RSSThis Month In Vogue : Sex In Magazines
June 7, 2008
It’s hard to find a women’s magazine without discussions of sex these days, unless you are looking for a magazine with recipes or home dec. If the topic is fashion, beauty, fitness, or if you fit into the 18-30 demographic, you’re in for it, like it or not.
On the cover of Vogue (Vogue!) this month is SJP, with the feature title “Let’s Talk About Sex”. Yes, I realize it’s referring to “Sex in The City”, the movie out now.
Move down the magazine aisle a little way and you’ll find June’s InStyle with Cameron Diaz on the cover. She’s talking to us tanning and sex. of course.
Steeped in media sex
I don’t buy those magazines because I don’t want them around the house for my children to see, much less peruse. The topic is too pervasive in our culture altogether. We all know it’s there, but can we have a little break from hearing about it? I expect it in Cosmo which is just a step above soft porn, and Glamour is about the same. But Vogue?? The magazine is supposed to be about style and sophistication.
We don’t need to be fed laughable advice and standards against which we should measure ourselves. Am I showing my age? No, I’m not. I do not accept that. Sex has a place but so do many, many other things and they’re all being pushed aside too. In a world where women spend too much time feeling that they don’t meet expectations on every level, this one is altogether unnecessary to bring into the mix.
The real thorn in my side about sex in media is that the other side, the real-life side, is seldom presented. It’s still a delicate topic in our society. It handles men and women’s vulnerabilities on a physical level and an emotional one as well. Media portrayals of sex, like media breasts, are always perfect, or just 1 or 2 small steps away from what some magazine or movie star pronounces perfect to be.
Photo linked to source
The truth about real-life sex
Real world sex dumps a ton of insinuation and expectation into a relationship, and more so in a marriage, and more so still with children. Nobody addresses the topic in an truthful, unguarded, realistic way for fear of hurting feelings or exposing truths that no one is quite ready to have brought to light.
I’m not interested in bringing them to light either. I don’t think it’s important enough. Relationships don’t break down because of problems in the bedroom unless you live on a reality TV show set. Whether the people are gay or straight, same race or not, the issue is a breakdown in communication or a change in values, not sexual incompatibility. Am I wrong?
The question of how many women out there sleep in the same bed as their husband is another example of a sensitive topic. Nobody wants to be first to say they don’t. There’s some sort of medieval carryover dictating that it might dishonor the sacredness of the marriage bed.
And yet, when you begin talking to women, you find that a good proportion of them move into the spare bedroom or crawl in with one of the kids, or the husband spends much of the night on the couch, whatever they need to get through the next day. But it’s awkward because that’s not how it’s supposed to be according to the marriage rule book.
There are as many ways to get your sleep or have sex as there are people doing it. And they’re all correct as long as nobody is being harmed. If there were only 1 right way, we’d all be doing it. There’s no need to feel apologetic or incompetent or an exception because you don’t meet some set of guidelines written for no real person.
Oprah Magazine article : Why You Don’t Want To Have Sex
A few years back, The O Magazine did an article about how 24 million women don’t want sex. Here is the article, or what must be an excerpt, because I remember it as being much longer. It was from the July/Aug 2000 issue.
I remember this line, “the most romantic thing you can do for me is empty the dishwasher”. It was a very honest article and came out and said some touchy things right up front. But 24 million? More like 224 million. More like 2.24 billion. We all know it. No one will say it out loud.
Put me on an island somewhere with nothing to get done in a day. Serve me food and drink. Ease my financial concerns ; better yet, give me SJP’s bank account. Then, we can talk.
Photo linked to source
But while the strung-out grind of every day is still in place, don’t try to tell me not wanting sex twice a day is because of hormones, nerves, the onset of menopause, emotional frigidity, low thyroid, depression, self-esteem issues, or any other ridiculous reason. It’s because I’m freakin’ tired out and I get up at 5 AM just to have an hour alone. I don’t need Dr. Phil to help me figure this out.
Sex still sells
Is the readership down so the covers have to be made more suggestive to get our attention? Have they done surveys and found that this is what women really want in their magazines? I don’t know. Would as many issues of Vanity Fair sell if Angelina Jolie didn’t look like this on the cover? They didn’t sell one to me because I’m not buying magazines I have to keep hidden.
This is almost a cop-out. It takes no imagination to style this woman in this way. Vanity Fair is supposed to be one of the more cerebral publications.
Presumably if it didn’t sell, the editors would change the content in a hurry. Maybe there are women out there who heed this advice closely. But I think it’s like those diet plans-for-a-week you glance through but would never really take a week to do. You skim through the 30 tips for transforming your sex life, but who does them? When do they ever say anything new? Just one more contrived marker by which women must appraise themselves.
I didn’t buy Vogue. I haven’t read the article. Maybe the article agreed with what I’ve said, maybe it didn’t. I thought it was beneath Vogue’s self-proclaimed mantle of elegance to write “Let’s Talk About Sex” on their cover.
Comments
7 Responses to “This Month In Vogue : Sex In Magazines”
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A Greener Tea
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I rarely buy women’s magazines anymore. Surprises me, in a way, as I bought them avidly in my 20’s and 30’s. In my 40’s I started tapering off. These days “Real Simple” is the only one I buy consistently. At least their fashion and beauty articles feature clothes I might actually wear, and advice I might actually use.
What puzzles me most is how badly (really badly) young women want to be seen as “sex objects” now. I’m 53, and back in the 70’s, sure we wanted guys to find us attractive and yes, sexy. We still do—lol. But I don’t think we wanted to sex objects, per se. It seems different now. Young women with perfectly adequate endowments routinely getting breast implants, so they can do what? Work a stripper pole? What happened to the idea of accepting oneself, and going from there? Play up the assets, downplay the less than great, and get on with life.
Ah well….
Mary - excellent comment. So if a sex object is defined as someone who is wanted for sex but not for any other attribute of her character, in fact her character is entirely disposable, I agree with you. We might have been sex objects by that definition in the mind of the guys, in fact I know that we were, but it was not that way in our minds. Were we naive?
It is sad that young women alter their bodies so drastically to please young men. Why is their desperation so great that they can’t see that any man worth having wouldn’t care? As Randy Travis said, “I ain’t in love with your hair”. I think it points to the importance of self-esteem in young girls and of understanding where the value of human character and relationships lies.
You are right on target. I don’t buy very many magazines and the ones I do buy are about decorating or cooking. My husband and I have been happily married for over 20 years, and yes, I frequently go sleep elsewhere because he snores and I have a bum knee that keeps me up at night. Somewhere in there, I’ve figured out that “sexy” as defined by the media has little to do with real life. I think my husband is sexy because he cooks and gardens and cleans and grocery shops and watches the kids, and he thinks I’m sexy because … he thinks I’m sexy!
Well said, Barbara.
We are not what the media portrays us to be, nor do we want what media says we want. And our husbands are grateful for it … well, most of the time. There really are men who live in the real world, just as there are women, like us, who do.
Occasionally I am ‘compted’ w/ copies of Cosmo. ‘Someone’ decided years ago that my now defunct shop was a beauty salon….Six years ago or so, I saved these for my daughter-for fashion ideas…now I dispatch them to the trashbin where they belong. Soft porn? More like hard core dos for sluts.
While we decry this level of degradation, what can be done?
How do we educate our young women to reject this mentality? Why does the first amendment apply to morals we reject and not to support of those we do?
Terrific question, Nanci, for two reasons. One is that is forces us to recognize the importance of the most immediate answer which is simply to talk about the problem, to admit that it exists, to speak to our daughters about the deeper implications and the price all women pay, and to demonstrate to them the courage to reject every one of those labels and self-defeating images.
But also, asking a question is where the groundwork is laid for a solution. It begins conversations. From that comes awareness. Hopefully one day, young women will be thoughtful enough to spend their money elsewhere. Unfortunately, media’s message that they should strive to look and behave in that way to attract a mate is a strong one.
At our age, we know it’s a load of B.S. It was then and it is now.