"Porn-Chic"

This week, we discussed the blatant sexual imagery that society has become immune to. Fifty years ago, it was unheard of to even show a married couple sleeping in the same bed, now the images that are seen on television everyday makes my grandmother gasp. The following artifacts show our desensitization to pornography in mainstream media. 

Artifact 1: this image was taken from the Carl's Jr commercial with Paris Hilton. Granted, the commercial was pulled due to the idea that it was too scandalous for television, but the images and commercial are still accessible through the internet. 

http://regmedia.co.uk/2005/05/24/paris_hilton.jpg

Artifact 2: PETA is a well-known organization throughout the world. Many of their ads include a naked or barely clothed celebrity. According to Meredith Levande, to claim you are making a statement by taking off your clothes is really nothing more but falling in with the rest of society  ("Women, Pop Music, and Pornography" p. 305). Which is what PETA does majority of the time with their advertising. 

http://riannanworld.typepad.com/my_weblog/images/peta.jpg

Artifact 3: Kendra Wilkinson, as known as one of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends, has always been a big sports fan. For one of the pictorial shoots featuring the Girls Next Door, Kendra dressed as a football player for the San Diego Chargers. While this particular picture is not the same one that was featured in the magazine, it is very similar. Regardless, Playboy released the photos, not Kendra, proving that Levande's statement that sexual portrayals of women's bodies are allowed, as long as it is by big corporations ("Women, Pop Music, and Pornography" p. 313). 

http://www.testriffic.com/resultfiles/11987kendra.jpg

Artifact 4: In "Fashion and Passion" the author, Feona Atwood, refers to "blurring the boundaries between pornographic and mainstream" (Atwood, p. 397). Here is a perfect example of this. The image shown here is of a woman at a high fashion show in Australia last summer, however the "clothing" she is wearing is really body paint. The first time I ever seen body paint was only a couple years ago on an episode of The Girls Next Door, at one of Hefner's birthday bashes. Seeing a naked woman with painted clothing is something that I would expect from the founder of Playboy, but definitely not in a high fashion show. 






http://sableverity.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/qi-pao-body-paint-australian-fashion-week.jpg

Artifact 5: "the female body is often depicted as a source of sexual discomfort rather than pleasure... the body becomes merely 'a display item--to be shown in the best poses, lighting, and in the most flattering lingerie'" (Atwood, p. 398). Victoria Secret definitely achieves this objective. If you look at the models face, her eyes do not convey a message of pleasure on her part, but more of a questioning look to the photographer if her positioning is giving him the shots he wants. Also, if you look at the positioning of her body, it is a submissive one--with her hands above her head and her legs clenched together off to one side and her back arched. The entire picture screams uncomfortable while many consumers take it for face value: sexy lingerie. 

http://blogs.jsonline.com/bogs/shoptalk/victoria_secret_small.jpg