Looking at sexuality
November 21, 2007
Jolene Hildebrand
Why is sex used to sell everything from cars to toothpaste? Entire industries thrive off of the idea that “sex sells”, and it is more than true. But why is sexy so physical? Advertisers don’t use well reasoned arguments to sell their product - they use a provocative human body to visually blast you with desire.
I find this perplexing, particularly as a woman. Why am I enticed to buy a female fragrance by an image of a sexy woman? Am I sexually attracted to her? No. Do I want to look like her? Maybe. Do men find her attractive? Yes. Perhaps that’s why her image is used: so that I will want to look like her so that men will want to look at me. The very idea of sexuality targets our vulnerability, and our culture demands us to want to look sexually attractive. Yet it bothers me that sexuality is immediately identified with a physical image, and that sex is used as a visual tool to define what is erotic in a very narrow - minded way.
Sexuality is much more complex than looking attractive. At its root is a longing that cannot be fulfilled by images, and fails to be addressed by asking what is physically arousing or not. It takes training to not look at a body sexually. Being surrounded by images of sexuality, however, makes it impossible not to evaluate bodies based on their sensual value. Amidst all of the visual sexual statements there is an ongoing conflict between what is considered to be chaste behaviour and how we sexually understand our being.
Within our culture sex is not just a particular action or tendency: it has become a lifestyle. People are even willing to label their identity according to their sexual orientation. It becomes our past, our history and the very core of our nature. In the midst of a visually sex-soaked culture, it’s hard to believe that there are other ways to think about what is erotic. Yet at the bottom of sexuality is a desire that has more to do with spiritual yearning and intimacy than with physical attraction.
Erotic desire cannot be satisfied by images. It is an intricate part of our nature that needs to be given more thought than sexual “identity”. Identity has more to do with how we look, or how we perceive ourselves, than our actual being. The word is misleading because it keeps us focused on appearances. What lie behind appearances are unfathomable depths of longing and desire that are so often misunderstood that they result in guilt and despair.
What this reveals is a deeply conflicted attitude towards sex. Of course sex sells, but only because advertisers tread a delicate balance: they use sexuality as a tool of enticement, but with enough discretion to make the consumer desire more. However, if sexual desires were liberated beyond restraints, the world would be one giant orgy, and then quickly settle into boredom. Ideals of chastity restrain the sexual appetite, but it is often not expected that we apply self-control to our minds.
We look at physical images of the erotic and desire what they portray, but we usually don’t stop where they may go. Why then is it so difficult to talk about sexual intimacy? Perhaps because it’s permissible to think about sex, and let one’s mind wander uninhibited, but confronting it within a relationship is out of the question.
Intimacy requires responsibility to another person, but our minds alone don’t hold us accountable to anyone beyond ourselves. Through a misunderstood idea of sexuality we believe that our thoughts on the issue have no impact on anyone else. We struggle with many erotic longings that cannot be attributed to anything outside of ourselves. Misunderstanding these internal desires results in guilt about feelings that seem to be unacceptable.
By discussing sexuality in terms that go deeper than representation, we confront the erotic nature of our being. The ideal of chastity should not mean that we restrict our understanding of purity to a simple set of physical do’s and don’ts, but that we embrace its challenge to be aware of our erotic longings and honestly deal with them in our relationships.
Now you go...
Got something to say?