Is Innocence Sexy?

Christopher Kane's summer 2010 collection debuts in London

I happened to be reading a fashion review in the New York Times. (No I don’t watch America’s Top Model or Project Runway. I promise.) The star of the show was designer Christopher Kane, whose collection, he says, was inspired by Jonestown. Pretty dark, huh? The Times writes that Kane managed to infuse his dresses “with the sense of innocence on the cusp of broken dreams.”

That got me to thinking. Is innocence sexy?

It is, isn’t it? But there is a thin line between innocence and naïveté – and a thin line between selling an image of innocence versus selling the image of innocence soon to be spoiled.

Looking at these photos, it strikes me that the image of beauty that is untouched, virginal, almost unreachable CAN be incredibly captivating – if it is a sophisticated, confident and wise kind of innocence, a willful innocence. That’s what chastity at its best is really about.

Spears on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1999

But I think there is another, more naïve, image of innocence that our culture frequently presents us. It’s the kind of innocence Britney Spears embodied when she first hit the big time – Telletubby in arm, pouty lips, dripping with a hyper-sexual undertone that makes the “innocence” nothing more than pretense. It’s a turn-on, to be sure, but a cheaper, more temporary one.

The first kind of allure is shrewd and hard-to-get, the other cheap and naïve. I can see shades of both in Kane’s collection.

The shrewd kind of innocence is truly captivating. It is willful, powerful, and worth giving everything one has in order to win it over.

Do Kids Make Women Less Happy in Life?

Facinating read from Maureen Dowd:

Marueen Dowd

In the early ’70s, breaking out of the domestic cocoon, leaving their mothers’ circumscribed lives behind, young women felt exhilarated and bold.

But the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?

According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier.

Before the ’70s, there was a gender gap in America in which women felt greater well-being. Now there’s a gender gap in which men feel better about their lives.

Dowd goes on to mention studies that show that women with children are less happy, on average, than those without.

When women stepped into male- dominated realms, they put more demands — and stress — on themselves. If they once judged themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens and dinner parties, now they judge themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens, dinner parties — and grad school, work, office deadlines and meshing a two-career marriage.

“Choice is inherently stressful,” Buckingham said in an interview. “And women are being driven to distraction.”

One area of extreme distraction is kids. “Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,” said Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton who co-wrote a paper called “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.” “It’s true whether you’re wealthy or poor, if you have kids late or kids early. Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn’t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness.”

The more important things that are crowded into their lives, the less attention women are able to give to each thing.

Is the maternal instinct self-defeating? What do you say, ladies?

Average person is sexually linked to 2.8 million people

Here’s a tongue twister and a mind bender.

How many people has the person you sleep with slept with?

Probably far more than you think.

This story from across the pond:

The average British man or woman has slept with 2.8 million people — albeit indirectly, according to figures released on Wednesday to promote awareness of sexual health.A British pharmacy chain has launched an online calculator which helps you work out how many partners you have had, in the sense of exposure to risk of sexually transmitted diseases (STIs).

The “Sex Degrees of Separation” ready reckoner tots up the numbers based on your number of partners, then their previous partners, and their former lovers, and so on for six “generations” of partners.

The average British man claims to have actually slept with nine people, while women put the figure at 6.3, giving an average of 7.65.

“When we sleep with someone, we are, in effect, not only sleeping with them, but also their previous partners and their partners’ previous partners, and so on,” said Clare Kerr, head of sexual health at Lloydspharmacy.

“It’s important that people understand how exposed they are to STIs and take appropriate precautions including using condoms and getting themselves checked out where appropriate.”

What about cutting back on your number of sexual partners to – say – ONE? Wouldn’t that fix the problem? Sheeeeesh. And we wonder why STDs are taking over the world. There are some STDs – herpes, gential warts, etc – that condoms cannot prevent.

Six degrees of sexual separation makes for a mighty big orgy. People say we need health care reform in America. I think a big shot of chastity would be a good start.

Beauty Queen Dies after Buttock Surgery

A former Miss Argentina dies after cosmetic surgery goes tragically wrong. I really don’t know what to say about this one. Partly because I don’t understand the derriere obsession that rages in certain cultural circles. But more to the point, here we have a case of a beauty queen who, while still young and in her thirties, was looking for surgery to enhance whatever she felt was lacking in her own physique.

Former Miss Argentina, Solange Magnano

I’m not opposed to cosmetic surgery in some cases. But this tragedy seems be heightened by the fact that the woman was already a great beauty and probably had less of a valid reason to seek surgical enhancement than 99% of women who might entertain the thought. I mean, at the end of the day it’s your butt we’re talking about.

This woman was already extremely beautiful. Too bad she didn’t know it. Do you know anyone who is beautiful but still doesn’t see herself as good enough?

Cell Phones, Texts and Lovers

This, folks, is an example of why David Brooks is one of the best and most insightful writers out there today.

Once upon a time — in what we might think of as the “Happy Days” era — courtship was governed by a set of guardrails. Potential partners generally met within the context of larger social institutions: neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and families. There were certain accepted social scripts. The purpose of these scripts — dating, going steady, delaying sex — was to guide young people on the path from short-term desire to long-term commitment.

David Brooks

Over the past few decades, these social scripts became obsolete. They didn’t fit the post-feminist era. So the search was on for more enlightened courtship rules. You would expect a dynamic society to come up with appropriate scripts. But technology has made this extremely difficult. Etiquette is all about obstacles and restraint. But technology, especially cellphone and texting technology, dissolves obstacles. Suitors now contact each other in an instantaneous, frictionless sphere separated from larger social institutions and commitments…

This does not mean that young people today are worse or shallower than young people in the past. It does mean they get less help. People once lived within a pattern of being, which educated the emotions, guided the temporary toward the permanent and linked everyday urges to higher things. The accumulated wisdom of the community steered couples as they tried to earn each other’s commitment.

Today there are fewer norms that guide in that way. Today’s technology seems to threaten the sort of recurring and stable reciprocity that is the building block of trust.

Take my advice and read the full article. It is well worth your time. Get it here.

How to Change a Girl’s Life

Nick Kristof has a great piece in the NY Times about a little known, but at the same time HUGE problem in the developing world. I’m speaking of obstetric fistulas.

An Ethiopian woman, helped by the Fistula Foundation

Pregnancy often comes early for girls living in Africa or Asia’s impoverished communities. Sometimes as early as 12, 13 or 14 – occasionally even younger. If their bodies are not yet mature enough to handle vaginal delivery. They have no access to C-section. Due to the small size of the pelvis, an obstetric fistula sometimes occurs. Medically, it’s a minor problem, but it can destroy a young girls life.

It is estimated that about two million women around the world suffer from the affliction.

From Kristof:

This is a childbirth injury, often suffered by a teenager in Africa or Asia whose pelvis is not fully grown. She suffers obstructed labor, has no access to a C-section, and endures internal injuries that leave her incontinent — steadily trickling urine and sometimes feces through her vagina.

I’ve met many of these women — or, often, girls of 13, 14, 15 — in half a dozen countries, for there are three million or four million of them around the world. They are the lepers of the 21st century.

Just about the happiest thing that can happen to such a woman is an encounter with Dr. Lewis Wall, an ob-gyn at Washington University in St. Louis. A quiet, self-effacing but relentless man of 59, Dr. Wall has devoted his life to helping these most voiceless of the voiceless, promoting the $300 surgeries that repair fistulas and typically return the patients to full health.

“There’s no more rewarding experience for a surgeon than a successful fistula repair,” Dr. Wall reflected. “There are a lot of operations you do that solve a problem — I can take out a uterus that has a tumor in it. But this is life-transforming for everybody who gets it done. It’s astonishing. You take a human being who has been in the abyss of despair and — boom! — you have a transformed woman. She has her life back.”

“In Liberia, I saw a woman who had developed a fistula 35 years earlier. It turned out to be a tiny injury; it took 20 minutes to repair it. For want of a 20-minute operation, this woman had lived in a pool of urine for 35 years.”

… The West African country of Niger recently approved Dr. Wall’s plan for a fistula hospital, affiliated with an existing leprosy hospital run by SIM, a Christian missionary organization. Eventually, when $850,000 in fund-raising is complete, a new 40-bed fistula hospital, modeled on the extremely successful Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital of Ethiopia, will rise on vacant ground next to the leprosy hospital. (For information on how to help, please visit my blog, nytimes.com/ontheground.)

I spent six months volunteering with an organization, Mercy Ships International, that runs a fistula surgical repair program. I know what a dramatic, life-changing experience these surguries are for the fortunate women who are able to find help. The surgury is relatively inexpensive, but for the poor of Africa or Asia, who lack medical care, it is out of reach without our help.

Consider a gift in the upcoming holiday season for this worthy cause. If you want to help, you can make a tax-deductable donation to the Worldwide Fistula Fund or the Fistula Foundation.

100,000 child prostitutes in the U.S.

The FBI just conducted a high-profile sting and rescue operation, which is being touted here and there in the news media. Of the estimated 100,000 victims of child prostitution in the U.S., the number that were rescued in this sweep was a mere — 52. We need to be reminded that this is a problem right here in the U.S., not merely in the third world.

Click here to watch a news report on the FBI operation.

Child Prostitution on the Rise

The NY Times reports that child prostitution is on the rise in the U.S. Not surprisingly, it’s trouble at home, more often than not, that leads kids into life on the streets. Once they are there, they embrace desperate measures in order to survive. The numbers are disturbing.

From the Times:

Nearly a third of the children who flee or are kicked out of their homes each year engage in sex for food, drugs or a place to stay, according to a variety of studies published in academic and public health journals. But this kind of dangerous barter system can quickly escalate into more formalized prostitution, when money changes hands. And then, child welfare workers and police officials say, it becomes extremely difficult to help runaways escape the streets.

Watch a related Times video report here.

 

Convicted child pimp, Antoin Thurman

Pimps comb the streets in search of desperate runaways. In addition to providing them with food and a place to stay, the pimps control the girls through emotional manipulation – providing a taste of the care and affirmation these girls are so obviously lacking at home, while at the same time beating them, verbally abusing them and selling them out.

 

“My job is to make sure she has what she needs, personal hygiene, get her nails done, take her to buy an outfit, take her out to eat, make her feel wanted,” said another pimp, Antoin Thurman, who was sentenced in 2006 to three years for pandering and related charges in Buckeye, Ariz. “But I keep the money.”

The article describes how many law enforcement officials are now focused on finding and helping runaways before the pimps get to them. Providing shelter, counseling and general aid to high risk runaways may be the most effective way to curtail child prostitution in the U.S. In 2007 Congress proposed to spend $55 million building group homes for runaways, but ultimately never authorized the funding. Personally, I think it makes a lot more sense to pay to put these children in protective services BEFORE they get into prostitution than it does to pay to put them in prison after the fact.

But, like so many social problems, the root cause of child prostitution is found in broken families.

Modern Man is a Wimp

As if we needed to be told yet again:

Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister has a new book entitled “Manthropology,” sub-titled “The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male.” Gratuitous male bashing? Maybe. After all, the same could be said of modern females compared to their ancient forbears. The main point McAllister makes is that our sedentary lifestyles in the modern world have rendered us slower and weaker by far than those who lived in ancient times and even as lately as the last century.

From a Reuters review:

* Roman legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day carrying more than half their body weight in equipment.

* Athens employed 30,000 rowers who could all exceed the achievements of modern oarsmen.

* Australian aboriginals threw a hardwood spear 110 meters or more (the current world javelin record is 98.48).

McAllister said it was difficult to equate the ancient spear with the modern javelin but added: “Given other evidence of Aboriginal man’s superb athleticism you’d have to wonder whether they couldn’t have taken out every modern javelin event they entered.”

Why the decline?

“We are so inactive these days and have been since the industrial revolution really kicked into gear,” McAllister replied. “These people were much more robust than we were.

“We don’t see that because we convert to what things were like about 30 years ago. There’s been such a stark improvement in times, technique has improved out of sight, times and heights have all improved vastly since then but if you go back further it’s a different story

On the other hand, we are living much longer lives, thanks to modern medicine and (no doubt) the low-stress existence afforded by wealth, ease, and technology. So perhaps we are better off in the end. What is interesting about this book is that it is marketed in a way that arbitrarily singles out men.

The book might just as easily have been subtitled “The Science of the Inadequate Modern Female” – since it also cites examples of how women are no longer as stout as the once were. Maybe the author made this decision because strength and vigor (the themes of his study) are traits we more closely associate with masculinity, rather than femininity. Or maybe male-bashing is simply more acceptable in the marketplace.

Remember Maureen Dowd’s book entitled, “Are Men Necessary?” from a few years back? Dowd intends the title with a wink and a nod, no doubt, but it is interesting that a male bashing title is viewed, at least by some, as a marketing plus. Does such a title make women more likely to by the book?

McAllister’s book reminds me of a study from a couple of years back about declines in the male birth rate. The issue of male decline is biological fact, and not merely a fabrication of marketing departments in the publishing industry, as this report from 2007 indicates:

The University of Pittsburgh has found that during the past thirty years, the number of male births has steadily decreased in the U.S. and Japan. Perhaps more worryingly, the study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, also found that an increasing proportion of fetuses that die are male. In Japan, among the fetuses that die, two-thirds are male, up from just over half in 1970.

The study reported an overall decline of 17 males per 10,000 births in the U.S. and a decline of 37 males per 10,000 births in Japan since 1970. Lead investigator Devra Lee Davis said the figures translated to 135,000 fewer males in the U.S. and 127,000 fewer males in Japan.

I have also read that average sperm counts have fallen rapidly over the past century.

The National Institutes of Health agreed. “Their analysis of data collected from 1938 to 1990 indicates that sperm densities in the United States have exhibited an average annual decrease of 1.5 million sperm per milliliter of collected sample, or about 1.5 percent per year,” the NIH said in a statement. “Those in European countries have declined at about twice that rate (3.1 percent per year).”

So what does this all add up to? What is causing the male to simply melt out of the genetic life continuum? Is it pesticide? Fluoride? The microwave oven? Or have men been brainwashed and psyched out and simply scared into biological submission by relentless male bashing marketing campaigns from industries the world over??

You decide.

Results of AIDS vaccine trial ‘weak’ in second analysis — latimes.com

Results of AIDS vaccine trial ‘weak’ in second analysis — latimes.com

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Ralph Lauren fires “overweight” model

Filippa Hamilton is the model whose image was photo-shopped by Ralph Lauren so that her waist looked smaller than her head. The image has created a firestorm of negative publicity for Ralph Lauren. And the label has threatened to sue bloggers who publish the guilty image. Well, here it is again, next to a photo of what Hamilton actually looks like.

Hamilton, who is 5’10” and a size 8, claims that she was fired by Ralph Lauren in April for being “overweight.”

‘I’ve been working with them since I was 15 years old, so I considered them my second family,’ the 5ft 10in beauty said. ‘I was very hurt about this.’

Miss Hamilton claims she was fired in April – before the digitally- altered images of her were released.

‘I saw my face in this extremely skinny girl – which is not me,’ she recalled.

‘It makes me sad. It makes me think that Ralph Lauren wants to have this kind of image – and it’s not healthy, it’s not right.

‘And it’s not a good example. When you see this picture young women will look at this and think it’s normal, and it’s not.’

In a statement last night Polo Ralph Lauren denied her claims, saying their relationship ended ‘as a result of her inability to meet the obligations under her contract’.

Read more about this story here.

Hopefully, fashion compaines will learn something from Ralph Lauren’s current woes. There is nothing wrong with using models that are healthy and on the thin side. But distorting images into unhealthy proportions and motivating girls to starve themselves is not good ethics or good business, and consumers are getting fed up with it.

HIV orphans in Vietnam live as pariahs

A moving report in the NY Times today about HIV-positive orphans in AN NHON TAY, Vietnam. Ignorance and fear keep these kids segregated from mainstream society. Local parents are unwilling to let the children attend school along with the orphans:

“The children were so excited,” said Sister Nguyen Thi Bao, who runs the orphanage and had been lobbying for three years to enroll them in the government school. “They had been wishing for this day to come.”

But when they arrived, they found an uprising by the parents of the other students, who refused to let their children enter the school together with the infected orphans. Some of the parents hastily backed away when the orphans walked past.

After a short standoff, the principal, who had agreed to accept the orphans, told Sister Bao that their papers were not in order and that they could not stay.

The children returned to the orphanage, just a short walk down a country road, where they continue to study in small classrooms, still exiled from the uninfected world.

“I was so happy to go to the school,” said a 12-year-old fourth grader for whom Sister Bao insisted on anonymity to keep her from the spotlight. “But then I saw that some parents wouldn’t let their children go to school with me because they are scared of my disease.”

I’m grateful that the Catholic church provides care for these children. It’s alarming to think what might happen to them otherwise. But I wonder how many of us would have the strength to take one of these beautiful children into our home, knowing what tragedy might be awaiting them in the future.

Children sometimes die prematurely and unexpectedly. It is a risk any parent faces. Yet few parents would regret the time they were able to live with and love their child, even if he or she were taken away prematurely. Why is it so much more difficult to imagine taking on a sick child when we know ahead of time that the risk of losing him or her is so high?

HIV-positive orphans at the Mia Hoa orphanage in Vietnam

I would hope to have the strength to take on a child such as these – to assume the risk of heartbreak with such reckless abandon. The rewards would be greater than the eventual loss, I am certain. But I don’t know if I have that strength.

Do you?

Pepsi advises men on how to score with women

Pepsi has created a storm of controversy for itself, and a lot of bad p.r. Marketers for Pepsi’s energy drink AMP (a beverage targeted primarily toward men) created an iPhone app, which stereotypes different women and offers advice and pick-up lines with the aim of helping guys “score” with each different type of woman.

Pepsi's "AMP up before you score" iPhone application

There’s advice for bookworms, girls on the rebound, even – so I hear – for how to score with a married woman. Wow, that was well thought through, Pepsi. Nice job.

Will the National Organization for Women organize a boycott? I might have to join them on this one. Ah, misogyny – the marketing tool of self-destructive corporations. It says something, however, about our culture that this could have been considered a good idea by any corporate marketing team.

Pepsi is backpedaling hard on this one. But I wonder how many gals will switch to Coca Cola.

Memoir of a former abortion addict — latimes.com

Memoir of a former abortion addict — latimes.com

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Anorexia is the new Black

Ralph Lauren ad

I’m not normally one to get upset over the fact that most fashion models are skinny. I myself have quite a thin genetic disposition. But this ad from Ralph Lauren crosses the line. While selling skinny is nothing new. This girl is positively anorexic. She looks unwell. The image is disturbing.

Emaciation is not sexy.

What are they thinking at Ralph Lauren? Young girls may view this ad as a clue as to what is desirable. If they try to emulate the model, they will undoubtedly be putting themselves at risk of eating disorders and other health hazards. But social concerns aside – it just doesn’t look good. So my question, once again, is: Why?

Polanski Apologists

Hollywood luminaries continue to speak out the prosecution of a confessed child rapist. Polanski, the rapist won an Oscar, you see. So he shouldn’t be held accountable for his crime like a normal person. Steve Lopez of the LA Times writes a scathing critique against these apologists. His piece is worth reading in full. Here is a sample:

Q: Did you resist at that time?

A: A little bit, but not really because . . .

Q: Because what?

A: Because I was afraid of him.

That’s Roman Polanski’s 13-year-old victim testifying before a grand jury about how the famous director forced himself on her at Jack Nicholson’s Mulholland Drive home in March of 1977.

I’m reading this in the district attorney’s office at the Los Angeles County Criminal Courts Building, digging through the Polanski file to refresh my memory of the infamous case, and my blood pressure is rising.

Is it because I’m the parent of a girl?

Maybe that’s part of it.

But I wish the renowned legal scholars Harvey Weinstein and Debra Winger, to name just two of Polanski’s defenders, were here with me now. I’d like to invite Martin Scorsese, as well, along with David Lynch, who have put their names on a petition calling for Polanski to be freed immediately.

What, because he won an Oscar? Would they speak up for a sex offender who hadn’t?

To hear these people tell it, you’d think Polanski was the victim rather than the teenager.

And then there’s Woody Allen, who has signed the petition too.

Woody Allen?

You’d think that after marrying his longtime girlfriend’s adopted daughter, he’d have the good sense to remain silent. But at least Soon-Yi Previn was a consenting adult.

I’d like to show all these great luminaries the testimony from Polanski’s underage victim, as well as Polanski’s admission of guilt. Then I’d like to ask whether, if the victim were their daughter, they’d be so cavalier about a crime that was originally charged as sodomy and rape before Polanski agreed to a plea bargain. Would they still support Polanski’s wish to remain on the lam living the life of a king, despite the fact that he skipped the U.S. in 1977 before he was sentenced?

Is it any wonder that Hollywood puts out the smut that it does? These are some of the most powerful names in the movie business and they have, apparently, almost no moral core. If we cannot stand up for child sex abuse victims, then what do we have left?

Read the full article with its graphic description of Polanski’s calculated, heinous crime. And then ask yourself: How can these people make excuses for this child rapist? What possible reason could there be to excuse this man from facing accountability for his crimes?

Feminism and Pornography

Another bit of evidence of the strange connection between feminism and pornography that keeps appearing in contemporary cultural commentary. Did you know that Playboy has been run by a woman (Hugh Hefner’s daughter) for the last thirty years?

I found this remark about Christie Hefner in the NY Times:

“She’s certainly a liberal feminist and a liberal Democrat,” said Mr. Navasky, former editor of the liberal Nation. “People would say, ‘so what’s she doing putting out a magazine and running clubs catering to horny men?’ But she found a way to make it work consistent with her values, to serve Playboy and her father and give them an opportunity to do socially useful things.”

So, objectifying women by selling their nude pictures to men is now supposed to be “consistent” with feminist values?

The French Government’s Favorite Rapist

Roman Polanski, famed film director and confessed child rapist, has finally been arrested on a 30 year old outstanding warrant. He drugged and raped a 13 year old girl in the 70′s. He was in his mid forties at the time. Now that he has been arrested, it is remarkable to see how many people, including officials in the French government are calling for America to drop the charges.

It was bad enough when Hollywood awarded this sex criminal an Oscar six or seven years ago. Now there are people who think that the LA district attorney is wrong to prosecute the man. I can think of no other reason for this than the fact that Polanski is famous and, I suppose, talented. It’s not my job to judge the guy, but he needs to be held accountable for his crime.

No one is above the law. I fear for us when we place such value on fame – even more value than we do on justice, or the welfare of children. We make idols out of criminals.

Polanski is a French citizen. In general, I like France. But today I feel like joining the Freedom Fries fanatics. Read this gem from the LA Times in which not one but TWO high ranking French officials make royal asses of themselves:

The arrest of Roman Polanski has become an international incident, with France and Poland demanding that the famed director be released on bail and questioning why he was taken into custody.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office wants Polanski extradited to face charges that he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl 30 years ago.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told France-Inter radio that he and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski asked Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that Polanski be released on bail, calling his arrest  a “bit sinister.”

French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand was quoted in French media as saying, “In the same way that there is a generous America that we like, there is also a scary America that has just shown its face.”

France has harbored a child rapist for 30 years, and this guy thinks America is “scary?”

Does this look like feminism to you?

A line from a NY Times review of the new Vercace collection caught my eye:

Is this a feminist?

Alice in Wonderland — and the energy of pattern and color,” said Donatella Versace as she stood backstage among a posse of look-alike model clones, raised on mighty platform soles. They had lined up in a finale in which the vivid prints and iridescent inserts made a backdrop for the designer.

This was Donatella in Wonderland — the first show she has done that captured absolutely the witty and lively spirit of her late brother, Gianni, but with the sexy clothes given a bold, feminist perspective.

The fashion review says that Vercace’s “sexy clothes” convey a “feminist perspective.” But the logic behind this is odd. Clothes, after all, are meant to be looked at. And seeing comes before wanting. The woman who wears the clothes becomes the object of another’s gaze, attention and desire. Sexy clothes enhance the idea that the woman is the object of male desire. So in what way are sexy clothes “feminist?”

One hears a lot these days about the supposed link between feminism and super-charged sexuality. Women take on an aggressive sexual persona and, so the story goes, become more male-like, ultimately beating men at their own game. That’s the Madonna shtick. And you see it from Hollywood with shows like “Cougar Town.” Women seek to hold onto their youth and their social power by going after lots of men, especially younger men. Isn’t Madonna hauling around some model half her age these days?  It makes for a salacious image. But I’m not so sure it works that way in real life. (And I’m not the only one who has doubts, as Judith Warner made clear yesterday.)

Courtney Cox stars in "Cougar Town"

Feminists have long fought against the objectification of women – their being relegated to the role of the passive pursued, or their being valued according to how much men want them.

There is nothing wrong with looking sexy,  in my opinion, as long as it’s not slutty. And desirability does give a woman a certain kind of power. But the idea that looking sexy is supposed to be seen as “a feminist thing” seems to me to be a fantasy of those who want to cast off the old marmish image of 60′s-era feminism, but also want to feel like they have held true to the ideals of that same movement. But you can’t wear the bra and burn it at the same time.

Wearing sexy clothes is a rejection of feminism, not an expression of it.

P.S. I promise, no more fashion postings this week! I don’t know what got into me, honest.

For first time, AIDS Vaccine Partly Effective in Clinical Trial

Encouraging news this morning from Thailand:

BANGKOK – For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible.

The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31% in the world’s largest AIDS vaccine trial, involving more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday in Bangkok.

Even though the benefit is modest, “it’s the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine,” Col. Jerome Kim said in a telephone interview. He helped lead the study for the U.S. Army, which sponsored it with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The institute’s director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned that this is “not the end of the road,” but said he was surprised and very pleased by the outcome.

“It gives me cautious optimism about the possibility of improving this result” and developing a more effective AIDS vaccine, Fauci said in a telephone interview. “This is something that we can do.”

Even a marginally helpful vaccine could make a big difference. Every day, 7,500 people worldwide become infected with HIV. Two million died of AIDS in 2007, the United Nations agency UNAIDS estimates.