Is Sexiness an Aesthetic Property - Report Example

Is sexiness an aesthetic property? if so, what kind of aesthetic property? if not, why not? Introduction If ever there was a descriptive word that contradicts upon each review, then sexiness is an example of such a word. The dictionary or better the English description of the word, says that sexiness is quality or characteristic that has the ability to formulate feelings which bring about sexual desire. Such a description is subjective rather than inclusive. Sexiness is more synonymous with description of women rather than men. Illusions, social norms or need to be sophisticated bring about the idolization of sexiness. If it is a quality to be applied on human beings and it is true that it exists then it should be able to cut across board. Illusion comes in when we talk about sexiness being mostly singular to women. But then again hypocritical discrimination comes in when not all women can be considered sexy. If sexiness is real then, few understand what it stand for, some feminists would want for this descriptive or rather real term to cease in existence. It seems that sexiness is tied to a certain point in time to a woman’s life and the stage she is in. but at any age any woman always wishes to be described as sexy, and hence much money is normally spent in pursuit of beauty. As Mia wrote, and I will review her speech later, there is beauty in ugliness. Magnificence has a parallelism to ugliness. What standard connotes ugliness? What standard connotes beauty? What standard connotes sexiness? And finally what is sexiness. Commentators have fallen over themselves in trying to define sexiness and illusions in sexiness. Shelby asks in his book, if sexiness is feelings arousal then is pornography and the women involved there in sexy? In all that pain, wailing and sometimes pleasure is a woman identified as sexy? (Shelby, 2003, p. 48) The question is whether sexiness is an aesthetic property or not. Assuming it is, then why is it aesthetic, if not then why is it not aesthetic? A normal dictionary describes the term aesthetic property as those attributes and details which act together in order to present something or product as attractive when looked at. Or rather those attributes that makes something to a pleasant experience. Another better description of aesthetic property is a philosophical branch that aims at studying beauty. As it is, such a description is discriminatory. It chooses to view aesthetic from one point of view but Rafael in his essay says that, if it is in the philosophical branch then we can survive with the idea of aesthetic handling beauty primarily. But then again questions will arise as to whether there is none aesthetic in the presence of aesthetic. If so, then surely we must be able to describe aesthetic property or attempt to, so that a justification towards aesthetic sexiness can be found or fail to be found then explanation can be found in order to support the chosen conviction. Aesthetic property in sexiness In defining aesthetic property we are faced with other contradicting questions which when answered we can be able to know what aestheticism we are chasing in sexiness. First is whether there is any evaluative component in aesthetic or not and second is whether it is distinguishable from a component of description. Evaluative means an attitude towards something, which can either be favorable or not. Descriptive is a quality on something that when used adds merit to that something. Somewhere in between when descriptive is overused it can lead to the word being purchased as evaluative. A description is not ultimate; it falls in between and never goes to the extreme. Something like witty or funny is not an absolute opinion but when we talk of someone as handsome as pretty, then that is evaluative hence a given outright attitude towards that property and almost borders aestheticism. In some instances descriptive can close into evaluative (Diamond, 2008, p. 35). When describing an aesthetic property we have two options-: first view aesthetic properties as real and not dependent on what the mind perceives, second the development of a new response system to perceive aestheticism is required. Since what is sexy to one party might not be sexy to another party, it all depends on one’s mind and their attitude or opinion towards that property. In sexiness, feminists have an argument that females are on most instances attributed to objects of pleasure and sex. This is based upon on what society perceives sexiness to be. As such then, it seems that women will normally be reduced to humans who exist in order to impress men. This culture is ingrained into the society to an extent that the women themselves always want to be considered as sexy. Sexy is the new cool. But what is sexiness? What is that, that a person would see in a woman and describe her as sexy? Sexiness is more synonymous with women. Any woman who has not gone into advanced old age can have a sexual intercourse with a man. Therefore, this would pull huge volumes of women into the blanket of being sexy. This does not happen; instead large volumes of populations are not privileged to be identified as sexy. Therefore when a woman is of a certain age, she can be describes as sexy, but there is another factor to qualification of that title. And that is, she needs to be a beauty. As such, if a woman can be said to be sexy, then there are certain standards and qualities she needs to achieve so that she qualifies. These are values that the society has set in place, the society funny enough can be said to be “men”. Because it is them who excite women by calling them sexy or not. This standard is hectic to women, when a woman reaches a certain some will celebrate because they can no longer be noticed and hence the pressure of being sexy gets off their backs other complain, they are not noticed (Mia, 2011, p. 135). Beauty then is something that should have a meaning and standard. Plato the ancient philosopher from Greece once said that, beauty is something that will confuse minds, make hearts to be snared and excite emotions. He described beauty in such big words, with the conviction of a sure man. Back then, the human body was viewed as a sophisticated art and appreciated for all those curves and interest and desire it gave people to see the form of a human. Modern world, beauty lost its touch, it lost description and today beauty has bed mates. It attracts desires, lust and longings and a lot of imaginative dreams. And it is because has gotten so big and undeniable that people who feel uncomfortable about the topic will normally put it to rest by claiming beauty is a beholders choice. Critics like (Naomi, 1991, p. 23) rubbish beauty. She said, this is an illusion, it never existed. It is just a political cliché that perturbs and aims at maintaining the dominance of males over females. On a funnier note, intellectuals pretend not to notice the fight between women and beauty and its relevance in the society, they say that, that which will call beauty, is something that makes no sense, it never teaches, solves or explains anything hence they will not have an opinion on it, because they cannot discuss nothing. That was a nice explanation from “intellectual”, but they are hypocritical. Beauty is nothing, yet they will not turn a blind eye on it. Apparently everybody enjoys the sight of it. But beauty can be power, a sexy woman is respected, she is idolized, for example Marilyn Monroe was a good pleaser of the crowd. She was able to ooze beauty imagery and she knew how to optimize its use (Nancy, 1999, p. 195). Beauty funny enough is not synonymous in one region and lacks in another. On the opposite, beauty normally grows and manifests itself when there is presence of diversity. Beauty is primitive and if not it brings out that quality to the people. A case in time is the number of women who were willing, those who had and those who were waiting in line in order to silicon gels inserted in their breasts so that they can appear firmer and attractive. Beauty is so external, yet there is not description for its standard. Whether beauty is found on the size of the buttocks, firmness of the breasts or a cute face makes it harder to determine what beauty can be. Hence theorists cite that it is illusions or just dreams that beauty exists (Nancy, 1999, p. 93). The consequences of beauty which is directly tied to sexiness is such that in its pursuit we miss the mark, and soon this condition comes through to affect our moods and attitude. Why then would a blemish or a punch on the face make one look less confident the next day at work. They know and feel that they do not look okay, hence this goes ahead to affect the mind to say the least. Bizarre things have been done in search of beauty and much is spend in search of it. I want to set the record clear that, beauty is a word in existence. People have their own definition of beauty, because I have not come across any descriptive summary of attributes that surmount to beauty. Therefore I can’t help but wonder if sexiness should use beauty as its platform, would it not rather use a woman as a person? Countries have statistics; the USA spends much on beauty in fact more than education for example. In the poor countries, Nancy says that to moisturize their skins, Kalahari people use animal fats. In ancient civilizations Nancy says that, there was a riot in 1715 in France, because the aristocrats used flour on their hair such that it led to shortage, humorous discoveries in deed (Nancy, 1999, p. 34). If appearances captivates, they do so, because of beauty then that person is therefore described as sexy. Then finally those images get ingrained in our minds. Nancy says that if images of all sexy women were burnt, nothing would change, since those images as in our minds and we would want to see them. Notice the visual aspect and the externalism in the definition of sexiness and beauty. Beauty will embarrass even greats and legends, one Eleanor Roosevelt once said she wished she had been prettier, when stating her regrets. Surely she dint have control on her prettiness, and in full knowledge of that, went ahead and uttered such words. It seems we have created uncontrolled sexiness in a sexualized world. Beauty never by passes our eyes neither does it get out of our minds. No words will ever describe it in full, and neither will there be words for sexiness. Some said they can know it, when it walks into a space and others said in Nancy’s book that it is when your breath runs out after you look at some one. Model agencies and experts in the industry could not describe beauty either. But noting the power in beauty, because he understood it that way, jean in 1688 expressed an insane wish to be a girl between 13 years to 22 then later reverse to a man. For him he had the audacity. But generally, it is never a simple task to describe beauty. It gets baffling how we can describe how, eyes from one person move us, and eyes from another person fail to excite us, Knowledge of that person not applicable. Therefore the perfect explanation to this is that, humans determine what beauty is by judging as if somewhere deep within their minds there exists an explanation for beauty and determine what beauty is, hence it would be right if we described beauty as only existing in the mind. Because if we described a nose as too flat or eyes too brown, does it not mean that we have an ideal situation on pretty. No one can hold the ultimate beauty tag. A good study is in the description of Helen of troy a woman painted by Zeuxis, he had gotten hold of the most beautiful women then tried taking some attributes form each in order to paint one very pretty woman, the outcome was nothing to write about. It is impossible to describe beauty and sexiness even the top most models who are presented to us as having exciting and pleasing characteristics still have imperfections. I am going to describe as if I know the ideal standard, such is the humor of beauty, some of this models will have moles, and some have tiny mouths. Not all models will have perfect salacious lips or feet that aspire or the most beautiful hands. I do not know the ideal standard but I know what should be better, to describe beauty. Such is the contradiction about beauty, everybody has an opinion on it and hence everybody obviously will have an opinion on the sexiness of a person and all will be contradicting. This will definitely pose a challenge in determining the aestheticism of sexiness (Cadinu, 2005, p. 243). If then we do not have a description on what is beauty then why would we unjustly condemn women in the unending cycle of de-humanizing and then make then lose confidence. Sally Haslanger does not even believe if there is such a thing as gender. She says that you cannot describe one human female because they have a vagina and another human male because they have a penis. She hence does not like the sound of the word gender or race. Race because a black woman will have a uterus and a white woman will still have a uterus. In Oakland California at a symposium that brought femmes of color together, Mia gave a moving speech, she herself is disabled, and in her speech she was pondering why the disabled femme’s of color face ableism in favor of the white majority. They are almost viewed as half human or something worse. She wonders why there is ugly and there is beautiful. She ponders whether in their current state achieving “beauty” which they do not know its meaning, is possible (Mia, 2011, p. 234). The symposium had the right people relevant to this essay. The symposium had brought together, disabled folks, women of color, queer disabled women, people who have moved above gender identity and transgender people of ugly. I couldn’t help but wonder how sexism has made them cope or how they were coping with sexism on the face of ableism and a society that favors beauty over all else. Mia is a disabled woman, she is queer, and she is of color. In a world that worships sexiness as smooth and mostly white women, this women to maintain and believe in their being women. This goes back to sally haslanger, she says this are some of the reasons why she asks loud questions about race and gender. These queer women of color have always fought in order to remain relevant as women in world that has standards on sexism. Mia talks deeply on the need to view sexism from a point of a “woman” and what being a woman is. In a society that we have taken care and focused on external attributes to describe sexy and beauty, people like Mia have strangled for their bodies to be considered as worthy, disability notwithstanding there is a woman in that person. Due to these standards people the kind of Mia do not have a say in defining femme, it is the society’s expectations that a femme can only be described by a white woman who is able bodied and having all (Mia, 2011, p. 56). In Mia words I would love to note a good point, that there is ugliness in beauty, she cites that all the people in that symposium had experienced ableism or a sort of oppression; this is from people who have considered their beauty or appearance as very normal. To Mia’s her standard of femme is and she wants it to involve demise of ableism, binary of gender, supremacy of the white and sexual violence. She wants to view femme as going above physical beauty and sexiness as we know to include realism and viewing things from a different angle (Mia, 2011, p. 241). Mia is a woman, but in her speech, she notes the society is so wired towards beauty and their sexism such that, they are seldom recognized. As a result she has had real struggles in identifying as a person, let alone a woman. As a result she is a femme, but she does say it, she just experiences it. Let us look at this from another interesting point. When she was younger, they the people around her tried to make her look like a human. In her words, a white woman was the ideal they were trying to create by treating her. Hence they were trying to make her beautiful, away from being ugly. She says that, luck was with her, the surgeries never worked, because then, they would have created that ideal, they would have created something not a human. Even in the symposium that she was delivering her speech in, she knew for sure that, beauty might be swiped under the floor but it was there somewhere in people’s minds. Hence she posed the questions that she was aware that most were investing on beauty and sexiness hence she introduced them to the world of magnificence. Magnificence to her is a word that has a whole body of meaning, magnificence has standards and beauty does not. This is the ability to accept who you are and love yourself. She had met people who are disabled, women to be specific, but upon talking to them they denied of being disabled. It is they have a phobia from being projected as ugly in a society that gives credit to beauty. Hence in the face of them being ugly, a standard of ugly she doesn’t understand, she wants the participants to live beyond beauty and sexiness, she wants them to feel like “women” for those who are women. To her she wants sexism to cease to be visual and become seeing the woman in woman no matter her physical condition. She calls for the people to expose their ugly, because ugly is beautiful. With ugly you become aware about the feelings of other people and treat them well. She doesn’t want the people to apologize for being ugly she wants them to do other things with being ugly, things that will translate to being cool and human. Mia is actually focusing away from beauty and sexiness. Beauty is nothing like earlier said, in this people world why would nothing painfully affect their life. In the symposium, she redefined what being femme is, she said that being a femme entails. Taking beauty for what it is and literally dismantling it and redefining beauty. This is by respecting people of her kind and killing ableism. And hence ending the narrative with, there is a woman, and there is not lesser woman. Sexiness is an illusion of beauty. No one will ever be the classification of beauty hence, in her world she wants magnificence to be a power and that so “ugliness” to be an illusion in the face of the positives that arises from abolishing this imaginary walls. Most of the girls will want to wear crop-tops, because it is cool and it is the norm (Searle, 1995, p. 189). That is what is normally done in mob pshycology. The school did say to be beautiful a girl has to wear a crop top neither did the parents. In fact nobody said so. But if a girl to fit in, she gets bagged with a situation that she doesn’t have control over. Note that I earlier stated that women do not have control over beauty. If parents refuse to buy crop-tops, the girl will not die. But her confidence in school will wane at the face of other cooler girls. The definition of sexy is and what is beautiful is defined by the girls in that school. This is so because parents will normally be like, “you will look fine in a track suit” they do not see anything sexy about a crop top but the girls know it will make them beautiful. Pornography is such a good example to compare with, is there sexiness in pornography. The makers of these movies do so, with a purpose of sexually arousing the audience. The society defines sexism as being indifferent from a woman “herself” but instead her physical attributes. Hence in pornography, the way those women are normally treated, making them performs heinous acts and other unexplainable actions, can that be regarded as a physical display of sexism or demeaning of womanhood (Gail, 2010, p. 78). We recognize that, the industry must make money through arousing patrons. The whole process is visual, it done through looking. And looking determines whether a woman is sexy or not. To determine sexiness a woman need not be made to display her anatomy at the pleasure of them to do as they like ( H, Maes, 2012, p. 49). Therefore sexiness is something that lurks in beauty. In pornography we do not display beauty, we display intercourse, and that is arousing. But the arousing motivated by sexiness is different. There can’t be sexiness in pornography. Sexiness hence can never be a property if it is not subjective. The world looks at the physical attributes of a woman and not the woman herself. This is defining the woman as an object and not as a “woman”. There is a theory by lintott that Sexiness amazingly originates from fertility, a young woman, who has not reproduced is seen as attractive. For the years that a woman remains fertile, she is seen as attractive and youthful and hence sexy. A man although unknowingly has a radar that detects this sexiness. With that, that is why, a pregnant woman is not sexy for the period, and neither a disabled or old women. That is according to the society. But Mia has proved this theory wrong. Lintott ends this topic in style, they note sexiness is supposed to be respectful and genuine free of malice. Women are not objects, they humans. Hence sexiness should be applied across board. It needs to cut across to disabled and old people. To do this, all people including old, disabled and pregnant need to be viewed as human and be respected. When such happens their beauty can be identified and maybe sexiness. Conclusion Beauty does not have a standard of definition, and since sexiness is synonymous with beauty this means sexiness does not have a standard of definition. Sexiness can only be a property if it can have a subjective quality. If a woman can be viewed as sexy based on her womanhood, the sexiness can be viewed as real and deserving. But sexiness in the context of external views is not a real explanation of sexism. The quality of property in sexiness is only possible if we talk of womanhood and not what she looks from the outside. Hence unless we change the way we view sexiness, this essay will never be able to determine sexiness as aesthetic. Hence sexism is not real, it is an illusion and it is also not universal. It only exits in the mental standard of any one person. 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