Since I am working on my research paper on women's magazines and I have all these issues of Cosmo sitting around (which I don't even need anymore since the focus of my paper has changed), I decided to flip through one tonight. On the table of contents, my eye was caught by the subtitle "Guy-on-guy action goes mainstream." What? Cosmo's actually focusing on non-heterosexual sex and advocating it as ok? Crazy! However, once I flipped to the page, I realized the sad angle that Cosmo is using: The New Trend That's Turning Women On.
The entire article is about the rise of male sex as being portrayed in films, TV and erotica...for women! The article briefly mentions the fact that more gay characters are appearing in films and on TV as complex characters comfortable with their sexuality instead of in-the-closet effeminate boys. But the article goes on to discuss why these portrayals of gay men are so great for women. An psychologist is quoted in the article, saying "When females see something that is sexually explicit but that they can't fully understand, it leaves room for their imagination to go wild...Women can fantasize about what it would feel like to be involved in that kind of sex, and that fantasy can really be anything she wants it to be." First of all, couldn't this apply to any human being watching any kind of sex scene or pornography that they find stimulating? Why does this only apply to women viewers of gay sex? The article goes on to say that the aggression that happens between two men (because you can't find any representations of aggressive sex in other types of porn, obviously) is appealing to women, and concludes with advice for the readers to try spicing up their (heterosexual) sex lives with "a soft bite or playful push" to let the "guy know you're feeling feisty."
I was initially proud of Cosmo for having an article on gay sex in the media; however, this article completely disappointed. The writer (and presumably the editors, who placed the piece in the magazine) seems to think that the only way gay sex (or gay relationships and gay representations) could become mainstream is in the form of voyeurism for female viewers; while this may be an attraction many women have to watching these moments, it is certainly not the only way that they are viewed. I applaud Cosmo's recognition that the male fantasy of watching two women go at it could actually apply to the opposite sex, but they need to expand their views on how gay representations are consumed by audiences.
No comments:
Post a Comment