Blog 4

In The Beauty Myth: The Importance of Appearance, the idea that the media and culture have created the definition for sexuality for women, occurs quite often throughout the reading. The reading focuses mainly on women, but I feel men should be included as well. In my opinion, much of our ideas about beauty as well as sexuality are intrinsic in the most basic sense, but through the presence of television and other forms of modern media, our perceptions have become tainted if not greatly distorted.

What we see when we turn on the television or flip through a magazine is far from the truth for both males and females. The women as well as men potrayed through the media are far from the truth. In my opinion, this false representation has jaded some men's perceptions and expectations of women. In the end I feel everyone deep down knows that the women or men seen on television and magazines are fake and in the end everyone can and will be happy when they find the right person. (I hope that's not too naive) I do feel that either way with or with out media, we would create standards for beauty in our society. We are not all created physically equal and some people have more desireable traits, such as stronger muscles, better hair, or dozens of other characteristics that make us unique.

Pornography is another problem that has greatly distorted men's perceptions of women. Pornography is a great example of instant gratification at it's worst. Pornography not only taints the true perception of beauty for men, but it also creates an unattainable level of sexuality for women. I think pornography is one of the worst media trends of our generation, because it has made sexuality seem too easy and has taken so much of the intimacy away from sex which is a shame.

I don't feel like female beauty functions as a social control. I think female beauty is a way for companies and industries to make money. Controlling women is a very low priority for I bet all companies and most individuals and turning a profit is at the highest. If showing images of people we would consider not as attractive turned more of a profit than images beautiful people, every magazine in the world would start showing pictures of less attractive people. The media is not using female beauty for anything more than money. Our society has created our idea of beauty and what we think is attractive, media is just showing us the images we want to see.