Triple Ecks

So after doing the reading for class today (“History of Sex” by Michel Foucalt) it got me thinking about the varying views on sex the society I live in has. For the sake of argument, I’ll label the main views that I’ve noticed as “conservative”, “liberal”, and “balls-to-the-wall” (a heavily scientific, Latin term). These labels don’t correspond with politics or religion or anything like that, I’m just using them for the sake of convenience. The views as they correspond to me start small (as in the group of people I hang out with, my family, my classmates) and can expand somewhat to my city, state, and even my side of the country. They can still apply on a larger scale, but need to be watered down somewhat as I obviously do not have much knowledge of how the societies of, say, Papua New Guinea view sex. I’m also leaving out sexual preferences (i.e. fetishes and LGBT, etc.)

For the conservative view, it seems that sex is an acknowledged and pleasurable activity, but one that is not often spoken of directly and somewhat embarrassing. It isn’t really a shameful activity anymore, just one that isn’t openly or brazenly discussed. It’s recreational but really only after marriage. Relationships are monogamous and again, usually only consummated after getting married. Sex shouldn’t be “on display” as much as it is, not nearly as omnipresent.

For the liberal view, sex is openly talked about with very few areas of subtlety.  Relationships are usually monogamous but often are not. People have multiple partners and there is no shame or embarrassment involved. Sex is very much a recreational activity and marriage is not a requirement even after settling with one partner. Images of sex don’t generally faze anyone and are more regularly accepted and disseminated.

For the balls-to-the-wall view, sex is completely open and all over the place. Rather than shame or embarrassment, there is pride and an anything-goes mentality almost. Multiple partners are the norm and monogamy is almost looked down on – marriage is almost considering restrictive and arcane. Sex is fully recreational and non-restrictive. Images of sexuality in all media are fully embraced.

These are certainly not tried and true and are heavily unscientific, but moreso just trends that I’ve noticed. Even as I’ve grown up I’ve noticed that there’s overlap and that each view has progressively incorporated and expanded new areas. The media has certainly become even more over-saturated with sex and with promiscuity. It’s in music, television, books, films, clothing, advertising – it’s permeated everything. It’s possible that I’ve noticed it more simply because I’ve gotten older and naturally have become more aware, but I get the feeling that when I’m middle aged I’ll feel that it’s become even more saturated. I’m sure this is not an exclusive phenomenon as some of our parents have surely noted.

Project, Group Project

So for the last few weeks, my group and I have been working on our project for our Pop Culture class. As I mentioned in a previous post, our topic is James Bond and in particular, Casino Royale. We’ve met a handful of times before class and communicated through email. We each took a separate concept involved with Bond and went in our own directions with it. I decided to look at Casino Royale, and Bond in particular, through the lens of theory, namely Saussure and Derrida. Today in class, for my part of the presentation, I’ll be discussing how Bond’s views of the world begin very structuralist but by the end of the novel, become post-structuralist.

For my contributions to the group, I helped break the novel down and analyze it as a whole. I helped divide the novel into possible chunks or areas of discussion that we could be interested in exploring. I helped in discussions with connecting and comparing the novel to the 2006 film and also brought up some interesting differences between the many iterations of Bond throughout the years. Other people in the group aided me in some areas of my own topic and I also provided feedback on theirs. During the meetings, we all contributed some ideas and feedback to each topic while also constructing the general form of our presentation as a whole. As I’m not especially proficient in power point creation, I mostly helped there by giving feedback and suggestions on the structure and aesthetics of the power point presentation that the others made. 

Bond initially has no difficulty differentiating between good and evil, hero and villain. His experience in the war, as well as all his training, has made it clear to him that the US and England are the heroes and that, at the very least, the Russians are now the villains. This is very Saussurian in that Bond knows that he and his country (and their allies) are good and since Russia is not an ally, they are clearly evil. He is able to define who the heroes are by comparing them to those who aren’t, and vice versa. However, after being tortured by Le Chiffre, Bond’s view changes dramatically. As he is recovering, he has a very interesting discussion with his French police aide, Mathis. Bond says that when he was younger it was easier to tell the difference between good and evil, but it isn’t so easy anymore. He says that somewhere, Le Chiffre was the hero and Bond was the villain and what Le Chiffre was doing was heroic. He says politics and patriotism and everything have an influence over the previous line of thinking but that he is finding it too difficult to differentiate anymore. Bond’s crisis of identity is so great that he decides to resign rather than try to solve his psychological and ideological dilemma. He finds the line not so easily drawn anymore and seems to be very much a post-structuralist. Bond now thinks in a Derridian fashion in that the terms hero and villain and good and evil don’t really have any meaning anymore because the definition is literally different for every single person and changes for them from one instant to the next, giving the concepts no true and universal truth.