Research on Sex, Love, and Romance - Essay Example

Sex, Love and Romance Research Paper LeAnn Rimes’s music video of the song “Something’s Gotta Give” does not containany overtly sexual content either visually or lyrically. The upbeat music, the words, the video, all combine to form a tongue-in-cheek, humorous and yet poignant approach to a woman’s quest for true love. The opening lyrics for instance, serve to establish the playful and yet sad quality of the song: Jenny’s got a job, a cat named Jake Thirty-one candles on her birthday cake- Next year. Here is a career-woman who is lonely and turning into a middle-aged woman dreadfully fast. The urgency in her need to find a “man” is quite understandable. The woman in the video, who appears to be quite sensible, turns to online dating to find her perfect match. LeAnn Rimes makes her first assertion here. In the slew of “unsuitable” dates who turn up - the “cell-phone junkie”; the Emo youth, complete with black flowers; an impressionable-looking, eager young man – Rimes shows her viewers, her fans the implausibility of finding true love by searching for it in such an obvious manner. Online dating is most definitely not the way to go, according to the song, if you are looking for the “butterflies”. One might as well dream about dating their teddy bears. The teddy bear also assumes a symbolic role here. To the archetypal lonely girl and/or woman, her teddy bear becomes a symbol of the security and warmth of a relationship. She wants her man to be as considerate, gentle, funny and thoughtful as her teddy bear would be, were he a real man. This video shows this quite plainly in the form of the girl’s dream of her date with the bear who makes her laugh, makes her feel desired, who is in short, The Perfect Gentleman. Research on romantic love and its construction reveals that heterosexual love, which is the only mode of sexuality touched upon in this song, is heavily “scripted”. Romance novels go a long way in strengthening these already established theories about love: According to publishers surveys, romance novels are read by almost 40 million American women. They account for 56 percent of mass-market paperback sales in the United States. More than 2,200 new titles are published every year. Romance novels aimed specifically at adolescents have been sold through school book clubs since about 1980, gaining in popularity every year. Although most romance novels are published in the United States, England and Canada, their readership is global (Puri, 1997). (Sex, Love and Romance, p. 265) The basic moral that runs through a typical romance novel is no matter how hard a man is from the outside, inside lies a child crying for help and that a woman, if she has enough patience and love in her heart, can finally redeem him from his misery. Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights (and other such “Byronic” heroes) being a famous case in point. This expectation that is set in the minds of young girls of being able to “cure” a man of his base nature has been at the root of many an untold tale of violence and sacrifice. When one half of a relationship, that is ideally meant to have mutual respect and affection, decides to take the entire responsibility, things are bound to get skewed. Women who blame themselves for their husbands’ or their boyfriends’ misdemeanors are found almost everywhere. In some cultures, this subservience of women and the exaggerated “masculinity” of men are actively encouraged. In traditional Hispanic cultures for instance, a man’s machismo, or his way of asserting his authority over women is considered a favorable trait. This seemingly light-hearted, “full-blooded” way of life can often hide a seamier side. Women are often expected to suffer their humiliation and ill-treatment without a word; in fact go as far as to consider themselves fortunate to even have a heterosexual mate. These romance novels encourage ideas which grow into such deep-rooted beliefs that they can be quite disturbing. Christian and Smith find in their studies: What do young women learn from reading teen romances? A close analysis of a sample of thirty-four teen romances showed that the novels portrayed girls sexuality as dangerous until it was channeled into heterosexual pairing. Readers also learn that their bodies are the site of a struggle for control among boyfriends, themselves, and their parents, and that they should appear passive. Girls respond to boys cues but never take the lead themselves (Christian-Smith, 1998). In these novels, the lives of the heroines are made meaningful only by their heterosexual relationships. (Sex, Love and Romance, p. 265) Women’s sexuality, then, is being shaped from a very young age to be ideally passive, receptive. They are told not to initiate relationships or sexual activity as it is the “man’s job” to do so. This is not just blatant discrimination, it is also unsafe. Since it is the young girl or woman who has to face the biological burden of unsafe sex, by having to bear the child or go through an abortion, it is dangerous to take away her choice in this matter. If the decision to have sexual intercourse is left to the male, and the subservient female partner is left to face the consequences, then it does not require feminist leanings to recognize the potential danger and injustice of this situation. Creating awareness and empowering young, sexually active girls is crucial. Trends of sexual behavior among teens show that over the last few decades, the age for the first sexual act has progressively been decreasing, more teenagers have been having sex and that the increase is more marked among the girls. Rimes’ video is based around the woman’s choice. It is the woman who initiates her search for her ideal man; a woman who is not at the height of conventional notions of “desirability” at that. By centering the story on the female protagonist, the importance of male assertion and aggression disappears. Here, it is the male trying to please the female partner and the female who decides and initiates the relationship: a reversal of the conventional power-play. In conclusion, it might be significant to return to the symbol of the teddy bear. The teddy bear is rooted very firmly in the world of the romance novel. It is the sign of the affectionate woman wanting to be loved. By the end of the video, the bear becomes a blur. This treatment is ambivalent in its motive: has the woman then moved on from her childish fantasies and become more mature in her expectations? Or has the man replaced the teddy bear i.e. become the ideal gentleman? The decision is left to the viewer. 2. As mentioned in the previous answer, sexually passive women and sexually aggressive men are two stereotypes that LeAnn Rimes breaks, quite skillfully and subtly through her music video. The basic premise of the song gives complete agency to the woman. It is the woman who is searching for a mate, sorting through men and picking and choosing. She is the aggressor, the initiator, the primary decision-maker. The album’s very name, This Woman, leaves no room for doubt about who the primary subject is. Rimes also challenges the double standards of sexuality as depicted in the textbook. A sexually aggressive man is a “stud” while a woman who is the same is immediately termed a “slut”. It is perfectly alright, in fact even commendable, for a man to be virile and have many sexual relationships; for a woman to do the same is to be promiscuous or “loose”. In Rimes’s song and video, the woman can just as well go out by herself and look for a man. She does not have to wait for Prince Charming to knock at her door and stand helplessly watching while he proceeded to take her breath away. She asserts the woman’s right to know what she wants, and to do whatever it takes to procure it. It is no longer only the man’s prerogative to “try out” women and decide on whoever he finds suitable. The woman is capable of discerning, even fighting for, what she wants. Although, from the 1970s onwards, this double standard has grown less prevalent, it still exists in society. Women and young girls often think of their own sexuality in terms of their partner. If her boyfriend thinks she is sexy, then she is. The girl’s own opinion on the matter is absent, perhaps not even formed. (Sex, Love and Romance, p. 278) In an interesting play on the phrase “something’s gotta give”, RImes manages to encapsulate the primary idea of the song: Shes drawn a line that she wont cross And her and time are facing off She says somethings gotta give Up until this point the phrase suggests a reckoning, a “face off” between the woman and Time. “Something’s gotta give” here means the either of them have to concede defeat. And yet with the next line the meaning changes: Somethin gotta give me butterflies Somethin gotta make me feel alive Somethin gotta give me dreams at night Somethin gotta make me feel alright I dont know where it is Yeah, but somethings gotta give The phrase is no longer a challenge or an ultimatum. Now it is the desire of a wistful woman looking for love, looking for the stuff that romance novels are made of: the butterflies, dreams, the feeling of warmth and security. Read together it seems as if Rimes is trying to say that to find these magical ingredients of true love, someone or something has to give in. And as is apparent, her stand is that it is not going to be the woman. It also serves to present the paradox that a woman can be: just because she wants to be loved and cared for, does not also mean she has to be a shrinking violet. Strength and femininity are not antithetical. Women of color: Hispanic women, African-American women, Native American women, are often portrayed in recognizable moulds. In a test conducted by Mahay, Laumann and Michaels (Sex, Love and Romance, p. 248), results show that these stereotypes possibly have their origins in real trends among these communities. For example, an overwhelming 92.4 % of women of Mexican-American origin believe that pre-marital sex among teenagers is wrong, as opposed to an 84.6 % of White females. However, the difference is really not enough to justice stereotypes. As we see, in their belief that they would not have sexual intercourse with someone they did not love, women of all three racial groups seem unanimous in their opinion: 77% of African-American, 78.3% of Mexican-American and 76.4% of White women, agree. Cultural differences do however lead to genuine differences in sexual behaviors and opinions - Asians are largely more conservative, Americans have a higher average age for having first-time sex, and so on (Sex, Love and Romance, p. 249). But these are not just sexual differences in isolation, they are shaped by cultural differences and to generalize on the basis of these differences is only to be blind to the immense diversity and plurality that exists in today’s world. 3. The video, more than the lyrics, contains clues to Rimes’s opinions of attractiveness. The men she rejects in the beginning serves as a good starting point. Sequentially, the first man is rejected because he is self-obsessed – as evident by his cell-phone addiction; inconsiderate – as is made evident by his late arrival; crude - as evident by the box of half-eaten chocolates that he gives her. Enough reasons for her not to venture any further. Physical attractiveness is apparently not such a significant parameter in a mate, as he is rejected on basis of his “personality”. However, the consequent candidates are all ditched based on first impressions –big spectacles, big teeth, too Emo, too tall, too young – the woman’s decision is the only factor that counts. Her use of words like “Mr. Right” and “Mr. Wrong” also serve to assert her right to choose and settle for only the best option. The woman plays with cut-out figures of men on her refrigerator door, adding clothes, moustaches and so on – toying around with the idea of what she wants: an act that only a person in authority can indulge in. It is interesting to note that when the woman is at home alone she is dressed in comfortable clothes, wearing glasses and devouring ice-cream; and when she is on her dates, she is well-dressed, made-up and poised. Something that is taken for granted by the viewer, usually. However, when she does meet Mr. Right, or who we assume to be Mr. Right since it is he who she ends up with for the duration of the video, she is again dressed in casual attire, spectacles in place, and in a completely mundane day-to-day situation. Rimes suggests here quite plainly that the conscious search for the perfect man is futile; that he may appear anywhere, without warning. Perhaps it is best to forget about knights in shining armor on milk-white steeds, and concentrate instead on reality, and all that it has to offer. LeAnn Rimes does in fact refute the discussion of silencing the woman’s voice in matters of sexuality. Her acts are not governed by a patriarchal figure, she seems to be in full control and awareness of her own desires, her self-hood is established quite independently and not as an extension of a male partner. All in all, LeAnn Rimes questions established gender roles, assumptions about the dynamics of sexual relationships and manages to overturn them in subtle, unobtrusive ways. References Crawford, M. & Unger, R. (2003). Women and Gender: A Feminist Psychology (4th edition). New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities. “Leann Fans” (Uploader). (2006, October 10). “LeAnn Rimes - Something’s Gotta Give”. Video posted to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tgf7MpQ0c4 Lyrics retrieved from: http://www.metrolyrics.com/somethings-gotta-give-lyrics-leann-rimes.html Read More