Bring me a girl...

[Gob]

SOME commodities are dug from the ground. Some are grown from the soil. Some are reared on the land. The value of each, whether it be iron ore, wheat or cows is governed by supply and demand.

So it is with the pairing of sex and women - the raw materials in the manufacture of a musical product that has less to do with the ostensible first cause of said product, that is the song, and much more to do with the selling of a chattel.

The sexualisation of women in the pop business to achieve this aim credits no one. It is a disgrace. In this commodity market, the human becomes the object. A singing, dancing object that has been degraded of individuality so as to be amorphous, malleable and interchangeable. Puppets and puppetmasters.

This is not about the prurient interest versus prudishness or free speech versus the fettering of self-expression. It's about the monetisation of an art form via cynical manipulation.

This is not new - corruption flourishes where and whenever there's big money to be made. The pop industry is no exception. But there's something new at work now.

The rise of video clips to promote songs - from the birth of MTV in the '80s to the ubiquity of images in the present day - has meant a shift in how popular music is experienced. Now, you don't just listen to the song. You watch it. Leave your imagination at the door. Others have provided the background for you. In many cases the music is the background to the clip. This is the visual age, after all. If you want that hit single, then you better have a video with it. You better know how to do a decent spot of lap dancing, too.

Because this is where the sex comes into it. Sex sells. Always has, always will.

This week a record company executive made public his disgust at the trend. Richard Russell, founder of XL Recordings, attacked the sexualisation of female performers.

One of the singers in his stable is Adele, who has bucked the trend of bondage and bras, on her way to becoming massively popular. In that light, one could see Russell's comments as self-serving, but he also has a point. In an interview with The Guardian, he said: ''The whole message with [Adele] is that it's just music. There are no gimmicks, no selling of sexuality. I think in the American market, particularly, they have come to the conclusion that is what you have to do.''

He described as ''faux porn'' a series of recent pop videos he saw on MTV starring women. ''I felt a bit queasy,'' he said. ''It's just so boring, crass and unoriginal.''

Everything, of course, needs context. But there is no context in ''faux porn''. The medium truly is the message. There is a valid argument that one person's exploitation is another person's empowerment, and certainly back a few years ago Madonna was the embodiment of taking control. Now, though, that control has been lost in the pervasiveness of soft-porn imagery.

Songwriter Tom Petty, in his dissection of the music business, The Last DJ, wrote a song titled Joe, part of which goes:

Bring me a girl

They're always the best

You put 'em on stage

And you have 'em undress

Some angel whore

Who can learn a guitar lick

Hey, that's what I call music.



Rock and roll and sex have always been a tempestuous marriage. Before rock there was the blues, and today's lyrics have got nothing on the explicitness and innuendo of the oldtimers. (See Lucille Bogan's Shave 'em Dry from the '30s). Those animal urges, the lust and the longing, have fuelled many a performer and many a song, but here we are seeing one part of the human race being rebranded to sell product.

This isn't the world of Elvis the Pelvis. He gyrated and women swooned. Now Rihanna or Christina or Britney gyrate and the signposts of the song aren't the performer's spirit, bucking and rearing, but the soft-focus close-up merging into the one before and the one after. It's a continuous loop.

There is no new kid on the block, artistically, any more in this town. One kid is as useful as another, as long as they can shake, rattle and roll with the video. It doesn't matter who is singing, especially in the case of Spears, who showed you don't even have to sing at all.

Every few years a new outrageous costumed construct struts onto the screen. Lady Gaga is queen of the walk now. She has both fame and wealth. Does the music move exponentially with the fame and wealth? No. But the outrageousness does because that's what feeds this sexualised monster. And on it goes. For every Gaga, there's a myriad being manufactured. That it's become the norm is in part the result of the sexualisation of the young.

Does all this happen with men? No, of course not, because men rule the game. Trading in commodities is a business venture; there's no morality at play. Sexualisation fuels the market.

There are shafts of light in this gloom, and they emanate from the achievements of artists such as Ani DiFranco, who have set themselves up independent of mind, body and work. It's one of the great assets of the internet that artists can hoe their own row. It gives their art its inner strength; it's where their power resides.

Warwick McFadyen is a senior writer.

Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/opinion/socie ... z1OM2kkKc9

[loCAtek]

Well, start the conditioning of women to accept this sexualizing, when they're young, and they'll think 'sexy' is all they are supposed to be.

Like the article says, who are they to be sexy for? For men. Men who don't want more than an empty physical shell, that they have control over.

Lie to girls that it's empowering, because then she won't have to work; men will give her everything she needs. Don't tell them, in truth that's just paying girls to be shallow whores. Men will control them through money.

Many moons ago, I had a BF who asked if I would ever pose for porn pics? I said no, I couldn't since that was exploitative, treating women like things. To which, he replied that it wasn't because the women who did it got paid. I said so? They're still objectified, I won't do it.
"It used to exploitative" He tried bullshitting, "But that was women didn't want to do it. Now, it's OK because they want to."

I looked him the eye and said, "They want to be exploited ...? Ha-ha. Greed is supposed to make that OK?"

[dales]

Old as humankind....

Aphrodite



Not to mention the huge-breasted "fertilty" godesses from nearly all civilizations dating thousands of years prior.

[loCAtek]

There's worshiping the female role and form; and exploiting and taking advantage of it.