Don't believe the hype. Un-real porn screams "This is what you should think 'Hot' means!" Playboy, Victoria's Secret, SI Swimsuit. Ugh! I hate that shit.
Its value is more cultural than masturbatory. It's something you can have a conversation about with the dudes at work (albeit not a very interesting one).
No no no, no one buys it, Becks, it just comes in the mail. It's part of your subscription—no one'd pick it up off the newsstand. And look at the calendar: NCAA football's long been over, we just watched the Super Bowl, regular season NBA is mostly pointless, March Madness won't set in for a month, who cares about hockey, baseball's not on, the Olympics are unreliable and stupid now that they're staggered anyway, and there's fucking snow on the ground, which is cold and intolerable. A man looks at his life in February and asks who? who will rescue him from the winter of his discontent? Sports Illustrated answers: Petra Nemcova?
I'm with Becks (and my husband) on this one. For god's sake, don't be such a pussy about porn. I fucking hate the hypocrisy of "oh, this isn't *really* porn."
And while we're at it, I really wish men would stop going to goddamn Hooter's. For fuck's sake, go to a damn strip club, pay the cover charge, and tip the women decently. And don't give me that bullshit about "the wings are good." You can get chicken wings at goddamn KFC.
Total change of subject: saw Brokeback Mountain tonight. Anyone who hasn't seen it yet, do so. Seriously one of the best movies I think I've ever seen.
11 : "Is it all porn? Can't a hetero guy just admire a woman as an object of beauty rather an object of arousal? Is it always about sex?"
I suppose it is arguable, but, to me porn can be about beauty without being about sexual arousal. Some might call that fashion photography, or glamour photography, or art photography. But in asking "can't a hetero guy..." you seem to cross the line. Can a gay guy "just admire a woman as an object of beauty"? Sure, but do such gay guys buy SI swimsuit edition?
Playboy is a men's lifestyle magazine - the hell it is. It's porn.
Men read Victoria Secret's catalogs because they want to buy things. Perhaps sometimes. Mainly, it's porn.
SI Swimsuit edition shows the world's best swimsuits each year, because, y'see, swimming is a sport. This hypocrisy is ickily repugnant whether or not anyone jerks off to these photos. And they do.
The reason lame brain men in our society can male bond over this porn is because it is taboo-free porn, not because it isn't porn or isn't necessarily about sexual arrousal.
Saying it isn't about sex is to say that these women are not in the sex industry. Heavens no! These are the most highly respected, and highly paid fashion models in the world. They are not tainted by being part of anything pornographic. They are not selling their bodies or their honor or their dignity. Are they? Because that would make them bad dirty girls, and look, that beach is so clean.
But removing any distinctions between a Titian Venus, SI Swimsuit, and Barely Legal tape by calling them all porn, and claiming the difference is the bad faith and hypocrisy of the audience misses not only aesthetic differences but important moral ones. Tho I can't think of any at the moment.
With respect to the audience, the swimsuit issue is part of the larger category porn. With respect to the models, it's different from porn in the most important respect: their job is safe and well paying (relative to porn, of course; there are safer jobs, which require less potentially destructive body maintenance, than modeling).
Yeah. "People masturbate to it" is hardly a sufficient condition to "It is pornography." And why is the "frequent commenters" trap catching me? I haven't posted in hours, hours I tell ya!
Interesting: apparently the "frequent commenter" trap is both catching my comment, and sending it along to the thread. Alternately: perhaps I clicked the "Post" button twice, without realizing it.
Context and aesthetic differences matter: think of all those gay men who read Playgirl--i.e., who like to pretend they're reading a magazine aimed at women. It's a different angle that creates a more furtive mood, or heightens your identification with a certain type of viewer, and changes/intensifies the experience.
And why is the "frequent commenters" trap catching me?
Compare 22 and 24, O double-clicker. (I do it myself, since sometimes when I click the first time the page doesn't reload. The trick is not to edit anything, so if you do double-post it'll be caught by the evil alien mecha-sheep filter.)
27 pwned by 25. Anyway, my theory is you clicked twice, and if the frequent commenters trap hadn't caught you before the edit the mecha-sheep filter would've.
Sausagely has a point about the hottness of the women, which is the point I was going to make when I first read the post.
Also, will no one step in and defend the allure of not showing everything? I like my hardcore porn as much as the next guy, but I like dramatic tension and suspense as well.
You should all note that I have never bought the swimsuit issue.
Right, because no one has ever bought the swimsuit issue. It just arrives in the mail, and readers flip through it b/c looking at attractive women in bathing suits is preferable to not and vastly better than reading about hockey. It's just a sop to placate its subscribers during the bitter sports vacuum of February. YMMNV.
You know what I find particularly disturbing about the swimsuit issue? (I spent a year working for Time Inc., and got the magazines free.) It's printed on heavier, glossier stock than the usual magazine. That they actually change the paper stock in anticipation that it may need to be wiped clean just seems off.
(I actually can't get too bent out of shape by the idea that there are people out there who prefer the SI swimsuit issue to actual porn. Once we're unbothered by people buying pictures to be aroused by (which, you know, we mostly are), I don't care all that much about what pictures they choose. I'll still bitch about unrealistic body-image expectations, etc., but not in a different way for the swimsuit issue than for any jeans ad.)
Playboy is a men's lifestyle magazine - the hell it is. It's porn.
It's pretty lame porn. Playboy comes with the stigma, but without a good stigma:filth ratio. If I read it, it actually would be for the articles.
I think Smasher's wrong. I've never bought an issue of SI, period, but I know and/or am roommates with perfectly smart, nice guys who in the past have bought the swimsuit issue off the rack. It's a cultural phenomenon.
The "go to a strip club instead of Hooters" argument really mystifies me. I don't have a lot of experience with either, but the idea of a strip club creeps me out. Is there something creepy about Hooters? Sure, but unless you're taking a very hard line on this stuff, it'd be hard to argue they're anywhere near the same degree of creepiness. Guys can legitimately be comfortable with one but not the other.
And yeah, they can also rationally and reasonably not want to be seen purchasing "real" porn. There's nothing wrong with that unless you're fervent Epicurean who believes that anything less than perpetually seeking maximum self-satisfaction (regardless of social externalities) amounts to hypocrisy.
will no one step in and defend the allure of not showing everything?
I'll step in and defend that. Erotica is usually far hotter than porn. However, I would say that the swimsuit edition fails as erotica because it tries to walk that fine line of being "sexy" while not sexual.
To each their own, SCMT. During college, my creepy engineer housemate's bimonthly enthusiasm for driving two hours to Richmond and shoving dollars in girls' underwear effectively vaccinated me against wanting to go to a stripclub.
Also, the ones in DC seem more depressing than the national average. Friends who've gone to, say, JP's, use the adjective "sad" more than any other to describe the experience. And I bet the nice ones are filled with Republicans.
I think none of us really "get" this. I remember seeing one of the first swimsuit issues in a bookstore years ago. Christie Brinkley, I think. It just didn't do anything for me. I sense we're all in about the same place; we're confronting a kind of nemesis of incomprehension.
Does anybody have any actual experience with someone who really, honestly digs this stuff? We can talk about the water cooler, about the thick paper, looking for clues.
I think the Hooters point is probably apt, but I don't get that one either, although I suppose at least I know where I could go to observe. But would I be any the wiser?
I haven't been a boy in a very long time. Has anybody got any real understanding of this, I mean a first-person conversation or a memory of being turned-on?
I see before I post that Tom has started to answer my question. Anybody else?
No, I think I agree with you on strip clubs. They really are unbelievably depressing. It's just that Hooters is more perverse to me - it's about pretending to sell you something (sexually appealing and purportedly available women) that it won't sell you because it doesn't think it's appropriate to actually sell you that stuff.
The guys at work are into this sort of stuff, they put up a bunch of those pinup/swimsuit posters on the inside of the delivery truck.
I don't think it's just a sexual thing, I think it's a "man, that would be awesome" kind of thing. I figure it's a way of imagining some unattainable idealized lifestyle. Not unlike reading yachting magazines.
My exhaustive survey of one says that I'm right in every regard. But if others are buying the swimsuit issue off the newsstand, I think the motivation is in part to participate in a highly visible and socially acceptable masculine ritual. After all, Becks didn't post on the next issue of Barely Legal to signal her enthusiastic approval, nor did she single out Low Riderz or some other quasi-porn publications. The SI issue is an institution.
At the risk of mischaracterizing the discussion, I seem to remember an Unfogged thread in which most of the Mineshaft expressed distaste over the idea of men exchanging or talking about pr0n with one another. Perhaps purchasing the SI issue is done in the hopes of discussing it with other men, standardizing norms, objectifying women in polite company, whatever, a la 5.
On the SI end, I insist that it's done to bolster numbers in lagging news period, no different from endless top-whatever lists from November to January.
I generally have no problem with porn but strip clubs ... ech.
I've never been in one, and I just don't get the whole idea of 'bonding' with other guys in one. That kind of bonding is just alien...
Ditto things like SI, for that matter, I can't imagine ever being comfortable having a conversation with a male friend flicking through the magazine and talking about who was hot and who wasn't.
When I was a kid, my mom occasionally bought the SI swimsuit issue for my dad. That's my only exposure to it as none of my male friends or guys I dated ever got it. My parents are pretty religious, so the SI swimsuit issue is probably as much porn as they would ever get. (The last sentence kinda creeps me out, but context is important.)
the idea of a strip club creeps me out. Is there something creepy about Hooters? Sure, but unless you're taking a very hard line on this stuff, it'd be hard to argue they're anywhere near the same degree of creepiness. Guys can legitimately be comfortable with one but not the other.
What's creepy about Hooters is that the restaurant is paying women less than minimum wage to be, essentially, walking porn. Just as in a strip club, the "drinks" are the price you pay to stare at the girls, in Hooters, the "wings" are the price you pay to stare at the girls.
I honesty think that being creeped out by the one, but not the other, is simply a measure of being forced to face the, ahem, naked truth. One is less creeped out by Hooters (although I am actually far more creeped out by Hooters) because it makes one more comfortable with what's going on (staring at women's tits) by pretending that it's not what's actually going on.
I've been to a Hooters just once, at Myrtle Beach on the insistence of the (mixed) group I had accompanied down there. My only real impression of the place was that the food was awfully damn expensive. So much so that I ate a rib that I'd dropped on the floor.
Here in the UK we have a phenomenon where some newspapers publish pictures of semi-naked women on 'page 3'.
About 20 years ago there was a high profile campaign to have this practice banned and the feminist campaigners who were arguing that this was unacceptable were vilified as humourless harridans.
But... it WAS/IS fucked up that newspapers were/are doing this just as it's fucked up for parents to be taking kids to Hooters.
All this pretend-porn for people who want to be dishonest to themselves about their desire to consume porn is icky but it's also able to penetrate into areas of 'public' life where it really shouldn't.
I honesty think that being creeped out by the one, but not the other, is simply a measure of being forced to face the, ahem, naked truth. One is less creeped out by Hooters (although I am actually far more creeped out by Hooters) because it makes one more comfortable with what's going on (staring at women's tits) by pretending that it's not what's actually going on.
This is doubtless somewhat true. But, in this imperfect world, almost all women have to suffer the indignity of having their clothed tits stared at by men. I imagine (although am not really in a position to say) that being leered at while naked is more demeaning.
But more to the point, Hooters waitresses seem less likely to suffer drug addiction, prostitution, stalking by customers or any other number of bad things associated with strip joints. The way we compensate waitstaff in this country is wrong and stupid, but I suspect the experience of being a waitress at Hooters isn't significantly more uncomfortable or demeaning than the experience of being a waitress anywhere.
But then, I've never been inside a Hooters, so I don't really know what goes on. Looking in the window of the Chinatown one, it doesn't seem like much is different from at any generic sports bar/restaurant.
Also, I was to a Hooters as a young child. I was so nonfreaked out that I didn't remember that it was a Hooters. (we were there because I urgently needed water and it was closest)
Just to say, I don't get this equation between Hooters and strip clubs. There's things to dislike about each, but for different reasons. I also don't get the antipathy to SI. I wouldn't buy it for different reasons that those accounted for here. I have nothing against the purchasing of erotic, nonporn photos. SI swimsuit photos just aren't very good. Plus, there's enough free stuff on the internet. But, I do wonder that if Becks is going to be consistent if she would have to break up with any guy who bought a Maxim or Stuff or GQ or whatnot. Which is fine by me, really, since I don't buy any of those.
In 61 I was trying (in a slightly confused way) to get at the idea that porn -- for adults, consumed by adults, etc. -- is in a lot of ways less creepy than some of the other ways in which sex is marketed but made more respectable e.g. Hooters, SI, page 3, etc
[Too much coffee today though affecting the ability to be coherent.]
In Portland, OR there's a 35-year-old family-owned strip club. The daughter took over from the mother. Mary's club, downtown, off Broadway SW near Burnside.
Complaints about Hooters that are applicable to many other restaurants: the waitstaff is paid terribly, the waitstaff is chosen for their looks, the waitstaff is oggled. Most restaurants are just a bit more subtle about it. Hooters is really tacky, but it's not very sexual. The waitresses are, perhaps, showing a little cleavage. It's really not that revealing. (They wear stockings, so you're not even seeing their legs.)
I guess I just don't think that marketing sex is creepy. It's often tacky, sometimes boring, but not creepy. We like to see hott people naked or close to it. It's not surprising or creepy to admit it. And sometimes we like to hold back a bit, go for something a little more tantalizing, a little less all-out. Again, I don't find this exceptional.
48: Never bought an SI or seen many of the pictures, but a lot of the models were all over the media, and I remember Kathy Ireland looked cute and sweet. And stacked, but I never imagined or fantasized about screwing her.
I have porn. I also have a collection of 60s and 70s Playmates jpgs, Renoir nudes and Orientalist slave-girl stuff (Alma-Tadema, Jean Louis Gerome), nudes by Lucien Freud and F Botero; and some photos of Emmy winning Mary Louise Parker, one of my favorite actresses(clothed).
On some Freudian(Siggie) or feminist level I guess maybe I am objectifying all these woman as sexual objects, but they sure feel different. And if porn extends that far, I don't see why it doesn't extend to clothed women, and all my gazing at feminine beauty is exploitative masturbatory objectifiction. Michelangelo's Pieta as jerkoff material. If not, then neither does nakedness or near nudity always equal sex.
I should note I guess that I don't collect art nudes, although I know of guys that do. The nudes are just in the 100, 000 art jpgs with the Vermeers and Van Goghs and Pollocks.
Speaking of which! Ogged, from his tarpaper shack deep in the hinterlands, took a break from sending mailbombs to university science labs to send me this spandexalicious link. I'd front-page it, but (as the URL would suggest) the ads on the side are SO VERY, VERY not safe for work.
So I guess reduced to that scale, Labs's cock would be, what, nine inches on your poster? Or is the poster only a partial nude, but life sized? Also, can I get a digital scan?
So I guess the consensus is there are guys who like it as erotica, because it's as far as they're willing to go. This is what surprises me. And most of us think real pornography is at least honest. I certainly find it more stimulating. But I've always taken pains to remove traces of it from my machines. Could it be that SI is acceptable to have in the home? Who are they kidding? Is it possible SI/Hooters are marginally more tolerated by wives/girlfriends because more mainstream? That they are tolerated as erotica because they are not, in fact very erotic? Then how do they do what it is that they do?
[At] many other restaurants... the waitstaff is oggled. Most restaurants are just a bit more subtle about it. Hooters is really tacky, but it's not very sexual.
This is exactly what bothers me. Going to a Hooters is like an admission that what you want to do is wrong, and then finding some half-assed way to satisfy those self-identified wrong urges anyway. If it's generally OK to go somewhere to oggle women (and I think it is), just go to the strip club. It's roughly the same reason I'm creeped out by sexual roleplay in which the woman (or, I suppose the man) dresses up as a school girl: nailing a 15 year-old is admittedly wrong, so don't try to fake it.
Hooter's specifically, as opposed to other restaurants, gets compared to strip clubs b/c (1) it is called "Hooters," as #60 pointed out; (2) it's a national chain; (3) that goddamn owl pretends that "hooters" doesn't mean "tits"; (4) it claims to be a family restaurant.
And yes, women are used to having our tits checked out. And yes, it is gross and offensive. And using sex (by which we mean, "women") to sell things is gross and offensive too.
But I think the heart of my argument, and Becks', is that it's kinda nasty to express concern that porn is offensive, or gross, or degrading, or whatever, while maintaining the right to "good clean fun" in ways that amount to basically the same thing. Hooters and the SI swimsuit issue are among the most profitable and visible examples of the phenomenon, and it's probably their success that rankles. Whether it's checking out women's tits or hiring waitresses based on looks or founding a very successful international restaurant chain (and now airline!) based on a jocular boys-will-be-boys fantasy of busty women who just love to flirt, or whatever, it's all about this view of the universe where women are, as Twisty says, "the sex class" that's there for boys to look at, and hey, there's nothing really all that wrong with it. Which is why Becks and I say, own up to it: buy Hustler, already, suck up the reality that women who pose for porn are exploited as hell (but it's really only a question of degree) and quit with the pretense that it's just good, harmless fun.
SCMT, I just disagree that the urges that lead someone to go to Hooters are identical to the urges that lead someone to go to a strip club. I suppose they could be, but they don't have to be, and i'm not convinced that they are even a minority of the time.
Tia, wouldn't you like to no? And, no, sorry, but I don't have a scanner.
It's roughly the same reason I'm creeped out by sexual roleplay in which the woman (or, I suppose the man) dresses up as a school girl: nailing a 15 year-old is admittedly wrong, so don't try to fake it.
Do you also think it's wrong to fantasize about having sex with someone other than your spouse?
Who the hell buys pornography any more? They're giving it away for free all over the internet.
Point taken.
I realize, of course, that the logical conclusion of the kind of argument I'm making is heinous, and I don't *really* want people to say, "oh well, I checked out that woman at the mall today, so I might as well go pay a hooker $5 for a blow job, same diff." I think my point is more a rhetorical one: that the difference is *only* one of deniability, and it exists mostly for the purpose of making men not feel like jerks--rather than for the purpose of making women actually feel comfortable and equal members of society.
Do you also think it's wrong to fantasize about having sex with someone other than your spouse?
No. But I don't think it's particularly wrong to have sex with someone other than your spouse. Certainly not in the same way as having sex with a 15 year-old.
On the larger question, I don't mind the existence of porn except in that the actors and actresses are economically exploited. I actually mind the swimsuit issue, Hooters, and all the other quasi-porn mainstream products and advertisements because they're in my face so much more and it creates an ambiguous situation in which porn isn't clearly part of a fantasy ghetto, and women are portrayed as toys as often as they're not. This mainstream quasi-porn is, I'd guess, more responsible than porn itself for the cultural undercurrent that women aren't really people. Porn=fine, an entire pornographic culture=gross and degrading.
No. But I don't think it's particularly wrong to have sex with someone other than your spouse. Certainly not in the same way as having sex with a 15 year-old.
But there's a distinction between thought and act, right? No fifteen year olds are harmed in sex play. Why shouldn't people do it?
I think the schoolgirl-outfit thing depends on the mindset of the people involved. If you're thinking of your current self getting it on with a 15-year-old, then that's kinda icky. But if you're both role playing as a way of reliving those teenaged feelings when things were so exciting and new, that's something totally different.
But I think the heart of my argument, and Becks', is that it's kinda nasty to express concern that porn is offensive, or gross, or degrading, or whatever, while maintaining the right to "good clean fun" in ways that amount to basically the same thing.
That "basically" is key. Objectification is objectification is bad, sure, but unless you're willing to point to concrete ways in which it's bad, we're really just talking about hurt feelings. I think it's a mistake to pretend it's all the same.
I guess I really don't understand how one can take the position that buying the swimsuit issue is bad, but buying more exploitative porn would be fine. No offense, but it feels like a trap — "Own up to the pathology of your sex drive, you hypocritical pervert! Stop hiding behind what society irrationally deems acceptable!" It's like catching your kid with cigarettes and making him smoke the entire pack.
If X is truly acceptable and unworthy of stigma, I don't get why the same can't be said for X Lite.
(while previewing this comment, I see that Tia has provided an answer.)
For clarity, Tom, it's not that a guy would want to look at the swimsuit issue that bothers me. It's that the swimsuit issue and images like it are in my face and everyone else's all the time that bothers me. If certain kinds of portrayals of women were more properly segregated, it wouldn't bother me that sometimes they had swimsuits on, sometimes they didn't, and sometimes they were all fucking each other with dildos.
Yes. It's roughly the same distinction as between "creepy" and "criminal."
What's creepy about having a fantasy and acting it out with your partner? People have fantasies about things that are in some way or other forbidden or "unhealthy" all the time; sex play can allow them to explore emotions related to experiencing something forbidden or unhealthy that they're interested in feeling, or that make sex more exciting. Why do you think your feeling of being creeped is of sufficient importance that you feel comfortable issuing the normative command "don't try to fake it?"
And perhaps a corollary to "don't let the fantasy ghetto creep out into the mainstream" is "don't let your mainstream into the fantasy ghetto."
I'm saying I'd like to see a culture in which sexualized pictures of women were much less common, but weren't less available--they'd just be treated as the porn they were. I don't like beer ads; I don't like the Victoria's Secret television special; in my ideal world all of it would be gone from the culture, and if people wanted to look at naked women, they'd get porn.
This would be better stated as, "don't let your mainstream make rules for other people's fantasy ghettos."
But I'm not making rules. I certainly don't think we should be legislating against it. I'm just saying that my reaction to it is, "That's creepy." If I found out that consenting adults were playing "Auschwitz" I'd be much more creeped out. I still wouldn't want legislation against it.
But I think the heart of my argument, and Becks', is that it's kinda nasty to express concern that porn is offensive, or gross, or degrading, or whatever, while maintaining the right to "good clean fun" in ways that amount to basically the same thing. Hooters and the SI swimsuit issue are among the most profitable and visible examples of the phenomenon, and it's probably their success that rankles. Whether it's checking out women's tits or hiring waitresses based on looks or founding a very successful international restaurant chain (and now airline!) based on a jocular boys-will-be-boys fantasy of busty women who just love to flirt, or whatever, it's all about this view of the universe where women are, as Twisty says, "the sex class" that's there for boys to look at, and hey, there's nothing really all that wrong with it. Which is why Becks and I say, own up to it: buy Hustler, already, suck up the reality that women who pose for porn are exploited as hell (but it's really only a question of degree) and quit with the pretense that it's just good, harmless fun.
Hmm. I have thoughts on this, but I don't know how well they're going to come out. (I'm also trying to get office work done.)
There's a supposition in this that I don't think is universally true. The supposition is: men really just want to look at the hardcore stuff, but are constrained by a society which tells them that hardcore is not acceptable, so they reluctantly keep it "legit" with SI and Hooters and whatnot.
This isn't quite right. When we're talking about turnons v. turnoffs, there's a fantasy aspect to it as well. Fantasy isn't really fueled so much by hardcore porn. There's no room for it. And unless a person is really delusional, it's not really fueled by strip clubs either, since the transactional nature of the encounters is so explicit. Everyone knows the stripper is never, ever going to have sex with them.
Fantasy is a more complex thing, even (gasp) for men. We're not just motivated by the visual. A flirtatious waiter can indeed get us going, not because we're staring at her tits, but because of the way she winked at us or teased us about our shoes. A highly-paid swimsuit model is a very different fantasy also; it's one of jet-setting glamour and prestige.
I'm not going to weigh in on the more exploitative/less exploitative issue of these various fantasies; obviously there are degrees of exploitation in all of these situations. But part of fantasy is mystery and imagination. This, I believe, is true for both sexes. Both strip clubs and hardcore porn offer the very opposite of mystery and imagination; with those, you get repetition and instant gratification. Fantasy and imagination don't even enter the ballpark.
There's a reason those letters to Penthouse are so popular.
So, in brief, directing men to just go ahead and go to a strip club already, or just buy Hustler, because deep down we don't want anything more than hott full frontal snatch when it comes to sex, is wrong. It's sort of insulting, to tell you the truth, but it's a fairly common supposition in our society, so most guys don't get too worked up about it, I imagine.
Nobody seems to have picked up on my question whether the fear of the disapproval of women is why SI/Hooters might be more acceptable. I think for many women the discovery of pornographic images on a computer. like evidence of participation in sex chat or going to a strip club would be an act of infidelity. Perhaps a lesser act of infidelity, but infidelity nonetheless. So I'm still interested in what people think of that.
Or is it that SI/H is acceptable and the hard stuff is not because of a distinction that has been internalized, that is, the guy is telling himself that?
You said, "don't fake it," which sounded like a rule to me, and announcing your creeped-out-ness in a public forum amounts to trying to reinscribe a normative prohibition against other people's sex play (as opposed to actual sex with 15 year olds, which there should be a prohibition against).
So, in brief, directing men to just go ahead and go to a strip club already, or just buy Hustler, because deep down we don't want anything more than hott full frontal snatch when it comes to sex, is wrong. It's sort of insulting, to tell you the truth, but it's a fairly common supposition in our society, so most guys don't get too worked up about it, I imagine.
I'm not sure to what extent your comment was directed at me, Joe, but if it was, I'll clarify that I can certainly imagine that men would want to look at pictures of skinny women in lingerie wearing angel wings, and I don't begrudge them this any more than I begrudge them split beaver shots, I would just prefer these images, once again, not to be so mainstream.
94 and 111 both express what I was getting at better than I expressed it.
I'm strongly against most censorship -- with obvious exceptions for material involving individuals who either haven't consented or can't consent -- but there IS a problem with the dishonest 'pornification' of the mainstream.
That doesn't mean I want SI Swimsuit type material banned.
As another "where are you drawing the line" question, how did you feel about the "Athens Dream" issue of Black + White magazine with nude photos of olympic athletes.
It got some coverage locally because of Lauren Jackson's decision to participate (which was just one element in a variety of conversations about how much the WNBA should/shouldn't try to use sex appeal to promote the league)
"Well, just ask Storm guard Sue Bird if she'd do it and you might better understand American culture.
"Personally, after all the flak I got for the Dime (magazine) shoot, and I was fully clothed, I'd have to seriously think about it," Bird said of her approximate six-hour photo session last summer. She was vilified by media for posing seductively in a Philadelphia 76ers jersey and stating "sex sells" when it comes to women's basketball.
...
"I really did it with the Australians in mind," Jackson said. "It's a prestigious thing in Australia. Believe it or not, but my mom and dad (Maree and Gary) loved it. My dad saw it the other day, called me and said he was so proud of me."
Jackson's teammates share the sentiment. Bird loved Jackson's hair, and fellow Australian Tully Bevilaqua adored the cover shot."
There was another very supportive article in one of the seattle papers by a female writer saying, among other things, that she intended to buy a copy of the magazine in support -- but I can't find it at the moment
Yeah, I take no issue with that at all, Tia. Mine was just a more general observation that just because X floats your boat more than Y, that doesn't necessarily mean you're a repressed fraidy-cat.
It occurs to me that if I found my son had looked at pornographic images online, I'd be far less upset and feel he'd have far less reason to be embarassed than I would if he found that I'd been looking at such images. I'd probably give him some advice about discretion. So it's a fidelity issue and a "developmentally appropriate" issue.
Porn=fine, an entire pornographic culture=gross and degrading. Exactly.
Of course, then we get into the issue of whether the existence of porn is, in fact, a result (or cause) of the pornographic culture; that is, if the culture weren't pornographic, whether porn itself would cease to exist. I'm currently in a mindset where I think it very well might.
In response to Joe's point: I'm not saying "what everyone wants is a split beaver shot." In a sense, I'm not talking about *individual* wants or desires at all. But in response to the idea that a lot of men *prefer* more softcore, fantasy stuff, or whatever, two things. First, I'm sure that's true, but it in no way proves that this desire isn't a form of sublimation, of wanting to get off *and* be a nice guy at the same time. These desires don't have to be conscious to exist. Second, if it's all about fantasy, then the pictures aren't necessary, yes?
Second thought, back to Tia's point quoted above, and still musing on the porn culture thing: if we really had a healthy non-pornographic culture (as opposed to some kind of ridiculous Victorian repression situation where sexual women are dirty whores and therefore have no rights), do you think that women (and one hopes men) who did pose for porn would be paid much, much better than they are--given that the commodity they'd be providing would be desireable and not replacable by ads for watches or underwear?
#115: I don't think it matters if it's because women disapprove of "bad" porn (as opposed to, say, Hooter's) or because men disapprove of it; I think the point is that the culture is hypocritcal in ways that are damaging to women as a class. Both men and women internalize this hypocrisy.
Actually "hott" is the wrong word. I think that "league MVP" is compelling on a level that is partially non-sexual and partially sexual based on the "competence is sexy" standard.
#127: I don't think I have any problem with chat rooms or pornographic stories per se; the former are mutually entertaining, the latter fiction. I'm sure there are *content* issues I might object to, but hey. Phone sex lines, like with strip clubs, I have no problem with as work, but I worry about the issues of pay, benefits, etc. etc.
Second thought, back to Tia's point quoted above, and still musing on the porn culture thing: if we really had a healthy non-pornographic culture (as opposed to some kind of ridiculous Victorian repression situation where sexual women are dirty whores and therefore have no rights), do you think that women (and one hopes men) who did pose for porn would be paid much, much better than they are--given that the commodity they'd be providing would be desireable and not replacable by ads for watches or underwear?
Possibly. This would be a fantastic society, though; count me in. I envision the French being closer to this sort of thing than we are, but I may be wrong.
It matters to me because I want to understand the dynamics of the situation, and because I'm curious, and want to place myself in this field. I'd be happy to agree with you about "both men and women internalize this hypocrisy," but I'm not quite so sure as you are that I really understand this.
I agree that chatrooms are voluntary and non-exploitive; I stand by my contention many would find their partner's participation in them to be infidelity.
I agree about stories, though. I've already admitted queasiness about having images discovered, yet both my wife and I had written porn, which we've felt no need to get rid of.
What's infidelity is pretty much defined by the relationship. I really don't identify with the notion of porn consumption constituting infidelity, but if my partner were sex chatting with another woman, that would be my idea of cheating.
I suppose calling up a pay phone sex line would be an interesting borderline case.
Ah. Infidelity is a different issue than sexism (towards women as a class). So yes, I can see that a guy would go to Hooter's instead of a strip club b/c his wife, operating within an acceptance of a culture that is broadly pornographic, sees men "appreciating" women's bodies as normal, and hence "not cheating," but nudity and/or actual arousal/orgasm in the presence of a live person as crossing a line, say. That would be the infidelity angle. On the sexism angle, I think it is broadly true that a lot of women, again, accepting porn culture as a given, are less bothered by their men buying, say, the SI swimsuit issue than they are by their men buying Penthouse. I would say that the reason the one is "okay" and the other not is because they've accepted porn culture--again, it's "normal" and unavoidable for men to ogle women for sexual titillation, so we'll tolerate it as long as it's in "good taste" or whatever.
Now, in the context of the "sexism" argument, Becks and I and Tia, I think, are all saying basically that it's the porn culture that *really* bothers us, and that therefore, in a way, Penthouse is *less* problematic than SI. The problem I'm having with my own argument here is whether it's hinging on a desire to not be *personally* affected by porn culture, but not minding if other women--the ones who model for porn--are. Also whether I'm on some level buying into the idea that men "need" porn. In a hypothetical society where porn, defined as material produced for the purposes of sexual titillation / masturbation, were unstigmatized and yet the culture as a whole had somehow moved beyond viewing all women as "the sex class," so that except in the context of actual porn, we were left alone to live out our lives without worrying about being objectified, I'd be cool with that. But I'm not sure it actually would be possible.
On the other hand, I *do* think that things like, say, phone sex or internet chat rooms would surely exist, because both men and women like sex and find flirting really fun, and those venues let us enjoy those things without the risks involved in doing it in person. I agree that a lot of women (and men) would view that kind of thing as cheating, b/c it does, in fact, involve an actual real person as opposed to a photograph. But in terms of exploitation, I think it's pretty neutral and should be guilt-free.
This will do, it satisfies me about what you all think, although I'm still curious whether anybody actually gets off on it. I hate the porn culture too, and I like real porn and erotica, and feel I've learned from them, mostly about myself. I don't know how old the porn culture is, but I agree it's very pervasive now, mostly due to television. But if you've ever seen old Life magazines for sale in a bookshop, you know that highly pornified images have been mainstream for at least sixty years. There's a late Orwell essay where he looks at an American fashion magazine, and is repulsed.
A couple of weeks ago I saw an interesting exhibit at Northwestern about medical textbooks and instructional models in the Renaissance, and how gender affected the presentation. And boy, it was all there, male gaze, everything. It was explained how the development of the diagrams clearly shows the influence of well-known contemporary pornographic images. There was a life size take-apart plaster model that was obscene, not because of what it showed but the way it showed it. A supine female form, eyelids half closed, the whole bit.
I'm not sure how you're responding to B, apo, since her point was not really about extremity of what was being depicted but about the location of what was being depicted, but I'll take a shot at at least beginning to respond to you, but it might take a while.
You said, "don't fake it," which sounded like a rule to me, and announcing your creeped-out-ness in a public forum amounts to trying to reinscribe a normative prohibition against other people's sex play (as opposed to actual sex with 15 year olds, which there should be a prohibition against).
Hmm. I'm not sure what to do with "public forum," but I think you're reading too much into it. Insofar as any opinion ("Fruit salad is gross") and an attendent justification ("the fruit is soggy and the syrup looks like a placenta") functions as an implicit attempt to inscribe a norm, I guess that's true. But I think I would limit "reinscribing a norm" to active campaigns, rather than Internet chatter.
SCMTim, there's a difference between saying that you don't like fruit salad, and saying that the the act of fruit salad eating is icky. "Fruit salad is gross" means roughly "I don't like fruit salad." Your comment clearly conveyed to me the opinion that other people should not "eat fruit salad," IYKWIM, and I think if you introspected back to when you were writing it you'd acknowledge that in fact was what you meant to say, especially since you further wrote, "don't fake it."
And I would definitely not limit "reinscribing a norm" to active campaigns, rather than internet chatter. You're doing cultural work even if you're not out there with a sign and pamphlets. If I said in these comments, "Men who make less than their wives are pussy-whipped," would you think that wasn't reinscribing a norm?
Apo, I'd say that there's a qualitative difference between hog tying and scat and nekked women simply as nekkid women. I'll go along with the idea that straight men are "naturally" interested in naked women (though I'm quite willing to argue that there's a difference between that interest and interest in porn, but that's a different argument) (and I also think that straight women are naturally interested in naked men, gay men in naked men, lesbians in naked women, etc.), but I don't think that straight men are naturally interested in crapping on women and tying them up. I'm pretty willing to say that, although my position w/r/t fetishes is "as long as it's consensual," that fetishes about domination, dirt, degredation, etc. are pretty certain to be social constructs of--wait for it---the porn culture.
I can't believe I'm going to defend Tim, but I do think that there's gotta be a certain leeway for what Michael Berube calls "fun but arbitrary value judgments" among friends.
Btw, is it okay to start hating / resenting Michael yet? B/c he keeps saying all the good stuff, and not even leaving one the face-saving out of "yeah, I could have written that," because the bastard *will* insist on saying things better than I could do, even though immediately after reading him I inevitably think, "yes, that's just exactly how it should be put."
I know I should read the rest of the comments first, but 94 was so provocative...
(3) that goddamn owl pretends that "hooters" doesn't mean "tits"
But in a joking way, i.e. no one believes it. If no one's fooled, then no one's really pretending.
And using sex (by which we mean, "women") to sell things
Well, mainly women, but to be fair, underwear, beer, liquor and clothing ads use sexualized men as well. To certain extent, even ads as conservative as watch ads often image a powerful man, which is sexual in itw own way.
I think the heart of my argument, and Becks', is that it's kinda nasty to express concern that porn is offensive, or gross, or degrading, or whatever, while maintaining the right to "good clean fun" in ways that amount to basically the same thing.
But I'm not certain that the audiences of SI Swimsuit and Hooters are the same people arguing that porn is offensive. In fact, I'm doubtful of it.
t's probably their success that rankles.
Porn is, I have been led to believe, fairly successful.
a jocular boys-will-be-boys fantasy of busty women who just love to flirt, or whatever, it's all about this view of the universe where women are, as Twisty says, "the sex class" that's there for boys to look at, and hey, there's nothing really all that wrong with it.
Currently, I'm thinking that this is much more harmful to boys than women. I don't think women are harmed by being Hooters waitresses. I do think guys are harmed by being led to believe that Hooters is fun, and for believing that women are there to be exploited. Now, this of course can come back around to a woman being mistreated by the guys around her, and that's too be considered, but it is an indirect harm.
145: That makes sense. Tangentially, last year I saw a Penthouse for the first time in probably 15 years ('cause, y'know, procuring non-digital porn takes so much more effort), and was a little surprised at all the urination pictures. I figure this must be a (relatively) recent development, because I sure don't remember it from the long ago.
Got it in one. There're saying, and I'm agreeing, that the porn culture and the patriarchy are aspects of the same thing. And the interesting thing is that SI/H offend and bother me, while usually I think I'm oblivious to much of the patriarchy.
Your comment clearly conveyed to me the opinion that other people should not "eat fruit salad," IYKWIM, and I think if you introspected back to when you were writing it you'd acknowledge that in fact was what you meant to say, especially since you further wrote, "don't fake it."
No, I think that's right. But I also don't think other people should eat or enjoy fruit salad. Honestly. It might be clearer if I said that I think all cars should be stick. I really don't think people should buy cars with automatic transmissions. The difference I see between my comment and reinscription would be the different levels of import I place on others having norms similar to my own. Some things bother me a lot; some things less so.
"Men who make less than their wives are pussy-whipped," would you think that wasn't reinscribing a norm?
Depends how important it seemed to me that you thought it was that I agreed with you. It might, OTOH, be important to me to try and inscribe a counter norm.
I also don't think other people should eat or enjoy fruit salad. Honestly.
On those times when I inflict a debilitating hangover on myself (as opposed to the merely unpleasant ones), the only food I can bring myself to eat once I finally get out of bed is fruit salad.
145: Here I slightly differ. Domination and degradation fantasies have social origin, sure, but that origin is broader than the porn culture, at least for many. Their first origin is in an individual's experience of pain and fear, and his or her interest in reexperiencing it or reinterpreting it. This can either take a variety of avenues, some of which are fucked, some of which are okay. Among the fucked is nonconsensual sexual violence. Among the okay is recreating a consensual dominance dynamic in a relationship, say, in which one person is playing teenager. The problem with an image is that it doesn't convey whether something is consensual or not; it often can't communicate the subjective experience of the person in the picture.
guys find being at Hooters to be actually arousing.
Well, it makes money selling dull food at exorbitant prices because they have scantily clad waitresses. While I have no idea whether men find being at Hooters arousing, the ones who choose to go there are going for some reason related to sex.
Michael, I think the argument isn't that the exact same people are defending Hooter's as are saying that porn is offensive; it's that as a culture we allow the one to be public and non-stigmatized while the other is "supposed" to be hidden, private, and stigmatized.
And of course the women working at Hooter's are harmed: they're paid crap for a difficult job, and they have to put up with bullshit that has nothing to do with their job (serving food) b/c they're working in a culture where maintaining the male fantasy of female flirtiness is expected. I totally agree with you that this male fantasy is deeply harmful to men, of course, but I don't see how you can say that it isn't harmful to women. Hell, even just having total strangers demand that you "smile" as you walk down the street is a fucking pain in the ass.
Okay, Tim, if you really don't think other people shouldn't eat fruit salad, you have escaped internal inconsistency, at least.
But I actually think sex is qualitatively different from fruit salad, in that there are huge cultural pressures instructing us, often in contradictory fashion, about what we should do in bed. Okay, try this one on for size: "Butt sex is so icky. No one should do it." Do you think that could do some cultural work in a blog thread, irrespective of how it was intended by the person who said it? (Obviously I'm picking that act because it's performed by a large percentage of a group of people we heart, gay men.) Perhaps if you'd been on the other side of having your consensual sex practices consistently referred to as icky, you'd appreciate what's wrong with saying it.
LB: Well, in the South, it's hard to get nondull food, except in certain rare areas. Anyway, I'm not denying that guys find an entertainment value in going to Hooters, I just don't think it qualifies as arousal. But, I should probably not take a strong position here, because I'm just imagining and projecting from a few friends of mine in college who used to go to Hooters every Wed night, so there's a good chance that I'm quite wrong about most other people.
I grant that is a problem, and one which neither chat nor fiction poses. In general, I think it ought to look consensual (this is my moral calculus here, not some kind of rulemaking) and also, um, plausible.
When I looked at a lot of images, the term "amateur" meant something to me. I realize how easily exploited that is, and how am I supposed to know? But it may have salved my conscience about exploitation. If you put delimiters about age (older) weight (heavier) endowments (less) etc., you get very plausible images, that more or less have to be amateur, unless the world is a stranger place than I can imagine.
#161: In #148, I meant Michael Berube, I'm sorry to say.
#158: No, I actually don't think guys get erections at Hooter's, usually. Which I think is part of why it's "okay" and strip clubs aren't. There's a good article somewhere called "how to be as horny as a man," I forget where the hell it is or who wrote it, but it points out the ways that the culture keeps men in a perpetual state of sexual *awareness*, which is distinct from arousal. Hooter's is definitely about men's awareness of the waitresses as sex objects (and the waitresses' awareness of same), even if it isn't about actually helping them masturbate.
And of course the women working at Hooter's are harmed: they're paid crap for a difficult job, and they have to put up with bullshit that has nothing to do with their job (serving food) b/c they're working in a culture where maintaining the male fantasy of female flirtiness is expected.
But all serving jobs are crap, aren't they? I've heard untold horror stories by waiters at *nice* restaurants. And do the women at Hooters make less than the waitstaff at comparable restaurants? I don't know, but I would be surprised if they did. Anyway, I do see your point about the fantasy of femle flirtiness (not that some women aren't or can't choose to be flirty).
And I would suspect that the people who strongly object to pr0n also object to SI Swimsuit and Hooters. It would seem that a de facto compromise has been struck between the pr0n-wanting and the pr0n-hating.
Serving jobs are crap, sure, but at different restaurants it isn't *necessarily* expected that the waitress persona = flirty gal. You can just be efficient, or punky, or whatever. Sure, different service-type places are gonna impose different service-type expectations on their employees, but Hooter's is particularly gross b/c it's particularly successful and using a particularly offensive stereotype.
About the difference between "awareness" and "arousal",
W.G. Sebald, in the first section of Vertigo, says of Stendhal that when he first put on his Dragoon's uniform, he walked around with an erection for weeks. This puts me in mind of the drug ad: "Erections lasting more than four hours, though rare, are..." I guess I preferred to read that as "awareness" but neither of those writers is exactly imprecise, as a rule.
166: Well, there are two separate problems, what's going on for the people creating the image and what's going on for the people viewing it, and there are pitfalls with each.
On the creator side, I don't think it matters whether the picture is "amateur" or not. Someone could be doing it for money and getting well-compensated and well-treated, and that would be okay. Someone could not be doing it for money, but because their manipulative S.O. is bullying them into it. You don't really know the provenance of porn images.
On the audience side, whether or not there's a problem depends on what's going on in the viewer's head. If it's a guy thinking about his girlfriend, "Fuck that bitch. I'm going to shit all over her. I'd fucking cut her if it weren't illegal," he should be in some serious therapy. However, if a different guy is masturbating to the same picture and having a fantasy about causing his girlfriend pain, or feeling powerful and in control, but he has the self awareness and fundamental love for his girlfriend to only be interested in what she would also be interested in, then that's fine.
The problem is that the picture looks the same in all cases. If you're creating a picture that is supposed to look like someone's in pain, their face should probably reflect it. You could run a caption, I suppose, or write a story. But all in all it's a difficult question, and one I'm not sure what to do with.
And I'm not sure what do make of all this no-mainstream-porn idealism. It's been said porn = material for titilation/arousal. If you put more clothes on the men and women we see in our magazines and on TV, then people's triggers will simply change, right? The emphasis will simply shift to wrists and eyebrows, ankles and hair. And it's not as if boobs or muscular structure is at all obscurable.
But, I'm curious, how much does this stuff harm you in your daily life? How would you expect life to get better if this stuff wasn't there? You think sexism would cease to exist. What, like how it didn't exist before the mainstream "porn culture" came into existence? (When was that, anyway? The 80s?)
We like to look at attractive people. Straight guys will oggle* Ian Thorpe a bit, and straight girls will oggle other girls a bit. How is it that I, who usually feels like I'm one of the most prudish commenters here, suddenly feels like the libertine?
As far as I can tell, going to Hooters (and the UK equivalent, I suppose loudly telling everyone in the workplace that you want to go to the pub where the barmaid has big tits) is part of a complicated social ritual aimed at conveying the message "Ayup, lads, I'm one hell of a cunt! Any other crass, pointless cunts around here? Let's form a big fucking cunt club and go out to lunch together and talk about sport! We're cunts! Hurray!".
It's more about being a hell of a cunt and doing something to annoy women for the sake of it, than any sort of pleasure they really appear to get out of the actual activity.
Michael, I honestly think that the "porn culture" thing isn't just an invention of the 80s--as you point out, in the absence of pornographic images, porn culture will just focus on ankles, wrists, hair, whatever. The point is that we can define porn culture as "culture in which women = the sex class." In other words, it isn't that porn culture creates sexism (though it obviously reinforces it), it's that sexism creates porn culture.
As evidence for my argument, I'll put forth that women, as a class, are said to be "less visually aroused" than men are by porn images. Now, I've argued against this in the past, inasmuch as it's said as if it were some innate natural difference: women are surely just as capable of getting turned on by porn as guys are, of checking out men, etc. etc. But on the other hand, the extent to which women *don't* consume porn nearly as much as men do may well be evidence that the porn culture isn't directed at/for us--it's for you. A picture of a man doesn't automatically connote "sex" in the way that a picture of a woman does--as you pointed out upthread, it may connote power, affluence, status, etc, and therefore be indirectly about sexual prowess, but that's an entirely different thing. As a culture, we've been trained that women are the sex objects. Hence, both men and straight women get turned on by looking at pictures of naked women; possibly one reason straight women are less overt about it is that for us this isn't reinforcing a "natural" reaction, whereas for men, this natural reaction is reinforced to the point of caricature.
If you put more clothes on the men and women we see in our magazines and on TV, then people's triggers will simply change, right? The emphasis will simply shift to wrists and eyebrows, ankles and hair. And it's not as if boobs or muscular structure is at all obscurable.
Yeah, but it's not so much the fact that people are aroused by pretty people that's annoying, it's the degree to which women are expected to (paid to) exert themselves to be particularly arousing; that being a waitress in a skimpy outfit is a job category. It's not the arousal that's the issue, it's the humiliating outfit.
Or, what dsquared said:
doing something to annoy women for the sake of it
more than because there's any particular pleasure in it.
Gay men, arguably, consume gay porn b/c they're men--i.e., in the porn culture, they're constructed as consumers of porn. So "natural" orientation is a lot less important than socialization.
I would be OK with "Butt sex is so icky. No one should do it." precisely because it's performed by a large percentage of a group of people we heart, gay men. (To be fair, I'd be more comfortable with someone saying, "Butt sex is so icky; don't do it.") I think Unfogged has previously considered similar issues in the prior discussions on gay and Farber's complaints about (IIRC) gayness being attributed to celebrities or something.
Similarly, I don't think most people who comment here are likely to agree with me. (Cf.I can't believe I'm going to defend Tim.) Moreover, I don't have deep experiences with going to strip clubs, but I went to my share in my distant youth. IIRC, the stripper in a schoolgirl outfit is pretty standard fare. So my suspicion is that, even as against the general population, mine is the minority response, not yours.
Interestingly, to those who doubt that Unfogged is simply a variation on Unfogged, I brought up the schoolgirl thing before in this related post. As I said there, I'm iffy on this. Matt F agrees with you.
But if you've ever seen old Life magazines for sale in a bookshop, you know that highly pornified images have been mainstream for at least sixty years. There's a late Orwell essay where he looks at an American fashion magazine, and is repulsed.
But, I'm curious, how much does this stuff harm you in your daily life? How would you expect life to get better if this stuff wasn't there?
I often feel bombarded with reminders of my sexuality in a way that I imagine I wouldn't if women in their underwear weren't all around me. I can *learn* to filter, just like I can learn to be insensible to much of what goes on around me on the street in New York, but it takes a fair amount of energy. I am constantly reminded that my weight, breast size, and quantity of hair are non-ideal, and somehow at one point I got the idea that these were, like, the most important metrics of my value as a person. Except for "got the idea" is the wrong word, because I would know, intellectually, that it was bullshit, but I'd be obsessed about it anyway. I've learned to give less of a shit about this, mostly because my boyfriends have told me I was hot (not because I learned to care less about being attractive), but that has really been a struggle, and when I was a teenager I used to literally cry about it, starve myself, etc. That mostly came from the media. Some percentage of men are taught to disprespect me, and think they can just pull their car up beside me on the street and ask me to blow them. Or they think they can moo at a fat woman. The media won't make someone behave that way who's exposed to strong enough countervailing influences, but the media is still presenting women as objects enough of the time that it reinforces the idea that you can treat women however you want. So yeah, I think life would get better if women were treated more frequently as people, and less frequently as things.
I have no objection to attractive people being presented in the media. But think about the way men who are supposed to be attractive to women are portrayed. Consider George Clooney. I would like attractive women to be treated like that. Charismatic, sexy, usually fully clothed, maybe occasionally not-so-fully, mostly filmed or photographed from the neck up, regarded as intelligent, in charge of his own sexuality...we do it for men; it can't be impossible to do it for women.
(And to the extent that we don't do it for men, it's mostly been in response to the gay male pornified gaze.)
Well, First, Hooters outfits are hardly skimpy. Second, if there was a more equal sexification society, the result would probably be more sexy guy-waiters restaurants, not less sexy waitresses.
third, Hooters couldn't be as large as it is if they couldn't get workers. From that perspective, your problem isn't exactly Hooters, but the factors that lead women to take those jobs. Many of those will be, of course, economic. I think, contra to B, that Hooters waitresses probably make good money compared to their counterparts.
And if the problem is women as the sex class, perhaps the single biggest problem is women wanting to be the sex class. But this isn't actually a female problem: most people like attention; women get attention for being sexy. Both men's and women's mags feature models in scanty or sexy clothing - women do an awful lot to help other women becomg objects of attention, and, when they compete, in upping the ante. The culture of hyper-sluttiness a few years back probably wouldn't have happened if not for the arms race between Britney and Christina.
One of the aspects of this is that women are constantly working at and perfecting ways of exploiting men. Yes, girls don the outfit, which some women find humiliating. Guys dole out their wages for a quick thrill that doesn't last..certainly they feel a bit empty when they get home, and are constantly being tempted and aroused - desires which they can't satisfy. Guys can dole out all the attention they can, often clumsily, but will probably just end up the day with the regular cry, cry, masturbate, cry.
So, the way I see it, it's a mutually exploitive situation created by large numbers of members of both sexes. Trouble is, I'm a bit too misanthropic to have sympathy for anyone.
Michael, I have been to a Hooters, and our waitress had huge breasts with some kind of push up bra that made the entire upper half of her chest a huge shelf of jiggling flesh. From her nipples down were covered, and that was it. Even I had a hard time not staring.
And to the rest of your comment: What does the fact that lots of women cooperate in a culture that inappropriately sexualizes all women have to do with anything? Or that the definition of women as the 'sex class' has ill effects for men too?
It has unpleasant effects, as Tia and B. describe. I, and those who agree with me, wish there was less of it. I don't quite get the point you're making.
Ok, got my google to work and checked out a Hooters outfit (as I meant to do before I posted.) The picture was a bit skimpier than I remember last time I was in one, about 4 years ago. In person, I remember the leggings they wore to be very obvious and unattractive. I also suspect that the girls in the photos are wearing tighter more-cleavage showing shirts than the ones I saw in the Hooters in BR, but they may be the norm elsewhere.
189. Because there's been a lot of talk of men exploiting women in this thread, but no acknowledgement that the origin of that behavior rests anywhere but with men. I'm sure you're sofisticated enough and all to know it, but I wanted to say it, because, well, no one else did.
B. did acknowledge it in 162: I totally agree with you that this male fantasy is deeply harmful to men, of course, but I don't see how you can say that it isn't harmful to women.
I'm rereading that, but I don't see how it says that "women are also responsible for the culture of the exploitation of women." So, no, I don't think she did.
Since you're asking me to toot my own horn, here it is: I'm the only one getting at the complexity of this exploitation. Except for me, it's solely been "men are exploiting women." I'm pointing out that a) that's true, but b) women are exploiting men, men are exploiting men, and women are exploiting women, too. I think that's a good point.
The origin of women's exploiting their position as sex class for power/attention/status isn't women. Any subordinate class will learn to use whatever methods are avaialble to it to get those things; it's very silly to say that the fact that they do so means they somehow created the problem.
Well yes, of course. I don't think anyone is denying that; in fact I think it goes without saying. Like LB said, I don't really see what your point is, if it isn't "original creation." Is it that you're feeling like somehow what we're saying in this thread is "men are oppressive assholes, and this means you"? B/c I don't think that's at all the case.
194: You're right, I misread you -- I was thinking of her acknowledgment that the oversexualization of women hurts men too. But really, you seem way off base: a woman working as a waitress in a humiliating outfit is exploiting the men she serves? I don't follow the argument.
LB, of course to some extent she is: she's using the tool she has available (e.g., tits) to get larger tips. But yeah, I agree that it's a bit much to imply that she's *equally* complicit in that situation--the power dynamic there is obviously deeply unequal. The guy doesn't *have* to shell out, but she does have to kiss up to him whether or not he does.
LB: Well Imagine a scenario where a bunch of lonely manual laborers lay down significant proportioins of their days' wages in order for pretend attention and pretend caring. That's exploiting them, right?
I guess. It still seems to me inarguable that by the standards of our society, the position she is in is not a desirable one: her job is perceived as unpleasant and humiliating.
204: Studies show guys are similarly affected by their appearance, whether they're broken down on the road or applying for a job. I worked at a mall clothing store in HS, and our hiring discriminated against the looks of men and women; same with my ex's restaurant. Now, I'm sure it happens more to women, but it's not exactly insignificant as regard men.
What about Tia's 185? Do we really have to all tell our stories of what it's like to live under the constant bombardment of messages that we're supposed to be good looking, to be nice, to be agreeable? How often do strangers demand that men "smile"? Why do you think my nom de plume is "bitch"? Why do you think women spend so much damn money on makeup, cosmetic surgery, hair care, dry cleaning, clothing, manicures, perfume, etc. etc. etc.?
What strikes me as a serious data point here is that the people who see that part of our culture that treats women as a sex class as a problem, are generally women or men who have been persuaded by women. You're saying (roughly) 'It's a problem for men too, so it's fair: nothing needs to be changed.' We're saying, 'Please make it stop.' Doesn't that give some indication of whose ox is being gored?
This has come up before, and I was amazed then, too. This is common? I'm not disputing that it is, just that it seems completely bizarre, like walking up to someone and demanding that they whistle.
Why do you think women spend so much damn money on [...] etc.?
This has come up before, and I was amazed then, too. This is common? I'm not disputing that it is, just that it seems completely bizarre, like walking up to someone and demanding that they whistle.
This is incredibly common. Maybe once a week for me. Hey, eb, if you're reading this thread, another reason to hate Mr. German pronunciation of a dance form is that he once told me to smile. I glared at him.
a) It's not exactly the "porn culture" which is the problem, but the desire for attention and what we give our attention to. The fact that we've gotten to porn-riffic, and pedo-riffic, levels is the result of something of an arms race for attention.
b) the point of the above is that I like analysis, and endlessly hopeful that it will magically turn out useful.
c) I don't feel symapthy for hooter's waitresses or their customers
d) because I am a misathrope
But I do feel bad for Tia, and others in her situation, and support NOW's love your body campaign.
Second, if there was a more equal sexification society, the result would probably be more sexy guy-waiters restaurants, not less sexy waitresses
nornsense, my old son. Look, if you want to leer at barmaids (and my god I do, as my missus points out), you can do so more or less anywhere they serve drinks. If, on the other hand, you decide to go to the special leery-barmaidy place where they advertise "LEERABLE BARMAIDS AVAILABLE HERE", then you're going there because you want to be in a place where women where women are constantly reminded that their purpose in being there is to be leered at. Which is more or less the definition of what modern feminist theory calls "misogyny" and what I would call "cunthood" (what medical science calls "cunthood" I would call a clitoris but that just goes to show what a wonderful thing the English language is).
Women don't hate men anything like as much as men hate women (this remark [c] Germaine Greer) and don't have anything like as much of their sense of self tied up in being able to humiliate men when they want to, therefore I submit that your prediction about the possible shape of the drinks service industry under a different set of gender relations is wrong.
Again, IME, it slows down as you get older. I don't think I've had a stranger tell me to smile for ages. Used to happen all the time when I was a young thing, though. Aging has its benefits.
You're saying (roughly) 'It's a problem for men too, so it's fair: nothing needs to be changed.' We're saying, 'Please make it stop.' Doesn't that give some indication of whose ox is being gored?
If I had been more articulate, I would have made the point that if you want it to stop, you're not going to be able to by just asking men to stop it.
The problems that have been listed are 1) de-personification, 2) harmful body images, and 3) preferential treatment for the attractive.
I don't see how any of my comments can be said to be against attempts to solve it. Rather, in keeping with my extravagant hope that deeper analysis leads to better solutions, I think my comment might almost be read as an attempt to get closer to the solution.
The one thing I am against, I suppose, is the Hooters issue, which I just don't see as that bad in as far as exploitation goes. If anything, it's a symptom of bad taste. And I don't think girls go anorexic b/c of Hooters. I could be wrong.
Women have been using sex to control men since way before Lysistrata. Usually it's merely implicit, a statement of the form you continue to act like that and you're not getting any Here's a typical example:
If I ever found out that a guy I was dating bought the SI swimsuit edition, I think I'd have to break up with him.
That men should use women, and the implicit promise of sex, to control other men is not news. Welcome to the world in which sexual signalling wasn't invented by peacocks or bullfrogs, and won't disappear with burkas and decency codes.
215 sums up exactly what's wrong with Hooters. It's normal in our culture for men not so much to leer at women, but to "want to be in a place where women where women are constantly reminded that their purpose in being there is to be leered at."
221: MHS, putting aside that I read Becks's comment as playful hyperbole, in what universe is that statement interpretable is using sex to control a man? She's saying she would choose not to have sex with him anymore. All she's controlling is her own body and decisions.
The metadata of porn on the internet is strongly anti-women. Usually there are links to photos or videos of naked women alone or having sex acts that by themselves are, or could be made, relatively unobjectionable; but the written descriptions are all "whore", "bitch", and "cunt".
It's normal in our culture for men not so much to leer at women, but to "want to be in a place where women where women are constantly reminded that their purpose in being there is to be leered at.
It shouldn't be normal for men to want to be able to pretend that they're attractive to attractive women? And be willing to pay for the privilege? And for women to be willing to take money for it? Good luck with that.
Leering, in itself, is not harmful. The leeree must taken offense to the leer. And I do suspect that there is a minimal desired amount of leer. That minimal might be very low, but I'm fairly certain it's there. For men and women.
And, of course, there are a few places women go to oggle men. So, there. And, if sexualization grew more equal I'm certain the number of these places would increase. Unless you think that the inherent, genetic differences b/w men and women would keep the women from leering at sexy male bar servers. I don't.
To your broader points I'm afraid I can't judge, having never been to a LEERABLE BARMAIDS HERE type bar.
It shouldn't be normal for men to want to be able to pretend that they're attractive to attractive women? And be willing to pay for the privilege?
Isn't this in itself misogynistic? 'I don't care what you actually think of me, or whether I'm actually attractive to you. So long as you can be made to be a prop in my fantasy, your actual thought processes are of no interest to me.'
221: I read it as reaffirming (or declaring) a norm. Norms are often expressed as personal preferences. When a woman says "I wouldn't go out with a man who does X" it tends to be read (by men) as saying "You'll get more if you don't do X". That's why, if you're selling overpriced watches, you show a man wearing such a watch while on a date with an expensive woman.
And to 224, which responds to 221: Exactly. The only universe in which you can call deciding not to have sex with a man 'controlling' him is one in which he is entitled by right to have sex with you. Ick.
re: 222 - I'm not so sure that's true that it's completely normal -- I don't think I know any men who'd purposefully choose to go to a Hooter's type environment. However, that may be a function of i) living in the UK where there is no direct equivalent of Hooters and ii) mostly hanging around with late-20/early-30 something 'liberal' academics.
However, even if it's not normal, it's not abnormal either. There's a significant minority of men who choose to go to strip clubs and who, I'm sure, would go to Hooters type places if they existed.
Isn't this in itself misogynistic? 'I don't care what you actually think of me, or whether I'm actually attractive to you. So long as you can be made to be a prop in my fantasy, your actual thought processes are of no interest to me.'
Most public interactions are ones in which the actual thought processes are of no interest. When I go to the bank I expect the teller to treat me politely and reasonably respectfully, even if they're secretly thinking "oh no, another crazy old man". It gives me the illusion that I can pass for normal in society.
There's a profound difference between the basic politeness and veneer of mutual respect we all expect in our everyday social interactions and the purposefully created illusion of sexual attraction.
I should probably explain 238. I've used the threat of no-sex to gain little things, so I know it can work both ways. Maybe you think "controling" is too strong a word. Sure, minor point. But you can always use the satisfaction or threat of nonsatisfaction of a desire and concurrent pleasure to control, or manipulate people.
Isn't this in itself misogynistic? 'I don't care what you actually think of me, or whether I'm actually attractive to you. So long as you can be made to be a prop in my fantasy, your actual thought processes are of no interest to me.'
I don't see how it could be, because women are certainly capable of the same attitude. I might call it "human." Do you claim to never have held any sexual interest in someone that wasn't tied to their "thought processes."
I think I might have mentioned this before but at my first real computer job (as a summer intern in college), I was the only woman at the company besides the secretary. It was tradition for the entire staff to go to Hooters once a week at lunch to listen to Rush Limbaugh. That was fun.
(They also had Free Beer Fridays where people would drink and code all day long. I have to wonder how much of Monday was spent rewriting code from FBF afternoon. How that company never got sued, I don't know.)
There's a profound difference between the basic politeness and veneer of mutual respect we all expect in our everyday social interactions and the purposefully created illusion of sexual attraction.
One creates a feeling of respectableness, the other a feeling of attractiveness. They seem pretty close to me.
And to 224, which responds to 221: Exactly. The only universe in which you can call deciding not to have sex with a man 'controlling' him is one in which he is entitled by right to have sex with you. Ick.
That's true only if you deny that there's social pressure to be considered attractive. Becks is saying (whether hyperbole or not) "that's very unattractive." And she said it in a context where, as far as I can tell, it was unnecessary to her point.
The comments around here spend a whole lot of time and energy on what's attractive and what's not. Who's hot (hott?). I read that as implicating social control - norms - by definitions of what's attractive. If that isn't social control by implicit promise of sex, I'm not a crazy old man.
Breaking up with someone and controlling them through sex are two different things. The first being acceptable, the second not. The first is saying "We have incompatible values, beliefs, etc. and I can't convince you of my viewpoint. I don't think this is going to work out so I don't think we should continue this relationship." The second is a way of saying "We have different values, beliefs, etc. and instead of trying to convince you of my viewpoint, I'm just going to manipulate you into doing what I want."
They aren't even remotely the same and I think it takes a fair bit of mental contortion to think that they are.
Consider smiling. That can mean either (1) I acknowledge that you are another human; or (2) I acknowledge that you are the customer and I'm supposed to be polite; or (3) I i find you attractive.
With one gesture used to indicate both politeness and sexual attraction, wouldn't you expect some confusion and overlap?
Isn't that traditionally the best selling magazine issue of the year? You're cutting out a huge swath of the population.
And I guess there's an appeal in the not-quite-porn. Seems more respectable, or something.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 9:51 PM
Becks:
Dude, you so rule.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 9:57 PM
The appeal of un-porn, it seems to me, is that the women in it are hotter than the women in real porn.
Posted by Wehttam Saiselgy | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 9:58 PM
Don't believe the hype. Un-real porn screams "This is what you should think 'Hot' means!" Playboy, Victoria's Secret, SI Swimsuit. Ugh! I hate that shit.
And damn it all to hell, real porn's great.
Posted by Mr. B | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 10:19 PM
Its value is more cultural than masturbatory. It's something you can have a conversation about with the dudes at work (albeit not a very interesting one).
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 10:29 PM
Jeebus. I'm with Becks on this one. Those are the kind of dudes-at-work that I would stop talking to. Lame brains.
Posted by Mr. B | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 10:43 PM
It's something you can have a conversation about with the dudes at work (albeit not a very interesting one).
So ... tits, huh?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 11:15 PM
No no no, no one buys it, Becks, it just comes in the mail. It's part of your subscription—no one'd pick it up off the newsstand. And look at the calendar: NCAA football's long been over, we just watched the Super Bowl, regular season NBA is mostly pointless, March Madness won't set in for a month, who cares about hockey, baseball's not on, the Olympics are unreliable and stupid now that they're staggered anyway, and there's fucking snow on the ground, which is cold and intolerable. A man looks at his life in February and asks who? who will rescue him from the winter of his discontent? Sports Illustrated answers: Petra Nemcova?
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 11:18 PM
(final ? s/b . )
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 11:19 PM
I'm with Becks (and my husband) on this one. For god's sake, don't be such a pussy about porn. I fucking hate the hypocrisy of "oh, this isn't *really* porn."
And while we're at it, I really wish men would stop going to goddamn Hooter's. For fuck's sake, go to a damn strip club, pay the cover charge, and tip the women decently. And don't give me that bullshit about "the wings are good." You can get chicken wings at goddamn KFC.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 11:35 PM
8: Sorry. Petra's arms were horrifying, and half the shots had her face looking like a skull. The tan also looked unnatural and too dark.
Is it all porn? Can't a hetero guy just admire a woman as an object of beauty rather an object of arousal? Is it always about sex?
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 11:51 PM
Sorry. I pretty much despise a whole generation of men for liking that huge tits on an anorexic look. It's sick.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 11:56 PM
Total change of subject: saw Brokeback Mountain tonight. Anyone who hasn't seen it yet, do so. Seriously one of the best movies I think I've ever seen.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-12-06 11:58 PM
11 : "Is it all porn? Can't a hetero guy just admire a woman as an object of beauty rather an object of arousal? Is it always about sex?"
I suppose it is arguable, but, to me porn can be about beauty without being about sexual arousal. Some might call that fashion photography, or glamour photography, or art photography. But in asking "can't a hetero guy..." you seem to cross the line. Can a gay guy "just admire a woman as an object of beauty"? Sure, but do such gay guys buy SI swimsuit edition?
Playboy is a men's lifestyle magazine - the hell it is. It's porn.
Men read Victoria Secret's catalogs because they want to buy things. Perhaps sometimes. Mainly, it's porn.
SI Swimsuit edition shows the world's best swimsuits each year, because, y'see, swimming is a sport. This hypocrisy is ickily repugnant whether or not anyone jerks off to these photos. And they do.
The reason lame brain men in our society can male bond over this porn is because it is taboo-free porn, not because it isn't porn or isn't necessarily about sexual arrousal.
Saying it isn't about sex is to say that these women are not in the sex industry. Heavens no! These are the most highly respected, and highly paid fashion models in the world. They are not tainted by being part of anything pornographic. They are not selling their bodies or their honor or their dignity. Are they? Because that would make them bad dirty girls, and look, that beach is so clean.
Posted by Mr. B | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:29 AM
Ok maybe it is all about arousal.
But removing any distinctions between a Titian Venus, SI Swimsuit, and Barely Legal tape by calling them all porn, and claiming the difference is the bad faith and hypocrisy of the audience misses not only aesthetic differences but important moral ones. Tho I can't think of any at the moment.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:06 AM
Why would you think that the swimsuit issue isn't about sports? Especially after the edition where they didn't even use actual swimsuits.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:11 AM
With respect to the audience, the swimsuit issue is part of the larger category porn. With respect to the models, it's different from porn in the most important respect: their job is safe and well paying (relative to porn, of course; there are safer jobs, which require less potentially destructive body maintenance, than modeling).
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:06 AM
the swimsuit issue is part of the larger category porn
Is Baywatch?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:27 AM
I dunno. Do people masturbate to it?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:30 AM
If the swimsuit issue featured David Hasselhoff, all would be forgiven.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:31 AM
Teenaged boys will masturbate to anything.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:32 AM
Yeah. "People masturbate to it" is hardly a sufficient condition to "It is pornography."
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:35 AM
hmm. maybe the dividing line should be "primary purpose is as masturbatory aide."
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:35 AM
Yeah. "People masturbate to it" is hardly a sufficient condition to "It is pornography." And why is the "frequent commenters" trap catching me? I haven't posted in hours, hours I tell ya!
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:36 AM
Interesting: apparently the "frequent commenter" trap is both catching my comment, and sending it along to the thread. Alternately: perhaps I clicked the "Post" button twice, without realizing it.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:39 AM
Context and aesthetic differences matter: think of all those gay men who read Playgirl--i.e., who like to pretend they're reading a magazine aimed at women. It's a different angle that creates a more furtive mood, or heightens your identification with a certain type of viewer, and changes/intensifies the experience.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:39 AM
And why is the "frequent commenters" trap catching me?
Compare 22 and 24, O double-clicker. (I do it myself, since sometimes when I click the first time the page doesn't reload. The trick is not to edit anything, so if you do double-post it'll be caught by the evil alien mecha-sheep filter.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:39 AM
On second thought, I stand by the implied definition in 19. Next on Skinemax, Mary Carey stars in Civilization and Its Discontents.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:43 AM
27 pwned by 25. Anyway, my theory is you clicked twice, and if the frequent commenters trap hadn't caught you before the edit the mecha-sheep filter would've.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:46 AM
They have evil-alien-mecha sheep?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 7:47 AM
13: I know. I was kind of surprised that it actually was what it was cracked up to be. That was some acting from Heath Ledger, too.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 8:02 AM
Sausagely has a point about the hottness of the women, which is the point I was going to make when I first read the post.
Also, will no one step in and defend the allure of not showing everything? I like my hardcore porn as much as the next guy, but I like dramatic tension and suspense as well.
You should all note that I have never bought the swimsuit issue.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 8:51 AM
Right, because no one has ever bought the swimsuit issue. It just arrives in the mail, and readers flip through it b/c looking at attractive women in bathing suits is preferable to not and vastly better than reading about hockey. It's just a sop to placate its subscribers during the bitter sports vacuum of February. YMMNV.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 8:56 AM
Do people really subscribe to SI anymore? It seems like its time has come and gone.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 8:58 AM
You know what I find particularly disturbing about the swimsuit issue? (I spent a year working for Time Inc., and got the magazines free.) It's printed on heavier, glossier stock than the usual magazine. That they actually change the paper stock in anticipation that it may need to be wiped clean just seems off.
(I actually can't get too bent out of shape by the idea that there are people out there who prefer the SI swimsuit issue to actual porn. Once we're unbothered by people buying pictures to be aroused by (which, you know, we mostly are), I don't care all that much about what pictures they choose. I'll still bitch about unrealistic body-image expectations, etc., but not in a different way for the swimsuit issue than for any jeans ad.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 8:59 AM
I used to subscribe, but then ESPN magazine started appearing in the mail unbidden and for no charge.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:03 AM
My eight-year-old gets SI for Kids, thanks to his grandpa. I haven't noticed whether they do a prepubescent swimsuit issue.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:07 AM
heavier, glossier stock
Non-stick coating?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:08 AM
I believe so.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:09 AM
Do people really subscribe to SI anymore? It seems like its time has come and gone.
I love the younger generation. Joe, you and Becks should get together and make babies.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:09 AM
So ... tits, huh?
Yeah, tits are cool. *sip* Tan lines?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:22 AM
There's something to be said for pretty women.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:28 AM
Nothing good.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:31 AM
Playboy is a men's lifestyle magazine - the hell it is. It's porn.
It's pretty lame porn. Playboy comes with the stigma, but without a good stigma:filth ratio. If I read it, it actually would be for the articles.
I think Smasher's wrong. I've never bought an issue of SI, period, but I know and/or am roommates with perfectly smart, nice guys who in the past have bought the swimsuit issue off the rack. It's a cultural phenomenon.
The "go to a strip club instead of Hooters" argument really mystifies me. I don't have a lot of experience with either, but the idea of a strip club creeps me out. Is there something creepy about Hooters? Sure, but unless you're taking a very hard line on this stuff, it'd be hard to argue they're anywhere near the same degree of creepiness. Guys can legitimately be comfortable with one but not the other.
And yeah, they can also rationally and reasonably not want to be seen purchasing "real" porn. There's nothing wrong with that unless you're fervent Epicurean who believes that anything less than perpetually seeking maximum self-satisfaction (regardless of social externalities) amounts to hypocrisy.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:39 AM
will no one step in and defend the allure of not showing everything?
I'll step in and defend that. Erotica is usually far hotter than porn. However, I would say that the swimsuit edition fails as erotica because it tries to walk that fine line of being "sexy" while not sexual.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:46 AM
Guys can legitimately be comfortable with one but not the other.
I think you dropped the words, "if they're Mormons" from the end of the sentence.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:50 AM
To each their own, SCMT. During college, my creepy engineer housemate's bimonthly enthusiasm for driving two hours to Richmond and shoving dollars in girls' underwear effectively vaccinated me against wanting to go to a stripclub.
Also, the ones in DC seem more depressing than the national average. Friends who've gone to, say, JP's, use the adjective "sad" more than any other to describe the experience. And I bet the nice ones are filled with Republicans.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 9:55 AM
I think none of us really "get" this. I remember seeing one of the first swimsuit issues in a bookstore years ago. Christie Brinkley, I think. It just didn't do anything for me. I sense we're all in about the same place; we're confronting a kind of nemesis of incomprehension.
Does anybody have any actual experience with someone who really, honestly digs this stuff? We can talk about the water cooler, about the thick paper, looking for clues.
I think the Hooters point is probably apt, but I don't get that one either, although I suppose at least I know where I could go to observe. But would I be any the wiser?
I haven't been a boy in a very long time. Has anybody got any real understanding of this, I mean a first-person conversation or a memory of being turned-on?
I see before I post that Tom has started to answer my question. Anybody else?
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:00 AM
No, I think I agree with you on strip clubs. They really are unbelievably depressing. It's just that Hooters is more perverse to me - it's about pretending to sell you something (sexually appealing and purportedly available women) that it won't sell you because it doesn't think it's appropriate to actually sell you that stuff.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:03 AM
Porn = when you can see up their vags.
Everything else = un-porn, non-porn, semi-porn, fake porn, bogus porn, SI, and strictly for pussies.
Posted by Adam | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:12 AM
The guys at work are into this sort of stuff, they put up a bunch of those pinup/swimsuit posters on the inside of the delivery truck.
I don't think it's just a sexual thing, I think it's a "man, that would be awesome" kind of thing. I figure it's a way of imagining some unattainable idealized lifestyle. Not unlike reading yachting magazines.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:13 AM
I think Hooters is selling precisely what it purports to sell.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:14 AM
But 50 -- there is also totally vagina-free porn.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:15 AM
Indeed presence or absence of peni is probably a fairly good metric for hardcore-ness of porn, though not a perfect one.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:18 AM
My exhaustive survey of one says that I'm right in every regard. But if others are buying the swimsuit issue off the newsstand, I think the motivation is in part to participate in a highly visible and socially acceptable masculine ritual. After all, Becks didn't post on the next issue of Barely Legal to signal her enthusiastic approval, nor did she single out Low Riderz or some other quasi-porn publications. The SI issue is an institution.
At the risk of mischaracterizing the discussion, I seem to remember an Unfogged thread in which most of the Mineshaft expressed distaste over the idea of men exchanging or talking about pr0n with one another. Perhaps purchasing the SI issue is done in the hopes of discussing it with other men, standardizing norms, objectifying women in polite company, whatever, a la 5.
On the SI end, I insist that it's done to bolster numbers in lagging news period, no different from endless top-whatever lists from November to January.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:25 AM
re: 49
I generally have no problem with porn but strip clubs ... ech.
I've never been in one, and I just don't get the whole idea of 'bonding' with other guys in one. That kind of bonding is just alien...
Ditto things like SI, for that matter, I can't imagine ever being comfortable having a conversation with a male friend flicking through the magazine and talking about who was hot and who wasn't.
Posted by M/att M/cGrattan | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:30 AM
When I was a kid, my mom occasionally bought the SI swimsuit issue for my dad. That's my only exposure to it as none of my male friends or guys I dated ever got it. My parents are pretty religious, so the SI swimsuit issue is probably as much porn as they would ever get. (The last sentence kinda creeps me out, but context is important.)
Posted by singular girl | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:41 AM
the idea of a strip club creeps me out. Is there something creepy about Hooters? Sure, but unless you're taking a very hard line on this stuff, it'd be hard to argue they're anywhere near the same degree of creepiness. Guys can legitimately be comfortable with one but not the other.
What's creepy about Hooters is that the restaurant is paying women less than minimum wage to be, essentially, walking porn. Just as in a strip club, the "drinks" are the price you pay to stare at the girls, in Hooters, the "wings" are the price you pay to stare at the girls.
I honesty think that being creeped out by the one, but not the other, is simply a measure of being forced to face the, ahem, naked truth. One is less creeped out by Hooters (although I am actually far more creeped out by Hooters) because it makes one more comfortable with what's going on (staring at women's tits) by pretending that it's not what's actually going on.
Plus, people take *children* to Hooters.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:51 AM
I've been to a Hooters just once, at Myrtle Beach on the insistence of the (mixed) group I had accompanied down there. My only real impression of the place was that the food was awfully damn expensive. So much so that I ate a rib that I'd dropped on the floor.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 10:58 AM
by pretending that it's not what's actually going on.
The name of the place is Hooters. I'm fairly certain no one is pretending that starting at tits is not what's going on.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:02 AM
"Plus, people take *children* to Hooters."
That is just fucked up.
Here in the UK we have a phenomenon where some newspapers publish pictures of semi-naked women on 'page 3'.
About 20 years ago there was a high profile campaign to have this practice banned and the feminist campaigners who were arguing that this was unacceptable were vilified as humourless harridans.
But... it WAS/IS fucked up that newspapers were/are doing this just as it's fucked up for parents to be taking kids to Hooters.
All this pretend-porn for people who want to be dishonest to themselves about their desire to consume porn is icky but it's also able to penetrate into areas of 'public' life where it really shouldn't.
Posted by M/att M/cGrattan | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:03 AM
M/ M/c, is one of them "The News Of The World"?
I ask only because of the Beatles reference.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:05 AM
Joe: Yeah
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:06 AM
I honesty think that being creeped out by the one, but not the other, is simply a measure of being forced to face the, ahem, naked truth. One is less creeped out by Hooters (although I am actually far more creeped out by Hooters) because it makes one more comfortable with what's going on (staring at women's tits) by pretending that it's not what's actually going on.
This is doubtless somewhat true. But, in this imperfect world, almost all women have to suffer the indignity of having their clothed tits stared at by men. I imagine (although am not really in a position to say) that being leered at while naked is more demeaning.
But more to the point, Hooters waitresses seem less likely to suffer drug addiction, prostitution, stalking by customers or any other number of bad things associated with strip joints. The way we compensate waitstaff in this country is wrong and stupid, but I suspect the experience of being a waitress at Hooters isn't significantly more uncomfortable or demeaning than the experience of being a waitress anywhere.
But then, I've never been inside a Hooters, so I don't really know what goes on. Looking in the window of the Chinatown one, it doesn't seem like much is different from at any generic sports bar/restaurant.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:10 AM
Also, I was to a Hooters as a young child. I was so nonfreaked out that I didn't remember that it was a Hooters. (we were there because I urgently needed water and it was closest)
Just to say, I don't get this equation between Hooters and strip clubs. There's things to dislike about each, but for different reasons. I also don't get the antipathy to SI. I wouldn't buy it for different reasons that those accounted for here. I have nothing against the purchasing of erotic, nonporn photos. SI swimsuit photos just aren't very good. Plus, there's enough free stuff on the internet. But, I do wonder that if Becks is going to be consistent if she would have to break up with any guy who bought a Maxim or Stuff or GQ or whatnot. Which is fine by me, really, since I don't buy any of those.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:13 AM
Is 61 a joke? I can't tell.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:17 AM
Why would it be a joke?
[I genuinely don't understand why it'd be a joke]
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:19 AM
Cocktail hour already, Michael?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:20 AM
I thought it might be satire.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:21 AM
Gotcha. If I were to be involved with Becks, I'd openly buy real porn and flaunt it, but sneak out and buy SI Swimsuit porn.
It's a trend, though. Maxims and that family of "Stuff" also feature discreet near-porn (less than 0.5% revealing).
I confess I skipped to the bottom after about #10.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:22 AM
Joe, is it after 7am?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:22 AM
I was to a Hooters as a young child
Michael:Hooters::young child:_______?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:23 AM
In 61 I was trying (in a slightly confused way) to get at the idea that porn -- for adults, consumed by adults, etc. -- is in a lot of ways less creepy than some of the other ways in which sex is marketed but made more respectable e.g. Hooters, SI, page 3, etc
[Too much coffee today though affecting the ability to be coherent.]
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:23 AM
Why would it be a joke?
"their desire to consume porn is icky but it's also able to penetrate into areas of 'public' life where it really shouldn't"
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:25 AM
72: 3-foot diameter lollipop
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:26 AM
If the "l" had been left out of "public", you'd have really been onto something there.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:26 AM
72: that analogy could be accurately completed with the term "pubic hair".
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:27 AM
In Portland, OR there's a 35-year-old family-owned strip club. The daughter took over from the mother. Mary's club, downtown, off Broadway SW near Burnside.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:30 AM
Complaints about Hooters that are applicable to many other restaurants: the waitstaff is paid terribly, the waitstaff is chosen for their looks, the waitstaff is oggled. Most restaurants are just a bit more subtle about it. Hooters is really tacky, but it's not very sexual. The waitresses are, perhaps, showing a little cleavage. It's really not that revealing. (They wear stockings, so you're not even seeing their legs.)
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:34 AM
I guess I just don't think that marketing sex is creepy. It's often tacky, sometimes boring, but not creepy. We like to see hott people naked or close to it. It's not surprising or creepy to admit it. And sometimes we like to hold back a bit, go for something a little more tantalizing, a little less all-out. Again, I don't find this exceptional.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:40 AM
Out of curiosity, when I get that Vanity Fair when it comes out, will that make me nondateable?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:45 AM
oggled
Oggling is what Ogged does when watching beach volleyball.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:50 AM
The current cover photo (Lindsay Lohan) is so much hotter than Annie Leibovitz's nudes.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 11:51 AM
48: Never bought an SI or seen many of the pictures, but a lot of the models were all over the media, and I remember Kathy Ireland looked cute and sweet. And stacked, but I never imagined or fantasized about screwing her.
I have porn. I also have a collection of 60s and 70s Playmates jpgs, Renoir nudes and Orientalist slave-girl stuff (Alma-Tadema, Jean Louis Gerome), nudes by Lucien Freud and F Botero; and some photos of Emmy winning Mary Louise Parker, one of my favorite actresses(clothed).
On some Freudian(Siggie) or feminist level I guess maybe I am objectifying all these woman as sexual objects, but they sure feel different. And if porn extends that far, I don't see why it doesn't extend to clothed women, and all my gazing at feminine beauty is exploitative masturbatory objectifiction. Michelangelo's Pieta as jerkoff material. If not, then neither does nakedness or near nudity always equal sex.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:03 PM
Re 83
Lindsay Lohan's freckles are teh hot
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:09 PM
I should note I guess that I don't collect art nudes, although I know of guys that do. The nudes are just in the 100, 000 art jpgs with the Vermeers and Van Goghs and Pollocks.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:10 PM
Also, the 48" photo of Labs posing in a spandex thong above my bed does not make me a bad person.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:18 PM
However, posing in a spandex thong above your bed does make Labs a bad person.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:25 PM
He gave it to me for not showing up in his classes.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:28 PM
spandex thong
Speaking of which! Ogged, from his tarpaper shack deep in the hinterlands, took a break from sending mailbombs to university science labs to send me this spandexalicious link. I'd front-page it, but (as the URL would suggest) the ads on the side are SO VERY, VERY not safe for work.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:29 PM
So I guess reduced to that scale, Labs's cock would be, what, nine inches on your poster? Or is the poster only a partial nude, but life sized? Also, can I get a digital scan?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:31 PM
So I guess the consensus is there are guys who like it as erotica, because it's as far as they're willing to go. This is what surprises me. And most of us think real pornography is at least honest. I certainly find it more stimulating. But I've always taken pains to remove traces of it from my machines. Could it be that SI is acceptable to have in the home? Who are they kidding? Is it possible SI/Hooters are marginally more tolerated by wives/girlfriends because more mainstream? That they are tolerated as erotica because they are not, in fact very erotic? Then how do they do what it is that they do?
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:32 PM
[At] many other restaurants... the waitstaff is oggled. Most restaurants are just a bit more subtle about it. Hooters is really tacky, but it's not very sexual.
This is exactly what bothers me. Going to a Hooters is like an admission that what you want to do is wrong, and then finding some half-assed way to satisfy those self-identified wrong urges anyway. If it's generally OK to go somewhere to oggle women (and I think it is), just go to the strip club. It's roughly the same reason I'm creeped out by sexual roleplay in which the woman (or, I suppose the man) dresses up as a school girl: nailing a 15 year-old is admittedly wrong, so don't try to fake it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:32 PM
Hooter's specifically, as opposed to other restaurants, gets compared to strip clubs b/c (1) it is called "Hooters," as #60 pointed out; (2) it's a national chain; (3) that goddamn owl pretends that "hooters" doesn't mean "tits"; (4) it claims to be a family restaurant.
And yes, women are used to having our tits checked out. And yes, it is gross and offensive. And using sex (by which we mean, "women") to sell things is gross and offensive too.
But I think the heart of my argument, and Becks', is that it's kinda nasty to express concern that porn is offensive, or gross, or degrading, or whatever, while maintaining the right to "good clean fun" in ways that amount to basically the same thing. Hooters and the SI swimsuit issue are among the most profitable and visible examples of the phenomenon, and it's probably their success that rankles. Whether it's checking out women's tits or hiring waitresses based on looks or founding a very successful international restaurant chain (and now airline!) based on a jocular boys-will-be-boys fantasy of busty women who just love to flirt, or whatever, it's all about this view of the universe where women are, as Twisty says, "the sex class" that's there for boys to look at, and hey, there's nothing really all that wrong with it. Which is why Becks and I say, own up to it: buy Hustler, already, suck up the reality that women who pose for porn are exploited as hell (but it's really only a question of degree) and quit with the pretense that it's just good, harmless fun.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:34 PM
SCMT, I just disagree that the urges that lead someone to go to Hooters are identical to the urges that lead someone to go to a strip club. I suppose they could be, but they don't have to be, and i'm not convinced that they are even a minority of the time.
Tia, wouldn't you like to no? And, no, sorry, but I don't have a scanner.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:36 PM
that goddamn owl pretends that "hooters" doesn't mean "tits"
I think the owl-eyes-as-nipples undercuts this argument pretty sharply.
buy Hustler
Who the hell buys pornography any more? They're giving it away for free all over the internet.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:40 PM
the urges that lead someone to go to Hooters
You mean their wings? To that I couldn't speak.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:47 PM
It's roughly the same reason I'm creeped out by sexual roleplay in which the woman (or, I suppose the man) dresses up as a school girl: nailing a 15 year-old is admittedly wrong, so don't try to fake it.
Do you also think it's wrong to fantasize about having sex with someone other than your spouse?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:47 PM
Who the hell buys pornography any more? They're giving it away for free all over the internet.
Point taken.
I realize, of course, that the logical conclusion of the kind of argument I'm making is heinous, and I don't *really* want people to say, "oh well, I checked out that woman at the mall today, so I might as well go pay a hooker $5 for a blow job, same diff." I think my point is more a rhetorical one: that the difference is *only* one of deniability, and it exists mostly for the purpose of making men not feel like jerks--rather than for the purpose of making women actually feel comfortable and equal members of society.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:50 PM
Do you also think it's wrong to fantasize about having sex with someone other than your spouse?
No. But I don't think it's particularly wrong to have sex with someone other than your spouse. Certainly not in the same way as having sex with a 15 year-old.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:52 PM
On the larger question, I don't mind the existence of porn except in that the actors and actresses are economically exploited. I actually mind the swimsuit issue, Hooters, and all the other quasi-porn mainstream products and advertisements because they're in my face so much more and it creates an ambiguous situation in which porn isn't clearly part of a fantasy ghetto, and women are portrayed as toys as often as they're not. This mainstream quasi-porn is, I'd guess, more responsible than porn itself for the cultural undercurrent that women aren't really people. Porn=fine, an entire pornographic culture=gross and degrading.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:56 PM
No. But I don't think it's particularly wrong to have sex with someone other than your spouse. Certainly not in the same way as having sex with a 15 year-old.
But there's a distinction between thought and act, right? No fifteen year olds are harmed in sex play. Why shouldn't people do it?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 12:57 PM
I think the schoolgirl-outfit thing depends on the mindset of the people involved. If you're thinking of your current self getting it on with a 15-year-old, then that's kinda icky. But if you're both role playing as a way of reliving those teenaged feelings when things were so exciting and new, that's something totally different.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:01 PM
But I think the heart of my argument, and Becks', is that it's kinda nasty to express concern that porn is offensive, or gross, or degrading, or whatever, while maintaining the right to "good clean fun" in ways that amount to basically the same thing.
That "basically" is key. Objectification is objectification is bad, sure, but unless you're willing to point to concrete ways in which it's bad, we're really just talking about hurt feelings. I think it's a mistake to pretend it's all the same.
I guess I really don't understand how one can take the position that buying the swimsuit issue is bad, but buying more exploitative porn would be fine. No offense, but it feels like a trap — "Own up to the pathology of your sex drive, you hypocritical pervert! Stop hiding behind what society irrationally deems acceptable!" It's like catching your kid with cigarettes and making him smoke the entire pack.
If X is truly acceptable and unworthy of stigma, I don't get why the same can't be said for X Lite.
(while previewing this comment, I see that Tia has provided an answer.)
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:01 PM
But there's a distinction between thought and act, right?
Yes. It's roughly the same distinction as between "creepy" and "criminal."
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:04 PM
What about when you and your partner dress up as priests? OK/Not OK?
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:05 PM
For clarity, Tom, it's not that a guy would want to look at the swimsuit issue that bothers me. It's that the swimsuit issue and images like it are in my face and everyone else's all the time that bothers me. If certain kinds of portrayals of women were more properly segregated, it wouldn't bother me that sometimes they had swimsuits on, sometimes they didn't, and sometimes they were all fucking each other with dildos.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:08 PM
What about when you and your partner dress up as priests? OK/Not OK?
As long as you don't use condoms, I think it's kosher. So to speak.
Posted by tom | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:11 PM
What do you mean by "certain kinds of portrayals of women" being "more properly segregated"? I'm not following.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:14 PM
Yes. It's roughly the same distinction as between "creepy" and "criminal."
What's creepy about having a fantasy and acting it out with your partner? People have fantasies about things that are in some way or other forbidden or "unhealthy" all the time; sex play can allow them to explore emotions related to experiencing something forbidden or unhealthy that they're interested in feeling, or that make sex more exciting. Why do you think your feeling of being creeped is of sufficient importance that you feel comfortable issuing the normative command "don't try to fake it?"
And perhaps a corollary to "don't let the fantasy ghetto creep out into the mainstream" is "don't let your mainstream into the fantasy ghetto."
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:17 PM
I'm saying I'd like to see a culture in which sexualized pictures of women were much less common, but weren't less available--they'd just be treated as the porn they were. I don't like beer ads; I don't like the Victoria's Secret television special; in my ideal world all of it would be gone from the culture, and if people wanted to look at naked women, they'd get porn.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:22 PM
"don't let your mainstream into the fantasy ghetto."
This would be better stated as, "don't let your mainstream make rules for other people's fantasy ghettos."
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:24 PM
This would be better stated as, "don't let your mainstream make rules for other people's fantasy ghettos."
But I'm not making rules. I certainly don't think we should be legislating against it. I'm just saying that my reaction to it is, "That's creepy." If I found out that consenting adults were playing "Auschwitz" I'd be much more creeped out. I still wouldn't want legislation against it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:27 PM
But I think the heart of my argument, and Becks', is that it's kinda nasty to express concern that porn is offensive, or gross, or degrading, or whatever, while maintaining the right to "good clean fun" in ways that amount to basically the same thing. Hooters and the SI swimsuit issue are among the most profitable and visible examples of the phenomenon, and it's probably their success that rankles. Whether it's checking out women's tits or hiring waitresses based on looks or founding a very successful international restaurant chain (and now airline!) based on a jocular boys-will-be-boys fantasy of busty women who just love to flirt, or whatever, it's all about this view of the universe where women are, as Twisty says, "the sex class" that's there for boys to look at, and hey, there's nothing really all that wrong with it. Which is why Becks and I say, own up to it: buy Hustler, already, suck up the reality that women who pose for porn are exploited as hell (but it's really only a question of degree) and quit with the pretense that it's just good, harmless fun.
Hmm. I have thoughts on this, but I don't know how well they're going to come out. (I'm also trying to get office work done.)
There's a supposition in this that I don't think is universally true. The supposition is: men really just want to look at the hardcore stuff, but are constrained by a society which tells them that hardcore is not acceptable, so they reluctantly keep it "legit" with SI and Hooters and whatnot.
This isn't quite right. When we're talking about turnons v. turnoffs, there's a fantasy aspect to it as well. Fantasy isn't really fueled so much by hardcore porn. There's no room for it. And unless a person is really delusional, it's not really fueled by strip clubs either, since the transactional nature of the encounters is so explicit. Everyone knows the stripper is never, ever going to have sex with them.
Fantasy is a more complex thing, even (gasp) for men. We're not just motivated by the visual. A flirtatious waiter can indeed get us going, not because we're staring at her tits, but because of the way she winked at us or teased us about our shoes. A highly-paid swimsuit model is a very different fantasy also; it's one of jet-setting glamour and prestige.
I'm not going to weigh in on the more exploitative/less exploitative issue of these various fantasies; obviously there are degrees of exploitation in all of these situations. But part of fantasy is mystery and imagination. This, I believe, is true for both sexes. Both strip clubs and hardcore porn offer the very opposite of mystery and imagination; with those, you get repetition and instant gratification. Fantasy and imagination don't even enter the ballpark.
There's a reason those letters to Penthouse are so popular.
So, in brief, directing men to just go ahead and go to a strip club already, or just buy Hustler, because deep down we don't want anything more than hott full frontal snatch when it comes to sex, is wrong. It's sort of insulting, to tell you the truth, but it's a fairly common supposition in our society, so most guys don't get too worked up about it, I imagine.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:28 PM
Nobody seems to have picked up on my question whether the fear of the disapproval of women is why SI/Hooters might be more acceptable. I think for many women the discovery of pornographic images on a computer. like evidence of participation in sex chat or going to a strip club would be an act of infidelity. Perhaps a lesser act of infidelity, but infidelity nonetheless. So I'm still interested in what people think of that.
Or is it that SI/H is acceptable and the hard stuff is not because of a distinction that has been internalized, that is, the guy is telling himself that?
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:29 PM
You said, "don't fake it," which sounded like a rule to me, and announcing your creeped-out-ness in a public forum amounts to trying to reinscribe a normative prohibition against other people's sex play (as opposed to actual sex with 15 year olds, which there should be a prohibition against).
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:29 PM
So, in brief, directing men to just go ahead and go to a strip club already, or just buy Hustler, because deep down we don't want anything more than hott full frontal snatch when it comes to sex, is wrong. It's sort of insulting, to tell you the truth, but it's a fairly common supposition in our society, so most guys don't get too worked up about it, I imagine.
I'm not sure to what extent your comment was directed at me, Joe, but if it was, I'll clarify that I can certainly imagine that men would want to look at pictures of skinny women in lingerie wearing angel wings, and I don't begrudge them this any more than I begrudge them split beaver shots, I would just prefer these images, once again, not to be so mainstream.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:33 PM
94 and 111 both express what I was getting at better than I expressed it.
I'm strongly against most censorship -- with obvious exceptions for material involving individuals who either haven't consented or can't consent -- but there IS a problem with the dishonest 'pornification' of the mainstream.
That doesn't mean I want SI Swimsuit type material banned.
Posted by Matt McGrattam | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:34 PM
116 to 113.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:36 PM
As another "where are you drawing the line" question, how did you feel about the "Athens Dream" issue of Black + White magazine with nude photos of olympic athletes.
It got some coverage locally because of Lauren Jackson's decision to participate (which was just one element in a variety of conversations about how much the WNBA should/shouldn't try to use sex appeal to promote the league)
"Well, just ask Storm guard Sue Bird if she'd do it and you might better understand American culture.
"Personally, after all the flak I got for the Dime (magazine) shoot, and I was fully clothed, I'd have to seriously think about it," Bird said of her approximate six-hour photo session last summer. She was vilified by media for posing seductively in a Philadelphia 76ers jersey and stating "sex sells" when it comes to women's basketball.
...
"I really did it with the Australians in mind," Jackson said. "It's a prestigious thing in Australia. Believe it or not, but my mom and dad (Maree and Gary) loved it. My dad saw it the other day, called me and said he was so proud of me."
Jackson's teammates share the sentiment. Bird loved Jackson's hair, and fellow Australian Tully Bevilaqua adored the cover shot."
There was another very supportive article in one of the seattle papers by a female writer saying, among other things, that she intended to buy a copy of the magazine in support -- but I can't find it at the moment
Posted by NickS | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:37 PM
Yeah, I take no issue with that at all, Tia. Mine was just a more general observation that just because X floats your boat more than Y, that doesn't necessarily mean you're a repressed fraidy-cat.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:41 PM
Lauren Jackson looks far too much like Anne Coulter.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:43 PM
122 is very NSFW, folks.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:45 PM
122: NSFW
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:46 PM
It occurs to me that if I found my son had looked at pornographic images online, I'd be far less upset and feel he'd have far less reason to be embarassed than I would if he found that I'd been looking at such images. I'd probably give him some advice about discretion. So it's a fidelity issue and a "developmentally appropriate" issue.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:48 PM
Porn=fine, an entire pornographic culture=gross and degrading. Exactly.
Of course, then we get into the issue of whether the existence of porn is, in fact, a result (or cause) of the pornographic culture; that is, if the culture weren't pornographic, whether porn itself would cease to exist. I'm currently in a mindset where I think it very well might.
In response to Joe's point: I'm not saying "what everyone wants is a split beaver shot." In a sense, I'm not talking about *individual* wants or desires at all. But in response to the idea that a lot of men *prefer* more softcore, fantasy stuff, or whatever, two things. First, I'm sure that's true, but it in no way proves that this desire isn't a form of sublimation, of wanting to get off *and* be a nice guy at the same time. These desires don't have to be conscious to exist. Second, if it's all about fantasy, then the pictures aren't necessary, yes?
Second thought, back to Tia's point quoted above, and still musing on the porn culture thing: if we really had a healthy non-pornographic culture (as opposed to some kind of ridiculous Victorian repression situation where sexual women are dirty whores and therefore have no rights), do you think that women (and one hopes men) who did pose for porn would be paid much, much better than they are--given that the commodity they'd be providing would be desireable and not replacable by ads for watches or underwear?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:51 PM
Second, if it's all about fantasy, then the pictures aren't necessary, yes?
Absolutely true. Millions of men get off in chatrooms across the world. Also: phone sex lines. Also: pornographic stories.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:54 PM
#115: I don't think it matters if it's because women disapprove of "bad" porn (as opposed to, say, Hooter's) or because men disapprove of it; I think the point is that the culture is hypocritcal in ways that are damaging to women as a class. Both men and women internalize this hypocrisy.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:54 PM
122: Perhaps, but isn't "league MVP" hott?
Actually "hott" is the wrong word. I think that "league MVP" is compelling on a level that is partially non-sexual and partially sexual based on the "competence is sexy" standard.
Posted by NickS | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:56 PM
#127: I don't think I have any problem with chat rooms or pornographic stories per se; the former are mutually entertaining, the latter fiction. I'm sure there are *content* issues I might object to, but hey. Phone sex lines, like with strip clubs, I have no problem with as work, but I worry about the issues of pay, benefits, etc. etc.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:57 PM
Second thought, back to Tia's point quoted above, and still musing on the porn culture thing: if we really had a healthy non-pornographic culture (as opposed to some kind of ridiculous Victorian repression situation where sexual women are dirty whores and therefore have no rights), do you think that women (and one hopes men) who did pose for porn would be paid much, much better than they are--given that the commodity they'd be providing would be desireable and not replacable by ads for watches or underwear?
Possibly. This would be a fantastic society, though; count me in. I envision the French being closer to this sort of thing than we are, but I may be wrong.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 1:57 PM
#128
It matters to me because I want to understand the dynamics of the situation, and because I'm curious, and want to place myself in this field. I'd be happy to agree with you about "both men and women internalize this hypocrisy," but I'm not quite so sure as you are that I really understand this.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 2:07 PM
## 127 & 130
I agree that chatrooms are voluntary and non-exploitive; I stand by my contention many would find their partner's participation in them to be infidelity.
I agree about stories, though. I've already admitted queasiness about having images discovered, yet both my wife and I had written porn, which we've felt no need to get rid of.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 2:13 PM
I mean "had" in the sense of "possessed written porn"
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 2:15 PM
What's infidelity is pretty much defined by the relationship. I really don't identify with the notion of porn consumption constituting infidelity, but if my partner were sex chatting with another woman, that would be my idea of cheating.
I suppose calling up a pay phone sex line would be an interesting borderline case.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 2:17 PM
Ah. Infidelity is a different issue than sexism (towards women as a class). So yes, I can see that a guy would go to Hooter's instead of a strip club b/c his wife, operating within an acceptance of a culture that is broadly pornographic, sees men "appreciating" women's bodies as normal, and hence "not cheating," but nudity and/or actual arousal/orgasm in the presence of a live person as crossing a line, say. That would be the infidelity angle. On the sexism angle, I think it is broadly true that a lot of women, again, accepting porn culture as a given, are less bothered by their men buying, say, the SI swimsuit issue than they are by their men buying Penthouse. I would say that the reason the one is "okay" and the other not is because they've accepted porn culture--again, it's "normal" and unavoidable for men to ogle women for sexual titillation, so we'll tolerate it as long as it's in "good taste" or whatever.
Now, in the context of the "sexism" argument, Becks and I and Tia, I think, are all saying basically that it's the porn culture that *really* bothers us, and that therefore, in a way, Penthouse is *less* problematic than SI. The problem I'm having with my own argument here is whether it's hinging on a desire to not be *personally* affected by porn culture, but not minding if other women--the ones who model for porn--are. Also whether I'm on some level buying into the idea that men "need" porn. In a hypothetical society where porn, defined as material produced for the purposes of sexual titillation / masturbation, were unstigmatized and yet the culture as a whole had somehow moved beyond viewing all women as "the sex class," so that except in the context of actual porn, we were left alone to live out our lives without worrying about being objectified, I'd be cool with that. But I'm not sure it actually would be possible.
On the other hand, I *do* think that things like, say, phone sex or internet chat rooms would surely exist, because both men and women like sex and find flirting really fun, and those venues let us enjoy those things without the risks involved in doing it in person. I agree that a lot of women (and men) would view that kind of thing as cheating, b/c it does, in fact, involve an actual real person as opposed to a photograph. But in terms of exploitation, I think it's pretty neutral and should be guilt-free.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 2:24 PM
in a way, Penthouse is *less* problematic than SI
Would that make images of women being hog-tied and shat upon less problematic than Penthouse?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 2:43 PM
#136
This will do, it satisfies me about what you all think, although I'm still curious whether anybody actually gets off on it. I hate the porn culture too, and I like real porn and erotica, and feel I've learned from them, mostly about myself. I don't know how old the porn culture is, but I agree it's very pervasive now, mostly due to television. But if you've ever seen old Life magazines for sale in a bookshop, you know that highly pornified images have been mainstream for at least sixty years. There's a late Orwell essay where he looks at an American fashion magazine, and is repulsed.
A couple of weeks ago I saw an interesting exhibit at Northwestern about medical textbooks and instructional models in the Renaissance, and how gender affected the presentation. And boy, it was all there, male gaze, everything. It was explained how the development of the diagrams clearly shows the influence of well-known contemporary pornographic images. There was a life size take-apart plaster model that was obscene, not because of what it showed but the way it showed it. A supine female form, eyelids half closed, the whole bit.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 2:52 PM
I'm not sure how you're responding to B, apo, since her point was not really about extremity of what was being depicted but about the location of what was being depicted, but I'll take a shot at at least beginning to respond to you, but it might take a while.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 2:57 PM
was #139 for #137?
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:00 PM
Yeah John, "apo" is short for "apostropher."
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:02 PM
about the location of what was being depicted
Ah, okay.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:05 PM
You said, "don't fake it," which sounded like a rule to me, and announcing your creeped-out-ness in a public forum amounts to trying to reinscribe a normative prohibition against other people's sex play (as opposed to actual sex with 15 year olds, which there should be a prohibition against).
Hmm. I'm not sure what to do with "public forum," but I think you're reading too much into it. Insofar as any opinion ("Fruit salad is gross") and an attendent justification ("the fruit is soggy and the syrup looks like a placenta") functions as an implicit attempt to inscribe a norm, I guess that's true. But I think I would limit "reinscribing a norm" to active campaigns, rather than Internet chatter.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:06 PM
SCMTim, there's a difference between saying that you don't like fruit salad, and saying that the the act of fruit salad eating is icky. "Fruit salad is gross" means roughly "I don't like fruit salad." Your comment clearly conveyed to me the opinion that other people should not "eat fruit salad," IYKWIM, and I think if you introspected back to when you were writing it you'd acknowledge that in fact was what you meant to say, especially since you further wrote, "don't fake it."
And I would definitely not limit "reinscribing a norm" to active campaigns, rather than internet chatter. You're doing cultural work even if you're not out there with a sign and pamphlets. If I said in these comments, "Men who make less than their wives are pussy-whipped," would you think that wasn't reinscribing a norm?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:16 PM
Apo, I'd say that there's a qualitative difference between hog tying and scat and nekked women simply as nekkid women. I'll go along with the idea that straight men are "naturally" interested in naked women (though I'm quite willing to argue that there's a difference between that interest and interest in porn, but that's a different argument) (and I also think that straight women are naturally interested in naked men, gay men in naked men, lesbians in naked women, etc.), but I don't think that straight men are naturally interested in crapping on women and tying them up. I'm pretty willing to say that, although my position w/r/t fetishes is "as long as it's consensual," that fetishes about domination, dirt, degredation, etc. are pretty certain to be social constructs of--wait for it---the porn culture.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:18 PM
I blame the porn culture.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:20 PM
I can't believe I'm going to defend Tim, but I do think that there's gotta be a certain leeway for what Michael Berube calls "fun but arbitrary value judgments" among friends.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:24 PM
Btw, is it okay to start hating / resenting Michael yet? B/c he keeps saying all the good stuff, and not even leaving one the face-saving out of "yeah, I could have written that," because the bastard *will* insist on saying things better than I could do, even though immediately after reading him I inevitably think, "yes, that's just exactly how it should be put."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:26 PM
I know I should read the rest of the comments first, but 94 was so provocative...
(3) that goddamn owl pretends that "hooters" doesn't mean "tits"
But in a joking way, i.e. no one believes it. If no one's fooled, then no one's really pretending.
And using sex (by which we mean, "women") to sell things
Well, mainly women, but to be fair, underwear, beer, liquor and clothing ads use sexualized men as well. To certain extent, even ads as conservative as watch ads often image a powerful man, which is sexual in itw own way.
I think the heart of my argument, and Becks', is that it's kinda nasty to express concern that porn is offensive, or gross, or degrading, or whatever, while maintaining the right to "good clean fun" in ways that amount to basically the same thing.
But I'm not certain that the audiences of SI Swimsuit and Hooters are the same people arguing that porn is offensive. In fact, I'm doubtful of it.
t's probably their success that rankles.
Porn is, I have been led to believe, fairly successful.
a jocular boys-will-be-boys fantasy of busty women who just love to flirt, or whatever, it's all about this view of the universe where women are, as Twisty says, "the sex class" that's there for boys to look at, and hey, there's nothing really all that wrong with it.
Currently, I'm thinking that this is much more harmful to boys than women. I don't think women are harmed by being Hooters waitresses. I do think guys are harmed by being led to believe that Hooters is fun, and for believing that women are there to be exploited. Now, this of course can come back around to a woman being mistreated by the guys around her, and that's too be considered, but it is an indirect harm.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:26 PM
145: That makes sense. Tangentially, last year I saw a Penthouse for the first time in probably 15 years ('cause, y'know, procuring non-digital porn takes so much more effort), and was a little surprised at all the urination pictures. I figure this must be a (relatively) recent development, because I sure don't remember it from the long ago.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:26 PM
#146
Got it in one. There're saying, and I'm agreeing, that the porn culture and the patriarchy are aspects of the same thing. And the interesting thing is that SI/H offend and bother me, while usually I think I'm oblivious to much of the patriarchy.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:27 PM
Your comment clearly conveyed to me the opinion that other people should not "eat fruit salad," IYKWIM, and I think if you introspected back to when you were writing it you'd acknowledge that in fact was what you meant to say, especially since you further wrote, "don't fake it."
No, I think that's right. But I also don't think other people should eat or enjoy fruit salad. Honestly. It might be clearer if I said that I think all cars should be stick. I really don't think people should buy cars with automatic transmissions. The difference I see between my comment and reinscription would be the different levels of import I place on others having norms similar to my own. Some things bother me a lot; some things less so.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:27 PM
152 I dropped the rest:
"Men who make less than their wives are pussy-whipped," would you think that wasn't reinscribing a norm?
Depends how important it seemed to me that you thought it was that I agreed with you. It might, OTOH, be important to me to try and inscribe a counter norm.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:30 PM
I also don't think other people should eat or enjoy fruit salad. Honestly.
On those times when I inflict a debilitating hangover on myself (as opposed to the merely unpleasant ones), the only food I can bring myself to eat once I finally get out of bed is fruit salad.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:32 PM
Off course everybody should drive stick. I hope we're not going to have to pretend that's just a matter of opinion.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:32 PM
145: Here I slightly differ. Domination and degradation fantasies have social origin, sure, but that origin is broader than the porn culture, at least for many. Their first origin is in an individual's experience of pain and fear, and his or her interest in reexperiencing it or reinterpreting it. This can either take a variety of avenues, some of which are fucked, some of which are okay. Among the fucked is nonconsensual sexual violence. Among the okay is recreating a consensual dominance dynamic in a relationship, say, in which one person is playing teenager. The problem with an image is that it doesn't convey whether something is consensual or not; it often can't communicate the subjective experience of the person in the picture.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:34 PM
Off course everybody should drive stick.
I will grant exceptions to those who have lost their right arm.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:34 PM
Reading through the thread, there's a real assumption that guys find being at Hooters to be actually arousing. I'm really skeptical that this is true.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:42 PM
I get aroused any time I'm within 10 feet of barbecued ribs.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:44 PM
guys find being at Hooters to be actually arousing.
Well, it makes money selling dull food at exorbitant prices because they have scantily clad waitresses. While I have no idea whether men find being at Hooters arousing, the ones who choose to go there are going for some reason related to sex.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:48 PM
Ok, just read 148. Now I feel bad for picking on you.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:48 PM
Michael, I think the argument isn't that the exact same people are defending Hooter's as are saying that porn is offensive; it's that as a culture we allow the one to be public and non-stigmatized while the other is "supposed" to be hidden, private, and stigmatized.
And of course the women working at Hooter's are harmed: they're paid crap for a difficult job, and they have to put up with bullshit that has nothing to do with their job (serving food) b/c they're working in a culture where maintaining the male fantasy of female flirtiness is expected. I totally agree with you that this male fantasy is deeply harmful to men, of course, but I don't see how you can say that it isn't harmful to women. Hell, even just having total strangers demand that you "smile" as you walk down the street is a fucking pain in the ass.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:49 PM
Okay, Tim, if you really don't think other people shouldn't eat fruit salad, you have escaped internal inconsistency, at least.
But I actually think sex is qualitatively different from fruit salad, in that there are huge cultural pressures instructing us, often in contradictory fashion, about what we should do in bed. Okay, try this one on for size: "Butt sex is so icky. No one should do it." Do you think that could do some cultural work in a blog thread, irrespective of how it was intended by the person who said it? (Obviously I'm picking that act because it's performed by a large percentage of a group of people we heart, gay men.) Perhaps if you'd been on the other side of having your consensual sex practices consistently referred to as icky, you'd appreciate what's wrong with saying it.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:49 PM
163 me, obviously
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:51 PM
LB: Well, in the South, it's hard to get nondull food, except in certain rare areas. Anyway, I'm not denying that guys find an entertainment value in going to Hooters, I just don't think it qualifies as arousal. But, I should probably not take a strong position here, because I'm just imagining and projecting from a few friends of mine in college who used to go to Hooters every Wed night, so there's a good chance that I'm quite wrong about most other people.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:52 PM
#156
I grant that is a problem, and one which neither chat nor fiction poses. In general, I think it ought to look consensual (this is my moral calculus here, not some kind of rulemaking) and also, um, plausible.
When I looked at a lot of images, the term "amateur" meant something to me. I realize how easily exploited that is, and how am I supposed to know? But it may have salved my conscience about exploitation. If you put delimiters about age (older) weight (heavier) endowments (less) etc., you get very plausible images, that more or less have to be amateur, unless the world is a stranger place than I can imagine.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:52 PM
#161: In #148, I meant Michael Berube, I'm sorry to say.
#158: No, I actually don't think guys get erections at Hooter's, usually. Which I think is part of why it's "okay" and strip clubs aren't. There's a good article somewhere called "how to be as horny as a man," I forget where the hell it is or who wrote it, but it points out the ways that the culture keeps men in a perpetual state of sexual *awareness*, which is distinct from arousal. Hooter's is definitely about men's awareness of the waitresses as sex objects (and the waitresses' awareness of same), even if it isn't about actually helping them masturbate.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:54 PM
I actually think sex is qualitatively different from fruit salad
You should include this sentence in your About page. The difference is mostly due to the pineapple, of course.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:58 PM
And of course the women working at Hooter's are harmed: they're paid crap for a difficult job, and they have to put up with bullshit that has nothing to do with their job (serving food) b/c they're working in a culture where maintaining the male fantasy of female flirtiness is expected.
But all serving jobs are crap, aren't they? I've heard untold horror stories by waiters at *nice* restaurants. And do the women at Hooters make less than the waitstaff at comparable restaurants? I don't know, but I would be surprised if they did. Anyway, I do see your point about the fantasy of femle flirtiness (not that some women aren't or can't choose to be flirty).
And I would suspect that the people who strongly object to pr0n also object to SI Swimsuit and Hooters. It would seem that a de facto compromise has been struck between the pr0n-wanting and the pr0n-hating.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 3:59 PM
167. I take it all back. you're going down!
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:00 PM
Serving jobs are crap, sure, but at different restaurants it isn't *necessarily* expected that the waitress persona = flirty gal. You can just be efficient, or punky, or whatever. Sure, different service-type places are gonna impose different service-type expectations on their employees, but Hooter's is particularly gross b/c it's particularly successful and using a particularly offensive stereotype.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:01 PM
I blame girls for the porn culture.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:03 PM
Riding Sun's caption contest this week is on topic for this thread.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:09 PM
About the difference between "awareness" and "arousal",
W.G. Sebald, in the first section of Vertigo, says of Stendhal that when he first put on his Dragoon's uniform, he walked around with an erection for weeks. This puts me in mind of the drug ad: "Erections lasting more than four hours, though rare, are..." I guess I preferred to read that as "awareness" but neither of those writers is exactly imprecise, as a rule.
Posted by John Tingley | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:10 PM
166: Well, there are two separate problems, what's going on for the people creating the image and what's going on for the people viewing it, and there are pitfalls with each.
On the creator side, I don't think it matters whether the picture is "amateur" or not. Someone could be doing it for money and getting well-compensated and well-treated, and that would be okay. Someone could not be doing it for money, but because their manipulative S.O. is bullying them into it. You don't really know the provenance of porn images.
On the audience side, whether or not there's a problem depends on what's going on in the viewer's head. If it's a guy thinking about his girlfriend, "Fuck that bitch. I'm going to shit all over her. I'd fucking cut her if it weren't illegal," he should be in some serious therapy. However, if a different guy is masturbating to the same picture and having a fantasy about causing his girlfriend pain, or feeling powerful and in control, but he has the self awareness and fundamental love for his girlfriend to only be interested in what she would also be interested in, then that's fine.
The problem is that the picture looks the same in all cases. If you're creating a picture that is supposed to look like someone's in pain, their face should probably reflect it. You could run a caption, I suppose, or write a story. But all in all it's a difficult question, and one I'm not sure what to do with.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:16 PM
And I'm not sure what do make of all this no-mainstream-porn idealism. It's been said porn = material for titilation/arousal. If you put more clothes on the men and women we see in our magazines and on TV, then people's triggers will simply change, right? The emphasis will simply shift to wrists and eyebrows, ankles and hair. And it's not as if boobs or muscular structure is at all obscurable.
But, I'm curious, how much does this stuff harm you in your daily life? How would you expect life to get better if this stuff wasn't there? You think sexism would cease to exist. What, like how it didn't exist before the mainstream "porn culture" came into existence? (When was that, anyway? The 80s?)
We like to look at attractive people. Straight guys will oggle* Ian Thorpe a bit, and straight girls will oggle other girls a bit. How is it that I, who usually feels like I'm one of the most prudish commenters here, suddenly feels like the libertine?
*activity named after the Great Founder
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:17 PM
As far as I can tell, going to Hooters (and the UK equivalent, I suppose loudly telling everyone in the workplace that you want to go to the pub where the barmaid has big tits) is part of a complicated social ritual aimed at conveying the message "Ayup, lads, I'm one hell of a cunt! Any other crass, pointless cunts around here? Let's form a big fucking cunt club and go out to lunch together and talk about sport! We're cunts! Hurray!".
It's more about being a hell of a cunt and doing something to annoy women for the sake of it, than any sort of pleasure they really appear to get out of the actual activity.
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:19 PM
Dsquared wins!
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:23 PM
Michael, I honestly think that the "porn culture" thing isn't just an invention of the 80s--as you point out, in the absence of pornographic images, porn culture will just focus on ankles, wrists, hair, whatever. The point is that we can define porn culture as "culture in which women = the sex class." In other words, it isn't that porn culture creates sexism (though it obviously reinforces it), it's that sexism creates porn culture.
As evidence for my argument, I'll put forth that women, as a class, are said to be "less visually aroused" than men are by porn images. Now, I've argued against this in the past, inasmuch as it's said as if it were some innate natural difference: women are surely just as capable of getting turned on by porn as guys are, of checking out men, etc. etc. But on the other hand, the extent to which women *don't* consume porn nearly as much as men do may well be evidence that the porn culture isn't directed at/for us--it's for you. A picture of a man doesn't automatically connote "sex" in the way that a picture of a woman does--as you pointed out upthread, it may connote power, affluence, status, etc, and therefore be indirectly about sexual prowess, but that's an entirely different thing. As a culture, we've been trained that women are the sex objects. Hence, both men and straight women get turned on by looking at pictures of naked women; possibly one reason straight women are less overt about it is that for us this isn't reinforcing a "natural" reaction, whereas for men, this natural reaction is reinforced to the point of caricature.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:29 PM
If you put more clothes on the men and women we see in our magazines and on TV, then people's triggers will simply change, right? The emphasis will simply shift to wrists and eyebrows, ankles and hair. And it's not as if boobs or muscular structure is at all obscurable.
Yeah, but it's not so much the fact that people are aroused by pretty people that's annoying, it's the degree to which women are expected to (paid to) exert themselves to be particularly arousing; that being a waitress in a skimpy outfit is a job category. It's not the arousal that's the issue, it's the humiliating outfit.
Or, what dsquared said:
doing something to annoy women for the sake of it
more than because there's any particular pleasure in it.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:30 PM
Gay men, arguably, consume gay porn b/c they're men--i.e., in the porn culture, they're constructed as consumers of porn. So "natural" orientation is a lot less important than socialization.
If my argument's correct.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:31 PM
Heh @ 177
A more eloquent way of putting what I was getting at in 56
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:32 PM
Tia:
I would be OK with "Butt sex is so icky. No one should do it." precisely because it's performed by a large percentage of a group of people we heart, gay men. (To be fair, I'd be more comfortable with someone saying, "Butt sex is so icky; don't do it.") I think Unfogged has previously considered similar issues in the prior discussions on
gayand Farber's complaints about (IIRC) gayness being attributed to celebrities or something.Similarly, I don't think most people who comment here are likely to agree with me. (Cf. I can't believe I'm going to defend Tim.) Moreover, I don't have deep experiences with going to strip clubs, but I went to my share in my distant youth. IIRC, the stripper in a schoolgirl outfit is pretty standard fare. So my suspicion is that, even as against the general population, mine is the minority response, not yours.
Interestingly, to those who doubt that Unfogged is simply a variation on Unfogged, I brought up the schoolgirl thing before in this related post. As I said there, I'm iffy on this. Matt F agrees with you.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:40 PM
Wow. Umm, sorry but the patriarchy-sexualized porn culture is the air that we breathe. Hooters and SI are just the smallest part of it.
Skirts vs trousers designating easier access and availablity for instance. Not that either are a signal in themselves; but the difference is a signal.
I did notice last night that the men's and women's curling teams wore identical outfits.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:45 PM
(When was that, anyway? The 80s?)
John Tingley sez:
But if you've ever seen old Life magazines for sale in a bookshop, you know that highly pornified images have been mainstream for at least sixty years. There's a late Orwell essay where he looks at an American fashion magazine, and is repulsed.
But, I'm curious, how much does this stuff harm you in your daily life? How would you expect life to get better if this stuff wasn't there?
I often feel bombarded with reminders of my sexuality in a way that I imagine I wouldn't if women in their underwear weren't all around me. I can *learn* to filter, just like I can learn to be insensible to much of what goes on around me on the street in New York, but it takes a fair amount of energy. I am constantly reminded that my weight, breast size, and quantity of hair are non-ideal, and somehow at one point I got the idea that these were, like, the most important metrics of my value as a person. Except for "got the idea" is the wrong word, because I would know, intellectually, that it was bullshit, but I'd be obsessed about it anyway. I've learned to give less of a shit about this, mostly because my boyfriends have told me I was hot (not because I learned to care less about being attractive), but that has really been a struggle, and when I was a teenager I used to literally cry about it, starve myself, etc. That mostly came from the media. Some percentage of men are taught to disprespect me, and think they can just pull their car up beside me on the street and ask me to blow them. Or they think they can moo at a fat woman. The media won't make someone behave that way who's exposed to strong enough countervailing influences, but the media is still presenting women as objects enough of the time that it reinforces the idea that you can treat women however you want. So yeah, I think life would get better if women were treated more frequently as people, and less frequently as things.
I have no objection to attractive people being presented in the media. But think about the way men who are supposed to be attractive to women are portrayed. Consider George Clooney. I would like attractive women to be treated like that. Charismatic, sexy, usually fully clothed, maybe occasionally not-so-fully, mostly filmed or photographed from the neck up, regarded as intelligent, in charge of his own sexuality...we do it for men; it can't be impossible to do it for women.
(And to the extent that we don't do it for men, it's mostly been in response to the gay male pornified gaze.)
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:52 PM
Well, First, Hooters outfits are hardly skimpy. Second, if there was a more equal sexification society, the result would probably be more sexy guy-waiters restaurants, not less sexy waitresses.
third, Hooters couldn't be as large as it is if they couldn't get workers. From that perspective, your problem isn't exactly Hooters, but the factors that lead women to take those jobs. Many of those will be, of course, economic. I think, contra to B, that Hooters waitresses probably make good money compared to their counterparts.
And if the problem is women as the sex class, perhaps the single biggest problem is women wanting to be the sex class. But this isn't actually a female problem: most people like attention; women get attention for being sexy. Both men's and women's mags feature models in scanty or sexy clothing - women do an awful lot to help other women becomg objects of attention, and, when they compete, in upping the ante. The culture of hyper-sluttiness a few years back probably wouldn't have happened if not for the arms race between Britney and Christina.
One of the aspects of this is that women are constantly working at and perfecting ways of exploiting men. Yes, girls don the outfit, which some women find humiliating. Guys dole out their wages for a quick thrill that doesn't last..certainly they feel a bit empty when they get home, and are constantly being tempted and aroused - desires which they can't satisfy. Guys can dole out all the attention they can, often clumsily, but will probably just end up the day with the regular cry, cry, masturbate, cry.
So, the way I see it, it's a mutually exploitive situation created by large numbers of members of both sexes. Trouble is, I'm a bit too misanthropic to have sympathy for anyone.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:54 PM
First, Hooters outfits are hardly skimpy.
This is just silly. You want we should say they're 'highly sexualized' rather than 'skimpy'? Whatever.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:57 PM
Well, First, Hooters outfits are hardly skimpy.
Michael, I have been to a Hooters, and our waitress had huge breasts with some kind of push up bra that made the entire upper half of her chest a huge shelf of jiggling flesh. From her nipples down were covered, and that was it. Even I had a hard time not staring.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 4:58 PM
And to the rest of your comment: What does the fact that lots of women cooperate in a culture that inappropriately sexualizes all women have to do with anything? Or that the definition of women as the 'sex class' has ill effects for men too?
It has unpleasant effects, as Tia and B. describe. I, and those who agree with me, wish there was less of it. I don't quite get the point you're making.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:01 PM
Ok, got my google to work and checked out a Hooters outfit (as I meant to do before I posted.) The picture was a bit skimpier than I remember last time I was in one, about 4 years ago. In person, I remember the leggings they wore to be very obvious and unattractive. I also suspect that the girls in the photos are wearing tighter more-cleavage showing shirts than the ones I saw in the Hooters in BR, but they may be the norm elsewhere.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:01 PM
189. Because there's been a lot of talk of men exploiting women in this thread, but no acknowledgement that the origin of that behavior rests anywhere but with men. I'm sure you're sofisticated enough and all to know it, but I wanted to say it, because, well, no one else did.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:04 PM
yeah, yeah, sophisticated
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:05 PM
B. did acknowledge it in 162: I totally agree with you that this male fantasy is deeply harmful to men, of course, but I don't see how you can say that it isn't harmful to women.
Rather explicitly.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:07 PM
I'm rereading that, but I don't see how it says that "women are also responsible for the culture of the exploitation of women." So, no, I don't think she did.
Since you're asking me to toot my own horn, here it is: I'm the only one getting at the complexity of this exploitation. Except for me, it's solely been "men are exploiting women." I'm pointing out that a) that's true, but b) women are exploiting men, men are exploiting men, and women are exploiting women, too. I think that's a good point.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:10 PM
The origin of women's exploiting their position as sex class for power/attention/status isn't women. Any subordinate class will learn to use whatever methods are avaialble to it to get those things; it's very silly to say that the fact that they do so means they somehow created the problem.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:10 PM
the problem, insofar as it is one, is recreated every day, B. That's important. Original creation, not so much.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:12 PM
Well yes, of course. I don't think anyone is denying that; in fact I think it goes without saying. Like LB said, I don't really see what your point is, if it isn't "original creation." Is it that you're feeling like somehow what we're saying in this thread is "men are oppressive assholes, and this means you"? B/c I don't think that's at all the case.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:14 PM
194: You're right, I misread you -- I was thinking of her acknowledgment that the oversexualization of women hurts men too. But really, you seem way off base: a woman working as a waitress in a humiliating outfit is exploiting the men she serves? I don't follow the argument.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:15 PM
In fact, I want to point out that the truism that both men and women perpetuate the porn culture is implicit in my use of the word "culture."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:15 PM
LB, of course to some extent she is: she's using the tool she has available (e.g., tits) to get larger tips. But yeah, I agree that it's a bit much to imply that she's *equally* complicit in that situation--the power dynamic there is obviously deeply unequal. The guy doesn't *have* to shell out, but she does have to kiss up to him whether or not he does.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:18 PM
LB: Well Imagine a scenario where a bunch of lonely manual laborers lay down significant proportioins of their days' wages in order for pretend attention and pretend caring. That's exploiting them, right?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:18 PM
The guy doesn't *have* to shell out
The girl doesn't *have* to work there.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:19 PM
Look, I really just think the level of exploitation on both sides is fairly minimal.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:20 PM
True. But no matter where she works, she's gonna get judged according to her appearance. It's not like you can just opt out of the world you live in.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:20 PM
I guess. It still seems to me inarguable that by the standards of our society, the position she is in is not a desirable one: her job is perceived as unpleasant and humiliating.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:21 PM
204: Studies show guys are similarly affected by their appearance, whether they're broken down on the road or applying for a job. I worked at a mall clothing store in HS, and our hiring discriminated against the looks of men and women; same with my ex's restaurant. Now, I'm sure it happens more to women, but it's not exactly insignificant as regard men.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:23 PM
What about Tia's 185? Do we really have to all tell our stories of what it's like to live under the constant bombardment of messages that we're supposed to be good looking, to be nice, to be agreeable? How often do strangers demand that men "smile"? Why do you think my nom de plume is "bitch"? Why do you think women spend so much damn money on makeup, cosmetic surgery, hair care, dry cleaning, clothing, manicures, perfume, etc. etc. etc.?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:24 PM
Because we're trying to exploit men?
What strikes me as a serious data point here is that the people who see that part of our culture that treats women as a sex class as a problem, are generally women or men who have been persuaded by women. You're saying (roughly) 'It's a problem for men too, so it's fair: nothing needs to be changed.' We're saying, 'Please make it stop.' Doesn't that give some indication of whose ox is being gored?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:27 PM
How often do strangers demand that men "smile"?
This has come up before, and I was amazed then, too. This is common? I'm not disputing that it is, just that it seems completely bizarre, like walking up to someone and demanding that they whistle.
Why do you think women spend so much damn money on [...] etc.?
Do you really want an answer to this?
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:31 PM
I'm with Apostropher. I can't imagine telling someone to smile. I don't think I've ever seen it. Bizarre.
I'm curious, is it normally something that happens when the guy is by himself?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:33 PM
This has come up before, and I was amazed then, too. This is common? I'm not disputing that it is, just that it seems completely bizarre, like walking up to someone and demanding that they whistle.
This is incredibly common. Maybe once a week for me. Hey, eb, if you're reading this thread, another reason to hate Mr. German pronunciation of a dance form is that he once told me to smile. I glared at him.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:34 PM
IME, yes. The classic 'Smile!' guy is an older man being avuncular.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:34 PM
back to my point:
a) It's not exactly the "porn culture" which is the problem, but the desire for attention and what we give our attention to. The fact that we've gotten to porn-riffic, and pedo-riffic, levels is the result of something of an arms race for attention.
b) the point of the above is that I like analysis, and endlessly hopeful that it will magically turn out useful.
c) I don't feel symapthy for hooter's waitresses or their customers
d) because I am a misathrope
But I do feel bad for Tia, and others in her situation, and support NOW's love your body campaign.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:35 PM
Maybe once a week for me.
Jeebus. That's freaky. Maybe you should smile more.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:37 PM
Second, if there was a more equal sexification society, the result would probably be more sexy guy-waiters restaurants, not less sexy waitresses
nornsense, my old son. Look, if you want to leer at barmaids (and my god I do, as my missus points out), you can do so more or less anywhere they serve drinks. If, on the other hand, you decide to go to the special leery-barmaidy place where they advertise "LEERABLE BARMAIDS AVAILABLE HERE", then you're going there because you want to be in a place where women where women are constantly reminded that their purpose in being there is to be leered at. Which is more or less the definition of what modern feminist theory calls "misogyny" and what I would call "cunthood" (what medical science calls "cunthood" I would call a clitoris but that just goes to show what a wonderful thing the English language is).
Women don't hate men anything like as much as men hate women (this remark [c] Germaine Greer) and don't have anything like as much of their sense of self tied up in being able to humiliate men when they want to, therefore I submit that your prediction about the possible shape of the drinks service industry under a different set of gender relations is wrong.
Posted by dsquared | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:38 PM
Again, IME, it slows down as you get older. I don't think I've had a stranger tell me to smile for ages. Used to happen all the time when I was a young thing, though. Aging has its benefits.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:39 PM
215: Dude. I am, as usual, in total agreement.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:43 PM
Or maybe you've started to smile more as you've aged, LB.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:43 PM
You're saying (roughly) 'It's a problem for men too, so it's fair: nothing needs to be changed.' We're saying, 'Please make it stop.' Doesn't that give some indication of whose ox is being gored?
If I had been more articulate, I would have made the point that if you want it to stop, you're not going to be able to by just asking men to stop it.
The problems that have been listed are 1) de-personification, 2) harmful body images, and 3) preferential treatment for the attractive.
I don't see how any of my comments can be said to be against attempts to solve it. Rather, in keeping with my extravagant hope that deeper analysis leads to better solutions, I think my comment might almost be read as an attempt to get closer to the solution.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:44 PM
The one thing I am against, I suppose, is the Hooters issue, which I just don't see as that bad in as far as exploitation goes. If anything, it's a symptom of bad taste. And I don't think girls go anorexic b/c of Hooters. I could be wrong.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:46 PM
Women have been using sex to control men since way before Lysistrata. Usually it's merely implicit, a statement of the form you continue to act like that and you're not getting any Here's a typical example:
If I ever found out that a guy I was dating bought the SI swimsuit edition, I think I'd have to break up with him.
That men should use women, and the implicit promise of sex, to control other men is not news. Welcome to the world in which sexual signalling wasn't invented by peacocks or bullfrogs, and won't disappear with burkas and decency codes.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:47 PM
215 sums up exactly what's wrong with Hooters. It's normal in our culture for men not so much to leer at women, but to "want to be in a place where women where women are constantly reminded that their purpose in being there is to be leered at."
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:48 PM
The original "smile" thread.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:53 PM
221: MHS, putting aside that I read Becks's comment as playful hyperbole, in what universe is that statement interpretable is using sex to control a man? She's saying she would choose not to have sex with him anymore. All she's controlling is her own body and decisions.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:53 PM
The metadata of porn on the internet is strongly anti-women. Usually there are links to photos or videos of naked women alone or having sex acts that by themselves are, or could be made, relatively unobjectionable; but the written descriptions are all "whore", "bitch", and "cunt".
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:54 PM
It's normal in our culture for men not so much to leer at women, but to "want to be in a place where women where women are constantly reminded that their purpose in being there is to be leered at.
It shouldn't be normal for men to want to be able to pretend that they're attractive to attractive women? And be willing to pay for the privilege? And for women to be willing to take money for it? Good luck with that.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:54 PM
d,
Leering, in itself, is not harmful. The leeree must taken offense to the leer. And I do suspect that there is a minimal desired amount of leer. That minimal might be very low, but I'm fairly certain it's there. For men and women.
And, of course, there are a few places women go to oggle men. So, there. And, if sexualization grew more equal I'm certain the number of these places would increase. Unless you think that the inherent, genetic differences b/w men and women would keep the women from leering at sexy male bar servers. I don't.
To your broader points I'm afraid I can't judge, having never been to a LEERABLE BARMAIDS HERE type bar.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:55 PM
215 is a good description of why Hooters is so weird.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:56 PM
And a working link to the UN thread mentioned in the original "smile" thread.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:58 PM
It shouldn't be normal for men to want to be able to pretend that they're attractive to attractive women? And be willing to pay for the privilege?
Isn't this in itself misogynistic? 'I don't care what you actually think of me, or whether I'm actually attractive to you. So long as you can be made to be a prop in my fantasy, your actual thought processes are of no interest to me.'
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:58 PM
221: I read it as reaffirming (or declaring) a norm. Norms are often expressed as personal preferences. When a woman says "I wouldn't go out with a man who does X" it tends to be read (by men) as saying "You'll get more if you don't do X". That's why, if you're selling overpriced watches, you show a man wearing such a watch while on a date with an expensive woman.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 5:59 PM
230: More narcissistic than misogynistic, really.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:00 PM
And to 224, which responds to 221: Exactly. The only universe in which you can call deciding not to have sex with a man 'controlling' him is one in which he is entitled by right to have sex with you. Ick.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:01 PM
232: Except that the same man who is relating to women as props, probably relates to other men as if they were human.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:02 PM
re: 215 - exactly.
re: 222 - I'm not so sure that's true that it's completely normal -- I don't think I know any men who'd purposefully choose to go to a Hooter's type environment. However, that may be a function of i) living in the UK where there is no direct equivalent of Hooters and ii) mostly hanging around with late-20/early-30 something 'liberal' academics.
However, even if it's not normal, it's not abnormal either. There's a significant minority of men who choose to go to strip clubs and who, I'm sure, would go to Hooters type places if they existed.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:05 PM
IME, women tend to vastly overrate the import men give to other men.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:05 PM
Isn't this in itself misogynistic? 'I don't care what you actually think of me, or whether I'm actually attractive to you. So long as you can be made to be a prop in my fantasy, your actual thought processes are of no interest to me.'
Most public interactions are ones in which the actual thought processes are of no interest. When I go to the bank I expect the teller to treat me politely and reasonably respectfully, even if they're secretly thinking "oh no, another crazy old man". It gives me the illusion that I can pass for normal in society.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:05 PM
233 is BS.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:07 PM
It gives me the illusion that I can pass for normal in society.
Hold fast to that illusion. Remember, we've seen pictures.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:09 PM
re: 237
There's a profound difference between the basic politeness and veneer of mutual respect we all expect in our everyday social interactions and the purposefully created illusion of sexual attraction.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:09 PM
I should probably explain 238. I've used the threat of no-sex to gain little things, so I know it can work both ways. Maybe you think "controling" is too strong a word. Sure, minor point. But you can always use the satisfaction or threat of nonsatisfaction of a desire and concurrent pleasure to control, or manipulate people.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:09 PM
238: I'm working on a more explicative response, but I think I agree
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:10 PM
Isn't this in itself misogynistic? 'I don't care what you actually think of me, or whether I'm actually attractive to you. So long as you can be made to be a prop in my fantasy, your actual thought processes are of no interest to me.'
I don't see how it could be, because women are certainly capable of the same attitude. I might call it "human." Do you claim to never have held any sexual interest in someone that wasn't tied to their "thought processes."
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:12 PM
I think I might have mentioned this before but at my first real computer job (as a summer intern in college), I was the only woman at the company besides the secretary. It was tradition for the entire staff to go to Hooters once a week at lunch to listen to Rush Limbaugh. That was fun.
(They also had Free Beer Fridays where people would drink and code all day long. I have to wonder how much of Monday was spent rewriting code from FBF afternoon. How that company never got sued, I don't know.)
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:13 PM
There's a profound difference between the basic politeness and veneer of mutual respect we all expect in our everyday social interactions and the purposefully created illusion of sexual attraction.
One creates a feeling of respectableness, the other a feeling of attractiveness. They seem pretty close to me.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:15 PM
re: 244
That kind of culture seems specifically American (and is perhaps found in parts of the 'city' in London which seems to share aspects of it).
It's certainly freakishly unlike any working environment I've ever seen and I've worked in several all-male work places.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:16 PM
And to 224, which responds to 221: Exactly. The only universe in which you can call deciding not to have sex with a man 'controlling' him is one in which he is entitled by right to have sex with you. Ick.
That's true only if you deny that there's social pressure to be considered attractive. Becks is saying (whether hyperbole or not) "that's very unattractive." And she said it in a context where, as far as I can tell, it was unnecessary to her point.
The comments around here spend a whole lot of time and energy on what's attractive and what's not. Who's hot (hott?). I read that as implicating social control - norms - by definitions of what's attractive. If that isn't social control by implicit promise of sex, I'm not a crazy old man.
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:17 PM
re: 245
They aren't even remotely the same and I think it takes a fair bit of mental contortion to think that they are.
Posted by Matt McGrattan | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:19 PM
Breaking up with someone and controlling them through sex are two different things. The first being acceptable, the second not. The first is saying "We have incompatible values, beliefs, etc. and I can't convince you of my viewpoint. I don't think this is going to work out so I don't think we should continue this relationship." The second is a way of saying "We have different values, beliefs, etc. and instead of trying to convince you of my viewpoint, I'm just going to manipulate you into doing what I want."
Manipulation = ick.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:24 PM
They aren't even remotely the same and I think it takes a fair bit of mental contortion to think that they are.
Consider smiling. That can mean either (1) I acknowledge that you are another human; or (2) I acknowledge that you are the customer and I'm supposed to be polite; or (3) I i find you attractive.
With one gesture used to indicate both politeness and sexual attraction, wouldn't you expect some confusion and overlap?
Posted by Michael H Schneider | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:26 PM
(Although, as Tia correctly pointed out in 224, the "I would break up with him" was meant as hyperbole.)
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:26 PM
Matt, i'm giving a perceptive description. To me, they're very similar. Apparantly not for you, however.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 02-13-06 6:27 PM