Today’s Taipei Times tells us that partly because of the MTV Music AwardsBritney-kissing-Madonna-kissing-Christina brouhaha and other pop icon girl-on-girl kisses of late, a wave of “bisexual chic” is sweeping American high schools, colleges, universities, and dance clubs - albeit, the article focuses on high schools - (edited addition for completeness: see sun-sentinel.com/news/educat … -education - a bit of round robin newspaper fun).
Has this kind of thing spread to Taiwan?
So, where are the Taiwan Kissing Girls webpages (see zilo.com/watch.cfm?clip_id=0000000125 and a million webpages on Rave or Trance Dance clubs). Links please.
In the long run it is probably a mistake for the bisexual activists to distance themselves from the trend. They should be right in there encouraging the exploratory behaviour and interviewing and photographing . . . get more and more kids to accept the behavior and commit to the lifestyle . . . they would then have several influence laws working in their favor for permanent societal change towards acceptance . . . consistency, association, contrast, and a whole lot more (see Robert Cialdini’s Influence: Science of Persuasion). Instead of saying it’s just a trend or fad, they should be touting it as a paradigm shift and encouraging its growth. Silly activists.
I know from family and friends back home in the US that this seems to be quite the popular trend of late. Since I’m an old fogey and don’t go clubbing or interact with hip or hoppin’ or in crowds (pretty sure I’ve never been part of that crowd even when I was young enough not to have an excuse) so, what’s the scoop?
I don’t think the actual behaviour is all that new. Every study of human sexuality since the mid-twentieth-century has found female same-sex experimentation and crushes to be fairly common (much more so than with boys). What’s new is the publicness of it all and the bisexual tease, acknowledging what every major study on male sexual fantasy has found - girl on girl sex is a turn on for guys and girls while guy on guy sex is not particularly appealing for either gender (see the Hite report for the numbers).
That articull in the Taipray Thymes today was total rubbish, rubbish. Look at the credit line, professor. it was published in a UK paper, written by a UK correspondent slumming in the USA, the story was total shite reporting, a non story culled from a few US newspapers to make a sexy story to please the reporter’s bosses in London.
The entire articull is a non event. It is not happening anything in the way that article say, professor. Don’t believe everything you read in a newspaper, especially if it is reprinted from a UK newspaper that loves to diss the USA. The Obersver? They can’t even shoot strait!
Where do you get that? The original is from a paper based in Florida, where many young people swarm during this or that holiday. The original article discusses high school kids but the college and university crowd is even more into it. Many of the various Girls Gone Wild videos mentioned in the article are filmed in the Florida area (those videos have hundreds of examples of real girls kissing on the streets and have been tremendously successful at marketing as well - advertising heavily in several Comedy Central slots as well as during Howard Stern, on E, and and at other high-market young people slots - btw, the aticle implies that all the bisexual chic material in the GGW videos is staged but this is not the case, most of these are amateur footage while the later staged sections of the GGW videos are more typical of the Dorm Room Fantasy and College Fuck Fest video series than the GGW main footage).
The article has nothing to do with UK newspaper tabloids or any anti-American bashing.
This article has nothing to do with anyone dissing the USA. Where do you get that? It’s a description of a sociological phenomenon, there is no judgement one way or another regarding the morality of the phenomenon. What article are you reading? It certainly isn’t the same one I read.
The phenomenon is real enough, it’s been discussed on various soc-culture academic forums for months. Just go to any of the major blog or photo-sharing webservers that have a lot of accounts with young people and you will see examples of this in their photo galleries.
Folks from home have commented on it in letters and emails as well.
As to the media phenonmenon, several right wing religious zealots have been critical of the media for the past couple years because of the so-called pro-gay portrayal of characters in music video and television. At least one of the religous right leaders (can’t remember if it was Falwell or someone else) has publicly ranted about how Hollywood is purposefully trying to “turn our young people gay.”
You may not believe the phenomenon is as pervasive as the article purports . . . but it is still very real. The headline may have been sexed up to sell papers, but the expressions bisexual chic and chick-on-chick-chic have been used elsewhere to describe the dare-to-kiss-another-girl phenomenon.
The Guardian and its Sunday edition the Observer are probably amoung the best newspapers in the world- a standard of quality reporting just not found in US papers.
Thanks for finding the Observer connection to the Guardian’s article as reprinted in the Taipei Times. I was unaware of their relationship. The attribution was not clear and so thank you for pointing out it is a UK source the Taipei Times is reprinting rather than the original American article (kind of interesting how the article is being proliferated - the Taipei Times picks it up from the Guardian, the Guardian attributes it to the Observer (which makes sense given the Sunday schedule), the Guardian/Observer’s writer in Florida uses the Sun-Sentinel as a source for a rewrite and tweaking with some expansion. Since I don’t have any particular axe to grind about the Guardian or the Observer (while I don’t normally read either of those papers, I have enjoyed the articles I have read in the past and have not noticed any raving anti-American slant in any of the pieces I have read - albeit, I don’t read them often), I made the erroneous assumption it was the Miami Guardian that was being used as a source (since the source city was noted as Miami). Thanks for clearing that up. Here’s the original article from Sun-Sentinel by the Education beat writer:
It may not be as pervasive as the article printed in the Taipei Times implied, but it is real. Now, my original question was “has this made it to this side of the big blue pond?”
I do know of at least one group of university students (not my students) doing a communication project in Taipei who decided to test what sort of reactions they would get from onlookers if a couple girls began kissing in public. They set up a hidden camera at various locations in Taipei (NTU campus, Warner Village, Living Mall, etc.) and had different girls begin kissing one another to videotape and test for reactions. While they did get stares from a few folks, for the most part reactions were subdued. My understanding is that the girls were disappointed as they had hoped to get bigger “reactions” from people.
Of course, this is not demonstrative of what the original article discusses as this was less a bisexual chic experience than it was a bisexual shock experiment.
Yes, professor, it does get rather complicated. And that reporter in Miami probabaly makes most of living by just repeating and tweaking, as you say, what he reads in the USA papers, since his editors in far away UK don’t know he is really just reading the papers at the local bar and filing stories under his own name. Hardly considered as real journalism, but that’s the media today in the post Jayson Blair Age.
Still, as you say, from the git go, the theme might be interesting, bisexual shock, bisexual chic. Then again, don’t judge the entire USA by what happens in Miami. My guess is nobody ever heard of this word in Peoria, wherever that is.
NOTE: I just read both articles and it’s amazing, the UK reporter basically took the entire FLorida newspaper story and rewrote it as his own, just saying in one sentence this source as a referece --“A recent study by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper revealed that many girls think this way.” AND THEN HE STOLE THE OTHER REPORTER’s ENTIRE ARTICLE and signed his name as the writer for his UK bosses. SHouldn’t he be reported to the Jayson Blair Plagiarism Police Force in Londonne.? Kidding. They do it all the time. Don’t believe me. Wanna be shocked? Read both articles and see how the UK writer used all the names the Florida reporter got as her own original sources. I give up. The media today sucks bigtime.Now back to Brian’s interesting topic.
I don’t believe it’s merely a local Florida phenomenon. The phrase bisexual chic is less important than the phenomenon and the original article does have quotes from national bisexual watch groups and councellors that state the phenomenon is more than a phenomenon and that it is growing.
Just watch MTV or popmovies or look at some of the online party photo galleries by young people, especially clubbing type galleries, to see it is becoming more pervasive as an attractive image among youth.
You know, Brian, you changed me mind on this. I think you are right now. It’s probably part of a new sexual game there, but as the story says, it’s more of a turn on for the boys, and the girls do it for the boys, then a real gay thing. But let’s see. it IS an interesting topic, and might be prophetic, yes. thanks again for pointing it out yesterday. maybe Madonna knew exactly what she was doing, zeitgist wise!
[quote=“formosa”]A kiss is just a kiss or is it?[/quote]Nope, that was a snog.
As a priest I must firmly condemn this sort of action, mainly because I’m jealous I wasn’t invited to snog them too
Another pungent post by the professor, very interesting. Jeez, i am beginning to feel old already, at 39. !!! Oral sex is just kissing? Get me to Oz right now. I want a kiss!
But yes, Brian, you seem to be studying sexual mores worldwide, and it is interesting. I have a story about Brittany and Christina, if you wanna hear it…
“She comes up to me in a club in front of all these people and tries to put her tongue down my throat!”
It seems that …
Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera aren’t exactly in the same Mickey Mouse Club anymore.
The pop stars, who both kissed Madonna a few months ago during a performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, are now trading insults about each other’s careers and personalities.
In the December issue of Blender magazine, Aguilera said of Spears, "She seemed very distant, even during rehearsals. Every time I tried to start a conversation with her
What is this, 2004 or 1974?
Chic? More like passe.
Ok, well maybe “retro-chic”.
Ask tigerman.
Next thing you know it’ll be the style to have big huge afros, wear polyester bellbottoms and snort cocaine off mirror balls.
That’s part of what makes it really interesting. baitbus.com/
Madonna has a very strong sense of what’s going on in popculture and what will or won’t work. She also likes to push the envelope - just within the limits. She knew exactly what she was doing when she suggested to Britney and Christina that they kiss . . . engender interest and sell albums.
It really depends upon who you’re kissing, where you’re kissing them, and in what context. 
