Blurred Lines Analysis

This can be seen when Daphnis and Chloe originally begin attempts to have sex, they are too innocent to understand how to do it. This provides opportunity for an older, more experienced woman to teach Daphnis. An interesting scene in itself, this furthers Daphnis’ sexual maturity while again promoting male-female relationships. In other texts women’s sexuality is supposed to be suppressed and almost feared by men. Women who express their sexuality are often seen as sinful or given into evil.

The raped woman’s gender performance was wrong, it sent the wrong signals. Mackinnon also uses the language of reference objects, writing that porn purports to tell “the truth about sex” (3, 1985). That “truth” is the sexiness of violence and hierarchy. Pornography is a visual reference that tells the viewer what woman is, as if a pictorial dictionary. The image of the woman presented in porn represents “true” woman and is internalized as woman by the man (4, 1985).

She states that sexism comes from how women have been perceived sexually throughout history and that this heavily influences pornography. McClintock sets up this argument by saying “Women’s desire, by contrast, has been crimped and confined to history’s sad museum of corsets, chastity belts, the virginity cult and genital mutilation” (113). She is saying that women were never given the chance to define their sexual wants and sexual desires because they have always been decided for them. Her main argument is based on her belief that men and women have formed the way that women’s sexuality is portrayed, even before the porn industry existed. McClintock disputes that society wrongly accused women of not wanting to participate as sexual beings and therefore that assumption is why pornography is focused on satisfying the needs of men over the needs of

He uses the Bacchae, Dionysus, and Pentheus as examples of the danger in accessing one’s own femininity. The Bacchae’s own control of their sexuality, as Pentheus describes “They creep off one by one to lonely spots to have sex with men”, and their feminine features, as their breasts swell and their hair cascades, creates an example of women gone wild with power over themselves

Many feminist critics would agree that Ophelia’s madness is directly related to her femininity and sexuality, suggesting that the female figure is inherently deranged. Showalter examines these ideas, posing the question, “[…] does she represent the textual archetype of woman as madness or madness as woman?” (Showalter 283). Showalter acknowledges a few different renditions on this topic, most of which center around the belief that Ophelia and Hamlet were sexually involved with each other and Ophelia’s psychosis was ultimately the “predictable outcome of erotomania” (Showalter 287). She later states that “Late Augustan stereotypes of female love-melancholy were sentimentalized versions which minimized the force of female sexuality, and made female insanity a pretty stimulant to male sensibility,” (Showalter 288). This idea further emphasizes the belief that Ophelia’s madness was purely the result of “female love-melancholy” originating from her sexual indiscretions with

A little further down he continues with, "this girl who reeked of sex" (Echols, 126). The reason why I chose these two lines is because I wanted to show how men, even at a young age, stereotype women for the types of clothes they are wearing. Even though we later find out that Deanna is a very promiscuous young

Both virgin and slut shaming happen frequently throughout the movie, conveying the message that women should be sexually accessible to men, but not be too available. The message of virgin shaming is strongly carried through this song with lyrics such as “Elvis, Elvis, let me be, keep that pelvis far from me” and the opening line “look at me I’m Sandra Dee, lousy with virginity”. The whole song consists of lyrics to mock Sandy’s views on drinking, smoking and being sexually active, but the worst thing is that it is coming from girls who are supposedly her

The Scarlett Letter is based on false pretense and a woman giving her sex to someone that she is not married to. A practice common amongst men however when woman have sex for pleasure and pleasure only they are labeled as whores amongst other names to elaborate Hawthorne goes on to say, “Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument.”(Hawthorne 118). This is a form of demeaning women and setting them beneath men by simply saying that they cannot do what men commonly do thus further enforcing

As described in Mulvey's work, women are always sexually objectified and can be subjected to what she refers to as the ‘male gaze’. (Mulvey 1998) The representation of the image of the two women, Thelma in particular, was framed as being the sex objects of man with the highlights of the traditional belief of beauty they need to have in the visual stimuli of male gaze. However, as the film progresses, the two characters sharply changed their images. With jeans, cowboy hat, and modified T-shirt, biker tank top, the women are more conscious of being objectified and actively prevent being viewed as erotic objects by concealing their sensuality. Their ‘cowboy’ look not only presents them with stronger and more active image, but also

The transgressive depictions of the two female protagonists as willing prostitutes is especially noteworthy, seeing as they challenge socially-established moral codes that place great value on female chastity. Moreover, the two female protagonists’ control over their sexuality seems to grant them a unique form of ‘power’ in relationships with men who are sexually attracted to them. It is hence obvious that there is a direct relationship between female sexuality and power that is portrayed in the two