Popular Magazines Tell the Truth About Sex. Do You Agree? Would Foucault Agree? Discuss in Relations to Representation of Sexuality in Popular Magazines and so-Called ‘Natural’ Distinctions Between Men and Women.

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Popular magazines tell the truth about sex. Do you agree? Would Foucault agree? Discuss in relations to representation of sexuality in popular magazines and so-called ‘natural’ distinctions between men and women. According to (Williamson 1978), “people are made to identify themselves with what they consume”. Hence, fashion can be considered a segment of what we ingest to create ourselves. Advertisements and their imagery possess the ability to “show you a symbol of yourself aimed to attract your desire; they suggest that you can become the person in the picture before you”. Prior to any discussion of the representation of gender and sexuality in lifestyle magazines being considered, clarification on the difference between sex, gender and sexuality is important. ‘Sex’ refers to a person’s biological orientation: whether they are male or female, ‘gender’ refers to the role or behaviours a person has been socialised into according to their sex, be it masculine or feminine and ‘sexuality’ refers to a persons sexual preference: whether they are bisexual, heterosexual or homosexual. The subject of gender is not fixed, behaviour deemed acceptable for each sex change over time. Contemporaneous ideas of masculinity and femininity will be different to those of previous generations. For example a grandmother aged 40 and above would most likely not go into a pub alone and buy a pint of beer, whereas a young woman today may well do just that. In society, there are some behaviours and characteristics that are seen to be more appropriate for one sex than the other. According to society men should be: masculine, strong, dominant, intelligent, rational, aggressive and active, whilst women should be: submissive, feminine, passive, weak, intuitive, emotional and expressive (talk about things). Also men and women are seen to like different things: men like cars, technology,

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