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Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

bloodknife.com

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Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#301
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point?

I'm not sure, frankly, but I think there's a connection. A more sexless society is also a society with a lower overall birthrate. When the pressures of urbanization and modern life mean few people choose to have children while the trends in the article and in many of these comments show that people are less likely to accidentally/serendipitously become pregnant as well combine to somewhat drastically reduce the birth…

It's probably many things, but I think another factor is a delayed transition to (biological) adulthood, which leaves fewer "prime years" for the tiring task of raising children. That delayed transition comes in part from an increased focus on the self. Although individualism is often attacked or derided in modern American culture (from the political left at least), I feel like there is a near-universal individualism across our society that never existed in the past - people are delaying/skipping having children and putting their own exploration and experience first. It's a luxury in that we didn't have this option previously as a species, but now we can entertain "finding ourselves" or traveling as a lifestyle and so on. For many, delaying parenthood or skipping it outright is a simple matter of not disturbing that freedom of choice that they've come to enjoy. For others, that freedom itself becomes tiring and the search for purpose brings them back to children. But the side effect in aggregate, is a more sexless society and lower overall birthrate. Just a thought...

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#302

Was really glad to see 9/11 mentioned in the article in relation to the American male body entering its militaristic phase. It validates an armchair theory I've had related to the correlation between media coverage / dramatization of Special Forces operations in the early to mid 00's and the general trend of American dudes getting very ripped and growing beards. At some point around 2005-2008, I just started noticing…

The vast majority of Americans don't have anything near a body in peak physical shape. This can be cross-checked with stats of Type 2 diabetics, BMI, etc. The media vs reality, well, there's an entire sub-reddit dedicated to that: /r/instagramreality. Who knows the long-term psychological consequences of being able to effortlessly morph ourselves digitally into physically impossible states.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, kinda. Luther? Sherlock? Global sex-symbol superstars right there. The same forces at play in Hollywood are at work in London, it's just that the best-looking ones move out to California as well.

Not sure if it's a taste thing, but I don't find any single character on Sherlock to be particularly attractive, having just binged on the entirely of the show in the past two weeks.

I imagine it amuses Benedict Cumberbatch immensely that he's referred to often as the "Thinking Woman's Crumpet".

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#304
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See: https://mobile.twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/121316563032673... > At their peak in 1980 illegal drugs accounted for 5 % of total personal consumption expenditure in US. An astonishing figure corroborated by contemporary estimates that cocaine sales peaked at $35bn in 1980. Rachel Soloveichik @BEA_News

Those comments in the thread have interesting points. 350/g in 1980 compared to what it costs now. (I used to pay 60/g around 2010) https://www.businessinsider.com/us-cocaine-prices-change-201... Thinking about it more, I guess you need to clarify if a boomers today use more drugs or was drug use higher in the 60s,70s,80s then in 00s and 10s. Other stuff I searched suggested boomers in the 10s are hit hard by opioids

> boomers today

Drugs are increasingly unkind to the bod the older you get, so I’d imagine it’s the latter.

For the record, I paid about 125/g in the mid nineties. I’m sure someone’s made a chart of this somewhere. I remember High Times magazine or Cannabis Culture used to have a spot price table in most issues based on numbers submitted by their readership. Would make an interesting graph. I don’t tend to trust LE valuations of drug prices because their incentivized to inflate them on capture and deflate them on selling risk.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this is just what they picked for BBC America, but every single British TV comedy I've ever watched has a cast of 90% white haired elderly people sitting around and being sarcastic at each other. Last of the Summer Wine, Dad's Army, Are You Being Served, etc etc. These were also the only thing my parents watched, so it was a relief when I got to watch normal people TV and saw someone in their 20s.

> Last of the Summer Wine, Dad's Army, Are You Being Served, etc etc. Those are, depending on taste, some of the worst. And they are also old. There was a lot of good from that era, comedy and other, like fawlty towers, blake's 7 (not comedy), monty python etc. I think gp was referring to modern UK crime shows though? As in the days of dads army and are you being served, american shows also were not like in the artic…

Well if you're wondering, I went to visit my family in the UK right before it stopped being possible to travel and they made me watch all these shows again. (I think I got to see Dr Who once.) So someone still likes them.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think there’s any complicated explanation; if you are never exposed to a particular state of being (e.g. public nudity) while growing up, it will probably be uncomfortable as an adult if you only have a normal level of openness to new experiences. I don’t think fear of nudity is much different from fear of flying or fear of fear of public speaking or whatever. At least among my friend group, public nudity has…

I meant more from a cultural perspective than a purely behavioural one. Just curious if there are some obvious cultural differences which contribute to being brought up with nudity being more normalized.

For Scandinavia, some things come to mind.

Most TV shows and movies have sex scenes. The people having sex are always very average looking. Sex scenes are usually not sexy or romantic but just chaotic and awkward, and very every-day-lifey. Like a middle aged couple having sex in the bedroom and their 5 year old kid opens the door and one of them is chocked and falls out of the bed and breaks a finger. They have to drive to the emergency room and so on, and next scene they enjoy a meal together at home in complete and awkward silence. And a finger in a cast is there as a reminder of the incident.

This could be a scene in any TV show airing at 20.00 on public service TV. There's also a lot of nudity without it being sexualized. Like people in saunas or women breastfeeding. Normal every day stuff.

For examples check out Love & Anarchy on Netflix, great show with only one short season. Or Bonus Family also on Netflix.

Sex education is also a thing. You are taught that of course you should have sex because it's great and fun etc. and here's how to do it safely. Oh and now class, we are going to watch a 1 hour long sex tape with two normal people having sex in a loving way. That was an awkward class to attend. And next class, practicing putting on condoms on dildos, so we all know how to do it. Imagine being 13 and sitting next to some cute girl in your class and having to practice putting on condoms!

Compared to other parts of the world where sex and nudity is banned and censored, which is of course ridiculous if you want sexually healthy citizens. If you can only see sex through porn, with smoking hot models, I'm sure it messes with your young mind.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#307

Tiny point: "It was all bullshit: no one looks like that without calorie restriction." I'm 6' and I've weighted 135-145 pounds for my entire adult life and I'm 50+. Being a guy, I never restricted my calorie intake. I'd expect there are women with a similar metabolism. Which isn't to say that a lot of skinny celebrities aren't dieting like mad to get this look. But probably some percentage aren't and the rest hate th…

How much physical activity do you see in a week? That might be providing balance. The standard American diet + desk job means that 135-145, for many, creeps to 155, 165, 175 etc. It doesn't happen overnight.

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. But a movie about incest, rape or pedophilia would probably not quality. « Oh you got a les cousins dangereux dolls honey. So cute »

Game of Thrones is/was very popular despite featuring all of these (maybe except pedophilia)

How old was Danearys at the start?

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#309

> This cinematic trend reflects the culture around it. Even before the pandemic hit, Millennials and Zoomers were less sexually active than the generation before them. Maybe we’re too anxious about the Apocalypse; maybe we’re too broke to go out; maybe having to live with roommates or our parents makes it a little awkward to bring a partner home; maybe there are chemicals in the environment screwing up our hormones;…

The important question is "do we want to?" We are gods by the standards of people five hundred years ago. Even the opportunities 50 years ago pale in comparison to what many of us have access to today; you no longer have to be in the exact right place and time to be exposed to the state of the art in technology and science. You can bring together material and people from anywhere in the world in a matter of days to pursue goals that can dominate your life for years at a time. The pursuit and achievement of these goals can make many people truly happy.

We're at a point in time where our society places a lot of value in sex and romance, but it's now easy to largely forego these things and dump your time into other things you're passionate about. It seems that when these discussions about the relative celibacy of young people come up, people talk a lot about how it must be because young people are facing effectively insurmountable struggles, and mostly ignore that it's possible that it's easier to focus on things other than sex now. That possibility runs contrary to how most of us were brought up, and it's why you're asking what we should do to "improve" these trends. Have we considered that there might be nothing to fix, and that the trend doesn't need to be stopped?

Re: Modern action films fetishize the body even as they desexualize it

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The youngest millennials are around 25 years old. Changing your "not sexually active" situation will take putting yourself out there a lot, lowering your standards (you can raise them later), being open to meeting all sorts and getting rejected a lot. You'll certainly gain entertaining stories, and you'll probably meet some new friends, possibly one or more lovers and one of them may become a romantic partner if that…

I'm not OP but I'm not sexually active either and share the same worries and am probably a few years older than him. Thanks for sharing those videos, even though I was able to make that physique/style/life control transformation several times (get fit -> fall into a hole -> get fit again, rinse and repeat) during my 20s, this pandemic made me fall into a rut and I'm heavily struggling to stay on the right track that…

> I've been seeing a therapist since a couple years ago after I had my first panic attack, since then I've been using therapy for all my issues. However, even though I've been open about my sexual frustrations, I feel like my therapist ignores it and simply tries to work on my social aspect in general. My therapist is female and I wonder if having a male therapist it would be different, I've been wanting to try but I already invested many sessions with my current therapist.

Get a new therapist. At the very least try a few sessions with someone else. Yes, try a male therapist. Your rationalization of "already invested many sessions" is that of the sunk cost fallacy. You should be so confident that you're not wasting your time in therapy that you'd never think to ask internet strangers if you should switch. The worst that could happen is you waste a few hours trying out a new therapist or two. The best that could happen is that you actually find someone who isn't dismissive of a concern that's clearly animating you, about a very important part of human existence.

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