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.
The appeal of un-porn, it seems to me, is that the women in it are hotter than the women in real porn.
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.
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).
Jeebus. I'm with Becks on this one. Those are the kind of dudes-at-work that I would stop talking to. Lame brains.
It's something you can have a conversation about with the dudes at work (albeit not a very interesting one).
So ... tits, huh?
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.
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?
Sorry. I pretty much despise a whole generation of men for liking that huge tits on an anorexic look. It's sick.
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.
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.
Why would you think that the swimsuit issue isn't about sports? Especially after the edition where they didn't even use actual swimsuits.
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).
the swimsuit issue is part of the larger category porn
Is Baywatch?
If the swimsuit issue featured David Hasselhoff, all would be forgiven.
Teenaged boys will masturbate to anything.
Yeah. "People masturbate to it" is hardly a sufficient condition to "It is pornography."
hmm. maybe the dividing line should be "primary purpose is as masturbatory aide."
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.)
On second thought, I stand by the implied definition in 19. Next on Skinemax, Mary Carey stars in Civilization and Its Discontents.
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.
They have evil-alien-mecha sheep?
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.
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.
Do people really subscribe to SI anymore? It seems like its time has come and gone.
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.)
I used to subscribe, but then ESPN magazine started appearing in the mail unbidden and for no charge.
My eight-year-old gets SI for Kids, thanks to his grandpa. I haven't noticed whether they do a prepubescent swimsuit issue.
heavier, glossier stock
Non-stick coating?
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.
So ... tits, huh?
Yeah, tits are cool. *sip* Tan lines?
There's something to be said for pretty women.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think Hooters is selling precisely what it purports to sell.
But 50 -- there is also totally vagina-free porn.
Indeed presence or absence of peni is probably a fairly good metric for hardcore-ness of porn, though not a perfect one.
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.
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.
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.
Plus, people take *children* to Hooters.
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.
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.
"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.
M/ M/c, is one of them "The News Of The World"?
I ask only because of the Beatles reference.
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.
Why would it be a joke?
[I genuinely don't understand why it'd be a joke]
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.
I was to a Hooters as a young child
Michael:Hooters::young child:_______?
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.]
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"
If the "l" had been left out of "public", you'd have really been onto something there.
72: that analogy could be accurately completed with the term "pubic hair".
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.
Out of curiosity, when I get that Vanity Fair when it comes out, will that make me nondateable?
oggled
Oggling is what Ogged does when watching beach volleyball.
The current cover photo (Lindsay Lohan) is so much hotter than Annie Leibovitz's nudes.
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.
Also, the 48" photo of Labs posing in a spandex thong above my bed does not make me a bad person.
However, posing in a spandex thong above your bed does make Labs a bad person.
He gave it to me for not showing up in his classes.
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.
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.
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.
the urges that lead someone to go to Hooters
You mean their wings? To that I couldn't speak.
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.)
But there's a distinction between thought and act, right?
Yes. It's roughly the same distinction as between "creepy" and "criminal."
What about when you and your partner dress up as priests? OK/Not OK?
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.
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.
What do you mean by "certain kinds of portrayals of women" being "more properly segregated"? I'm not following.
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.
"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."
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.
Lauren Jackson looks far too much like Anne Coulter.
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?
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.
#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.
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.
#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.
#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.
## 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.
I mean "had" in the sense of "possessed written porn"
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.
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?
#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.
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.
Yeah John, "apo" is short for "apostropher."
about the location of what was being depicted
Ah, okay.
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.
#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.
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.
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.
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.
Off course everybody should drive stick. I hope we're not going to have to pretend that's just a matter of opinion.
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.
Off course everybody should drive stick.
I will grant exceptions to those who have lost their right arm.
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.
I get aroused any time I'm within 10 feet of barbecued ribs.
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.
Ok, just read 148. Now I feel bad for picking on you.
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.
#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.
#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.
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.
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.
167. I take it all back. you're going down!
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.
Riding Sun's caption contest this week is on topic for this thread.
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?
*activity named after the Great Founder
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.
If my argument's correct.
Heh @ 177
A more eloquent way of putting what I was getting at in 56
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 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.
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.
(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.)
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.
First, Hooters outfits are hardly skimpy.
This is just silly. You want we should say they're 'highly sexualized' rather than 'skimpy'? Whatever.
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.
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.
Rather explicitly.
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.
the problem, insofar as it is one, is recreated every day, B. That's important. Original creation, not so much.
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.
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."
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?
The guy doesn't *have* to shell out
The girl doesn't *have* to work there.
Look, I really just think the level of exploitation on both sides is fairly minimal.
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.
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.?
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?
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?
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?
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.
IME, yes. The classic 'Smile!' guy is an older man being avuncular.
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.
Maybe once a week for me.
Jeebus. That's freaky. Maybe you should smile more.
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.
215: Dude. I am, as usual, in total agreement.
Or maybe you've started to smile more as you've aged, LB.
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.
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.
215 is a good description of why Hooters is so weird.
And a working link to the UN thread mentioned in the original "smile" thread.
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.
230: More narcissistic than misogynistic, really.
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.
232: Except that the same man who is relating to women as props, probably relates to other men as if they were human.
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.
IME, women tend to vastly overrate the import men give to other men.
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.
It gives me the illusion that I can pass for normal in society.
Hold fast to that illusion. Remember, we've seen pictures.
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.
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.
238: I'm working on a more explicative response, but I think I agree
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
(Although, as Tia correctly pointed out in 224, the "I would break up with him" was meant as hyperbole.)
Matt, i'm giving a perceptive description. To me, they're very similar. Apparantly not for you, however.
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."
Or, "I want to see THIS movie," or "buy me flowers", which is manipulation but, in my world, acceptable.
re: 250
Come on, I expect politeness from other men, people much younger or older than me, work colleagues, my students, family members, etc. and I reciprocate.
Expressing attraction isn't at all like that -- it's directed at specific individuals in very particular ways and, for most of us, there's something much more personal about it and something much more dishonest and degrading about 'faking' it than say, being polite when one's having a bad day.
The point isn't that the elements of human behaviour -- smiling or making eye contact -- can encompass both politeness and sexual attraction and thus that the behaviour can be confused but that the waitresses in a place like Hooters are explicitly invoking sexual attraction in order to please their customers.
Manipulation = ick.
All interactions are manipulative. Sometimes it's implicit and out of one's awareness, sometimes it's explicit. Living in society is one long process of learning the rules, the consequents. It's all "if I do this, what will that person do?"
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going out to a coffee shop where I think one of the barista's was flirting with me last time I was in.
(oh, Matt, I meant feeling attractive was similar to feeling respectable.)
And I think I should go see if there are skaters to oggle. I can at least pretend they're smiling at me.
135 makes me wonder whether having sex with a prostitute would, by Tia's lights, be less of an infidelity than having sex with a woman who was not charging. For some reason that leads me to remember the character in Catch-22 who killed a prostitute after having sex with her so that he could continue to maintain he never had to pay for it. (Am I remembering that scene correctly?)
Is there a woman on this list who hasn't been instructed to smile by a total stranger? I used to get this all the time. On the street, anywhere. When I was a waitress, I'd be hauling a tray full of bar glass from some table to the bar, and there'd always be some drunk at the bar to lean over and go "smile, honey!" Sometimes I'd ignore them, sometimes I'd bare my teeth at them. They never knew how close they came to a faceful of up-glasses. Then I'd go back to my table and smile. This wasn't a Hooters, but the waitresses were definitely hired for their looks. In a two story restaurant, we were required to wear heels. The whole scene dripped with rage. Downstairs Giorgio the insane chef, who used to follow us into walk-in freezer, would be muttering: who do thesa bitches think they are? tonight i'm gonna get me two hookers, they gonna do anything I say. Great Giorgio, can I have my fucking pasta now?
Hooters is the Disneyland version--degrading in a clean suburban way.
I used to get this all the time. On the street, anywhere.
I feel like there's this whole world of interaction that has been hidden from me. As God is my witness, I have never noticed this transaction transpire before. No, wait - once. In a late-night restaurant in college, but it was to a woman who had obviously been crying, so I'm not sure whether the intent was the same.
Really, that is just the weirdest effing thing. Now, everybody whistle.
I've known smiling was an imperative for women without, that I can remember actually overhearing anyone be instructed to smile. I've always assumed that those death's-head grins some Southern women seem to have pasted on their faces was something they'd been drilled on.
Discussions like this always unsettle me about the hurts and wrongs I don't notice. The Nat King Cole song Smile has been sweet in my memory. It's message always seemed kindly and tender, and not particularly aimed at either man or woman. But now I'm not so sure.
I have just watched the Mike Figgis advert film for Agent Provocatuer and can confirm that it was something entirely different and not sad or sleazy at all, despite appearances.
Maybe there is a regional component at work here. It's very standard to smile and nod when you meet eyes with somebody down here, regardless of their sex. Standard enough that I've found it a bit unsettling in NE cities (or perhaps my automatic smiling unsettled others). That might explain why I haven't heard the demand being made.
Apo, the weird thing about this whole I-command-you-to-smile thing is, these demands come out of nowhere. It's not like you've met the guy's eye or are having an interaction with him, it's like you're an extra in his movie, and he wants an upbeat mood. They never seem to understand that my movie is a subtle, autumnal drama, tinged with melancholy, and their jolly bozo self is a jarring note.
actually, when not waitressing, which, thank god, is most of the last 20 years, I'm a fairly smiley person, even laughy.
I once was offended by something I was told in a graduate student review, so I took a walk to the ocean. I must have been scowling while I walked, and a homeless man told me to cheer up. It really worked.
Not the same sort of thing, I know.
265: I think that was a scene in my movie. Except the homeless guy. Were you wearing a dark overcoat? Did you have 3-day stubble?
263: People do it to you even when you don't make eye contact, though. In fact, that's when they do it the most--if you look absorbed in thought or concerned about something they'll try to draw you out of paying attention to yourself and into paying attention to them.
Sometime I shall muster the energy to respond to the two Michaels, who both sound like they stepped off the pages of a Neil LaBute screenplay.
I was once sitting on a park bench on the National Mall, in a bad mood for some reason, when a guy walking by said "cheer up, man, it's not that bad." It actually did make me feel better. Again, not the same sort of thing, and probably not even a scene in mcmc's movie.
oops, I was pwned au sens de Weiner by mcmc.
Maybe it's living in NY, maybe it's me getting older, maybe I've perfected my crazy-lady-do-not-disturb look, but I don't get told to smile by random old men much anymore.
268: might of been. what about the stubble thing?
It was in LA or Santa Monica, so no overcoat. I very probably had shaved that morning. Still, most things in LA seem like a scene from a movie.
mcmc, quick, hide from the wrath of w-lfs-n!
sitting on a park bench
SITTING ON A PARK BENCH!
I haven't read all the comments, I admit. However, everyone should drives stick, fruit salad isn't that great, and I don't see how the fantasized healthy nonpornographic culture distinct from Victorian repression would maintain itself in that state for long. Why wouldn't people start employing sexual images to a greater and greater extent in the mainstream, given the generally nonjudgmental attitudes they have towards them?
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?
The first is unfair, and the second, I'm sure, can't be serious. Drymala's response (it was Drymala, right?) isn't actually responsive; invoking fiction or phone sex or internet chat or what-have-you invites the rejoinder "if it's all about fantasy, then the text/voice/interactive text isn't necessary, yes?". Of course words, sounds, scents, touch (think of, for instance (and I admit I have never participated in such an event, but saw one commemorated on the Simpsons once! so it must be true!) passing around peeled grapes and announcing them to be someone's eyes on Halloween) and, yes, images are valuable spurs to imaginative activity of all stripes. This is not controversial, is it?
Tia! don't let him delete m-aaaaahhh!!!
what about the stubble thing?
Definite stubble. Maybe not 3 days, though.
How serendipitous that mcmc should commit a solecism just as I happen in with an untimely comment!
everyone should drives stick
Say what?
My pal everyone should drives stick, what's the problem? Sure, he doesn't capitalize his name (which is, admittedly, rather unusual), but it's nothing that hasn't been done before.
By the way, y'all have been nominated.
#232: Yes, it is narcissistic. It's also a particular brand of narcissism that, I believe the women here are saying, is one that men are particularly subject to. Because the cultural assumption is that men are subjects, and women objects. Duh.
Re. "Smile, it's not that bad!" Yes, women get this ALL THE TIME. Every single woman I know gets it, in every region of the country. I've gotten it in the south, the west, the northeast, the midwest. The only good thing to be said for the phenomenon is that it provides a good, concrete example to convince skeptical men that yes, women are, in fact, under pretty much constant pressure to be pleasing to the eye, to be deferential, to be nice to narcissitic people who think that we aren't really entitled to moods of our own.
Michael, what's frustrating me about your argument is that yes: you can reasonably argue that any *specific* sexist attitude or objectifying thought is one that women and men are both perfectly capable of having or projecting onto others. But I think you're trying to have it both ways: (1) sexism is cultural, so it's not the fault of men, b/c women do it too; and (2) sexism isn't cultural, so my personal ability to objectify you cancels out your personal ability to objectify me. But that ain't the way it works. I can objectify you, and you can objectify me; but I am the one who is going to be commanded to smile by some stranger next week, and you are not. And the cumulative burden of that, along with all the other subtle little bullshit that guys either don't encounter ("really? That happens?"), or encounter only very rarely ("a homeless guy once cheered me up by telling me to smile"), or find easy to dismiss ("maybe it's just that in the south everyone smiles") is really fucking oppressive.
Not to mention the frustration of having to prove that yes, it is real. And yes, it has an effect.
WOLFSON. O, untimely comment! Comments.
In fact, she was nominated twice! Go sue!
Not to mention the frustration of having to prove that yes, it is real. And yes, it has an effect.
I'd be pretty surprised if it didn't. Yowza.
She was in fact nominated three times.
Smasher - this bodes not well. As Hollywood constantly shows us, when one partner is a much more successful celebrity than the other, Doomsville is just around the corner. You should be voting for everyone else.
By the way, y'all have been nominated.
And Emerson!
But Susan's partner smashes arms for the Smithsonian Institute! That's success of a sort, no?
I agree, w-lfs-n. But then I actually thought Chad Lowe had a pretty successful acting career.
#275: I don't think it's unfair at all, unless one chooses to take it personally (which it wasn't meant to be--and anyway, Joe and I are buds and I assume he knows that). And the obvious issue with pictures, as opposed to peeled grapes, is that the pictures depict actual people who are actually doing those actual things.
Unfogged for "Best Non-European Weblog", from a set of awards including "Best Weblog" and "Best Writing"? Nominate us for "Best Not Entirely Smelling Like Poop Weblog" while you're at it. Not bitter, not bitter, not bitter at all. If ogged were here, ogged would still be here, and I wouldn't think to care.
So you wouldn't have a problem with detailed depictions of non-actual persons?
But, B, the whole smile thing is about manners and respect, not about men finding women attractive solely based on looks, which is what my comment was about.
by the by, during my teens, I was constantly being told to smile. Not by total strangers, i admit, but by just about anyone who knew me: friends, acquaintences, bosses, and coworkers, (parents).
And however many people are annoying about the "smile" BS, I have a feeling that they're a small minority. It's annoying, and an obvious personality flaw, but is it a critical social ill? Tell guys who say that to go die. And, crucially, complain about it more often. I can't think of any other way to change things. Y'all are being irked by this, you basically contend that ALL girls are being irked by this, but NO guy here knows about it. Apparantly, the vast majority of women in the US are suffering in silence. Honestly, you have to speak out. That's not a perfect solution, but it's the best I can think of.
Also, I think I've said a number of times in this thread that men are at fault for sexism. Just not solely at fault.
I nominate botany "Best Non-Elephant Biology".
Yeah, I voted for Sue wherever she was nominated. I didn't vote for Unfogged because I went there through 'Aqoul and felt obliged to vote for them, but it was a tough choice -- LGM and Head Heeb were also nominated, as well as this here Mineshaft (I hadn't looked at the results). For the other categories I basically just picked the one I had read. In some I didn't vote at all.
And they're the European Weblog Awards.
What's to be done? She's just too charming.
289 - Yes, but one of 'Smasher's blogs is up for a SXSW award.
294: Well they do seem to be rather Euro-centric. Think of it as the "Best Foreign Film" category. What must have thought the people who won BFF the year Forrest Gump won Best Picture?
And they do seem to think that Ogged is still here.
The smile thing isn't about manners and respect: it's about dominance and submission. It's about being able to boss a total stranger about the fucking expression on their face. Is it a critical social ill? Gosh, only if you're the woman who has to put up with it--and a lot of other small things that are harder to point to--pretty much every day of your life. I guess to everyone else, it's no big deal.
And it's ludicrous to say that women need to complain about sexism more often. We complain about it ALL THE TIME, and we run into people saying "that's not sexist, that's about manners and respect" or "that's not sexist, women do it to" or "I have a feeling not many people really do this" or "you're being a bitch" or "stop belaboring the point, none of us here are sexist" or w-t-f-ever. It's absolutely infuriating. Because the implication is that when we say "x is sexist, x is a problem," y'all do not believe us. We need to prove it to *your* satisfaction, b/c somehow we're not reliable witnesses to our own lives and experiences.
Which is, if you think about it, pretty much the exact same attitude expressed by the guy who tells you to "smile" on the street. The implication is that his minor need (to see a smile, to analyze a problem he's broadly aware exists but isn't quite convinced about X detail) is more important than whatever's going on in your head, and that he'll concede the point if you convince him that your situation is one he should respect ("my mom has cancer" "here is a double-blind study that proves that yes, in fact, women are objectified in the course of their daily lives").
301 has linking issues.
I'm outraged that my outrage isn't justified. I'm going to medal in the 500m Harrumph, you watch me.
I'm turning into John Emerson HEEEEELP MEEEEEE
Like I said, the European Weblog Awards, sponsored by A Fistful of Euros. Jesus. Where's Weman?
303: linking issues
Shite. And I previewed and everything. Link should go here
While I'm at it, I will announce that for the class that I volunteered to substitute teach tomorrow, I was given the article that they were to discuss. I have just now discovered that the copy of that article that I was given was copied so that the page numbers are cut off, as are the last lines of the pages, and the pages themselves are seemingly out of order. I am going to take this as a license to walk in and say, "You guys, talk about this article."
Matt, go for it. That's how I teach all my classes.
306: So why is Sue, who I believe is an American currently in Asia, up for so many?
Weiner, after all of this time commenting on blogs you should be an expert at authoritatively giving opinions on articles you haven't read.
I always check links on preview. 'Cause you never know...
(I knew what comment you meant, though, and I try to abide by it as much as possible, despite my responses to SB's objections in this thread.)
And Georgia is often considered part of Europe, although technically it isn't.
(The article I am currently sort-of-reading appears to concern family resemblance concepts, so I should be able to answer my own question.)
Another way that anyone can see that this smile business is true comes from the way many, many women smile, almost refexively whenever you look at them. This happens to me, anyway. And it's not really pleasant for me, because it's forced and almost fearful. Makes me feel like an officer; like this deference is coming my way whether I want it or not because she can't afford not to smile at everybody. I actually think I sometimes avoid looking at women directly to avoid provoking these "salutes." Mostly I try to smile warmly myself, benevolently, I hope. But we're trapped either way. I'm just a man who has looked at her. I've been riding the lakeshore path and gotten a succession of these tight little smiles from joggers just because I looked them in the face. Don't know what to do except try to remember what it means
no I am with bitchphd on this one. Telling a woman "smile!" is just the middle class version of asking her to show you her tits; it's all about telling a bird to do something. It's exactly the same circumstances in which one would say it. "Come on, darlin' suck my cock, it might never happen",
teofilo, I can't have been earnest. I must have been earnest.
I will have been earnest.
309: Because she's awesome. Wait a minute - as Ogged's true heir, does that mean I get to steal Sue away from Smasher now?
306: So why is Sue, who I believe is an American currently in Asia, up for so many?
She's not in Asia, she's in Georgia.
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.
Whether "controlling" is too strong a word is *not* a small point, because you two were sliding quite easily into a familiar and sexist trope about how all-powerful women are leading helpless men around by their dicks. Maybe it's not quite what you meant, but it's what it was sounding like.
Anyway, yes, there exist women and men in the world who will withold sex as a method of influence, as you describe. For the record I have never done this in a relationship. I've been pissed at someone and not wanted to have sex with him, and as a practical matter sex might not happen until a dispute was resolved, but I've never tried to make sex contingent on getting my way, and frankly, that sounds like an insane way to conduct a relationship, though I don't doubt it may be common.
On to the next point: when Becks says, "I don't like this in men; I wouldn't want it in a boyfriend" is she "using sex to control a man," MHS's exact words from 221? She's not controlling anyone; at most she's attempting influence (a real difference) and I'm not even sure she's doing that, since statements about what is attractive are so clearly YMMV until you're getting to a point where you've got lots of other people saying similar; then you're norm-reinscribing ("skinny women with big tits are attractive" bothers me in a way that "women with big teeth are attractive" doesn't, even though I'm not either). Becks was taking an idiosyncratic position, and she wasn't ascribing it to any other women; it read to me like she was talking about what values are compatible with hers, as she herself said. MHS, if you said, "I like women who read comic books and would prefer to date them," would that be controlling me with sex?
It's true, if one is too much of a hapless dick, no one will sleep with you, and then you must submit to the norms of having a sense of humor, being kind and generous, etc. if you want to get laid.
I was starting to mist up to think that without Ogged around, this thread might not produce a single swarthy Georgian joke.
And 302 is right in so many ways I can't even count them all, but I just want to echo her point that it's pretty funny to be told you don't complain enough in the exact same breath in which everything you complain about is minimized.
Honestly, I can never understand why there's even a debate about this "smile" shit. Because it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. If I don't smile, people fucking tell me to smile. And it happens to me all the time. If you do smile, men take that as an invitation to keep talking to you (which I almost never want them to do). I take the "smile" instruction as not only controlling, but as a demand that all women look friendly enough to approach, which is exactly what I don't want to be.
To think that there are actually people who defend the "smile" practice boggles the mind.
Re. withholding sex: again, when people do that, arguing that they're being manipulative, and that this manipulation is somehow morally equivalant to going to a strip club (or whatever) is ridiculous. Let us assume that both men and women like sex. Why, then, would someone withhold sex to achieve a goal? It's like a child who refuses to eat in order to get his way: it's an expression of powerlessness, that the only way to try to achieve a goal is to punish *oneself*. So if (as was implied) this is something women do, then it's a testament to their *lack* of power in a relationship, rather than some kind of proof that they hold all the cards. Arguing otherwise is, as Apostropher put it, narcissistic: it's basically an argument that a guy who has all the power *except* the power to get sex on demand is somehow in thrall to a woman who has *only* withholding sex as a means of achieving a goal.
I would like it recorded that I just instantaneously answered an e-mail from a student about how to do the homework. I AM A SHINING PARAGON OF PROFESSORLY VIRTUE.
Also, I think Bitch's "really? that happens?" characterization of dudes is spot-on. I get this all the time, and I finally figured out that it's because most average dudes who I try to talk to about harrassment a) aren't harrassers, so they haven't done it themselves, and b) have never seen it happen to someone they know, because no one harrasses you when you're with a dude. I remember when I was about fifteen, my dad came home and had a very solemn talk with me apologizing for not being sufficiently understanding when I had complained to him about harrassment before; it finally hit him what it was like when someone he was with did it to some woman on the street.
I am still surprised by how much a different world it is when I am out and about with a male, be it a friend, boyfriend, brother, whatever. It's like a de facto rule against going out unaccompanied, like the fucking Saudi Arabians' explicit rule against same.
I can't read "paragon" without thinking of this. I think Matt needs some red, white, and blue hot pants.
no one harrasses you when you're with a dude.
Huh. That would totally explain it. Weird.
I appreciate Silvana's point about how many men miss this because they are not harassers, and this kind of social control is usually not exercised in their presence, almost by definition. Social control is often hidden from its beneficiaries. You have to be watching for this, in most cases, to see it or to interpret it, if it's not aimed at you.
So, as I've been saying, I know it exists, but am not aware of seeing it laid on. Maybe if I watch for it, though, I will see it. I'm going to try.
Let us assume that both men and women like sex. Why, then, would someone withhold sex to achieve a goal? It's like a child who refuses to eat in order to get his way: it's an expression of powerlessness, that the only way to try to achieve a goal is to punish *oneself*.
I'm having trouble quite understanding this. Is this roughly this sort of argument:
1. We believe that there is some association between material conditions one lives in and criminal action.
2. African-American have been shafted for a long, long time, and their material conditions have sucked for roughly that long.
3. There seems to be a higher percentage of African-Americans who commit crimes than the general population. We believe this is because of 1 and 2.
4. No one wants to be a criminal.
5. If an African-American commits a crime, it is an example of his or her helplessness.
If so, are we further saying that the African-American is significantly less blameworthy than another type of criminal in the individual case? And if so, what does that mean?
It occurs to me that the girls here disapprove of Hooters and SI because they don't like the competition.
In other news, my hand is tired from watching figure skating.
If we minded the competition, why would we say it was OK for our guys to buy porn?
I wouldn't say that "no one wants to be a criminal"; I'm quite sure that there are people who do. I would say, instead, that there is no innate criminality that's associated with dark skin.
I don't know what we're saying about blameworthiness of criminals, b/c that isn't what we're talking about. What I'm saying about the women-withholding-sex argument is that it seems to be presented as an argument that women, as a class, possess equal power to men in relationships--perhaps even more power, since, after all, women are the ones who "get" to determine whether sex will or won't happen. And that that argument is nonsense.
An individual person manipulating her partner by withholding sex? Obnoxious. Does her obnoxiousness mean that her using that tool isn't, quite probably, itself a symptom of the broader powerlessness of women as a class? Hell no.
SCMT, I don't think that's it. I think it's more like this: If you are unhappy with a relationship, and you want it to change, other things being equal you will express your unhappiness by doing something that doesn't hurt you. If you wind up expressing your unhappiness by doing something that does hurt you (like denying yourself sex), then it's probably because you don't have any better options.
Suppose, to take a typical philosopher's (or economist's) oversimplification, a man and a woman are in a relationship such that the man can do two things that the woman doesn't like: refusing to have sex, or spending all day out golfing with his buddies. The woman can only do one thing that the man doesn't like: refuse to have sex. Then when he is trying to exert leverage in the relationship by doing something she doesn't like, he'll probably do so by golfing, because he likes that better than refusing sex. When she is trying to exert leverage, she can only do it by refusing sex, even though she doesn't like that.
So the person who's trying to exert power by doing something she doesn't like is the one who has fewer options and less power. You don't cut off your nose to spite your face if you can spite it some other way.
#334: I have no problem at all with you going to Hooter's, Michael, if it means you'll leave me alone.
I would like it recorded that I just instantaneously answered an e-mail from a student about how to do the homework. I AM A SHINING PARAGON OF PROFESSORLY VIRTUE.
But you have no virtú. You have shown your student that you are at h/h beck and call. Now they'll expect it.
You should wait, even if you have nothing better to do.
What I'm saying about the women-withholding-sex argument is that it seems to be presented as an argument that women, as a class, possess equal power to men in relationships--perhaps even more power, since, after all, women are the ones who "get" to determine whether sex will or won't happen. And that that argument is nonsense.
OK. That I totally buy. I think I was flashing back to a prior post (Iranian cartoonist thing) where someone seemed to be excusing the individual's actions because Iran was shit for women, and wondering if this was a similar sort of argument.
But you have no virtú. You have shown your student that you are at h/h beck and call. Now they'll expect it.
Matt, you are participating in your own oppression. It's ALL YOUR FAULT.
It's not like the only way I have of expressing displeasure in the professor-student relation is withholding
You can withhhold, OR you can pander.
See, 341 is funny because it parallels an earlier argument.
And 344 is funny b/c it parallels an earlier argument in an entirely different way, one that involves envisioning Matt working at Hooter's.
May it be known, ogged is commenting on this thread via email to Michael.
Ogged speaks through every one of us, Ben.
321, Tia: It's true, if one is too much of a hapless dick, no one will sleep with you, and then you must submit to the norms ... if you want to get laid.
Agreement. Perhaps my reference to Lysistrata was misplaced, and got us off into the withholding of sex within a relationship. My mistake. Tia's statement, more broadly, expresses the point I was trying to make.
ibid (if that's the proper citation form) MHS, if you said, "I like women who read comic books and would prefer to date them," would that be controlling me with sex?
Yes. Of course. In this instance it would obviously fail, but it would be an attempt.
There's a chain here: [talking about what's attractive] leads to [norms] which leads to [compliance with norms] because [non-compliance leads to ostracism] which leads to [no sex].
That's not an incredibly brilliant original observation. In fact, I think it rates somewhere towards the "so?" end of the scale. I hardly expected it to generate disagreement.
Someone will undoubtedly point out that the ability to define norms is a marker of power, and that women tend to be comparatively powerless. So women tend to be less able to define norms. Yep. That's true too.
ibid statements about what is attractive are so clearly YMMV until you're getting to a point where you've got lots of other people saying similar; then you're norm-reinscribing ...
There's where I disagree. I'd say that all such statements are attempts at defining norms, it's only that some are less effective than others. Norms are contested. These sorts of norms are customarily contested by just those sorts of statements: "You think who is attractive??" "You'd go out with someone who did that??"
So yeah, I read Becks' statement as attempted normification (?!). Hyperbole, meaning exaggerated, but an exaggeration of a real, observable phenomenon. I read her as saying "buying the SI swimsuit issue is normatively unacceptable", and she's marking that normative boundary by saying she'd have to break up with anyone who crossed it. Thus implicating sex, when she certainly could have said 'buying it indicates a craven fecklessness. You're an adult. Buy some real porn.'
Whether "controlling" is too strong a word is *not* a small point, because you two were sliding quite easily into a familiar and sexist trope about how all-powerful women are leading helpless men around by their dicks. Maybe it's not quite what you meant, but it's what it was sounding like.
I was aiming for the opposite: that Becks was sliding into the trope of helpless-woman-who-has-no-power-except-sex, and it annoyed me. Likely I was misreading, but that's how it struck me.
crap. 352 was me, caught with my cookies down.
May it be known, ogged is commenting on this thread via email to Michael.
I swear I'm not hearing that voice in my head any more. Please don't medicate me.
Following upon this thread, Rebecca Traister's Salon article on the Vanity Fair issue is germane.
re: 329
My wife -- who manages a high-end 'designer' shop -- comes home from work regularly with stories that make my jaw drop. Stories of men being creepy, yes, but mostly stories which amount to nasty, vicious bullying by customers both male and female.
That bullying behaviour happens because people think they can get away with it because i) she (and most of her employees) are mostly young and female and ii) they work in retail and are thus 'required' to take shit from customers.
I didn't have any illusions about the service industry before -- I've done enough low-paid service industry jobs myself -- but the sheer level of bullying was a surprise to me and, presumably, this is because as a guy people just wouldn't be that rude/aggressive to my face.
They'd have to be worried about losing their teeth -- and I say that not as an aggressive person but because the bad behaviour is _so_ outrageous that there's just no way they'd talk to any adult man, however mild-mannered, like that without seriously worrying about the consequences.
There's a whole level of shit we, as men, are isolated from just because of who we are.
I haven't finished reading this thread, so maybe it's been commented upon, but someone should come up with a euphemism for the activity described in the last sentence of 103. Something innocent-sounding, like "reminisce."
Speaking of the last sentence of 103, did anyone here see A History of Violence?
306: I'm here, thanks.
What a happy coincidence that all these people we know all got nominted, eh?
306: I'm here, thanks.
What a happy coincidence that all these people we know all got nominated, eh?
Becks' question in 335 gave me a flash realization -- what people are talking about when they complain that SI Swimsuit issue & Hooters &c. are trying to have it both ways as titillation and wholesome. (I'm not sure this precise objection has been voiced on this thread but I think a couple of things fairly close to it have come up.) The problem is that women depicted in porno are by definition whores ('pornography' == 'depiction of prostitutes'), SI Swimsuit Issue is making an unvoiced claim to be portraying madonnas -- likewise Miss America although there the claim is rather more explicit -- Hooters I think is more borderline and I'm not sure it fits in so well here, but I'm not super familiar with the Hooters mythos.
See my initial reaction to 335 was to think (in a patriarchal voice) "but Becks, you're not in competition with girls in porno, you're a nice girl" -- don't worry you guys! I thought it with ironic distance, okay?
So there you have it -- Jeremy's understanding of the "sexualization of the mainstream" concerns voiced on this thread, is that the complaint has to do with a blurring of the patriarchal society's traditional virgin/whore divide. And on the one hand I've gotta think a blurring of such divide is good since the worldview itself is so fucked. But OTOH the blurring that we see going on around us, and complain about, is not doing away with the perceived categories of virgin and whore, it is more muddling them into one big ball of misogyny. And that is not so good. Perhaps, perhaps it is a dialectical process in some way? Help me out here, folks.
And note that my question to Tia in 258, and her 135, probably play a role in my getting to the understanding that I posted in 361.
356 -- "reminisce" is right out -- I can't hear that word without thinking about the fucking Little River Band -- and that is about the last thing I want to do, it would not make me feel sexy at all.
How about "playing teacher's pet"?
Wow, big thread.
1) I don't buy that SI & Hooters are a stand-in for porn that's mainstream and thereby okay. It's okay because it's a lot less exploitive, and men like to look at scantily clad women (and may not necessarily be using it as a proxy for porn.) I'll agree that it's just a matter of degree re: exploitation, but starvation and obesity are a matter of degree, too. Sometimes the degree is really, really important, and I think that's the case here.
2) And if the exploitation is just a matter of degree, why on earth would we think that more exploitation is okay because it's more honest? I can't think of a parallel situation where that would be okay. (Better you beat your wife than be quietly misogynist in subtle ways? Come on.)
3) Never got the crusade against 'smile!' Perhaps because it's not happened all that often to me. Upon reflection I do think it reflects a sense of narcissism and entitlement, but not because women are supposed to be delicate smiling flowers and we're having our own emotions. It's usually an old man, who probably yells at traffic while he's driving, tells young men to buck up, complains to the cashier about how prices were better in his day, and also tells women to smile.
366: I think 363 was in response to 358 and 359.
I don't buy that SI & Hooters are a stand-in for porn that's mainstream and thereby okay. It's okay because it's a lot less exploitive, and men like to look at scantily clad women (and may not necessarily be using it as a proxy for porn.) I'll agree that it's just a matter of degree re: exploitation, but starvation and obesity are a matter of degree, too. Sometimes the degree is really, really important, and I think that's the case here.
Cala, there are two sets of problems with porn: (1) what's happening to the producers and (2) what's happening to the people who view it, and the people around them. No one here has argued that there's not an important difference between posing for SI and doing a porn movie in sense (1), and it seems to me sense (1) is what you're talking about when you say "it's okay because it's a lot less exploitative." We're complaining about sense (2). Specifically, I'm saying that the proliferation of objectified images of women in every sphere is more problematic for society as a whole than that dirty pictures exist in the world. If the public sphere did not constantly represent sexual fantasies without real interior experience as normal women, and normal women as sexual fantasies without interior experience, then society's expectations for women would be a lot different.
Never got the crusade against 'smile!'
I can understand it; if somebody came up and told me to smile, I'd think they were insane. If it happened every week, I'd start to think maybe I was insane. What I have trouble understanding is what would compel a person to demand somebody else smile. I'm just have trouble getting my head around that.
Perhaps because it's not happened all that often to me.
You're from the South, right (or did I just make that up)?
369 should read "there are two sets of problems with porn and other objectified pictures of women"
Never got the crusade against 'smile!' Perhaps because it's not happened all that often to me. Upon reflection I do think it reflects a sense of narcissism and entitlement, but not because women are supposed to be delicate smiling flowers and we're having our own emotions. It's usually an old man, who probably yells at traffic while he's driving, tells young men to buck up, complains to the cashier about how prices were better in his day, and also tells women to smile.
Cala, this isn't it, or it's certainly not near all of it. Many of the people who tell me to smile are not old men who'd yell at traffic, but middle aged men who think they are flirting , think they're being in some way benevolently attentive, or think I'd be prettier if I smiled.
think I'd be prettier if I smiled
Everybody is prettier when they smile. Then again, nobody would question the rudeness of walking up to a woman and saying "Wear some makeup already!"
Everybody is prettier when they smile.
Are you sure? (NSFW)
I'd need another picture of her smiling for that to be evidence of anything, yo. I do acknowledge that exceptions to the rule exist.
367 reminds me to point out that hitting post no longer make the box reload. It's quite annoying.
And although I don't really feel the further need to argue with you, Tim, since you honestly believe other people shouldn't eat fruit salad, an that means our base positions on what are appropriate aspects of other people's behavior to have strong opinions about are different, I'll keep going anyway because I want to flesh out my position more.
So my suspicion is that, even as against the general population, mine is the minority response, not yours.
I'm not sure about this, because I don't think the sets of opinions on, for lack of a better word, kinky sex practices are binary, and I think my position, among all sets of them, is fairly rare in the general population, though it may be less so here.
Here are the sets of opinions that I can discern:
1) A fundamentally sexist enthusiastic approval, articulated by straight men, for women who will perform kink for them, thereby demonstrating their subjugation (as opposed to submission in the sexual sense). Maybe also obtains in some gay dymanics, but I'm less sure about that.
2)Enthusiastic embrace of their subjugation, articulated by straight women, who would say something like, "i am a sexy girl kitten. meow. i am wild."
3) Prudish disapproval of non-mainstream sex practices.
4) Feminist disapproval of non-mainstream sex practices involving a dominant partner because they are reflections of patriarchy.
5) Prudish disapproval of non-mainstream sex practices that dresses itself up as feminist disapproval.
and finally
6) Pro-feminist acceptance of non-mainstream sex practices involving a dominant partner that acknowledges that they do, in part, stem from patriarchy (though they have even more fundamental origins too), but in fact, with sufficient love and self-awareness on the part of all participants, can be a way to reexperience and process past trauma in a way that bonds them to their lover and adds to the emotional depth of sex, in a way not totally unrelated to the gratification of reexperiencing negative emotions, in a contained space, through art.
My position, #6 if you hadn't guessed, is in fact a tiny minority in society as a whole. I don't know whether your position is a smaller minority; it depends on whether you're taking position 3, 4, or 5.
I am impatient with expressions of 3 and 5 in whatever forum, even if the expresser thinks they're in the minority, because they go hand and hand with larger efforts to shame people who want anything deviant from some arbirtray definition of acceptable. It's related to talking about how gross gay sex is, to shaming your friend for dating a fat woman, etc. This is such a common sociocultural phenomenon, and an undesirable one, that IMO it behooves all of us to not emulate it. I don't even like to hear "scat sex is gross. People shouldn't do it." But "I'm not into it" is fine, and of course, a darn frequent sentiment. The only relevant concerns I could have about other people's sex lives are (1) safety, (2) consent, (3) the internal experiences of the people involved, that is, are they happy and fulfilled?
The "Smile!" thing happens in Ireland, too. And as the others have said, the guys who do this seem to be mortally offended that you're lost in thought about something else and therefore not attending to your important duty of providing pleasant scenery as they pass by.
??? But I thought everyone in Erin was smiling all the time anyways! Doesn't it have something to do with leprechauns?
I thought everyone in Erin was smiling all the time
Yes, but they don't use their mouths, so you can see the problem.
Once for Ogged (the once and future king of this misty land) and once for me, David. Someone nominated my obscure Idiocentrism blog too.
Safeway instituted a smile policy and a cute checker I'd been doing business with for years smiled at me. I wondered for a moment whether my manly charm had finally overcome her inhibitions, but no. She's always been pleasant and businesslike before, but the smile was weird.
Maybe they're courting the business of lonely guys who are starved for love. Of course, then they'd end up with all these lonely broke men coming in over and over again to buy a bag of potatoes one at a time.... not really a good business move.
The guys in that store asked if I could find everything OK every time they saw me, and I assumed that they suspected me of shoplifiting or terrorism.
The whole thing was downright creepy.
The Icelanders have leprechauns too. Little known fact. They call them something else, of course.
Iceland also has more ponies/ horses per capita than anywhere except Mongolia. They're also famous for cod, sagas, genealogies, geysers, glaciers, blondes, and pop music. There are only about 2-300,000 of them.
381: That's just part of the uniform, we ditch it as soon as the tourists have fecked off, along with the kelly green Aran jumpers (sweaters to ye), the riverdancing shoes, the ginger wigs and the minature shillelaghs.
apo, Midwest. Tia, it's never happened to me by anyone remotely close to my age. It's totally weird, but I find most of the opinions of men around that age to be totally weird, and have adopted the strategy of waiting for them to die off.
What's wrong with fruit salad? I had a delightful compote the other day with blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries, with a dash of honey and some pine nuts. Yum.
On porn culture, I'm wondering whether infiltration of the pornlike gaze into the mainstream is actually the problem here. It seems that the historical state of affairs was to treat any woman who was not signalling a certain kind of societally recognized modesty (chaperones, &c.) as a loose woman or whore. And this pre-dates the modern proliferation of pornography.
apo, Midwest.
Hmm, I must have been thinking of Winna.
384: Of course they have leprechauns. Recent genetic studies indicate that the founding population of Iceland consisted (very roughly) of male pop. 75% Viking/25% Gaelic and female pop. 50% Viking/50% Gaelic. "Gaelic" here = Irish or Scottish, too close genetically to be distinguishable. About half the Gaelic women were wives of Vikings, the rest and all the Gaelic men were thralls. So the kiddies would have been brought up with tales of the little people/ good folk etc.
You want to claim it as East Coast? If you can sell it to a New Yorker, fine....
'Rust Belt' is well, putting us too close to Cleveland.
What's annoying about the swimsuit issue is that it's totally ridiculous. It would be marginally okay if they only had athletes posing (but still, it would only be female athletes, and that would annoy), but to look at the magazine as a whole, it just presents the most dull stereotypes about men. Hey, it's a magazine about sports! Men like sports. Oh, men like tits, too! Let's give them sports, but one month, we'll give them tits. Then they'll love us.
have adopted the strategy of waiting for them to die off
There are a thousand Osner's waiting to fill the shoes of each departed Emerson. We are legion.
Hrm.
Oh right. I knew the answer to that from the Super Bowl threads. I got this short-term memory impairment the old-fashioned way. I earned it.
I'm wondering whether infiltration of the pornlike gaze into the mainstream is actually the problem here
Well, there's more than one problem. I don't think removal of the pornlike gaze from the mainstream would eradicate sexism or even come close. I just think it would make life better. I don't think similar pressure should be brought to bear on the way women dress.
Some kind of balance needs to be struck between having sufficent space and freedom for men and women to live out their sexual lives and having sufficient space for us (by "us" I mean women) to walk around and not be objectified all the time. That's the problem I'm trying to solve.
What's wrong with fruit salad? I had a delightful compote the other day with blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries, with a dash of honey and some pine nuts. Yum.
And yeah, fruit salad is good. I like to eat soy yogurt, granola and fruit. Teh yummy. This fruit salad antipathy is totally irrational. It's like you look at the pineapple chunks, you look at the watermelon chunks, and you adjudge them good, but as soon as they've touched one another they've become nasty. How does that make sense?
Fruit salad haters are denied the grace of God. I followed up with God just to make sure. "They are so denied, SB", God said.
Despite my evident fruit salad loving ways, I have trouble taking the word "compote" seriously. It's the "pote"—its sounds are all goofily squished into the front of the mouth. (Cf. "pone" and "pooty-poot".)
391: It wasn't a 'hrm' of dissent so much as a 'hrm' of thoughtiness. Definitely not East Coast, but is it Midwest? Definitions are slippy. I may have mentioned that at my faculty orientation in Lubbock, TX, someone on learning that I was from Pittsburgh and had moved here from Milwaukee, asked "So is this your first experience with the Midwest?"
I like gooey fruit salad out of a can with cherries and syrup, as well as these other kinds people have been mentioning. Deal.
389: No, it goes back to old norse/germanic belief in elves. The norse saw them as minor deities, or semi-deities, rather than the small twee creature image that Tolkien detested. The difference betwwen Iceland and Scandinavia is that that belief went away w urbanisation; lots of Icelanders half-believe or believe that there are elves and one better not cross them. A strange people.
Honestly I can think of no objection to 'Rust Belt' other than the negative connotations -- though of course some Rust Belt cities (Detroit) are definitely Midwest.
I thought you had to at least be in Ohio before you started being midwest.
Fruit salad is teh nasty. My grandmother is fond of one recipe she calls "ambrosia" and I call a cruel mockery. It has marshmallows!
Dude, you're a Mormon. Of course your fruit salad has marshmallows.
I'm going to pick up on my own point, since no one else is. I see current conditions as a progression away from modesty culture--which obviously wasn't really a boon for women, because it was a repressive system in its own way, and was a sanction on the most misogynistic ill treatment of "fallen" women.
As that modesty umbrella closed, those two worlds, the modest and the "fallen", merged, with effects both good and bad. Previously super-respectable women were treated to more lewd behavior, other women to less, because the line became less sharp. Some of that social change or spillover was addressed by the women's movement; rules in the workplace, in particular, were determined by sexual harassment law. Some still have to be worked out. Porn may push in the other direction, towards making the public arena less woman-friendly, but didn't (as I see it) create the problem.
Sorry Tia, didn't preview there.
I mentioned the Irish in Iceland once.
Having grown up in South Dakota, I can tell you that the Midwest starts in Indiana and ends at the Missouri River. It extends southward to about St. Louis. It is bordered by the West, the South, the Rust Belt, and Canada. Ohio is no-man's land--Rust Belt in the North, the South in the South.
Look, people. The fact that you've had some traumatic encounter with some shite fruit salad in the middle of the country does not justify the statement that fruit salad, in general, is gross. If you cut up chunks of ripe honeydew and ripe canteloupe and put them in a bowl together, that is fruit salad. Who among you would object to that?
chunks of ripe honeydew and ripe canteloupe
Add pineapple and grapes and that's the traditional apostrophic hangover food.
I have trouble taking the word "compote" seriously.
I'm sure my compote didn't have a high opinion of you, either. Or, it has to be admitted, much of an opinion of anything.
The Norse generously gave many foreign women and girls opportunities for travel to distant lands.
But if you don't eat the ripe cantaloupe and honeydew instantly they'll start to extrude and intermingle their juices. And then they'll start to look glazed. Viscuousness! Viciousness! No, no, no! Better to eat the cantaloupe and honeydew separately, one piece carved off at a time.
You're not going to convince me otherwise, btw. Oh, and marshmallows are for burning on sticks, and jello-salad for flinging at small children.
I'd give most of ND and SD (except the cities near Minnesota) to The West.
No one would notice -- it's almost uninhabited, except by wild Indians, Scandinavians, and a peculiar sort of German Russian Ukrainian.
As that modesty umbrella closed, those two worlds, the modest and the "fallen", merged, with effects both good and bad. Previously super-respectable women were treated to more lewd behavior, other women to less, because the line became less sharp.
First, I seriously doubt that this is true; I suspect that respectable women in the old modest days simply didn't report lews behavior, b/c of the whole "she must have asked for it" problem.
Second, I think this is a good thumbnail analysis; and it points out that the real problem is that, while blurring the whole virgin/whore dichotomy, we haven't actually gotten rid of it. See, e.g., jokes about the sexuality/looks of any powerful woman. (Janet Reno, Hillary Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, etc.)
If you cut up chunks of ripe cantaloupe and strips of prosciutto, you may not have a fruit salad, and you may have a cliche, but it's still damn good.
Oh go back to fantasizing about your new love.
Hey! Indiscretion error, you snot.
Anyway, you're just jealous.
I assume there were fewer inappropriate overtures because under the rules of modesty there were fewer opportunities for them, and because there were greater risks--the honor of women being more actively protected by their families.
Though you could be right that what overtures there were would have been underreported.
407: Actually I am not a fan of cantaloupe and honeydew.
411: Oh, and marshmallows are for burning on sticks, and jello-salad for flinging at small children.
Hence the "jack," I suppose. For a while this was one of two or three images that resulted from image-searching Katty Kay, which The Poor Man made me do.
404: good one, ac. I agree that women on the virgin end of the virgin/whore scale probably received fewer overtures, because fear of honor-killings was an inhibitor.
I'm sure my compote didn't have a high opinion of you, either. Or, it has to be admitted, much of an opinion of anything.
There you go again, objectifying fruit salad, subjugating it with the judgmental, drooling gourmand gaze. Smile when you say compote, partner. Denying the agency of fruit salad will only lead to more embarrassments such as Melons Gone Wild
I remember the big compote liberation movement just after the war, during the Truman administration. Some said that fruits just wanted to express their natural fruitiness; that promiscuous mixing of melons and bananas, or even of bananas and nuts, was not polluting and perverse. Those were the days of Truman Compote.
414: Prosciutto e melone is awesome--but note! the melone usually served in wedges that the eater cuts into smaller bits. That way you avoid the unpleasant viscosity.
420. I'm rather fond of cream-based casseroles although I don't make them.
421, and the more general topic. My favorite example of how the virgin/whore thing used to be actively policed is the mid-19th-c. French law that made it a crime for prostitutes to wear hats.
I don't think I encountered any cream-based casseroles while in Utah. (Actually I didn't encounter most of these dishes firsthand.) They sound potentially OK. Are they sweet?
Mm, but a Waldorf salad is nice.
I don't care for ambrosia either but it's absolutely not Thanksgiving without it on the table. When Sue and I did T Day together I was looking at a real crisis, since she also thinks it's gross and neither of us can make it, but then Sue's sister saved Thanksgiving by bringing over a casserole dishful of the marshmallowy goop. The end.
The problem with the "their families protected them" thing as an explanation for fewer overtures is that it assumes, one, that all women had some kind of paterfamilias looking out for them (no one's dad/husband/brother died, no one's dad/husband/brother was a known dumbass, trifler, or asshole-on-whom-one-wanted-revenge, etc.). It also begs the question of why, if honor killings were such a fantastic deterrent, would rape laws not be? Plus, the date rape thing: if women are reluctant to report harassment/date rape out of shame/fear of getting their "friend"/acquaintance in trouble, how much *more* afraid would they be to report it if doing so meant that *their* reputation would be ruined and said friend/acquaintance would be killed?
Mm, but a Waldorf salad is nice.
Interesting you should say that. I ran into Waldorf salad while reading on the train this morning, when Benny Profane's boss got chopped liver in it while looking for his submachine gun. What is it?
By "cream-based casserole", do you mean gratins?
Walnuts, apples, and mayonnaise, plus a few other things.
Are they sweet?
Generally not, although you'll get some with sweetish-ingrediants, like carrots, sweet potatoes, or a (cheatin'!) spoon of sugar. My mom makes a good "Cheddar Chicken Casserole" with deboned chicken bits, short vermicelli, cream-of-chicken soup, cheddar cheese, and a bread-crumb topping. A lot of people skimp on the good stuff in their casserole since the whole point is to make massive quantities for your potluck or ten children, a practice which lowers the median quality of the genre, but there's nothing inherently wrong with cream-based casserole, like there is with fruit and jello salads.
Actually I am not a fan of cantaloupe and honeydew.
B-but what about casaba? C'mon, you gotta love casaba.
Hm. Sounds kinda bad. Though I certainly can't see chopped liver improving it.
428. In my head everything I learned about cooking from my Mormon relatives is filed in a totally separate category than is everything I've learned about cooking since then. So while a gratin could be a cream-based casserole, most cream-based casseroles seem to me to belong to a different species. Would you really make a gratin with canned cream-of-X soup? Because that's totally standard practice for the casserole.
Look, Jackmormon, you're making excuses for how cream-based casseroles are made, but you won't even consider the various circumstances under which fruit salad is consumed. You think it's not the cream-based casserole's fault that it tends to suck, but you wait too long to eat your fruit salad so the juices have become sticky, and then you blame the fruit salad for your own delay! What is this but the rankest hypocrisy?
JM -- in my non-Mormon childhood, potatoes au gratin were commonly made with Cambell's cream soups. This was the only gratin I ever saw as a child. We had macaroni-and-cheese all the time but did not call it gratin -- I was amused to find Gratin of Macaroni on the menu at Les Halles. Seriously good mac-n-cheese btw.
426- I'm mostly going on 19th century novels rather than actual archival evidence, but isn't it true that if you lost your father/brother/spouse protector, another relation or respectable local neighbor would step in--and, should no protector appear, your status itself would change?
"Their families protected them": The rapists' families protected them too, so the big families preyed on the little ones.
One of the peculiarities of honor killing is that the woman / girl's consent had nothing to do with anything. She was disgraced even if she was unwilling, and the man was a rapist even if she was willing. In really patriarchal societies, there is no age of consent for females. They're minors their whole life long.
In Austen's "Sense and Sensibility" the wealthy villain seduces two women without any consequences, IIRC.
Tia, did you read some willingness to compromise in my 411?
Jackmormon, even if you are lost to reason I can at least expose your fallacies to the others, so that they may profit from it.
426: I don't disagree with you--I'm just trying to imagine how in theory such a system would work. and what happens of course is that when a woman's protective network fails, she simply gets moved into the whore category. Easy!
I was thinking of S & S as an example--after the Dashwood girls' father dies, Sir John Middleton becomes their protector.
Yeah, but that's fiction. The point is, give how porous the protection network really was (and John's point about how all a guy needed to do was pick a girl a step down the social ladder), I have a hard time believing that harassment/attacks/rapes of women are *lower* in extremely patriarchal societies.
I wasn't saying they were lower overall, I was saying they were lower for respectable women, which, admittedly, is a fluid category. And fiction reflects mores if not actuality.
(and John's point about how all a guy needed to do was pick a girl a step down the social ladder),
This. I can't remember which George Eliot book I'm thinking of (maybe Adam Bede), but those social protections were only effective for women of the upper classes; a woman who worked, like most women, was completely vulnerable to any higher status man who she came in contact with. Hell, think of Pamela; a thousand pages of how freakishly superhuman it was for a female servant to avoid being raped.
The population of Jane Austen's books is drawn from a fraction of a percent of the richest people in England -- they're nothing like a cross section.
447: I think this only works if you restrict 'respectable' to 'very, very upper-class'.
I don't know, my sense of, e.g., rural Ireland pre-1950 is that the sexes were largely segregated, and that separation was policed, so there wasn't much opportunity for overtures. And I'm not talking about wealthy people.
Traditional societies as portrayed in fiction seem much more attractive than they really were. The reader naturally assumes that they'd be like the characters in the book, but everyone in Jane Austen comes from the top 5-10%. Even the trashy golddiggers are pretty well off.
The "history from below" people have done quite a bit to correct this error.
Various conversions of the wealth of Darcy in P&P to today's dollars are out there, but "filthy rich" is pretty close to right. It's hard to adjust for inflation when some things we rely on didn't exist at all, but you could hire a servant for $200 a month.
Jane Austen knew all this.
Right, but 'respectable' women weren't protected by their status, they were protected by the fact that they were kept indoors (chaperoned, not out after dark, etc.). Regardless of respectability, a woman in a situation where a man had physical access to her to harass/attck/rape her was fair game.
Well, no, because there is a middle ground in terms of whether the community is looking out for you/keeping you in line, or not. In small town Ireland, where my aunts grew up, there would have been their immediate family, their extended family, all the people afraid of crossing your family, protective/interfering local women concerned with the general moral tone of the place, plus the Church.
Well, she didn't know about conversion factors, but she knew that money was everything.
In Taiwan when I was there 20 years ago a single girl from a poor family who was away from home had little protection. Even otherwise respectable women were regarded as "asking for it" if they were out alone after 9 pm. Workplace sexual harassment was so systematized that one guy told me it reduced efficiency -- "girlfriends" with fake jobs couldn't be fired until the owner was tired of them.
The Chinese seemed to be less absolutist about chastity than Moslems, though. There seemed to be a "don't ask, don't tell" system in place where you pretended that nothing had happened.
The victims would normally be those of no family, poor family, disgraced family, or those expelled from the family.
The villains wouild normally be dashing military men who could leave town quickly, at least in the folk songs I'm familiar with. Escept for the ones who drowned Barbrey Allen in the river or whatever.
Way I heard it, she died of remorse and was buried next to Sweet William, whose heart she had broken.
Of course, she didn't have to tell them, that ever she played this joke, That she was drilled in a sentry box, wrapped up in a soldier's coat.
What is it with threads with one-word titles beginning with "I" and followed by two consonants? They just go on and on.
What is the longest thread in the history of the internet?
I would not be shocked at all if some threads on Usenet had crossed into the tens of thousands.
I guess the Unfogged community should set itself a more modest goal.
I'm late to the party, but when did that ever stop anyone from commenting?
106 and 108:Episcopal/Anglican and Orthodox priests can marry. So, lusting after a priest isn't necessarily the sign of a disturbed mind.
268 (and the smile thing generally): I was once studiously avoiding the gaze of a homeless guy who was selling the UK equivalent of Spare Change. I was in a pretty good mood, but I didn't want to deal with the guy, so I put on a pretty foul expression. He said, "Smile, life's not that bad." I had to laugh at the absurdity of it.
Fruit salad: I've been served fruit salad that was all fruit with salad dessing on it. I don't remember whether it was vinaigrette based or the mayonnaise variety. This was in Portland, OR. As a 12 year-old, I didn't care for it.
adequacy.org's comment thread on "Is Your Child A Computer Hacker" topped out at 5436 comments (due to the limitations of Scoop weblog software at the time we could only show about 2000 or so at once). I'm not aware of anyone ever having beaten that record.
Speaking of Hooters. . .
(Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to hell I go . . .)
Crap, I actually clicked on that. I hate you now.
Alice Waters insists on calling a Waldorf by its ingredients (Curly Endive With Celery, Apple, and Pecans). I wonder why that is. Unless the substitution of pecans for walnuts (interesting!) and verjuice and olive oil for mayonnaise (less so!) disqualify the salad as a Waldorf variant.
Armsmasher: Wikipaedia thinks Waldorf Salad is "a salad consisting of apple, nuts (especially walnuts), celery, and mayonnaise" -- so I am thinking that walnuts would not disqualify a salad from Waldorfhood -- but the wrong fat might do so. Chopped liver anyone?
I thought 'Smasher's point was that a Waldorf salad contains walnuts, so using pecans instead was what was weird.
Oh -- right you are. The misreading was mine.
My point was that Waters's salad (Curly Endive With Celery, Apple, and Pecans) should be called a Waldorf.* Exactly because the chopped liver variant is still recognized as a Waldorf, I don't see why substituting pecans for walnuts should change its Waldorfian status. Maybe striking the mayonnaise is too much for the Waldorf to bear.
Full disclosure: I have been known to add tangerine bits.
I think that 'Waldorf' sounds very, very outdated and fusty from a foodie point of view, and that's the only reason that Waters isn't calling what is clearly a Waldorf salad by its name.
And yet with a quick discussion of the methods of tossing salads, we can bring the conversation full circle.
Food porn? The sight of a man doing sensual things deliberately, ala shaving? Give me some help here.
How on earth was that derived? Code I get; what I don't get is the analogy.
Damfino - I've never actually heard anyone use the term other than as comedy.
After covering the essential nature of gay, and the essential nature of philosophy, and the essential nature of porn, everyone has moved on to identifying the defining charateristics of Waldorf salad.
I'm still wondering whether a dowel can properly be described as a tube completely filled by the same material that constitutes the walls. Is there a philosopher of skinless sausage in the house?
The Waldorf sald was invented by the students of Rudolf Steiner. There are various ingredients in different versions, but irony and sarcasm should not be included.
So the analogy is to working the dressing in, spreading it around? Boy, that is lame.
A tube with one end bent to close it off forms a power law distribution.
Also tossable: dwarfs, coins, corn, and cameras.
(By the way, 477 was me.)
