Why Women’s Happiness Increasingly Declines… By AUDREALITY

Gatekeeper Phenomenon: Why Women’s Happiness Increasingly Declines

BY: AUDREALITY

Women’s happiness in general has been on steady decline since the 70’s. Now that it’s documented, I’ll go out on a limb to present the possible source of these findings. Couched in what I call the Gatekeeper Phenomenon are the two biggest, overarching problems facing women and modern society in general. They are closely related: trivialization and commodification of sex.

While technological developments have been steamrolling ahead at a profoundly rapid pace, biological improvements are sloooooooooooow - astoundingly so. It makes sense that humans, empowered with an array of contraception and STD prevention devices to make the act simple and care-free, have come to enjoy lots of frivolous sex. Unfortunately, our hard wiring has not caught up to speed. Trivialization and commodification of sex have huge psychological, inter-personal and social consequences. The steady decline of women’s happiness is just one of them. This glitch in our system has repercussions that are utterly epidemic.

Commodification of Sex

Commodification of sex has a wide umbrella. It includes prostitution (and other positions in the sex industry) and less blatant forms of prostitution (such as exchange of sex for provisions/resources/employment). But, the sleaziest side of this point is in advertising. There are companies making loads of cash by turning us on. It’s easy! It’s also disgusting and wrong.

Parents out there: this might hit a chord with you too. I’ve never been more upset with the father of my child than the day she came home from his place with GAP across her rear end. (My blood boils just thinking about it.) I had a few words for him.

“Her butt is NOT a billboard!” Give Mom credit for this, because she’s the one who engrained it in me: We do not wear meaningless corporate advertisements. (If you’re going to represent someone’s company, they should pay you.) Furthermore, her father should be the last person putting advertisements on her butt. Who wants to draw some strangers’ attention there?! Violet was no more than eight years old at the time. Sick.

If you aren’t disturbed by companies trying to sell products by yanking your sexual chains, I give up. For the rest of you: thanks for reading. You now have a brief overview of the triple-pronged commodification of sex (prostitution, sex exchange, and sexual advertising).

Trivialization of Sex

Sex has become something that people just do. It doesn’t take as much forethought or planning as it used to. It certainly doesn’t have the same consequences. We have modern science and technology to thank for that. Westerners now live in a lust-filled culture, crawling with sexual sociopaths. Perpetual teasing via sexual imagery dulls the senses, just like exposure to violence. Think of almost every magazine. The majority of the pictures are women. And they are sexy! But, considering the “art” of photography/Photoshop, they aren’t real. What they represent are false ideals.

Heterosexual women end up competing with these images in an uphill battle to attract mates. Men who excessively watch porn are increasingly less stimulated by their real-life partners. Women’s psyches – as well as men’s libidos – are paying the price.

Meanwhile, everything’s on the table. Our daughters are transformed into sexual creatures at an earlier and earlier age. It’s no surprise that there’s a correlation between pop culture’s prominence and promiscuity. Some of the lyrics playing on the top 40 are downright unrepeatable. Sex is on display in an entirely improper way.

Real Results

The Gatekeeper Phenomenon recognizes the trivialization and commodification of sex as overwhelmingly destructive patterns that need to be investigated and addressed. No one should be making money off of our suffering, or the plight of our nation’s kids, but they do. No one should be filling the airwaves with messages about frivolous sex, but it’s what’s happening. This is my chance to address these problems best.