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Talk is a public forum where you can ask questions and share your commentary with fellow Mad Men fans.
Is Mad Men hung up on sex?
An intriguing question was posed by Chloe, one of the most insightful students in our graduate seminar: Is Mad Men preoccupied, perhaps gratuitously, with sex? She describes the show as "that soap opera where everybody is mounting everybody else, or thinking about it.."










Another bright student, Trey, concurs that the sex is "too predictable" and would prefer more pain in its stead. "When that British creep got his foot mowed off and blood sprayed on everyone, now THAT aroused me," he explained. "So did Don's beatdown in the motel room."
After much spirited discussion, Dr. Patel summed up our consensus, "While casual carnality is undeniably exciting to many viewers, it should be augmented by other proven entertainment techniques such as, for example, physical spousal abuse, despair, violent assaults and intensified obscenities." These measures, we all feel, will make a fine show even better.
Professor,so this "Trey" student of yours concurs that the foot ordeal was a metaphor for orgasm in its own right?
Is this professor Irwin Corey? The British creep? That's a nice way of referring to a an outstanding businesman who was seriously crippled by some drunk airhead typist. I wonder how you would react to one of those female replaceable units working at the office who got her foot amputated. Of course, Weiner is a businessman and would never show that for fear of offending the mostly female audience of this show.Imagine a man behaving like Lois and then being allowed to keep working there like nothing happened. Weiner would be buried in complaint letters and the girls would be boycotting Clorex.
And Irwin, men did not curse, especially at the office, or when females were around and of course females wouldn't curse either. Domestic violence was as rare back then as it is today so why would that be put into a show? Or was violent assault unless you put yourself in situations where it might occur.
The sex is in Mad Men to appeal to the female audience.Females are constantly thinking of sex, clothes and makeup to attract men, pushup bras etc Without the sexual elements these female actresses have really nothing to say or any other role. Look at the teacher. Without the sex with Don she'd just be another dingbat grammar school teacher living over the garage and one step from being a crazy cat woman. Betty is the same. Without the sex scenes with Don or that politician or that other guy at the stables, her only role would be that of a boring housewife and having Kaffe Klatches talking about things they nothing of,like dams and water supplies and the only reason they were concerned with that was because of the effect it would have on their little area's looks.Even if we gave Betty a job, what is she qualified for? Working for minimum wage like Helen in some small shop? This is the basic reason that there is sex in films.So the females will watch them and they can be the centre of attention.Men can watch more intellectual films with all male casts because they are about ideas and general principles of morality, something that would put the more simple minded and superficial female to sleep.Thinking and abstract concepts are not their forte.
That's ok Stifler. I'm sexist too.
I think men are not all that useful, except for the sex, that according to you, I think about all the time.
It's a sad time for men. They need to be reassured that we need them to do things for women. I can carry my own bags; I use a step stool to reach the top shelf.
Women are smarter than men. They spent a long time pretending they were not and diminshed themselves. No more.
While you experience abstract thought, I'll be using language to undermine annoying men. You can't win. Our brains were developed for more complex language while men were still figuring out which end of a pointy stick to use on their prey.
Don Draper says "I'm not going to let a woman talk to me this way," in the first season. I can relate to that because I think the same thing about you, with the genders reversed, of course. It is good though, that you acknowledge WE have the power now. In the 50s the reverse was true. You seem awfully angry about it.
Kisses!
I'm sure that you've always carried your bags.And I'm not referring to the ones under your eyes.
Well, as far as language, real scientific studies (not feminist BS) has shown that women actually use up a lot more brain resources with language. Men are practically in neutral when they are talking which means that they can multitask many complex things at the same time.
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2009/10/24/the-feminists-guide-to-debate-tactics/
I loved the link. It was adorable. Written by woman no less.
One of the suppositions on it are that we manipulate men. That's so sad. Men are supposedly smarter and better than we are and yet you admit that we're doing the steering?
And everything is slanted IN FAVOR of women even though all the facts say that men are better. I wonder how we, with our tiny brains, managed that.
Thanks for still acknowledging that we are in power.
But just for the sake of this--let me go through each of these "mistakes" feminists make when arguing against your large brains, according to this link.
Mistake #1: “You’re only saying that because you never get laid!” I haven't brought that up.Mistake #2: “You must have a small dick!” Nope. Haven't talked about your package either.Mistake #3: (used against female antifeminists) “If it weren’t for feminism, you wouldn’t have the right to keep a blog!” doesn't apply.
Mistake #4: “Okay, so it’s true that women aren’t as good at science and stuff, but that’s because girls are raised differently from boys! If we were raised the same we’d be just as good at it!”
Ewww. I never said anything close to that. Women are just inherently better. We make men do the boring stuff we may not be interested in.
And my other answer to this: Ada Lovelace. Raised on mathmatics, actually liked it and was smarter than Babbage.
Mistake #5: “Women were too busy taking care of children and doing housework to invent things or discover things!”
What's awesome about this is that the author uses forceps as the example. Women were midwives for years before men, but it took a man to invent forceps, she says. If you had girl parts you wouldn't invent that either. Feels like rape, can cause anal fissures and infant brain damage, though it really does help the infant mortality rate. So of course it took a man to invent those. Have you SEEN them? No woman in her right mind would say: Gosh, you know what would be great during child birth? A highly invasive tool stuck in my woo.
Same goes for the c-section. No woman would invent that either.
Mistake #6: “Men have higher IQs, but that’s because the IQ test doesn’t measure female aptitudes!”
The author then says that IQ tests are skewed towards women instead.
So. What.
If we managed to do that, and call into question the very validity of a test that shows men are smarter, then WE WIN. This just confirms the fact that we are better than men. How did we do it? We're using parts of our brains that men cannot even comprehend.
You say that women are using more of their brains as they talk, and that means that they are not as good at talking.
???
So we use more brain power to do something and that means you're better at it?
Ok.
Then there are a bunch of "mistakes" that really don't apply to me...
and lastly:
Mistake #13: “Just because I’m wrong about the trivial details doesn’t mean that there were no Battles To Be Fought for women’s rights.”
That's BS. I don't actually think that there are more "Battles to be Fought." We've won and you're sad.
OOh also here's direct quote from one of the articles you cited regarding feminists censoring science:
"Last week, Science Daily reported on a study from Northwestern University which proved “that girls have superior language abilities than boys...and gender differences in language appear biological.” "
http://townhall.com/columnists/AshleyHerzog/2008/03/13/will_feminists_again_attempt_to_censor_science#
Gosh, it looks as though this science says my language skills are...BETTER THAN YOURS.
Could you read it for me again and double check. Because I'm not sure. Your brain is so large.
I think that many people are thinking about sex... it does not matter where you are... bus or shop. It is a natural thing I think. I live alone, I don't have a girl so I think about it when I imagine hottest girl in all over the world Audrey Bitoni. She is really wonderful and beautiful. I think that many young people have their dream girls and think about them. Anyway it is only a my own opinion. Maybe when I will have a wife I will think different.
I think Mad Men makes marriage look like it was a sham that no one cared about during that time. There is no focus on any of the main characters loving their family, when that was true for the majority. I think the creators of Mad Men have decided to abide by tv's golden rule and decided to focus on a more salacious plot rather than a realistic one.