Everyone has experienced nights where our drive to do some homework succumbs to the wonders of the Internet. We are all fallible and can fall victim to the most adorable of cat videos and BuzzFeed.
I recently fell into this trap after a few adult beverages and stumbled across a syndicated column by Jill Pertler called Slices of Life. The column runs mostly in small-town weekly papers and can only be found by a maze of broken links and forum posts on sites even the Pope would find conservative.
In her column, “The Sexuality of Prime Time,” Pertler negatively writes about the awkwardness of blossoming sexuality in American society.
I agree that there is little doubt about the noticeable increase of sexualization in American culture. It is blatantly obvious in movies, TV, music, à la Miley Cyrus.
While Pertler goes on to argue that this sexualization stems from the media, she ignores the advances in understanding sexuality over the last 50 years.
The blatant sexualization of America isn’t a commodity of the media, but an offspring of our society’s increasing acceptance of the human body’s natural evolutionary functions of attraction, mating and reproduction.
Despite being sheltered the children, will kiss, lick, touch, poke, prod and penetrate themselves and each other whether Miley is on TV or not.
It is not the media – it is biology.
Portraying these natural acts as unsavory or disgusting limiting the conversation between parents and children about sexuality. If you are not talking to your children about it, their friends are.
Pole dancing, a target of Pertler’s, is not only a subset of a performing art, regardless of its presence in gentlemen’s clubs, but one that also offers a great workout. There is a reason why many gyms are offering pole dancing classes alongside more standard workouts. It tones muscles while providing unparalleled aerobic exercise.
It’s sad that negativity surrounds the art form in today’s age. To perform at the level of a pole dancer, one must achieve far greater coordination, skill, balance and muscle strength than you would find in a typical workout routine.
Granted, Pertler herself said she is quite narrow minded on most subjects anyway – her “infinite naivety.”
Her column mainly focuses on sexualized programming on TV, and the difficulties of finding family oriented programming today. She sees this as a hindrance, when it can be a very teachable moment between parents and children about sexuality, especially with the presence of rape culture harming both men and women. The one thing kids need more of today is information about it, not why it should be stigmatized.
While I do not agree that everyone has a right to family-friendly programming, she does have every right to create her own TV programming and sell it to the masses. Of course, in order to survive in today’s media landscape sex sells—so best of luck to her.