The Daily Campus

Issue date: 12/5/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Matt Lin Ariel Levy gave a lecture Tuesday night in the Student Union Theater about her new book, "Female Chauvinist Pigs."

Girls and guys alike went wild for the new feminist take of Ariel Levy's "Female Chauvinist Pigs," a book about the rising raunchy culture of commercialized sexuality.

The lecture began in the Student Union Theatre Tuesday evening and ended in a reception at the Women's Center. The reception hosted unmediated peer discussion groups, an unusual tie-in that does not often accompany book signings at UConn.

Levy discussed the topics of women seeking out the "Girls Gone Wild" camera crew and porn stars like Jenna Jameson becoming household names.

"A lot of the girls I interviewed did it as a reflex," said Levy about the willingness of women on spring break to take their clothes off - the girls did not think twice about revealing their private parts in exchange for a free T-shirt.

"There is no evil in a thong," Levy said, "But when it becomes a requirement instead of a choice, this is when problems arise."

In Levy's view, women are still being conditioned to please men, but only in a different way. They are now a part of the commercialization of sex, from frequenting strip clubs to removing clothing right alongside their male counterparts. In shows such as "Sex and The City," liberation is measured in the number of shoes owned. Sex has been transformed from a form of pleasure to an act of power assertion and shopping.

"Rauch culture isn't hedonistic free love, its commercial. It's not about what turns you on or what you like. It's what they can sell you," Levy said.

Lust as a commodity strips it of its personal nature and gratification, in Levy's view.

A chapter in "Pigs" discussed the divisions between anti-pornography and pro-sex feminists. Much has changed since the days of women such as Susan Brownmiller, who tried to stop the porn industry from exploiting its sex workers. During the 1980s, Brownmiller and other anti-porn feminists gave walking tours of the seedy underbelly of Midtown Manhattan. Since then it has become a neatly scrubbed tourist destination and a Mecca of commerce. Yet porn, which Levy equates to being as acceptable in pop-culture as Disney characters, still has a presence in the area.

Continued...

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