Thinky thoughts.

[pensnest]

We spent yesterday collecting Father in Law from Bexhill-on-Sea. He had an operation on Wednesday to correct a deformation of his foot, and we overrode his protests about how he'd be perfectly well able to look after himself and insisted he get a bit of pampering here. It shouldn't really have taken all day, but what with the hospital and the M25, well, it did.


Thing is, when female pop stars "explore their sexuality" by kissing one another on stage, that's an approved kind of outrageous. Because the straight men* like it. Women encouraging their male dancers to sniff their crotches? Straight men, not unhappy with that. Women who apparently *want* sex? No objection from the straight men.

And then we have Adam Lambert, doing much the same thing only, gasp, he's a guy! And he's not shoving his naughty bits into a woman's face (actually, he may well have done, I can't remember the details) but into a man's—oh, my, send for the smelling salts. It makes the straight men terribly, terribly uncomfortable.

I'm thinking, maybe, it's because men are persons and women are sex objects? It's acceptable for a sex object to playact sex because, well, that's what she is *for*. It's acceptable for a person (eg Justin Timberlake) to playact sex with a woman dancer, because that's what she's for. But a man who playacts sex with a man—that's person abuse!

So it's not just homophobia, it's misogyny too. Dear Adam, please not to be forgetting that.


* Straight men = not necessarily "all men who are heterosexual", more "the prevalent attitudes running our society". Lotta women seem to buy into it. :-(

Comments

[rikes]

I haven't actually seen it, but from what I gather he did the same thing with a female dancer as well. Which just makes the whole thing even more messed up.

[pensnest]

I'[m pretty sure there was Stuff with female dancers too, but apparently that wasn't outrageous at all... Bah.

[withdiamonds.livejournal.com]

Pampering is nice.

I think you're onto something with the Adam business. Person abuse indeed.

[pensnest]

I've been wandering through communities enough to find comments along the lines of Shocked, Shocked! from people who professed to be fans - can't help but wonder what they expected, really. Silly people.

[zelda-zee.livejournal.com]

He didn't kiss any of the female dancers, but there was a pretty amazing crotch grab and some other stuff. I agree with what you say, it's all about how females supposed to be the objects and males are supposed to be the subjects and when those things get mixed up it makes a lot of rigid-thinking people's heads got splodey. I only hope Adam holds his own and doesn't let the furor drag him back into being a performer who sticks to what's safe. Personally, I think our society needs someone like him right now, i.e. a very famous gay artist who'll make no bones about who he is, what he does and who he does it with. That he's a pop singer, and not someone on the fringes of the music biz is all the better.

Damn, I really need an Adam icon.

[pensnest]

I think we do need him right now - and it doesn't hurt that his album is smashing. I hope he doesn't get too apologetic, it won't help anyway.

There are so many pics of Adam appearing now, how is a poor icon-maker to keep up?

[wilde_stallyn.livejournal.com]

But a man who playacts sex with a man—that's person abuse!

This also jives with the thread I've noticed in some of the commentary of "The kiss was unplanned! That's harassment!"

If Justin kissed a female dancer in a preformance,
a) no one would even think to ask if it was planned or not,
b) no one would ask how she felt about it, or about her sexual orientation or marital status,
c) if anyone did think to call it harassment, probably even if the dancer herself complained, they would be dismissed as over-sensitive feminists (10-to-1 odds the term "femi-nazi" would get thrown around).

[pensnest]

I think you're right - it'd just be assumed she was a Very Lucky Girl!

The array of reactions to this whole thing encompass a lot of mind-bogglingly stupid, really.