The Dualism Of Sex In American By Kim Kardashian

1516 Words4 Pages

Sex is everywhere is America. In 2010 Kim Kardashian modeled in a commercial for the fast-food chain Hardees. The commercial features Ms. Kardashian on a bed seductively eating a salad while in a silk robe. At the end of the commercial Ms. Kardashian eats the salad in the bathtub because she dropped some dressing on herself while eating in bed. Kim Kardashian is one of the sex symbol of the 21st century, and the Hardees commercial used her status to sell their salad. Kim Kardashian 's Hardees commercial is not unique in it 's philosophy of using sex to sell a product seeing as almost every company, excluding children’s products, uses sex to sell their product. Being a sexually active person is seen as extremely important in main-stream American …show more content…

For example, the dualism of sexes, the idea that there are only women and men, oppresses non-binary and trans* people. As a matter of fact it was not until recent history that there was language to describe non-binary and trans* people 's identities. It is just the tip of the oppression iceberg to deny someone a label for their identity. In a similar fashion, people with disabilities face a dualism too, the idea that there are able-bodied or normal people and disabled people. While at first glance this may seem to make sense there are multiple problems with the dualism of disabled and able-bodied people. Firstly, it groups all disabled people into one category. There are a plethora of ways in which a person can be disabled and the conversation should not boil down to one homogeneous identity for disabled people. The second problem is the idea that people with disabilities are not normal. In American society the idea of "normal" is a middle-class, white, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied man. This quiet obviously excludes many groups of people who are left to feel as though they are not "normal" and these ideas of "normalness" oppress people. Another item that is added to the list of "normal" characteristics is being sexually active. In America, the ideas of sex and sexuality are extremely important to the average person. Through socialization and enforcement with the media the American people are told that their sexuality is where they derive their self-worth. When a person is told that the larger society does not view them as a sexual being then they can infer that they have no worth within larger society. Jennifer Bartlette discusses the importance of being sexual and feeling sexually attractive in her article "Longing for the Male Gaze." Bartlette has cerebral palsy, and although she is attractive men do not harass her when she walks down the street. Bartlette expresses

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