And I didn't do it because I didn't want to make it look like I was intentionally misquoting Teo, but took much restraint not to add the link:
S&M-type fantasies and another tells him that his desires could be very upsetting to women and feminist-type men.
"the men had felt guilty-or had made to feel guilty-about deviant desires" s/b "the men felt guilty--or were made to feel guilty--about deviant desires"
I agree with Teo's basic point, but I'm a bit bothered by the use of passive voice in Why are men with S&M fantasies considered potential rapists while women with similar fantasies are encouraged to pursue them (or at least not discouraged)? I think the question is, "by whom"? I defended the guy with the dominance (neither sadistic nor rape, if I remember correctly) fantasy, and other people did as well.
That said. I think that if one believes (as I do) that sexual fantasies are shaped by the world one lives in, then it's fairly obvious why male fantasies of dominance would be more troubling than female fantasies of submission (although keep in mind that the original BJ debate that started this whole thing was highly critical not only of submissive fantasies, but even of symbolic submission in the form of blow jobs). Rape is a real problem, male violence against women is a real problem, treating women primarily as sex objects is a real problem. The very things that (presumably) make these fairly common fantasies are the reasons they bother people.
That said, I personally don't see much good in blaming or shaming people for their sex lives (as the original response to the dominantion fantasy in my post was doing). But I also think it's worthwhile to ask folks to think about the way sex is socially constructed. And I think that a certain amount (not all) of the problem straight men have talking about sex as social construct is kind of akin to the problem a lot of white folks have talking about racism: a tendency to take criticism personally and get defensive. Which is sympathetic, but also (if you think about it) a mark of thinking of oneself (still) as being at the center of the discussion.
I'm feeling cynical and cranky today, but I'm wondering if one of the reasons there's more...applause when a woman admits to a deviant desire is simply due to the larger idea that women aren't supposed to chase after sex at all, let alone have spent the time constructing complicated fantasies.
Why are men with S&M fantasies considered potential rapists while women with similar fantasies are encouraged to pursue them (or at least not discouraged)?
That might have been the tenor of the threads at B's blog, but I've read other blogs where women were harshly criticized for submissive/rape fantasies.
I think B's got it roughly right, except that I'm not sure thinking about it or criticizing the underlying themes in male fantasies that implicate violence gets men very far toward excising those themes. Gawd help me for using the word "reinscribe," but I think such discussions also reinscribe those themes.
7--Yay! Now I'll go back and edit my post, and the record will make it look like Teo quoted me wrong!
6: Necessarily, or does it depend on how the discussion goes? I'm not likely to agree that it's best to just repress ideas we don't like, but I think that this is an interesting possibility. I do think (im limited e) that some ways in which sexual fantasies are explained and articulated can amount mostly to rationalizing and excusing them. But then even saying that gets into really shaky territory where one starts asking questions about whether people's sexual desires are malleable, whether people "should" try to change them, and which people we're talking about. Men with rape fantasies? Teh gays? Pedophiles? Women with submission fantasies? Women who fantasize over men they're not married to? Women who fantasize about other women? Etc.
Here's a data point that I'm not sure how it all fits in: When I lived in New Orleans, I met and had a good chat with a proprietor of a BDSM club. (One of those dinner party guests that don't seem at all out of the ordinary when you're in New Orleans.) He said that that women who are new to BDSM come to the club split about 50/50 - half want to dom and half want to sub. Almost all of the men who came to the club wanted to be dominant. He has a rule where a person has to do three submissive scenes over multiple visits before they're allowed to dom anyone and the men are always utterly predictable. 90% of the guys who come in wanting to dom do their three submissive scenes, set something up with him or his wife to learn how to be a good dom (he required training/mentoring), and quit after one lesson, deciding they liked being on the bottom better.
The fact that so many men (from this anecdote, at least) seem confused about what they really like and what really turns them on makes me think there is at least some kind of a cultural component to fantasies people have.
9: I myself have wondered about the malleability of desire and whether people might be morally obliged to try to modify their desires. For example, I know a fair number of guys with Asian fetishes -- are they morally obliged to do something about this?
Another reason men with dom fantasies might squick us out:
they could come to fruition -- even if they're unlikely to -- without someone else's consent. The sub's got to have someone playing along. (Note, I am not equating BDSM with rape, just that the fantasy doesn't require someone else's agency.)
15 me. Also, I think most desires are malleable but most of them aren't worth the effort to bother to change. Guys with Asian chick fetishes piss me off.
just that the fantasy doesn't require someone else's agency
That depends on the particular fantasy. I think a lot of doms have fantasies that are simultaneously about domming and their partner's response.
Not sure if a response counts as agency.
Anyway, some doms are crypto-misogynists/possible rapists, so they're squicky for a reason. No one like that in B's threads though.
Why does B hate Asians?
When I was stationed in Korea, there was a reasonably large number of American women who would not date men who also dated Korean women. While this could have been a principled stand against whatever bad motivations are the focus of B.'s comment, it always seemed to me to be simply a clever way of dealing with competition.
I do think (im limited e) that some ways in which sexual fantasies are explained and articulated can amount mostly to rationalizing and excusing them.
There are very few topics of conversation that I think should be off-limits; I just think there may be more rationalizing going on than you do. Or that honestly felt and apparently good arguments will be used down the road by some men toward bad ends. Which is to say, I don't really have a solution to offer to any perceived problem.
I guess, as I just commented at teo's, I don't really understand the motives behind cheering on the very existence of any group's sexual desires. Yay, for women who can get horny? Because they're always better than women who can't?
I mean, in the cases of my friends and people I know, I can say, "Yay for you for having hot sex that makes you feel happy and validated because that's what you wanted before!" And lord knows I'm doing my part to represent women who are comfortable with talking openly about sexual experience.
But there's a reason I didn't get into the sex wars on my blog or at the Bitch's. I hate the way people who don't know or care about each other get competitive when they talk about sex. Everyone assumes some different value on pleasure, lack of pleasure, kinds of fantasies, kinds of sex acts, and we're not speaking the same language. I like to see a person's face when they tell me they like it when their new boyfriend fucks them in the ass. If they look happy, I say, "Hooray for anal fun!" and if they don't look happy, I say, "Are you sure this is what you want?"
I should qualify: that isn't a gender-based statement, either. I never trust words alone when talking to anyone about sex, male or female.
Actually the Asian chick fetish thing made me realize something. I do expect people to use their conscious awareness of, say, racist feelings to try to change those feelings. And I think that the way to do that isn't just by thinking it through (though that's necessary) but by taking action once one realizes the problem. So why should sexuality be this protected space where people aren't expected to do that work? I realize, of course, that the problem is that sexuality has traditionally been the primary arena in which people are supposed to modify their feelings, and that to some extent the "you can't help what turns you on" argument is a reasonable balancing reaction. But in a perfect world I don't see why we (broadly speaking, as opposed to the shaming-individuals thing) shouldn't expect ourselves to work on reprogramming ingrained stuff that we think isn't good.
I just think there may be more rationalizing going on than you do.
Yeah, but in general I think this speaks to a difference you and I often have about the value of analyzing stuff (as opposed to, say, deciding X is a desireable state of being and therefore we should act like/model X rather than navel-gazing about the ways we fail to accomplish X). If that makes sense. Anyway, it's a side issue, but it definitely made me think about the differences between things where I'm impatient with too much analysis (e.g., "why don't women ask men out?") vs. things where I'm not.
Now I'm Farberizing this thread. Sorry 'bout that.
25: I have the same intuition about this: a racist fantasy seems to me a lot more problematic than a rape fantasy or a sub/dom fantasy, but I can't coherently say why.
A race-based fetish seems morally objectionable because it's racist, but why doesn't a male-dom female-sub scenario strike me as (necessarily) objectionably sexist?
Oh, there are tons of fantasies that seem morally objectionable to me. (Apparently I'm a prude.)
Consent seems to be my line in the sand for these. As long as everyone involved in the act or the fantasy gives explicit, informed consent, I can't bring myself to get too het up.
So, pedophilia is a no-go, fantasy or otherwise, under this umbrella: a child cannot ever give informed consent. Nor can an animal, so leave teh donkies out of it. Etc etc.
BUT, the hard part is of course the "informed" bit (assuming anyone can be explicit if they want the sex bad enough). As a 30-something college-educated woman, it would seem I could consent to just about any sub fantasy if I were inclined. But I'm not informed until I've actually tried it and found out how it made me feel.
And if my information comes in the form of societally-produced roles that have been cultivated for 2000+ years, am I really that well informed? Or just brainwashed?
In my experience, sub/dom experiences are a way of playing out fear, power, and intimacy narratives that are somewhat naturalized in the experience of being a powerful woman. To "do" sub and know in your heart that you're not submissive in non-sexual life and that your dom partner is really doing what you want adds all these delicious layers of sexual irony. What kind of sexual irony, complexity, or relationship to life is there to be had in having racist sexual fantasies? Isn't it just a simplistic conflation of orientalizing women and Orientalizing women?
One difference I can see is that really, IM limited E, the mutuality of the experience is really central to male doms' fantasies (assuming they're not the crypto-misogynist type). So what's going on is not objectification, since the dom is really interested and excited by the sub's subjective experience. The Asian fetish thing isn't about the woman in a meaningful way; he just wants her to look the way he wants her and overlay a bunch of ideas about her race onto her.
27: It might be because the race-based fetish would seem to presume a certain degree of interchangability? As in: I want to sex an Asian chick, and this one here will do. Whereas the dominant/submissive dynamic should ideally be the result of some negotiation between individuals?
Because most men with Asian chick fetishes are annoying tools who are probably going to say something about how the Eastern mind is so superior to the Western mind and the katana superior to the calabat (whack whack WHACK.)
There's a great line in the Whit Stillman movie Barcelona about how guys think the great thing about dating girls who don't speak their native language is that all the little subtle things women of your own culture despise you for become adorable quirks to the foreign woman.
I had a brief misguided fling with a white guy who informed me I was his first non-Asian girlfriend. Apparently in rural China, they thought he looked like Leonardo DiCaprio. I can verify that this would not be apparent to an American girl.
Whereas the dominant/submissive dynamic should ideally be the result of some negotiation between individuals?
But we're talking about FANTASY here, aren't we? I may be way wrong, but I can't see how the "negotiation" phase really plays into the fantasy. The reality, yes, but the fantasy, no.
So the race thing and the sub/dom thing come out sounding the same to me. I don't think anyone is really getting off on irony or the specifics of an individual's personality while fantasizing (unless they're fantasizing about someone they know already). I think they're getting off on the power dynamic. In fact, the Asian fantasy seems almost the same as the sub/dom fantasy to me, as the stereotypical Asian woman in the fantasy is always submissive. At least, that's the image it conjures for me.
Am I waaay off here? Or do sub/dom fantasies involve much more complexity than I'm giving credit? (Obviously the reality is very complex, but that's not what we're talking about.)
There are a lot of guys who DO talk about their domination / sadism fantasies. To other guys. They're not talking about staged events at an SM club, either.
These guys don't show up at places like this much.
What about guys who have these fantasies but who are basically decent people and whose friends are mostly feminists? By and large they keep their mouths shut and suppress their desires.
This goes against the rule that everyone should always be open and the rule that Sex is Always Good, so it seems puritanical and repressive, but maybe puritanism and repression can be good things too.
As for the Asian fetish -- I get tired of people talking about this. The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was not marrying my (educated and respectable 24-year-old) Taiwanese girlfriend in 1984. The message I got from her is that she wanted to be with me and always liked having me around. The messages I'd get from my USA relationships, plural, was that they weren't sure how serious they wanted to get with anyone, that they needed to work through some psychological things first, that they weren't sure that I was good enough, and that there were certain changes I was going to have to make.
This wasn't a slave girl fantasy, I just wanted someone who liked me and wanted to be with me. I lived in Taiwan for a year and from what I saw, Chinese wives were not submissive.
Ever since then I've felt that hip American relationships are booby-trapped and unlikely to succeed. It's quite possible that I'm letting a few anecdotal events poison my perception, but these were major events in my life.
Trivia: like many Chinese women, my girlfiend was afraid of tall, charming, dramatic, macho guys, even if they were Chinese.
It might be because the race-based fetish would seem to presume a certain degree of interchangability? As in: I want to sex an Asian chick, and this one here will do.
This would imply that other fetishes for "interchangeable" types would also be morally objectionable. A fetish for overweight women, a fetish for tall blonde women, et cetera.
"Fetish", of course, being a synonym for "preference".
I like petite woman with dark hair and eyes. If the eyes and hair are right, height and body can be negotiable. Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz. I like asians, hispanic-descended, native americans, italians, semitics, africans and afro-americans.
Not attracted to voluptuous blue-eyed blondes. Am I racist?
I actually don't have a problem with a preference for Asian features any more than I have a preference for any other kind of features. I get somewhat suspicious when someone has a succession of girlfriends who look just alike. I have preferences for men, but they're flexible. However, a lot of people who are into Asian women don't *just* like sleek black hair or a certain skin tone; they have china doll or dragon lady notions about personality and behavior that go with it.
Or do sub/dom fantasies involve much more complexity than I'm giving credit?
My E is L, but I think the answer to this is at least sometimes yes.
Aren't we dealing with two fairly incompatible ways of looking at things? On the one hand, we're supposed to follow our desires, let ourselves go, turn off the inner censor, and be wild and free. On the other hand, if the way that we let ourselves go is too stereotyped in certain ways, or crosses certain lines, people will start talking.
This would imply that other fetishes for "interchangeable" types would also be morally objectionable. A fetish for overweight women, a fetish for tall blonde women, et cetera.
"Morally objectionable" is too strong, but definitely a turn-off. When I first moved to NYC, I got hounded by a few guys who were after some grade-A size-12 blonde Midwestern grad-student booty, and although there's probably nothing inherently wrong with that, it feels pretty gross to be wanted for your ability to fit into someone's carefully planned fetish. Maybe I'm saying this as someone who first realized there was a sexual niche for her at age 24, long after I came to think from the outside that sexual niches were humiliating. So, take that as one person's experience, not, like, "all identity fetishes should be banned by law."
grade-A size-12 blonde Midwestern grad-student booty
Wow, that is a niche fetish. These guys were explicitly looking for that particular combination of qualities?
On the one hand, we're supposed to follow our desires, let ourselves go, turn off the inner censor, and be wild and free.
I don't know if I'd put it this way, exactly. I think one's fantasies and how one has sex should be rigorously examined.
I found my own views on sub/dom changing as the thread progressed; as time went on the reticence issue I had had evaporated as people spelled out how much they had signaled a desire to submit a bit. I realized I never had and would never have had a problem with that level of communication.
But [i]n my experience, sub/dom experiences are a way of playing out fear, power, and intimacy narratives that are somewhat naturalized in the experience of being a powerful woman. To "do" sub and know in your heart that you're not submissive in non-sexual life and that your dom partner is really doing what you want adds all these delicious layers of sexual irony is just beautiful, and the neatest expression of what I'd like to believe I've seen yet.
47: Well, yes, which is why this is an interesting topic of discussion (at least for me). Why do people start talking? Which lines do you have to cross before they do? Is there anything we should do about this, or should we just let it be?
This thread has been great. Thanks everyone for the interesting discussion.
47: That's why I think it's just as silly for any of us to talk about sex in generalities, ever, at all. Sex is not universally worth celebrating for its boundlessness, nor is it something to be universally policed. All any of us have are our individual experiences of feeling one thing or another. None of us is in a position to ban anything anyway, just like none of us is in a position to advise the Democratic Party. So why any huff? We can just talk about us if we want.
All those question marks were supposed to convey some hesitancy about whether I wasn't just talking out of my ass. As I might have been.
Wrenae's point about fantasy--which I think is somewhat similar to points A White Bear was making at Teo's place--is probably important. There are some fantasies that I wouldn't feel comfortable about sharing, even with a loving partner, because I don't want them to be acted out so don't really see the point of talking about them.
About preferences and interchangibility, I endorse Tia's 45.
49: Yes. Several. Apparently something on my Nerve profile was pitched a certain way, and I was suddenly a niche-target. These are things we don't see on the television.
One of the good things about sex used to be that it was supposed to be an escape into a less rule-bound, less goal-oriented world. At a certain point it loses that and just becomes another area where you have to perform, and the rules keep shifting too.
In my sexual fantasies, I look like Jaclyn Smith from Charlie's Angels.
Does this make me a bad person? And if so, should I try being Cheryl Ladd instead?
54: Right, and I guess that bothers me a little, that there's this big emphasis in the sex-pos culture on fulfilling your fantasies, as if they're incomplete as mere fantasies. Sex fantasies are often ridiculous, extreme, disturbing, and unfulfillable (at least in that no one's life could handle the constant variety and intensity that one's fantasy life would dictate). The point of a fantasy is to get you off when you're alone. Some I might act out. Most, however, are insane.
Off topic a bit, but I had to share this excerpt from today's Mimi Smartypants entry, as it cracked me the fuck up:
Sometimes I think of very specific things during sex---these are not fantasies but just strong images, almost like hallucinations, that pop into my head, usually at crucial moments. They neither distract nor inspire, but I always feel compelled to share them afterwards with LT ("I saw a picture of the Canadian flag when I came!"). You may now pity my husband.
Read for yourself at
http://smartypants.diaryland.com/index.html
Actually I think 29-34 go a long way towards clarifying the distinction for me. But I wonder if that might not just be because I "get" the sub/dom thing more than I "get" the Asian fetish thing. ("Fetish" is not a synonym for "preference," btw.)
Musing further: there's presumably a pretty major distinction between "the idea of X sex act interests me, because ..." and "I think Y girls (or boys) are hott." The latter is, literally, superficial. The former (even just as fantasy) gets into more complicated issues about relationships, human interactions, etc etc. Although obviously the symbolism of "I like Y girls" says something about the subject's attitude towards human interaction, maybe, but it still seems to be primarily about what Y girls mean to me rather than what X act means to me, and what it could mean to someone else.
this big emphasis in the sex-pos culture on fulfilling your fantasies, as if they're incomplete as mere fantasies
Amen. And it might be hot to share the fantasies with someone and yet not actually want that person to think, "gosh, I guess so and so really wants me to wrap her in the Canadian flag!" (Which is why Dan Savage's recent column letter about the mff threesome thing irritated me. No, by sharing that fantasy, the person is not necessarily saying they want it to happen.)
As far as I can tell, the thing about sexual preferences is that they're mostly completely superficial. They probably all have some underlying meaning, too, but sexual preferences mostly seem to have to do with aspects of appearance and physical type.
I'd like to correct my 53, in that I have had comment-conversations that briefly poisoned my sex life. I remember a guy over at Dr. B's insisting to me that all sexual "pleasure" had by a woman is merely pain that women interpret as pleasurable because they're natural masochists--something silly like that--and it totally spoiled sex for like two weeks, even though I knew he was wrong! So perhaps what we say in this forum about sex stuff can create problems, for real, for people.
63: Did I delete/ban that guy? Because if not, I shall have to kick myself hard.
On the other hand, asking to be wrapped in the Red Ensign, while singing The Maple Leaf Forever is deeply, deeply, reprehensible.
Well sure, B's commenters can ruin your sex life. But we're different.
No, he's someone you like, and someone I basically banned while subbing for you. Some people bring out the worst in others, and I'm one of those people. He seems reasonably nice when I'm not posting/commenting.
But I should concede, though I'm slightly more uncomfortable speaking about specifics about sex here than I was at B's, that I really don't identify with the concept of sexual irony. (Not saying it doesn't have validity, but I don't feel like it applies to me.) Everything I do sexually is a real expression of an aspect of myself. I'm not pretending. That's who I am. I frequently ordering food in restaurants, fergawdsake. That's how little I like decision making.
Oh, 67 to 64, obv. And 66: Unfogged needs a new motto, something like, "Mineshaft users report a 2% increase in orgasm intensity for every comment posted!"
I frequently stress out ordering food in restaurants.
65: There's a swingers' club near my house that advertised drink specials to celebrate Canada Day.
(Is there a way to denote "swinging" that smells less of plush velvet? Even the bar lists itself that way, though the clientele to whom they cater don't resemble the stereotypical 70s image of "swinging couples.")
I don't really get the anti-Asian fetish (or preference or whatever) thing, either. Perhaps it depends on whether we're talking about Asian-Americans or Asians. Anecdotally, Asian-American women aren't that different from most other American women, and I'm sure most guys get that after dating in the Asian-American pool.
67: Oh, I think I know who you mean. Actually he's kind of stopped commenting now. Which makes me feel kind of bad, on a personal level, but which I also have to admit has made the site way, way better and less stressful for me.
Asian fetish is one of very few I was exposed to in adolescent sex-talk among male peers. It seemed very widespread during the sixties. I remember thinking "Not me, I want Suzanne Pleshette.
I think the idea is that the Asian-fetish guys are really looking for women who are meek and submissive, and they think Asian women are like that, so that's what they go after. Obviously, if they're dating Asian-American women they're going to be disabused of that notion pretty rapidly.
I don't know, 72. My brother has an Asian-chick fetish that I think is gross; the women he's dated have mostly been Asian Americans, but overwhelmingly those who characterologically identify with their original cultures and had certain language barriers (cf. the Walt Stillman line in 34). Katanas and Buddhism and anime and all that play a role too, but I cynically think the draw is the Amerian stereotype of Asians as quiet, sympathetic, and submissive.
72: The Asian fetish is so fucking offensive because it's all, "ooh, Asian girls are so petite! and pretty! and delicate!" and blah blah all the other offensive crap about what's desireable in women, even before you get to the question of whether there's some underlying Orientalist fantasy of submissive geisha girls or whateverthefuck. It's like the most objectifying ethnic fetish there is, I think.
Also because when you get annoyed about it, men tend to accuse you of feeling threatened. Because of course no woman would possibly object to objectification if she weren't just jealous.
And finally, it's revoltingly common in men who otherwise seem reasonably intelligent.
I think it's revoltingly common in men who are socially incompetent. It's also something that's reinforced early, because it's such a common and pervasive fetish and is to varying degrees connected to other obsessions over Japanese pop culture, it's an easy preference for young men to take on when they don't know what they think but they're trying to establish a sexual identity.
57:No, no looling like Jaclyn Smith rather than Cheryl Ladd makes you really hot! In your fantasies. I would wonder about anyone fantasizing they were Kate Jackson, tho. That's kinda sick.
I am terrible at fantasizing. Having gone to bed with actual people, I have found that sex is only interesting or fun to the degree the partner is an individual and surprises you. I have no idea what Salma Hayek would be like in bed;I have even less of an idea what Salma Hayek would be like in bed with me. So I just can't seem to fantasize about Salma Hayek.
I only fantasize about women I have already bedded, doing the things we have already done. I consider this really weird, a terrible flaw.
77: Bitch, the reason I'm not so harsh on those guys is because I think their weird misogynistic posturing is just to cover the fact that they want a chicks who don't know what nerds they are. When I slept with the "Asian-fetish" guy, it became apparent that he isn't into submissiveness at all--in fact, in bed he was Mr. Vanilla. I asked him why he hadn't dated white girls, and his thing was that white girls weren't as into him.
This reminds me of an infuriating interaction I had this weekend with a friend of a friend who is a petit vegan fellow who works in the arts, but insists on dressing like Johnny Cash and making fun of "sissy girl shit" because he's terrified people will think he's gay. He acts like a misogynistic asshole, but it's a posture to cover his fear that he's not cool.
Neither of these are examples of why we shouldn't loathe these guys for their misogyny and racism, but I think that misogyny and racism are often ways dorky guys try to mainstream their personalities.
The Asian fetish is so fucking offensive because it's all, "ooh, Asian girls are so petite! and pretty! and delicate!" and blah blah all the other offensive crap
As opposed to what? A fetish for blondes, or big breasts? And who doesn't have a preference for pretty sexual mates? Or rather, who says, "I prefer my mates ugly"? It's fetishes all the way down.
Basically, yeah, what Armsmasher said.
I would wonder about anyone fantasizing they were Kate Jackson, tho.
You fuck. Jackson was the most attractive of the lot. You obv. missed her work in Scarecrow and Mrs. King.
I guess I don't get the asian fetish thing. Just watched a movie last night, "H", with a 6-foot female homicide detective as the lead. And she was the lead detective, made the decisions, gave orders, solved the crime, used her gun.
I watch a lot of Asian movies, and asian women don't all look like Winona Ryder or Jena Malone.
Asian women from Asia do remain part of the human race, I hope.
I do have an alibi, in that I had studied Chinese for ten years before going to Taiwan, and I actually had had no intention of getting married when I went over there, but then things happened.
However, the truth is that I am and was socially incompetent, nerdy, and vanilla when I went over there (and also short), and was glad to be in a place where that was OK. Socially incompetent, nerdy guys with no other major problems are well advised to go someplace where they're socially acceptable, for example Taiwan, rather than continue to try to compete in an arena where they're sure to lose.
As I said, Asian women from Taiwan are not submissive. They tend to stay in the background, but they're usually full partners in their husband's businesses, and when doing business over there you always have to understand that.
I watch a lot of Asian movies, and asian women don't all look like Winona Ryder
That's unsurprising, since Winona Ryder isn't Asian. I don't know who Jena Malone is.
No one's accusing you of having the Asian fetish, John. There's no problem with white guys dating Asian women per se, it's just that there's a certain kind of white guy who only wants to date Asian women because of some stereotypical (and mistaken) ideas about what they're like.
Wrenae:
"But we're talking about FANTASY here, aren't we? I may be way wrong, but I can't see how the "negotiation" phase really plays into the fantasy. The reality, yes, but the fantasy, no."
No, I think that most doms, even in their fantasies, imagine mutual consent. And in cases where their fantasies don't include such consent, they will often still include a genuine concern for the well-being of the submissive. I think that submissives' fanstasies are more likely to involve involuntary captivity and cruel masters. But I'm speaking with very little experience, here.
"'Fetish', of course, being a synonym for 'preference'."
While "fetish" is sometimes used that way, I think it's more useful to define a "fetish" as a condition for arousal. If the fetishistic object isn't present, either in reality or in fantasy, then there's no arousal, or greatly diminished pleasure. Maybe that's the same as a strong or very strong preference, but not a simple preference. "Fetish" sometimes also connotates that the desire is pretty unusual or disgusting, but sometimes it doesn't. Depends on who's using it.
As for the "asian fetish". Well, a real fetish for Asians would probably be pretty creepy. But I've always found that Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and to a lesser extent Chinese women are somewhat more attractive to me on average. I would probably only be interested in one who grew up in America, though, because a shared language and culture is important to me in a relationship. That doesn't make me a bad person, does it? In fact, I think it might be partly because Asians tend to be smaller, and I'm attracted to small. Not because of the facial features. But they do have a nicer skin tone. And if anything, I think of Asian women to be more assertive, not less, and that's part of the appeal. And if those correlated traits weren't present in some particular Asian woman, then I doubt I would still be more attracted to them than if they were more European.
And in any case, it's not something I actively look for. There are many other, much more important qualities to look for, so I can't afford to be picky about something like ethnic background.
"As far as I can tell, the thing about sexual preferences is that they're mostly completely superficial."
Well, stated sexual preferences are indeed almost entirely based on body type. But there are many, many non-physical things that can make or break sexual compatibility, and I'm aware of many cases where someone who's kind of plain but very attractive in non-physical ways becomes sexually attractive to someone else as they become infatuated with the person. So, no.
Googling Jena Malone, I assume bob was saying that not all Asian women are waifs, not that Winona and Jena are Asian.
80: Yeah, but the solipsism there still irritates me.
A friend of mine who taught in Taiwan said that it was common for her male colleagues to date Taiwanese women, but almost no American women dated Taiwanese men. She said it was because of the Orientalist conflation of "Asian" with "feminine" -- Asian guys were seen as asexual.
89: Yeah, I know, SCMT: I was just being a smartass.
86:
77:"Asian girls are so petite! and pretty! and delicate!" ...bphd
Winona and Jena fall into this category. Is this asian fetish about a particular body type and look, or what?
Don't listen to teo, John. J'accuse, Emerson. Although I find this hard to believe: I am and was socially incompetent, nerdy, and vanilla.
Doesn't sound like pdf has the Asian fetish either.
85: JE, I hope you know any scorn in my 80 is directed at those who use misogyny to cover up their interest in cultural difference, not those who escape into other cultures.
My current bf was a male model in Taiwan when he graduated college. I think, for him, it was a similar disaffection with American culture--not women specifically, but with the bourgeois Manhattanites he grew up around--and it helped him sort out what he was really angry about, ethically, and what he was merely reacting against because it hadn't been good to him. And, needless to say, he probably got some satisfaction out of being looked at as a super-gorgeous guy while here he's merely handsome.
Oh, I also forgot to add my diatribe against the chocolate-box theory of women. "I prefer the raspberry-filled dark chocolates." "Really? I like coconut myself." "Oh, no, nuts and chews for me."
Gross, gross, gross.
96: Now there are social implications for the kind of candy we like? I don't see that at all.
96: So, what? Would you be grossed out by some conversation like this:
"I prefer more athletic women."
"Really? I like the more indoorsy types myself."
"Oh, no, only artistic and musical for me."
Or is it just the particular traits being discussed that bug you? E.g. hair color, eye color, height.
Everyone should know who Jena Malone is. because of "Bastard Out of Carolina" and "Donnie Darko". "Saved" and "Cheaters" are also decent.
Everyone should be an obsessive film freak with good name retention, but the world isn't perfect.
96: I just like biting into all of them, sucking the filling out, enjoying the surprise, and then leaving the empty chocolate shell in the box for someone else to find.
I doubt that the "Asian fetish" has the importance people give it here. It's just that socially inept, nerdy guys who want to have a relationship find that they're not completely unattractive to Asian women. Perhaps the word gets around.
The problem with your counter-example, pdf, is that I've never heard guys having that particulary conversation. Or if so, "outdoorsy" was synonym for "athletic w/good legs & willing to have sex in the woods." Yeah, I think she's objecting to the objectification of women based on their hair color, height, butt-size, boob-size, etc., not their personalities.
See 76, John. This may be a generational thing.
It's fetishes all the way down.
I can't agree with this. It seems to me that a fetish is a preference so strong it crowds, or nearly crowds, non-conforming ideas out. The stereotypical guy with the Asian fetish doesn't just think Asian women are pretty (etc), or even, on average prettier than most, but that they are so uniquely pretty that other women are ugly in comparison.
From the discussion above, it seems that in some cases a substitution for the word 'delusion' for fetish might be appropriate.
Is this asian fetish about a particular body type and look, or what?
No, it's about categorizing people as if they were things, to start with, and specifically preferring X category because it supposedly represents the ne plus ultra of the thing being categorized. E.g., to pick on Tim:
And who doesn't have a preference for pretty sexual mates? Or rather, who says, "I prefer my mates ugly"?
That right there. A lot of people don't particularly prefer "prettiness." Some people like strength, some people like assertiveness, some can't resist a pair of arresting eyes, some get goosebumps from a particular timbre of voice, some find straight long hair irresistibly silky, some find shyness endearing, and so on and so on. The whole "I like women with these physical categories" thing does offend me, yes, and the "I just happen to be attracted to women whose physical categories just happen to stereotypically signify delicacy, fragility, exoticness, and charm" without any acknowledgment that those qualities tend largely to reconfirm the ideal of feminine weakness, also offends me. Greatly.
Or rather, "these physical attributes" (not "categories") that are specifically racialized and/or exclusively about appearance. As if race and appearance were the primary criteria for physical attraction.
Maybe for some people, race and appearance are the primary criteria for physical attraction? But if so? I feel justified in finding those people creepy and offensive.
Some people like strength, Fetish, and pretty standard one.
a pair of arresting eyes Fetish, and a pretty standard one.
a particular timbre of voice Deep voice fetish? Standard.
some find straight long hair irresistibly silky A fetish that, IME, drives many African-American women nuts.
102: My counterexample was meant to criticize the aptness of her metaphor, not her underlying point, which is probably a good one.
"Yeah, I think she's objecting to the objectification of women based on their hair color"
Objectification based on hair color? Sorry, but dark hair does not carry any implied or assumed characteristics. I do not assume that, oh, 90% of the women of the world are a "type".
"Fetish", of course, being a synonym for "preference"
No, not really. It's the difference between finding Asian features hot and thinking they're all interchangeable anime girls/geisha or finding Swedish leggy blondes hot and thinking all Swedes are suicidal sex kittens. There's a particular exoticism with fetishes that isn't the same in preferences.
106: Okay, Bitch, but I was being entirely serious in my 100. I really do find myself wanting to try all the flavors, and then categorizing them as such in hindsight. It's not good and not right and I have seriously tried to wean myself off of thinking of sexual partners this way. The opposite side of the same chocolate-box coin is what Kundera romanticizes as the "epic lover" in Unbearable Lightness, the lover who thinks of women in dehumanizing categories, and wants to fuck them all. The problem is not the limiting of the attractive categories. The problem is that we categorize our lovers to begin with.
108: You're using fetish in the "preference" sense. It would be better for this discussion to use "preference" for that and "fetish" only for very strong preferences.
BPhd, as far as I know, everyone's desires are given and are mostly pretty superficial ("fetishes all the way down"). Perhaps if you look at them introspectively you'll see a subtext or whatever, but arousal is at a pretty thoughtless level. And maybe someone realizes at some point that there's a pattern to his arousal.
It may be possible to "work on" these patterns, but that doesn't sound like any fun at all, and sex is supposed to be fun.
There's a lot to be said for getting away from the "10" frame of mind, where you're only willing to be involved with women who fit into your stereotypical obsession. But I don't think that your fetishes change.
"The whole "I like women with these physical categories" thing does offend me, yes"
So you're offended when someone says "All things being equal, I like people with X physical characteristic", even if that same person gives much more weight to many other non-physical characteristics? Or is it the exclusion of personality from the consideration of attractiveness what offends you?
"what" s/b "that"
And John Emerson continues to abuse the word "fetish". I don't want to pick on him, but I'm afraid it will cause confusion.
Objectification based on hair color?
Yes, as in "gentlemen prefer blondes" or "red hot redheads." Us brunettes hardly ever get objectified in this manner because we are so terribly common.
What is interesting about this thread is how it segues from one to another example of the same phenomenon.
1. Guys who are shut down for talking about their fantasies are shut down (perhaps) because we are afraid their fantasies aren't individual -- that is to say, we don't trust them to enact those fantasies (if ever) with a fully aware, consenting partner in a personal relationship. The fantasies aren't fully "safe" because it seems so close to a line, so easy to slip into just wanting any female body as a prop to fulfill the fantasy.
2. Guys who are criticized for having an "Asian fetish" are being criticized (perhaps) because we are afraid their interest isn't individual-- that is, they are not attracted to a particular woman who has X physical trait, but they are proclaiming a one-size-fits-all definition of what "Asian women" are like and pursuing partners as if they are interchangeable.
Oversimplifying, I know. But interesting.
Tim, none of that is the point. The point is that when we are talking specifically about men's "preferences" w/r/t women, it is not neutral to point out that an astonishingly large number of men "just happen" to prefer women who they categorize by (1) race and (2) the physical appearance of delicacy.
I mean, fine: dismiss it by saying "everyone likes different things." But then you have to accept that I'm going to view that dismissal with much the same suspicion as I view statements that it's only coincidence that women "just happen" to spend more time and money on their appearance than men do.
114: Yes, people have physical preferences. I think it's likely those preferences are pretty static and inflexible. (And I think I see the point of your comment, and I agree that BPhD seems to be giving too much moral weight to what people find physically appealing.) But people can be turned on, or off, by so much more than looks. Don't you agree?
In retrospect, I have found, to my slight alarm, that over half of my lovers have been gentlemen whose fathers, but not mothers, were/are non-practicing Jews. Is that weird? I used to want to add to my Friendster profile something like, "Bad News for Half-Jews," but I realized that was gross, and not actually reflective of how I choose partners. Weird, though, I think, and somewhat disturbing.
It's just a sign we're meant for each other, AWB.
122: Sweet! The stars do allow it!
Maybe it's just that many guys with Asian fetishes are socially clueless, but I've had a few Asian-American friends mention how annoying it is when someone attempts to compliment them by saying "I like Asian girls", and that's it's more annoying than a regular generalizing compliment ("I like blondes.")
Some guys trying to sponsor fiancées can be like this. Went to a site to meet foreign woman, met an Asian/South American/Eastern European girl, bonus that she doesn't speak English so well, bring her here because she'll be submissive & not like those American feminists. (N.B. immigration forums may make you lose your mind.) Methinks it's not just a simple preference for dark hair and interesting eyes at work here.
I really think that the word "fetish" is always abused. It's a way of devaluing someone else's desires. It may be that there's something wrong with the guys accused of having an "Asian woman fetish", but I don't think that they're worse than the average guy their age, and they're probably better than guys with blonde fetishes.
I am very protective of socially inept nerds if they have no other major problems.
124: Gratitude, the only aphrodisiac some guys need. It's probably similar to the compulsion of wealthy NYC guys to pick up young financially-struggling women and buy them tickets to shows, new underwear, etc. It's a way to force sex through obligation.
I am very protective of socially inept nerds if they have no other major problems.
Don't think we don't appreciate it, but the Asian fetish* is still kinda creepy.
*Actually, even calling it a "fetish" is kind of a problem. Fetishes are about things, not people.
Even better -- you can hold a green card and a langugage barrier over her head! The anger at American feminists is crazy, especially Hillary Clinton, who apparently made it impossible for them to date an American.
(I'm bad; I root for the interchangeable wife seekers to be saddled with someone using him for a green card. Karmic balance!)
Few things interest me less than discussing the morality of the sexual fetishes of others (well, that's not strictly true, I suppose), but reading this thread I couldn't help but think of this comment, and wonder whether it was perhaps meant to be posted here, instead of there. I mean, it actually makes sense here (other than the cab ride bit).
Maybe this comment was written not by a troll, but by an anonymous poster from the future?
Gratitude, the only aphrodisiac some guys need
106 I agree with--we all do that, I suspect, to some extent. But usually we do it as a joke, and there's a bit of sort of self-deprecating irony in it, no?
115: I'm not crazy about the "looks v. personality" distinction, as if those were the only two possible categories. And I'm not saying (I think pretty clearly not saying) that I care at all if someone says, "I have a weakness for dark skin and soft voices" or "I admit that blondes turn my head" or "I do tend to find Pakistani men astonishingly pretty." But those things are really different, I think, in tenor and tone than "I'm into Asian chicks" or "I like women with large breasts, dark skin, curly hair, a slight accent, and whose shoe sizes are no larger than 8 1/2."
130: There's certainly something to be said for not dating super-hot guys. I had exactly one super-hot boyfriend, and it was a misery unto me. Everywhere we went, friends were pulling me aside to whisper, "How'd you bag that babe?" and strange women would physically remove him from my side. The universe conspires to ensure that no super-hot guy can date a woman for her brains.
But while I'm here, I may as well contribute this ancedote: an acquaintance of mine with a huge asian fetish (though he was fairly indiscriminately horny so didn't stick only to asian women) explained his fetish to me by noting that it was "a much more silky experience." (Fucking an asian girl, that is). I was not in a great position to argue (never personally having, um, had an asian fetish), though I found his statement somewhat absurd.
Of course, he was fairly misogynistic, so take that for what it's worth.
What's specifically creepy about the "Asian fetish"? Maybe people know things I don't.
Most guys 16-22 have weird ideas about women. The ones who get their ideas from anime probably are more inept and lame that the ones who get their ideas from MAXIM, but I find MAXIM guys extremely creepy.
I really doubt the use of the word "fetish" for anything other than people who have sex with shoes and underwear. Alternatively, "fetish" could just mean any stereotyped desire, however harmless, which doesn't make much sense from a high-minded, philosophical point of view.
Fetishes are about things, not people.
I don't think this is true. You can fetishize physical characteristics. Fat fetish, etc.
I think a distinction is being lost between having a simple preference, or finding a body part sexually exciting, and letting that preference or excitation rise above your actual experience of the other person. I use "fetish" to mean the latter. A lot of women (I was one of them) complained in B's thread about the experience of feeling that one or the other of our body parts were fetishized during sex. It's the difference between whether you feel like Guy X is thinking "I like Tia's breasts" or "Mmm...breasts. Oh, look, there's a woman attached." Sometimes you can get both vibes from the same guy at different times.
FOR ANNE GREGORY
"Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-colored
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."
"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair."
"I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."
~W.B. Yeats
Traditionally, "fetish" refers to a sexual response to a body part or inanimate object (hence talking about an "Asian fetish" is kind of objectifying in and of itself), but it's often extended to mean any sort of unusual sexual preference, especially deeply held.
118 struck me too. Guilty as charged. I get frustrated when men deny that their sexual preferences have any kind of meaning, but I admit that I'm way too impatient about letting people work stuff out for themselves.
The word "fetish" has such a wide range of definitions, most of which have been used in this thread, that it really is not very useful without being defined clearly and used consistently. And then every time someone else uses the word, you have to figure out which definition they're using.
See, for example, this not-very-good Wikipedia article for more on the definition of "fetish."
dark hair does not carry any implied or assumed characteristics
Surely untrue. Blondes are stereotypically wholesome and/or slightly airheaded; redheads, hot/feisty/funny; brunettes, exotic/mysterious/sexually experienced/womanly. Think film noir. Think about Lilith in Cheers. Think about which of Charlie's Angels was "the smart one."
Anyway, people should hop on over to the craigslist M4W personals. Probably two thirds of the ads say something like, "seeking busty brunette"...and that's it. I see more than one ad complaining about the lack of busty Asians. I think someone who is looking for someone to fulfill a set of fantasy physical characteristics, and doesn't have an articulable ideas about what they want besides that, can be reasonably said to have something screwy in the way their sexual preferences are set, whether you want to call that a fetish or not. On the other hand, "I tend to like..." is not theoretically objectionable to me, although I'd never put something like that in a personal ad.
I guess I have a hard time understanding the vehemence of the anti-Asian-fetish sentiment, but maybe I just haven't seen much of the sort of thing some of you (B, especially) are talking about. But FWIW, if you're talking about youngish and/or socially inept guys who think they're interested in Asian-American women based on a stereotype that they're delicate and submissive, the stereotype isn't going to survive contact with most actual Asian-American women for very long unless the guy is really, really clueless. In the meantime, it's possible that the guy's screwy stereotypes will help him get past inhibitions and actually get to know actual women, which seems like a good thing to me even if he comes out of the experience with a continued preference for Asian-American women (at this point, I'd consider it no less reasonable nor more harmful than most other dating/relationship preferences). Or the guy may be clueless, learn nothing, and continue to seek his stereotyped Asian flower, in which case (a) he's likely destined for a lot of bad experiences, both for himself and for the women he dates, but (b) I kinda think he fits better in the general category "asshole" than anything specific to his dating preferences.
Brunettes are almost always the witty best friend or lady reporter. It seems to be an easier stereotype to deal with than the blonde one, though.
But then you have to accept that I'm going to view that dismissal with much the same suspicion as I view statements that it's only coincidence that women "just happen" to spend more time and money on their appearance than men do.
I can live with that. After all, you have to live with my suspicion that that you can't really see into the souls or personalities of the hot World Cup players (esp. one nationality, IIRC).
Mostly, people seem to be saying that creepy guys are creepy. And some of them are in to Asians. I buy that.
Tall guys. Being a short guy is like being flat-chested woman, except that there's no operation to fix it.
I really believe that the dating / romance game is a crapshoot, not particularly fair in any way, and that most people assume that everyone else has better luck than they do. So count your blessings if you're happy.
On the flip side I doubt it would be that hard to find Asian-American men who only want to date women of Asian descent, or who think of women from Asia as delicate, submissive, etc. (all the stereotypes except, possibly, exotic). And I'm pretty sure you could find analogous attitudes among pre-1924 - and for that matter, some current - European immigrants who only wanted to marry within their group. Some of this is group/cultural loyalty, but it gets mixed in with the idea of America = modern, old countries (wherever they may be) = traditional, and traditional = traditional relationships. I'd be interested to know if something like a Euro-fetish exists in any non-European countries.
Did I miss something here, or did we come up with any actual examples of the Evil-Type Asian fanciers besides Armsmasher's brother?
142: "I tend to like" is probably something that'd put me off a little if seen in a personal ad, but something I'd be very surprised not to find in a person.
By the time I came back, others had made this point: I have a preference for dark-haired, in the sense that it's the first thing I notice, and will be drawn to. And when a particular woman has been both blonde and brunette, I almost always prefer the dark.
But this preference doesn't survive contact; I've had great experiences with blondes, and that seems as it should be. It would be sad to be hung-up on it.
149: Right. I tend to like tall, broad chested men with full dark hair and prominent blue or brown eyes and long eyelashes who manage to appear intellectual/brooding/sensitive in their posture or vibe. I would not say that in a personal ad. (I've dated men who were no taller than me, who were blonde, who were slighter than I'd like.)
After all, you have to live with my suspicion that that you can't really see into the souls or personalities of the hot World Cup players
Fair enough. I'm sure they're all heinous jocks and I'd hate them. But I still reserve the right to enjoy the eye candy. And I don't care if that makes me a hypocrite.
148: Here's a good place to start.
I have a fetish for non-obese women. Hott ones, especially.
Bitch, if pornography is evidence, every form of attraction is a fetish, because it's all out there. Busty, long-legged blondes are probably at the top of the list.
But I still reserve the right to enjoy the eye candy. And I don't care if that makes me a hypocrite.
Me too. Comity!
On the flip side I doubt it would be that hard to find Asian-American men who only want to date women of Asian descent, or who think of women from Asia as delicate, submissive, etc. (all the stereotypes except, possibly, exotic).
This may be a good time to remind ourselves that there are several countries in Asia and that their cultures differ. I have a fairly hard time understanding the apparent prevalence of stereotypes of "Asian" as opposed to stereotypes of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, etc., which may at least have some sort of cultural roots.
146: No, being a short guy is like being a tall woman. I imagine there are more guys that would date flat-chested woman (I'm one) than guys that would date tall woman (I'm not one). If you're a man, you'd rather be 6' 3" than 5' 5", and if you're a woman you'd rather be 5' 1" than 5' 8". (Those are respectively the 95th and 5th percentile heights for 20 year old white men and women.)
152: That's actually not a good place to start, B. The distinction presumably being made is between being attracted to certain physical characteristics (skin tone, hair color, facial features, etc.) commonly associated with Asian women and being attracted to certain cultural stereotypes commonly associated with Asian women. The prevalence of Asian porn sites does nothing to establish a fantastic abundance of the latter; it only establishes that there's a lot of the former around.
About 1/3 of singles ads for men specify height, and it's always taller than me.
Actually, singles ads don't specify boobage, so I suppose my specific example is no good, but as far as superficial characteristics go, I think height is fairly analogous to "good figure".
Tia and Bitch make a very good point with the Craigslist and Googlings. I may say that I am sexually attracted to brainy men who are at least 5'8" but shorter than 6'2", middlingly built, and who look me in the eye when they smile, or to brainy women whose bodies move carelessly through space and who flirt shamelessly, and I am probably not alone in wanting these things. If you Googled, you'd find personals ads that say the same. But those personals ads would be less likely to make you throw up than results for "Asian chicks." It is different, because what I want is not a commodity.
This may be a good time to remind ourselves that there are several countries in Asia and that their cultures differ.
Obviously. I don't know why my comment was any different than any other of the previous 150 using the word Asian, but apparently it needed this extra clarification.
That is to say, even if you want the same thing the "Asian chicks" guys want for completely different reasons, I'd be a little freaked out to realize there's already a price tag on what your heart's set on.
That's because none of the creeps are actually culturally literate; Asian's Asian. (The creeps hitting on my friend didn't ask if she was Chinese or Korean first.)
148: I can think of three friends who I've alluded to here, off the top of my head. Not going to give you their names, but... this isn't a strawman here.
A lot of the reason I like the Asian look is the very straight, smooth, very black hair. I find it equally hot, and lamentably rare, on white women.
156: Americans and Europeans can't tell East Asians apart from one another, and vice versa. If the different cultures were easily physically identifiable by different physical characteristics, I imagine the stereotypes would be a little finer-grained as well.
Going back to what I said much earlier:
What's wrong with being attracted to the "cultural stereotypes" of Asian women? The cultural stereotype of Asian women that attracted me to them, and as far as I know it's an accurate stereotype, is that they seem much more likely to be happy with a guy like me.
You know, vain self-centered guys are deplorable creatures, but a guy who has the habit of being attracted only to women who like him is actually a pretty lucky guy.
I've had a couple of female friends who told me that they developed a Jewish (guy) fetish, and my general sense is that it's a pretty common fetish in some areas/fields. It doesn't strike me as overly problematic. It's not useful--I'm not Jewish--but not problematic. Wierdly (to me), I had a Jewish colleague who was really bothered by it.
And if you've ever been taken for an ethnicity you're not, under the assumption that all Asians - where Asian has already been narrowed by assumption to mean East Asian - you wouldn't find it hard to believe that there are stereotypes that don't go too far in precision beyond "Asian people have the qualities x, y z."
154, and 152: But that's exactly the point. I can't believe that y'all aren't just as familiar as I am with the "jade princess"/"geisha girl"/"me love you long time" stereotype.
Anyway. Fuck that shit, it's gross. I, personally, have a thing about bone structure: cheekbones, jaws and noses. I prefer men who are more slightly built as a general rule, but I've certainly dated fat men too. Hands that look like they do something (long fingers, bony rather than padded, gestures that use fingers distinctly rather than waving the whole mitt like a paw) are a big deal.
I admit that I cannot abide puppy-dog eyes and that, in general, while I don't care about dark vs. fair, pale to the point of fair lashes and eyebrows doesn't tend to appeal. Although bone structure trumps all.
Unless the guy's an idiot, in which case, forget it.
KC Chang, a physical anthropologist and anthropologist, said that Northern Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese were genetically almost indistinguishable, and that Southern Chinese, Cambodians, and Vietnamese are also very similiar.
Culturally there are differences, but also similiarities.
161: Good grief, eb. The reason your comment stood out is that it seemed to assume that Asian-American men have the same bizarre stereotypes of Asian-American women that some non-Asian Americans apparently have, which seems unlikely unless they lack mothers, sisters, aunts, etc. But that's just the reason why I threw the comment in where I did. I didn't make the comment earlier in the thread for a whole bunch of reasons, including the fact that it was already 100+ comments long by the time I got around to reading it.
KC Chang
I've eaten there; not terrible, actually.
91: Someone I met once who had spent the previous year+ teaching in Indonesia said that being a single (western) woman in Indonesia was incredibly lonely, because the asian men didn't approach her, and the western (single) men were mostly asian-fetishists. (Or at least had a strong asian preference).
Myself, I was all prepared to get all defensive about having a mediterranean fetish, but it seems (judging from intervening remarks) that it's only a preference, and that's okay.
163, 168: I'm plenty familiar with the "geisha" stereotype we're talking about here, but I've never met anyone who's actually been attracted to Asian women because of that stereotype. I'm sure they exist, but that set seems to be significantly smaller than the set of men who are just attracted to the physical traits commonly associated with Asian women.
170: Having female relatives doesn't seem to prevent American misogynists from having gross misconceptions and stereotypes about American females.
The stereotypes I've heard:
delicate
submissive
exotically beautiful
compliant
uncomplaining
sexually adventurous and schoolgirl virginal
Forbidden City geisha (don't ask)
giggly
For the wife-seeking marriage broker types:
never questions her husband
grateful to be married to an American
is from a savage garden uncorrupted by feminism.
What bothers me about the stereotype isn't just that it's all attached to the girl with sleek black hair and almond eyes, but that's it's almost like a nice way to express a preference for dating a doormat you can wipe your feet on.
This is really apropos of little, but my friend who's spent the last few years in Kabul told me, "You have got to come to Afghanistan for the cock."* There were very few available, desirable women, and tons and tons of elite special forces types, who were hott + educated. She could get men she thought would be totally out of her league in the states.
*she did not actually put it this way. I just think that's funnier. But washerdreyer doesn't want me to lie to him.
170: If you want a meta-stereotype: Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans are not PC about stereotyping one another. Chinese also have a full set of stereotypes about various sorts of other Chinese. And Chinese also have well-developed stereotypes about what Chinese are like, even though the stereotype is an idealized one which is not completely accurate.
These things may be changing but I can assure you that people over there are much, much less careful about these questions than we are.
Most Chinese also have very definite ideas about what marriages should be like, and so I think that eb was basically right that a lot of Chinese guys would prefer a Chinese wife for stereotypical reasons. And certainly most Chinese mothers want their sons to marry Chinese women, and in traditional families that's very important.
Many Chinese women and some Chinese men prefer to marry non-Chinese, for mirror-image stereotypical reasons.
167! That! Right there! "Asian" = "homogeneous category." Gross. And it's totally distinct from saying, "I find long straight heavy black hair really erotic."
170: No, I think EB's 147 is quite specific: that first of all, there are a lot of people who prefer to date within their own ethnic group, and second of all, there are a lot of people who are not white who have stereotypes about ethnic traits. (Examples: Filipino guys who will tell you that Filipino women are too bossy, Indian men who will say that they want an Indian wife because Indian women know how to run a household, whatever.) It's true, and these guys do have mothers and sisters (which is often where they base those stereotypes). I dated more than one guy in high school who told me that he tended to date white chicks because they (I) were less likely to embody X stereotype about his own ethnic group.
Just think of Ogged's statements about the prospect of marrying an Iranian woman.
170: But I was making a different point, about people's stereotypes about their own cultures and "old countries". I mentioned Europeans too with analogous attitudes in the past. I did not say "Asian-American men" have these views, but that you could find it among some of them. And having come across this view in person - mainly centering around the desirability of marrying someone from the old country who hasn't been to the US - I'd say that having female relatives is not necessarily going to overturn one's stereotypes.
176: That's presumably because the native women aren't very available, for fear of being stoned and whatnot, right?
"Filipino guys who will tell you that Filipino women are too bossy".
All men everywhere say that.
My Spanish boyfriend preferred to date foreign girls because he thought they had fewer sexual hangups.
I'm kind of surprised that the only person who has heretofore even hinted at the southeast Asian sex tourism by creepy white dudes is Dr. B.
182: He lived in Spain, right? I'd bet foreigners travelling in any country for pleasure/study/immersion/etc. purposes are going to be more open sexually than a person that never leaves their home country. So he was probably right.
DrB, A White Bear, etc. I never realized having an Asian fetish was so much more disturbing that other fetishes, but then again, not having an Asian fetish myself, I don't understand it either. However, playing the devil's advocate, what makes somebody who prefers Asian women (both in looks and perceived personality) any better or worse than the preferences you stated regarding look and personalities?
What about the Alaskan sex tourism by those creepy white bear fetishists? Mmmmm, fur....
185: I believe the consensus is that the creepy part of it is the content of the fetishist's particular conception of Asians--as submissive, delicate, etc.--not the fact that they have such a conception.
I can't keep up. The point I'm trying to make isthat a stereotype of Asian-American women as delicate, submissive flowers (a) doesn't fit most Asian-American women very well, and (b) doesn't fit most Asian cultures very well. I don't think we're disagreeing on those points. As I said earlier in the thread, I think that means that reasonably well-meaning guys who start out operating with such stereotypes aren't going to keep them for very long, and anyone who does is more of a garden-variety asshole than anything else. And at that point I'm not sure why getting off on Asian porn is particularly more offensive than getting off on big-titted blonde porn.
184: That's a bit silly, I think. Just because someone has the money and time to leave their home country doesn't mean they aren't subjected to patriarchal demands. I hate all these stereotypes that people who have the money to travel are somehow smarter, better-looking, nicer, and having better sex than people who don't have the money to travel. As if I'm sitting here on my ass this summer instead of hanging out in Paris because I'm close-minded, not because I'm poor.
Oh, and the fact that they *prefer* people with such qualities. Someone who's attracted to people they think they can control more easily: very creepy.
And for the record, I prefer American-born women with a pretty smile, somewhat curvy/voluptuous, maybe 5'6" to 5'8" who are very smart, confident, assertive, and opinionated. Does this make me a freak too?
187: Well, we're not cheap, and we might kill you afterward.
That's a bit silly, I think. Just because someone has the money and time to leave their home country doesn't mean they aren't subjected to patriarchal demands.
I thought the idea was that people will do wilder things with people they won't ever see continually in the future. Which has been my experience.
189 says "And at that point I'm not sure why getting off on Asian porn is particularly more offensive than getting off on big-titted blonde porn."
This is my question too (and sorry if somebody already posted an answer - seems my comments are getting posted behind the conversation some)
190: Certainly, they're going to be richer, or have rich parents, more often than not. And yes, they get just a much patriarchy as anyone else. But the fact that they spent their money on travel instead of lake houses and Jet Skis means that they tend to have a more adventurous personality, and people who tend more adventurous in general are going tend more adventurous sexually.
And just so I can talk in the other direction, there's a fairly important distinction between something as strong as an "ethnic fetish" and having found oneself both attracted and attractive to people of a particular ethnicity more often that not. If you set the standard for what constitutes a creepy fetish too low you run the risk of finding a lot of what could be ordinary interracial dating suspect, or rather, ordinary dating.
195: As implied in #14, it's because B hates Asians.
Nah, I think that having a stereotype about "Asian women," regardless of what the stereotype is, is pretty offensive, actually. And yeah, I do find the categorization of porn by ethnicity/physical characteristics (Asian! Black! Huge tits!) to add an extra layer of ickiness to most porn, to be honest. Again, it's the chocolate-box theory: it's the idea that women are commodities, to be sorted according to whether or not they fit your particular decorating style.
I think that the so-called Asian fetish, in any form, is threatening because it basically amounts to voluntarily opting out from the normal American dating scene, often by guys who couldn't handle the normal American dating scene. It's sort of like taking your marbles and going home.
Someone on a hip scene who preferred to date hip Asian-American women would be a completely different story. For him it really would just be liking that kind of hair and skin, etc. Though again, it seems odd that craving a particular kind of meaningless physical attraction is OK, whereas liking a different kind of relationship is not.
My sister hated it when while in Ireland, men assumed she was a sexually adventurous co-ed just because she was in college, pretty, had an American accent and enjoyed drinking whiskey at pubs.
189: It's not getting off on porn that I've, at least, been discussing. And I don't think the Asian fetish is any worse than any other fetish premised on the idea that a) this ethnic group is all alike and b) they'll all be submissive, delicate flowers (and they acknowledge me as rightfully God.) (Eastern Europe and South America sometimes get this, too)
It may be a garden-variety asshole one, but it's sure a bunch of focused assholes.
190: In other words, it's not about having the *money* to travel, it's about having the *inclination*. And for the people that have such huge amounts of money that travelling isn't adventurous, the correlation probably dissipates.
"ordinary dating" should have appeared earlier in the last sentence of 197. I'm trying to avoid the "happens to be" construction - you know, something like "ordinary dating between people who happen to be of different ethnic backgrounds."
So are mannerisms (not related to someone's identity/interests), things like how eye contact is made and vocal tonality less chocolate-boxy than skin color ethnic features? because that seems to just be a male/female gender thing.
I have it on good authority that the most beautiful women on the planet live in Penticton, BC.
Seriously, I can't imagine having preferences as pronounced as some people express. I've seen/known beautiful women of every race, hair color, ethnicity, body type (within two standard deviations of the mean). WRT personality, the personal so overwhelms the general, that one really has to say that anyone looking for answers (other than shared cultural background) in ethnicity is going to be disappointed.
I think the reason he was right about the Spanish women vs. foreigners has more to do with the cultural dynamics about sex in Spain. Of course, he was not immune to that bullshit himself. Once he told me while we were doing something or other that I wasn't a lady (I can't remember the words he used in Spanish; I guess it must have been something like "No eres una dama.") And I gave him a look like, "I hope you're teasing, because what exactly is the problem with me doing sex stuff you want to do to?" He saw the storm brewing and said something to mollify me.
I suddenly feel like, somehow, by posting these comments, we have found out a great deal about our co-commenters that we never would have known. I re-assert my #24.
Again, it's the chocolate-box theory: it's the idea that women are commodities, to be sorted according to whether or not they fit your particular decorating style
This implies it's only women that are subject to being commoditized; every demographic is. What about the "tall, dark and handsome" myth, the "Jovial Fat Guy", the short, wimpy doormat guy, etc. You've seen the movie cars - count the number of different "male" characters there are.
194, etc.: Isn't "Fernando" (ABBA) about that kind of thing? I used to imagine Fernando complaining that he really wasn't that sexy, he had many interests besides women, and that he resented being objectified by Swedish corporation executives (ABBA is incorporated) on their two-week vacations.
There was an Onion about this.
200: John, come on. The problem that the women here have with the Asian "preference" is not because we're threatened by men who won't date us, or by all those women in Taiwan who are stealing our men.
179: In case it wasn't clear from my last comment, I agree, and if you'd referred to Chinese-American men having stereotypes of Chinese-American women, etc., I'd have agreed with the original comment. But I took the original comment to be suggesting that this bizarro-world white guy idea that all Asian women are half geisha and half Subic Bay prostitute might be shared by men who were closely acquainted with actual Asian or Asian-American women, which is why I responded as I did.
Comity?
I wish porn had the category, "ugly male hairdos", so I could could avoid having to see them.
201: I've never heard that stereotype about South Americans. Mexicans, maybe. But isn't there a stereotype of "Latin women = very femme but still assertive/bitchy"?
208: When there start being a jillion porn hits for the "fat jovial stud!" and "wimpy doormat boy-toy!" categories, let me know.
214: Porn for straight women, I mean. I'm well aware of the gay "twink" and "bear" porn obsessions, but I disclaim all personal responsibility for those.
What are the porn hits for straight women? (Serious question.)
213: Marriage broker stuff: meet beautiful Latina girl from Colombia, submissive, raised to love husband and children unlike American feminists, knows her place and how to keep her figure, and when you get her here, here's things you can do to ensure she won't change.
216- but 80% or something of porn is consumed by men. If more (straight) women were to start buying porn, perhaps there'd have to start being more extreme and singular categories too (i.e. specializiation) rather than the most broadest, generic possible to target a general audience. That is, law of supply and demand almost requires differentiation and promotes objectifying singular traits, right?
200: Well, it seems more as if you are offended that a bunch of men whom you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole in a million years had the nerve to look elsewhere, instead of perishing from humiliation.
The guys who get mail-order brides out of magazines probably are mostly pretty creepy, and guys who organize their lives around enormous collections of Asian porn too. But as far as I can tell, we're talking about nerdy, socially inept college undergrad guys who prefer to date East Asian women because they have some hope there.
219: But does that really have anything to do with ethnicity, or is it just "buy a beautiful poor woman who will put up with your shit as long as she gets to eat regularly"?
Hmm. The marriage broker stuff seems to be more about destitution and economic control than ties to cultural ideas of submission. Russian brides, anyone? Outside of that, I'm pretty sure there aren't stereotypes about meek, submissive Russian women.
220: Ladies, you have to do your part and buy more porn to bring down the patriarchy.
Comity, certainly. I should have distinguished that comment more clearly from the rest of the discussion.
220: I'm not sure about the quality of this source, but take it as you will:
QueenDom confirmed what we all suspected- that the greatest consumers of porn are men (notice how I didn't describe a sultry Adonis in the preceding paragraph). In fact, 28% of men claim to be exposed to porn almost every day. 27% are titillated several times a week and 24% only indulge themselves several times a month. In rather sharp contrast, only 6% of women view porn daily. 23% are exposed several times a month and 33% only take a peek several times a year! As many as 21% of women participate less than twice a year. It seems that porn plays a prominent role in the sex lives of many men, and is less a part of the sex regime of most women.
Almost as many women as men view porn at least occasionally, but men consume it more frequently.
225 was to 211. These comments are moving fast.
219: I suspect 99% of it is economic control, but the men seem to link it to the superior culture of the bride's home culture. She's marrying him for love, you see, not to get a chance at llife in the U.S. If she gets here and learns English, the feminists who have An Agenda will get at her.
226 - yeah, and if you were selling coffee would you target the occasional consumer or the frequent consumer? And if there were 1000s of flavors of coffee, wouldn't that all be "reduced" down to simple themes to compete?
198: It's true. From Russia to Indonesia, it's all dead to me.
228: Yeah, but that doesn't really have any root in the wider stereotypes about the bride's culture. It's just propaganda from the marriage brokers and wishful thinking on the part of the clients.
No, but the Asian girl stereotypes don't have a wider root, either. I don't think it's an argument against their existence that they're inaccurate.
226: eroitca/'romance' lit probably gets consumed in equal, and opposite proportions, based on my anecdotal memories of working in a bookstore.
229: Yeah, I'd say that supports your point. I recall reading somewhere than the percentage of real time spent viewing porn was actually only like 60% men, not 80%, but I also remember the source being very dubious. It'd be interesting to know.
223: Here you go. The russian woman likes to look pretty. She likes to dress well when she walks in the city street to her destination. She wears a dress and pumps, or a suit with a blouse and jewlery. She is concerned about her weight, her hair, how she presents herself. She thinks gym clothes are for the gym.
In Russia, she doesn't have a choice to stay home to take care of her husband, house, and children - for her, it is a dream. . . . The Russian woman's attitude about herself is feminine. She expects to be treated as a lady, she is the weaker gender and knows it. The Russian woman has not been exposed to the world of rampant feminism that asserts its rights in America.
And if she refuses to go down on me and I hit her, she'll have nowhere to run!
(Sorry.)
Oops, that second paragraph should be italicized too. That sure as hell isn't me saying that.
You know what? It's really sad that one jokey comment about the Asian thing completely derailed what otherwise promised to be an interesting discussion. I feel bad for having helped drive that train.
In other words, marriage broker sites are not evidence for real stereotypes.
By the way, my point of the porn categories and "Asian fetish" as a grossly oversimplified reduction of correlation looks, personalities, and behaviors is how it extrapoloates to fantasies. Who are we to judge that this one is any worse than the threesome fantasy or big-boobed blonde one or ___?
Having said that, I'm with Wrenae way upthread - you can draw the line in the sand by considering what could be consentual - minors or animals is obviously wrong morally and otherwise.
Though, here is a gray area - what about an attractive co-worker or friend?
Choo-choo! I think it was a relatively interesting discussion anyway. But y'all aren't as obsessed with IMBRA as I am.
Okay.
Thesis: If a desire is morally reprehensible one has a duty to change it. Discuss.
237 - I was gonna say! 2nd paragraph doesn't sound like you!
240--But there's also about 20 pages of ads for Asian Flower callgirls in the back of every Village Voice edition. Actually, I think that "Asian Flower" is the name of one callout service.
There's a bit of truth in the Asian girl stereotype. (I'm talking especially about Taiwan Chinese, but it's more widely true).
First, they're much less prejudiced against shy, inept, nerdy guys than American women are. Being a nerd is sexy in Taiwan, and already was 20 years ago.
Second, if you want to get out of the competitive dating scene and have a nice ongoing relationship, probably ending in marriage, that's what many or most East Asian women want too.
One thing that was very clear in Taiwan is that all relationships are taken more seriously there. This is true of guy-guy relationships too -- they didn't hang out and chat with strangers much.
The system was: the first date is like a marriage proposal. The second date is like an engagement. The engagement could go along indefinitely. The parents would have to be consulted. Usually there was no marriage until the guy got a career job.
For people for whom our dating system doesn't work, this system, flawed as it is, has its good points.
If there are any East Asians here I would be interested in hearing what they say. Change pseudonyms if you must.
pdf, I don' think it's just created by marriage brokers. They're not operating from everywhere that has poor women, just some places.
OK, so, question. Is it wrong to have fantasies involving non-consenting subjects? Are TD and Wrenae saying yes?
Hm. Everything that Emerson says in 245 about Taiwanese women would hold true for traditional Mormon women.
207 makes me nervous. For the record, I've been involved with a grand total of one part-Asian-American woman (who would object to the term), to whom I've been married for a good many years now, and I live in a place that's ethnically-mixed enough that my good friends include a pretty wide variety of mixed couples of various sorts. I'm not thrilled about the idea that some of you might jump to unflattering and unwarranted conclusions about my family. I don't for a minute doubt that there are lots of nasty, misogynist men with a thing for Asian women, but there are lots of nasty, misogynist men, full stop, and I'm not sure why that particular form of nasty misogyny is getting singled out here. If you want to catalog and categorize nasty misogynists, fire away, but that's a different exercise than assuming that there's a need to sort white-Asian couples into acceptable and unacceptable.
244: I think there is a wider stereotype about Asian submissiveness, just not about Russian or South American.
242 - Thesis: If a desire is morally reprehensible one has a duty to change it. Discuss.
After having watched the movie "Kinsey" on HBO before I stopped by here, I'd have to say it would start with some smart people studying and researching the idea that fantasies and fetishes are, at least in part, culturally conditioned and therefore why? Then look at which ones are most likely to lead to bad criminal behavior in real life, if any. And, finally, what steps could be taken to stop or prevent people from developing the really dark, destructive ones. But, it'd be a tough balancing act between indvidual rights (i.e. freedom to think) and social justice/order (i.e. preventing crimes). Sounds pretty eerily like "Minority Report" movie.
251: Actually, I think it would be really easy to prevent those kinds of fantasies without violating civil rights. Get rid of rape and child abuse. It wouldn't solve everything, but you'd see a huge improvement.
250: But there are also stereotypes--perhaps better-rooted in the cultures in question--of Korean, Chinese, and Filipina women, among others, as tending rather more to the opposite extreme.
247 - OK, so, question. Is it wrong to have fantasies involving non-consenting subjects? Are TD and Wrenae saying yes?
On the one hand, yes I think there are fantases that are morally wrong (e.g. kids, animals, murder) but, then, on the other hand, what about that hot woman you saw in the store or a co-worker, etc? Perhaps, it's not quite as black & white as I hoped since I'm not sure of how to articulate the difference in precise words.
253: Yes, indeed. Similar stereotypes exist for Russian and South American women, IME, but not the flipside (submissive) ones.
26: "Now I'm Farberizing this thread. Sorry 'bout that."
Wow, way to gratuitiously make completely non-sequitur remarks about me when I'm not around.
I'd probably object to the content/implication if I knew what it meant. But if it isn't a compliment, I object. Very uncongenial.
249: FWIW, an interracial couple doesn't even make me blink, let alone jump to conclusions about their relationship. I reserved being a judgmental asshole for creeps in bars and internet guys posting about how to keep their crazy wife from learning English.
252 - obviously who is not against erradicating "rape and child abuse"? The question is "how"? And also how do these events correlate with fantasies? It's hard for us to imagine anybody fantasing about these despcitable acts, but how would we be able to test if somebody sitting on the bus or lives by a school ever has them?
I suddenly feel like, somehow, by posting these comments, we have found out a great deal about our co-commenters that we never would have known.
Why this thread more than others?
254: It's morally wrong to fantasize about having sex with an animal?
258: I'm saying, don't care about the fantasies. If you get rid of rape and child abuse, people will stop having the fantasies so much, but don't try to figure out who is having them. There are other ways to prevent rape and child abuse. (Of course, if we were to *notice* someone having them, we might want to keep a closer eye on them. But "notice" has to be of a very non-Big-Brother-ish variety.)
260 - I think so. If this makes me too judgemental, then I apologize, but nobody is completely 100% tolerant and I severely doubt I could be swayed that fantasing about sex with an animal is ever ok.
261 - ok, when said that way, sure, spending resources to prevent the actual acts should be much more important than preventing the fantasies, but my point was if more was known about where fantasies come from (agreeing with the assumption that they are at least in part culturally or environmentally influenced) then sociologists might be better able to predict ever more subtle clues and prevent more rape and child abuse in the first place.
I wasn't even thinkng as far as 'prevention of atrocity'; simply this -- if you discovered you enjoyed rape fantasies, would you seek to cure yourself of your fantasies or control them?
262: I'm not asking you to apologize, or calling you judgemental, or asking you to be more tolerant. But I wonder if you could provide some sort of reason why such a thing is wrong, or is it entirely your intuition?
My view is that imagining a hypothetical can never be wrong. Imagining it with the intent to do it is wrong if the action itself would be wrong. Repeatedly and voluntarily imagining it when one knows it makes one more likely to eventually commit it is wrong, if the action itself is wrong. (As an anology, if being an alcoholic were "wrong" (which it's not), and one knew one's family had a history of alcoholism, then taking the first drink would be wrong.) But one can't choose not to be aroused by certain images, and I can't see how the simple act of imagining those images could be wrong, ever.
264: I think that angle is kind of a tangent, too. I'm dropping it.
264 - I don't know, that's a very good question. If it was me who suddenly started having rape fantasies, I honestly don't know what I would do. I guess it's one of those moral delimnas you can't answer unless you're standing there facing it. It's easy to say I would seek help immediately, but I can't honestly know this for sure since I imagine there'd be alot of shame, guilt, embarrasment involved.
"You cannot keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from nesting in your hair."
Martin Luther isn't usually right, but I think that this one covers it.
265 - that's a pretty good comment, pdf23ds. I'm mulling it over.
249 is what I was trying to get at with 197, and for similar family reasons.
264: Are fantasies of being raped common in males? If not, is there anything analogous in males?
If I had a disturbing but very arousing fantasy, I would probably first consider whether it could ever possible happen in real-world circumstances. So, exclude fantasies about aliens and deep-sea creatures. Then, I would ask if it would still be arousing when I imagined it actually happening to me, or done by me. If it was, and I thought that trying to make it happen would be bad (either wrong, or dangerous,) then I would try to stop the fantasies. But if the thought of it actually happening was not arousing, I wouldn't have a problem with the fantasy. If the arousal outweighed the disturbance, I might fantasize about it again.
264: I think that would depend somewhat on what kind of fantasies are involved. Not the content, necessarily, so much as how often they occur, how specific they are, how compelling, how available to act upon, etc.
A passing thought about how hot the Hermione Granger actress is, maybe with an added wet dream or two, is one thing, but recurring dreams of preteen girls would be something else entirely--something first to be controlled, and then, if possible, cured.
(The Freudians would say that the fantasy in the former, "normal" case is already being controlled, just not in ways available to consciousness.)
To expand on 271, I think a lot of fantasies have, surprise, surprise, strong elements of fantasy. Whole big parts of the imagined situation are completely glossed over or absent, parts that would necessarily be part of a real-life experience. And the presence of those other elements can ruin the appeal of the fantasy.
I've often wondered what women who make their living in whole or in part by being fantasized about think of men.
Not just nude models, who pretty much have to know what's going on, but non-nude models like Heidi Klum, or hot actresses who don't do nude scenes. They have to develop a rather sardonic view of the opposite sex.
Sometimes they express resentment at the objectification, but most of them make tons of money.
274: I think it's possible to think very poorly of people as a mass, but still think well of people individually. Perhaps some actresses go this route.
I've been away now for hours, and have just read through the current latest post, 271. While my own tastes and attitutes are, I think, much more in keeping with what they are supposed to be, I wish to declare that I have never liked John Emerson more than I do this afternoon.
I would just like to say, to 199 and others, that I am fully on board with racial preferences as icky thing.
I have dated a) a guy with an Asian fetish b) a guy with an African-American fetish. I am neither of those things; I think I have a self-hatred problem or something. Also am currently dating a guy with a thing for (not kidding) Swedes.
274 - but, perhaps they actually relish in the objectification and is what, at least in part, motivates them to pursue that type of career versus a less famous one?
I wish there were a way to estimate the rise and decline, if any, of such things as the Asian preference/fetish over time, or of the tendency to have discrete and particular preferences at all as on the rise or not.
And I'd like to know whether there is some way to distinguish what I referred to before, preferences that, while discernable, are far less important than personality, reaction, etc. after the first contact, and preferences that seem more controlling than that, so that someone deviating from the desire hasn't got a chance. Are these degrees of the same thing or different in kind?
280 - those are all great questions and I'd love to know the answers too! And here's more:
how common is it for our own preferences to change over time (not just at the macroscopic level you ask about)?
What % of our preferences are physical attributes versus personality attributes?
What % of our preferences are the result of our innate genetics (i.e. male A unconsciously seeks certain physical traits of female B, especially as they maximize health of any offspring they would have together) versus social environment (i.e. male A consciously seeks female B because she's funny or smart or nurturing or whatever)?
How much less important do looks become over time together and how much more important does personality?
I doubt the answers to these could ever be answered conclusively for all (or even for one), but as one very brilliant professor I respect greatly recently agreed to, I have bad tendency to want to quantify everything, even somethings it makes no sense to.
Yeah, i think that yeats poem JE posted was the best thing in teh whole thread.
Also am currently dating a guy with a thing for (not kidding) Swedes.
Please to characterize pointyness of head.
256: That use of "Farberize" confused me too, I'm not sure what it means.
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing "Farber" used at Unfogged as a verb to mean "the act of noting that one has posted elsewhere about a particular topic before the current discussion underway", but I can't find any actual examples (it's hard to search for without just turning up instances of your last name used as your last name).
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing "Farber" used at Unfogged as a verb to mean "the act of noting that one has posted elsewhere about a particular topic before the current discussion underway"
You're thinking of "to farb" or "to garyfarb".
Farber (n.): one who farbs.
I'd whip up some links, but we seem to have been thrust unwillingly into a post-searchal era.
"Thrust unwillingly" will be my sole topical contribution to the thread.
I assumed "farberize" was a GF-ish version of "Ferberize," which is what you are doing when you leave your miserable child to cry herself to sleep every night rather than going in and hugging her. Take that as you will, Gary.
I don't think it is wrong to fantasize about children or sex with animals (or many-tentacled creatures) in and of itself. If you're fantasizing about children a lot, masturbating to pictures of children, etc., you probably have a moral obligation to seek counseling because of the likelihood that continually reinforcing your fantasies with orgasm will lead to action. But it's not the fantasy that's wrong, it's increasing the probability of the future act.
287 - I was thinking the exact same thing, A White Bear!
I like Tia's 288. The problem isn't fantasy per se, it's the inability to distinguish fantasy from reality.
288: It's like I learned when I was a wee Baptist youth: everyone thinks of sins because Satan makes you. But if you entertain those thoughts over and over, eventually you'll live 'em out.
Conversely, as Blake wrote, "Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires."
291: I used to be a big Blake-Ginsburg fan, but if you take what they say literally it doesn't actually work very well.
Laura Kipnis often writes about the line between fantasy and reality on the kiddie porn question. How only acts should be illegal, not thoughts, and how blurry that distinction is in current law enforcement.
I'm sure I have Bound & Gagged around here somewhere...
288 - that's a tough one, Tia. It's hard to blame somebody for whatever their fantasies are, no matter how repulsive they may seem to us, but aren't some things, like children or animals, "out of bounds"? This basically comes down to thoughts versus actions, but aren't we at least partially morally responsible for our thoughts too? If we choose to dwell on bad thoughts we're inviting them to hang around. I realize not all thoughts can be undone, but we do have some capacity to control our thoughts too and, if we can't, what's to stop us from acting out? And, I'm not even really talking about criminal acts here, but even peace of mind or well-being things too. Afterall, most every action requires a thought first.
291: Easy for Blake to say, what with his unacted desire to murder cradled infants.
291 - that's what I'm saying too. We can't help whatever our random thoughts are, but we can control what we wish to dwell on or elaborate our thinking upon.
I've been thinking about this thread as I go about my day, and although I know this is a hackneyed example, it does illustrate the fact that this is never anything we can ever discuss within the realm of sanity.
If a man desires to have a MFF threesome, the response might be anything from "Wouldn't we all?" to "You pig!"
If a woman desires to have a MFF threesome, the response might range from "Are you sure that's what you want?" to "You go, girl!"
The bitterness I'm sensing from men on this fantasy/sex issue is that everything they want is viewed with suspicion that it's merely their exercise of patriarchal dominance, while any sexual desire women have automatically considered bingo.
This brings me back to my original point that you can neither generalize about sex nor talk about desire with people you don't know really well. Yes, my default response to hearing some guy on the internet wants two chicks at once is, "Sounds like a real bastard." And yet some men actually do have to be involved if we want our kickass MFF threesomes, right? So we find dudes who want it whose desire doesn't squick us out and don't look like they'll tire easily. Is this teh suck for guys, in general, who want freedom of expression, even around feminists? I guess, but who cares what a bunch of online feminists who don't know you think? Go find yourself some nice ladies who know your heart who want to get a hotel room with you!
I guess, but who cares what a bunch of online feminists who don't know you think?
I do, for one.
Also,
If a man desires to have a MFF threesome,
he's a feminist.
291---Those are the Proverbs of Hell, not necessarily Blake's position; "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is as far as Blake wandered from his usual dialectical structure. [/pedant]
Thanks, Standpipe!
Some examples of "to farb":
One
Two (sort of)
Some examples of "to garyfarb":
One
Two
I thought of the "Ferberize" possibility, but I didn't think it characterized what BPhD seemed to be apologizing for.
Hee, teo.
300, yes, I know, but it is a thought experiment that I have argued that Blake takes quite seriously. Also, it was funny in context. A little.
Right, to the extent that thoughts lead to actions, you should try to minimize the amount you think about those things. And sure, fantasies about children or animals are likely to cause the people who have them distress, and that's another reason to try to control them. But I don't think there's any moral weight to imagining sex with an animal or a child. The idea that some people want sex with children and animals doesn't even particularly repulse me; it just makes me sad, and worried for the children or the animals who might find themselves around them.
My mom, who I think got officially diagnosed with OCD, went through a period of having obsessive racist thoughts about her Hispanic students. She was pretty clear about the fact that she didn't even believe the thoughts that were running through her mind, that having them was just a way of self-sabotage because she had finally woken up to how trapped she felt in her life, and she was pretty unhappy in her work, too, so making herself incapable of doing her job was like a way of creating an escape route. Anyway, she spent a lot of time berating herself for being a bad person for having these thoughts, and I spent a lot of time trying to convince her that it didn't make sense to think about thoughts in moral terms; they were causing her distress, and therefor she should get them under control, and to the extent that they affected her treatment of her students, that was a problem, although even then, given that she actually had a mental illness that she was making an effort to control, she ought to view any harm to her students as something more like striking out at them during a seizure. She had a Catholic notion that the thought itself was sinful; I disagreed.
"I realize not all thoughts can be undone, but we do have some capacity to control our thoughts too and, if we can't, what's to stop us from acting out?"
Our other thoughts.
298 - and how would your generalized responses for man vs woman desires for wanting a MFM threesome be categorized?
The bitterness I'm sensing from men on this fantasy/sex issue
Really? I haven't sensed any "bitterness"? I think it's been an interesting discussion.
I guess, but who cares what a bunch of online feminists who don't know you think?
For me, it's fun to intellectualize with people - male or female - but it's especially interesting to get the opinions of very smart females. And online communities allow certain convenciences and anonymity that real life doesn't. Easier to be open, etc.
I'm somewhat curious to know whether Cala meant to address 264 to the male commenters or the female commenters, or perhaps both.
At the risk of revealing far too much about myself, I've had violent rape fantasies for as long as I can remember (since long before puberty). If I had to guess, I'd attribute this to my heavy exposure to a great deal of extraordinarly violent pornography at a very young age. When I was a child, the fantasies weren't really sexualized, in part because I wasn't really aware of the details thereof. As I grew older the fantasies became more explicitly sexual, and became eroticly charged for me. To this day, the "idea"/fantasy of sexually abusing a woman, or raping a woman, violently humiliating a woman is extraordinarily erotic.
It's not anything I've ever acted upon, of course, nor has it prevented me from having what I consider to be a normal, healthy sex life. Although the "fantasy" still holds an erotic charge, I'm well aware that the "reality" would be terrible: I don't like hurting people, especially women. I've never even been interested in trying to "play-out" the fantasy with a partner, because I don't even honestly like to pretend to hurt people.
But I can't say I've ever really tried to "cure" myself of the fantasy. I'm not really sure how I'd go about doing so. Is that immoral? Of course I'm not deluded into thinking the fantasy is "healthy", which I suppose is one difference from some of the "Asian" fetishes (which their possessors view as harmless). But does anyone with a rape fantasy really view it (not the fantasy, but the reality of rape) as innocuous?
I feel vaguely as if I shouldn't really have typed all this.
Okay, case in point.
Urple, I don't think there's any moral problem with your fantasies if they don't affect your dealings with women.
It took a lot of courage to write that, Urple. I'm glad you did.
I have a 70-something Chinese friend who immigrated from Hong Kong as a teenager. He's married to a Chinese-American woman. He says of her: you know American women, they always have to have their way." (To which I always reply, "well, naturally.") He has criticized an acquaintance of his, also from Hong Kong, who in his late forties went back to a Hong Kong marriage broker and arranged a marriage with a much younger woman, who came over, married him, dumped him, and is now trying to clean him out in divorce court, so the story goes. He thinks the guy was a chump.
306-309, I agree too - Urple thanks for your courage. It's a good counter example that thoughts/fantasies aren't in and of themselves necessarily bad or wrong. But, what do you suppose separates you from somebody with those same fantasies that does have an overwhelming urge to act them out?
298 - Cala, see why we care to talk about this stuff online with smart feminists?
Thanks, Urple, for your candor and decency.
PS- Also, to respond to some of the earlier comments, it's not a fantasy I particularly try to "indulge". Even though I find violent porn very erotic, I tend to stay away from it. Although honestly that has less to do with any worries about "feeding my fantasy" than it has to do with my realization years ago that those were actually *real women* in those movies, and -- paid actresses or not -- I was watching real exploitation. Which is really pretty sickening.
305 - I did feel like some people were feeling, perhaps rightly, that they were being judged here, and that they felt it was unfair. My comment was an attempt to explain that, yes, of course, it's always unfair, all the time, one way or another.
306 - I'm agreed with Tia, Urple.
288, 290, 291, 303, etc.: I said the same thing as 288 and 303 in 265 and 271. What am I, mud? Either I need to work on clear exposition, or Tia is just way hotter than me.
Props for your honesty, Urple. I think I've made my position clear--agree with 307.
I didn't pick up on any feelings of bitterness either, and I didn't get the sense that anyone thought they were being judged. I agree with TD that it's been an interesting discussion.
what do you suppose separates you from somebody with those same fantasies that does have an overwhelming urge to act them out?
This is of course a complex question, and I think it would take a more qualified social scientist/psychologist than myself to even hazard an educated guess. Probably some parts nature, some parts nuture, no easy answer.
And obviously a deviant fantasy that one had an overwhelming urge to act upon would be much more problematic.
Although I'm honestly not certain I buy into the "overwhelming urge" part of that at all. I generally believe people have more agency than that phrase suggests.
Aw, pdf. Yeah, that's part of it. At least, I've met Tia, and she's awfully cute.
I get the same sense about the bitterness from guys as Jackmormon did. I think a big part of the reason for that, and the reason that the men's thread over at BPhD's wasn't a lot bigger, is that feminist men don't really have any sense of group identity or solidarity, either with each other or with feminist women. So when they say something, even in the comments on a feminist blog, they're saying it in a context where it's interpreted without assuming any good intentions or familiarity with feminism. Even men who've commented over there a long time and have established their position on different issues probably feel the same way. When women speak there, on the other hand, it's assumed until otherwise shown that they hold to feminist ideals and have at least a pretty good understanding of feminism.
There are social contexts in which rape is not reinforced against, or even is encouraged, as long as the woman is not in a protected category. I think that that is the biggest factor allowing fantasies to be acted out. Someone who suddenly found themself in one of those situations would be forced to face his fantasies directly one way or another.
There's also a tendency among some feminist guys to try to "prove" their feminism by objecting loudly and publicly to things they deem misogynistic/anti-feminist. Feminist women don't seem to feel the same need. Note that it was a guy on the men's thread who shamed the guy with the dominant fantasies in the first place.
317: I would guess that there are three main parts. First, how empathetic is the person? Is he able to imagine how his actions, if taken, would hurt the person, and empathize with that pain? Second, how well does he understand what the real effects would be? If he mistakenly thinks that the woman would actually like it, or fails to realize some of the consequences it would have for her, due to a terrible upbringing and misogynist peers and whatnot, then there's less resistence to overcome. Third, how much impulse control does he have? Many serial rapists/killers have pretty much no impulse control at all. It's one of the main symptoms of psycopathy.
I think most date rapists are mainly affected by 1 and 2, and most stranger rapists by 3.
319 - because men aren't women. As open-minded, fair, rational, empathetic guys we can see how women have been oppressed throughout the ages, including our own mothers and grandmothers and maybe even our own sisters and wives, in some ways, and want a fairer world for everybody. But, the fact is we're not them and don't know what it's like, really, to walk the earth as a female.
318: Have I mentioned that I have a thing for blonde size 12 Midwestern grad students?
324: Yes, I'm familiar with that discussion.
322 - that's like people going out of their way to prove they're not racist (i.e. "I'm not racist, but ..."). I like how DrB put it once. We're all something-ist "unless you were born under a rock". That was refreshing to know none of us are perfect - what matters is your heart and desire to be a better and fairer person. Suddenly racial slurs aren't as funny, you feel sorry for women who couldn't have a career that wanted one, etc.
Tia and I are destined to have teh ghey sex.
You know, Tia and AWB, I'm a feminist...
Teo, that was a very smooth encroachment into our sapphic moment. Well played.
For contrast, imagine a blog with a really macho type of atmosphere. (Say, Gene Expression, for instance.) Sex threads on such a blog would be quite feminist-hostile, and if there were separate male and female threads, the male one would be long, and the female one almost completely empty, if not entirely so. With a high-brow enough readership, you'd probably actually get some serious discussion about sexual likes and dislikes in the men's thread, too, and not just a bunch of posturing.
Ack. Say, Gene Expression, for instance.
I am probably one of the bitter ones. I have a more specific beef based on the contempt expressed here and elsewhere for socially inept guys. The dating scene has never worked for me at any point in my life, and I actually think that it fails to work for a high proportion of people much of the time, but it seems to be taken as a standard here and elsewhere, and people just are continually baffled when they find it isn't working for them.
This is periheral to the main point, but it was activated when the "Asian fetish" stereotype (which I first saw at Kotsko's) was raised. By and large I think that that's a fake issue. Some guys just want to escape from the dating scene.
Ah yes, I forgot about John. He's always one of the bitter ones.
Hey I have a question. I'm making a picnic dinner for tomorrow and I'm deciding what to make. I was thinking of various grilled things, because it's the Fourth of July, and I could get a stovetop grill for cheap at Target, probably. But are grilled things good at picnic room temperature, or are they better hot, or can you not generalize? Is there a point to grilled corn or grilled tofu with peanut sauce, or should I just make some cold salads?
336 -- How is it "escap[ing] from the dating scene" to date Asian women? Does that not also require, by definition, dating? Is it the white-lady scene you mean to specify?
336: Does that include internet dating? I've always been really bad at meeting new people IRL (even friends of friends), but I do fine once I get to know people a little bit, and so internet dating is the way to go for me. So far I've had a little success with it, and I'm optimistic.
On the other hand, if you don't relate well to anyone, no matter how well you know them, then you can pretty much scratch any hopes of having healthy, normal relationships.
I think he means escaping the dating scene by going to Asia, where there is no dating scene (or something).
339 -- Grilled eggplants, radicchio, vidalia onions, and asparagus are my favorites. What park are you going to? I'll be somewhere up in Queens.
So much for my thoughts that there might not be many people commenting today...
As far as the sharing of fantasies, I sometimes find that uncomfortable because I don't always feel it's coming from a "good" place. There are great reasons to share your fantasies with your partner -- because you want to act them out, because you want them to better understand what turns you on or how you think, or just because it's hot, but there are some guys that I feel use fantasies for kind of bullying/bargaining. Like "if I get her to tell me her fantasies and I act one of them out, that means I'll be able to guilt her into acting one of mine out, even if she doesn't want to...mwuhauauah!" I guess some women do that but it seems more of a guy thing to do, which is why I think girls may be more reluctant to share their fantasies and get a little nervous when guys start sharing theirs early in a relationship, before they know their intentions.
336 - this is what is so great about the internet, seriously! There's lots of online matchmaking sites and, while I've never actually used one myself to know, it makes sense that the ability to find people of similar interests and mindsets would be easier than randonly wading through the real life dating scene, like singles bars, clubs, etc. I don't think of myself as "socially inept" but am I naturally reserved, cautious to meet new people, and somewhat introverted, especially around people I'm not familiar with, so didn't enjoy the club scene in my early 20s. Fortunately, I met the love of my life online 10 years ago in a chatroom that led to lots of phone call where I could just be myself, talk about anyting, and we really got to know each other from the inside out. Anyway, my point is the traditional social "dating scene" is becoming less critical for finding a mate(s).
Grilled corn is always good. Grill the ears in the husk after soaking them in salt water.
Grilled things are better hot, but mostly probably okay at room temperature (although I fail to understand why you can't serve them hot). Grilled corn is fucking delicious; if you don't recognize this you are not a good American. Grilled tofu is also good, although your lacking knowledge of this fact doesn't really call into question your patriotism.
I understand why lowly commenters would post totally off-topic things 339 comments into another thread, but I'm really unsure why someone with power, like yourself, wouldn't make this into its own post.
343: So all that stuff is good cold?
JE, I think most people here acknowledged that there were non fetishistic reasons why one could prefer Asian women, but I think you're wrong that it's a non issue. Actual real life Asian women I know experience it as an issue. I personally hate feeling like I'm attractive for my race. Once about a year ago I was walking down the street and two black men behind me started commenting, and one of their comments was, "little Barbie doll". The situation was fucked for a number of reasons (it was five o'clock in the morning, for one thing), but it was really objectifying and insulting to be seen as "hot white girl," I think more than it would have been just to have been "sexy lady" or whatever didn't carry any racial connotations.
I like grilled mushrooms and onions. Also yummy and easy is getting/making a little grill basket and grilling up some grape tomatos.
Oh, and I'm going to be at Rooftop Films (where they're showing the Washington movie!), not at a park. I can't serve stuff hot because it will presumably get cold in transit.
The rules are different, as I've said. It's sort of like getting married. You don't have to keep on trying to be cool and attractive and contemporary and sensitive and whatever the most recent criteria are. You don't have to always worry about making a good first impression. You don't have to keep thinking up pickup lines. You don't have to ask what you did wrong. You don't have to ask why none of your relationships work out, or why you repeatedly pick the wrong person, or why the person you want to commit with doesn't want to commit with you, or why the person you just wanted to have fun with does want to commit with you.
And so on. Some are better fitted than others to a fast-moving emotional life dominated by first impressions and contemporary style memes.
I better buy tickets before I say I'm going to be at Rooftop Films, though.
318 - so she's Asian? j/k
"j/k"? TD, for shame.
Tia, some guys just fetishize every woman in an obnoxious way. Often it's just a way of controlling public space by pissing people off than anything else.
351: Yes, pickup lines really suck. But asking what you did wrong, figuring out why relationships don't work out, and why you don't or why your partner doesn't want to commit, are all pretty important and unavoidable things. To avoid them is to step blindly into commitment, and to lie to yourself.
350 - grilled corn wrapped tightly in foil will stay hot for a very long time, especially if put in some sort of a heat-retaining "cooler".
(Is "cooler" the right word even if you're trying to keep something hot?)
What the heck is a "singles bar"? Is this some vestige of the seventies, like "key parties"? Bars is bars is bars is bars, as far as I've seen, having lived on both coasts...
249: Nah, individual relationships are individual relationships. Different thing altogether.
Jumping on the "props to Urple" wagon. And I think his explanation gets it right: there's nothing wrong with fantasies about things we object to, in and of themselves. Thinking of the recent link to the guy's blog that we all thought was maybe a pedophile-in-waiting, I think one line not to be crossed is when people start creating elaborate rationalizations for their objectionable fantasies, especially when those rationalizations involve heavy doses of imputing motives/desires to the partners in said fantasies.
Another, and I admire 313 greatly, is the recognition that having fantasies is one thing, but indulging them through pornography in which actual people act out one's particular kink (rape, pedophilia, bestiality, etc.) is different inasmuch as porn depicts real people.
I think, though, that the real problem is not distinguishing between mere fantasies and dangerous ideas in oneself--I suspect (hope) that most people can tell the difference between, say, a fantasy about fucking a horse and a genuine desire to do so. The real problem comes when we try to assess the content of other people's fantasies, and their likelihood to act on them.
There's another issue that we haven't talked about, I think, and I think it's related: assessing when an actual act is "sexual" and when it's not. When is an affectionate touch just a touch, and when is it something that one feels self-conscious about? I think again part of the difficulty is in the consent aspect, and another part is again in the idea that the difference just lies in a person's mind and is difficult to assess from outside.
So, for instance, one of the things that interests me about parenthood is the sensuality of the relationship between parents and children; but this is something I'm quite hesitant to talk about in public, for obvious reasons.
I also wonder (thinking of the discussion we had not too long ago about the distinction between blame/shame and medicalization of behavioral disorders) about the role of shame in these things. I don't like feeling ashamed about thinking that PK's round little bottom is absolutely delicious-looking, or about saying that; on the other hand, perhaps feeling ashamed about that, or inhibited about tickling him between the legs but not below the arms, is a good thing. I know that my admiration of his cute naked self isn't sexual in the same way that my admiration of a naked man is sexual (though it honestly would be quite difficult to define the difference exactly--both are sensual, both involve a kind of physical desire for touch); but I don't have access to his internal thoughts and feelings. Despite my sense that I read him pretty well and am pretty attuned to his moods and feelings, it would suck to even once cross a line that embarrassed or made him feel uncomfortable about his physical relationship with me. (Although therein enter all sorts of issues about whether and when restraint in certain kinds of touching actually introduces that kind of embarrassment.)
343 -- Maybe best warm or room-temp.
But asking what you did wrong, figuring out why relationships don't work out, and why you don't or why your partner doesn't want to commit, are all pretty important and unavoidable things.
I'd just hope to spend my time doing something else. Different strokes.
On the other hand, if you don't relate well to anyone, no matter how well you know them, then you can pretty much scratch any hopes of having healthy, normal relationships.
I forgot to mention that I don't relate well to anyone.
355: Fine, but an exclusive attraction to Asian women that has elements, whether a fixation on their physical features that eclipses interest in their personality, or an association with stereotyped ideas about Asia women (even if these stereotypes aren't consciously believed), that many Asian women themselves find demeaning is in fact pretty common. I don't actually know why anyone's arguing that this exists. What does the phrase, "Once you go Asian, you'll never go Caucasian" mean? Does it mean you just like pretty black hair?
That's like saying you want a job but you'd rather spend your time doing things other than getting interviews. Sure, most people don't like it, but if you don't, you don't get a job. And hey, maybe you don't need the job. Maybe it's not worth the pain of the interview. In that case, I agree: Different strokes.
I'd just hope to spend my time doing something else.
Are you saying that you wish relationships were simpler? That they could be, if...? Or are you saying that you've just chosen not to be relationship-guy?
I think it's important to admit that feminism has had enormous effects on men. A lot of those effects were designed--there remain abuses to be corrected, after all--but the confusion that younger men feel, as they try to feel their way in a mostly post-patriarachal world, needs to find a way to be expressed without fear of condemnation.
We've seen enough reactionary anti-feminism, I think, to want to foster a more positive feminist role for men. One that engages them as humans capable of having respect for other humans, for starters. Consent thus becomes a huge value in sexual relations; communication thus becomes a huge value in intimate relations.
So, for example. At one point I was urging a SO to dominate me, to try out his limits for rough sex. Then during a very hot sexual episode, he slapped meacross the face. And I just wasn't into that. I knew it immediately at the time, we talked about it briefly afterwards, and then the next day we talked about it at length. His desire to try that act out wasn't wrong--I'd suggested he disinhibit himself in that direction, and I didn't blame him for the direction it took. But I was able to clarify that being slapped actually didn't titillate me, personally.
It was a tricky conversation because we both had to distinguish between general desires we both wanted to encourage and the specific action that I objected to.
358 - bars are bars are bars is not true in my part of the world (Midwest). There's country bars, dive bars, dance clubs, sports bars, as many different types of bars as you can imagine. Some are a place to potentially meet new people (to, hopefully, date) whereas some are a place to hang with friends or family. There's BIG dfferences!
That's like saying you want a job but you'd rather spend your time doing things other than getting interviews.
I also don't like job interviews.
I vote cold salads. Why buy another piece of equipment?
There's a mirror image to the person who "rushes blindly into commitment". That's the one who is so afraid of commitment that they throw away a good thing. That's a very common story in my aged part of the world.
Because grilled food is teh awesome, b. Why do you hate America?
I agree that there's a wide variety of bars. But at all of them I've seen single women and single men, there with their friends. Sure, there are fewer women at the sports bars, and the vibe at the dives is different than the vibe at the martini bars, but I don't think I understand what a "singles bar" would be like.
Someone with LA/Boston experience explain it better? Are all the bars I go to singles bars?
I'm sure that there's a negative sort of Asian obsession out there, and that it creeps out many Asian women. I just thought that the vehemence here was way over the top.
If people start to believe that it's okay to just eat cold salads instead of grilled foods on the 4th of July, the terrorists will have won.
Why buy another piece of equipment? Because it sounds like she doesn't have a grill, that's why. It's difficult to be a good American without a quality grill.
You know, I was thinking about the "afraid of commitment" issue the other day. I came up with this idea: a marriage-like arrangement, except time-limited. You only commit for some months or years, and at intermediate points you can both choose to either extent the commitment or not. Of course, if you're planning to have kids you should really try to commit at least 15 years from the birth of each, but other than that, no length of time is really too small. It might be a nice solution for people who would like commitment, but only in smaller doses.
I agree with pdf23ds that my own personal blog has more women than men commenting, but I don't think it's quite true that women are assumed to know something about feminism and men aren't, necessarily. I think that a big part of the issue of discussing sex or fantasies does involve a certain trust. And it's probably true that there is a baseline level of assumed similarity in, say, all-men or all-women groups (equally, in all-black or all-Chinese groups, or whatever), assuming that folks are strangers.
But once people start talking, and especially over time, there are women who show that they're not feminists, men who show that they are (or are at least good listeners), etc. etc. I'd say that's an advantage of blogs, the sense of a basic community with certain community norms. That and the anonymity thing, I think, make discussions of this kind of potentially socially embarrassing stuff in a more or less reasonably comfortable peer group something that might be better done online than in a lot of other venues.
(I think this is also why online dating is such a good and interesting thing for some kinds of people--it lets you get to know how someone thinks before you get hung up on things like looks or shy mannerisms, which can help overcome intimacy barriers for people who are otherwise kind of handicapped in that area.)
375: I didn't really hear much vehemence, just that the issue was being hashed out in some detail. YMMV.
Looks like I've been pwned by 373. I'm going out to get drunk now.
366 -- That's interesting, JM. I've had it happen both ways; once when I suddenly got slapped, it was awful, but when someone else did it suddenly, it was totally great. I'm sure it had everything to do with the guys and what I thought they were trying to achieve with that slap. In the first case, I'm pretty sure it was for himself, and in the second, I'm pretty sure it was for me.
John, some people actually *enjoy* meeting brand new people and experiencing new things. I'm not one of them and sounds like you're not either, but I never blamed the "big, bad dating scene" or thought it's unfair to use shyer guys - you just have to find a different environment where you're more in your element, is all. The only rule is to be honest about yourself and don't try to pretend you're something you're not.
Grilled food is great, but grilling it inside kind of misses the point, and transporting it across town further dilutes the essence of the grilling experience. Cold salads are also part of the 4th. And I'm firmly committed to the idea that part of what makes the 4th of July the best holiday ever is that it doesn't involve buying a bunch of crap.
So, how tipsy does one have to be before one were considered to be posting Becks-style? It's a shame there's no casual, useful intersubjective measure of drunkenness.
383- You can probably get away with not grilling if you drink a lot of beer and set off dangerous fireworks in your backyard. Otherwise, you better fire up the grill. True patriots, of course, do all three.
377 -- I like the idea of the commitment-free relationship. I've been in one for well over two years. It could go on forever--who knows? who cares?--but it persists because we'll never live together, never get married, and never have kids. Recipe for eternal hot sex and relative high spirits? In the oven.
Whoa, my 366 clearly responded to much earlier arguments on the thread.
As for the fouth, I'll be making Adas Polow and Nanaimo Bars.
In Berkeley I saw a lot of white boys who had only known one or two East-Asian-descended-people in their life go absolutely nuts upon arrival at a school that was >50% non-white. A good fraction of them developed well-known obsessions for dating Asian girls, what my friends in one of the two Asian-Am sororities would derisively refer to as "yellow fever." It seemed like an obsession with the Other; not necessarily a focus on any expected cultural stereotypes, except the fact that the total whitebread upbringing had resulted in a proud weakness for 'the exotic', even when the exotic gal in question was more 'whitebread' than the guy...
"I'd say that's an advantage of blogs, the sense of a basic community with certain community norms."
Yeah. What I'm saying, though, is that the particular norms common to feminist blogs are more hostile to men than would be ideal, and more than is probably actually necessary, as JM talks about a bit in 366.
388 - You're making Canadian treats on the Fourth of July?
(Really yummy sounding Canadian treats, but still...)
I think that where what John's saying makes sense is in the idea that the American style of intensely personal intimacy is, sure, not for everyone. And that people who aren't into it might find other kinds of relationship models more congenial.
Where I'm bothered is by the idea that Asia, in particular, allows men specifically to escape the demands of American women. That and the statement (somewhere upthread) that American women pointing out that this problem, or that there's a long and unsavory history of Orientalist sexual exploitation which underlies this stuff, are doing so because they feel threatened, or because they want men to suffer by not getting to ignore these things, or indeed because they're more interested in what men think than they are in the real problems of sexual exploitation of women.
387: If that works for you without any explicit commitment, that's great. In such a relationship, I would be much more comfortable knowing that I could count on my partner for certain things for at least X period of time, and that if we decide we've grown apart or whatever, we still have the remainder of X to gradually separate our emotions and affairs no matter what. I definitely wouldn't characterize this kind of relationship as "commitment-free", though.
377 - yeah, but don't underestimate the eternal joy to be had by seeing a kid's smile or laugh. Hot sex might be great (and sounds really appealing right now, actually), but nothing is more beautiful than seeing your kids happy and feeling the unconditional love. Likewise, having a life partner who is there when you need them and vica versa gives you a feeling of love deeper than just romantic love.
So, while commitment-free relationships may be fun and liberating, I'll take my lifelong committed relationship instead!
391, Well, I'm making nanaimo bars because baklava needs to sit for a day, and I've been lazy. Wait, that doesn't defend me against anti-americanism, does it?
Seriously, though: follow the recipe. Nanaimo Bars are teh shit. Even Canadians will be impressed; it seems that most of the younger generation have been brainwashed into accepting inferior packaged versions.
347: Yes on the grilled corn. Especially if you drizzle it with a little melted butter mixed with chili powder, and squeeze some lime juice on top of that. Mmmmmmmmm.
(And 346 has it right: definitely soak them.)
On the other hand, if the nuisance value of buying more equipment is too high (especially if you're going to have to carry the food on the train/subway), then salads are always delish.
I think that the boundary beyond which the Asian-hottie thing has Gone Too Far is when Michelle Malkin starts to seem hot. That's when you know that you have a problem.
394: Hey, I never said "commitment-free", and I think my model can allow for all those things.
394: Maybe you meant to type 387 instead of 377?
390: Well, JM's 366 is about a specific relationship between two people. the problem "in public," as it were, is that feminist blogs are lightning rods for anti-feminists, so that to maintain the atmosphere of trust and respect you have to actually police the site (and then policing is inimical to trust). I completely agree that we're at a point historically where we should give men more benefit of the doubt than we have in the past. On the other hand, the presumption of being heard is one that anti-feminist men rely on heavily.
I think feminist blogs, broadly speaking, should be less suspicious of individual men than perhaps they offten are. On the other hand, I think that feminist men really need to be more proactive about creating these discussions themselves (like Teo did at his place). Part of the problem for women on the internet is a pretty well-documented pattern of harassment and threats; I agree that men shouldn't have to deal with hostility from women, but we should keep in mind that that hostility is pretty well-founded (e.g., I've had a rape threat, a lawsuit threat, a series of attacks by those very Gene Expressions people linked earlier, a great deal of hostile email, fewer trolls than I'd expect but still, and so forth.)
"I also don't like job interviews."
Does anyone?
And am I the only person who finds reading comments on dating intermixed with comments on the psychology of objectification intermixed with comments on sexual acts intermixed with picnic recommendations a touch jarring?
I fear someone reading hastily and being confused, and wrapping a grilled dildo so as to stay just so freshly warm for the picnic with the hott Asian woman the guy is feeling proud of having admitted his rape fantasies about while noting that he really likes a lot of butter with that.
398 - ok, but still - here's an analogy: there's a much different mindset when entering into a contract job than there is a "permanent" one. Even if you know in the back of your mind that permanent doesn't necessarily mean forever after literally, the fact that it's open ended with no end in sight does necessarily allow you to invest more energy into it because you have a more vested interest (especially where children are involved).
And does it require a committment to drizzle John Emerson with butter, or is that only if one is Canadian and having his child, who has a nice butt?
392: John can speak for himself, but I took him to be referring to something more like escaping the from a dating scene that sort of starts in high school with quarterback/cheerleader as the ideal and the rest of us sorted by how far we diverge from that, then adds in an extra dose of self-marketing weirdness in college as those who were at the top of the pecking order in high school try to stay there and those who weren't try to redefine their identities--or how others perceive their identities--in order to get laid more. And if that's what he's saying (and apologies, John, if it isn't), the escape element has more to do with identifying people who can be reliably assumed not to have expectations shaped by coming out of that set of formative experiences (noting, here, that John was talking about Asian women, not Asian-American women, IIRC) than with stereotypes of Asians.
402: If you really want "no end in sight", then commit for 20 years. I can't even begin to imagine what changes will happen to me over the next twenty years. I'll effectively be a different person by that time. The psychological effect will be no different. And besides, it's silly to commit to someone for a lifetime when you know that you probably won't make it ten years. (People who aren't mature enough to know that, even under the effects of infatuation, are obviously not the kind of people that would gain from this type of thing.)
I'm not saying it's for everyone.
Around here it's quite common for women, when they see a new toddler, to say "He's so cute I could just eat him".
Teo seemed a bit defensive at some points, at least in comments at his own place. John, of course, has stood up for himself all day here. And AWB and JM were not wrong in describing hostility. I certainly have felt something, that I wouldn't call hostility exactly. More like condescension. I felt at some points as if I were being lectured, and otherwise being patronized. What shocked me was not being given the benefit of the doubt by people I've exchanged amicably with for months. Leaves me wondering if I'm wrong to think I'll ever be able to get beyond superficial levels of acquaintence, if the knowledge of one another we have now is all we'll ever be able to achieve.
Piny of feministe on disability/difference, porn, and Diane Arbus. Added to the conversation just cause.
Unfogged is an emoticon-free zone.
"I also don't like job interviews." Does anyone?
I do! People ask you questions and then they have to listen to you make up answers. Over lunch.
(I hear Weiner snickering. No, I've not been to the APA yet.)
378 - I love your comment, DrB! ;-)
Yellow card. Nothing personal, you understand.
A mutual commitment, made in good faith, means that neither of you will be the same person in five years that you would have been if you hadn't made the commitment. Maybe I was just very lucky in who I ended up married to, but a mutual expectation that you're going to stick together pretty much forces you to make decisions that shape your lives in ways that aren't necessarily what either of you would choose in the absence of the other, and somehow it generally seems to work out OK.
Hi! At least that yellow wasn't in the penalty box! 'Cause then you get a free kick at Labs.
I'm bothered by the way some of the comments on this thread use the term "Asian fetish" as if it were just commonly understood that Asian women actually are submissive little creatures that will cater to a man's every wish.
That's a racist generalization if I ever heard one. The Asian women I've dated tend to be lawyers and businesswomen who are about as far from the geisha-girl stereotype as you can get. (It's a good thing, too, because a "let me wash your back for you, Master" type would be the most boring girlfriend I could imagine.)
Intelligence and ambition (to do something besides marry a rich guy, that is) are two characteristics I look for in a girlfriend, and in my experience, plenty of Asian women have them. And some of them are smokin' hot, to boot.
Oh, and if you, for some reason, are bring corn to a party, and you boil it, and then you wrap it in foil, it will stay hot, and if you put it on the grill it will get little carmelized scorch marks and will taste good.
Wow. I look away, and 200 comments later, the thread's turned into a share-circle. Just wrong. (I am, in all seriousness, impressed by Urple's candor.)
(a) Emerson, you fuck, I have trouble believing you have trouble dating. You must be doing something wrong. mcmanus is way crazier than you, and he seems to do pretty well with women. (I'm honestly surprised.)
(b) pdf, re 319: I realize that all women are simply interchangeable sex toys to you, but I think it was AWB who mentioned bitterness, not JM. And I didn't really sense any bitterness from the guys, other than Emerson.
"People ask you questions and then they have to listen to you make up answers. Over lunch."
Never had a job interview over lunch. Perhaps a class thing.
Perhaps. But it's mostly just the forcing businesspeople to listen to stories about how one is a Team Player who Excels At Teamwork.
I'm bothered by the way some of the comments on this thread use the term "Asian fetish" as if it were just commonly understood that Asian women actually are submissive little creatures that will cater to a man's every wish.
I don't see anyone using it this way. The Asian fetish isn't motivated by an accurate portrayal of Asian women, but it doesn't have to be accurate to be a fetish. And the fetish, in my experience, isn't of talented lawyers & sharp-tongued businesswomen.
"I'm bothered by the way some of the comments on this thread use the term 'Asian fetish' as if it were just commonly understood that Asian women actually are submissive little creatures that will cater to a man's every wish."
I didn't notice anyone engaging in that at all, myself, but perhaps I'm just blind to it.
414: ???
412: Yeah, it sure does. And some people won't like having to shape their lives with an expectation that they'll be together indefinitely. They'd rather do things that make it so they could become independent at a certain point if they'd rather do that.
416--I'll cop to insinuating unhappiness and confusion, with some bitterness as a side-product, here and there.
And as particular as the second part of my 366 was, I really meant the more general earlier part.
422: Heed me, woman, and do not disagree with me in public!
"But it's mostly just the forcing businesspeople to listen to stories about how one is a Team Player who Excels At Teamwork."
Done that and variants many times. Just always in offices.
We've secretly replaced SomeCallMeTim with Folger's Crystals. Let's see if anybody notices.
421: True. I think (obviously) that there's more gained than lost, and I'm skeptical as to whether it's possible to have a successful long-term relationship without a pretty strong mutual commitment to making it work indefinitely, but I'm just extrapolating from my own life, which is not always a reliable basis for generalizing about humanity.
Why do you have to be such a hurter, Becks?
"mcmanus is way crazier than you, and he seems to do pretty well with women. (I'm honestly surprised.)"
Mercy fucks, everyone of them. Just look pathetic and not dangerous, and be very grateful. Actually, there is an art to it, you have to communicate that you won't be completely boring, and that you won't cry. I should write a book.
And re 426: pretend I put all those commas there as bait for the resident grammarians and stylists.
427 - Considering I was going to go with something much sassier than "Folger's Crystals", you should be thanking me right now. (Good to see you back, though. I'd wondered where you went off to.)
Why should it be important not to cry, Bob?
Somehow AWB's point about threesomes seems to apply to discussions of commitment/aloneness.
, and that you won't cry.
There's your error, Emerson. And mine.
My coffee cursed at me this morning. "Jeebus!", I think it said.
That is, the ick factor can go either way.
I didn't make coffee because it was too hot to run the coffee maker.
I was going to go with something much sassier than "Folger's Crystals"
It's hard to imagine anything sassier than "Folger's Crystals."
431:"Mom for a night" is not the plan.
And am I the only person who finds reading comments on dating intermixed with comments on the psychology of objectification intermixed with comments on sexual acts intermixed with picnic recommendations a touch jarring?
You must be new here, stranger. Welcome!
I mean, the main way a mercy fuck works and is any good is if you both pretend it is not a mercy fuck.
No more. I charge people like Emerson for this kind of advice.
440: I thought the grilled corn stuff was just a subliminal form of Asian-guy fetishism from the ladies. Yellow, phallic vegetables, buttered up and served hot? Pretty obvious what's going on here, no?
419: I see where GB got that impression. In the first few comments of the thread, it was hard to see exactly what was meant by "Asian fetish", but I think by now it's been pretty clearly explained that the problem is with people who are actually fetishizing soem weird fanatasy of Asian women, not with people who find Asian features attractive. This is only a problem because the word "fetish" is often used sloppily elsewhere, and it's not unusual for people to assume that any Asian woman/white guy couple has weird fetishism going on, so those of us in such relationships are a little sensitive about it.
I think in my early teens I may have indeed had an "Asian fetish"—fantasies about medieval courtesans introducing me to the mysteries and such—but that vanished (along with the other silly non-racial fantasies I got from bad novels) as soon as I had contact with actual women. I'm sure there are plenty of guys out there who retain such stupid fetishes into adulthood, but I think it's probably unusual to find such people among those who are actually in long-term relationships with Asians. Not many real-life women are submissive enough to put up with that kind of bullshit.
"I thought the grilled corn stuff was just a subliminal form of Asian-guy fetishism from the ladies."
So I should reconsider what I'm really after when I pine for bagels?
Weird. Nine minutes since the last comment, and me and Farb comment within a few seconds of each other. Should I draw any conclusions from that?
445: Whatever gets you through the night.
400: I was actually partially inspired to do the post by B's post introducing the men's thread, where she mentioned that it would be better if a man did a post on sexual issues that other men could respond to. I don't have anything to say about sexual acts, but when I saw the exchange in the thread and then JM's post I decided I did have something to say about sexual fantasies. And here we are.
407: Yeah, I did get a little defensive at my place; CharleyCarp's comments kind of rubbed me the wrong way. I don't think he realized it, though, and he apologized, so it's cool. I think I've been okay here.
A few people seem mystified by my comment in 414 that the use of the term "Asian fetish" suggests that the writer thinks the basis for the fetish is factually accurate.
I contend that to use the term "Asian fetish" in that way (i.e., to refer to a guy who's into Asian women because he thinks they will be submissive towards him) is to implicitly legitimate the assumptions behind the fetish. A more appropriate term would perhaps be "fetish for submissive women".
The fetishist may seek to gratify his fetish based on the incorrect assumption that Asian women are submissive, but his real desire is for a submissive woman, not an Asian one.
And the fetish, in my experience, isn't of talented lawyers & sharp-tongued businesswomen.
I recall Ling on Ally McBeal being quite popular.
Big Ben, I missed your post in 443. Preach on, brother!
I'm sure there are plenty of guys out there who retain such stupid fetishes into adulthood, but I think it's probably unusual to find such people among those who are actually in long-term relationships with Asians.
Agreed, as long as we simply delete "with Asians" and leave the rest unchanged.
449: When you look at it that way, "fetish" is no good either. As I mentioned way upthread, fetishes are for things.
Happy Fourth to those in the eastern half of the US, btw.
"Happy Fourth to those in the eastern half of the US, btw."
Again the repression of the West is revealed for all to see!
448: "I don't have anything to say about sexual acts"
The ones with gerbils, hula-hoops, ventriloquism, hypnosis, and sawing the assistant in half, on a revolving stage, are awesome, though.
Kneel before us, we who are experiencing the 4th of July already!
451: comity?
I felt really weird typing out "Asian" so many times in that comment anyway.
"Kneel before us, we who are experiencing the 4th of July already!"
Come the revolution, the oppression of the fascist/Republican time-zone system will be reversed.
I hope everyone in the U.S. reading this was duly patriotic and spent the day re-enacting arguing over the provisions in the Declaration that was signed on the second which wound up scratched out by the 4th.
That, and hunting down NY Times photographers, reporters, and editors, to kill. What better way to celebrate freedom?
458: That's pretty ominous. What should I be worried about?
Okay, Gary, I'll stay up another 20 minutes just to wish you a happy Fourth. I don't think I'll be able to stay up late enough for the Californians. DaveL is on his own.
459: Nothing specific, just comity only ever lasts so long. But don't lose sleep over it.
392: Where I'm bothered is by the idea that Asia, in particular, allows men specifically to escape the demands of American women.
Please explain. What are these demands?
God save the Queen! God save the House of Hanover House of Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha Haus of Windsor!
Happy Fourth of July, Gary.
I'm going to bed.
The fetishist may seek to gratify his fetish based on the incorrect assumption that Asian women are submissive, but his real desire is for a submissive woman, not an Asian one.
But there is such a thing as an Asian fetishist of the type referred to here, and it's a subcategory of the group of men who desire submissive women. Members of this subcategory wish to believe their desire is "natural", and like to imagine that women who grew up in an intensely patriarchal culture, uncorrupted by western-style feminism, will find such submission natural. Surprise!
Maybe it deserves another name though. You could call it "Orientalism", since it seems to be based on a quaint, madame butterflyish vision of asian cultures.
466: Okay, as long as we recognize that the subcategory you describe does not overlap at all with the category of men who like Asian women for other reasons.
463: See, e.g., 200, 221, 245, 336, and 351. And don't shoot the messenger.
I don't feel like shooting any messengers, BPhD. You're safe.
First of all, I dated Asian-American women in the US before I got to Japan, so it's not like I gave up on the challenge of dating white women and fled to Japan in defeat.
Second, I don't think the comments you cite make white guys dating Asians look desperate. They make white women look insecure and whiny.
I think some American women are quick to throw the "Asian fetish" slur at any white guy dating an Asian woman because it absolves them of responsibility for their own behavior toward men. It's an "I'm perfect, and he's only with her because he has a fetish!" mentality.
Well, some men like Asian women (guilty!), and some like black, white, or other women. But all of us like women who treat us with kindness and make us feel valued. That doesn't mean being submissive to us. But it does mean not treating us like juvenile delinquents who need to be trained, re-educated and turned into productive members of society.
You know, I unnecessarily racialized that last comment. My bad. Let me try again:
--------------------------
First of all, I dated Asian-American women in the US quite happily before I got to Japan, so it's not like I gave up on the challenge of dating white American women and fled to Japan in defeat.
Second, I don't think the comments you cite make white American guys dating Asians look desperate. They make white American women look insecure and whiny.
I think some American women are quick to throw the "Asian fetish" slur at any white American guy dating an Asian woman because it absolves them of responsibility for their own behavior toward men. It's an "I'm perfect, and he's only with her because he has a fetish!" mentality.
Well, some men like Asian women (guilty!), and some like black, white, or other women. But all of us like women who treat us with kindness and make us feel valued. That doesn't mean being submissive to us. But it does mean not treating us like juvenile delinquents who need to be trained, re-educated and turned into productive members of society.
(White) American women are insecure and whiny? And they treat men like they need to be trained and reeducated? And this is a good reason to prefer Asian women? Who are, by definition, not American? And none of this is racist or in any way indicative of a problem with women? And (some) American women who point this out are just doing it to absolve themselves of their own (insecure, whiny, unkind) behavior toward men?
Okay, if you say so.
"point this out" s/b "question these assertions."
Also, I didn't say that any of the comments I referenced made American men look desperate. You asked what I meant by saying that the idea that going to Asia lets men escape the demands of American women, and I pointed to examples of that. You seem to agree with the premise that American women are insecure and whiny, and that men who wish to go elsewhere in order to escape the horror that is American womanhood are doing so because they want to feel valued and treated kindly. It seems to me that you agree, then, with the idea that American women are too demanding (or maybe just too insecure and whiny), which makes me wonder why you asked 463 in the first place.
I kind of doubt, however, that you really mean to say that (white) American women are insecure and whiny, and that Asian women are better at treating (white?) men with kindness and making them feel valued. At least I hope so. But I also honestly doubt that you don't recognize that these stereotypes existed well before I (or anyone else) pointed them out, and I'm sure that you're capable of realizing that when white women object to racist stereotypes of women of color, we just might be doing so for reasons other than our own inability to get guys.
I've had a rape threat, a lawsuit threat, a series of attacks by those very Gene Expressions people linked earlier,
I'd say that this is an unfair characterization. These so-called attacks were 3 posts on Dr. Bitch's open marriage and one of those posts was an apology for using the personal details that Dr. Bitch writes about as a jumping off point for looking at the sociological and sociobiological factors associated with open marriage. Judge for yourself, the posts are here, here and here.
If a blogger puts the details of her life into her blog, the she loses control of the narrative that unfolds after posting, and she should expect that some people aren't going to be rushing forward in support of her choices and may in fact want to look at her story in a light she doesn't appreciate. That is hardly an attack, and shouldn't be associated with the maliciousness underlying threats of rape and legal action.
Sex threads on such a blog would be quite feminist-hostile, and if there were separate male and female threads, the male one would be long, and the female one almost completely empty, if not entirely so.
We had a very long comment thread were the male commenters were waxing rhapsodic about the effective strategies described in The Game and the details got very personal and there was a lot of information exchange about technique, approach, demeanor, insecurity, failure, success, etc. I don't recall any woman chiming in on that thread.
Any statement about what "American women" or "Asian women" are like must necessarily be a generalization with a great many counter-examples.
However, it does strike me that the American women most likely to hurl the accusation of "Asian fetish" at American guys dating Asians, are the ones who need to rationalize the consequences of their own behavior toward men. Other American women don't take it personally.
Consider:
(1) I find Asian features physically attractive.
(2) I like smart, assertive, ambitious women.
(3) I like kind, supportive women (which is not incompatible with 2).
This isn't a fetish, it's a set of preferences. Any woman I date is likely to match two or all three of those criteria. I could date (and have dated) women who are (2) and (3), but not Asian. However, I would be unlikely to date a woman who is only (2). And most of the American women crying "Asian fetish!" seem to fall in that category.
My beef is mostly with the dating scene. Since I'm an American heterosexual man, that does effectively mean I have a beef with American women, but if I were a gay man or a straight or gay woman I'd probably be just as pissed.
I am much more inept in person than I seem to be in writing, and a lot of the lingua franca of dating is of little or no interest to me -- style and fashion, movies, and especially TV. I have Aspergers-esque qualities.
I probably could have had dating success eventually if I'd tried harder, but dating and courtship for me are extremely laborious, and the emotional roller coaster seemed to have a lot more downs than ups. So I just cut my losses.
What set me off just now was the contempt for inept and nerdy guys, which I've repeatedly seen here and at several other places. I usually try to avoid posting on this kind of question, and in general have kept my mouth shut for years and years, but I slip every once in awhile.
The highly competitive dating scene sorts people into winners and losers. The tendency is to assume that people who grumble about it, such as me, are whiny losers. I decided to bite the bullet and cop to that, in order to make my point.
It still amazes me that people are baffled and hurt when they find that their lovelife is fucked. They're like people who are crushed when they lose the lottery -- that's what the lottery is for, taking your money and giving you nothing. Dating really isn't a win-win system, and lots of people end up going on to something different.
The present system probably does work for lots of people, and they have my blessing, but there are a lot of others for whom it just doesn't.
TangoMan,
I read over the gnxp post to refresh my memory, and it was just an innocuous statement that she was doing "stupid things", browbeating her poor husband into pretending he didn't mind being cuckolded, dooming her marriage, and confusing and hurting her kid. Surely only a humorless marxist feminist could characterize that as an attack!
GB,
Part of the problem here is that the whiny women yelling "Asian fetish" aren't on this thread. (Though they definitely exist.) The only reason we're still arguing is that in society at large, many people use "guys with Asian fetishes" to mean "guys who are attracted to Asians", so when we hear "guys with Asian fetishes piss me off", it's hard to know whether they're including those of us with healthy attitudes who are also attracted to Asian features. "Fetish" is a widely misused term, and some of the earlier statements on this thread were really easy to misinterpret.
It seems that people commenting here only have problems with people who are actually projecting orientalist fantasies onto Asian women, and I agree with them. People like us have problems with being painted with that same brush. As long as no one here is doing either of those things, we shouldn't have much to argue about.
"The present system probably does work for lots of people, and they have my blessing, but there are a lot of others for whom it just doesn't."
I don't know why it is I've been blogging for nearly five years and haven't been flooded with e-mails from women seeking a short, fat, sometimes goutish, frequently ill, largely unemployed, science-fiction-loving, nerdy, comics-liking, perpetually broke, college drop-out, 47-year-old guy with thinning hair, and a history of depression and high blood pressure, who has neither car nor driver's license, nor even a bicycle, nor even cable tv, who doesn't really dance, and tends towards the socially awkward, and has bad teeth, who sometimes drinks way too much, but for some reason, I haven't been flooded with those e-mails, despite my being single and available and heterosexual!
I can't understand it.
I blame society.
To move away from the discussion of the Asian fetish and back to the original question of why men might be less likely to discuss their fantasies, I have a thesis, albeit a pretty weak one, for why this is--at least in mixed company. It applies to online mixed company too.
It's been noted here before that there's a cultural assumption that men will fuck anything that's not absolutely hideous, whereas women need more of an emotional attachment. The corollary is that women are much choosier. I'm not saying that this is true or a good norm to have internalized. But if it's a widely held belief, then women may be more comfortable expressing "deviant" fantasies and desires, because they believe that it won't cost them anything; men may think that it will prevent them from getting dates. I don't think that this explains all of the reticence on the part of the men, but it may explain some.
There may be some fantasies that would disturb me a lot and keep me from seeing a guy.
I'm pretty plain vanilla myself. The closest thing to submissive fantasy I have is a sort of Rhett Butler/Scarlet O'Hara scenario (not with costumes--just the sweeping up the stairs bit). I'm personally really uncomfortable with BDSM. For some reason I am sort of okay with female submissives--though the slave stuff weirds me out--but the idea of a male submissive really bothers me. I really prefer equality. It may be that I can see a woman's desire to be a submissive as an understandable internalization of an aspect of a patriarchal norm, something that I don't care for personally, but that I find understandable. I tend to see a man's desire to be a submissive as a sign of psychological damage related to some particular trauma, as a problem to be solved. (A quick google search tells me that more of the men who are active in the S & M community are submissive. Does this reflect a need to seek out partners in a formal setting, i.e., online fora, caused by th fact that fewer women who are just casually interested in this stuff aren't interested in being doms? I don't know. We all know of the concept of the paid dominatrix. Is there a male equivalent? It's the sort of thing that a lot of people see as truly deviant.
The guy who described his submissive practices on B's site really disgusted me. I didn't say anything in the "Come Together" thread, because it was pretty likely that he was reading that thread. It took a lot of courage for him to write what he did, and I didn't want to embarass him. Basically, I think that the taboo against urinating on other people is a good one and should be kept.
The closest thing to a fantasy I've ever had is a doctor/patient fantasy where the examination turns into something more. It's very sketchy, i.e. not well fantasized out, and I don't even think that I'd want to act this one out. I certainly don't want a male doctor to make advances. It probably has to do with an unmet need to be taken care of, and there are other ways to show that without renouncing equality if both people take turns taking care of eachother.
It seems that people commenting here only have problems with people who are actually projecting orientalist fantasies onto Asian women, and I agree with them.
I also have a problem with people who fixate on those physical characteristics to the extent that it's elevated above all other things you can look for, whether in their looks or their person. People who are out there looking for nothing but a blonde with big breasts to fuck annoy me too. NB this is different from a preference for big breasts or blondeness. In the case of Asians, I think it frequently has an element of orientalist fantasy even if that fantasy is nearly totally sublimated. There are all kinds of tastes for physical characteristics marketed in porn or escort services, but extremely frequetly you see Asian women photographed with a lotus flower. I've never seen a black woman photographed draped in Kente cloth.
Gary, get your teeth fixed and you'll be fine. Tout le reste est littérature. Try being a 5' 4" teenager with cerebral palsy and spinal curvature, if you want to know about the finer points of sexual rejection.
And yet it was possible to get laid, providing, as Emerson points out, that you ignore the dating scene. You wind up with the other marginalised people, and damned if they aren't more interesting, more open to original ideas and more grown up than all the clones in the clubs. John went to Taiwan. I went deep into counter-culture and when that got boring (pretty soon) into fringe activism. OK, probably John made the better choice.
But still, what he said at 478.
So OFE raises a question for me. I find it hard to believe it's so impossible for someone in John's or Gary's or OFE's situation to find women (indeed, OFE's saying it's not), only that they might, as they said, need to choose other channels (the internet must have made this shit slightly easier; you can find ways to communicate with people from all over the country), and maybe that it might be hard to find women they'd find attractive. My mom is fairly honest about this. She's overweight; her skin is terrible; she doesn't look so great. And she'll say, "I don't know that I'd want any man that would be attracted to me." In her case, I highly suspect this line of being a psychological defense, but it does concede that she can't set the physical bar that high. It's fine if you'd choose celibacy over a woman who isn't everything you'd want; it just depends on what you prioritize, and relationships aren't that important to lots of people. But I think it is a choice.
Not everyone in the clubs is a clone either. Being young and/or attractive and/or liking to dance is no more of an indicator of worth than anything else. Probably depends on the club though.
482: In the case of Asians, I think it frequently has an element of orientalist fantasy even if that fantasy is nearly totally sublimated. There are all kinds of tastes for physical characteristics marketed in porn or escort services, but extremely frequently you see Asian women photographed with a lotus flower.
I think this particular fantasy may be more prevalent among Western men with no real-world knowledge of what Asian countries and Asian women are actually like — i.e., men for whom Asia actually is a fantasy.
But here's a question: Do all the Asian women in these Asian woman-American man relationships have a "fetish" for Western men? Should they be criticized for "escaping the demands" of Japanese men?
(oops: "Japanese" should be "Asian".)
But it does mean not treating us like juvenile delinquents who need to be trained, re-educated and turned into productive members of society.
I'm not sure we have comity after all, GB, as I think you've been in Japan for so long that you've replaced your real memories of america with talk-radio bullshit. Although maybe the place where you lived was full of straw-feminists who were real mean to men. Or did the prom queen refuse to go out with you? Well, join the club. The quarterback didn't ask me out, either.
Where I live most people just want a little fucking reciprocity, which I don't think is too much to ask.
I feel for Emerson. I'm an outlier as well. But I'll tell you this, it's not worth it to me to have a man around if he's not going to be supportive of me.
The men here keep going on as if their female overlords have triumphed and now refuse to bring them cooling drinks. Well, boo fucking hoo. try being a middle-aged woman if you want to know what it's like to be a drug on the market. oh, sorry, I forgot--I put on some weight, and now I'm supposed to go die.
Since no one said that all those Western men had a fetish to begin with, that question is more than a little tendentious. They have a fetish if they just want someone with lots of body hair to take them away and they're not concerned with any other aspect of his person, or if they envision their man with a sherriff's star and side arms being all, "Hey, bimba, non piangere."
There are people who manage to sleep with actual Asian women and retain their attitude. See Urple's "silky" comment at 133.
488 to 485. I endorse mcmc's characterization of GB's attitude towards American women.
Look, obviously it wasn't clear:
I think this particular fantasy may be more prevalent among Western men with no real-world knowledge of what Asian countries and Asian women are actually like — i.e., men for whom Asia actually is a fantasy.
it's only these guys who are the problem. Just liking women with Oriental features is so not the problem. Finding them hotter than white women is so not the problem. It's the expectation that random interchangeable Asian girl will be a submissive yet sexually adventurous with lotus-flower bedecked schoolgirl outfit that's the problem.
And it's not because I'm worried that my boyfriend will leave me for a hot Asian girl and I'm trying to keep out the competition.
And yeah, if the Asian girl thinks all American men are interchangeable Robert Redfords, that's a problem. Probably not as much of a problem given gender dynamics and history (not too many European male sex slaves last I checked), but still icky.
Swooshing all the way back to 248: "getting religion" is in fact one of the possible strategies for guys who want out of the dating scene and are looking for long-term commitment etc.
I think a distinction often lost here yesterday was that between true fantasy, never to be attempted, and preferences where someone really would like to try something and felt a barrier. The Nancy Friday books referenced somewhere way upthread were actually very good about making that distinction.
I got quite upset, which I expressed on the common thread, with what I saw as a pattern of women wanting to submit a bit, but also not wanting to have to say anything about it. What was not clear to me at the time of my initial reaction, which some of the women whose original posts I'd seen later made clear, was that they had in fact tried to send signals. Their problem was men who wouldn't take the hint, or didn't have it in them. It wasn't a tragedy, but it was a longing, an unmet need.
I think a lot of what was written about was not fantasies per se, but difficulties communicating, and wishing for a level of sensitivity and non-verbal communication that didn't seem to be there.
481: Anyway, BG, the taboo on peeing on people isn't going to go away if some people pee on people. Openly talking about a few minority sex practices just won't exert that much social force. There are constructive reasons for an excrescence taboo, but that doesn't mean it's wrong if some small number of people play with it in a safe way. You certainly don't have to date them.
Tia, don't read too much into that- The dry spells were long and tedious. But yes, you're right, there is an element of choice. And the marginal people aren't all freaks. My wife was never going to be a cover girl, but she was generally regarded as pretty damn attractive when we got together. Her problem was that she was tall (7 inches taller than me), which a lot of conventional men couldn't deal with. I saw somebody who was clever, funny, feminist and horny as hell. What's not to like?
But I do empathise with people who give up and do something else. It often looked like the best answer. I don't know why I didn't, hormonal, I suppose.
And Tia, being young and attractive and liking to dance is a gift. Make the most of it. But you understand that, which is why you're not one of the clones.
482:I also have a problem with people who fixate on those physical characteristics to the extent that it's elevated above all other things you can look for, whether in their looks or their person.
Of course, but as you mention, that's just as annoying when it's for any other set of physical characteristics. Is there any reason to believe this is more prevalent among guys who like Asian features?
487:The men here keep going on as if their female overlords have triumphed and now refuse to bring them cooling drinks.
Where the hell did this come from? No one here has said anything about wanting women to be submissive—GB explicitly stated that he likes assertive women. Which men are you talking about?
On preview, I endorse what Cala said. As long as what's being condemned is actual fetishism, I'm condemning it with you.
487 I'm not sure we have comity after all, GB, as I think you've been in Japan for so long that you've replaced your real memories of america with talk-radio bullshit.
Whoa, mcmc! My comment in #472 may have seemed like it referred to American women in general, and if so I apologize. To be clear, it referred to the specific kind of woman described in #392: a woman who places so many "demands" on a man that he feels a need to "escape".
FWIW, I've dated two women who made me feel that way — and one of them was Japanese. I've also dated American, non-Asian women who made me feel like the king of the world. All generalizations are false.
Is there any reason to believe this is more prevalent among guys who like Asian features?
Yes. Craigslist. M4W. I was exaggerating the actual proportion of the posts that fixated on race to the exclusion of nearly everything else earlier, probably because they make such an impression on me and because I was going for rhetorical effect, but I would say ads that are looking for Asian and nothing else, really are more common then anything except ads that are looking for big breasts and nothing else, really. There are some ads that are desperately searching for a big breasted Asian woman too.
Wait, I wrote that wrong. I mean, "Among the portion of ads that are looking for nothing but a few highly objectified characteristics, I would say ads that are looking for Asian and nothing else, really, are more common then anything except ads that are looking for big breasts and nothing else, really."
The only time I've ever looked at Craigslist is when someone has linked to it from here, so I'll take your word for it. The guys I know who express preferences for Asian features aren't like that at all, but that only proves that I don't hang out with assholes, not that the assholes aren't out there.
A green substance has given me a warm happy glow. What style shall we call this?
495: all just a hideous misunderstanding, apparently. Since I thought GB was speaking of American women generally, I considered that his statement about preferring assertive women was either disingenuous, or that he had a much different definition of assertiveness than I do.
A green substance has given me a warm happy glow.
Scrooge McDuck is sexy.
re: 501
Posting fin de sičcle style?
Assuming the green substance is absinthe...
Randomly going back to 157:
146: No, being a short guy is like being a tall woman. I imagine there are more guys that would date flat-chested woman (I'm one) than guys that would date tall woman (I'm not one). If you're a man, you'd rather be 6' 3" than 5' 5", and if you're a woman you'd rather be 5' 1" than 5' 8". (Those are respectively the 95th and 5th percentile heights for 20 year old white men and women.)
This is interesting, well, mostly because I have more to say about it than about white men and Asian women. A data point: I am something like 6'4". (I didn't stop growing until I was 20, and no one except parents measures people much, so I only know my 17 year old height.) I'm female. Being a tall woman (and I think I'm somewhere between 99.999% and 99.9999% on the height percentile -- it's hard to get numbers that far from the mean, I could be just big noting myself) is not actually that terrible a thing when it comes to attracting men. It's definitely a minus rather than a plus with all but a vanishingly small number of men, but it seems to be a relatively small minus, rather than a big one. I've never had a relationship with a man taller than I am, they've all been at least 2 inches shorter. Maybe there are just a whole lot of guys who wouldn't date me but just haven't said, but somehow I doubt it. People don't seem averse in general to listing the things they find unattractive about each other.
On the other hand, being a 6'0" 12 year old girl really sucked really badly. If I ever get sad about not getting clothes to fit now, I just try and recall how hard it was to get clothes to fit when I wanted 12 year old girl clothes for a body that was closer to the size of a weirdly proportioned adult man.
How bad is it to be a short man? Sort of bad, or really really bad?
Mary, I wouldn't recommend it, but it's not a show stopper.
Anyone have a vegan marinade for grilled veggies they'd like to suggest?
re: 506
I don't know what it's like to be really really short.
There has, however, been a definite period of 'height inflation' recently. What counts as 'short' has been getting taller. I'm 5ft 10 and I've lost count of how often people talk about 'short' guys in conversations and implicitly include me in that category.
508: A bottle of Jamaican jerk seasoning - a friend used it at the weekend, but be careful.
509: Teenagers these days in Australia are apparently a whole inch taller (at some periods of their growth anyway) than teenagers of 20 years ago, so there's real pressure behind the inflation. They're a bit puzzled over it: the tallest kids are getting just as much taller, which suggests it's something more than 'continuing to eliminate malnutrition'. I am actually not looking forward to my old age spent trying to peer over all the 8 foot teenagers. Obviously, I am relying on the miracles of science to get me to 400 years of age. It doesn't seem too much to ask.
My mother (5'10") says that she definitely has noticed height inflation, in that in her youth that height was in 'freak' territory and now she's just somewhat tall, sorta.
"How bad is it to be a short man? Sort of bad, or really really bad?"
I have no problems with being 5' 4", per se, whatever.
But it is kinda annoying that a lot of women therefore have never considered me a possibility for a relationship because of that reason alone.
In point of fact, when I was younger, and in good health, and not so fat, I had no trouble whatever attracting women, and had plenty of fine relationships. The aging and gaining weight and poverty and ill health and such have been the handicaps in recent years; I otherwise amn't generally thought to be bad-looking, am generally thought to be funny, kind, good company and conversation, etc., and whatnot, by many. (I do have a perverse theory about putting my negatives forth first, sometimes, on the grounds that I'd rather filter early than spend a lot of time and energy only to be dumped somewhat later.)
But, yeah, it was always kinda annoying when I heard that no matter my other fine qualities, someone simply wouldn't even consider it possible they might contemplate an involvement, simply because they would never get involved with someone shorter than themselves.
But whaddya gonna do? (It's not as if I was going to take to wearing lifts; if that's what's important to them, well, good luck and good riddance, and have fun looking upwards.)
I'm, incidentally, not particularly shy about discussing sex fantasies or experiences -- as many who have been around here a while should recall. It's merely that I'm now forbidden by local law to discuss such topics again. (I guess Ogged doesn't read these threads, or he'd be showing up to denounce everyone....)
I don't usually marinate veggies, but if you mix olive oil, ginger, minced garlic (or garlic powder), red pepper, and a little bit of salt, you can brush that on veggies.
God yes, mea maxima culpa, if you use the jerk seasoning, brush it on lightly. Marinating stuff for any time in that shit is banned under all the Geneva conventions.
512: I do get the sense that there are more women who have the "will not date someone shorter than me" rule than men who have the "will not date someone taller than me rule".
Pursuant to what Mcmc and Farber said, one reason I've usually avoided these discussions, and probably should have avoided this one, is that they really are most appropriate for young, eligible people. Even though I'm part of the Unfogged pool much of the time, probably not right now.
(Though much of what I'm saying was what I didn't dare say back in my younger days, when Hugh Hefner and Germain Greer were young too. For me the killer was the tension between the simultaneous obligations of sexual freedom and feminism, both of which were designed by and for people not like me. )
Emerson:
What set me off just now was the contempt for inept and nerdy guys, which I've repeatedly seen here and at several other places.
It's terrible that you're offended on this score, and I'm particularly unhappy if I've played a part in it. But I can't see what would make you feel that way. Who here is in much of a position to criticize the inept and nerdy? The comments on any given post are a madcap romp throughn the various neuroses and social tics of all the commenters. Fuck, if there's someone "cool" here, I kind of think it's you.
I do think that, in some places, you're describing something slightly different than what some of people here are complaining about. You seem to be saying something analogous to, "I like submissive women, because I'm submissive myself, and such a woman won't take undue advantage of that fact." That seems different (obv.) than "I like submissive women because I can get them to do things." I think the assumption is that if you say you like submissive women, you mean the latter. (At no point do I recall you saying anything about submissive women; I just used the easiest stereotype to hand.)
As for the rest, I repeat my #145 formulation: Mostly, people seem to be saying that creepy guys are creepy. And some of them are in to Asians. I buy that.
##503: I considered that his statement about preferring assertive women was either disingenuous, or that he had a much different definition of assertiveness than I do.
I prefer assertive women over submissive women, but that doesn't mean I would get along just fine with every assertive woman in the world. If we end up in hostile arguments all the time (about, for example, how I need to change) we're probably not a good fit for each other.
It concerns my wife that my daughter, who is 16, is 5' 10" and still growing. I think she's fine and very attractive, and that there will be gads of girls taller than her wherever she goes. The big growth has an interesting history. Remember that article in the New Yorker a couple of years ago, that suggested it was a very good measure of quality of life, and that Americans are not growing as much as other countries or as they were?
When a six-foot-tall woman came to work at an office where I do some intermittent work, it did cause me a couple "does-not-compute" moments (especially since I live in a country where just about everyone is shorter than me, and I'm only a hair over six feet) - but not to the degree that it would have put me off if anything datelike seemed plausible.
The comments on any given post are a madcap romp throughn the various neuroses and social tics of all the commenters.
I knew I shouldn't have posted 504. Too revealing.
I am trying to figure out when 5'4'' became short for a woman. I look at the average heights for American women and there I am, smack in the middle.
Yet I've been referred to by friends as 'the short one.' These are not people who tower over me. So I speculate that either a) 5'4'' is short for a twenty-something American woman or b) 5'4'' is short for a white American woman.
Or maybe no one knows what they're talking about, but dude, my 4'11'' sister is short. Not me.
Basically, here and elsewhere I've seen guys who grumble about the dating scene being explained as homely, nerdy, inept, sore losers who couldn't get a date. The stereotype isn't completely false, but that's the way the losers i any competitive scene are explained. (Invisible Adjunct, for example, had it suggested to her now and then that her problem was that she just wasn't good enough, and for some people that invalidated everything she said).
I have a feeling of brotherhood with nerdy inept guys. I really don't think that the dating scene is a good place to evaluate anyone, except for the very limited purposes of the scene itself.
I don't think of either Asian or Asian-American women as submissive, but a lot of them are averse to the dating scene too. (I've been told that many students in America from Asia join Christian groups because they're more comfortable with that kind of scene. "Willing to be a Christian", as one XIXc Chinese told a missionary agreeably).
The increase in height thing is interesting.
Also, though, what I was also getting at re: height inflation was not just that people are getting taller -- although they clearly are. But also, that the standard for what counts as 'tall' in the classic 'tall, dark and handsome' formulation is increasing in ways may even exceed the actual increase in height. My (anecdotal) experience is that people's perception of what counts as 'average' height isn't really in step with what average height actually is.*
*even allowing for i) the actual height increase and ii) the concentration of that height increase among younger age groups.
I am trying to figure out when 5'4'' became short for a woman.
5'4" is just fine for a woman, Cala. Now if you only had straight, black hair, silky yellow skin and almond shaped eyes . . . .
518: yeah you cleared that up for me, so I think we have comity again.
also, emerson is right, and I should probably stay out of this kind of thread, too.
524: I think that the height thing for guys is like the weight (or cup size) thing for women. People say "I won't date men under six feet" or "I like a woman who is height/weight proportionate, like 5'5" and 115 lbs" or something like that, without really realizing what those numbers actually mean.
I think the solution is to translate the numbers into something that you know is more realistic.
I think the solution is to translate the numbers into something that you know is more realistic.
Or try to date Asian women.
5' 4" is smack on the 50th percentile, for white women. On the other hand, people's perception of tall and short is probably based on the 50th percentile for all people, which is closer to 5' 7". So calling you short, Cala, is just saying that you're shorter than most *people*, a statement that is true for a majority of women.
I don't think either being a short man or a tall woman is a really huge impediment to getting dates. All I was saying is that being flat-chested is going to lose you the interest of fewer men than being tall.
I think, like most of these things that 'I don't date tall/short/flat-chested' is overridden for certain values of 'hott.'
Yeah, I agree that there is a parallel with height (in men) and weight (or cup size) in women.
However, in another way, I think there's a difference. The guy talking about 5ft 5" women who weight 115lbs isn't expressing a preference for women who are actually 5ft 5 and 115lbs. He's expressing a preference for 'slim' and has no idea what 'slim' actually means in terms of lbs for women of average height.
The woman expressing a preference for the tall guy -- of 6ft 2 (say) or above -- however, knows perfectly well how tall 6ft 2 is. That's what she wants. She's just not aware that 6ft 2, rather than being 'on the tall side of average' is in fact 'really a LOT taller than average'.
[Not sure if I am making clear what i am getting at. The difference between misrepresenting or inaccurately quantifying a preference on the one hand and, on the other, misrepresenting how a preference relates to the population as a whole, iyswim.]
Amusingly, when my wife's sister first met me her first comment was 'Ooh, he's small!'. Part of me was amused and part of me wanted to shout, "Look, 5ft 10 and 185lbs is, by no standard of the term, 'small' ".*
* Yay for height-related inadequacy!
The woman expressing a preference for the tall guy -- of 6ft 2 (say) or above -- however, knows perfectly well how tall 6ft 2 is.
I'm not sure that's true. I tend to think of six feet tall as Tall, but there are guys I know who are six feet tall whom I don't think of as Tall.
532: Are those guys also very large? If a short person has a small build, or a tall person a very big build, they're going to seem less short or tall than they really are.
Yeah, a lot of being perceived as Tall has to do with carriage, posture, slimness, length of limbs, etc. I've got a friend who's 6'2" that I don't think of as particularly tall, but another friend who's 6'3" that seems like a giant.
re: 533
Sure, I just meant in general.
Lots of people give of 'taller' or 'shorter' vibes based on their build and even their dress sense.
Nah, I just think my sense of six feet is about four inches taller than where six feet is. It's probably because I have exactly one relative over 6'.
My boyfriend is 5'10'', so he says. (I think he's 5'11'' as he probably hasn't had his height taken since he was seventeen.) And he's pretty broad and about McGrattan here's weight. He always strikes people as huge.
Is that because he often has a 5'4" woman standing next to him?
You know, sometimes I actually have to spend like 30 seconds rewriting a part of a comment so that it doesn't need a smiley. That's a lot of time.
re: 539 and 540
I do the same. I often read my own comments later and think they come of as harsh and hectoring when they weren't meant that way. A smiley would have been a nice lazy way of leavening teh bluster.
What's with the "yellow cards"? What does that mean?
The highly competitive dating scene sorts people into winners and losers
Yeah, so? What area of life doesn't? Does it make you mad that you're good in your career but other people aren't? Why is that ok but not being a "winner" in the dating scene is somehow not fair? There's certain traits and personalities that do better in the dating scene just as there's certain traits and personalities that do better in other domains.
Anyway, as other people have said, there's lots of different avenues to finding a great woman than going through the traditional dating scene. I didn't do great in the traditional dating scene either, but I don't blame it. It is what it is.
543 - ahh, so giving a wink ;-) gets you automatically banned?
Amusingly, when my wife's sister first met me her first comment was 'Ooh, he's small!'. Part of me was amused and part of me wanted to shout, "Look, 5ft 10 and 185lbs is, by no standard of the term, 'small' ".
Yeah, it sort of sucks. Now I am the same height as you, only 30 lb lighter. Imagine how often I get called small. It doesn't help when most of your guy friends are at least 6'1".
However, I'm not so sure it's really hurt my dating chances that much. I tend to attribute my cripplingly painful loneliness more to my very average looks and general reticence about the singles scene. It doesn't help that it's been a few years since one of my friends had a cute single friend to introduce me to.
re: 546
I'm actually quite a bit heavier than I was at the time. I was 185 then, more like 215 now. I still had a friend refer to 'short guys like you' in a conversation the other week (and he's not *that* tall - maybr 6ft 1).
I can't say being the (average) height I am has ever had an issue vis a vis dating. I've always been lucky enough to be fairly self-confident, anyway. However, I'd never thought of myself as particularly short until recently.
544 (TD): Yeah, so? What area of life doesn't? [separate people into winners and losers]
First, as I said (523):I really don't think that the dating scene is a good place to evaluate anyone, except for the very limited purposes of the scene itself.
People here sometimes seem to use the dating scene as some kind of normal standard, whereas I think it's a much more negative force.
Second: organizing life as a series of zero-sum contests is characteristic of present-day America, but there are other ways of doing things. (Econ and game theory tell you that there's no other way, but they're tendentious).
Yeah, so? What area of life doesn't? Does it make you mad that you're good in your career but other people aren't? Why is that ok but not being a "winner" in the dating scene is somehow not fair?
Actually, as economic research shows, getting some booty regularly makes you happier than financial success.
I've always been lucky enough to be fairly self-confident, anyway.
The unfortunate thing about confidence is that you have so much more of it when dealing with someone you don't particularly like.
545: or just beaten with the calabat. Emoticons just make me think the writer is twelve. But in my defense of my own yellow card, I will say that I wished to convey nothing more than sticking out my tongue childishly at ac.
The first man to raise an emoticon is the man who has run out of ideas.
(To paraphrase H.G. Wells as played by Malcolm McDowell in that film about Jack the Ripper traveling through time.)
Sometimes, maybe on a good day, when I'm feeling an inflated sense of self-regard, I like to flatter myself by thinking that I am socially inept. When it looked like I was going to be working extensively in Russian history a friend of mine, a specialist in the field, told me, in a joking way, that she'd disown me if I turned out to be one of those people who was only interested in Eastern Europe for the women. A couple of other friends, both women, joked that, hey, maybe I'd meet a Russian wife. I read this thread now and I wonder if they were suggesting, ever so subtly, that I could't cut it in the American dating scene and I am filled with an irremediable sadness that not even the charms of ?????????? could cure.
Wow. Go away for the weekend and everyone gets interesting. To react to a bunch of stuff:
(1) Never actually met (to the point of discussing their romantic preferences with) a man with an unpleasant thing for Asians -- I deduce the existence of such men from things like ads for escort services, personal ads, etc., which are clearly aimed at a an audience looking for a submissive little lotus blossom. I don't know how prevalent it it, but it's prevalent enough to market to. As a sexual taste, I find it creepier than a sexual taste for busty redheads because it appears to include components of preferences for women (the following clearly does not describe all Asian women -- I'm talking about what marketing to the Asian fetish looks to be selling) who appear physically weak, look prepubescent, and are socially and emotionally submissive, possibly with an element of speaking English poorly so that any relationship is purely physical without any actual communication. I've had a good friend who's half-Chinese talk about dating men who were looking for that sort of thing. This is creepy, and it's creepier than a purely physical taste for women with an Asian look would be -- obviously it doesn't describe all men in relationships with Asian women, nor does it describe all men with a strong preference for relationships with Asian women.
(2) On the topic of the thread generally, there's a strong double standard in that women are freer to talk about sex generally without being seen as creeps. (The being seen as sluts thing is still around, but is becoming less strong all the time.) My husband was introduced to me by my big sister and a very good friend of hers, who are to say the least both very uninhibited in conversation, as am I; lewd details get shared very freely. Early in our relationship, Buck was talking to our mutual friend, who he's very close to, and was being enthusiastically obscene in describing his sex life with me -- not in any terms that he hadn't heard dozens of times from her in talking about her own sex life. After a few such conversations, she ripped into him for disrespect and dehumanizing me and being a general bastard in talking about me like that. (I heard about all this after the fact -- Buck was, in my opinion rightly, pissed, but everyone stayed friends.). There's a hangover effect from the older sexual double standard -- a woman talking about her sexuality is being brave and open, and if she's talking about a man in that context she's either being complimentary or honest; while a man talking about a woman in a sexual context, whether appreciative or insulting, is being hostile and degrading. I don't know how to fix this one other than to expect it will fade away with the other double standard.
(3) For something about these threads that has freaked me out a bit: face-slapping? I've got some mildly submissive fantasies, not exclusive but certainly there, but I can't imagine being slapped in the face during sex -- I would make a serious effort to hurt anyone who did that to me (not that such an effort would be justified if it were meant as consensual sex play -- I just mean that my irrational reaction would be to cause the slapper as much physical damage as I could). I was awfully surprised to see getting slapped in the face come up fairly often as an example of mild dom/sub stuff -- I would have expected it to come up well along the path to heavier play. I guess everyone's different.
551 - Cala, I disagree. Unless somebody is, obviously, grossly overusing emoticons as a substitute for discussion. But, the fact is we can not convey non-verbal cues in writing nor place emphasis on certain words in a sentence that could completely changing the meaning. Also, sarcasm is hard to pick up unless you've become familar enough with the writer's personality. I say emoticons, when used in proper context, are quite beneficial.
coming SO late to this thread, but, to AWB's 190:
ouch! you know, not everybody who travels outside the US is necessarily rich. for some reason this assumption hurt my feelings, as if there was some reverse-disdain going on, although i may be reading too much into it. but, i assure you: it is much cheaper to rent an apartment and live in most places in the world than in new york city. you could make back most of your ticket price, if you get a cheap ticket, by renting an apartment that costs less than the one you've got in brooklyn or wherever. for example, my current pretty 1BR in is about US$500 for this month, and i don't share it with anyone, although there's room. food is much much cheaper than new york. a cup of fantastic espresso is 80 eurocents if you stand at the bar.
taking a vacation trip is expensive, fine, but going to live somewhere for a while is not necessarily. esp. if you find work or grants (and i recommend not working for a crappy travel guide that only pays you a per diem and no salary on top, not that i would ever have done that, ahem). it means you're willing to make some sacrifices in the shape of finances and loneliness, if you have no silver spoon in your mouth. but being well-traveled isn't some automatic sign the silver spoon is there.
okay, if none of this was in your mind, apologies, i'm sure. rant of defensiveness is over, resume normal business.
i forgot brackets make things disappear. "US$500 per month" refers to the-little-university-town-in- southern-mediterranean-country-where-i-am-temporarily-living. not paris. which is considerably more expensive.
also the coffee in paris is usually not so delicious! so that definitely didn't refer to paris either. :)
548 - People here sometimes seem to use the dating scene as some kind of normal standard, whereas I think it's a much more negative force.
It is a normal standard in the sense that most of us have experienced living through it. But, I don't see why it's a negative force overall? So, some people are better at it or more suited to it because of their personality? So what. We all survived algebra class even though it was painfully easy for some of us and painfully hard and demoralizing for others. I just don't buy the dating scene is a negative force, on average. For certain types of people, yes it can be demoralizing to one's self-esteeem (and I speak to my own past to some degree). But, luckily, today there's lots of different avenues to achieve the same ends (i.e. meet people) through different means (i.e. internet).
. Also, sarcasm is hard to pick up unless you've become familar enough with the writer's personality.
That's the point. Many commenters here are regulars, and shouldn't need emoticons. Those who aren't regulars are usually interpreted charitably. Basically, everyone who comments here is a pretty decent person. Except for Becks, who is a hurter.
I say emoticons, when used in proper context, are quite beneficial.
On this 4th, we should all be glad to live in a country that allows us to say pretty much whatever we want. Even when we're wrong.
561 - would saying "lol" (since your comment was funny) get me a yellow card then too?
529: are white women really shorter than women as a whole in the globe?
despite presumably good/better nutrition?
(i have no idea, just asking)
Analogizing the comments section to soccer makes the baby ogged cry.
TD, "So what?" is the universal refutation, but it's not a terribly powerful one. I was putting the idea on the table that the dating scene is a negative force. I really didn't claim to have proved that.
To continue the comments workshop, let's take another look at 321:
318 - so she's Asian? j/k
Everything up to and including the question mark is a perfectly idiomatic comment. That qualifier at the end, though, it's as if you smothered your baby comment with a pillow. You murderous bastard.
564: No, I meant that women are shorter than men, and the average height for both groups is bigger than the average height for women. Women are short people, just not short women.
Most of the misreading which goes on here -- which is usually limited -- stems from reading into someone's statement a subtext which isn't there. Emoticons ain't gonna help that.
Plus, you get a lot of:
And that makes me sad. :-(
I like it! :-)
You're ugly. ;-)
You're so smart. :P
IMO IMHO IME LOL whack whack WHACK.
Although, a calabat emoticon would be great.
I say emoticons, when used in proper context, are quite beneficial.
))>((
569: The rest of the misreading comes from using the word "fetish".
Trying to catch up:
Veggie marinade should include oil, mild vinegar, salt, pepper, and herbs. Other spices as you feel fit.
There was some talk above about the drama implied in the "American women won't love me, so I'll go abroad" thing. As mcmc suggests, I think this often is, "The incredibly gorgeous popular girls I desire won't love me, so I'll go abroad." I have very clear memories of male friends crying all over my shoulders because this or that drop-dead gorgeous woman wasn't nice enough or interested enough because he had what she considered to be a physical flaw. I remember looking those guys in the eyes and saying, "You look perfect to me." (beat) (waiting for him to realize I also look perfect to him) (nothing). More tears. "Why doesn't she love me?"
This is why I stopped being interested in the kinds of guys who are looking for teeny tiny little pixies with expensive clothes. I started dating older guys, weirder guys, guys who don't have a boring and prescribed aesthetic. Yes, it's true, you can probably go abroad and take advantage of the fact that some girl who's a "10" doesn't know you're a dork. You can feel like a tough, cool guy for the first time in your life. If that's important to you, go ahead.
I think I've learned that sexual desire can be attached to a person's intelligence, humor, creativity, and heart, not to these-or-those "features."
...which, by the way, can you even imagine saying, "I'm just really attracted to African-American women's wide noses and large lips." Of course not. That's, by definition, racist. What's with the ease with which everyone is saying "I'm just really into Asian features"? It's creepy. Big boobs or whatever -- that's not race-specific and based on hundreds of years of racist gaze.
Emoticons give me a 'fro. @:)
571 not to 570, and also it didn't work anyway. ))<>((
But really. No emoticons. And just hope Ben doesn't read the archives when he gets back.
"...which, by the way, can you even imagine saying, "I'm just really attracted to African-American women's wide noses and large lips.""
I could.
"That's, by definition, racist."
Please expand.
564: There was an article in the New Yorker a while back saying (IIRC) that white Americans were noticeably shorter on average than white Europeans, particularly the Dutch who are becoming a race of giants. Goodness only knows why (poorer nutrition in the fast-food diet sense? Something else entirely?)
Huh, actually @:) is more like, "digging my tonsure".
Discovery is off and safe! I love space flight.
577: This is an essentialism of an extremely broad range of physical characteristics as viewed from a narrowly white-centric perspective that has been used to make race-based arguments of inferiority and natural subhumanness for about 300 years. Just because you decide that those descriptions make you want to have sex, instead of want to enslave, doesn't make them accurate, non-white-centric, non-essentializing, or not racist.
579: Icelanders are freaking hugely tall, and all they eat is fish and candy. Seriously: handfuls of candy all day.
I love space flight.
O o . XEEEEEEEE>-
583: Because they drink unicorn blood.
"Just because you decide that those descriptions make you want to have sex, instead of want to enslave, doesn't make them accurate,"
Are they inaccurate? Or do black people not have those features more often than whites?
"non-white-centric,"
Why is it bad that it's white-centric? It's a white guy saying that, talking about characteristics that black women more often have and that he likes. Of course it's going to be from the white point of view. That's not an inherently bad thing.
"non-essentializing,"
I don't see how it's necessarily essentializing. Sure, it's possible that someone saying something like that could have essentialist misconceptions about black Americans, and those could even come across in the tone of voice or surrounding conversation, but it's certainly not evident from the quote itself, and by no means essential to it.
"or not racist."
Still don't get it.
"and by no means essential to it"
Umm, no pun intended.
AWB 573, citing mcmc, did find the weak spot in my argument. I was playing the wrong game myself when I picked up my grudges.
"I say emoticons, when used in proper context, are quite beneficial."
Indeed. Any kind of writing, and any writing tool, can be used badly. Simply condemning emoticons, rather than emoticons used badly, in my view is simple snobbishness. Shorthand is useful for a reason.
I used to have a lovely quote by Nabokov about seeking a symbol by which he could display the simplicity of a smile, but I've lost it. Of course, when someone needs a Cite From Authority like Nabokov to be convinced, we're back to snobbishness again.
Besides, there were emoticons in use here before all you Johnny-come-latelies came along.
Ugh. Yeah, essentializing racial characteristics as markers of otherness/attraction is racist. Sorry, and I don't wanna get into it, but you'll just have to trust me on this one. There's tons of writing on the subject, feel free to go find some. Basic idea: you're supposed to view people as people, not as accumulations of racialized characteristics (good or bad). Like how if you're meeting some friends at a bar and the new person is white, you might describe him as being "about 5'10", with short red hair and squarish glasses"--i.e., as an individual--rather than as "the Asian guy," i.e., as an indiscriminate member of a group.
Anyway, you'd think that people who are attracted to Asian women (all of them? Filipinas, Chinese, Indians?) would be the first to recognize that they don't all look alike, and that some descriptor other than "Asian features" might be needed to describe what they think is attractive.
On to more important things: the emoticon I really wish everyone understood is the rolled eyes. @@
"561 - would saying "lol" (since your comment was funny) get me a yellow card then too?"
No, that's just lame.
591: It's fine if you don't want to get into it, but I'm not prepared to trust you on this one.
It's not entirely a weak spot -- you can restate it somewhat more appealingly as follows: due to (whatever combination of personal qualities or flaws) people I find attractive in the US generally aren't attracted to me -- my standards are higher than my value on the dating market. I have discovered that in Country X, people on average find different things appealing -- particularly, humanist polymaths are treated like gods -- and so when I go there people I find attractive are all over me. I am therefore much more likely to find a sucessful relationship with someone I'm attracted to in Country X.
If that's what you're thinking, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Something wrong with it comes in when the personal qualities that don't get you anywhere here but are so appealing in Country X are things like an American income, or the capacity to entitle a prospective spouse to a greencard -- when it starts to be more like exploiting a prospective partner's poverty than dating. But just moving to a dating market where your value is higher (I'm giving myself the creeps with the use of the word 'market' here, but you kinow what I mean) isn't in itself wrong.
Icelanders are freaking hugely tall, and all they eat is fish and candy. Seriously: handfuls of candy all day.
this seems to be true in my experience. My violin teacher rescheduled my lesson because one of her homies had come back from iceland with fresh supplies and was having a candy party. she's not that tall though.
591 - you mean like when I go into the YMCA and witness people assuming just because this new guy is black he's probably good and can jump really high versus this other new guy who is white and probably isn't/can't?
Like how if you're meeting some friends at a bar and the new person is white, you might describe him as being "about 5'10", with short red hair and squarish glasses"--i.e., as an individual--rather than as "the Asian guy," i.e., as an indiscriminate member of a group.
But if the new person is the only Asian guy...then you'll identify him as the Asian guy.
I've had the experience where somebody's trying to explain to me who Person X is...and they say "You know, the engineer, the tall guy with the earring, the guy from Texas..." and then maybe the 7th or 8th thing they say is something like "Okay....the black guy", which is obviously enough to identify him from the other people he might be. Why wouldn't you say that from the beginning? Seems like foolishness.
I think this post is relevant, somehow. How, exactly, I'm not sure.
standpipe, take off that turban. nobody thinks it's exotic.
595 - I agree with what you're saying, in principle, but how realistic is to tell somebody "leave your native country and go somewhere else where you'd be more valued". Seriously, who leaves the US just for dating reasons?
I think the advice to seek other means (i.e. internet) than following the tradional dating scene is more reasonable.
"Plus, you get a lot of:"
Yes, emoticons can be, and generally are, used badly.
Also, words.
Like how if you're meeting some friends at a bar and the new person is white, you might describe him as being "about 5'10", with short red hair and squarish glasses"--i.e., as an individual--rather than as "the Asian guy," i.e., as an indiscriminate member of a group.
But if you're describing them from a purely physical standpoint, race is one of the best indicators.
This reminds me of when I worked at a retail store in downtown Chicago. Of course, no one ever pays attention to the employee's name when we're helping them, so when you're working register you usually end up asking for a description of the salesperson in order to figure out who helped the client. Now, it was a mostly white staff, but we had a couple hispanics and a couple different black male staffers, and yet no one would ever mention their race. They'd talk about a guy of average height... thin... maybe they'd remember glasses... That only limits it to three or four of the upstairs guys. If I saw them looking a little uncomfortable, I'd just ask "Was he black?" and they'd almost always nod and say "yes, that's him!".
This happened especially often with the whitebread soccer mom types who'd often come into the store, and I always laughed it off as ridiculous political correctness.
After getting used to responding to "mizungu" in East Africa and dealing with a mother who was known simply as "shikse", I really don't care about racial signifiers that have no malice behind them.
599 - because they don't want to be seen as racist, even if "black guy" was their first impulse.
But just moving to a dating market where your value is higher (I'm giving myself the creeps with the use of the word 'market' here, but you kinow what I mean) isn't in itself wrong.
Nor is this kind of decisionmaking exclusively associated with emigrating. I don't go to bars in Georgetown because I'm not likely to meet someone who shares my interests, but also because I don't have a high enough value to even enter some of those places.
599: Sure. The fact is we're racist (as a society), and therefore (especially, but not exclusively, for those of us for whom race is invisible--i.e., we're white and so we don't think about race except as something belonging to other people) "all black people look alike." Plus we maybe have a few token friends who aren't white. So sure, within that context, saying "the black guy" or "the Asian chick" works just fine. And white people who try not to do that will encounter resistance. But it's kind of good practice anyway.
603: Not realistic at all, generally -- but I was talking to Emerson, who was being wistful about dating in Taiwan versus in the US, and trying to say that his descriptions of his reasons for that wistfulness didn't sound objectionable or necessarily connected to the Asian fetishism thing that was being talked about. (I do think a lot of the mail-order-bride thing is precisely about exploiting poor women, but that's different.)
"Or do black people not have those features more often than whites?"
Tautological. Define "black people." Define "white people." (Back to the social construct discussion, and the racist history of racial theories.)
I am 5'11" and am stunned at how often I feel short in gatherings with peers. It seems like almost everyone (males) is 3,4,5+ inches taller than me. I know I am supposedly average height (just above, actually), but I swear I feel like in in the 5th fucking percentile. My only explanation has always been that the "average" height was indeed population wide and that today's youths (meaning people in their 20s and below) are significantly taller than prior generations.
Also, I wasn't trying to turn this place into a confession booth last night -- I was trying to forward the conversation by giving a concrete example in response to Cala's question. For some reason, it seems like it didn't really work. That's okay, honestly, but all the talk of "bravery" and "sharing" seems... weird.
Lastly, don't be such grouches -- emoticons are awesome. Although 590 makes me worry that perhaps if Nabokov had emoticons available to convy the simplicity of a smile, maybe he'd have just left us with something like :-) instead of Lolita.
Re. race being an indicator--it still doesn't hurt to say, "So and so is tall and Korean and has dark short curly hair and glasses and kind of a squarish face and stocky build" instead of just "the Asian guy." It's not that hard to try not to default into the "they all look alike" stereotype.
609 - ok, got ya. Also, I agree about a lot of the mail-order-bride thing is precisely about exploiting poor women, even though that's not what we're discussing.
"But if the new person is the only Asian guy...then you'll identify him as the Asian guy."
You might want to put that in first person, rather than second, unless it's a fact that the person you're speaking of will so act.
Otherwise you're projecting, and possibly wrongly so.
As you'd be doing if you were speaking to me.
What you're all forgetting is that if it weren't for hair color, all you white people would look alike.
610: That's ridiculous. Racial groups in the US are not nearly that blurry, due to limited intermarriage between blacks and whites and the one-drop rule. And to the extent that they are blurry, the features mentioned (wide nose, large lips), in my experience, are correlated with having more African ancestry. Just because groups are fuzzy doesn't mean they don't exist. Atoms are fuzzy. Electrons are fuzzy. Oceans and coastlines are fuzzy.
"Why wouldn't you say that from the beginning?"
Possibly because some people don't believe in, or believe in perpetuating, nonsensical 18th-19th racist theories?
A problem is that so many descriptive terms are going to be loaded. I have a much easier time describing someone as a black guy than I do as saying that he has kinky hair cut short on the sides and longer on top, reddish-brown skin, and a wide nose. The second description is more accurate, and shouldn't be offensive ('kinky' worries me, but I don't know a less offensive word with the same meaning) but I'd have great difficulty describing someone in those terms unless I knew everyone involved very well indeed. Nothing descriptive you say about a white person is likely to be offensive in the same way.
614: That's also ridiculous. That wasn't the second-person "you", and you know it. (That one was.)
612 - DrB, but isn't there a big difference between acknowledging that "ethnic group X look more similar to each other then to those non-X people" and saying "they all look alike" (as in indistinguishable from one another)?
standpipe, take off that turban. nobody thinks it's exotic.
mcmc is turbanned!
Sure. The fact is we're racist (as a society), and therefore (especially, but not exclusively, for those of us for whom race is invisible--i.e., we're white and so we don't think about race except as something belonging to other people) "all black people look alike." Plus we maybe have a few token friends who aren't white.
Now this is just presumptuous as hell. Skin color is one of the most obvious physical aspects of someone. Along with gender, hair color (provided they have enough of it), and build, it is one of the simplest identifiers that pretty much anyone will remember. Things like clothes are harder to remember in general, and can change from day to day. Things like build are fairly subjective (one person's "athletic" is my "average").
If you have a very diverse set of people in which you're trying to identify one person, race and gender are the two best dividers. With just two questions, you will narrow the possibilities down to only one sixth or one eighth of the original population.
615: Does anyone besides me have real trouble telling college-aged girls (who mostly have various permutations of longish blondish hair--as do I at the moment, so it isn't racist for me to say this) apart? I can never learn their names.
But they all *do* look alike. Many white people don't see many black faces, and so they have trouble picking out the individual features because their mental recognition circuits are overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity of the blackness. But, the same thing goes for blacks who grow up in black neighborhoods and schools. (To a lesser extent, because television is still white-dominated.)
And the same thing goes for East Asian people. They have as much trouble telling Americans and Europeans apart as we do them.
The only way "they all look alike" is offensive is if it's used in a derogatory way, which is actually pretty easy, since it's so easy to make the implication that the group doesn't have any individual differences, instead of the implication that the speaker is just unskilled at recognizing them. A better phrasing would be "I can't tell them apart", but it still has abuse potential.
so we don't think about race except as something belonging to other people) "all black people look alike." Plus we maybe have a few token friends who aren't white. So sure, within that context, saying "the black guy" or "the Asian chick" works just fine. And white people who try not to do that will encounter resistance. But it's kind of good practice anyway.
This is just deeply wrong.
I'm bad with faces, so people generally all look alike to me. Until I know someone very well, I can remember a string of adjectives about them (tall, blond, acne scars) and recognize them by checking the adjectives, but I'm not going to be certain that I'm recognizing them accurately. If I meet two people at the same time who could be described in the same terms, I'm screwed.
Look, all I'm saying--and I don't deny the problem of race (or gender) as a primary identifying characteristic, that would be stupid--is that presumably you see each of your friends as individuals and can recognize them in a crowd, even a crowd filled with other people of the same race as your friend. Oddly, my best friend doesn't look like all Puerto Ricans to me, nor does Matt Weiner look like all Jews, or AWB like all white chicks. It's not going to hurt you to try to see people as individuals, is it?
This discussion does seem to get back to the original question of whether we're supposed to just accept our (sexual) prejudices/preferences as unchangable, even if their social significance worries us, or whether we should try to do something about them.
Also 623 cracked me up. I think I'm in love with SB a little bit, even if my feelings are at this point almost surely unrequited.
(B/c I realize I'm totally fulfilling the hostile argumentative American woman stereotype here, and no one finds that attractive.)
"It's not going to hurt you to try to see people as individuals, is it?"
I don't see how visually identifying someone primarily by their race has anything to do with this. Further, I don't see how this has anything to do with AWB's original objection to people being attracted to certain features that are common to a certain racial group.
I think I'm in love with SB a little bit,
Join the club.
Possibly because some people don't believe in, or believe in perpetuating, nonsensical 18th-19th racist theories?
This comment makes no sense.
I put it to you that some people have darker skin than others, and can be told apart on this basis. Do you agree?
(B/c I realize I'm totally fulfilling the hostile argumentative American woman stereotype here, and no one finds that attractive.)
Plus the stereotype of argumentative people whose names end with "tchphd" or other consonant clusters.
It's not going to hurt you to try to see people as individuals, is it?
Of course not! It also makes life much more varied and interesting to acknowledge this fact that there's so much variability in the world. However, having said that, if you're trying to describe a complete stranger to somebody else, for reference/idenitification purposes, I don't see how it's racist to describe them according to their gender and/or ethnicity and/or shape. You're not making a "value judgement" regarding their character, you're simply trying to identify them uniquely with the fewest number of variables. I'm sure this is no different than retina scans for identification purposes someday - color, shape, size, unique markings, etc.
629 - you're wrong there. Many guys love that about our American women!
Plus the stereotype of argumentative people whose names end with "tchphd" or other consonant clusters.
You wouldn't love me if I were any different.
628, etc.: Is the place you're currently living pretty monochromatic? There are parts of this country where white is a long way from being the default. I don't think I'm being racist when I identify one of the summer associates as a "nice Chinese boy from Iolani"; it distinguishes him from the Korean guy. "The haole guy" is unique. (The other five are women, three of whom are of Asian ancestry.)
628: Well, the other problem is that I'm completely terrible with facial descriptions. Even though I'm very good with faces and can even recall them pretty accurately from thin air, I really can't describe distinguishing characteristics for someone who doesn't have obvious quirks in their appearance (glasses, unique hair, unique piercings, etc.). Color, however, is easy to describe in ways that everyone will comprehend.
637: Yes, the place I live now is disgustingly monochromatic, sorta kinda--which is to say that like a fair number of medium-sized midwestern cities it's more diverse as a whole than it is from day-to-day, because it's pretty damn segregated. But yeah, obviously, and that's my point: in groups where there is more than one person of X race ("Asian"), you start distinguishing by other characteristics--in this case, nationality.
Look, all I'm saying--and I don't deny the problem of race (or gender) as a primary identifying characteristic, that would be stupid--is that presumably you see each of your friends as individuals and can recognize them in a crowd, even a crowd filled with other people of the same race as your friend.... It's not going to hurt you to try to see people as individuals, is it?
I cannot believe you're maintaining this. The things you don't mention when describing people--fatness, loss of limb, obvious illnesses--are generally stigmatized. You're average African-American knows he black, has come to terms with it, and is OK with it. He doesn't think of it as a stigma. You should try not to, either. Jeebus.
But yeah, obviously, and that's my point: in groups where there is more than one person of X race ("Asian"), you start distinguishing by other characteristics
yeah, exactly. So, what's wrong with using Asian guy/girl as the first node for descriptive purposes?
"So and so is tall and Korean and has dark short curly hair and glasses and kind of a squarish face and stocky build"
To the extent people are, as I understand B. to be doing here, avoiding describing people simply as "black" or "white" or "Hispanic" or "Asian" because it promotes the view that all blacks or Asians or whatver look the same, that clearly seems like a very good idea not only for that reason, but also because it reinforces the idea that a person's skin color, hair or facial features is the thing that defines them.
On the other hand--and whatever anyone else might be saying, I think B. is not saying this--it's a bit perverse to make referring to a person's skin color taboo, when we can refer to her eye color, hair color, height, etc., because it implies that there is something bad about skin being a particular color, and thus something that is not mentioned in polite society.
I raised this before, but no one picked it up -- is part of the problem in that descriptive terms that relate to racial identity tend to sound racist, or at least questionable? African American hair is a clear problem -- I can't make myself describe someone as having kinky hair for fear of offending, and I don't know a better word. Analytically describing skin tone also sounds full of potential for giving offense. So if you eschew describing people as black, or Asian, or what have you, you've put yourself in a position where describing their ethnically identified features can be very touchy and difficult.
The things you don't mention when describing people--fatness, loss of limb, obvious illnesses--are generally stigmatized.
Now I just feel like a bad person. One of the other descriptors I would always ask about when trying to determine which salesperson a customer was talking about was "Was he the tubby guy?", since that would narrow it down to only two people.
Tubby is affectionate and glancing, fat is merciless and cruel.
639: Which leads to the hope that as the country as a whole gets stirred together better, this stuff fades a bit. People in Hawaii tend to be far, far less careful about stuff that would be racially offensive elsewhere (my wife still doesn't really believe me when I suggest she avoid using the word "Oriental" on the mainland with people she doesn't know well), and I think it's because the stereotypes just don't sting much. When you hear "lawyer," you're as likely to think of a Chinese guy as a haole guy. And as near as I can tell, my son doesn't really see race at all. He sees different skin tones, but he doesn't appear to really sort them into categories.
(It's still more difficult to be black here, as near as I can tell, but it's hard to sort out how much of that is basic American racism and how much is a local/military thing.)
I can't make myself describe someone as having kinky hair for fear of offending
I imagine a lot of us feel that way to a greater or lesser extent (I would be on the lesser end), but 640 makes a great point. Someone with kinky hair knows it, and might even feel that it was a perfectly fine thing to have kinky hair.
I know you know this LB, but this reminds me of the thread where (as I remember it) some people were indicating that they were sometimes reluctant to speak to blacks for fear of saying the wrong thing. Completely understandable, but nonetheless not good, in the long run.
avoiding describing people simply as "black" or "white" or "Hispanic" or "Asian" because it promotes the view that all blacks or Asians or whatver look the same
I respectfully disagree. I think it just means X vs non-X, as way of zooming into a unique individual, which is a completely different thing than saying all X are "all the same" and, therefore, interchangeable.
t's a bit perverse to make referring to a person's skin color taboo, when we can refer to her eye color, hair color, height
Ahh, but referring to somebody's ethnicity (one variable) generally contains the same information as using multiple variables (eye color, skin color, hair color, etc.).
I think the key is that ethnicity, by itself, is not enough to zoom into an individual's character or personality. But, we're only talking about how to refer to a body, not a person. It really depends on the context whether this is an insult or not., doesn't it? I don't see why it is always bad, automatically.
I raised this before, but no one picked it up -- is part of the problem in that descriptive terms that relate to racial identity tend to sound racist, or at least questionable?
Actually, this never comes up as far as I know, mostly because I just mention the race of someone. Now, if they have unusual features for that race, like a white person with very dark skin or an asian person with dyed blonde hair, then I'll mention that as well since it gives descriptive information not imparted by the race.
I have troubles telling w-lfs-n apart from his doppelganger.
640/642: Absolutely agreed. And I regret and am horrified by having given the impression that I was maintaining some "skin color/ethnicity is a taboo" argument. Although as the bit quoted in 642 should indicate, I wasn't really; I was just arguing for not habitually using it as a stand-alone descriptor.
646: How old is your kid? Because they say that kids start noticing race around age 3, which seems to be true, but oddly PK (at 5) still seems to use "the orange person" or "the black person" as descriptors of clothing color rather than skin color. Which amuses me.
647: Yeah, maybe the solution is just to be less worried about offending people. I do think that the worry isn't entirely misplaced, though.
652 - my daughter (7) has a best friend that is black (one of the only African American kids in her school) and has never phased her. The closest thing she ever said was when I asked who she was (a couple years ago) she said, kind of struggling how to describe her, "you know, the girl that looks dfferent than you and me". So, definitely am onboard that there's an age component. But, still stand by I think you can use ethnicity as a way of describing somebody, physically, without it implying anything about their character.
PK (at 5) still seems to use "the orange person" or "the black person" as descriptors of clothing color rather than skin color.
When my now-12 year old was 5, I was horrified to hear him say that he did not like his teacher's color. I started to launch into the whole we never judge people by their skin color thing when he looked confused and stopped me and said what he did not like was the color of her dress.
Of course, being raised in New York City and having a Korean mother, my kids experience racial difference a bit differently from I, who was raised in a small, almost all white town in California. When we moved to the suburbs last fall, my now-12 year old asked "Dad, what's a Caucasian"? I explained that it was someone with white skin, like me (my Mexican ancestery is pretty attenuated). He replied, "You know, there sure are a lot of Caucasians here." Indeed there are. But it's still not a bad place to live.
652: He's nine. He knows that race exists as a concept, has had school units built around Martin Luther King, etc. I'm just not at all sure that he sorts his friends and classmates that way. There are so many mixtures and such a range of skin tones that I'm not sure he distinguishes between, for instance, a dark-skinned mostly-Pacific-Islander person and a dark-skinned mostly-African-American person, or between a light-skinned mostly-Caucasian person and a light-skinned mostly Japanese-American person. I may be wrong about that; it's not something we've discussed.
maybe the solution is just to be less worried about offending people.
That, obviously, is how I live my life. It brings mixed results, however.
I do think that the worry isn't entirely misplaced, though.
Certainly.
He replied, "You know, there sure are a lot of Caucasians here." Indeed there are. But it's still not a bad place to live.
It's like the tag-line at the end of a Hallmark movie, that.
My brothers and I spent most of the day splashing around in the pool, playing basketball, and fighting as most siblings do. We hardly had time to notice race. However, this does not mean that it never came up. I remember the questions that would usually come specifically to me. In a sea of kids who were pale or bright pink with sunburn, my brothers and I would get pretty tan. I mean, we were in the sun constantly. I remember a little girl who stood on the top step of the pool right alongside me one day. We both swirled our big toes around in the water tentatively. We were squinting because the sun reflected off of the crystal ripples and bounced back at our faces. And then she turned to me, and with a whisper, said, “Are you black?”
I should add that most of the people I know in NYC know that race is so fuzzy here that there's no point in calling someone "hispanic" or "African-American" or "Asian" or "white" or any of that, because people are really proud of their heritage and it's usually not what you think it is. So if you know for a fact you're talking to a Ukranian or an Argentinian, that's how you describe them. If not, you might say "light-skinned," "medium-skinned" or "dark-skinned," not within the range of "black" as some do, but within the whole range of color.
At first it weirded me out a little, because I was used to Cleveland, where everyone is described as "white" or "black"--there is no assumption that your friend is white because you say she wears glasses, so you specify--but I got used to the way things are here. It allows for diversity.
Yeah, I really wonder how much this generation's experience of race is gonna differ from our own. I mean, after all, people my age were born *during* the civil rights movement--I was born about 3 months before MLK was assassinated. There's going to be a big difference for kids born in a (relatively) integrated society where obvious racism is obviously frowned upon, vs. those of us who grew up just as legal segregation was starting to be dismantled and who had relatives our parents' age who were quite comfortable using racial slurs in casual conversation.
And there is a lot of interracial marriage today, even in once-white small town America. Part of my family lives in rural Wisconsin, and one of my nephews and my other nephew's brother-in-law are interracially married.
Yikes! Is what I say to the 600-post thread which I last checked in on around 200. Yikes! Because I will be heard.
OTOH within the next 5 comments somebody is going to get their big chance to yell out the number of the Beast.
I'd say more progress is happening with sexuality than race, maybe. I'm not sure. But when I talk to my students, I'm shocked by how carelessly they use racist language (perhaps more a sign that those words have always been used to joke, rather than hurt), while my students are amazingly well-educated about transmen and -women, know how to use appropriate pronouns, are sensitive to gay, lesbian, and bi issues (or at least are not shocked by seeing same-sex couples) and even have some pickiness of their own that I never knew about. (Did you know the word "lesbian" is SO so out? Almost all the gay young women I know prefer male pronouns to female, even without transitioning. What that says about the power of heteronormativity, I'm not sure.)
(Probably whoever goes ahead and yells it out will be off by a number or so, because people are commenting so frequently.)
Almost all the gay young women I know prefer male pronouns to female, even without transitioning.
Really? If I'm understanding you correctly, that sounds really odd. But no one I know is gay and college age. (Pretty much no one I know is college age, barring people who comment here.)
664: I think I know what you mean by preferring male pronouns, without transitioning, but could you illustrate with a sentence?
Goddamn my slow internet connection. How many times will I have the chance to be Satan?
668: I know, it's weird, but one of my friends who is an ex-student is 19, and I'm the only person other than her parents that still calls her by female pronouns. She's not mannish or taking T or anything. She's an adorable 19-year-old who wears boyish clothes, has a short haircut, has a naturally high voice, and is called "Ben" by everyone.
671: Like, a boyishly dressed woman will approach my student and say, "Hey Ben, I'm getting together with some of the other guys later and see if there we can find some chicks to party with" (guys being a group of butchy lesbians).
"That wasn't the second-person 'you', and you know it."
There's a non-second-person "you" in English?
622: "Skin color is one of the most obvious physical aspects of someone."
People rarely talk about skin color, and they're certainly not talking about it when they refer to someone as "white" or "black," unless perhaps they're talking about an albino.
632: "I put it to you that some people have darker skin than others, and can be told apart on this basis. Do you agree?"
Sure.
633: "I don't see how it's racist to describe them according to their gender and/or ethnicity and/or shape. "
Indeed, it isn't. That would be different than trying to claim there's a unitary "white" race of people and a "black" race of people. Ethnicity and genetic clustering most certainly exists, as does melanin and skin tone.
This blog has been round this circle a few times before, you know, though I suppose a lot of you weren't here then.
"I should add that most of the people I know in NYC know that race is so fuzzy here that there's no point in calling someone "hispanic" or "African-American" or "Asian" or "white" or any of that, because people are really proud of their heritage and it's usually not what you think it is."
Indeed. I was weirded out for the longest time when I moved from NYC to Seattle at age 18, because Seattle was, in comparison, so white-bread. I grew up in Brooklyn neighborhoods that were thoroughly tossed salads of all sorts of ethnic backgrounds, running through Italian, Greek, African-American, Eastern European, Mexican, Western European, African, Puerto Rican, Middle Eastern, Asian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and from pretty much everywhere.
Seattle was about 80% white-bread WASP/Catholic, 10% Asian, 2% Amerindian, 2% black, and 6% other (plus 8% bad at math). I never quite got over the feeling, riding the busses, and walking through the Pike Place Market and streets, that some sort of horrible racist/ethnic purge had been carried out by Nazis, or something. This wasn't intellectual; it was purely visceral based on what I was familiar with in seeing in the people on the streets and public transit and such.
I felt endlessly more comfortable when I moved back to NYC and Washington Heights, and at least half the population around me were darker-skinned than me, for endlessly variant reasons of ancestry.
I'll less unnerved by the relatively high light-skinnedness here in Boulder, Colorado, only because I'm older, but it's still very noticeable, despite the fact that a variety of ethnicities are represented due to this being a university town (though certainly a far less percentage of African-American-descended people than Denver).
But as a student since my teen years of the history of racial theories, I'm always creeped out when people, though entirely innocently, assume that people come in Three Or Four Races, and take it as a given that Of Course You Can Tell Just By Looking At Them.
But, then, I've still not entirely finished reading this, either. The connotations of these theories will probably always creep me out. No matter how innocently people refer to them.
"Like, a boyishly dressed woman will approach my student and say, "Hey Ben, I'm getting together with some of the other guys later and see if there we can find some chicks to party with" (guys being a group of butchy lesbians)."
Would one of Ben's friends say of Ben "he's over there by the water fountain," as the choice of pronoun, then, or not?
I ask because seeing "guys" used in a non-gendered way strikes me as not abnormal, but if there was a pronoun switch, that would strike me as something that's more new to me.
(Idiot geek note: in the Star Trek: TNG universe, Gene Roddenbery decried that in that future, all officers were referred to non-sexistly as "sir." When the pretty crappy Star Trek: Voyager rolled around, after Roddenberry had kicked the warp bucket, Kate Mulgrew, the new captain, said she wouldn't stand for it, and had her captain referred to as "ma'am." I'm sure you wanted to know this.)
Go Kate Mulgrew! A not particularly important peeve is the tendency to eliminate gendered language by making the masculine all-inclusive as if gendered feminine language were automatically insulting. Or just dropping the gendered usage entirely when it's going to have to refer to women. You know when the Supreme Court Justices stopped referring to each other in opinions as 'Brother'? When O'Connor was put on the Court - referring to a fellow Justice as their 'Sister O'Connor' would have broken the other Justices' little hearts.
Gary, I simply cannot believe that you've never heard of Generic "you".
GERMANY LOST!!!! GERMANY LOST!!!! TAKE THAT!!!!
Gender neutralizing was one of the things I had to do to update contracts. I got pretty good at it. When you're forced to think about it, the degree of pointless occupational gendering (I know it wasn't pointless, give me a break) I mean indefensible gendering, is prodigious. Early 20th century terms, like "Aviatrix" are the weirdest.
676: I keep trying to make myself use "they" and "them" as non-gendered third person singulars, but I have a hell of a time making it stick. "He or she," etc., gets stupid in a hurry and has to be written around a lot, but I guess it's the best we've got. I can't stand "he/she" or "s/he".
Your code needs some work.
"Odd number of elements in hash assignment at lib/MT/App/Comments.pm line 68.
Use of uninitialized value in list assignment at lib/MT/App/Comments.pm line 68."
I hope they replay that game, though I'll only watch the overtime. I can't say I'm sorry I skipped 100+ minutes of not scoring.
"Gary, I simply cannot believe that you've never heard of Generic "'you'."
I'd contend that the fact that the person is unspecified doesn't move "you" from the second person, but I'm not inclined to argue about it. If YMV, sobeit, regardless of whether the person whose mileage is varying is generic or not or second person or not.
684: Well, gramatically, yes, it remains second person. Semantically, it couldn't be further from the second person, and your original comment seem to take it as being semantically second person when it was rather obviously being used as the generic.
Do you know, in terms of de-gendering kids' books ("police officer," "mail carrier," "fire fighter," etc.) the one that stumps me is "fisherman." I force myself to use "fisher," but I kind of stumble on it, and it sounds like a kind of animal.
Ooh! If Antifeminist sticks around, we could make 1000 comments, easy!
675 -- "Where's Ben? He's over by the water fountain."
Neat fact I saw somewhere (which I should probably check in the OED before repeating) -- 'feminist' is actually a backformation from 'antifeminist'. 'Antifeminist' appeared hundreds of years earlier, identifying a genre of writing attacking women generally.
On the description of people thing: in largely whitebread Cala U if I were to describe a black colleague, say, for the purposes of telling someone how to find him in the crowd, I'd probably say something like "tall black guy with the hipster glasses." If this makes me horribly racist, I guess I don't quite know what to say except that pretending X isn't black for the purposes of describing him to someone who needs to find him is counterproductive around here, and I'd feel like I was supposed to be ashamed to mention it if I left it out.
646: Maybe 'Sister O'Connor' sounded too much like a nun. 645: Kate Mulgrew's voice drives me crazy.
Antifeminist is always here in spirit, Bitch.
685: "684: Well, gramatically, yes, it remains second person. Semantically, it couldn't be further from the second person, and your original comment seem to take it as being semantically second person when it was rather obviously being used as the generic."
No. The original exchange was this:
You: "But if the new person is the only Asian guy...then you'll identify him as the Asian guy."
Me: "You might want to put that in first person, rather than second, unless it's a fact that the person you're speaking of will so act."
My point remains: you were generalizing that people would do as you would do. That's completely incorrect. Generic or otherwise. (You can page M/tch to argue for you, if you'd like.)
Whereas if you said "if... then I'll identify...," you're free and correct. But you can't accurately claim that you're describing universal behavior, generic or otherwise.
693 - this is a good example of how strict grammer gets in the way of expression and meaning, especially online (and why emoticons are sometimes necessary and good).
Gary: did you attempt "Enterprise?" you're such a connoisseur I thought I'd find out your opinion.
No, it's not a good example of the necessity of emoticons. I'll admit that it's mostly simple snobbery informing my prejudice, but how is any emoticon going to help here?
"You: "But if the new person is the only Asian guy...then you'll identify him as the Asian guy." [ ;-) ]
Me: "You might want to put that in first person, rather than second, unless it's a fact that the person you're speaking of will so act." [ @:-) ]"
694: Meh, not really. Gary's point is the same as in his dispute with M/tch, and it doesn't really have much to do with grammar per se. More with pragmatics and implication.
"...the one that stumps me is 'fisherman.'"
Per 688 and previously, presumably "fishing guy."
Fishing gal?
But I'd hate to see an earthquake in which the fisher was swallowed by a fissure.
"I caught a lot today," said the fishcatcher.
696 - sorry, I didn't mean that emoticons fit here; I just tacked that last part on as a p.s. since they're in the realm of helping to convey expression and meaning, especially online, and not grammer. But, yeah, obviously, you're exactly right in that emoticons have no place in my point. My real intent was to harp on people who let strict grammer get in the way of meaning.
You know, they say Hitler insisted on strict grammar, and he loved emoticons.
I used to have a thing for semantic women, but experience has taught me that syntax is important for creating a consistently meaningful relationship.
700 - no wonder why he was so whacked then since the two are inconsistent with each other!
701 - I'm not saying syntax is not important, I just don't think it's *as* important as some people think, certainly it's not as important as the message you're trying to say. Take a look at a spam email which may have perfect form and be devoid of all sense or meaning.
Who are you arguing with, TD? I don't see anyone saying that grammar trumps meaning.
Sometimes I fantasize about mixed metaphors, even though I know I could never act them out in real life.
B, are not these children's stories usually gendered anyway? I can see saying 'angler' generically, but in a children's book with pictures I'd probably say 'fisherman' because there, on the page, is a man fishing. 'Fisherwoman', though, is weird. It sounds like 'fishwife.'
703 - I was responding to 685 & 693, which were making a big deal out of the use of the word "you". Perhaps I read it wrong and, if so, I apologize. Obviously, debating grammer vs meaning is nowhere near as fun as debating Asian fetishes vs preferences.
"My point remains: you were generalizing that people would do as you would do."
Well, Mitch was, yes.
"But you can't accurately claim that you're describing universal behavior, generic or otherwise."
Are you saying that all generalizations are invalid? If so, that's about as silly as all this grammar stuff. Mitch wasn't describing universal behavior, and generalizations in general don't purport to hold universally, only to hold in the common, or "general", case.
You can disagree with the generalization, even to say that the attribute or behavior in question can't be generalized, without picking on the person for making the generalization in the first place. Instead of saying "don't generalize" (especially in a way that makes it look like you're picking on grammar), say "No, this doesn't generalize".
Gary was objecting to "you," but not on any grammatical basis, just because of its implication that other people agree with the speaker (which is true regardless of whether it's the regular second-person pronoun or the generic). No need to apologize, though.
Are you saying that all generalizations are invalid?
Absolutely not. In fact, I'm probably the guiltiest person you will find at trying to extrapolate generalizations from everything. Indeed the entire world as I see it, through a statistical lense, is all probablistic and subject to generalizations - even when it probably doesn't make sense.
Actually, I think I just misunderstood what you guys were even debating. I just saw you were debating the validity of the word "you" without really understanding the point of it. That is my bad.
697: M/tch s/b Cryptic Ned, I believe.
"Gary: did you attempt 'Enterprise?' you're such a connoisseur I thought I'd find out your opinion."
Keeping it relatively short: better than Voyager (mostly not saying much, though it had its moments), mostly not as good as the last few seasons of DS9, the best Trek show. Finding its legs in the first two seasons, but still suffering a number of the flaws of the entire TNG paradigm and methodology (despite being a prequel to TOS). Better in the third, one-long-serial third season, and vastly better, at least for Trek fans, in the Treknologically-pleasing fourth and last season, which delved into planet Vulcan, the enhanced humans of Khan's day, the founding of the Federation, the Mirror Universe, why TOS Klingons were different than TNG Klingons, and other such geek-loving trivia.
None of it would I particularly recommend to people not nostalgic about one variant or another of Star Trek. It's all mediocre science fiction at best, and none of it is precisely Geoff Ryman or Gene Wolfe or any of the numerous good sf writers.
"this is a good example of how strict grammer gets in the way of expression and meaning"
No, it's a good example of how careless (or in other cases, outright dishonest) writing can lead to undesired, or at least inaccurate, implications and claims.
711: My question was addressed to Gary.
"Sometimes I fantasize about mixed metaphors, even though I know I could never act them out in real life."
I've had fantasies, but I'm always ashamed afterwards.
I would never want to be so brutal and violent.
708: "Are you saying that all generalizations are invalid?"
No. I was quite specific.
716: So you're not going to address the last paragraph of 708?
688 stuns me. I've never heard this usage. Is it limited to "butch" lesbian youth culture (as you described it), or are young females generally adopting male pronouns these days?
Your words were thus:
"You might want to put that in first person, rather than second, unless it's a fact that the person you're speaking of will so act.
"Otherwise you're projecting, and possibly wrongly so."
You say "the person you're speaking of", as if Ned were speaking of one person when he uses the word "you". Thus the whole generic you discussion. Then you say that he's "projecting", of all things. No, it looks to me like he's generalizing. And you say he might be wrong. That's true, but you don't make an argument for or against.
Later you make a blanket statement:
"But you can't accurately claim that you're describing universal behavior, generic or otherwise."
Which led me to ask whether you're saying that it's impossible to make generalizations. Maybe you were just saying it's impossible to make generalizations about human behavior. Is that right? If not, what did you mean by the statement?
Also: wow this thread is big. Does anyone have a sense of how many comments are left on this blog on a weekly basis? And by how many commenters? The weekly comments per commenter statistics must be outrageous. Reading this blog is an enormous time commitment.
I think it was very neighborly of the North Koreans to send up fireworks today, by the way. Don't you?
"Reading this blog is an enormous time commitment."
Natural that I should spend so much time here. I seem to be drawn to these things like flies to sugar.
In the interests of comity, and in closing off a somewhat testy discussion. Pdf -- I think it's clear by now that Gary didn't mean to deny the possibility of generalization, but rather meant to deny that this generalization was a valid one. Gary -- I think pdf is right to argue with your characterization of the post as 'projecting' rather than generalizing, and also think that clarity and comity would have been served (jesus christ, I'm using 'comity' seriously. What am I coming to?) if you'd argued with the generalization directly rather than couching your criticism in terms of pronoun usage.
OT: I would like to take this opportunity to be grateful that those missiles the North Koreans have been building while we're busy showing resolve aren't very accurate, and that Alaska is a MUCH bigger target.
I haven't caught up with this thread since yesterday, but it did amuse me to get something in on my RSS feed from TPMCafe today that was someone complaining to their site managment: "OMG! A post has 400 comments! Those are soooo many! Whatevah shall we do!"
721, 724: Gary got there first. Who'da thunk?
717: "716: So you're not going to address the last paragraph of 708?"
Since I did in the first place what you suggest, what more is there to say?
720: "No, it looks to me like he's generalizing. And you say he might be wrong. That's true, but you don't make an argument for or against."
There's no "might" and there's no need to "make an argument." It's factually incorrect to state that everyone will act the way he will. I certainly don't behave the way he does, and I know plenty of people who don't.
"If not, what did you mean by the statement?"
I meant, as I already repeated, that "But if the new person is the only Asian guy...then you'll identify him as the Asian guy" is an untrue statement. Blatantly untrue.
More generally, it's a terrible idea to generalize from one's own prejudices and behaviors to claim that everyone will act and think as we do, and that therefore this justifies our beliefs and prejudices as holding Universal Truths, but I was content to respond to the specific.
715: I was thinking more innocently than that, like being tied up with whipped cream. Or would have been, had that been serious.
728 should read: "had my original comment been serious."
718 -- not sure how this fits in but my young daughter used "he" universally until she was about 4, and still at almost-6 refers to women and girls with "he" pretty frequently.
"...and also think that clarity and comity would have been served (jesus christ, I'm using 'comity' seriously. What am I coming to?) "
Isn't that a song? "Comity Tonight!"?
"if you'd argued with the generalization directly rather than couching your criticism in terms of pronoun usage."
Yeah, but I object to the pronoun usage. (As I previously noted, there's an entire subcultural standard of longstanding Usenet usage that notes that this is a dishonest, or at least illegitimate, rhetorical trick, whether it's misuse of "you" or "we." People should be called on it and not allowed to get away with it, or they'll come back and do it again. In any case, I was perfectly polite.)
Me: "You might want to put that in first person, rather than second, unless it's a fact that the person you're speaking of will so act."
This is not rude or abusive.
730- I doubt this is the same phenomenon at all. Could be wrong though.
Totally Unrelated: The only items of true value I've taken away from this thread are the exact logistics of Bphd's personal life. I had always been a bit confused -- boyfriend? Pk? Mr B? Random date? How does it all fit together? -- and even though I had long suspected "open marriage", it's sort of nice to finally see that confirmed. Just so I puzzle no longer. Although apparantly this would have been obvious to me years ago if I actually read her blog...
727: Look, Gary, generally you appear to be familar with idiomatic English usage. To assert that all people will 'identify him as the Asian guy' would be, you know, absurd -- pretty much any similarly absolute statement is absurd. Which is a good clue that, whether or not it's a legitimate literal reading, that it's not the meaning intended. A better guess would be that the intended meaning was that 'most people will' or 'people are likely to'.
And again, given your general familiarity with idiomatic American English, I'm going to surmise that you understood the intended meaning. If I'm right about that, what you are doing by taking it literally can be characterized as playing dumb, and it's a great way to start a dull and pointless argument.
If you want to object to the post because you think the literal reading makes it a bad way to talk even though you know what was meant, that's fine, but the argument is going to be friendlier and more substantive if you concede from the outset that you do understand what was meant.
733: No, you've got it all mixed up. B Phd is a lesbian.
jesus christ, I'm using 'comity' seriously. What am I coming to?
If you have any sense at all, you're coming to admit your error before the Comity Comedy Committee.
735: And possibly the daughter of CA (fka TMK).
Good grief, I really have to finish doing the stuff I came in here to do and get the hell out, but I DON'T WANT TO.
284- really? That makes sense, I think, although I thought "Farberize" meant basically to run on and on and on and on (no offense Farber), which would make sense given B's original usage in 26 (multiple posts in a row). I thought I had seen that usage before, but I may be misremembering.
"This is not rude or abusive."
Let me rephrase that a bit less absolutely: this does not seem to me to be rude or abusive; does anyone disagree?
735- you inspired a joke about Mr. B, but I'm refraining for the sake of comity.
Yeah, but I object to the pronoun usage. (As I previously noted, there's an entire subcultural standard of longstanding Usenet usage that notes that this is a dishonest, or at least illegitimate, rhetorical trick, whether it's misuse of "you" or "we." People should be called on it and not allowed to get away with it, or they'll come back and do it again. In any case, I was perfectly polite.)
I didn't see this before writing my last: look, Gary, objecting to the pronoun usage is fine, but the way you did it you were implying that it was incomprehensible (that is, you took it as describing your own practices, which was a silly, although literally defensible, reading), which is unlikely. Whether or not that's impolite, it drives people nuts -- nothing is more irritating than having someone purport to fail to understand you when you're writing reasonably clearly. If you want to argue with someone's usage, you're going to annoy them a lot less if you work with them enough to acknowledge their meaning before you address their wording.
737: "Good grief, I really have to finish doing the stuff I came in here to do and get the hell out, but I DON'T WANT TO."
Just when you think you've gotten out, they pull you back in.
Okay, time for a Becks-style roll call:
Urple: Here!
By the way I never found out what happened to Tia's corn. Believe it or not I am genuinely curious.
741, although written before I read 739, addresses the question therein.
nothing is more irritating than having someone purport to fail to understand you when you're writing reasonably clearly.
Nothing?
Well, entering my time for last month is worse. When I have very little idea of what I actually did, and need to reconstruct it by looking at emails. I'm going to be up all night with this crap.
And, I suppose, being locked in one of those filing-cabinet sized cells for interrogation.
"(no offense Farber),"
That was one of my ancestors, back in the 1910s: "No Offense Farber" was quite a character, they say.
I don't take after him.
734: "If you want to object to the post because you think the literal reading makes it a bad way to talk even though you know what was meant, that's fine"
I thought that's what I was doing.
"...but the argument is going to be friendlier and more substantive if you concede from the outset that you do understand what was meant."
I don't think I "understand" it in the same sense you do. I don't understand it as not meaning what it says, what you call its "literal" meaning. So I can't concede that. Not because I'm being willful, or stubborn, but because that's not how I understand it.
It's entirely possible that in this way I'm somewhat Asperger's-inclined. Entirely.
746: Thanks, LB, for giving me one small thing to feel good about: I went through that miserable exercise on Sunday and have it over with for another month. Yay, me. Now I just have to finish the damn documents that have no need to be done before next week but which the client wanted, and I promised to provide, by tomorrow.
739: Not rude, but disingenuous. Pointlessly indirect. And I agree with LB.
"Since I did in the first place what you suggest, what more is there to say?"
I suggested in that paragraph that you object not to his making the generalization at all, but to the validity of the generalization. I was under the impression that you *were* objecting to him making the generalization at all, per my quote, which isn't a valid criticism.
"By the way I never found out what happened to Tia's corn."
And, crucially, did it get jerked off?
Or was it too hot to handle, and were people made to feel too hot?
But I assume we'll have to wait for The Return Of Tia.
Possibly becks-style.
746/748- you people enter your time monthly??? I couldn't remember anything if I did that. I have trouble enough doing it on a daily basis. When I let it stretch to a week I'm fucked.
If I substitute "know with a fair degree of certainty what meaning the author contended to convey" for "understand", does that work for you? That is, do you believe that Cryptic Ned's intent was to characterize what you, or any other specific individual, would say in that circumstance? If that is your honest belief as to his intent, then there's nothing else to say. If, as I surmise, you were fairly sure of his intent, you're going to be much more sucessful in having friendly conversations along these lines if you at least note that his words did convey his intent to you, and only then go on to argue that they don't really mean what he meant to say.
Okay comments have slowed to a boring pace now, so I'm going to go outside and light some fireworks with friends. I'll let you know if any of us hurt ourselves.
747: Gary, are you denying, as an empirical matter, that the second-person English plural is commonly used to make generalizations about what most people would be likely to do? And are you claiming that the existence of a single counter-example falsifies such generalizations?
More generally, and without intending offense, I take the use of your name as a verb to refer to a very particular sort of tendentiousness, usually about matters of language and rhetoric, of which this discussion of "you" would be an example. If you're bothered by that usage, or by the feelings behind that usage, it might be worth reconsidering whether LB might be making a valid point.
751: I try to keep up with it daily, and most days I succeed, but I'll generally have one or more periods of one or more days in any given month in which I don't, usually because I get too focused on doing stuff to record what I'm doing. And then I have to go back and the end of the month and reconstruct those days.
Here, incidentally, by the way, is an example of why I pay close attention to fine detail, and usage, and believe in always checking every detail and fact for myself, as a general rule, and usually regret it when I let things slide and make exceptions.
751, 754: We're supposed to do it daily, but we get in trouble if it's not in monthly. And I find it so unpleasant that I'd rather have an awful, awful day doing it once a month than spend an irritating half-hour or so daily.
755: That's entirely unconnected to what we're talking about. Cryptic Ned didn't make an error on a fine point, he used a conventional idiom that you object to.
755: But that's completely different. An incorrect date is just a simple mistake of fact. "2010" does not convey the same information as "1999." But "you would say 'the Asian guy'" conveys pretty much the same information, to most of us, as "most people would say 'the Asian guy.'"
I have trouble enough doing it on a daily basis. When I let it stretch to a week I'm fucked.
I enter it once every week or two, but only because I write it down more or less contemporaneously, and thus the entry is only decifering my notes and typing into the billing program. If I have to reconstruct my time from scratch after even a week I would be a very sad puppy.
Speaking of general "you," I have to admit I have a problem when someone is yelling vociferously at one not present (as if to express to me their rage) and they are saying, "You bitch! What the fuck did you think you would happen, you rotten whore," etc. etc. and they are getting it out of their system, but the cumulative effect of hearing all that "you... you" business is that it makes my sympathetic nervous system kick in and worry I'm about to get the shit beat out of me.
...which is why I tend not to use the impersonal "you."
#694: Personally, I prefer Asian emoticons.
And by the way, this is why I think practicing law for too long screws up your writing. Writing to convey meaning effectively is hard. Writing to foreclose all conceivable bad-faith misreadings is a different kind of hard, and a major contributing factor to ugly, clunky writing.
GB, that's just cause the American emoticons are too independent for you. Admit it!
Writing to foreclose all conceivable bad-faith misreadings is a different kind of hard, and a major contributing factor to ugly, clunky writing.
This, absolutely. I had a CLE seminar on legal writing last year that left me spitting with rage. The non-lawyer teaching it was rewriting chunks of 'bad legal writing' and repeatedly turned something ugly but unambiguous into something prettier but ambiguous. That doesn't help -- there's a reason we write like that and it's not just that we're all pretentious tools (although that's certainly true).
"755: That's entirely unconnected to what we're talking about."
Do you remember what "friendly conversation" is?
I guess my comments about Brunner and David Palmer and Wilmar Shiras were completely boring, since you never responded (on the prior threads). I can just stop trying, if this isn't working for you.
I'll be out for fireworks in a while, anyway. Unless it rains. Looks like it might be a race as to which comes first.
Watching/listening to Margaret Warner interviewing Ron Suskind at the moment, by the way.
766: While "incidentally" and "by the way" can sometimes be used to indicate a subject change or a disavowal of direct relevancy, they've been used sarcastically so much that they've completely lost their force nowadays. To really indicate a subject change you should use something more explicit, like "Though it's not relevant" or "On a completely different subject" or such.
Sorry, I thought your 755 was intended as a response to my 752. Did you have anything to say to my 752? I don't mean to be giving you a hard time, but you did invite commentary (739) on whether you were rude, and to the exent that you don't understand why people are reacting to you with hostility, I think there's a pretty clear answer in this case.
On Brunner, you were absolutely right. I hadn't read many of the titles you linked.
Gary, I like having you around even when you piss me off and I want you to go away. Don't ever change (unless you want to).
[ ;-) ]
[Yellow card]
My comment is kind of a response to you, LB, in that there is a deep-level reaction to hearing "you" that pisses me off. Even if I know it means "one," I find it, like, emotionally manipulative.
Whoops, rain won.
But maybe it will be over in half an hour or so.
To clarify, the weaker phrases are sufficient (and expected) when the comment is obviously a subject change. But when it's not, when the comment could plausibly be addressing some other subject, "by the way" and "incidentally" are always (as far as I know) used to indicate a sort of paralipsis.
Okay quick update, dear friends here at unfooged -- I'm geeting progrssively more drunk (quickly), and my friend Jason just burned the fuck out of his thum,b which is hilarioius. I think he still has all 10 digits and both eyes so everything is okay. Also, I just heard David Bowie's "Little China Girl" song and totally couldn't stop thinking about this thread.
Plus: billing time sucks. It's dehumanizing, whether done daily or monthly or yearly. Down with the billable HOUR!!
My comment is kind of a response to you, LB, in that there is a deep-level reaction to hearing "you" that pisses me off. Even if I know it means "one," I find it, like, emotionally manipulative.
I think that's fair -- I try to avoid it for reasons roughly like that and like Gary's, but I'm not sure how well I succeed.
774: Damn straight! To the barricades!!!
Oops someone should probably googlefight 774.
I mean googleproof not goodglefight. Although actaully "Jason" may not be all that revealing in the grand schem e of things. eEspecially if that were only a pseudonym and not his real name.
Fuck this shit.
765: That stuff drives me nuts. There are good models of concise legal writing (mostly old) but some of the changes I used to be asked to make were appalling. When I had authority I cut that "plain language" stuff out entirely. There are, of course, old examples where the drafter loses track of who's who. Those may be cleaned up, usually by simpler sentences and fewer referents. Old forms used to spell out numbers and percentages. Anyone who's ever had negotiable instruments knows why, but taking them out makes for a much cleaner copy. It used to amuse me to see clear breaks in style, where phrases had been clumsily, often illiterately inserted in old forms.
The conversation has progressed quite a bit while it was sleepytime in this part of the world, but I wanted to respond to AWB's 582 and b's 591.
A lot of people who say they're into Asian features are like Bob's 431:
I like petite woman with dark hair and eyes. If the eyes and hair are right, height and body can be negotiable. Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz. I like asians, hispanic-descended, native americans, italians, semitics, africans and afro-americans.
That is, not essentializing Asian features or even focusing on race so much as preferring certain features that, while present in other ethnicities, are more common among East Asians. "I only date Asian chicks" is a problem, but "I like slim women with dark hair and small noses" shouldn't be, unless, as per Tia's Craigslist examples, it is treated as a minimum requirement rather than a preference.
The 4th of July Taepodongs are a lot less appreciated when you're living in an obvious target. Although it helps that, since they're Asian, the missiles seemed silky and sexy and exotic.
That kitten is also silky and exotic!
Even when it was fiction and the only issue was plausibility, time sheets were the worst part of my week bar none. I was pretty good about logging what I did, but not how long I spent on it.
"To really indicate a subject change you should use something more explicit, like "Though it's not relevant" or "On a completely different subject" or such."
So to jump off from a conversation touching on how literal I can be, I should be more literal. Gotcha.
Although, yeah, I take "incidentally" to be indicating jumping off onto something "incidental," and "by the way" on top of that to be excessively, pointlessly, redundant.
"Did you have anything to say to my 752?"
Well, I already experienced last night (and certainly many other times in the past) what happens when one politely responds to other people going on about points, however valid in abstract, and they continue to ask me to respond: I wind up having someone like B. yell at me for "going on" about the point.
So I don't care to get caught by that again, if you don't mind.
"On Brunner, you were absolutely right. I hadn't read many of the titles you linked."
It seemed unlikely. But it's a shame his smattering of very good books aren't better known by the larger public these days. Although I have to say I've not reread them in years. (I started rereading Stand On Zanzibar back around the time of one of my disasters in NYC, but I forget which one now, and I wound up being unable to continue; it might have been the Fire, though that would make it over 14 years ago now, anyway.)
"Even if I know it means 'one,' I find it, like, emotionally manipulative."
It's possible I might also have an overly personal reaction, for some reason, as well as taking it as literal, as I do a number of things, rather rigidly. Dunno, may ponder. But I do interpret a lot of meanings very rigidly and literally, I'll grant. Which is why I say it may be somewhat Asperger's-ish of me.
I'm particularly prone to it when I interpret something as being expressed as an imperative, or, well, when second person is used. But, clearly, first person plural, as well. I'm kinda Gertrude Steinish about these, and some others.
At least, from my perspective, my feet are better than the last time LB and I interacted, and she was yelling at me (and I left and no one noticed), and I've had at least two donations (though not more), though from LB's perspective, she's back stuck in the office again, doing things she doesn't like.
Not that I want her to get in the habit of being mad at me and shouting every time that happens, because that would be bad. Not that she shouted at me this time.
Suskind was very animated, by the way. And kinda gleeful talking about CIA successes against al Qaeda, as well as somber talking about the Cheney Doctrine.
My poor, impotent Hitlers.
"My poor, impotent Hitlers."
That's what happens when you cite cats in a discussion. People think their (mis)interpretation of Godwin is purrfect, but it's not.
Again, I'll accept that you aren't trying to be annoying. Ignoring a substantive comment, my 752, that directly asks for a response from you, is maddening. You could say: "No, I honestly thought Cryptic Ned was purporting to describe how I, Gary Farber, would speak in that situation." You could say: "Whether or not I could guess what he intended, I find it unreasonable to expect me to acknowlege the intent I guess before dissecting the wording." You could say: "I hadn't realized that was so annoying. In future, I'll try noting what I think people meant before I talk about how they said it." Or you could say something else to the point that I haven't thought of (probably the most likely).
But refusing to respond to a direct question on the grounds that other people will be mean to you if you answer is really, really, really, really, really annoying.
774, 775, 781: I hate, hate, HATE my timesheets. Get rid of them and this job would be pretty tolerable most of the time. Especially if I could have longer vacations. And maybe shorter workdays. And maybe if it weren't so damn difficult to keep up with the juggling act and try never to tell Client B that you haven't worked on their project because you're busy as hell for Client A.
OK, maybe it would still be kind of hard. But it would sure be better.
787 gets it exactly right. I like what I do, and totally understand the business purpose behind the way we bill, but it completely sucks!
That fucking cat keeps reminding me of bedtime discussion with my wife the other night. She was depressed, frustrated, having a hard time falling asleep. Told me to stop talking about whatever it was I was talking about because I was making her more frustrated and depressed. I said "puppies and kittens!" "What?" "Think of cute, furry puppies and kittens!" She, emphatically: "They DROWN."
People think their (mis)interpretation of Godwin is purrfect, but it's not.
I'm sure we agree that the canonical version of Godwin's Law says that, as the length of an online discussion increases, the probability of someone shouting "Hitler!" in an attempt to end the discussion approaches 1.
I really thought I'd covered this sufficiently by now, but, fine (and if anyone then says I've been "going on" about this, I will keel them deadly): "If I substitute 'know with a fair degree of certainty what meaning the author contended to convey' for 'understand', does that work for you?"
Not particularly.
"That is, do you believe that Cryptic Ned's intent was to characterize what you, or any other specific individual, would say in that circumstance?"
I don't spend time thinking about people's intent. I could go mad trying to do that, and I'm not trying to be a mind-reader. I work off what people say. What they say is there before me, and isn't speculation. I think attempting mind-reading is generally going to lead to bad communication. Obviously, reacting to what people say when they're not careful, or it means something different to them than it does to me, is also problematic, but it's still something graspable and fairly debateable, whereas, in my view, mindreading isn't.
"If that is your honest belief as to his intent, then there's nothing else to say."
Okay, then.
"If, as I surmise, you were fairly sure of his intent, you're going to be much more sucessful in having friendly conversations along these lines if you at least note that his words did convey his intent to you, and only then go on to argue that they don't really mean what he meant to say."
Thus I'm doomed to less success. No surprise by my age.
I'm definitely NAL, but has anyone ever tried a computer program that keeps up with your time for you? It could periodically beep and show you a list of your current clients. You click on one, and it logs which ones you click on how often and estimates hours that way. (It doesn't know for sure how long you spend, but it can estimate based on how often it finds you working on the client.) I'm not sure if something like this exists or not. It wouldn't work if you spend a lot of billable time away from your desk, unless you put the program on a portable computer.
Yes, there is time-and-billing software. I know, I used to test and review it. How the hell does it know "how often it finds you working on the client?" you mean the file is open on your machine? What if you take a call on another case? what if you've got two open at the same time?
When it present you with the list of clients, you click on whichever one you're working on at that very moment.
The period of time between prompts (along with the number of different clients you work on in any given week) would determine the margin of error in the estimation. That period of time would only have to be low enough so that the margin of error is less than or equal to your own estimations of billable hours. Not being a laywer, I'm not sure whether this would be every ten minutes or every hour.
Thanks for the response. I'm tempted to press further to figure out how you decide which idioms you will venture on a non-literal interpretation of and for which idioms that would constitute mind-reading, but I shouldn't -- I'm just avoiding my time sheets. (Could be worse. Last month, in an attempt not to do my time, I waxed my legs. Man that hurts.)
The issue isn't usually the time, it's the description of what you were doing with the time. If "did lawyer stuff for Client X" were an adequate time entry, it wouldn't be quite so bad. But a lot of clients want detailed descriptions, time entries sorted by tasks, etc. And the software tools don't deal particularly well with times when you're doing multiple things at the same time or in quick succession. And the billable hour isn't measured exclusively by time spent in any case; a billable hour may be more or less than a clock hour, depending on circumstances.
It's always been easy in principle to keep track of how you're spending your time: "clicking-on" is just like making a little note; that's not the issue.
Try the nexus of guilt and sloth.
And the intense self-loathing engendered by an every-six-minutes accounting of how you spend your life.
How did we get from thinking about sex to thinking about this?
799- I've considered keeping track of and recording every fucking minute of my life, recording 24 hours a day into the system (nights and weekends under various nonbillable codes as applicable - 7 hours personal time (sleep), .5 hour (breakfast), .8 hours personal time (commute to work), etc.), just as a subtle indication of my discontent. I decided in the end that would be too much work, though.
802: Easy. It's just the transition from active voice ("I'm fucking") to passive ("I'm fucked").
N.B.: NOT from "you're fucking" to "you're fucked." We don't want to start that again.
802: Because it pervades our every waking thoughts and renders our lives empty and joyless? Or is that just me?
802/803: .6 hours personal time: "fucking my wife". I'd obviously include that too.
803: In a similar vein, the appropriate time entry is "research & analysis re ____________," not "thought about your stupid problem while taking my morning shit."
807- OTOH, "thought about my morning shit while researching your stupid problem" is perfectly acceptable...
I've just started noticing that sometimes when I refresh the comments the server disconnects before it's sent me the whole page. It stops anywhere from comment 3xx to 7xx, in the middle of a comment.
Alternate text for 790: If you can't distinguish ignorance of Godwin's Law from taking licence with it for humorous effect, try that charity thing someone mentioned. Please.
Cc: St. Jude
Please, please can we keep this place free of emoticons?
652: lol is banned! For those moments when you really are laughing out loud or think that you might bust a gut trying to keep yourself from laughing some place where you ought to be quiet, Jackmormon has suggested HA! as an alternative.
That's happened to me about three times already. Or about .2 hours.
You're fighting a winning battle, 812.
Also, go Urple. I'm a regular commenter, and no way would I admit to what I've admitted to under this handle under my real/normal handle
LB -- aw shit, I guess Unfogged is going to be looking at a huge bill for your time this month. Do we have enough in the account or do we need to do another fundraiser?
Urple's Becks-style commenting above is the cream of the genre.
NFW: You shouldn't have said that if you want to stay anonymous -- the bloggers can see your IP address, so we can compare NFW to the other regulars to see who you are. I'm not looking, because you meant to be anonymous, but it's a strain, because I'm nosy.
(If it's any consolation, in case I break down and look, I didn't read anything at B's that I'd hold against you.)
FWIW: I don't know if it would be useful for lawyers, but Allnetic makes really lovely time-tracking software. It won't help you with the requisite explanations, but it makes it much easier to click your way through a fair number of different projects and clients.
Urple, you could have just asked. Also, I may be developing a crush on your drunk commenting.
Snooping into anonymous comments is heinous and should be banned.
It won't help you with the requisite explanations, but it makes it much easier to click your way through a fair number of different projects and clients.
There are a number of software tools that are supposed to help. I have not heard of this one. The two biggest problems from my perspective are (1) not everything is tied to the computer--talking to clients and opposing counsel, going to court, going through evidence, etc.--so it is sometimes hard to use the computer to keep track real time and (2) since you are only supposed to bill for work done, you have to figure out how stop and start the clock every time you take a personal call, go to the bathroom, daydream, read Unfogged, etc.
It is a major pain in the ass trying simultaneously (1) not to overbill you clients but at the same time (2) not fail to bill time for which have every right to charge. If I have to err, I err toward cheating myself rather than the client, but it still pisses me off.
822: I fully agree with this (well, under these circumstances. I'd feel justified in snooping at a suspected sock-puppet). I just wanted to warn NFW that he shouldn't put temptation in the way of nosy bloggers.
since you are only supposed to bill for work done, you have to figure out how stop and start the clock every time you take a personal call, go to the bathroom, daydream, read Unfogged, etc.
That's what I love about Allnetic: it puts a stopwatch in your system tray. Click on it to start; click on it to stop. I don't really know why I'm shilling for them--I use older, crappier Palm software that I'm used to track time--except that I really liked the implementation.
SB, 812 was I. I wanted topost a comment asserting my authorship earlier, but I couldn't get the damn thread to load.
Meh. I don't care if people know. I just don't want it tied back to me ina publicly searchable form.
Or rather, I don't care if the bloggers know. It's the 400 lurkers I worry about. And M/tch.
Hey, y'all. Do you think you could move this conversation to another thread since it's not exactly on the original topic anyway? Some people are having trouble loading this thread now that it's reached 800+ comments.
(That's why darling, it's incredible, that someone so, paren, thetical,/ Thinks that I'm, paren, thetical too.)
Standpipe Bridgeplate is an unrepentant Nazi, hence the pseudonym. A little Googling make this perfectly clear.
Unrepentant -- except that s/he thinks that you should always invade England before Russia. S/he cannot forgive Hitler for that one.
This isn't usenet, eb.
687 (how lame is that? usenet was sooo much better) Cleaning out this cesspit of misandry would consume too much time that would be better devoted to my violent fantasies about underage asians, so you'll have to score the grand on your own.
af