Stripping, Sex, and Popular Culture

 

I chose the article “Stripping, Sex and Popular Culture” by Katie Barack from Bowling Green University. I chose this article because I have a friend has chosen to have a sex profession. She is an exotic dancer. She chose this route because she thought it would be fast cash and easy access to lots of money.


For this article I chose to read “Stripping, Sex and Popular Culture”. The article goes on to discuss a book about sex and today’s popular culture. An example it used was the Flirty Girl Fitness DVD. The DVD is a weight lost video but with a new twist. It uses exotic stripper dances to help lose weight. Today society is obsessed with wanting to be thin and lose weight. They see celebrities and models that are thin so they think that this is the way to be. What better way to sell a work out DVD than using stripping? There is such a thing as pole dancing classes. Women can pay a fee to learn how to pole dance or do a strip tease. Some women do this for fun, or some do it as a gift for their significant other. Marie Roach became curious about stripping when her friend dropped out of graduate school to become an exotic dancer. Basically she wanted to differentiate the difference between stripping and prostitution. To find out more about stripping she decided to conduct research. The way she went about it was to interview people who worked in the sex industry. She visited strip clubs and interviewed the strippers, the djs and also the patrons who visited the strip clubs. She also interviewed performers in the neo-burlesque movement, sex workers, and political advocates for the rights of sex workers. Most of the people she interviewed claimed that there was a line drawn between stripping and prostitution. She noticed that exotic dancers had different reasons for why they were not prostitutes.


The intended audience is for people who can relate to the author. The author’s “consistent contextualization of her voice as a white, heterosexual, married mother with a religious studies and women’s studies background assures readers of a self-aware and bias-conscious author”. (Barak). People who are curious like Roach herself. Rather it is exotic dancing, escorting or prostituting. It is trying to point someone in the direction of picking up Roach’s book. Some women want to justify having a sex profession with wanting easy money. “The journal stated that readers are left wanting further investigation of those paths”. (Barak).


The key points I idea that I drew from the article, that the point that Roach was trying to make, was a slut is a slut. She compares sex workers to people who sleep around with multiple partners for no money. She calls it a “Slut-positive” identity. Women do not understand that being a sex worker is nothing but a parody of being a woman. This makes me want to pick up the book and read it for myself because as stated before, I have a friend who is a sex worker. She has been presented with plenty of opportunities to have a “normal” job, but does not want to take them. If you call her a prostitute be prepared for a fight because she will argue with you about why she isn’t a prostitute, and what sets her apart from a prostitute. I feel like the book will make me understand my friend more.
I think the article was well written. It makes you want to pick up the book and read it. The only thing that was annoying was the big words. I had to look up a couple of the words to understand what it meant. I felt like with the article having harder to understand words, it might have slightly misrepresented the book, or make one feel that the book may have hard words itself.




References:
Barak, K. (2010). Stripping, Sex and Popular Culture. The Journal of Popular Culture, 6
Retrieved May 4th 2011, from http://0-journals.ohiolink.edu.olinkserver.franklin.edu/ejc/article.cgi?issn=00223840&issue=v42i0006&article=1136_ssapc

Weekly Written 5

I was browsing around Yahoo and this heading caught my eye: "New eating disorders". The only two eating disorders that I know of are Anorexia and Bulimia. People who suffer from Anorexia or Bulimia worry about their weight. In their heads they think they are not skinny enough even though they might be too skinny. I was curious to see what these other new eating disorders were like.

One is called Orthorexia. Orthorexia suffers are not really concerned about their weight. They are more concerned about eating healthy foods. They say away from processed foods and anything with artificial food colorings/flavorings. Some are known to go over the board with Orthorexics and it is even linked to anxiety. I personally wouldn’t consider it an eating disorder....I think it’s just your everyday health food nut. It’s nothing wrong with wanting nothing but pure food to enter your body. People who eat healthier foods live longer anyway.

Another new eating disorder is Adult Selective eating. They only eat certain foods that they know or like. They purposely stay away from foods they don’t like because they don’t like the taste or the way it looks. I think this is silly and should not be classified as an eating disorder. People like what they like. They don’t have to like something just because other people like it.

I sometimes think scientist get super bored and look for something to do. I don’t think eating only healthy foods or being a picky eater is life threatening like Anorexia or Bulimia. These people are really concerned about their appearance.

Weekly Analysis 4

Reality tv is sooooo addicting. The irony of it is half of the reality shows arent even close to reality. The most interesting reality shows to watch are the competition dating type of reality shows. I like the reality dating shows because there are so many contestants with big personalities, and I can relate to at least one of the contestants. In fact people everywhere can relate to at least one of the contestants. Whats fun about the reality shows is to guess who is going to end up the winnter. From what I read a lot of reality shows are scripted and the winner is already chosen. Its even sad sometimes when the contestants themselves reveal too much on the internet before the winner is even chosen.

Today's reality shows are becoming more interesting. They are straying from the typical compete for love or a million dollars type of theme. Now there are many different reality shows that are not following the same guidelines are the normal reality show. Shark Tank is a reality show where contestants have to pitch their business ideas for certain amounts of cash. They might even let one of the Sharks have their hand in their business too. I like this show because its fun to guess which deal the contestant will take

My favorite item....

My favotire show is the reality show the Bad Girls Club!! I like the show because its quite entertaining, but what I dont like about the show is the mixture of alcohol and girls that do not know each other. I feel like they stereotype young woman to be catty, argumentive and drama filled. I've included a clip of the girls in a heated argument, due to alcohol.

Weekly Analysis 3

Donald Trump has been in the news lately for wanting to see President Obama’s birth certificate. Trump believes that the president was not born in the United States; therefore he doesn’t think the president has the right to be president. He’s launching his own instigation in Hawaii, where the president was born. He hopes his investigators will return proof that the president was not born in the US. How ironic it is that Trump is considering running for the next presidential election.
I feel Donald Trump is stereotyping the president because he’s a black man. If the president was a white man it wouldn’t be such a big issue about where the man was even born. No matter how much proof after proof that is submitted, people still want to prove otherwise. Trump feels that because no one remembers President Obama from childhood then he must not have lived in US as a child. Just because no one remembers Obama doesn’t mean he wasn’t born here. A lot of people don’t remember much from their child hood. Has Trump even personally asked people from Obama’s class if they remembered him?
I think this is Trump’s plan to try to win the election next year. If he can paint poison the minds of people against the president, they will vote for him. They will feel that they can relate to Donald Trump because they agree with his whole “Birthers” movement. Which I think is stupid. He’s giving himself free advertisement. Instead of waiting until next year to run and campaign, he is starting NOW. By capturing people’s votes now then he might have a chance to boot the president out of office. I personally like our president and I hope he will continue another four years in office, right where he belongs.

Weekly Analysis 2

This week I wanted to examine Rebecca Black's song "Friday", and Ark Music Factory. This song has been deemed the most awful song to ever hit the airways but it isnt the young singer's fault. 13 year old Rebecca has dreams of being a singer. She and her mother managed to put together two thousand dollars to pay Ark Music Factory to write, record a songand produce a music video. Ark Music Factory is a studio based in Los Angeles. They charge anywhere from two thousand to four thousand dollars to produce young talent. Ark gained national attention when Rebecca Black uploaded her new video to YouTube and it became viral. Right now it currently has over 96 million views.
I feel Ark is just robbing vulnerable people who have dreams of becoming a big star one day. When you listen to the lyrics of the song "Friday", absolutely none of it makes sense...the song was poorly written and I’m pretty sure 13 year old Rebecca could have done a much better job herself if she wrote her own song. Heck my 6 year old could of done a better job. The song is just stupid period. You can’t get mad at Rebecca because she’s such a young girl who doesn’t know any better. You can only get mad at Ark. I had a chance to look at other music videos produced by Ark Music Factory and they were all just as bad as “Friday”. Majority of them featured young teens who couldn’t sing to save their lives. All the songs of course, written by Ark.
The good thing about this whole experience for Rebecca is she has had a lot of writers, record labels and producers who want to work with her. I think this is good for her. She seemed to be extremely hurt over the negative feedback that she’s received from the twitter community over her song. She deserves it.

Icon Analysis

I choose American Idol, Barbie and Oprah as my three contemporary icons. I chose American Idol because I have a lot of friends and family with great voices. I chose Barbie because she was my best friend and a child and as a woman, I look up to Oprah.

American Idol is where all dreams can come true. On American Idol contestants compete against each other for a voice recording contract. The winner is decided by the viewers at home. I love watching this show because it makes me see how much I can achieve anything I want. There really isn't any losers on American Idol. You are still a winner. A lot of contestants who have none won American Idol have gained super star success just from being a contestant on the show.

Barbie was every girl's best friend growing up. She was anything that you wanted her to be. She was a doctor, a lawyer, a veterinarian, and she was even an astronaut. Barbie let a girl use her imagination any way that she wanted. I feel that Barbie is an Icon because she's been around for over fifty years!! She has helped little girls realize that they can be anything that they want to be. Barbie comes in all colors so she can relate to girls everywhere.

Oprah is one of the richest women in the world. She's also the only black billionaire woman. I feel like Oprah shows that women of color can become successful and be anything that they want to be.