Livejournal Podcast - Haters Exit Stage Left
Boobs.
Now that I’ve gotten your attention, welcome back to the Shaun LJ Podcast in which I ramble about things from a cynical and jaded perspective that usually doesn’t suit my fancy but today we’ll be talking about things that people like to debate and yet scream angrily about, writing angry letters to congress about.
Rape Culture. Yes, those sensitive flowers can move along on this, this is going to be highly inflammatory and at best, a sociologists nightmare. I know it gives me goosebumps just writing these words.
Now to look back at the situation, one has to realize there was a steady progression in development of this so-called culture and yes it is a culture I admit, but it is one that is talked about in hushed circles and in angry vitriol on the internet. And we can’t have happy people on the internet talking about happy things, oh no.
We should really look at the progressive timeline that this began with. Back in the nineteen fifties rape was commonly characterized by the illicit one-night stands and liasions that people would have in the back of your fathers volkswagon. Things that “didn’t happen” like abortion and other such inflammatory things were kept under the hood. No one talked about it, no one shared gossip about it and certainly no one published articles and articles about how someone was abused in a situation worth of note.
However as time went on, dragging North American culture forward by leaps and bounds, so did the skeletons in the closet pile up. The swinging sixties where free love and peace and halucinagenic drugs were all the rage, and some people are nodding as they had done it before. You know who you are folks, don’t kid yourself. It was then that the whole idea of sex being public in the eye came about, and quite frankly, around this time the infamous magazine publication known as Playboy was made, and the star of the very first cover? Notorious, well, less notorious than she was an incredible starlet of the time, Marilyn Monroe. Back then, it was downright amazing to see that Hollywood’s culture was stepping into the mainstream, and people like Hugh Hefner become overnight sensations with the infamous publication of December 1953’s cover of Marilyn waving at you with a brilliant glamorous smile on her face.
Soon afterwards, and a clusterfuck we like to call Nam (more on that later) happened, we were propelled into the seventies and eighties. From there, the universe seemed to undergo a little hiccup in its display. Now with the swinging sixties buried under and disco making its wonderous magical tour that would abruptly end with a explosion of some sorts, we trudged into the eighties. Or as we like to call it “We don’t talk about the eighties in polite society”.
About this time, music began to change rapidly, as with media coming out of Hollywood. The idea of stronger more sexualized characters and people on a whole were emerging, and when it was scandalous to even see a hint of a bra strap, here comes Madonna prancing on stage with those infamous cones on her chest. Yes, the infamous cone-bra as it were. Oh my goodness look at that, she’s a shock artist in her early years before she mellowed out and adopted a fake accent.
Now it was about this time that culture itself underwent another upheaval, changing from We Do Not Talk About Fight Club to We Talk About Fight Club Everywhere. It was a time of revolution, and things such as Video Games were also being adjusted to further adopt the new stage of our lives. Television once showing wondrous fancies of flight with singing birds and puppets on strings were now being replaced by more action oriented stories, and girls in tights which were amazing to boot. Children began watching shows such as Transformers and GI Joe, strong manly themes that were also meant to sell toys (something I won’t get into here) and then there was the twist on the female end with Jem and the Holograms and My Little Pony. Quite the division here, isn’t there?
Around this time, Rap Music was making its way into the mainstream, and there was a certain person we refer to as Tipper Gore, who believed Unregulated Rap Music was the source of the upswing in violent acts and dangerous things coming out of media. Nothing really came from that, beyond the worst moments in our history when trying to connect media to video games and music, but also the things that were in the closet burst free around this time. Soon, movies showcasing levels that were once a simple Rated R, were now becoming far more advanced, pushing the limit with blood, gore, sex and violence. It was quite frankly trendy to be into sex around the late eighties and nineties.
About the middle of this time and a rebuttal from Dave Grossman who coined the phrase Killology, society yet again upheaved when it started showcasing triggery subjects. Not so much as mild murder mysteries such as Murder She Wrote but harder, more violent subjects. As much as I enjoy CSI the things they come up with are downright disturbing at times. And then there comes the sex. Oh the sex. Lots and lots of it began to flood the market as the phrase Sex Sells was coined. Everyone was getting into it, and the media rapidly shifted to show this off. People were getting divorced, sleeping around, finding illegitimate children of such and such a person. The MJ scandal and the upswing in sex in lyrics.
And yet, it changed again. In a society fully saturated by sexual orientation, the emphasis on culture as it pertains to people of all types, tastes and media, we are faced with what people empathically call the Rape Culture, in which sexualization of women and even men, is widely and broadly known. You can’t go two movies or two books or whatever, without finding some kind of thing that hints towards feelings of the sort. And yet this is where I think at least on my perspective from a purely sociological and cynical aspect, is where it is mishandled.
People have come to accept that in todays day and age, that you can access sex anywhere, on the internet, at the corner gas station in the racks and shelves, and even video rentals offer a closed off market to the people of age. Legislation prohibits the sale of such items to people under 18, but really some curious 12 year old can google it all up. What does that really say to you? It’s not that I’m condemning either side, or supporting it, but at the same time, people need to step back, take a deep breath and realize that in this day and age, we are yet again due for another massive cultural shift. We have had literally one every generation, and it is going to happen, no doubt. We are headed back into the closet, where sex is once again bad, and the women of our world (I love you all don’t get me wrong) are trying to empower themselves to prevent the culture that is riddled with lusty babes, horny school teachers and students, and the often mocked about tentacle beasts. And I’m just poking fun at one point of the universe in general it is NOT all like that.
The point I think I’m going to make here is that if you feel strongly about something, especially what they call Rape Culture, go right ahead. But remember that everyone you meet has a different opinion, be it good, bad or just advancing with an angry letter or knife. Really, you have to realize that cultural shifts happen all the time, and we are in the midst of one. People who get upset about different things be it violence, war, famine, hungry people, real tragedy and sex, manage to find people who agree, and some who don’t. And what is funny to one person isn’t to another.
In this day and age you have to make a medium of what goes on, and more importantly find out what you need to decide for yourself. No one can dictate your wants, needs or views on anything, and look at us: we are on Livejournal plugging away at tags with fictional characters from medias that are, not all but sometimes, saturated with sexual content be it outright, or set to the side in supplemental media. You cannot say that you can find a purely non-sexually explicit material, due to the rule 34 being invoked on damn everything.
In the end, it is your call. There is many things that need to be done about it and I personally am not a fan of people getting upset and making others feel like total crap when they are having fun. This is me, and this is your cynical sociologist speaking. Trust me, I have taken courses, I have done research, I know what I am talking about. This is your LJ Podcast and I’ll see you next time.
Now that I’ve gotten your attention, welcome back to the Shaun LJ Podcast in which I ramble about things from a cynical and jaded perspective that usually doesn’t suit my fancy but today we’ll be talking about things that people like to debate and yet scream angrily about, writing angry letters to congress about.
Rape Culture. Yes, those sensitive flowers can move along on this, this is going to be highly inflammatory and at best, a sociologists nightmare. I know it gives me goosebumps just writing these words.
Now to look back at the situation, one has to realize there was a steady progression in development of this so-called culture and yes it is a culture I admit, but it is one that is talked about in hushed circles and in angry vitriol on the internet. And we can’t have happy people on the internet talking about happy things, oh no.
We should really look at the progressive timeline that this began with. Back in the nineteen fifties rape was commonly characterized by the illicit one-night stands and liasions that people would have in the back of your fathers volkswagon. Things that “didn’t happen” like abortion and other such inflammatory things were kept under the hood. No one talked about it, no one shared gossip about it and certainly no one published articles and articles about how someone was abused in a situation worth of note.
However as time went on, dragging North American culture forward by leaps and bounds, so did the skeletons in the closet pile up. The swinging sixties where free love and peace and halucinagenic drugs were all the rage, and some people are nodding as they had done it before. You know who you are folks, don’t kid yourself. It was then that the whole idea of sex being public in the eye came about, and quite frankly, around this time the infamous magazine publication known as Playboy was made, and the star of the very first cover? Notorious, well, less notorious than she was an incredible starlet of the time, Marilyn Monroe. Back then, it was downright amazing to see that Hollywood’s culture was stepping into the mainstream, and people like Hugh Hefner become overnight sensations with the infamous publication of December 1953’s cover of Marilyn waving at you with a brilliant glamorous smile on her face.
Soon afterwards, and a clusterfuck we like to call Nam (more on that later) happened, we were propelled into the seventies and eighties. From there, the universe seemed to undergo a little hiccup in its display. Now with the swinging sixties buried under and disco making its wonderous magical tour that would abruptly end with a explosion of some sorts, we trudged into the eighties. Or as we like to call it “We don’t talk about the eighties in polite society”.
About this time, music began to change rapidly, as with media coming out of Hollywood. The idea of stronger more sexualized characters and people on a whole were emerging, and when it was scandalous to even see a hint of a bra strap, here comes Madonna prancing on stage with those infamous cones on her chest. Yes, the infamous cone-bra as it were. Oh my goodness look at that, she’s a shock artist in her early years before she mellowed out and adopted a fake accent.
Now it was about this time that culture itself underwent another upheaval, changing from We Do Not Talk About Fight Club to We Talk About Fight Club Everywhere. It was a time of revolution, and things such as Video Games were also being adjusted to further adopt the new stage of our lives. Television once showing wondrous fancies of flight with singing birds and puppets on strings were now being replaced by more action oriented stories, and girls in tights which were amazing to boot. Children began watching shows such as Transformers and GI Joe, strong manly themes that were also meant to sell toys (something I won’t get into here) and then there was the twist on the female end with Jem and the Holograms and My Little Pony. Quite the division here, isn’t there?
Around this time, Rap Music was making its way into the mainstream, and there was a certain person we refer to as Tipper Gore, who believed Unregulated Rap Music was the source of the upswing in violent acts and dangerous things coming out of media. Nothing really came from that, beyond the worst moments in our history when trying to connect media to video games and music, but also the things that were in the closet burst free around this time. Soon, movies showcasing levels that were once a simple Rated R, were now becoming far more advanced, pushing the limit with blood, gore, sex and violence. It was quite frankly trendy to be into sex around the late eighties and nineties.
About the middle of this time and a rebuttal from Dave Grossman who coined the phrase Killology, society yet again upheaved when it started showcasing triggery subjects. Not so much as mild murder mysteries such as Murder She Wrote but harder, more violent subjects. As much as I enjoy CSI the things they come up with are downright disturbing at times. And then there comes the sex. Oh the sex. Lots and lots of it began to flood the market as the phrase Sex Sells was coined. Everyone was getting into it, and the media rapidly shifted to show this off. People were getting divorced, sleeping around, finding illegitimate children of such and such a person. The MJ scandal and the upswing in sex in lyrics.
And yet, it changed again. In a society fully saturated by sexual orientation, the emphasis on culture as it pertains to people of all types, tastes and media, we are faced with what people empathically call the Rape Culture, in which sexualization of women and even men, is widely and broadly known. You can’t go two movies or two books or whatever, without finding some kind of thing that hints towards feelings of the sort. And yet this is where I think at least on my perspective from a purely sociological and cynical aspect, is where it is mishandled.
People have come to accept that in todays day and age, that you can access sex anywhere, on the internet, at the corner gas station in the racks and shelves, and even video rentals offer a closed off market to the people of age. Legislation prohibits the sale of such items to people under 18, but really some curious 12 year old can google it all up. What does that really say to you? It’s not that I’m condemning either side, or supporting it, but at the same time, people need to step back, take a deep breath and realize that in this day and age, we are yet again due for another massive cultural shift. We have had literally one every generation, and it is going to happen, no doubt. We are headed back into the closet, where sex is once again bad, and the women of our world (I love you all don’t get me wrong) are trying to empower themselves to prevent the culture that is riddled with lusty babes, horny school teachers and students, and the often mocked about tentacle beasts. And I’m just poking fun at one point of the universe in general it is NOT all like that.
The point I think I’m going to make here is that if you feel strongly about something, especially what they call Rape Culture, go right ahead. But remember that everyone you meet has a different opinion, be it good, bad or just advancing with an angry letter or knife. Really, you have to realize that cultural shifts happen all the time, and we are in the midst of one. People who get upset about different things be it violence, war, famine, hungry people, real tragedy and sex, manage to find people who agree, and some who don’t. And what is funny to one person isn’t to another.
In this day and age you have to make a medium of what goes on, and more importantly find out what you need to decide for yourself. No one can dictate your wants, needs or views on anything, and look at us: we are on Livejournal plugging away at tags with fictional characters from medias that are, not all but sometimes, saturated with sexual content be it outright, or set to the side in supplemental media. You cannot say that you can find a purely non-sexually explicit material, due to the rule 34 being invoked on damn everything.
In the end, it is your call. There is many things that need to be done about it and I personally am not a fan of people getting upset and making others feel like total crap when they are having fun. This is me, and this is your cynical sociologist speaking. Trust me, I have taken courses, I have done research, I know what I am talking about. This is your LJ Podcast and I’ll see you next time.