I must admit the latest book I read is not a feminist book. The author is not a feminist. The subject of the book isn't feminism. The purpose of the book is not to argue a feminist theory. However, the issues the book confronts does relate to issues that various feminists have been trying to solve for years.
The title of the book is "Smut: A Sex Industry Insider (and Concerned Father) says Enough Is Enough." It's written by a man called Gil Reavill. As a freelance writer he has written for a variety of magazines. His most notorious employers being Penthouse, Screw, and Maxim. Though he isn't now, he was connected deeply with the sex industry starting in the 1980's. Especially through the magazine Screw, he had come face to face with major faucets of the industry including marketing strategies. With connections to prostitutes and porn stars, through the companies he has seen all the tricks used in advertising. So why write a book about it? Why let all the 'secrets' out?
Today Reavill is married and is not like the wild thing he was in his twenties when he first got involved in the sex industry. He now has a daughter, one who is at the age when sex and the media really start to make impressions. Concerned, he wrote a book to show other parents just what could be happening to their children.
One chapter that I thought was rather creepy because it gave me the 'I knew it!' feeling was chapter fourteen. Title "The Jean Pool," this short chapter discusses fashion. Reavill starts off the chapter by suggesting that "the issue of fashion drives much of the disturbance over cultural values" (p.95). He argues that part of the problem with fashion is the generation gap. His reasoning is that when he was a kid he's parents hated the length of his hair. Since the beginning of time parents have always had issues with what their children wore and how they acted; they've always had trouble with the tastes of new generations. However, this time around the culture, specifically the fashion, should not be dismissed as a generation gap issue. There is a serious problem.
Reavill has an interesting way to look at it: "it's a new oxymoron: naked fashion" (p.97). He argues on that line suggesting that "By an unfortunate chain of events, the stripper has become the default setting for female chic" (p.97).
Flip through magazines like Elle and InStyle and you'll models and celebrities wearing highly suggestive lingerie and clothing that has little relevance to articles and whatnot. But here's the problem: "overtly sexual fashion advertising extends to publications aimed at teens, especially those targeted to young girls" (p.98). Cosmogirl, Teen People, and Seventeen are the major culprits. You'll find issues that often have advertisements for a clothing brand call "fcuk," "which is supposed to stand for "French Connection United Kingdom" but is merely a bad-faith way to drop the f-bomb" (p.98). Their ads feature an underwear clad young couple with the tagline for the companies perfume "Scent to Bed." There are other ads for the company featuring a young girl wearing a small t-shirt with the words "Too Busy to Fcuk" on it.
Then there are just plain t-shirts from regular companies with sayings on them, graphic tee's. However, they are not innocent and simple. In a usual American retail store, which Reavill did not name, he found some rather interesting ones with lines like "Eenie, meenie, minie mo, suck my d**k you f***king ho," "I Love Penis," and "I'm on my way home to masturbate."
In the advertising world these practices are called "hebephilia, which is the technical term for sexually fetishizing teenagers" (p.99). A master of hebephilia is Abercrombie & Fitch. Their catalogue is not sold to anyone under eighteen, and for good reason. It contains photos of topless and almost completely naked models all in usually suggestive or erotic positions. Some of the photographs would put Helmut Newton to shame. Here's what one ad said in their "Christmas Field Guide:
Sex, as we know, can involve one or two, but what about even more? The menage a
trois (three way) in not an uncommon arrangement. An orgy can involve an
unlimited quantity of potential lovers. Groups can be mixed-gender or same-sex,
friendly or anonymous. A pleasant and super safe alternative is group
masturbation
He concludes "Wait a minute. I know this stuff. It's porn - porn imagery, porn logic, porn impure and simple. The boundaries have been breached between the smut underworld I inhabited back in the early 1980's and the mainstream world my daughter lives in today" (P.99).
Are feminists overreacting?
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