposelessly walk past him hoping he'll notice you.  It happens to smear over your front teeth.  You shamelessly flash him a red-toothed smile....Definitely sexy.

Anyways.  Sex.

Its just such a contradiction in society.  Kids are scared of sex because of teenage pregnancies.  Or at least parents try to scare them out of it using the threats of disease and babies.  Naturally you always want to do the things your parents say are bad.  Encouraging this are cheers from all sides -- clothing companies, magazines, tv shows, movies -- to be sexy and have sex and be great at sex.  The thing is, a lot of these media brainwashers are aimed at an older demographic that could be married and therefore have the right to do it whenever they please, or are adults and "responsible" and what have you.  But kids don't understand that.  They think somehow they're being left out or there's something wrong with them because they're not having sex.  And if they do then certainly they'll meet that someone and fall in love, and have a great job and a great apartment and life will just fall into place.  

And then they have sex and get herpes.  or babies.  or maybe just have their heart broken.  That's something they never advertise in Planned Parenthood brochures or explain to middle school health classes.

Life's just not fair in so many ways.  Sex is supposed to be such a beautiful wonderful thing, but its morphed into a "product."  It's something we fear.  It's an act people take on a daily basis and twist into a perverted crime.  It's just an everyday activity you can participate in if you're bored or if you just have an urge.  It's okay to take from people and give away yourself just because you "feel like it."

  If you're supposed to wait until you're married to have sex then why does the world make it so hard to wait?  Isn't it supposed to be one of those "about the journey not the destination" things where you're so in love that it's just the icing on the cake?  I know the answers to these questions, they're just food for thought.  


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