The Female Gaze: What Is Attraction, Really Or How I Learned To Relax And Enjoy The Bomb...

The Female Gaze: what is attraction, really or how I learned to relax and enjoy the bomb...

Glances, gazes, ways to express your desires that are perhaps considered "shameful" or "immoral" seem to come into the idea of the female gaze. But what is it? Society tells us what we should desire. But who we are--individually--who we are upends that in every way.

Is female sexuality one of interiority--is it meant to be a coded inner life somewhat reminiscent of a Jane Austen film where once the gentleman touches your hand, he must flex to shake off the magnetism and sexual charge?

Even in watching something that reimagines the cloistered sexuality of Jane Austen like Bridgerton requires a certain element of the hidden.

Flirtations are hidden and coded. But what is "the gaze" and how does it function--and why can't I stop thinking about it--

The gaze when discussing the "male gaze" is usually a way we discuss the look induced by the person producing the work of art (show, film etc.) and how the receiver of that message processes it to create meaning (visual or otherwise).

The male gaze typically looks at another person as an object. This is rooted in the phenomena of "scopophilia" or the "derivation of sexual pleasure from openly looking at erotically charged material as a substitute for actual participation."

This phenomena is the root of all pornography. But the female gaze--

Female spectatorship allows for a deconstruction of the male gaze. It can reject it. It can mock it. It can "objectify" men. Typically the female gaze differs significantly to the male gaze.

Yet, men make most of the decisions about what is deemed attractive on film.

So--why am I pondering this--I was once again thinking about why I am often unhappy with casting choices for Romances--and the root of it--the male gaze does not understand what women truly desire to see on screen.

(If I speak)

Beth Johnson, James Aston, & Basil Glynn. (2012). Television, Sex and Society : Analyzing Contemporary Representations. Continuum.

This GIF lives rent free in my head. I am utterly trash and I shall own it.

The biggest trick that Game of Thrones sold the world (besides palatable incest) is that Peter Dinklage is somehow unfuckable.

Lies. Slander.

sometimes i have to curse at peter dinklage

sir, you are far too hot, youre scaring the problematic-and-frankly-gross-tones out of tyrion lannister

I need some new hobbies or an intervention.

I can’t seem to write my story. I can’t focus on a show. I have not watched The Bear yet. I am stuck in a loop of lust and fascination.

I attempt to write and nothing feels “true.”

I go back and watch random YouTube videos. Rinse. Repeat.

“Please don’t expect me to always be good and kind and loving. There are times when I will be cold and thoughtless and hard to understand.”

— Sylvia Plath