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Samara Matthews
John Kubler
English 115
28 October 2014
A Step in the Right Direction: Sexualized society and freedom/exploration
In todays world it is not uncommon for us to see hyper-sexualized images. Whether it be
in our everyday life or in the media. Most people see this and think it is automatically a bad
concept. Parents get mad that their kids are seeing these images and that it is objectifying.
However, what todays world fails to see is that through this some people can feel empowered.
Empowerment and objectification are two very subjective words and while some people find
dressing half naked degrading others find it empowering to show off their body with confidence.
Although to some our hyper-sexualized society seems to be a turn in the wrong direction it is not
wrong for everyone because, being in this hyper-sexualization opens up the floor for people to
have more room for exploration of ones sexual self and new ways to feel empowered.
The movie Crazy, Stupid, Love portrays many scenes in which empowerment is
displayed through ways in which some people may not agree with because they are sexy. The
main couple I would like to focus on is the two people, Jacob and Hannah. In the film Jacob feels
as though he is a very empowered person. In a way, the way he gains power is by objectification
of his body. He makes himself look good through his body and his appearance with clothes in
order to feel good about himself and feel confident. Now when most people see this in the film
they think nothing of it.Instead try thinking of Jacob as being a woman instead. If he were a girl
trying to look good , showing her body off to get the attention of men, it would have been
frowned upon. For example, when a girl dresses in a short skirt to a college party many people

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will say she is asking for something, to be hit on or that she wants something sexual. When a guy
dresses equally to this then it is not as big a deal, he is not asking for anything. Another example
is the comparison of a womans music video and a mans. A man with his shirt off and possibly
in his boxers would just be looked at as an attractive guy showing off his body, nothing wrong
with that. However, if you look at a girl, for example Miley Cyrus Wrecking Ball music video,
the comments were rude saying that she was exploiting her body and one viewer even said This
is utterly disgusting(youtube). However in both cases the goal is to obtain empowerment and
have self confidence. Which is a good thing regardless if it is hyper-sexualized or not. It should
not matter what others think because empowerment and how you obtain it is subjective to every
person. Next we focus on Cal who in the beginning of the film has no empowerment what so
ever and has completely no self-esteem. Jacob changes this for him and shows him that through
looking good you can also feel good. Jacob teaches Cal how to achieve empowerment through
looking good and showing their good qualities which in this movie are their looks which displays
how our sexualized society works when it comes to what we look for in partners. Cal ends up
with great confidence through this form of empowerment Jacob shows him. This is just two of
the many examples that show that through our freely sexualized society people can find great
comfort in finding a way to be empowered and being able to explore this sexual way of thinking.
Through my own personal research, my ethnography, I have found that most people
today find that our sexually free society is empowering. When interviewing couples they were
asked many questions including, how they felt about performers in the media such as Miley
Cyrus and Nicki Minaj and also how they felt about they way girls of today dress, for example
short shorts and short dresses. Nicki and Miley are both very reveling in their performances
and are many times going too far for some people. Their performances consist of very reveling

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clothes and inappropriate gestures such as twerking, humping, and even inappropriate language.
However, almost all of the couples I spoke to believed that Miley and Nicki have every right to
perform like they do and that they do not take it too far because if this is what makes them
confident then more power to them(Ethnography1). The same goes with the short shorts, short
dresses, and skirts. They all believed that the articles of clothing were okay for women to wear as
long as it made them happy and empowered because it shows that they are just confident in their
bodies which is what todays society does. Our society is based very much on looks and and
people being confident with their bodies and while some people are for this others may not be
but they should not bring down the empowerment of others.
In Persepolis a novel written by Marjane Satrapi, Marji, the main character struggles to
find herself in two very different cultures and ends up finding herself more in a more sexualized
and free thinking society. Being in a free society Marji decides to change her look, she cuts all of
her hair and becomes punk. Sounds like someone in our culture today, that is right, Miley
Cyrus. Marji eventually, abandoned [her] punk look. [she] no longer wanted to be
marginal.(Satrapi 199). In both cases, Marji and Miley, they are allowed by their culture to
explore every aspect of themselves and who they could be. Austria was a very open place outside
of Marjis home country where sex was not looked down on and you were free to express
yourself however you choose. This freedom included both her looks and personality or choices in
life. Although, Marji ends up disbanding the punk look it is great that she had the option to find
that out, otherwise she would have continued life wondering if she could have been someone
else. This freedom in Austria gave her a sort of closure to all of the types of people and choices
she wondered about and showed her who she really was by allowing her to discover it
herself.This is like many girls today, I too went through various stages, I was the tomboy, the

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awkward shy girl, and then even the social well liked cheerleader. All girls need this freedom of
a sexualized society, not so they can be sexy, just so they can have the option to safely explore
themselves and not feel trapped as Marji does when she returns to her home country.
Marjis home country is no where near having sexual freedom, it is the exact opposite!
She looks distraught and saddened as she again [puts] on [her] veil . . . And so much for [her]
individual and social liberties(245). She once again returns to this zone of no confidence,
feeling trapped and as if she has no freedom. Without the freedom of a sexualized society she
goes back to the person she has to be rather than the real person she is trying to find, which is not
healthy for anyone. This just furthers the importance that a sexually free society may just be a
step in the right direction.
In Wendy McElroys A Feminist Overview of Pornography,Ending in a Defense
Thereof she shows all sides to how are sexualized society is seen while supporting that it is a
womans choice to explore and do whatever she wants with her own body. I agree with her that
many may not agree with peoples choices when they are expressed sexually. But is it really your
place to judge? A fair person would think, as a woman I am appalled by Playboy...but as a
[person] I understand the need for free expression(McElroy 1). You can disagree with our
sexualized society all you want but the fact is that we as people are free to feel empowered in
any safe positive way we would like and as McElroy implies, we do not have to agree with
peoples choices however, it is their choice to make. People in our society believe that if you are
in the porn industry that you must not have self respect, but this is unfair judgment. Society
should not be able to decide a persons traits, that is up to them, whether they feel empowered or
confident or even respected. We should not have the power to shame or dictate what [someone]
[does] with [their] body. Why is something that [someone] find[s] so empowering and liberating

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something that would shatter anyones positive views of [someone](Anonymous 1). This
Anonymous writer is a cam girl herself and she reveals the truths of being a call girl from her
experience. She explains how it is not all bad and that it should not be looked down upon.
Empowerment, self confidence, all these traits are individually different for each person and
should not be judged on how one explores that even if it is through todays sexualized society.
Feelings are subjective to each person and you would not judge someone if a scary movie
did not scare them. Yet, we judge people just because of a stereotype placed on them such as all
cam girls have no self-respect for themselves. It just does not make sense and is not fair to those
that take place in the sexualization of todays society. As humans we are meant to explore and
being in a hyper-sexualized society just gives us that much more to explore safely. This is a step
in the right direction it is not harming anyone, it only seems to make people judge others in areas
they just are not meant to judge.

Work Cited
Anonymous. "Yes, I Am a Cam Girl and I Have Self-Respect." Thoughts on Liberty. N.p.,
n.d.
Web. 28 Oct. 2014.
Crazy, Stupid, Love. Dir. John Requa and Glem Fecarra. Perf. Ryan Gosling and Emma
Stone. Warner Bros., 2011. Online.
Ethnography. Personal Interview. 13 October 2014.

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McElroy, Wendy. "A Feminist Overview of Pornography." A Feminist Overview of Pornography.
N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2014.
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York, NY: Pantheon, 2003. Print.
Wrecking Ball. Dir. Terry Richardson. Perf. Miley Cyrus. Sony Music Entertainment, 2013.
Youtube.