We’re written before about how the male gaze shapes how “sexy” is marketed and sold. Specifically, when sex is used to sell, we usually see (presumably straight) men’s sexual subjectivity and the sexual objectification of women.   That is, we are all encouraged to see with a straight male gaze and thus, we are presented with a female object of desire. Three choice posts on the topic can be found here, here, and here.

While in New Orleans (again) in July, I attended some of the festivities associated with Tale of the Cocktail. One of them was a cocktail expo with the theme “Seven Deadly Sins.” Sponsored by Cabana Cachaca rum, Lust was personified this way:

Presumably lust is not a feeling exclusive to straight men, yet the Lust booth featured only women dancing.  Because of the primacy of the male gaze, what is believed to be sexy to straight men gets defined as “sexy” for everyone.  The print ad they had displayed features a woman from the waist down, naked:

Thought Experiment:  If nearly naked men had been dancing in those columns, do you think the audience would have thought “hot men for the women!” or “how gay!”?   I think many, if not most, would have thought “how gay!”   A female gaze that validates women’s sexual subjectivity and the sexual objectification of men is simply less accessible for both women and men.   I think if men were dancing in the columns, an objectifying male gaze would still be at play, except this time the gaze would have been aimed at men.

Gay men are often stereotyped as obsessed with fashion, physical fitness, and their overall appearance (i.e., feminine).  The idea that both gay men and women are subject to the male gaze explains a lot about why.

NEW! Amanda C. sent in this ad for a sex party in Chicago.  Like the instance above, “sex” is represented by a woman.  Amanda writes:

If a man’s legs were portrayed, would that mean that the party isn’t “sexy” or that it’s about gay sex? Just another example of how the heterosexual male gaze is universalized.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Found at Gin and Tacos.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Dmitriy sent us a link to the Candies Foundation, a non-profit organization that wants teenage girls to avoid pregnancy by abstaining from sex.  So they’re going to make abstinence as sexy as possible!  The slogan: “I’m SEXY enough… to keep you waiting”:

I noticed also that the message is aimed exclusively at girls. “You” is implicitly a guy.

The responsibility for keeping teens abstinent and for preventing teen pregnancy, then, falls solely on girls.

Dmitriy also points out that the campaign promotes abstinence, but not the use of birth control. He adds: “we do not combat auto accidents by not driving. we prevent them through driving and safety ed.”

See also this post featuring sweatpants that say “true love waits” across the ass.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

I schedule my posts for mid-morning, but I write most of them between midnight and 5am.  It’s 3:24am right now.

The New York Times developed an interactive graphic, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that allows users to see what proportion of Americans are doing what at any given time of the day.

At about 3:24am, 95% of Americans are sleeping:

The interactive graphic allows you to look at the data by race, gender, parental status, education-level, employment, and age. Below are screen shots of the data for each age group.

People aged 15-24:

People aged 25-64:

People 65 and older:

Click overto play with the data. It’s oddly fascinating.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Driving from New Orleans to Las Vegas this June, I was struck by the fact that every roadside I saw, everywhere, had a fence separating the shoulder from the land.  Not only was every parcel of land owned, travelers had to know it.  Mine.  Keep out.

There are lots of reasons why people become and remain homeless, but one of them is “private property.”  Private property, of course, isn’t real.  People made it up.  But because the vast majority of us accept the concept and enforce it, it persists as a reality that structures people’s lives.  For example, we’re not allowed to build a house just anywhere there’s space.  We can’t just tap any aquifer you please, no matter how much we need water.  If we want to go camping, we need permission from a property owner or we have to pay a fee at a public or private park.  And, because of private property, if you can’t afford to buy property or rent space from a property owner,  you are homeless.  Homelessness, then, is a function of our commitment to private property.

I offer this as a context with which to view these photographs that accompany a story in the New York Times about a tent city in Providence, Rhode Island.  The residents of the tent city call it “Camp Runamuck.”  As the pictures below show, the 80 or so members of Camp Runamuck have a pantry, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a recycling center.  They also have rules (e.g., no fighting), a democratically elected “chief,” a “leadership council,” and a social contract that they have all signed.  They share labor; they cook dinner for one another. However, despite the fact that they’ve made a home for themselves, they are officially homeless.  And state officials have now officially told them that they are not allowed to make their home there.

Tracey at Unapologetically Female reminisces about how some of the gadgets from her youth had the words “man” and “boy” in them (via Feministing). She writes:

Ever notice how gadgets can have the word “boy” or “man” right in the name and they’re still considered universal, but we all know that if they had been given more feminine names, no self-respecting boy would ever use them? A few too many of my favorite pastimes as a kid involved such masculine-named devices.

The Gameboy:

The Discman:

The Walkman:

I’m too tied up with summer projects to go searching for current examples, but if you think of any and post in the comments, I’ll add them.

ADDED!

Abby mentions The Virtual Boy and The Talk Boy:

Tyson mentions Pacman:

Anonymous commenters mentioned the La-Z-boy and Manwich:

Maria, Cycles, and Julie mentioned Craftsman tools, the Ironman Triathlon, and Yardman respectively:

Ryan mentioned Burning Man:

Jo mentioned Hangman:

And Reanimated Horse mentioned The Running Man:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_Hh-4fAeBE[/youtube]

There is also some conversation about product mascots named Mr. and Mrs., but I’ll leave that for another post.  I’ll plan another post for products named “girl” and “woman,” too.

If ya’ll think of more, I’ll keep adding them!

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Chris, at Public Criminology, points to an excellent example of how institutional rules can have unintended and counterproductive consequences. In this case, the rule applies to people convicted of committing sex offenses against children. Such offenders, once released from prison, are disallowed from living with 2,500 feet of schools, parks, churches, or any place where children might congregate.

So far so good.

But it turns out that, in Miami, that translates into everywhere. That is, everywhere is within 2,500 feet of one of these places. The yellow dots in this still the places near which sex offenders are not allowed to live:

Parole officers are at a loss and have instructed released offenders to live under a causeway in the middle of Biscayne Bay (see the red arrow). They even check on them every morning to make sure they are there.

These sex offenders, then, are forced into homelessness by rules designed to protect children.

The video below reports on the situation. In addition to the human rights concerns, there is a concern that the living conditions may actually increase the chances of recidivism.  Living under a bridge: (1) is arguably even less enjoyable than prison, (2) smothers hope of ever reintegrating into society, and (3) is not really conducive to self-improvement.

See also our other posts on rules that apply to released sex offenders here and here.

UPDATE: Comments thread closed.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

This vintage ad for 7-Up is a great illustration of how our ideas about what sounds tasty is culturally and historically contingent.

For other great examples, see these posts on soup for breakfast, spam, poop coffee, the rise and fall of aspic, and prunes (they’re for kids!).

From Found in Mom’s Basement.

—————————

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.