Monday 24 June 2013

Ladies and Gentlemen

Okay, I decided I wasn't going to comment on this. "Blurred Lines" harks back to an old lyrical theme. Complaining about the effect patriarchal double standards have in putting women out of sync with their (true) sexual desires. Revealing the room that leaves for projection of exactly what those desires might be, too.

It's from the partner's point of view. As if it's the fault of the woman rather than her adaptation to society's rules. In this case, it's a man, I wonder if many a lesbian could also sing a similar tune, though it'd be expressed with differently no doubt.

A tad pompous I guess, but sometimes one has to be brave.

Anyway, the "blurred lines" concerned are the woman's internalisation of the Madonna part of the Madonna/Whore dichotomy. The clashing of her actual desire-which according to the narrator is more in the much admired but at the same time despised "whore" direction.

i.e. she wants to get down, but doesn't like the implications of that. This is doubly useful. It can be a (man's) rationale for a woman not living up to expectations/wishful thinking and a way of her refusing (further) sexual advances in the first place.

Imagine if you fancied doing some press ups. I did say imagine, lol. You'd just make sure all was well, you had a space and ground that could support you etc, then just do your press ups right? You wouldn't think oh, just getting down to press ups like that, merely because I feel like it, means I'm dirty and bad. Rather than someone who just wants to get take an opportunity to er, get active.

The source of the wrong kind of friction is, how reliable is this narrator in divining the woman's wishes? He does warble about "The way you grab me" "Go head get at me", rather than say, "The way you look at me" or, "The way you were flirting with me", i.e. the way you are being polite and nice like ladies are taught means I say you want to do the vertical boogaloo with me.

However, the point is this is deliberately intended to push feminist buttons. It moans about the way women dress as being too provocative for a red blooded male to handle. And adds, "Just let me liberate ya".

If this baiting was too subtle. Singer Robin Thicke said in an interview;
People say, "Hey, do you think this is degrading to women?" I'm like, "Of course it is. What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman. I've never gotten to do that before. I've always respected women."
[My emphasis]

Now this is the sentiment that really caught my ear (call me bored/cynical). When I first got to FA I lamented being the target of this very kind of impulse. Whilst others tried to insist other women, feminists included indulged in fat hating due to "brainwashing." I felt, witnessed and experienced that the above was exactly the true urge at the heart of all this, i.e what a pleasure it is to degrade human dignity.

Anyone's really, especially whilst retaining or increasing your own. At their expense. With the permission of often them and authority. One doesn't pass up an opportunity like that easily.

And the video? Well, that's a lot like it is to be fat in a system designed for slimness as the dominant expectation, emotionally stripped whilst everyone else is fully clothed. The interviewer added;
Calm down, folks, it's a joke and everyone in the video is in on it. Thicke's a real Southern gentleman and his soul's as good as his hair. 
I'm not pointing this out to excuse Pharrell, Robin Thicke et al. It's just so people can better connect with the impulse under the lens. We do have the urge to degrade our own humanness, so the question is why and what do we do about it?

Helpful as ever. Well, I am a laydee.

[The most repellent thing about this effort for me was the state the "Southern gentleman's" section proposed to leave a certain part of the woman in question's anatomy. Eurech.]

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