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This 1942 ad for Lifebuoy soap is a great example of shifts in collective cultural awareness of homosexuality. From a contemporary U.S. perspective, where most of us have heard homophobic jokes about not dropping the soap in the shower, two men showering together (even or especially in a military context) and using language like “hard” and “get yourself in a lather” is undeniably a humorous reference to gay men.

I think, however, that this was not at all the intention in 1942, where the possibility of men’s sexual attraction to other men wasn’t so prominent of a cultural trope.  It simply wasn’t on people’s minds as it is today.  Accordingly, the ad seems to be a simple illustrated recommendation, complete with a nice heterosexual prize at the end.

From Vintage Ads.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Most Americans, when asked if they are affected by advertising, will say “not really.” They say they skip the print ads in magazine, ignore the ones on the street, mute TV commercials, and are generally too savvy to be swayed by their messages.

Here’s some data illustrating the not-me phenomenon. The Kaiser Family Foundation asked 15- to 17-year-olds whether they and their friends were influenced by sexual content on TV.

Seventy-two percent of teens say that sexual content on TV affects their friends “a lot” or “somewhat”:

But only 22 percent say that sexual content on TV affects them “a lot” or “somewhat”:

Advertisers know that most Americans are wrong about whether advertising affects them.  That’s why they spent $117 billion in 2009 trying to convince you to buy their product. It works. So it must be affecting somebody, right?

Images borrowed from Strasburger’s Children, Adolescents, and the Media.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Hope H. sent a link to Riese’s excellent discussion of Jessie J’s new music video at Autostraddle.  Jessie J is already a superstar, writing songs for the likes of Justin Timberlake, Chris Brown, and Christina Aguilera.  But this is her first album where she writes for herself, and Riese describes the video for the song “Do It Like a Dude” as infused with “fuck you i’m fucking your face with my fucking song” energy.  I can’t disagree.

The song asserts it’s title, suggesting that Jessie J is as much a man as any man, as a sample of the lyrics shows:

Boom Boom, pull me a beer
No pretty drinks, I’m a guy out here
Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ money like a pimp
My B I T C H’s on my d*ck like this

Riese asks:

…“Do It Like a Dude” is, on the surface, an anthem of independence — the only reaction Jessie J expects from your wannabe-boyfriend is his acknowledgment that lesbian sex doesn’t need him.  But does singing that she can do “it” “like a dude” just play into the idea that a thing must be “male” to be valid? Or can “dude” be a term independent of its ascribed meaning — is she… employing “dude” as an adjective encompassing “male” traits like strength/power/aggression, freeing the term from its traditional application as a noun for “person with penis”?

That is, does valorizing masculinity in women liberate women?  Or would it be better to try to elevate femininity to match our admiration of masculinity?  And is it possible to liberate the word from its patriarchal trappings?

What say you?

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The color of one’s nipples varies according to the color of one’s skin. Lighter-skinned people tend to have lighter nipples, while darker-skinned people tend to have darker nipples. To add to the many racist products and procedures designed to make the bodies of darker-skinned people more like the bodies of lighter-skinned people — eyelid surgery, eyelid gluing, Asian rhinoplasty, hair straightening, and skin lightening — Theresa W. sent in a product designed to make the nipples more “pink.”  These products, featured at The Faster Times, seem to be mostly aimed at the Asian market, many of whom are already quite light-skinned.  Below is a selection of the many products one can find.

Finale Pink Nipple Cream:

Bioglo Cherry Pink Lip Nipple Cream:

The rest are after the jump because the packaging shows images of breasts.

more...

In their article, The Male Consumer as Loser, Michael Messner and Jeffrey Montez de Oca try to explain the recent rash of advertising featuring mediocre men.   These ads, and their film and television counterparts, skip the hunky-manly-hunk-dude in favor of less hunky men: young, heterosexual, usually white males who are short on cash, low on maturity, and have a penchant for irresponsibility. They dominate Judd Apatow “bromances” (e.g., Knocked Up), frequent TV sitcoms (e.g., The Drew Carey Show), and are used to sell everything from Mike’s Hard Lemonade to Twix candy bars. These are not studs. They are moderately good-looking, but small, skinny, chubby, or otherwise uncool compared to real hunks.

On the face of it, the mediocre man is a self-deprecating character who undermines idealized masculinity by being likeable despite being decidedly non-ideal.  Messner and Montez de Oca, however, show that the mediocre man, nevertheless, reproduces notions of men’s superiority over women.  The women in these narratives tend to be of two types: “sexy fantasy women” and “real women.”  The men bond over the unattainability of the sexy fantasy women and the burden of maintaining relationships with real women, their girlfriends, wives, and mothers.  The “real women’ are usually portrayed as bitches, harpies, and nags, while the “sexy fantasy women,” upon interaction, often turn out to be just as bad.

The viewers are meant to identify with the mediocre men, who revel in each others’ company, happy to be dudes free from the clutches of the women in their lives, even if they aren’t sleeping with supermodels.  The mediocre man may be kind of a loser, indeed, but he can thank God he’s a man. P.S.: Women suck.

Dmitriy T.M. sent in an example of the “mediocre man” narrative, the trailer from the movie, Hall Pass:

(Probably in the end they realize they love their naggy wives, but whatevs.)

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Suzy S. sent in an illuminating confession from PostSecret in which a woman confesses to being girly, but feels like she has to look more masculine because she’s a lesbian.  It reads: “Because I’m a LESBIAN I feel obligated to cut my hair short and wear men’s clothing… I’m actually really girly”:

This woman says she feel “obligated” to tone down her girliness.  In fact, adopting a masculinized appearance is one way that women signal to other people that they are gay, something they need to do because heterosexuality is normative and, therefore, generally assumed of everyone in the absence of signs otherwise.  There are lots of reasons why lesbians may want to be visible.

They may want to be a symbol of the very existence of gay people and thereby fight the assumption that everyone is straight.  They may want to find other gay women with which to build community or to find a girlfriend.  Or they may simply want to ward off the unwanted attention of men.  The style choices made by lesbians, then, aren’t simply about fashion or some internal inclination towards the masculine, as our confessor neatly illustrates. In some cases, at least a little bit, they’re strategic communication.

Related, see our fun post titled Revisioning Aspirational Hair.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Many Americans are familiar with “female genital mutilation.”  The term is typically applied to practices occurring in some parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but not to genital cutting practices that happen in the U.S. and other Western societies (including cosmetic surgeries on the genitals, surgeries on children with ambiguous genitalia, and transsexual surgery) and, by definition, not to genital cutting practices that happen to men in both Western and non-Western countries (male circumcision and other rare but more extreme practices).  “Female genital mutilation” elsewhere, then, is widely condemned by Americans, but rarely condemned in light of these other genital cutting practices, nor America’s own history of genital cutting.  In fact, it was not unusual to subject women in the U.S. to proper circumcision (removal of the clitoral prepuce, or foreskin) until the 1960s and these procedures remained legal until 1996 (though, as far as I’m concerned, their legality is still up in the air).

In any case, RabbitWrite gives us a glimpse into this era in American history. Reading from a Playgirl published in 1973, she recounts the confessions of a woman who chose to be circumcised and offers a short critique.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Jacqueline S. told us about a post at DarrenBarefoot comparing the words that appears most frequently on the covers of Cosmo and Maxim. Darren typed a list of every word that appeared on the covers for three years (2007-2010 for Cosmo, 2005-2008 for Maxim; he doesn’t explain why he chose different time periods) and then made word clouds to illustrate frequency. The results for Maxim:

And Cosmo:

So in both cases, sex rules, followed by a reference to the category of people you’re supposedly interested in having sex with (since both magazines pretty much exclusively assume heterosexual relationships). The word “sex” or “sexy” appeared at least once on ever single Cosmo cover in the 3-year span, and most Maxim covers as well.

But notice how much more the language on Cosmo covers focuses on sex and relationships than Maxim‘s does, with more frequent use of words that explicitly refer to men and/or sex. Of course, those familiar with Cosmo, or most other women’s magazines, know that its headlines about sex make it clear what the point is: various ways to please your man, which translates into increasing your own pleasure. Maxim, on the other hand, focuses less attention on relationships (or health/fitness) and more on money, travel, and pop culture (sports, TV, movies).

To highlight how dominant sex is on Cosmo covers, Darren made a 15-second video of them in rapid succession, back and forth:

I doubt any of you are shocked by his findings, but it’s a nice illustration of the way magazines aimed at women reinforce the idea that our primary goal should be finding, pleasing, and keeping a heterosexual partner to a degree not usually found in men’s magazines.