bored This time,
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
fugney infected me with the meme.Is sex without love a sin?
The questions posits the construct of "sex without love" as a transgressive activity which must meet with the approval of the patriarchy in order to be "confirmed"1 as trangressive within the arbitrary limits of the acceptable. The physical activity of sex with or without love is carefully, if arbitrarily contextual, limning the essentialist nature of the three letters "S-E-X" as reified masculinity. This is a narrative of subjugation.
The ontology of the dominant episteme encoding the patriarchal construct of "sex with love" and "sex without love" is emergent in the hermeneutics of the intertextuality of Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty" and John Mayer's "Your Body is a Wonderland". Both songs, released in 2002 attempt to challenge and subvert each other.
"Dirrrty" is a subversive narrative which employs the tropes of dominance and aggression as weapons of the "weaker sex", inverting the traditional hierarchy:
Ooh, I'm overdue
Gimme some room
I'm coming through
Paid my dues
In the mood
Me and my girls gonna shake the room
Gimme some room
I'm coming through
Paid my dues
In the mood
Me and my girls gonna shake the room
The line "paid my dues" is of particular transformative significance, as the traditional roles of possessor and possessed are re-possessed by Aguilera's "girls". The male is now the subject, purchased by the dissenting Aguilera. In an ironic bow to the colonial possession of oriental women's bodies, Aguilera, in her video, chooses male models of uncertain "race" in a searing indictment of this artificial construct:
Contrast this with John Mayer's "Your Body is a Wonderland". Firmly rooted in the narrative of "romantic" so-called "love", threatened by the assertive Aguilera, he makes an explicit linkage between the male possession of the female body and "sex with love". Consider:
Cause if you want love
We'll make it
Swim in a deep sea
Of blankets
Take all your big plans
And break 'em
This is bound to be awhile
These lines evoke all the tropes of "romantic" so-called "love", and provide the connection with the materiality of possession:
We'll make it
Swim in a deep sea
Of blankets
Take all your big plans
And break 'em
This is bound to be awhile
These lines evoke all the tropes of "romantic" so-called "love", and provide the connection with the materiality of possession:
Discover me
Discovering you
One mile to every inch of
Your skin like porcelain
One pair of candy lips and
Your bubblegum tongue
"Discover me, discovering you" posits the female as the passive receptacle of man's exploration. As the "West" explored and posessed the world for its material resources, Mayer explores and subjugates the female body. The explicit comparison of female anatomy to items desired by the consumerist, neo-liberal male [porcelain....candy...bubblegum] firmly establishes the inevitability of possession and consumption of the female subject by Mayer. The contrast between the fluid, feminized environment of the showering girls in "Dirrty" and the hard, masculine "porcelain" of Mayer's "girl" defines the tension between the neo-liberal worldview and those who would seek to subvert it.
In summary, Aguilera's "Dirrty" can be viewed, and re-viewed, as an attempt to undermine the male fantasy of dominance and ownership, and the fantasy of nubile women displaying their sexuality for the sole purpose of consumption by the male. This political statement must be placed in the context of the growing neo-conservative assertion of "traditional values" following the events of 9/11. Aguilera constructs a populist, oral narrative, limned in the revolutionary image of Aguilera being serviced with life-giving fluids by the racially amorphous males in "Dirrty"[top right, image above]. Subtle, asexual and ironic, "Dirrty" establishes Aguilera as the writer of protest songs for a new generation; this time, for those seduced by the brightly lit call of consumerism.
1. "Confirmation" is itself an etymological construct.
Get it? No? Ok, here are the rules:
1) You comment here, and I will reply with a question on some touchy-feely subject.
2) You will post the question and your answer to it in your blog. In your answer, you will deliberately try to obfuscate the matter by stretching your vocabulary to its limit, using "" a lot, and generally making little sense.
3) You will then offer to ask others questions.
Discovering you
One mile to every inch of
Your skin like porcelain
One pair of candy lips and
Your bubblegum tongue
"Discover me, discovering you" posits the female as the passive receptacle of man's exploration. As the "West" explored and posessed the world for its material resources, Mayer explores and subjugates the female body. The explicit comparison of female anatomy to items desired by the consumerist, neo-liberal male [porcelain....candy...bubblegum] firmly establishes the inevitability of possession and consumption of the female subject by Mayer. The contrast between the fluid, feminized environment of the showering girls in "Dirrty" and the hard, masculine "porcelain" of Mayer's "girl" defines the tension between the neo-liberal worldview and those who would seek to subvert it.
In summary, Aguilera's "Dirrty" can be viewed, and re-viewed, as an attempt to undermine the male fantasy of dominance and ownership, and the fantasy of nubile women displaying their sexuality for the sole purpose of consumption by the male. This political statement must be placed in the context of the growing neo-conservative assertion of "traditional values" following the events of 9/11. Aguilera constructs a populist, oral narrative, limned in the revolutionary image of Aguilera being serviced with life-giving fluids by the racially amorphous males in "Dirrty"[top right, image above]. Subtle, asexual and ironic, "Dirrty" establishes Aguilera as the writer of protest songs for a new generation; this time, for those seduced by the brightly lit call of consumerism.
1. "Confirmation" is itself an etymological construct.
Get it? No? Ok, here are the rules:
1) You comment here, and I will reply with a question on some touchy-feely subject.
2) You will post the question and your answer to it in your blog. In your answer, you will deliberately try to obfuscate the matter by stretching your vocabulary to its limit, using "" a lot, and generally making little sense.
3) You will then offer to ask others questions.
March 25 2007, 13:16:02 UTC 5 years ago
*comment*
March 25 2007, 16:34:39 UTC 5 years ago