Another Rant Stemming from the "Sexual Revolution"

The Ms. Columbia pageant (not sponsored by the university) got shut down due to “inappropriate responses” from the Columbia community.

On the site that hosted the photos of the participants, one disappointed contestant writes:

While I'm not completely surprised, I must say that I am very disappointed. I am disappointed in the fact that the image of confident women comfortable with their sexuality still frightens and upsets people. I do not think that it is right for this site to be shut down merely to appease those who are uncomfortable with strong women who are comfortable with themselves. There is absolutely nothing wrong with celebrating one's femininity and sexuality. I think these photos were beautiful. All too often women are taught to repress their sexuality and be ashamed of their beauty. I thought we had come a lot farther than that mode of thinking, but I guess that I was wrong.

“[R]epress their sexuality and be ashamed of their beauty”? Huh? It seems to me that this culture is all about women expressing their sexuality. It’s an obsession, in fact, that a hypersexualized society has hoisted upon every female. You're weird or frigid or, heaven forbid, "religous," if you don't express your sexuality. And isn't every other article I read in the Times about how good-loking people get better jobs, good-looking children get better parental care, etc.? Perhaps Ivy-Leaguers (a title I don’t put too much stock in) believe that because they are smart they are held to more restricted standards of behavior. Not being able to see the photos, I can’t say how explicitly sexual (though I’m guessing they’re soft-core – maybe a notch or two down from Playboy), but if they got all the co-eds at Columbia that upset, they must have been beyond the pale.

On the other hand, perhaps in their minds, pornography is OK, but they got their panties in a wad because members of their group, their community, were on display, and they don’t wish to be associated so closely with, and perhaps feel the effect of, such blatant sexual objectification. So it’s OK when it’s on TV – don’t you dare censor it – but when it’s the girl in your econ class, it’s not OK and protests should be staged and people harangued and harrassed to shut it down?

Let’s be frank – do men have a need to express their sexualities in such a way? Do any of my male friends have glamour shots of themselves, scantily clad, shot with soft lenses? Women’s cries that they are being prevented from sexually expressing themselves and their subsequent responses of self-display are just a paean to a cultural system that does, in fact, hurt women through an exultation of what you can get from women’s bodies (lots of good sex and good times) but a blatant rejection of the after effects of the fun.