Women More Than Sex Machines
By Barbara Reynolds
Most women’s magazines have long used romance, love and family- and, inevitably, sex — as mainstays, but some now are pushing the limits of decency. They’re becoming more tawdry and displaying women . . . as bodies, without souls or minds. If women accept these images of themselves, they are losing the battle against rape, domestic violence and sexual harassment.
Even pristine Ms. magazine, normally a standard-bearer of of sexual equality, has fallen into the Big Orgasm craze, notes Sheila Jeffries in the current ON THE ISSUES, a magazine for progressive women. Ms. recently ran such racy articles as “I was a teenage slut” and “Eroticizing equality.” “An unreflective politics of orgasm seems to be winning out,” Jeffreys says. “Unfortunately, freedom is being defined as the achievement of bigger and better orgasms, by any means possible.”