Chapter 9 - pages 204-205
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What I had a severe disagreement with in 2012, was
that sexuality had become the dominant cultural attribute that women have in
the world in order to live their life and to achieve what they want. This very much is the result of media
influence and the resultant obsession with female appearance as the defining
characteristic of a woman’s value. This
to me was abhorrent. Too many girls were
content with just being recognized for being attractive or sexual, and used
this as their sole criteria for their position in the world. Before continuing, let me take a moment to
point out that I am not above admiring a beautiful woman and I ended up
marrying one of the most beautiful, but in Natalie’s case, there was an
abundance of other attributes that affirmed the original attraction and the
fact that we were in love was predicated on many other aspects of her talent, intelligence,
character and personality.
I distinctly remember that I was at a coffee shop in
Seattle back around 2002, and there was a magazine rack. While I waiting for my coffee, I was looking
at the magazine covers and I noticed one magazine specifically called “Complete
Woman.” I smiled to myself as I read the
content headlines on the cover of the magazine.
They comprised two articles on satisfying their men in bed, two on hair
and make-up tips, one on losing their winter weight and one on fashions for
spring. I remember openly chuckling to
myself that the magazine was called “Complete Woman.” Even Cosmopolitan magazine didn’t simplify
women to this standard of being just attractive and a sexual object for men’s
benefit. It turned out, however, that
this was exactly what was happening and girls were being influenced into
adopting this self-image.
I started asking myself what was behind all this at
the time and I came to realize that it was the Mom’s who were encouraging this
notion and allowing their daughters to focus on their female sexuality as the
core of their femininity. This contention
goes back to the notion I referred to earlier, as an entire generation of girls
had been raised with the influence of Madonna in the 1980s and embraced the
desire to be sexual.
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