"Girls Gone Wild" is a series of movies in which young women, often in an intoxicated state, are filmed taking off their clothes. Why would anyone protest such enlightened fare, you ask? Recently, a camera-man for the film series was charged with raping a 17-year old while filming at a nightclub in Akron, Ohio.
Such gruesome acts of sexual violence are a direct result of the type of sexual attitudes perpetuated by the series. According to Claire Hoffman, staff writer for the Los Angeles Times: "Women (on the show) giggle as they stare into the camera and explain just how wild their vacations are getting: group showers, oral sex in bars with strangers, topless dancing. One girl, surrounded by her friends, explains, 'I'm ready and willing, and I'm a dirty slut.'" Such comments are so ridiculous they would be comical, were it not for the fact that seeing young girls as "ready and willing dirty sluts" is a step away from what happened in Akron.
One prominent critic of "Girls Gone Wild" is Ariel Levy, author of "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture." In her work, Levy explains that "high-end cable executives who produce shows like 'G-string Divas'... equate stripping with female 'empowerment.'"
Some women may feel empowered through the act of stripping, especially considering that stripping is an integral part of mature healthy romance. The problem with the culture behind "Girls Gone Wild" and "G-string Divas" is not aggressive sexuality itself, but its degradation of sexuality. Levy summarizes this point well when she argues that, "Sex is one of the most interesting things we as human beings have to play with and we've reduced it to polyester underpants and implants. We are selling ourselves unbelievably short."
What is especially saddening is that programs similar to "Girls Gone Wild" are incredibly profitable. We live in a nation where someone like Joe Francis (the founder of "Girls Gone Wild") can become wealthy from convincing young women, most often by means of alcohol, to strip, masturbate and suggestively dance in front of a video camera.
Hoffman notes that, "Francis has aimed his cameras at a generation whose notions of privacy and sexuality are different from any other. Whether it's 13-year-olds watching a Britney Spears video, 16-year-olds getting their pubic hair waxed to emulate porn stars or 17-year-olds viewing videos of celebrities performing the most intimate acts, youth culture is soaked in sexuality."
Young people have always been incredibly sexual, but today this sexuality has been commercialized to an unprecedented degree. Our generation has allowed companies to amass incredible wealth through marketing the embarrassment and disrespect of women our age. It is clear that sexual liberation itself can be a very good thing and empower women; however, videotaping intoxicated women while they undress is not a substitute for healthy sexuality.
According to a 1994 publication by the American Psychiatric Association, "Young women are especially susceptible to objectification, as they are often taught that power, respect, and wealth can be derived from one's outwardly appearance." Such a broad claim obviously makes it difficult to pinpoint the origins of the problem of viewing women's worth as limited to their sex appeal. However, it seems clear that society should draw the line somewhere before programs like "Girls Gone Wild" become accepted by the mainstream. Women should be able to empower themselves through their sex appeal, but the problem begins the moment women allow their sex appeal to be used as a means to degrade them. I think most people can agree that programs like "Girls Gone Wild," where women are obeying men's orders to undress on film, is not empowering.
It is clear that some guidelines must be followed to prevent sexual liberation and empowerment from leading to degradation and sexual violence. Sex appeal can only be truly liberating and empowering if it takes place in the absence of the type of male pressure, intoxicating substances and self-debasement ("I'm a dirty slut") that make "Girls Gone Wild" clearly a show created by and for crass, chauvinistic men.
I can't speak for everyone, but I know that I do not want my children growing up in a world where a large portion of the population approves of images that depict women as unintelligent sex tools meant for entertaining an audience. As a morally inclined society, we must make it clear to all the institutions that profit from sexually degrading women that it is not acceptable to define attractive female sexuality as being an intoxicated, hapless victim of male sexual desire.
Michael Ramos-Lynch '09 is accepting applications for "Girls Gone Responsibly Liberated."
