We’ve had lots of fantastic coverage all around the internet in recent weeks! I’ll re-post some favorites over the next few weeks. To start with, here’s an excerpt from a really fun Q&A I did with Emma Shakarshy, a writer for the fantastic body image blog, Adios Barbie.   /Melissa
 
 

 

ES: Your film aims to answer the question, “What would real stories of female sexuality sound like?” Why is it so important that we hear those stories?

MTG: Real stories are so liberating. They show us that reality doesn’t match up to what you see on TV, and that this is totally normal and fine. In American culture, we place a lot of importance on being “normal,” especially when it comes to sex. The unrealistic, unattainable, white-centric model of sex that we see in entertainment media seeps into our notion of what’s acceptable. But real stories show us that different people have very different ways of experiencing sex and sexuality, in part because of their circumstances and in part because of their personalities.

Sometimes we assume that sex means one specific thing, when really it means something different to each person (although our experiences are related to each other’s in important ways). Coming to respect our own experiences and perspectives is so important, and it’s not a message we often hear. Instead, media images tell us that we exist for the pleasure of someone else, that we’re decoration. Or worse, rape culture tells us that our consent or desire is irrelevant.

We need to be the ones writing our own stories for our own sake, or else the stories will never reflect our lived realities. TV is there to sell ads, not to tell our stories. So we need to find other ways to communicate our stories, otherwise young women will keep feeling defective and keep trying to meet impossible standards. That might be good for a makeup company, but it’s not good for us.

via Adios Barbie