Hi, I'm Rachel Hills.
I'm a London-based (via Sydney, Australia) writer, researcher and contributor to publications including the Sydney Morning Herald's Sunday Life, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Glamour, Jezebel, Alternet and more. I'm also writing a book about Gen Y, sex and identity. This is my blog.
I'd love to hear from you. Submit a question to my Ask Rachel column here, send me an email here, connect with me on Twitter here or find out more about my paid work at www.rachelhills.net.
I'm a London-based (via Sydney, Australia) writer, researcher and contributor to publications including the Sydney Morning Herald's Sunday Life, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Glamour, Jezebel, Alternet and more. I'm also writing a book about Gen Y, sex and identity. This is my blog.
I'd love to hear from you. Submit a question to my Ask Rachel column here, send me an email here, connect with me on Twitter here or find out more about my paid work at www.rachelhills.net.
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Posts tagged "pop culture"
Lady Gaga: Gen Y sex icon?
Like everyone else on the internet, it seems, Lady Gaga has grown on me. But it’s not for her music (a couple of tracks aside, it’s pretty mediocre) or even for her outrageous costumes and sense of theatrics (fantastic as she is to look at). I’m a fan of Lady Gaga because of her attitude to sex, and the new model of sex positivity she represents.
It’s easy to dismiss Gaga as just another attention seeking, sexualised pop tart. At the conference I spoke at last month, one of the researchers expressed dismay that her daughters idolised Gaga and Beyonce (better oddball Gaga and insanely talented Beyonce than a lot of other pop stars, I thought). And certainly, Sam has documented in detail Gaga’s reliance on sexual “shock tactics” to draw attention to herself (I used to tell him he deserved a Walkley for ‘Continuous Coverage of Lady Gaga’).
But the problem with raunch culture isn’t that it is hyper-sexed, or even that it is showy. It’s that it can be prescriptive – especially when it’s the only story being told.
And while Gaga plays right into that script with her sound bites about orgasming on stage and the “secret lesbian meaning” of ‘Poker Face’, she departs from it in her enthusiasm for difference. She embraces her nickname “Lady Gay Gay” and is unfazed by rumours she might be intersex. She gives out condoms at her concerts, but speaks openly about how she’s not having sex herself. It’s a terrain that at first glance looks similar to that trodden by stars like Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Miley Cyrus, but it sounds qualitatively different coming from Gaga.
Gaga’s world is one in which “anything goes” – but that means literally anything goes. You can be gay, straight, trans, cis, sexually active, virginal, temporarily celibate… Gaga doesn’t care, so long as it makes you happy. She accepts and embraces you, and she wants you to accept and embrace yourself.
Gaga represents a truly laissez-faire approach to sexuality, one that values sexual freedom in all its manifestations.
Related: ‘Everything’s cool as long as I’m getting thinner’: how Karl de-fanged Lily Allen
Britney Spears and why it’s painful to be conventionally beautiful
Is ‘raunch culture’ real? Young adults on media and casual sex
Elsewhere: The Sex Myth
Assuming, that is, that you are roughly the same age as me. And watched a lot of Canadian TV as a child.
Posted in honour of my workplace’s “Canada Party”, which I sadly will not be attending this afternoon. 
Babar 
Degrassi Junior High 
Read All About It! 
Ready Or Not 
Square One featuring Mathnet 
You Can’t Do That On Television
And a more contemporary Canadian love… 
Robin Sparkles!
Following in the footsteps of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton is set to star in a documentary about her own life: Paris, Not France.
Hilton is clearly going for the ”poor little rich girl” line, spouting pseudo-deep, morose statements like “People see me as, like, this Barbie with a perfect life … a fantasy. Whatever, maybe that’s what they like, I don’t know” and “This is not what I wanted when I was a little girl. It’s not what I planned. I always looked up to people like Princess Diana and all these women and now I can never be like that.”
The problem is that none of it feels remotely authentic. While it was almost impossible not to feel sympathy for Spears - the woman was clearly traumatised and suffering from depression - Hilton has always come across as an architect of her own life and image. This latest incarnation just feels like a grab for relevance in the eyes of an increasingly disinterested public.
“It is often said that New York is a city for only the very rich and the very poor. It is less often said that New York is also, at least for those of us who came there from somewhere else, a city for only the very young.”
—Joan Didion, Slouching Toward Bethlehem
Goddamnit. Have I left it too late already?
Beautiful quote, though.
Coming soon: Gossip Girl spin-off, 80s style. (via johnnyfive: uppereastside)
skeetonmischa wrote:
“Dude, Suri gets it. She gets it better than any celebrity in the world. She is on a fucking trampoline waving at a photographer in a helicopter, at her birthday party.”
I love that kid. I really do.
