Alexa Campagna's Response to Dream Worlds 3

I was extremely disturbed by the graphic portrayal of women in music videos as mere sex objects meant solely for the physical and visual pleasure of men. Women are not only treated like commodities, but they act as if they enjoy the sexual harassment and objectification they endure in these rap, pop, country, and rock videos. In witnessing these aggressive and blatant sexual displays by women, men hold the false belief that women are hard partying, scantily clad, sex-crazed maniacs who are defined only by the body parts that they reveal. This image of women, one that only exists in the dream worlds of men, is the reason why “normal looking” men feel that it is acceptable to sexually torment a woman even if she looks stricken with fear and pain while in the midst of such abuse. The women in the music videos look like they are enjoying the sexual violations of other men and seem to initiate or welcome any sexual advances made by men who have been physically and sexuallu abusive.

            What I found most interesting and disturbing about the unrealistic dream world of naked and submissive women created by men is a woman’s willingness to conform to these hypersexualized images in order to gain mass appeal. I always wondered why Nelly Furtado, a free-spirited folk artist, left the music scene for a short period of time and re-emerged as a sexualized, mainstream recording artist with her song entitled “Promiscuous.” She completely shed her innocent, relatable image for a low-cut shirt and a chance at selling a larger number of records to an audience of men that can live out their sexual fantasies through these music videos. It’s true what they say. Sex sells. It is actually a rather sad truth that men create this dream world, while women perpetuate it by allowing men to place them in sexually compromising and degrading positions in these videos without any complaint. These kind of aggressive sexualized images of women in music videos and pornography are potentially the impetus for acts of rape and domestic abuse towards women. Men are so frequently viewing these sexual and violent acts towards women in the dream world of music videos that some believe it is appropriate to mimic these behaviors in the real world and expect to get the same willful response from women.