Since writing “embracing their femininity”, I stumbled upon a photo feature of surfer Erica Hosseini in STAB Magazine’s Hard Cover Book, December 2011, that pushes Big Surfing’s fetishized “feminine” to it’s most hyper-sexualized yet.
STAB ostensibly tries to get away with this image by using a play on Hosseini’s last name, a double entendre, a “joke” used to present the young surfer as a “little horse”. What does one do with a horse? Taking the “joke” to its inevitable conclusion, are we not meant to see “little Hoss” ready to be ridden from behind?
With a recent report out by the CDC that puts the amount of women raped in the US at about 20%, and the connections made by the 2010 American Psychological Association Report on the Sexualization of Girls, regarding the incidences of violence toward women being positively correlated to images like this one, such a “joke,” such an image, in any context, is greatly concerning.
A Call To Action:
It is absolutely essential that companies, media, and organizations that use images like these or who have sponsored athletes that pose in these ways be avoided. The only way Big Surfing will cease to present and treat women (and men!) as objects to be used, abused, then tossed aside, is if those who purchase their wares speak with their voices and with their pocket books. Find out who fetishizes surfing and stop purchasing product from them… do not buy products that advertise, sponsor, or promote, these images! Support those who support healthy and authentic visions of surfing.
Why is this so important?
“Sexualized portrayals of women have been found to legitimize or exacerbate violence against women and girls, as well as sexual harassment and anti-women attitudes among men and boys,” Hatton says. “Such images also have been shown to increase rates of body dissatisfaction and/or eating disorders among men, women and girls; and they have even been shown to decrease sexual satisfaction among both men and women.”
Boys and Men
(excerpts below are from the APA report on the Sexualization of Girls)
The sexualization of girls can have a negative impact on boys and men. Exposure to narrow ideals of female sexual attractiveness may make it difficult for some men to find an “acceptable” partner or to fully enjoy intimacy with a female partner (Schooler & Ward, 2006).
Objectifying girls/women and sex itself is integral to masculinity beliefs (Connell, 1987; Kimmel, 1996; Tolman, 2002), but these beliefs may jeopardize men’s ability to form and maintain intimate relationships with women (G. Brooks, 1995; Kindlon & Thompson, 1999; Pollack, 1998). Burn and Ward (2005) found that undergraduate men’s satisfaction with their romantic relationship was negatively correlated with most masculinity beliefs, including ones that are relevant to the objectification of women (i.e., dominance [“I should be in charge”], power over women [“In general, I control the women in my life”], and playboy [“If I could, I would frequently change sexual partners”]).
Empathy may be important in understanding the relationship between objectification and relationship satisfaction. When one person objectifies another, it is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to treat that person with empathy (Herman, 1992), an important predictor of satisfaction and stability in intimate relationships (Davis & Oathout, 1987; Long & Andrews, 1990).
If girls and women are seen exclusively as sexual beings rather than as complicated people with many interests, talents, and identities, boys and men may have difficulty relating to them on any level other than the sexual.This could dramatically limit the opportunities boys and men have to interact intellectually with girls and women, to compete with and against them in sports or games, to create art or make music with them, to work together for higher causes (e.g., volunteer work or activism), or to enjoy their company as friends.
Can you tell the difference between a men’s magazine and a rapist?
December 16th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
STAB – repeat offenders: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8389025/gold-coast-model-moves-on-after-nude-scandal
December 17th, 2011 at 1:28 am
Another good post. Here’s my thoughts…
Sex is the most powerful and force in nature. This force has been harnessed and manipulated throughout human history. Objectification is the primary methodology in achieving this. This fact will never change.
If people are given the opportunity… they can learn. Learn to think for themselves and understand… that beyond the shallow waters… beyond all the bullshit… lays a much deeper ocean… an ocean of infinite rewards… for those strong enough to swim it’s depths…
December 17th, 2011 at 10:55 am
“that beyond the shallow waters… beyond all the bullshit… lays a much deeper ocean… an ocean of infinite rewards… for those strong enough to swim it’s depths…” (love this, BB! thank you!)
Some thoughts after reading your comment (not necessarily tied directly to what you said… nevertheless…):
Surfing is such an interesting case study for this tendency since it was only in the introduction of surf companies that the sexual objectification of women, and now men, emerged within its culture. Sexy was there, sexiness, but with the boom of the surf industry in the 1980s, we also saw the shift toward objectifying women as objects for possession, with narrowly defined, shallow roles in surf advertising.
Sex and sexuality are both healthy portions of our humanity. Objectification has nothing tangible to do with sex or sexiness and everything to do with widening the space between desire and arousal, with no fulfillment. It is only the promise of fulfillment, the promise of possession of presented object, and as such, it is a methodology, not of achieving control over sex, but control over the behavior of consumers driven to accumulate (purchase!) to attempt to fulfill an artificial need.
It is for this reason that objectification is not a phenomenon that is reserved for women, but that must extend to men as well (insatiable market growth)… as more and more women are gaining disposable incomes, and as gay households (male) are being identified by market researchers as a group with huge disposable incomes (given they have two male wage earners and most households lack children) we should expect to see the male being objectified even more!
This is the fallacy of “sex sells”: We are never sold sex, only the promise of some fulfillment of an artificial arousal that was never ours to begin with, and that we will never fulfill through accumulation (of images, items, etc.) This is the insanity of this cycle, detached as it is, from actual, authentic human desires of intimacy, connection, and sexual fulfillment with other human beings.
December 17th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
My first reaction to the picture you posted of Erica on Facebook was shock, then I started to rationalize why she would do something like that. The rationalization evolved into thinking along the lines of, how is this any different from David Beckham posing for an underwear ad? I began asking myself questions like, is the american culture to prude? Do the old Victorian ideals of early American culture permeate in such a way that the culture, with all the repression of the past, in fact created a perverse outlet such as porn? The conclusion that I came to was, yeah maybe, but that doesn’t suffice an adequate apology. The problem with comparing a male athlete posing versus a female is that the staggering statistics (like the ones you pointed out) of violence against women. Male voyeurism and the objectification of women treats them as if they are things to molded into something that has been constructed out of a popular culture that has been “hijacked” by porn (http://gaildines.com/).
While I am excited that the athletic female-form is now more accepted and celebrated in our culture, it still needs to be protected. Society as a whole has a major problem with porn hijacking our sexuality, we can not let it hijack the surfing culture.
December 22nd, 2011 at 4:03 am
I am really enjoying this debate at the moment because I am taking a point of abstenence from porn. I stumbled upon this website yourbrainonporn.com and I was shocked and appaled by how much pornographic images have taken over our lives.
So please keep up the pressure to keep over sexulisation out of board sports. Board sports are difficult to master and seeing men and women perform the tricks and manovers they do at the top of their game is what makes it beautiful to watch, no matter what you look like.
December 22nd, 2011 at 11:10 am
Thank you for your feedback, and the encouragement Daniel. I checked out the website and found a ton of interesting and helpful information over there! Cheers!
March 5th, 2012 at 2:30 pm
[...] Surfing does not exist in a vacuum. Even when disguised as nostalgia or “jokes” (like the photo feature of “EZ Little Hoss” Erica Husseini bent over a bed with her behin…) the impact is the same. Instead of focusing on their athleticism, their performance, these women [...]