Today is Thursday, Sept. 29, 2011. The Moon is now in Scorpio, where it will remain till early Saturday morning. Though we don’t often mention the speed of the Moon, it’s currently near its fastest daily motion, so this visit to Scorpio will be relatively brief. This is the equivalent of the Moon moving in direct motion (quickly, near the Earth) — easier progress and more straightforward communications. Though it never goes retrograde, the equivalent would be a slow Moon (far from Earth), when progress seems slower and it may be a bit more difficult to relate what you feel.
The Sun has just made aspects to Chiron, Uranus and Pluto, which suggests we’ve been through a busy few days. Now the Sun is gradually approaching a conjunction to Saturn in Libra. This is a time to focus on discipline, to pace yourself and to refine the nuances of collaboration. Sun-Saturn is the time to work toward long-term goals, but make sure you take action today.
There is an aspect happening now that deserves some specific focus. Mars in Leo is opposite the asteroid Vesta in Aquarius. Vesta is one of the patron saints of Planet Waves. The brightest of the asteroids, it was discovered in 1807. Named for the goddess of devotion, Vesta is about service, consistent effort and sexual healing. I also view Vesta as bestowing the gift of inner focus, and nurturing one’s sacred flame of creativity and sexuality. [Planet Waves last year published a premium edition on Vesta, called The Sacred Space of Self.] Vesta is now in Aquarius, a perfect sign for this energy. Aquarius is the very image of service: the water-bearer gathers the water in her urn, so that she may share it. Vesta is a bit cool and detached, as can be Aquarius. But deep within the energy of both is passion, which drives the willingness to serve.
Vesta refers to the story of the Vestal Virgins. We know more about them than we do about this particular goddess herself. Many are historical figures. They were honored by Rome, and were present at all important state functions to hold space. That is essential to the delineation of Vesta: the use of space (for example, in a household), and holding space for important functions such as healing.
There is another theme, which is young women. People with a prominent Vesta in their charts are likely to be surrounded by young women, and to have some kind of mutual service role. These women are not necessarily sex partners; indeed, Vesta has an aura of celibacy, abstaining from sex, or sex reserved for some special purpose. The Vestal Virgins were among the most desirable, intelligent and beautiful women in all of Rome, yet none could have them. I think this is an interesting image of how we view young women today — as pure, untouchable, naive and virginal, yet at the same time hyper-desirable.
Vesta is now opposed by Mars in Leo. This is not a routine aspect. It happens about every three years. The last one (with Mars in Scorpio and Vesta in Taurus) was Oct. 18. 2008. There was then a conjunction in Virgo on June 29, 2010.
Mars-Vesta aspects are evocative, especially this meeting of bold, brash and fiery Mars in Leo, meeting the detached, demur, mentally-oriented Vesta in Aquarius. One image is the hot, mature man meets the young women. What happens in that meeting? Do we shudder to think? Or do we let nature take its course? Do we hallucinate that young women are naive and pure and should remain eternally unsullied, or do we recognize that they are sexual beings, with authentic desires?
Our world directs a lot of energy at young women; sometimes it seems that the consumer economy is fueled by images of them. They are used to sell very nearly everything, from cars to vacations to shampoo to food. It’s not easy to have this kind of energy directed at you. It’s not easy to have your external presence cause a disturbance in the world while you’re still wondering what you’re made of, and who you are, inside — and that is where many young women find themselves. Western society spends incredible energy trying to convince itself that these young women are too pure to consider touching even as it presents them in advertising and other media as agonizingly desirable. (Think of the sly, female zoom zoom whispered at the end of all the Mazda ads.)
This sexualizes young women — then as a cultural process we keep them in the dark about their bodies, refusing even the most rudimentary health or sex education. It’s a huge contradiction, and one that has a way of driving many of the young women to the brink of madness, not knowing how to handle their own feelings, their curiosity and their insecurities. Maybe it’s time to invest a little trust in young women, including trusting them with actual information.
Looking for insights on how this week’s astrology affects your personal Sun and rising signs? Try out Planet Waves Light, our streamlined horoscope service. For deeper cultural context and astrological investigation, the premium Planet Waves subscription includes the same horoscopes, plus extensively-researched articles on Fridays.
Thank you Green-Star-Gazer and laredo for your warm and postive responses, and thank you for being part of this PW blog and community which inspires me with hope because of the truths which are spoken/written here for all to read and because I am always helped by something you say, something I needed to hear, from an angle I would never be able to find for myself except through your eyes.
Tonight, (especailly after reading Anonymous) I am happy; something is shifting and we are all so beautiful and, we( we ) ARE the shift. Yes.
Eric, thank you for the clarification and a big high five for getting to talk to the exec at Mazda.
Burning River…. beautiful beautiful poem… standing-O finished with a palms together bow.
Everyone; this conversation is so rich and deep. All summer I have been meditating on and questioning the relationship between projection and “reality”. Whether it is from the media, from Quantum mechanics or from a spiritual discipline, there is a mysterious web of cause and effect that happens between the outer world and the human who is experiencing that outer world. I wonder most about the relationship between stimulus and manifestation, that is, how much of what we experience comes from what is designed for us to experience by those who build images,sounds, concepts, spin etc and how much of our experience is the layering of all the filters we take on, either willingly or unconsciously as we grow from birth into the people we are now. And then, the next leap takes me to how much of this outer world is a co-creative process between the observer and the observed?
While sexuality certainly is over used in our culture to hook us in all kinds of ways, there is also the natural human preference for beauty. Yes, true beauty is ageless, but the animal part of us (speaking in broad strokes) has evolved to be attracted to bodies that are either at or verging on their most sexually fertile years. As a person who is very visually oriented however, I find that I am often less aware of the sexual content of models in advertising but am much more aware of their beauty, or I am aware of the crafting of the photograph, so I guess I’m not the best judge of what is being exploitative or not in the media these days. Also, I am rarely exposed to advertising any more (no TV, print media or movies in my world right now) so I’m rather unaware of what the current trends are.
To reply to Eric’s inquiry about his lovely B+W photo my responses are these:
– there is much about the image and the model that reminds me of Waterhouse’s “Lady of Shallot” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JWW_TheLadyOfShallot_1888.jpg though this lady is not so sad and desperate as LoS.
– I like that I cannot place her in any time frame, her dress gives no clues… I like that
– strong linear and vertical lines intersecting at right angles are the geometric forms I see most and find to be grounding, so her odd over-extended left arm-elbow keeps tugging me back because it looks a bit like her arm is on backwards and that interests me and is also unsettling
– even though the girl/woman in the image is in nature, she seems a bit withdrawn and detached from it… contemplative… enjoying the warmth of the sun and the sound of the water, most likely…. but she is reflecting on something and that has me
feeling a wee bit that I, as observer, don’t want to interrupt her reverie.
– nice triple play highlights from background cliff to her face, to bubbling waters… ties it all together and creates nice movement and flow
Truth spoken with beauty – very powerful.
Another great conversation I had in the Bay Area was with an astrologer who was trying to explain the meaning for her of the Age of Aquarius. She said it had less to do with all the happy hippie slogans and more to do with lateral vs hierarchical power structures. She felt the true signal of Aquarian values was the fall of the phallic Twin Towers, and the rise of the lateral internet web, interconnecting us all, empowering us all.
I feel your poem reflects that – we are waking up to our interconnectedness, and even if we are disheveled and beat up, we still have grace in that humanity, and a real chance to clean the whole story up, and start telling it in a more graceful, empowering way. Thank you.
We’re meeting sometimes on street corners now
Bluish shadows on cheek bones, unkempt hair
Torn t shirts. 5 year-old
Flip flops
And we just stand together
Warmed by each other’s bruised faces, blank eyes, hopeless
In outward expression
But a community
At last.
Hope.
We’re coming together now
Rage barely masked by gritted teeth
No bothering to smile we
Meet at office water dispensers
And the exhaustion on our faces
Creates a group
Who understand
What even we
As individuals in it
Don’t understand yet.
We are finding our way
Out.
We’re coming together now
on internet blogs,
telling it just like it is and we listen
to our own voices speaking the truth of our own
lives out loud
and no one is slapping us
punching us
firing us
for it.
We are still alone,
but even so, even though we are
still the only one who understands,
we weren’t beaten up or raged at or dismissed
for our views
nor criticized for being
ourselves.
One by one
we are finding our way
into the better future for ourselves and the one’s we love.
We’re coming together now
Within our own hearts.
One by one,
Approving the disapproved
Loving the never loved and cherished,
Nurturing the neglected
Self that we were born
To birth;
And we are walking out of the past into the
The delivery rooms
Of our precious selves to be
Delivered
By our own blessed bruised and capable
Hearts and hands.
I talked to Mazda today, to an exec in the ad department.
It is a male voiceover whispering “zoom zoom” – at least the third in the campaign’s history. He said the concept of zoom zoom is to evoke a kid’s first time skateboarding down a hill or your first time riding a bike or the adventures of the open road. Their official line is that it’s about “the emotion of motion.”
He denied that there was any allusion to seduction or eroticism in the voice.
Thanks for clarifying POWER, Eric. I agree. It is not power to change anything or anyone “out there”. It is power to be true to who we have found out that we are. There is the journey to finding out who we are, what we need and want and like and don’t like and believe and don’t believe and are open to etc and then there is the action of being true to what we have found out. That action usually involves accessing great courage. That is the yin I allude to. “This is me. This is what I want and need. What do you say about that?” And the dance begins.
Laredo,
Thanks for clarifying; that makes more sense to me now.
I was molested (twice) so I have deep fear issues and a lot of baggage about my own sexuality that I hope I did not drag into my parenting.
For about three years, I acted out the Sacred Whore and enjoyed it but was vilified for it; mostly by women. Women have got to stop perpetuating this bullshit on one another.
It is interesting to me that my daughters have all come to the decision (between themselves, not something I told them) to never fight over a guy. If he wants one of them and not the others, they will support the sister he chooses if she chooses him as well. They tell me no guy is worth losing their relationship over. I am always amazed at their insight; young as they are they seem to have a keen wisdom. I think our society assumes young people have no wisdom; this is a big mistake because they have open minds and we can learn from them.
reading the article and comments, I wonder whether the definition of ‘virgin’ and the intent/idea behind Vesta might be too narrowly reflected here as being specifically about sexual desire when it probably represents a much broader concept of desire and the ability of the psyche to evolve through focused, undistracted energy.
yes, the vestal virgins were sexual virgins in the biological sense, but they also made a conscious choice to ‘tend the fire’ undistracted by societal expectations to serve, which was not only through sexuality but by choosing where to focus ‘service’ rather than following the traditionally accepted path.
interesting also that the vestal virgins served from puberty for 30 years, and then were free to marry just when thier fertility would have been waning, but that many did not choose the marriage option. this means many virgins completed service at a fairly advanced age – pretty ancient within the context of those times, and certainly verging on menopausal!
so how would this apply now? my perception is the concept of virginity within the vestal virgin context is about the ability of women to have dominion over where to focus energy. Sometimes this means channeling energy into social change, emotional growth, sex or helping others manifest/become. vestal virgins and vesta give an an idea of what it means to ‘tend the fire’ which is not only about sex, but about the ability to be virginal over and over again, experiencing repeated rebirth in the evolutionary process of the soul, as achieved through focused service to oneself or others.
sex is a part of that, but its only one part. What part of each of us is experiencing something completely fresh and new for the first time? In what part of our lives are we virgins? Where are we choosing to ‘tend the fire’?
Carrie – I don’t think you understood my point regarding the history professor – it had nothing to do with the actual beauty or ugliness of the woman herself (and I happen to think all women are beautiful) – it had to do with the idea that countries with a cultural insistence on women being covered up started that custom based on troubling wartime conditions where law and chivalry were suspended, and women who were “visible ” to invaders were, in point of historical fact, much more likely to be seen as a target and to be assaulted by invaders than were women who were obedient, hidden, and obeyed unquestioningly.
Whether any of us think rape is a good idea is not even a question – we know it is abhorrent, but we also know in wartime conditions it is how the aggressor tends to enact their dominance with the female population, hence countries with entrenched wartime histories tend to want to keep their women and children submissive and easily controlled.
This professor was simply drawing on all his years of research into the topic of population control through wars, ideology, and initially good intentions. Therefore, his main point was that this subjugation of women wasn’t initially started out as some kind of dominant male power grab, but rather an urgent need by defending males to protect their wives and daughters in turbulent times. Then it escalated in peacetime into what we have today, which is women defined either by passive obedience (the Madonna), or commodification of the feminine (the Child Whore). I felt he had a valid point, and since he specialized in the tactics of war and their carry-over into peacetime politics in various cultures, I felt his argument had a great deal of scholarly merit.
I am glad you understood my calling for the return of respect for the Sacred Whore – though I am sure there are those who will vilify that analogy as well. Eric is certainly one of the more enlightened champions of female sexual and spiritual empowerment, which is why I felt it was safe to continue this dialogue on this blog. And you yourself are a healing example of what sexually abused women like me did not have growing up – a safe, healthy dialogue with a loving parent about what it means to become a woman in an empowered way in our society. That is world changing right there, and it spreads from your daughters out into the collective consciousness, and I think that is what will really change things. I thank you for that.
“I am wondering what this particular image says to the people who are commenting.”
It says “A young woman, whole and serene within herself, in nature and by water, wrapped in the promise of what she will become as she ages.”
There is a feeling of a journey beginning and that moment of stillness before movement and action; a moment of quiet inner working before the graceful rising and doing.
She needs no one, is complete, self-directed, and secure. She is unmolested and unharmed; ready to be whomever she will. Her sexuality is hers, perhaps secret perhaps not but hers alone.
“ie. the wife or daughter who flaunted her beauty in wartime conditions was inevitably going to be raped and or killed.”
I vehemently disagree with this entire sentence. Whole populations of unattractive (by whatever standards any particular society cares to set) have been raped and killed during war time. To say flaunting their beauty had anything to do with it is to me far too similar to blaming the victim for the rape. Rape anytime is a crime of dominance and anger; during war time it is used do demoralize both the women and the men who care for them. To rape is to defile and subjugate and the women have no part in why it happens. The victor desires to smash the confidence and power of the vanquished and because women’s fertility is so valued, attacking, raping and impregnating them is a way to dominate them and to shame the males who feel they should have been able to protect them. Basically a big cum shooting contest to show everyone who is boss.
However, this part below is spot on and one I very much agree with and am actively wanting to see happen:
“This brings me to the Sacred Whore, which I kind of hope is what we are heading toward. The powerful woman in complete command of her iconography and her sexuality, that is revered and not reviled by her society, runs its temples and sacred rituals, and is feminine and strong in equal measure simply by virtue of her self-esteem and self-knowledge. I just hope one day all the young girls growing up in the world could be free of the shame cast down by religious and material institutions, and become the guardians of their own sacred sexual, intellectual and spiritual bodies.”
The thing is, women won’t be guardians of their own sexuality and sexual freedom until both sexes change in huge ways.
All people have to stop controlling female fertility and just allow females themselves to control it. Eggs are rare and as such valued but those males in power don’t want the egg-owners to decide because what if they decide against THEM? What if the rare and fertile egg-owners decide they want a lesser male or a different male?
Humans always want to control those things which are rare and scarce; human ova are scarce and rare compared to human sperm so the bigger and stronger sex, which was made stronger to protect the female and the young, instead uses that greater strength to dominate the rare-egg-makers for their ( the male’s) own personal gain. That has got to stop.
Female fertility is controlled in just about every culture on the planet; a girl is free until puberty and then the social shame and constraints fall on her like a huge cage. These don’t lift until menopause; when she is no longer fertile the cage lifts and she comes into her own power to some degree.
To make this work, the egg-maker is told in every way (both verbally and with social cues, rewards and punishments, and innuendos) that her gender is worth LESS than the male gender in every way imaginable; this despite the fact that her eggs are rare. This serves to foster a deep shame (for not being male) and indwelling fear of her authentic self and makes her a lot easier to control. She may resent this but that resentment is up against a constant barrage of messages which objectify her and tell her she is only as good as what she looks like and her purpose is to please males. Even other females get in on this indoctrination; this is the least understood part of it. Each has been raised to fear her own power so she takes what power she thinks she has; she uses her looks, her sexuality, her choosiness to deny when she decides; all the while fearing the rapist and the molester in her deepest self. If she is raped or molested, she believes she is at fault for not toeing the line or for being sexual at all.
Being a woman in this bullshit is psychologically twisting and character damaging. Navigating all that is a daunting idea to any young woman; mine certainly resent it but know not how to fight it.
The Sacred Whore is a great place to start; owning her and being her in ourselves, proud and unashamed, is so freeing. Changing how society treats women, revering the rare egg-makers instead of competing to “own” them would be a good start as well.
I wish I had the answers and I hope part of this paradigm shift includes that change in how females are perceived and treated. For my daughters and all the other females; I hope to see that change.
What is so frustrating to me in this thankfully healthy debate is what Eric is saying – that the true crux of young women’s powerlessness lies in their lack of access to useful knowledge. If young women were given healthy, sane information about their bodies, their sexuality and its cultural power, and the right (stolen from them throughout human history) to dictate the usage of that cultural, iconic power, the world would be far less crowded with teenage moms and genital mutilations. At least that is my naive belief.
I had an interesting conversation with an enlightened history teacher in the Bay Area once about how the cultural Madonna/Whore paradigm, prevalent for millenniums, was borne of necessity in wartime conditions – ie. the wife or daughter who flaunted her beauty in wartime conditions was inevitably going to be raped and or killed. His point was that the issue and the iconography was initially based on a very valid concern that no longer holds up in peacetime conditions, but is retained in modern times because it conveniently reduces large populations to controllable demographics whose behavior can be easily dictated by the dominant power structure – ie. the Catholic church with the Madonna icon, and the capitalist marketplace with the Child Virgin/Whore.
I think we all are going to change whether we like it or not, and Eric has been such a graceful, informed guide to the type of wave that ocean of change is going to crash our consciousness with. But I still feel that the dinosaur of absolute power will not in any way co-operate, and I worry for all the young women, staring at the whore reflection they see in the media mirror, who have no idea the path of violation and self-loathing they will walk for taking it on as their own without having been able to consciously make the choices that an enlightened society might have offered them.
This brings me to the Sacred Whore, which I kind of hope is what we are heading toward. The powerful woman in complete command of her iconography and her sexuality, that is revered and not reviled by her society, runs its temples and sacred rituals, and is feminine and strong in equal measure simply by virtue of her self-esteem and self-knowledge. I just hope one day all the young girls growing up in the world could be free of the shame cast down by religious and material institutions, and become the guardians of their own sacred sexual, intellectual and spiritual bodies.
I had a young female student ask me the other day from out of the blue “if the pill makes you gain weight” and I said yes, I believe it would do that. I also said I’m not an expert (Y chromosome, over 50, it’s not like I’ve taken it!), and she should ask a nurse or doctor to really know.
I couldn’t be more specific in answering her, because I might get in trouble if the question somehow boomeranged back via a parent or administrator. What I really wanted to tell her was to not stop taking it just because she thought she was a few pounds overweight, but consider the alternative – pregnancy – in exchange for those few pounds.
I wanted to tell her to have a life of her own before starting another, more restricted one, a life of her choosing, and not one of the Fates’ choosing. If ever today’s young women need Vesta, it’s now.
I’m suggesting that the “power” here is the ability to perceive ourselves. Our minds have been colonized by these image makers. We are the ones who have to make the demands and the concessions — such as they are — on ourselves. There is no point storming Madison Avenue. That street is in our heads, where it’s been put.
Eric referenced Midwest Academy recently and its quote by Frederick Douglass struck me and has stayed with me and is relevant to laredo’s question/postulation/statement today:
POWER CONCEDED NOTHING WITHOUT A DEMAND. IT NEVER DID AND NEVER WILL
This truth has been borne out by history from the Guilds in pre-industrial England to the labor unions of the past 150 years.
To today’s need for women to own their power and demand, in our yin way of clarifying everything, what we expect, this quote speaks clearly.
And then there is the negotiating from the place of our own true power.
I support young women (including my daughter, 3 daughters-in-law and 6 grand-daughters) in learning how to do this and am doing it myself. Success is slow and sure. Without The Demand there is no Supply. Never Was And Never Will Be when we are dealing with inequality of powers.
Two keys to successful negotiation are being clear about The Demand and then believeing one deserves the supply of it. The caveat is that we Always, in the end, receive what we believe we deserve.
One way we take back the power of visualization and of image is to become artists and image makers ourselves, and to reflect on our own work. This will in part help us see and understand the contents of our own minds. There will always be people who are trying to push another image of ourselves onto us, whether it’s Athena standing there with her spear, or a nearly-naked girl with blotchy eyes selling a pair of shoes. I believe we will take this passively (and be caught in the mutual projection process) until we get involved in the process of image creation ourselves; but even that is no guarantee because so many people portray themselves and others the way they have learned to see in advertising. The ‘power’ you’re speaking of is an awareness process, and it involves literacy, the ability to analyze, and some way of being able to dependably witness what is in your mind, and get a sense of what it means to you.
I chose to illustrate this article with the image of a young woman. I am wondering what this particular image says to the people who are commenting.
“obviously moms like carrie are important to the development of young women today. but what about all the young women without moms like her?”
Thanks Amanda, that means a lot. I think of all those other young women out there; it is part of why I am feeling such a strong calling to begin
discussions/workshops/whatever I can to reach them as well.
Someone has to start somewhere. Why not me?
“As Eric said, they spend a ton of money and time (and intelligence) on these things; far more than anyone spends on educating our kids or making the world a better place. THAT is the point and I agree, it is a valid one.”
Sorry, I meant to add that THAT is the point that I feel is important. The sexualizing of young women is also a very valid point and I agree that it happens too often and is damaging to both young women, men’s impressions of them, and society’s perceptions of women in general as objects to be used.
Sorry for the confusion, I am in a hurry because I have to pick up my daughters from college in a few minutes.
to that end, eric, i do want to note laredo’s first-person account of modeling in the 1980s in NYC shared below. there is a lot she brings up that is important to think about, but her last paragraph really struck me:
“This dialogue is very necessary, but it hinges on the impossible concept that young girls will ever be given the guidance and self-knowledge to be fully in charge of the visual power of their own sexuality without being exploited by it through the abuse of power implied in that exploitation. And because the power figures that profit from it will never surrender that power no matter how enlightened the argument for empowered female sexuality becomes, I hold little faith in any kind of cultural revolution. Too much money and too much power is at stake.”
so… *is* there a way to embody/take back/share women’s sexual power, its use and its depiction without waiting for “the powers that be” to “surrender” it?
obviously moms like carrie are important to the development of young women today. but what about all the young women without moms like her?
This whole post is an absolutely vital conversation to be having, and one that I hold close to my authentic self and heart. Completely symbiotic to the audio posted earlier and very well appreciated on this end. Thank you to all for researching, writing and sharing.
Laredo–your comment hit close to home, on some level only I disagree or rather do not share the opinion on “holding little faith in any kind of cultural revolution”. I am tending to thrive on that faith these days in gusto, and I totally understand how difficult it is to grasp it and work with it. Not exactly easy living these days, but that change is one of the only things sustaining me forward. I found a lot of your words to be very true.
I had something like 18-20 more things to say on this subject matter and my mind is on overload with hearing that damn “zoom zoom”. : ( will come back refocused…
—
Beth
I cannot say what anyone else hears but the voices sound like kids to me.
I would love to have those two voices played, sans pictures and the other parts of the ads, for a group of men and women and see what gender and age group each gender thinks is saying either one. The reason I want that is because I think Eric is right and some of the rest of us are right. Using a voice that is not only ambiguous about the gender of the person whispering but also ambiguous about whether or not it is a sexy voice or a “kid who loves the speed of cars’ voice is all about creating perceptions within the listeners.
In this commercial, if the listener is a person who may be thinking about sex or having a reasonably normal sex drive, perhaps the voice sounds seductive and like whichever gender that person is attracted to. In a person who may not be thinking about sex at the moment, it may sound like an excited kid. So the producers have done an amazing feat; they have simultaneously appealed to people thinking about sex and people not thinking about sex; perhaps somewhat based on each genders’ perceptions at the time of hearing the commercial.
As Eric said, they spend a ton of money and time (and intelligence) on these things; far more than anyone spends on educating our kids or making the world a better place. THAT is the point and I agree, it is a valid one.
To clarify: I am noting my extremely, unusually strong emotional response to the ad (which has happened no less than 20 times) — not my opinion of who is doing it. The discussion has shifted into opinions over who the actor might be, and I am still focused on my emotional experience of this spot over and over again, which leads me to question the manipulative intent of the creator of the advertisement.
My frustration regards an off-topic debate, which is obscuring what I think is a more significant issue.
I never said people read PW for my perspective — I said they read my writing for my perspective; and not by accident I have invited many to share the space and their views. I would prefer to bring this discussion back around to the actual topic, which is the exploitation of young women to sell nearly everything in an image-driven market. Thanks.
>> I’m just wondering why I’m in the position to be defending this. It’s my perception, and my perception is why you read what I write. If someone wants to fact check who the actor is, I am happy to hear it. But the current zoom zoom is the equivalent of flashing a vulva on the screen for a second. I have nothing against pussies, just their use in car advertisements. <<<
Eric, I come to PW and am a subscriber because I love this community and the variety of perceptions and commentary that are found here. I support PW because or more than just what you write.
Perhaps I don't understand what you are saying in the quote above, but certainly your are correct in that you are entitled to your perception, just as is anyone else is entitled to theirs. It does not however mean you are "Right" in your assumptions about the content or intent of the ad.
Effective advertising is nuanced and I think the Mazda ads are a perfect example. I am not as sexually charged/filtered as many people and so, my reactions to things like advertising are often different from most. Does that make me "wrong"? I don't think so. Like Amanda, I've always felt that these ads had a more "Life is fun in a Mazda" feel to them than the sexuality message that gets triggered in you. I hear a little boy, you are dead certain it is an Asian woman and that " The intent is to project feminine sexuality. "
My point is that you see one thing and at least two other people we know of see/experience it entirely differently.
Assuming that one's perception is "right" and others are therefore "wrong" is something that surprises me to read here – especially here – in this community. I'm not trying to start a flame war, but rather to point out that perceptions are just that… like belly buttons, everyone has one and they are all different and unique. … but in the end, they are just perceptions that come thru our own unique set of filters. You hear a 20 something Asian female selling sex. I hear a young boy reminding me that Life can be fun. No doubt other people will hear something else entirely different. So be it.
But I disagree that you are "right" in this matter and that I should trust your assessment therefore discard my own perceptions in favor of yours just because I subscribe to Planet Waves. Or perhaps I completely misread your intent in writing the above.
With respect,
Green
“and your photos of women exquisite.”
I would say that is because he understands us better than most men I know.
thanks luckydriver — that’s the sort of thing i was suspecting.
The mere fact that we’re debating whether this is a small child or a seductive woman underscores the point I am trying to make. The ambiguity itself is an issue, tapping into all kinds of taboos, tension and guilt. Ads do not work by accident. More thought, energy, money and research is put into a single big-production ad like this than goes into any university course and for that matter the annual budget of many university departments.
One of the ways you evoke tension is through the use of ambiguity.
That said, in playing the ad below, I don’t hear the inflection or intonation of a child. I hear a deliberately seductive intonation, whispered almost under hear breath. This of course works with, or plays off of, all the prior iterations of those same words in the eight-year history of this tagline.
Micah Kanters is the 10 year old boy who voiced Mazda’s “zoom zoom” ads, but only the early versions, according to Wikipedia. I just listened to a 2011 Mazda ad that has a theme of “What do you drive?” but closes out with a “zoom zoom” whisper, and it does not sound like Micah’s version at all. Just my two cents, which I am throwing in because those “zoom zoom” ads really annoy me!!!
It’s a woman, trust me — or it’s intended to sound like one. Young boys don’t affect me sexually at all. Besides the fact that it sounds like a woman whispering on one of those late night phone call in ads, only on the verge of orgasm. The intent is to project feminine sexuality. The Asian connection — the slight accent — says Japan. She is not young as in six, she’s young as in 20.
No face is shown.
The Zoom Zoom campaign has had many in’car’nations and a long history, and yes, it definitely starts with a six year old boy. But I’ve never seen those ads till looking them up now. I am only describing the current campaign.
I’m just wondering why I’m in the position to be defending this. It’s my perception, and my perception is why you read what I write. If someone wants to fact check who the actor is, I am happy to hear it. But the current zoom zoom is the equivalent of flashing a vulva on the screen for a second. I have nothing against pussies, just their use in car advertisements.
Love reading everyone’s blogs about this very pertinent and important issue today–and thanks for the Maxfield Parrish info. Gotta look him up. Thanks again to all PW fans and bloggers. We are such a big reason for why PW (outstanding already) is SO GOOD and Nourishing.
HUG
+_+
well then, i guess they’ve changed the ads. as you can see here, the first generations of this tagline show a young boy speaking it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXVtt8Rlb7M
here’s one from this year, for comparison, wher ethey don’t show the boy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ksf7Zigll2E
and there’s an interesting discussion of the voice here:
http://forum.miata.net/vb/archive/index.php/t-137818.html
As one commenter mentions,
“Come on, guys, do any of you remember being about seven or eight and being mistaken for your mother when you answer the phone?”
and another,
“Actually we have no idea who says the Zoom-Zoom in the commercial. While the commercial shows a young boy, in a world of voice overs is anyone sure it’s his voice?
Bart Simpson’s voice is a woman, who knows who actually speaks the zoom-zoom.”
sorry to derail this conversation form more serious topics, but i find it fascinating that i’ve always accepted that the voice belongs to the boy from the early commercials, while eric swears it has to be a young girl. and in listening to the two commercials, i can’t eve say for sure it’s the exact same recording of “zoom zoom.”
(side note to eric: the conversation on that forum then mentions the creepiness of the BK king… subject of one of our staff conversations recently.)
oh, and subsequently, i’ve always interpreted the “zoom zoom” to mean: “play! fast! you’re gonna fly in this car like you always wanted to as a kid! yay speed is fun!”
I was a model in NYC in the 80’s when the skinny, coked out girl-woman was the media craze. I had no idea what I was being used for because I had no idea what I, as a representation of that iconography, meant to people.
I was skinny because I was a dancer, not a junkie, and I was a model because I had never been given the kind of mentorship that would have pulled me out of appearance-based monetary surivival, and into more meaningful, empowering employment. Surface beauty can be a lesser form of female power, so the ultimate power grab is to own and control that beauty through dominance of societal rank and standing.
Since I was a victim of childhood sexual abuse, I came to realize that I was unconsciously playing out the submissive role my abuser imprinted on my childhood psyche. That role seemed to be to enact the innocent whore for the powerful father figure, which a young child, by his or her very nature, can all too easily come to represent.
The icon of the child bride or virgin prostitute is one of the most enduring throughout human history, and it is enacted over and over again for the sexual and monetary gain of those in power, be they kings or corporations. Not to mention the aphrodisiac of absolute power itself, which is always implied through the use of sexual imagery regarding pretty young things as commerce.
This dialogue is very necessary, but it hinges on the impossible concept that young girls will ever be given the guidance and self-knowledge to be fully in charge of the visual power of their own sexuality without being exploited by it through the abuse of power implied in that exploitation. And because the power figures that profit from it will never surrender that power no matter how enlightened the argument for empowered female sexuality becomes, I hold little faith in any kind of cultural revolution. Too much money and too much power is at stake.
That would be painter and illustrator Maxfield Parrish who had a very unique style often featuring young women in “heavenly” environments. I have a couple of his prints, probably from the 1950’s that were part of my father’s collecting habit.
It’s a nice meeting Eric, and a great photo for an insightful article. I thought navigating growth as a young woman was difficult 30+ years ago. It is quite a different ball game now.
Definitely ansel meets max (Parrish), Eric! Love your images. You are one gifted photographer and your photos of women exquisite.
My Vesta is in exact conjunction (2 Gemini) with my North Node in my 10th house. My time is spent mainly with younger women as a mentor. My sexuality is active only if and when there is total clarity on my part that sexual giving and receiving is where I am to be expressing my true self in love at that moment.
This article helped me finally believe that, yes, this is exactly where I am to be, doing what I am to be doing. My entire conscious life has been groping toward wholenss and healing and these experiences of mine–so painful and seemingly meaningless as lived through–are now wisdom freely given to beautiful girls and women who want to live in the fullness of life and who come to me for support.
Amazingly as I read your dates, October 2008 and June 2010 are highly significant eras/dates/turning points for my journey, taking me eventually into the depths of how devotion feels and appears as I have been learning how to be of service to the one who embodies that flame that is the only spark of real life.
A very similar energy was affecting me late last October…
I am learning and passing on what I have experienced, which is: lining up one’s creativity/spirituality/and sexuality with one’s true self is an art and a science and a necessity.
Thank you as always, most heartfelt thanks, for your wisdom and input concerning these issues and helping me better understand more fully the Goddess seen only as Flame.
Oh, and I do not know who Maxfield is but I enjoyed your repartee with Len. Very winsome photo.
It’s a female voice, disembodied (off camera) whispering seductively, and zoom zoom translates to “I’m a hot young Asian woman and if you get this car, you get to fuck me.” I have a gag reflex every time I hear it, as if I’m being injected with something toxic. Usually for most horrid ads (National Rent a Car, Aleev, etc), I am content to nab the mute button, but this always slips past me and it’s more repugnant than a Cialis commercial…
btw — in the early mazda “zoom zoom” ads, they showed a young boy speaking the “zoom zoom.” not sure if they’ve changed that to a woman recently since i don’t have a tv, but for a few years at least it was definitely the young boy’s voice.
🙂
I wonder where Vesta is in my chart? I tend to attract amazing young women into my orbit, usually one at a time, whom I nurture and mentor at some level. This, in addition to my two amazing adult daughters who live far from me.
Carrie – love your equanimity and grace regarding the three young women in your orbit.
Btw, my father, certainly a mature man (84), has moon in Libra. Yesterday,an unusual occurrence: he was surrounded by all four of his daughters (including me)as, in a rare occurrence, our paths converged from all around the country, for just this one day.
How timely this is! I have three young women in my household right now who are trying to navigate their person-hoods. Two are not very sexual yet (but all are knowledgeable and aware because their father and I kept them informed) and one is very sexual and curious about it.
One of them feels the unfairness of how women are treated in our society and really resents it. The youngest hasn’t much to say but has a rich inner life that her father and I let be; we figure she will share it if (or when) she decides to. The oldest is wanting to talk about all things sexual and relationship so we try to accommodate her by answering her questions and keeping the communication open.
I see all three as emerging and trying to find their way in a misogynistic world which uses females like them. I hope I can facilitate their emergence in whatever way they need. It is so hard to see the world they are growing up and emerging into; it is unfair how our society uses them and harms them in the process. I wish I could shield them but I cannot; the world intrudes on them no matter what I do.
They are strong, secure, but still tentative; I hope life treats them well. No matter what comes their way, they do know we are there with love for them, unconditional love and acceptance for whoever (whom ever?) they become. Watching them grow has been an amazing thing for me; seeing who they are is wondrous.
Young women are “used to sell very nearly everything.” Emphasis on “used.” What an incredible burden to place on them. Most of the “sell” is focused on an unhealthy body “ideal” and silence on the part of the young women. What a stupid burden to place on young women.
Then there’s the effect on others of those images of youth and skinny on the rest of the world. Lust by lecherous curmudgeons and animousity by crones, as well as annoyance by those who are not as tall or as slim or as voluptuous. All used to sell that endless consumerism, spurring us to buy, buy, buy. What an insane conditioning for all.
Back to yesterday: time to think. And time to remove the conditioning so the young women (and men) can have and hold the sacred space to think.
JannKinz
Ansel meets Maxfield
Dreaming of Ansel Adams?