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August 25, 2004
Beach Volleyball
I know this will seem minor as the subjects in this blog go but I couldn't not comment.
A few moments ago, I turned on the television to see what was up with the Olympics. As I write this, I'm looking at a men's beach volleyball game. And they're wearing loose, comfortable shorts and loose, comfortable shirts covering their abs not the teensy-bikinis that I'm sure you've already seen on the women.
(I just edited the above paragraph for the swear-words that just rolled off my fingers to describe my anger at the situation.)
I was getting ready to be upset with the women too because it often angers me to see women willingly play the eye-candy role no matter how immediate the benefits may seem at the time.
So, I check the rules to see what's allowed to be worn. And, lo and behold, the "uniforms" differ for men and women. Here it is from the NBC site:
Teammates in Olympic beach volleyball must wear uniforms of the same color. The women can wear either a one-piece or a two-piece bathing suit, though due to the typically warm playing conditions, most opt for the two-piece. The men must wear shorts and a tank top. Players are allowed to wear hats and sunglasses.
I'm not going to link. Anyway, you'll see it soon enough all over the news: the olympics website is plastered with pictures of the winning female teammates rolling around in the sand in their bikinis locked in an embrace. In other words, get yer soft-porn here.
In one sense, it looks as if it isn't that a big deal in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, objectification and repression of women is probably one of the most important obstacles to combatting the spread of HIV, along with many other miseries plaguing the globe. The most salient point here is that objectification and repression go hand in hand, a fact many will dispute by trotting out a few young, conventionally attractive celebrities whose power is derived from their looks. I agree that for a few people those two will diverge for a short while in their youth, in other words they will derive some power from being objectified, but I hold that not only is the overall effect of objectification, even of people with conventionally desirable attributes, repressive in general, it will become repressive shortly for that person too -- obviously, because of the temporal nature of these qualities. You can see this in yesteryear's celebrities, desparately injecting toxins into their face and undergoing repeated inhuman surgical procedures trying to cling to vestiges of what gave them that ephemeral power.
Let me add an incident from last week, when I was in San Francisco, that was very striking for me. I was walking down a major street at 8 am in the morning on a quiet, sunny Sunday morning on my way to a early meeting. Almost all the stores were still closed, the little corner groceries, newspaper stands, even breakfast places were just rolling up their blinds. There, in the middle of this lazy morning, stood a porn shop, open at 8 am, neon lights and arrows flashing, already with a few people inside.
I remember thinking isn't that the saddest thing on earth.
And now a lot of people will now urge me not to be a prude -- another great victory of the objectification-camp; this accusation of prudery or wanting to repress sexuality that gets thrown around a lot as soon as one critiques the existing culture of extreme commodification of everything, including human bodies.
Since when is it prudish to be for an actually liberatory sexual-politics: one that celebrates the human body and human sexuality --in their wondrous diversity-- not to make a buck, not to degrade, not to create a perpetually insecure population of women, and not to create such desperation and distortion in men that enough of them will visit a porn shop 8 am on a Sunday morning in sufficient numbers to justify opening the store?
If that's prudery, let me join that club.
Posted by zeynep at August 25, 2004 01:43 PM
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Comments
I wrote some song lyrics/poem more or less about objectification a couple of years ago. It's called American Corporate Veil. Seemingly unimportant little fads and trends in society that portend a much worse gradulization into repression.
Posted by: Terrible at August 25, 2004 08:01 PM
I watched a lot of the volleyball and, yes, it is obvious the women are dressed rather skimpy. But the women in my household were wondering why the men weren't wearing speedo bathing suits. Anyway, I enjoy volleyball and couldn't care less what the women are wearing. People focus too much on nudity and the body. I am more pissed that the American TV coverage of the Olympics focused on American athletes, even when they won the bronze, while ignoring the international athletes when they won the gold.
Colin
Posted by: Colin at August 26, 2004 09:50 AM
Amen, Zeynep. Thanks for this eloquent post.
Posted by: john burke at August 26, 2004 01:19 PM
A fair amount of sexuality has been present in sports since the original Olympics (I doubt if Greek athletes were nude for purely practical reasons). I don't think this is in any way degrading, objectifying or what have you. On the other hand, the discrepancy between the men's and women's uniforms is a disgrace. Women (and gay men) should be able to gaze their fill on well-defined pecs and bulgy swimming trunks.
Posted by: Robin at August 26, 2004 02:27 PM
This is a pretty important post I believe, Zeynep, as all of these pathological aspects of America culture are inter-connected. I can no longer watch the Olympics myself for both the reasons you have raised, as well as other more political reasons. Objectification in American society and the commodification of the female form in American advertizing as well as in American culture at large is bad enough as you have well documented here. However, in additon and equally as disturbing is the politically exploitative way in which the American media presents the athletic competitions. In the Olympics the stressing of nationalism and the accompanying political exploitation of the winning athletes for nationalistic chest-beating is totally repugnant to me. The first thing I would personally do to improve enjoyment of the events themselves in a more pure form would be to completely eliminate the endless and compulsive medal counts by country. DO AWAY with the damn medal counts. Show other country's athletes, too, in addition to the American athletes. The American media has such an ethnocentric viewpoint. But this is no accident most likely. I don't believe in coincidences. I do believe in propaganda to control an already fearful population. More than ever today the Olympics have just become another propaganda tool for a very complicit and corporately controlled media.
It is too bad that the Olympics, which at one time were fairly entertaining and much less political, have become in 2004 just another extreme example of American flag-waving and bravado. My advice to anyone reading this blog is to forget about those Olympics broadcasts, turn off your television, and read Zeynep's old logs if you have nothing else to do. Under The Same Sun will give you much more than multi hours of hazy beach volleyball, male or female, bikinis or baggy shorts. Under The Sun is also sexier in its own way. Saving the world is sexier than beach volleyball any day. Capice?
Sincerely,
Old & In The Way
Posted by: Phil Cicchi at August 26, 2004 09:32 PM
I suggested a neo-logism: "Sporn" on another site, related to this very topic, after watching the (lack of) coverage of the women competing in track and field, and the (to me) gratuitous showers of the women's diving competition. I haven't come across any other posts on this topic; I thought maybe it was just me.
Posted by: Karen M. at September 2, 2004 02:35 PM