Rape is not art.

Why do people criticise others because of their sensitivity? I thought that letting your emotions out was a positive thing to do, but clearly not.

I just love going onto twitter and seeing tweets like "why is everyone moaning about this?" when they're talking about something that's deadly serious. People are not looking into things deep enough, and if we don't then things will not change. For example, I saw a tweet about the picture below. The tweet, that I found extremely offensive, not to mention- DISGUSTING, said "I don't understand how people are finding this offensive? It's just an advert. Stop looking deeply into things and appreciate the art". I had to physically refrain myself from replying because my fingers could of easily snapped from the pressure I would have forced onto my phone screen. Are people seriously this thick? This man got a reply saying: "I completely agree! People are way too sensitive towards things these days." There's that one word, 'sensitivity'. That one word that is frowned upon by people like this. Let me explain to you what this advertisement truly means; and if you think I'm looking too deep then I can assure you that you have an issue that needs to be solved ASAP.

Dolce and Gabbana. What a lovely brand to buy from when they clearly show rape in a positive light.

WRONG. How disgusting and immoral can an advertisement get? You can clearly see that the hegemonic gender here is male. No change, right? Unfortunately, women are yet again shown to be the more weak, submissive and the most defenceless out of the two.

In this top advertisement, that both twitter users said was 'art', you can see four men surrounding this woman. Notice how the men are looking down on her and how she is placed in the lowest point of this image? Could replicate how hypermasculine men control women in society. Oh, how patriarchal. I say hypermasculine because the stereotypical man is shown to have abs, have white skin, has dark hair and has a defined structure. Not to mention that the stereotypical man has to be straight and cannot wear feminine clothes because that's not masculine enough, apparently. Why can't we promote metrosexual characters? These representations should not be the dominant ideology in society and it's painful to look at tweets that promote this.

One of the things I notice is that this bottom image looks like a gang rape. All men, especially the one forcing her to the ground, look as if they are predators. Dolce and Gabbana have previously said that the Dolce and Gabbana woman is strong and confident. However, something tells me that this advert is not portraying that kind of woman at all. This advertisement eroticises violence and conveys that sexual violence is sexy and should be normalised.

If you look at the top image, there is a glass by the man's foot. By looking at this woman's eyes and how befuddled she looks, there is a strong connotation that she has been drugged. This violence does not look consensual because of the way her body is positioned. It looks like she is trying to resist and escape, but cannot succeed for the man is forcing her to the ground.

Dolce and Gabbana's audience ranges from 15-24 which is the age where people have been sexually assaulted the most. Why would a company want to promote sexual violence to an audience that is still young and defenceless?

Bell Hooks, who is a feminist theorist, said that rape culture is perpetuated by media and culturally learned eroticism. These two advertisements back this up perfectly, so I guess I could say thank you for that?

The man, that is on top of this woman, is hiding his identity by wearing sun glasses. This subtly promotes the view that rape is obviously bad, but Dolce and Gabbana hide it by making his identity part of fashion.

The only colour that stands out is the red lipstick that this woman is wearing. This has connotations of danger and love. Both these connotations are there to confuse us as to what we should believe, yet hopefully you all know that this advert is 100% wrong.

The woman is represented to be weaker than the men, sexy because of the tight lycra she is wearing which is also sexualised, and high heels. High heels fit the stereotype of a feminine woman alongside things such as makeup, tight fitted clothing etc. Laura Mulvey came up with a theory called 'The Male Gaze'. she explained that a camera is a stereotypical heterosexual male and views men and women how it wants to view them. So, the woman would be weaker than the man and the man will be white, good looking and strong. We see this in a lot of action adventure films such as 'Skyfall' and 'Lara Croft, Tomb raider'.

So going back to the two tweets, yes. It is ok to be 'sensitive', otherwise issues like this will never get solved and we need to move forward in life. If people truly believe that this is art, when it is actually a form of graphic assault, then you people seriously need to understand that issues are never going to be solved and this world is always going be a dark place. Why can't we have EQUAL and TRUE representations of all genders, ethnicities and sexualities.

Don't call me sensitive, or others sensitive. We are the ones trying to make a difference and recognise the issues that people like you create in the first place.