Drugs, Sex, Rock N Roll, and essays

Drugs, Sex, Rock N Roll, and essays Drugs, Sex, Rock N Roll, and Romance? From Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Frank Sinatra and Brittany Spears, music has always been sexual. Pop music and Rock and Roll are especially sexual. Popular music in recent years has perpetuated sexism in young people by showing women as more submissive and sensitive than men. While it may be argued that women have a more dominate place in the music industry then ever before, the same perception that women are more romantic and submissive than men holds steady. Brittany Spears is one female artist that adds to the continuance of sexism in popular music. By means of her provocative manner in her dress and lyrics, she becomes a symbol of sex as a transitory pleasure, much like a prostitute. Simon Frith in his essay Rock and Sexuality states, The prostitute can be treated with a mixture of condescension and contempt, as someone without an autonomous sexuality (264). In that sense she becomes the mans desire without any fluency of her own. Therefore according to Frith, Sex as self-expression remains the prerogative of the man; the woman is the object of his needs and fantasies (264). Despite the fact that women are becoming more prolific in the music industry and trying to express their sexuality, it is still the men who are revealed to have the sexual freedom. One effect of women trying to break the chains of their sexual oppression is the male movement towards more violent forms of sexual power such as rape. This manner of thinking about sexuality influences music. This may be one reason that women are hesitant to join the musical scene, due to the three great lyrical themes [in popular music]: sex, hate, and smarmy, a hypocritical version of brotherly love, according to Alan Bloom in his essay Music. He further states that, Such polluted sources issue in a muddy stream where only ...