Comments on: An ideological enigma: sex sells housing? https://decasia.org/academic_culture/2010/04/02/an-ideological-enigma-sex-sells-housing/ critical anthropology of academic culture Sun, 04 Apr 2010 11:41:51 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.1 By: Max https://decasia.org/academic_culture/2010/04/02/an-ideological-enigma-sex-sells-housing/#comment-1225 Sun, 04 Apr 2010 11:41:51 +0000 http://decasia.org/academic_culture/?p=1280#comment-1225 Well, if your translation is accurate, the first thing I think of upon seeing this ad is that the “some people” in question who “are pretending that students don’t have housing problems” are embodied by the parents, wearing their sleep masks, trying to ignore the young couple having sex right between them on their bed. Perhaps what’s playing out here is, in part, a generational conflict. I’m not acutely aware of French custom regarding when one moves out of one’s parents house, but my understanding has been that it’s not looked down upon culturally to live with them for a longer period of one’s life than in, say, America (“You still live with your parents, loser?”). I may be totally wrong about that.

But if I’m not wrong, then what we might be seeing here is a shift from the older generation’s view that living at home is acceptable, possibly even desirable, that it should be “good enough” while one is a student “because that’s how we lived as students,” to that of the new generation seeking greater independence, more room for self-actualization (embodied in the sexual image itself), etc.

Just editorializing here, but claiming a right to not live with one’s parents does feel a tad bourgie, as demands for rights go.

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