Our culture is really, really sexist. It is actually something that totally infuriates me. I am so sick of seeing pictures and videos of the way women should look. These messages are directed at BOTH men and women...at men to tell them what they want and what the girls they screw should look like. They are directed at women to inform them of their status in the attractiveness realm, and whom they must strive to be like. And women, including me, take these messages very seriously! Some women will even go to such lengths that they will have surgery...that is threatening to their health or even their very lives--to fix whatever problem they have with their physical appearance.

After all that women have gone through in the feminist movement, it infuriates me when little bitches like Jessica Simpson dance around half-naked--selling sex--on television viewed my millions of Americans. It angers me that Americans support this...that sex sells better than any other marketing tactic. Women can't make it as singers anymore unless they're hot and they start out innocent, and then progress to taking more and more clothes off and making more humping movements on their slutty music videos. Could people possibly appreciate the women they idolize for their intelligence? For their philanthropy? For their talent, even? I'm sorry, but Jessica Simpson sounded like a dying mouse singing "These Boots Are Made For Walking." But it sells, doesn't it? Why? Because she had no clothes on, rubbed her boobs all over a car, and walked away with bubbled in between her legs that looked disgustingly similar to...something else.

In order to make it as a man in the world of music, acting, news-reporting, or basically anything, you have to be smart--charismatic--energetic. In order to make it as a woman, you must be...hot. What message does this send out to the world? What statement does it make? That men are worth the most in their brains, intellect, and basically anything with substance while women are worth their hotness level...and their asses.

If anyone observes the culture around us, including music, magazines, advertisements, they can see that this is very true. Our music is loaded with sexual references to women as objects--especially rap. Our magazines are packed with articles on how to be skinny if you are a woman, how to make yourself more beautiful, how to be sexy and therefore boost your confidence. If you are a man, you are targeted with entirely different stuff...pictures of hot women, hunting magazines, sports magazines, and cars. Advertisements make a very clear statement about what makes someone cool. Men are told that if they buy a certain product, they will be surrounded by beautiful women. Look...if you have Budweiser in your refrigerator, a babe is going to totally jump you, and maybe even steal your Bud! Women are targeted by ads that tell them they will be more beautiful if they have this product...and NOT just with beauty products! Even if it's a freaking electronic, the reason the ad catches a woman's attention is because she thinks "Wow, that woman is beautiful. And she's got an iPod. Hmm...I want an iPod."

Anyway, I don't think people do it on purpose. It just kind of happens. It starts with younger boys, between the ages of eleven and fourteen starting to notice more about women's bodies. They see women on the media, and pay attention to the ones they are attracted to. Their eyeballs pop out of their heads with awe when they see the women taking more and more clothes off, and acting more and more sexy. It becomes an addiction. The more guys see it, the more frustrated they are, the more they want, and the less satisfied they are. It becomes more than just the general media at that point. I remember, by the time I was fourteen years old, all of my guy friends were hard-core into porn. No pun intended. They watched everything--guys on girls, girls on girls, guys scoring big by having seven girls all to himself. I couldn't say too much about it, because the time they were forceful in trying to make me watch it, I stormed off and informed them that I would call my mother and have her pick me up if they continued. And, of course, she wouldn't have minded at all given the current circumstance.

I have been sent several emails promoting porn, ranging from normal missionary ideas to rape porn--and I am NOT kidding! Some people watch porn, and get themselves off to watching women get raped! I almost threw up when I saw that email. Thank goodness for the delete button.

Of course, many would argue that most porn is not like that, and sex is a totally natural thing. Some guys can't get it, so they just compensate for it. This is great for teenage boys--it's better than them actually having sex and getting STD's! But I have read reports written by sexologists that report that the excessive amount of pornography going around is having far more negative effects than positive. One if the obvious ones is that when men are in serious relationships--including marriage--and they still view porn, the women in their lives don't like that very much. But deeper than that are the psychological effects. The more a man gets off to porn, the more he trains his sexual responses to respond to visual stimulation...and disables his responses to other stimuli. This includes response to touch, romance, and I imagine...teasing to some extent. In other words, normal guys can be aroused by simply hearing a girl's voice on the other line, running his hair through her hair, even hugging a girl. And porn-guys become jaded to this...watching hours of porn a week, where they can see and hear ALL the juice, why would just the sound of a girl's voice turn them on? And romance? Forget it! Pornography trains men to satisfy themselves physically--not integrating emotions in there at all. They are then trained to separate emotions and sex...and ultimately separate emotional investment from interactions with women.

I read a study once (I feel terrible that I don't rember where I read these things and can't cite them) that found a direct correlation with the amount of porn viewed by a male and his likelihood to commit a crime of sexual abuse or domestic violence. It's hard to say if the porn causes the character to commit crime, or if the character to commit crime causes the porn. But to me, it doesn't really matter. Either way, it's not a very positive association.

My point here is that our society has a slippery slope that sucks several men and women into a rut that sets women up as sexual objects, nothing more. In fact, it degrades sex itself because instead of sex being something that is built-up, special, and intimate, it becomes, as my mom says, like taking a shit. It's simply physical gratification, and nothing more.

Well, it should be so much more than that. Women should be recognized as people, not sexual objects. And I know there are many, many guys out there who don't fall into that rut--unfortunately, they are becoming fewer and farther between. The music we listen to--we including I--reinforces these degradations. The television we watch, the advertisements we fall victim to--do the same thing.

Women can take a role in this too, however. Men aren't the only ones to blame! This system would never remain intact if women weren't obsessed with the way they look too. We have to stand up and let the world know that they can judge us for the way they look, but they aren't going to get anything from us until we're treated like human beings. They being men, of course. Men wouldn't get their way like this if we were telling them it wasn't okay. If he doesn't appreciate you, girls, don't let him have you! He'll figure it out when he can't meet his needs that he needs to meet yours too. And in the end, guys will better meet their own needs by taking sexual relations to a deeper level. Fucking can't be nearly as satisfying as making love.

As for me, I have to do my part. I need to stop listening to music that degrades women. I really like some of it for the music above the lyrics, but by listening to songs like that over and over, the lyrics become engrained in my subconscious, and that reinforces these horrible sexist beliefs inside my own mind.

And thank you to the nice guys out there who aren't like this--you rule! You will get the best girls in the end, I promise! NICE GUYS DO NOT FINISH LAST!

Okay, I am DONE ranting!