Sneakykitty

I’m going to start by explaining the title of this post in sections.

Socially acceptable – sure, there’s no shortage of people willing to spend oodles of time mocking Twilight and its fanbase… but it’s still something that’s shown in theaters, still something you can easily buy at almost any store with a book section – without walking through a beaded curtain. I could go to my local 24-hour Kroger and pick up a copy of Twilight – something i couldn’t do with Debbie Does Dallas, or even a copy of Playboy magazine. (Granted, i live in the south, where you can’t buy alcohol on Sundays – so that may be a regional thing, at least in the case of nudie mags.)

Another aspect of the “socially acceptable” bit: based on what i’ve heard from my friends, girls/women seem to have no problem asking their boyfriends/husbands to come with them to watch Twilight in the theaters… but how would they feel if their male companions asked them on a date to a strip club? I don’t see that going over well, not at all.

Girl – it is marketed as a Young Adult novel, not as an adult romance novel. That may be the fault of the publishing house, rather than the author – but regardless of who put it in that category, that’s still how it’s being marketed.

Porn – This one needs a bit more description than the rest of the statement, as it’s the most controversial.

What do you call a movie that centers around a male lead, where any/all female characters exist solely for the purpose of the male’s stimulation and gratification? Where the male lead is desired by every female in the movie? Where the females are only there to make the appropriate noises and faces that better enhance the male’s excitement? You’d probably call it porn.

But wait, what happens if you swap the genders? A movie that centers around a female lead, where any/all of the male characters exist solely for the purpose of the female’s stimulation and gratification? Where the female lead is desired by every male in the movie? Where males are only there to make the appropriate noises and faces that better enhance the female’s excitement?

That, my friends, is still porn. But that’s what Twilight is.

In male porn, the males are actually relatively disposable. They are a walking penis – whose ultimate goal is to make the women make those noises and faces that the viewers (stereotypically men) are there to see. The men who watch porn generally don’t want to watch men having sex with women, they want to imagine themselves as the man who is having sex with women on screen.

In Twilight, Bella is relatively disposable; the Twilight fans aren’t there to see her, they’re there to proclaim themselves Edward or Jacob fans: they themselves want to be desired by Edward or Jacob.

The central figures in these sorts of stories are often as minimally-described (i hesitate to say “stripped down”) as possible. Bella is an Average Girl that quickens the cold heart of the vampire to new-found love… in the same way (and with exactly the same realism) that Willie The Pool Boy doesn’t get called to the house to clean out hair clogs from pool filters, but to satisfy the lady of the house as only he can.

Characters like Bella and Willie need to be disposable so that the viewer can easily imagine themselves in their position – that’s part of the fantasy involved in pornography.

Some might argue that Twilight is fantasy, maybe erotica – but definitely not porn. After all – porn isn’t socially acceptable. There’s a difference between porn and erotica, but determining the delineation between the two often depends on who you ask. Some say that porn is graphic or sexually explicit, whereas erotica is not; it comes down to a matter of just how much is described/shown.

In my opinion, the difference between porn and erotica is the characters – do they actually have a personality, do they have any depth to them? We don’t need a fifty-page outline of their life story, but even a hint of depth goes a long way.

One of the criteria of the heroine in a romance novel is that she is simultaneously generic and exceptional. She is often described with words and phrases such as vibrant, full of life, fiery, or tempestuous. (I once had a particularly vibrant set of curtains, but it honestly never occurred to me to get into a hot and steamy relationship with them.) This heroine needs to be generic enough that she can be mentally replaced with/by the reader, but at the same time, all of the other characters in the story need to view her as exceptional – to titillate the reader’s replacement fantasy.

The vampire mythos allows us to extent this to hyperbolic heights. The female protagonist is not only the most exceptional girl in town, or the most exceptional lady in court; she is the most exceptional woman that this being has encountered in centuries. The deal is only sweetened by the distance between the vampire’s reactions – he didn’t just reject all of those other women, he probably killed them brutally. This is the end-all-be-all version of having the man on your arm insult his most recent ex in your presence.

I’ve heard some Twilight fans claim that it endorses or encourages abstinence in its teenage readers. Abstinence is about more than figuring out which body part should or shouldn’t go into which orifice. If it encourages young women to carefully consider the potential long-term and/or life-changing consequences of a sexually active lifestyle? Great. I’m not of the opinion that everyone should wait until they’re married, but i do think it’s a good idea to wait until you’re in a healthy and safe relationship – both with yourself as well as with your partner. I’d love to see some statistics on whether or not that’s actually the case: are teenage Twilight fans more likely to abstain from sexual relationships?

Even if that does turn out to be the case, therein lies another problem: Twilight does not promote healthy and safe relationship dynamics. The series promotes codependency as preferable or optimal in a relationship. It’s viewed as the epitome of romance; anything less than the perpetually thrilling barb of mutual deceit and emotional manipulation is not regarded as Real Love.

It promotes an ideal that is, in reality, an incredibly destructive social dynamic. With a Debbie Does Dallas-style fantasy, it happens or it doesn’t. But with a Twilight-style fantasy, you can always keep trying until you turn your relationship(s) into that. If your Vampire Lover abandons you, well, there’s always the Werewolf boy next door.

Let’s be fair: the same conclusion is tested and proven in virtually every column or article that features the word “study”. Any article that mentions both evolution and body image means that Ben and i are both going to have a field day.

This article is like a grown up version of “Highlights For Kids”, except it’s “how many things can you find wrong with this article?” I was going to start out by asking “How many things are wrong about this article? I’ll give you a hint: there are # sentences in it.” But then i realized i’d have to count the sentences, and it’s already done enough damage to my poor brainmeats.

I should probably link the article in question, and give some idea as to what’s so Oh Hell No about it: Evolution produces more ‘beautiful’ women: Study shows attractive women have more children. Interestingly enough, that’s not the headline i saw in the link (i know, space-saving measure and all that), which was: “Studies: Women getting prettier.”

So my initial curiosity about the article was “O RLY? How does that line up with the ZOMG OBESIPANIC *FLAIL*?”

But oh, it’s so much worse. So, so, SO much worse. And here comes the break down…

Recent studies found that, evolutionarily-speaking, women are growing more beautiful while men are remaining their same scratchy, hairy primordial selves, according to a report in The Sunday Times.

That’s the second paragraph/sentence in the article. I find it offensive because on one level, it lines up the socially acceptable “men can be ugly, women have to be pretty” double standard; it plays directly into the war of the sexes: men are primitives, women are the ornamental bastion of society. If women are around for decoration and men are still working out which end of the stick to stab the mammoth with, who’s actually building this civilization?

Further, a study from the University of Helsinki found that beautiful women have more children than their less-than-blessed peers.

Sure, if you’re Angelina Jolie. But what explains Octomom?

I don’t follow the news much, but it was hard to avoid news about “Octomom”. In fact, i distinctly recall seeing an article that existed for the sole purpose of comparing Angelina’s visual appearance to that of Octomom Nadya Suleman, noting their similarities. Now, the idea that this article existed is offensive on so many levels that it’s a whole other not going there. Honestly, i think both women have issues; one’s are written off or seen as idiosyncratic (maybe because she’s rich and famous?), and the other woman’s issues are thrown at her with a dehumanization that makes me nauseated.

For instance, the University of Helsinki looked to a 40-year study of 1,244 women and 997 men from the U.S., which included photos of the participants’ looks as they aged and taking note of how many children each had, with lovely ladies bearing 16 percent more babies other women.

First things first: 2 thousand people (out of a current population of 307,010,000) is barely scratching the surface. In my own family, we have pictures of my father’s grandparents (or great-grandparents, i can’t recall off the top of my head). So that’s four or five generations right there. Just a little math here: if you divided those ~2k people into 3-4 generations, and assumed that you had pictures of entire families for accurate comparisons, you’d have roughly 500-650 families… out of 307 million people? That isn’t even 1%.

Some other questions raised here:

• What was the method of selection for the photographs?
• What areas of this rather large country did these women come from?
• How many different races and nationalities were represented?
• By which society’s (and era’s) standards were these men and women judged?

Obviously, the criteria is sexual appeal as evidenced by sexual activity, this reduces the study to the shocking revelation that people who get shagged more often tend to have more children – finally disproving the long-held myth of cabbage patch babies.

Next up:

Kanazawa’s work, the Times reports, found that attractive parents were more likely to bear daughters, suggesting that the human DNA was programmed to do so.

Last i was aware, the gender of the child was determined by the male’s genetics, not the female’s. Extending that, we have the idea that: men who choose attractive women as mating partners are more likely to produce female children. Many cultures deem it emasculating for a male to fail to produce male offspring. Honestly, i do find that fascinating, especially when you start getting into topics such as royal heirs, female infanticide and societal demands upon women’s appearances.

And the cherry on top of the sundae mess that is this article:

Researchers also found that both sexes agree women are more visually pleasing than men, according to the Sunday Times.

We needed a study to support that?

When it comes to men, researchers found no notable difference in the number of off-spring by hot or homely men. Because let’s face it, a man’s looks are second only to success. Don’t believe us? Ask Donald Trump. Or Howard Stern. Billy Joel. Ozzy Osbourne. Woody Allen. Kid Rock. You get the idea.

Donald Trump has a very publicly disastrous love life. Ditto Howard Stern, he and his now ex-wife got together before he was successful.

The thing that’s really offensive about this? Aside from Donald Trump, they’re listing artists, and then going on to imply that their success is the only thing attractive about them. We’re supposed to believe that the only thing to find attractive about Billy Joel is his money? That is the direct implication of the article. Ask Tori Amos about that – she has commented about the appeal of Billy Joel at some length – and not because he makes a lot of money. And how many supermodels has Billy Joel dated? Must only be because of his money, right?

Ozzy Osbourne is a rock culture sex icon, and has been for almost 40 years. For a lot of people, he is the physical incarnation of the rock and roll credo Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll. Note that “shitload of money” is not part of this credo. In no part of the song Crazy Train does he mention the ticket prices.

Woody Allen is almost in his own category. Jokes are written about why Woody Allen has sex appeal; he’s a different sort of cultural icon. He is the guy who is charming and appealing in his insecurity, anxiety and quirkiness – not despite them. This is the foundation of his entire career. Have you ever seen a Woody Allen movie? This is what they’re about.

The idea of someone thinking Billy Joel is an ugly man is just bizarre to me. He is a handsome man, and he is a musical genius. I think that might have some appeal to some people, just maybe. He’s passionate. He is driven by his conscience and his sensitivities. He has spent a lifetime creating beauty. So obviously the only reason anyone would ever want to shag him is because he has money? This is akin to saying Nelson Mandela shook Paul Simon’s hand in the hopes of getting campaign contributions.

Frankly, even the proposition that these men are appealing for no other reason than their financial success, and that this is presented in the article as an unquestionable fact with which the reader must automatically agree, is indicative of a deep sickness in our culture.

Now the fun part: evolution. I know wikipedia isn’t the best resource, but work with me, here:

Two major mechanisms determine which variants will become more common or rare in a population. One is natural selection, a process that causes helpful traits (those that increase the chance of survival and reproduction) to become more common in a population and causes harmful traits to become more rare. This occurs because individuals with advantageous traits are more likely to reproduce, meaning that more individuals in the next generation will inherit these traits.

This is the context that brings the article to some Next Level shit. The simplified (read: no sleep) version is this: being unattractive is harmful to the species on a genetic level.

But waitaminit… look at lower back problems. The human species is prone to lower back problems. Our spine is poorly suited to our posture and our activities. This is why lower back problems are as common as they are. Evolution is not a well-polished, robust design process that systematically removes negative traits over time. The most we can say is that it reliably reduces traits that result in pre-reproductive death: do you die before you get to shag? If yes, then evolution will take care of that. If no, it’s a great big shrug, maybe.

Whether aware of it or not, most people talk about evolution as if it were “intelligent design”.

BUT:

The other major mechanism driving evolution is genetic drift, an independent process that produces random changes in the frequency of traits in a population. Genetic drift results from the role that chance plays in whether a given trait will be passed on as individuals survive and reproduce.

So let’s see… a study that focuses on less than 1% of the population of a single country… an article that does not define the methods of selection OR the standards by which the people in the study are being judged… and the complete failure of that article to even come close to mentioning that attraction is subjective.

It’s just insidious. And we have the audacity to wonder why people have body image issues?