Through the 20th century, music has influenced the sexual views/tendencies of
the American youth. Simon Frith's essay, 'Rock and Sexuality' depicts the changes
between the early 1920's, where women began too free themselves from the
suppressed views held by the generation prior to them concerning marriage and
sexuality, right till the mid 1970's where after going through a rock and punk phase
American youth now entered an era where disco and dance became the focus of
youth culture, turning everything, even sex, into a product who's only purpose is to
be consumed for pleasure.
It was during the early 1920's that young women began to become more
liberated, they moved away from the ideal which was that they should stay at home,
in essence skip their entire childhood and wait until a man came searching for
marriage. Only when free marital choice became a norm did young women
experience their childhood or more specifically their teenage years.
This movement
towards "liberation" was founded in colleges, it was college girls who decided the
standards, which acts where acceptable and which acts where considered too be
vulgar. These actions "liberated" women from the ideology of the generations
previous to them but it did not "liberate" them from the double standard which the
world would uphold within the years to come.
All this seemed to be personified by the industrial revolution. Where young
women from middle class families would work in the newly created factories along
side young men. This new type of interaction without the interference of a parent
lead to the creation of a more passionate environment, 'The bourgeoisie themselves
were slowly adopting the ideology of romantic love as a way of regulating adolescent
sexuality' this allowing the children to integrate easily or more importantly
respectably into adulthood.
As the...
Women's sexuality and music
What about britpop? I demand britpop :) A very informative and interesting essay. It sounds like you have a lot of knowledge on this subject.
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