One of the most memorable aspects of college are the many parties, which includes a plethora of activities between the opposite sexes. Going to these engagements is suppose to be a means of fun and entertainment for all attendees. However, there are always those unspoken personally appointed social rules of what a guy and girl should be doing at these functions.
The most common interactions seen at these parties is the act of a guy and girl dancing with one another, as the girl gyrates her posterior against the guy's groin and so forth. This particular activity is highly criticized as either an act that means nothing at all or a complete issue because of the sexual connotation it could represent. Even though, both male and female are involved in this activity, the woman is always the one who is heavily chastised as a sexual being or in other words a whore. This ideal is characterized as the 21st century term, hyper-sexualizaton, and its history is long standing and targeted towards women, especially black women.
Hyper-sexualization should be regarded as a phenomenon and serious social problem that must be addressed. We see hyper-sexualized examples on a daily basis, which are often ignored or never seen as actual problems. We see this in advertisements, television shows, the internet, and even in this case of a girl dancing to her favorite song. One of the biggest problems associated with this ideal is the objectification of women and girls that occurs during this process. The Canadian Women's Health Network states, "Objectified girls are being groomed to accept the passive role of object, whose main source of power is her appearance," but for the subject at hand there is power in her ability to control when and with whom she chooses to dance.
Sexuality is 'socially scripted' in that it is a 'part' that is learned and acted out within a social context, and different social contexts have different social scripts. These scripts have shaped how African American women and others have formulated beliefs and interactions regarding black female sexuality due to socio-historical experiences and sexual imagery. Some of the earliest examples of these scripts were displayed during the Neo-Minstrelsy era that was popular due to the stereotypes it publicized about the black community and even during slavery as black women became exploited by the Europeans in newspaper ads and more. Examples would include the exploitation of Miss Sarah Baartman and the characterizations of what it takes to be a Jezebel, Mammy, Welfare Mama, and Matriarch as shown here.
Since then, we have relied on these characteristics in the black community to define us as a way to eliminate the need for deep descriptions. Young women are expected to bolster a man's masculinity by being entertaining objects when they dance, and for that reason it is impossible to be empowered as a young woman who simply enjoys dancing when she pleases without being regarded as a ho that has no other ambition about herself. The attitudes around the ideal are the product of beliefs and values interacting among one another due to physical attractiveness, and we often fail to ignore the culture and historical aspect of the gyration occurring between the two.
The truth is onlookers will form an opinion about you due to their own personal beliefs or assumptions regardless of what you are doing at a party. It's not necessarily a debate of right or wrong when we are all entitled to a freedom of expression. We must stop allowing ourselves to automatically assume that the girl dancing with guys at a party are asking to be sexually involved or already sexually involved with the guy she is enjoying a moment with. We must also stop assuming that standing around at a party makes you look like the virgin, Mary.
Whatever a guy and girl choose to do after a party is solely up to them, and I can guarantee a guy won't choose you based on if you danced with him or not. We know how this goes. It's all about actually being interested in taking it further than just a dance or conversation at a party, and a woman should not be subject to criticism when it obviously takes two to mingle. Most of the time the girls are simply dancing alone and a guy somehow makes his way behind her in the process with freedom from hyper-sexualized criticism. So, if she's a ho, what does that make him? Exactly!
