Raunch Culture

Raunch culture, as termed by Ariel Levy in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs, refers to our sex-forward culture in which bodies and women are openly sexualized. Levy argues that the hypegrsexualiation of women has now cause women to aspire to be the "hottest" and "sexiest". Levy thus believes that raunch culture is simply replicating sex inequality, but now it is selling it to women who are helping to perpetuate it. While third-wave feminists and sex-positive feminists argue that this is an expression of female's rights to act sexually and in ways they desire, like men, Levy points out that since we can't control the way that people respond to us, this is actually just recreating the idea that a woman's value and role in society is to provide and obtain sexual appeal from men. Thus, it just replicates the idea of the male gaze.

Pornified femininity is a byproduct of raunch culture. It promotes the blurring of the world of porn into everyday life. For example, in the 1990s Brazilian waxes, which before had been only obtained by porn stars, began to become popular with celebrities and then college women.