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Raunch Culture
''Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture'' is a 2005 book by Ariel Levy that critiques the highly sexualized American culture in which women are objectified, objectify one another, and are encouraged to objectify themselves. Levy refers to this as "raunch culture". Background According to Levy, raunch culture is a product of the unresolved feminist sex wars – the conflict between the women's movement and the sexual revolution.Levy 2005, p. 74. Another source places the beginnings of raunch culture in the permissive society of the 1960s, which in postfeminist perspective was less about female sexual liberation than fulfilling the male fantasy of unlimited female availability. Levy also characterizes raunch culture as a backlash against the stereotypes of "prude" and "uptight" (women) applied to many second-wave feminists (e.g., anti-pornography feminists). Herbert Marcuse's intuition of the increased role of sexuality in advanced industrialism was incre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariel Levy (writer)
Ariel Levy (born 1974) is an American staff writer at ''The New Yorker'' magazine and the author of the books ''The Rules Do Not Apply'' and '' Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture''. Her work has appeared in ''The Washington Post'', ''The New Yorker'', ''Vogue'', ''Slate'', and ''The New York Times''. Levy was named one of the "Forty Under 40" most influential out individuals in the June/July 2009 issue of ''The Advocate''. Early life and education Levy was raised in a Jewish family in Larchmont, New York, and attended Wesleyan University in the 1990s, graduating in 1996. She says that her experiences at Wesleyan, which had "coed showers, on principle," strongly influenced her views regarding modern sexuality. After graduating from Wesleyan, she was briefly employed by Planned Parenthood but claims that she was fired because she is "an extremely poor typist." She was hired by ''New York'' magazine shortly thereafter. Writings At ''The New Yorker' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neo-liberalism
Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pejoratively. In scholarly use, the term is often left undefined or used to describe a multitude of phenomena. However, it is primarily employed to delineate the societal transformation resulting from market-based reforms. Neoliberalism originated among European Liberalism, liberal scholars during the 1930s. It emerged as a response to the perceived decline in popularity of classical liberalism, which was seen as giving way to a social liberal desire to control markets. This shift in thinking was shaped by the Great Depression and manifested in policies designed to counter the volatility of free markets. One motivation for the development of policies designed to mitigate the volatility of capitalist free markets was a desire to avoid repeatin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Striptease
A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner. The person who performs a striptease is commonly known as a "stripper", "exotic dancer", or "burlesque dancer". The origins of striptease as a performance art are disputed, and various dates and occasions have been given from ancient Babylonia to 20th-century America. The term "striptease" was first recorded in 1932. In Western countries, venues where stripteases are performed on a regular basis are now usually called strip clubs, but striptease may also be performed in venues such as pubs (especially in the United Kingdom), theaters and music halls. At times, a stripper may be hired to perform at a bachelor or bachelorette party. In addition to providing adult entertainment, stripping can be a form of sexual play between partners. This can be done as an impromptu event or – perhaps for a special occasion&nb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loophole
A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system. Originally, the word meant an arrowslit, a narrow vertical window in a wall through which an archer (or, later, gunman) could shoot. Loopholes were commonly used in U.S. forts built during the 1800s. Located in the sally port, a loophole was considered a last ditch defense, where guards could close off the inner and outer doors trapping enemy soldiers and using small arms fire through the slits. Legal loopholes are distinct from lacunae, although the two terms are often used interchangeably. In a loophole, a law addressing a certain issue exists, but can be legally circumvented due to a technical defect in the law, such as a situation where the details are under-specified. A lacuna, on the other hand, is a situation in which no law exists in the first place to address that particular issue. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lipstick Feminism
Lipstick feminism (also known as girlie feminism or girly feminism) is a variety of feminism that seeks to embrace traditional concepts of femininity, including the sexual power of women, alongside traditional feminist ideas. The concept emerged within the third-wave as a response to ideals created by previous movements, where women felt that they could not both be feminine and a feminist. Unlike the early feminist campaigns that focused on the basic fundamental rights of women, starting with the Women's Suffrage Movement, lipstick feminism seeks to prove that women can still be feminists without ignoring or negating their femininity and sexuality. Despite the stereotypes surrounding feminism and the dominant social narratives surrounding feminism during their time, women like Zora Neale Hurston and Emma Goldman argued that by using philosophical ideas of aesthetics and ideas of femininity, it is possible to empower and analyze the ways that gender works in everyday life. Lip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Male Chauvinist
Chauvinism ( ) is the unreasonable belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people, who are seen as strong and virtuous, while others are considered weak, unworthy, or inferior. The ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' describes it as a form of "excessive and unreasonable" patriotism and nationalism, a fervent faith in national excellence and glory. In American English, the word, since 1940s, has also come to be used in as a shorthand for male chauvinism, a trend reflected in ''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary'', which, as of 2018, began its first example of use of the term ''chauvinism'' with "an attitude of superiority toward members of the opposite sex". As nationalism According to legend, French soldier Nicolas Chauvin was badly wounded in the Napoleonic Wars and received a meager pension for his injuries. After Napoleon abdicated, Chauvin maintained his fanatical Bonapartist belief in the messianic mission of Imperial France, despite the unpopularity of this view ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Susan Brownmiller
Susan Brownmiller (born Susan Warhaftig; February 15, 1935 – May 24, 2025) was an American journalist, author, and feminist activist, best known for her 1975 book '' Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape'', which was selected by The New York Public Library as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century. Early life and education Susan Brownmiller was born in Brooklyn, New York, on May 24, 1935, to Mae and Samuel Warhaftig, a lower-middle-class Jewish couple. She was raised in Brooklyn and was the only child of her parents. Her father emigrated from a Polish shtetl and became a salesman in the Garment Center and later a vendor in Macy's department store, and her mother was a secretary in the Empire State Building.Susan Brownmiller Papers Harvard Library catalog listing (accessed June 3, 2010). [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Male Gaze
In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts and in literature from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer. The concept was first articulated by British feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Mulvey's theory draws on historical precedents, such as the depiction of women in European oil paintings from the Renaissance period, where the female form was often idealized and presented from a voyeuristic male perspective. Art historian John Berger, in his work '' Ways of Seeing'' (1972), highlighted how traditional Western art positioned women as subjects of male viewers’ gazes, reinforcing a patriarchal visual narrative. In the visual and aesthetic presentations of narrative cinema, the male gaze has three perspectives: that of the man behind the camera, that of the male chara ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rainbow Party (sexuality)
A rainbow party is a supposed group sex event featured in an urban legend spread since the early 2000s. A variant of other sex party urban myths, the stories claim that at these events, allegedly increasingly popular among adolescents, people wearing various shades of lipstick take turns fellating others in sequence, leaving multiple colors (resembling a rainbow) on their penises. The idea was publicized on ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'' in 2003, and became the subject of a 2005 juvenile novel called ''Rainbow Party''. Sex researchers and adolescent health care professionals have found no evidence for the existence of rainbow parties, and consequently attribute the spread of the stories to a moral panic. Origin The earliest known use of the phrase "rainbow party" is by American Christian pediatrician Meg Meeker in her 2002 book ''Epidemic: How Teen Sex Is Killing Our Kids''. The book related allegations of adolescents suffering cancer, sterility, acute infections, and unwanted pre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moral Panic
A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usually perpetuated by moral entrepreneurs and mass media coverage, and exacerbated by politicians and lawmakers. Moral panic can give rise to new laws aimed at controlling the community. Stanley Cohen, who developed the term, states that moral panic happens when "a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests". While the issues identified may be real, the claims "exaggerate the seriousness, extent, typicality and/or inevitability of harm". Moral panics are now studied in sociology and criminology, media studies, and cultural studies. It is often academically considered irrational (see Cohen's model of moral panic, below). Examples of moral panic include the belief in widespread abduction of c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Playboy Bunny
A Playboy Bunny is a cocktail waitress who works at a Playboy Club and selected through standardized training. Their costumes were made up of lingerie, inspired by the tuxedo-wearing Playboy rabbit mascot. This costume consisted of a strapless corset teddy, bunny ears, black sheer-to-waist pantyhose, a bow tie, a collar, cuffs and a fluffy cottontail. In more recent Playboy Clubs, such as Sin City that was re-opened in 2006, Playboy bunnies wore slightly altered costumes that were based on the original bunny suit. Origins The original Playboy Bunny costume was designed by the mother of Ilse Taurins, who was a Latvian émigrée. At the time, Taurins was dating one of the Playboy Club co-founders, Victor Lownes III. Taurins had suggested a costume modeled after the Playboy Magazine trademark, either a rabbit or bunny, and she had her seamstress mother make a costume prototype. The prototype was reviewed at a meeting attended by Playboy Club co-founders Hugh Hefner, Vic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slut
''Slut (archaic: slattern)'' is an English-language term for a person, usually a woman, who is sexually promiscuous or considered to have loose sexual morals. It is predominately used as an insult, sexual slur or offensive term of disparagement. It originally meant "a dirty, slovenly woman", and is rarely used to refer to men, generally requiring clarification by use of the terms ''male slut'' or '' man whore''. The word was used as early as the late 14th century (in the form of an adjective, ''sluttish'', referring to a untidy appearance) by Geoffrey Chaucer in ''The Canterbury Tales''. From the late 20th century, there have been attempts to reclaim the word, exemplified by various SlutWalk parades, and some individuals embrace the title as a source of pride. Etymology, common usages and synonyms The common denotative meanings of ''slut'' are 'sexually promiscuous woman', or 'immoral or dissolute woman; prostitute'. These definitions identify a slut as a woman of low cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
