Manhattan

Sex and a City

Sex and A City

A culture built on men being answered to by women, with one in two marriages ending in divorce and a culture where women feel empowered by prostituting their bodies to drunk men in the hope they will find someone to financially take care of them.

Is this a completely wrong view of New York city? unfortunately the more i delve into the relationship patterns of New Yorkers the more it seems of that persuasion. Women are viewed as pieces of meat by so many men in this city, they are a commodity that can be bought with bullshit and alcohol in their eyes. The women i have spoken to ranging from 19 to 30 have said that they can get men through sexual favors not through their personality, interests or common grounds as all the good men are gay or married.

A university of Iowa study has shown that American women who lose their virginity in their teens are likely to divorce within five years of marriage coupled with the constant fickle media presence showing the perfect husband, family and children can only lead to pressures and stresses in a society dominated by consumerism, advertising and materialistic nonsense. The New York Times survey of April 2011 on sex patterns of New Yorkers found less sexual encounters among 15 to 25 year olds but rampant reckless sex among those in their mid 20s and over. The disregard for self respect stems from an American cultural vice, Television, where women believe offering themselves to multiple men continually is the Sex in the City way to empower themselves and makes them better than men and more in control. Unfortunately the majority are only being used as affairs for these men who are already married or in long term relationships and are usually mistreated and disregarded by the men they are involved with in the long run.

Human Rights Watch has recorded that there was a 25 percent increase in rape cases in North America between 2005 and 2007 alone with one wondering where is it going wrong?  The Gutt Macher Institute has found that although Americans have the same level of sexual activity  as their Canadian, Swedish, French and English counterparts they do so in shorter relationships, and with the continued use of the pill over condoms. This point leads on to the staggering issue of STI’s,  with 9million new infections occurring every year among American adults this is a whopping 19 out of every 1000 adults in the US which puts it on a par with Western Europe and  edging slightly ahead if trends remain the same.

As our world is filled with more sexual content be it on billboards, music videos, clothes shops or in movies and tv, the rates will continue to rise and the reason they are escalating here in NYC and in North America is the fact that they have more advertising and consumerism than most locations  in the world with USA Today stating in an 18month study over 300 separate advertising companies in the US would prefer to go with the SEX SELLS approach regardless of its impact on youth or the sexual degradation of young female Americans.

New York Follow Through

Subway NYC

A gasping Puerto Rican women in her late fifties gasps and blesses herself as the subway rumbles through station after station heading towards the upper east side. Her oxygen cable becomes tangled and she struggles with desperate fingers to loosen it as blank faces turn the opposite direction. She blesses herself frantically again as the train surges forward and she staggers falling into my arms and looks at me with tears rolling down her cheeks and then looks away knowing death is near.

This is NYC,  a city where people once could dream and achieve life goals and now they lose their job, lose their apartment and sometimes their lives.  This is just one of many incidents that have occurred in the last week that common New Yorkers ignore and seem both conditioned and indifferent too. At what point in you life will you see someone dying and not show compassion. When your life has hit rock bottom you don’t care and that is the unfortunate reality of 21st century America. A software engineer with a University Masters fills my salad bowl in a deli speaking sadly of his sixty thousand dollar a year job in the Empire State building he had this time twelve months ago only to be axed along with many others in an economic slump that leaves the majority in jobs they hate, with people they loath and returning home to a family they can’t cope with.

The American Dream seems to be fading as a Dominican college student stands forlornly outside F.A.O Schwarz telling me of how she dreamed her degree would be of use only to be left taking pictures of people who disregard her in a subtle racial fashion. Heart Attacks, Blood pressure and the focus of money, money, money to afford to live a life you think will make you happy but doesn’t is a damn bleak existence and i don’t blame New Yorkers for being disgruntled and cranky as their lives are so full of bleak realities that they can’t possibly be radiantly positive.