I think the real reason is that you and gswift just aren't interested in anything less crude than T&A (where "crude" here isn't in opposition to "sophisticated" or "refined" but to "subtle" or "fine-grained").
Can't quantify faces. Butts and boobs have measurements.
Part of it is the fat issue -- attacks on women for having imperfect bodies tend to be couched in moralistic terms. "If you just weren't a lazy plate-scraper, you could look like that." Not looking like a movie star is a personal failure rather than a fact of life. On faces, on the other hand, you get pretty much what you get -- the fact that you aren't perfectly beautiful can't easily be presented as your fault.
w-lfs-n should have added #2 to his otherwise correct response.
Is it impossible to objectify facial features? I bet there are peoples that have done it - ear elongation, maybe?
4. Focus on body parts is strong enough in our culture that facial features are simply crowded out in objectifying talk.
Just to have something to say, I'll repeat the idea that Angelina Jolie's face, despite her many fine points, is not very attractive because it has no vivid colors and very little color contrast. Her lips, eyes, skin, hair are all an average sort of blah color.
She must like it that way, because those things are easy to control. I say it's "costly signalling": "I'm so hott that I don't need blond hair and red lipstick."
Related news: My next-door neighbor reports that crazy-woman sex is as great as they say it is, but that the overall experience may kill him. He's had to increase his antidepressant dosage and is at risk of losing his job (she's the type who is resentful when the guy goes to work instead of spending time with her).
7: Yeah, I agree. I just noted the admission that face talk happens, and not the explanation.
I didn't say you can quantify faces. I think you can't really quantify body parts either; in fact, the entire argument that what's attractive is rational and/or quantifiable is bullshit.
That said, I'm sure you're as well aware as I am of the evo-psych arguments about facial beauty being about proportion and symmetry.
Also, you're wrong about Angelina Jolie. She's very pretty, but her lower lip looks like someone's bottom; that's the primary flaw, which has nothing to do with color.
Whenever I talk about who I do or don't find attractive, I'm *always* talking about faces (and, by extension, hair).
The bollocks crowd is bowling me over with its incisiveness.
Faces may be quantifiable, but not in any casual language that makes sense to people without lots of pictures. (And I think 7 was to the post).
11: I think there was a link around here a while back that showed that face attractiveness was *not* primarily about symmetry--that it had only a small effect, in fact. I think it demonstrated the point pretty well, too.
15: Indeed. The evopsych people are psycho.
16: 15 because I don't share your abhorrence for evo psych.
Perhaps because humans are hard-wired for face recognition, and thus see faces holistically instead of as a collection of parts, we have a harder time saying what makes an attractive face attractive - so there's less to talk about.
Experiments in empirical psychology have discovered some facial features, e.g. symmetry, that we deem attractive. But in general we don't consciously recognize these features, and so find it difficult to talk about.
With boobs and butts, on the other hand, we're more consciously aware of what we find attractive about them, e.g. size.
This is why LB and I talked past each other about Sarah Jessica Parker. That she has a nice body is irrelevant when discussing whether I find her pretty. It's like estimating somebody's height based on their net income.
Ogged's knack for hitting upon ingenious rather than natural or correct solutions (which, as Lichtenberg reminds us, is the mark of men of "little talent and more reading than understanding") shows us clearly what his next career will be: columnist for the Times.
This is your revenge for the "is so gay" thread, isn't it?
Another thing is that the issues over representations of bodies tend to be over the unrealism of the media, and media images of naked or revealingly clad women outnumber the real women most people see. I would presume that most men who watch porn at all have seen many more professionally naked women than they have seen naked women not getting paid for it -- if you add in barely clothed women, pretty much everyone looks at images of the bodies of many more professionals in mainstream media than they look at similarly dressed women in their real lives. Women going about their lives tend to be dressed in a way that doesn't allow you to critique the precise curve of their butt-cheeks.
This is upsetting because it moves the norm -- what people perceive as an average looking woman is the media average: someone so far from the average of the population that they can get paid just for being pretty. And the remaining 99% of the population is comparatively revolting.
On faces, the same thing can't happen in the same way -- even though we're bombarded by images of pretty faces in the same way as we are by pretty bodies, people see a lot more of ordinary women's faces in day to day life than they do of ordinary women's bodies.
Jessica Biel may have a nice ass, but her face is really weird. I'm thinking that her nose job and her botox were not well coordinated.
This was an invitation to rag on people's faces, wasn't it?
What does the title of this post refer to?
19: Yeah, I missed that you meant to exclude her body completely and talk about her face only. I'd still say she was pretty, but she's individual enough looking (strong features, big nose) that I could see her reasonably not being to someone's esthetic taste.
2 is, in addition to being bollocks, home to an unhappy use of the word "implicates".
I don't see why you're confining the explanation to discussion here. Is it not the case that, at large, discussion of attractiveness tends to focus on those cruder, more (as an insightful predecessor of mine pointed out) quantifiable attributes? Even describing what one likes in a face can be difficult, especially if there's more than one face-type one finds attractive. The susceptibility of non-facial attributes to quantification and fairly articulable description makes them things about which one can dispute. (Many in many places seem to think that there's only one face-type to which a given person is attracted; I find that suggestion risible.) "We" don't, in general, couch our discussions of who's attractive in those terms, even if they are those in which we judge attractiveness; why should it be a surprise that we don't do so here, either?
This is upsetting because it moves the norm -- what people perceive as an average looking woman is the media average: someone so far from the average of the population that they can get paid just for being pretty. And the remaining 99% of the population is comparatively revolting.
I'm not sure this is broadly true. I mean, certainly there are some people out there with that viewpoint, but if the rest of the world is at all like me (I know, I know), the "average looking woman" is the average in my workplace, not on television.
(Yeah, to 12)
The face thing is why the 'hotness' threads aren't particularly interest. Since the striking thing about media figures (for me at least) is that what I find attractive is generally their face and I have no particular axe to grind either way vis a vis particular body types.
A female friend once turned to me when I had said "I don't think I have a type"* and pointed out that everyone she'd ever met who'd dated me had striking/wierd coloured eyes and full lips ... and, come to think of it, the same thing largely applies to (for example) the actresses or singers I think are hot.
* in response to her admission that she had a very specific type of guy she found attractive
LB and I will forever disagree about this:
what people perceive as an average looking woman is the media average: someone so far from the average of the population that they can get paid just for being pretty. And the remaining 99% of the population is comparatively revolting.
I know we've been over this many times before, but you're just wrong that guys think of real women in comparison to media-image women, and find real women lacking in comparison. They're two different sets, judged by two different sets of criteria.
What does the title of this post refer to?
There's also, to use the terms of a dissertation I just proofread, the distinction between the ontic process and the … I think the other one was the selection process. That is: the pool of people whose faces are eligible for judgment in the first place (selection) might be limited to those who meet the general tits and ass criteria (ontic). The discussion might be about two different things in the different cases.
22: No, I thought that was funny, esp. the anagrams.
I don't think I'm convinced by the argument that faces are harder to talk about--they're harder to talk about in the same terms in which we talk about bodies, but we talk about faces--sweet, severe, mischievous and on and on--all the time.
Faces can be quantified; just we normally do it intuitively.
29: You may be more perceptive than most. But in the topless photoessay thread, asilon linked a site with pictures of women's breasts not selected for esthetic purposes. I got the impression that a lot of the people commenting on the photoessay thread thought the women pictured faithfully represented the population, rather than having largely been selected as unusually pretty -- that the photoessay looked 'average'. A comparison to asilon's link, or to the locker-room in my gym, made it clear that the photoessay wasn't all that close to showing generally average looking women.
(I am not saying that there's anything generically wrong about taking pictures of or looking at pictures of pretty topless women. But I do think that doing so confuses you about what most women actually do look like topless.)
35: But those words are all describing *expressions*, not *faces*.
Yeah, there's no facial equivalent of 34C.
23: media images of naked or revealingly clad women outnumber the real women most people see.
What is this based on? Are we supposed to be assuming that most people spend their days closeted and being bombarded with "media images" rather than walking around the street seeing actual people?
31: I know we've been over this many times before, but you're just wrong that guys think of real women in comparison to media-image women, and find real women lacking in comparison.
Every woman I know has gotten crap for failure to measure up to the media image. You're just wrong about what guys do.
Ogged's right in #31. But his post is just wrong. People talk about the attractiveness of faces all of the time. People talk about the attractiveness of faces in crude terms even. Recall discussions about the widths of the various Clinton partners' mouths. Didn't someone on this site just make a similar comment about mouths?
Every woman I know has gotten crap for failure to measure up to the media image. You're just wrong about what guys do.
Gawd, I love that claim.
40: No, but the women you see on the street aren't naked, and mostly aren't dressed in the sort of revealing clothes common in advertisements. Most men can count the number of naked breasts they've seen in person attached to someone they knew in real life fairly easily -- the number of naked breasts they've seen images of belonging to someone who was being paid to be photographed is much higher.
43: It's not any more sweeping than the claim it's answering, now, is it?
Every woman I know has gotten crap for failure to measure up to the media image. You're just wrong about what guys do.
I'm quite certain I've never given any woman crap for not looking like a magazine model, and I'm willing to wager that very few, if any, of the guys here ever have either.
35: Actually, I think those words can describe face types too, but I don't think they can *define* face types in the same way we can define body types. You can be talking about a sweet face, and we can have in mind two completely different faces that both happen to be sweet-looking.
43: It's not any more sweeping than the claim it's answering, now, is it?
My confidence was based in part on the previous thread in whcih we discussed this, where, as I recall, pretty much all the guys agreed with me.
46: I'm not sure of what this is relevant to. Sure, all you guys are princes among men.
Faces don't make such a good topic for argument discussion, I'd say, because we're much more accustomed to taste in faces being so subjective.
Why the hell did Ogged start this merry-go-round again?
What's absurd about what LB says in 42 is that the women of Unfogged have been very clear that men have no right to tell them what should or shouldn't bother them (and rightly so). But the women always feel free to tell men what men think.
Note that O refers to how men think about beauty, and that LB responds with what men do (as experienced by women). There's actually no contradiction here, but boy does it raise the hackles.
re: 37
These things are all relative to a population group, though, right? Because relative to most of the people I meet on a day to day basis those people weren't unusually pretty at all.
and re: 41
Really? Seriously? All women get shit from their male partners or friends and acquaintances for failing to live up to unrealistic media standards? And we guys aren't aware that we do this? [Don't mean to sound too sarcastic, but wtf ...]
Is 41 meant in the same sense that "every woman I know has been catcalled"?
I'm quite certain I've never given any woman crap for not looking like a magazine model, and I'm willing to wager that very few, if any, of the guys here ever have either.
I don't think the phenomenon LB's talking about need be anything so explicit as that, apo.
I'm in the frathouse with Ogged et al. I'm not even sure what that kind of form that criticism would take. What is that guys do? Literally, "Why isn't your ass wonderful/flat like Biel/Wacholder's" ?
41: Every woman you know should stop hanging out/getting involved with shallow jerks.
On a non-argumentative point, recall how hard-wired we are about faces. I think it's really hard for us to talk about faces, because we're comprehending them on such a deeply sub-conscious level.
This is utterly unrelated to any "objective beauty" claims, BTW. It's just that, when people are forced to discuss their own subconscious feelings/responses, our backwards-rationalizing kicks in, and we're basically just bullshitting.
All women get shit from their male partners or friends and acquaintances for failing to live up to unrealistic media standards? And we guys aren't aware that we do this?
'All women get' is not the same statement as 'all men give'. My 49, above, was dismissive but not meant to be incredulous -- I'm sure most men who comment here wouldn't get hostile at a partner about her esthetic flaws. That doesn't mean that there aren't enough men out there who do that the vast majority of women have experienced that category of hostility.
I don't think the phenomenon LB's talking about need be anything so explicit as that, apo.
But it must be something fairly specific and non-subtle to be common to every woman in LB's set. I know that every woman I know has been told to smile by some creepy psychopath, for example.
43: It's not any more sweeping than the claim it's answering, now, is it?
Except that ogged's a guy, and might be better situated to know what guys do than you are. You may recall that you (or Becks, I can't remember) said, on the prior, related thread, something like, "This bothers women; maybe it shouldn't, but it does." That seemed pretty convincing to me, in part because you're a woman.
re: 58
OK, I can buy the weaker claim. *I've* had shit from some female partners of exactly the same type.
On faces, on the other hand, you get pretty much what you get -- the fact that you aren't perfectly beautiful can't easily be presented as your fault.
OTOH.
I have gotten shit from men for not living up to unrealistic media standards. These are men who are not still in my life in any capacity.
I have interpreted comments or glances or whatever as conveying dismay or disgust at my not living up to media standards. That has more to do with the insecurities I've learned as a woman in this society than with the pretty much innocent comments and glances I responded to.
19: Sarah Jessica Parker's face is one of the rare quantifiable ones. It's l-o-o-o-ng.
And just to add that I, personally, see lots of nearly naked bodies every day at the pool, and most of them don't look very Hollywood, but still look very good to me, and it's definitely not because I'm a prince among men (or that I haven't had sex in fifty years).
59: The commonest category is fat comments directed at women who aren't. You've met me -- I'm a little heavier than ideal now, but nothing extravagant. Back in college and thirty pounds lighter, I got reasonably frequent, repeated comments about 'storing up fat in my thighs for the winter'. That sort of thing makes sense as teasing only in the context of the media norm of beauty -- compared to any reasonable population norm, I should have been getting shit for being gawkily underfed rather than the reverse.
I'm not sure of what this is relevant to.
That a pretty diverse group of men comment here, and that the behavior you describe as "what guys do" is unrecognizable to most and maybe all of us. That doesn't speak to our moral uprightness or degeneracy, just that if every woman you know has experienced this, there must be a small but very, very busy group of men roaming the countryside, doling out criticisms based on Hollywood standards of beauty.
ttaM, so what about Angelina Jolie? Hott ot nott?
there must be a small but very, very busy group of men
I doubt it's a small group, but you're certainly right that it is by no means universal.
66: in college
Which is to say that all twenty year old guys did this fifteen years ago?
I too have been criticized for the imperfections of my body, including at a time when it was pretty much guaranteed to be as good as it would ever be: when I was 19/20, had a BMI of about 19, and worked out regularly. The example I remember best was wistful and sort of disguised as a compliment -- gee, it's a pity your [body part X] isn't so perfect, unlike your [body part Y]; if we took your Y and so-and-so's X, now that would be really hot!
That a pretty diverse group of men comment here, and that the behavior you describe as "what guys do" is unrecognizable to most and maybe all of us.
I'd argue about the diversity in this respect. We've got a bunch of highly articulate and over-educated liberal men who are comfortable hanging around with self-described feminists. That's not any kind of cross-section of the population.
I think Apo's 67 is overstating it, and LB's 58 is right on.
It's also true that men (people) who don't make a habit of those kinds of remarks might still make them occasionally to a woman (person) he is dating, and the sting of it might make her remember vividly, while for him it was a passing remark that is more or less forgotten.
This question of faces is really interesting. I find that I often notice chins and lips, and yet frequently have no idea what color my co-workers' eyes are.
re: 68
Very.
re: 70
Yeah. There's a lot of shitty boorish behaviour that's common in young people of both sexes that doesn't really constitute much of a basis for generalising about male or female behaviour.
I want to disagree with the post on entirely different grounds. I don't think faces correspond all that well to personalities, except on two weakish grounds
1. being good-looking or being ugly will influence how people treat you all your life and so how your personality develops
2. the lines on your face from frowning and/or smiling may show how much you do of either.
But big noses or square jaws or stubby eyelashes don't tell us a thing about someone's personality.
'storing up fat in my thighs for the winter'
Are your thighs big relative to the rest of you? I knew a woman who was like this: average build, with powerful thighs, and I know I remarked on them once or twice, but that wasn't because of media influence but because I wanted to fuck her, which she understood. Woot!
57: Sorry, hadn't read 18.
19, 27: Oh, and for some reason, that (non)exchange was bugging me just yesterday. Because, seriously, SJP has looks that are promoted by the media, but actually don't do much for a lot of guys (also, it seems to me that she either aged poorly, had bad surgery, or lost too much weight - I think the last - because she was cuter when she was in her 20s and had some roundness to her features. She's all pointy now). Despite 41, I think that women have a lot of trouble - even in analysis, not just in internalization - distinguishing between media images and IRL guy preferences. I understand why, but it makes it very unproductive to discussions like this, where men discuss their opinions, and women discuss media image, while holding men responsible for it.
And hey, this is a face discussion. If someone makes fun of LB for storing nuts in her cheeks, that's a relevant anecdote. But fat thighs are to be raised elsewhere.
59: I know that every woman I know has been told to smile by some creepy psychopath, for example.
Objection.
You made sure of that, didn't you?
I don't know why LizardBreath is getting so much flak here. 72 lays it out precisely. Sure, I have never in my entire life heard a man over the age of 15 catcall a woman, and neither have many people I know, but apparently women claim it happens to them, so I should probably believe them. Same thing with the being judged for not living up to the media imagery.
Also, it makes perfect sense that my notion of what women should look like naked is shaped by having seen a lot more images of naked women who are paid to be photographed that way than I have real naked women. Why is that even a controversial idea?
But big noses or square jaws or stubby eyelashes don't tell us a thing about someone's personality.
No, but the face as a whole does.
It is not exclusive to young men. In the past eight months, I have heard it from two men over 35. In both cases it took "such a lovely face, pity about your body" form. I was very slightly (five pounds) overweight by my BMI.
73: It's also true that men (people) who don't make a habit of those kinds of remarks might still make them occasionally to a woman (person) he is dating, and the sting of it might make her remember vividly, while for him it was a passing remark that is more or less forgotten.
This is part of it, too, I think. Offhanded cracks about this sort of thing add up when you're on the receiving end -- much less so when you're handing them out.
76: Nope. Even heavier, I'm not pear-shaped at all.
Still, he probably just wanted to sleep with you.
but apparently women claim it happens to them, so I should probably believe them. Same thing with the being judged for not living up to the media imagery.
That's not actually the claim LB made, though.
80:
To me someone's personality can be seen through, say, how their face moves when they speak or listen, but is not particularly evident in that face when not being used expressively, say if it were in repose or deliberately being held still as for passport photo (non-smiley version).
It must be a Mexican thing.
Also, I want to throw in with the inadequate-vocabulary crowd. I think that there used to be a vocabulary (aquiline nose - does anyone every use that anymore?), but it was geared towards normalizing WASPs - lots of pleasant terms for features typical of Greek statues and northern Euros, but vaguely or outright negative terms for others. "Oh, he has such a dusky complection! And what a fleshy nose!"
I'm really fucking wordy, but I can't even begin to describe, in non-loaded terms, what I find attractive about certain facial types, or unattractive about others ("kind of melted-looking" - maybe you know what I mean, but either way, it's not exactly charming).
The quantitiative "A Perfect Face" Golden Ratio algorithm referenced above, isn't exactly fuel for casual conversation, especially since it doesn't say anything about other face factors such as color, shape of nose and eyes, or expressiveness.
A dramatic bust, a waist significantly smaller than hips, and general non-fatness are easy to express.
77: The thing is that the media image problem (of women being abused for not matching the media norm) isn't all that tightly linked to what men actually prefer sexually. AWB has commented on this -- that she gets men who hit on her, then put her down for being unattractive, and then keep hitting on her. And I'm sure there are plenty of normal men who would find me at my current weight as or more attractive than most models -- they tend to be underweight to the point of looking peculiar. Men's actual sexual preferences are probably much less fucked up than the media image thing would suggest, but that doesn't make the hostility directed at women over it go away.
That's not any kind of cross-section of the population.
Okay, fair point.
81: Were these men related to you? Because I could see somebody's sibling saying that maybe, but-- GOOD GOD WHERE DO YOU WOMEN MEET THESE MEN? The anecdotes here are so totally at odds with anything I witness ever (outside of, say, thesuperficial.com comment threads) that I'm wondering whether I live in the same dimension.
Man. Ogged, that woman in 76 could've been me, and even with the best of possible intentions, those sorts of comments linger in the mind long after the sexy moment is gone.
It's not a bad thing to compliment women, but the morcellated comments women collect over the years--everything from skin texture to ankle shape, thigh contours to earlobes--result in this really odd self-consciousness about every body part. "Perhaps he likes me, perhaps he likes my body, but is he secretly repelled by the solidity of my knees?"
I don't have any easy solution to this.
I have plenty of unflattering descriptors on hand for qualities of my own face. This just goes to show how much too much time I spend in contemplation of myself, rather than more interesting and valuable topics, alas.
re: 82
It's difficult to know what to say about that sort of thing though. I've been on the receiving any of that kind of crack, a fair bit. It's the sort of thing that everybody* male or female does a little. To some degree or other.
* leaving aside the explicit or implicit reference to unrealistic media body images which I'd still assert I've never done
86: I used to keep a straight face for passport/ID pics (smiling seemed weird), and I always looked like a hoodlum. Otherwise, I think people tend to use the phrase "goofy-looking." Which, I like to think, refers mostly to how my face shows my (undeniably) goofy personality.
secretly repelled by the solidity of my knees?
I am cracking up, because I have gotten negative comments on precisely this -- insufficiently delicate knees.
gee, it's a pity your [body part X] isn't so perfect, unlike your [body part Y]; if we took your Y and so-and-so's X, now that would be really hot!
Probably this kind of remark will become less common once the consumer-grade taser becomes widely available.
90: They were both men I was sleeping with or had slept with.
FWIW, I've known two women well or fairly well who were model-perfect, and they didn't realize it, and it didn't do them any good in their love lives. (There was a third woman who apparently just didn't care at all and things went well for her.)
98: Which is to say, I was not related to them.
GOOD GOD WHERE DO YOU WOMEN MEET THESE MEN
All over the place.
37 doesn't make any sense to me, either as a claim about what people said or implied in the Titty Thread or as a claim about what supposedly "confuses" someone if they look at pictures of naked or partially naked bodies. I think it was DEx who quantified (pretty convincingly) that about 40% of the women involved did not in fact adhere to "model" norms.
Re: 44: For most men to have encountered the majority of naked or scantily-clad imagery in their lives via "the media," most men would have to have successfully avoided everything from rock concerts to public parks in summertime, swimming pools, beaches etc. for most of their lives. That may be true of some men but I don't see any reason to suppose that it describes the general experience of men and "media images."
Yes, there are of course whole communities of assholes out there who (at least claim to) buy entirely into fashion-industry beauty standards, and evaluate women according to them. (I can totally see this being especially bad, though not universal, in law school or the legal profession. But maybe that's just an unflattering stereotype of lawyers talking.) Whether this "moves the norm" in some larger sense is highly questionable. I think more typically it creates sub-communities of people whose superficiality turns others off, and it's more normal in my experience for people who encounter fashion models in real life to be taken aback at how alarmingly thin they are, not to be swept away because they've "moved the norm."
The anecdotes here are so totally at odds with anything I witness ever (outside of, say, thesuperficial.com comment threads) that I'm wondering whether I live in the same dimension.
I'm thinking you haven't slept with enough guys.
Everything I've heard says that women get at least as much shit about their appearance from other women as from men. From men it comes in different forms, for example, tacitly scratching someone off the to-do list.
I used to meet these men a lot more before I'd perfected my "get the FUCK away from me before I hurt you" look.
102: What level of acquaintance do you have with most of these people?
Also, I want to throw in with the inadequate-vocabulary crowd. I think that there used to be a vocabulary (aquiline nose - does anyone every use that anymore?), but it was geared towards normalizing WASPs - lots of pleasant terms for features typical of Greek statues and northern Euros, but vaguely or outright negative terms for others. "Oh, he has such a dusky complection! And what a fleshy nose!"
To drift away from the argument, can any of our 18th or 19th century scholars explain 'regular features' to me, preferably with links to pictures? Does it just mean symmetrical? Everyone attractive in a Victorian novel has regular features, and I don't know what it means in any sense more specific than 'attractive'.
Maybe this is optimistic, but are the women who meet these awful guys concentrated in NY?
For most men to have encountered the majority of naked or scantily-clad imagery in their lives via "the media," most men would have to have successfully avoided everything from rock concerts to public parks in summertime, swimming pools, beaches etc. for most of their lives.
All right then, how about if we replace "naked or scantily-clad" with "naked". Also, I don't spend as much time in public parks in summertime, swimming pools, or beaches as I do looking at screens with images on them, partially because of lack of opportunity.
I think it was DEx who quantified (pretty convincingly) that about 40% of the women involved did not in fact adhere to "model" norms.
The point is that if you think that 60% of the women you walk past on the street adhere to 'model' norms, you're still smoking crack.
re: 108
I suspect that given the prevalence of serious disease and malnutrition that it just meant 'not all kind of fucked up looking'. Which was a damn sight more common then than it is now.
I had to work on a set of Julia Margaret Cameron images for work and it's striking how wierd looking Victorians often were.
explain 'regular features' to me
I've been told that in Canada, it means with cream and sugar.
I think "regular features" means "facially unobjectionable," and it's somewhere between the aristocratic noses and the "coarse features" of the proles.
It's not a bad thing to compliment women, but the morcellated comments women collect over the years--everything from skin texture to ankle shape, thigh contours to earlobes--result in this really odd self-consciousness about every body part. "Perhaps he likes me, perhaps he likes my body, but is he secretly repelled by the solidity of my knees?"
What I'm taking from this is that my son should be instructed from the gitgo what I realize I've learned over the years: NEVER attempt to compliment anything specific about a woman. "Impressionism" is fine, if done well.
107: JM is right; time and life experience can help one to begin to recognize these tendencies earlier. And LB is right; they're everywhere. (Not everyone, and I agree with ttaM that such comments can easily be directed from women to men.)
For most men to have encountered the majority of naked or scantily-clad imagery in their lives via "the media," most men would have to have successfully avoided everything from rock concerts to public parks in summertime, swimming pools, beaches etc. for most of their lives. That may be true of some men but I don't see any reason to suppose that it describes the general experience of men and "media images."
You go to the beach maybe ten days in a summer? And on each of those days you probably also see scantily dressed women on TV, in billboards, and in print advertisements. The other 355 days a year it's all the media.
Of course:
http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/uploads/EL2003_62.JPG
Is pretty damned regular looking even by modern standards.
109.---ogged, it's true that I didn't get as much of this crap in the Bay Area. Some (the guy who so admired my quadrecep definition to make me swear off miniskirts for years did so on College Ave.), but not as much as in Southern California, which in turn wasn't as bad as NYC, which in turn isn't as bad as Italy, which in turn wasn't NEARLY as bad as Paris.
Hmmm. I guess the thread has sort of outpaced most of that last comment. Oh well.
As for the question Ned poses in 79, I'd say I personally find a lot of discussions about body aesthetics frustrating because we lack a good model of the real effects of various media images, and so participants will often default to talking about the media as essentially programming a passive populace (which is false, or at least oversimplistic) or talking how the media doesn't tell them what to think, nossiree (which almost certainly is just as false). I think the games of status and social dominance into which media images feed are complicated and maddeningly difficult to articulate.
One of Cameron's photographic subjects (Ellen Terry). It's from 1864.
I googled and couldn't find any of the images I had in mind by her -- of 19th century bigwigs and famous people with (by modern standards) sort of funny looking features.
It's also striking that although that picture is over 100 years old, it could have been taken any time and is incredibly hard to place.
115.---Wait, IDP, I'm not sure how absolutely I mean that. I remember some compliments fondly, I think.
She is very pretty.
No masturbating, LB, she's long dead.
110, etc.: I will say this: when I finally started dating around, I was shocked that women's breasts were already pretty droopy. Up until that time, I'd only been with a girl with B cups, and they were wonderfully firm and just-heavier than perky. For context, I'm talking about 20 yr olds with C cups. Also, this was 15 years ago, before media images were so implant-infected. I guess I had just assumed that droopiness happened either after nursing or after the early 20s.
But I am quite certain that I never said, "WOW, are those droopy! Especially compared to the media images that have affected my perceptions!"
Of course all women get crap about whether or not they live up to the media ideal. All the time.
Example: remember this?
125: So are body/face compliments akin to "are you pregnant?" Only make them if you are absolutely, positively certain that they will be well-taken?
89: I think there are a few things going on here.
One is that the media image governs what's considered the ideal trophy/status symbol girlfriend. There are some men who care strongly about that but nevertheless are actually attracted to a wider range of women. (Stipulated that no-one here is one of these men.) They feel resentment towards women like AWB for being highly attractive to them but not being ideal trophy material, so that if they were to be with her they would have to somehow excuse it in the eyes of whoever. They will often express this conflict with hostile remarks. They'll be even more hostile if the woman in question has no interest in them (how dare she!).
Secondly you get guys who interact with their friends with constant insults/teasing ("slagging", over here). Sometimes they will direct this at a woman they fancy in an attempt to get closer to her. What ogged describes himself as doing in 76 (and other stuff he's mentioned before) might be more like this. Depending on how well she knows the guy and how clumsily it's done she may recognise the motivation and take it the "right" way. If not it's just more of the hostile shit to her, again bewildering because she thought he was interested.
[The cheerfully promiscuous guys who sleep with lots and lots of women, as described in the past by LB, never do this stuff. They always convey without being heavy-handed that they really like women, that they find many things about this particular woman attractive, that they would really love to have some fun with her, and if she's not interested they take it gracefully and continue to signal appreciation anyway.]
Probably all pwned by now, it's taken so long to write this.
It's true that I didn't get as much of this crap in the Bay Area.
Well, duh. What would Anne Coulter say about this?
I had just assumed that droopiness happened either after nursing or after the early 20s.
What's hilarious in one of the sad ironic hilarious ways is that I can almost guarantee that the possessors of those droopy boobs had assumed exactly the same thing you did.
Compliments really aren't the problem -- it's the comments about the other things about you that just don't measure up that stick.
115: I'm serious, and it's not just what you've said here, although it synthesizes a year's worth of reactions from this community. It honestly doesn't seem worth it, given how profoundly vulnerable everyone appears to be to any statement at all about the body.
But I am quite certain that I never said, "WOW, are those droopy! Especially compared to the media images that have affected my perceptions!"
That's the thing: I'm no longer sure what claim is being made. Initially it seemed to be that all (or most) men do say things like, "Those breasts are droopy, especially compared to Media Figure X's breasts." Now it seems that the claim is that all (or most) women at some point encounter men who say things like, "You have big thighs," and women understand that criticism to have been made against a backdrop of modeled looks as appropriate looks. I don't believe the first at all; I have a hard time believing anyone would object to the second claim.
129.---No. That's why I didn't want to endorse any absolutist rule.
a bunch of highly articulate and over-educated liberal men who are comfortable hanging around with self-described feminists
I suppose this also describes 99% of the people I talk to on a day-to-day basis (swapping out "men" for "people"), so my perceptions could well be far from the norm. I still find it amazing.
how profoundly vulnerable everyone appears to be to any statement at all about the body
This really does seem like an American thing though. Aren't other cultures much more brutal with teasing?
Ditto 133. I love a genuine, non-backhanded compliment, and would be sad if I never got any.
128: Well, yeah. And of course Ogged was kidding, and I'm sure there are no hard feelings, and no one's trying to lynch anyone here. But a comment like the one he made makes sense as teasing because, while it's out there, it's a normal kind of out there -- it's the kind of fucked up thing that people do say fairly frequently.
134: If that's the message you've taken away, we're communicating very poorly.
And I totally took it as light-hearted teasing, and ran with it. (As you'll see in your inbox tomorrow.)
But, yeah, like you said: it's teasing because it's a play on the type of thing people do say all the time.
138: Brutal about giving it doesn't necessarily imply any more ability to take it. And also there's a large dynamic where people assume that negative (racist/sexist/whatever) aspects of American culture are worse than in other cultures in the face of evidence to the contrary.
it's the kind of fucked up thing that people do say fairly frequently
Really and truly? I am, of course, totally willing to believe whatever you tell me has happened to you or people you know, but are we talking about unambiguously critical comments like "your ass is too big" or harder to interpret statements like "those are some strong-looking thighs"?
130: You don't even need a theory that complicated. You know, for one reason or another, that certain types of comments are more or less likely to set someone off, you're angry with her, and so you pick up the bat and start swinging.
117: You go to the beach maybe ten days in a summer?
Strictly speaking, almost never, since Calgary has no beaches. But between public parks, nightclubs, pools, gyms (back when I had it together to get to the gym) et cetera I'd say that when I really think about it -- and I'm not used to thinking about it this way -- on the whole I probably see real live female bodies in various states of "undress" semi-daily. (In winter more like thrice-weekly, maybe.) I'm not unusually active and certainly a hell of a long way from being any kind of sporty.
In periods where I watch more TV, could be the media wins. Whether it does so just with street advertising, magazine covers and billboards I'm not sure. For some reason, I am specifically conscious of being bombarded with sexual imagery from the magazine rack pretty much any time I walk into a convenience store, and I have to admit I'm alarmed by the number of people I know who seem to get most or all their daily reading from such magazines.
2. Because faces implicate personalities, judging them publically is too cruel.
"publically"?
I took 'storing fat in your thighs for the winter' as unambiguously critical; I don't know if you'd say it qualifies.
23, 29, 31: I think what LB, Apo, and Ogged are crossing wires on here is the difference between what straight women see and what straight men see.
Let's take the guys at their word: they check out women around them, real women, as much or more than they do billboards. But the thing is, we--the straight chicks--don't, at least not the same way the guys do. Most women, in day-to-day life, aren't presenting themselves as sex objects, so most straight women don't really have any reason to assess our fellow chicas as sex objects the way you guys do.
But women in ads and on tv *do* present themselves (or get presented) as sex objects, so when we see them, we think "sex." So, for us, that becomes *the* image and the standard. We end up using it to assess "real" women (and ourselves), which surely drives the objectification thing just as much as what real men think.
Basically this is just a version of the argument that "the male gaze" isn't about actual men, but about the way that certain images position viewers, including women. I wonder, though, if the male gaze might not actually be far more about positioning viewers who *aren't* inclined to sexualize women to do that, and if therefore the hypersexualization of your average media image doesn't demonstrate that, in a weird way, it's actually women (and maybe distracted or gay men) whose failure to automatically think "woman = sex" means they have to ramp it up to get us to notice.
These kinds of conversations probably shouldn't be used to generate hard and fast rules. I'm a bit freakishly self-conscious about my body (for a lot of reasons), but I really don't walk around in perpetual agony over the thing someone said to be 10 years ago. If I'm commenting in a thread in which someone postulates that body-specific compliments are always wonderful, I might remember an incident that made me feel a little weird for a while, some ten years ago, as evidence.
Almost no one says "Your ass is too big" to someone's face.
Everyone says it to a third party. So as the third party, you know very well what sized ass is consider not okay.
My dad says it to my mom and me about random women all the time: "She's nice, but she's a blob." Or a cow. Or whatever - not fully achieving womanhood.
"publically"?
Shit, I do this all the fucking time, but at least it's not an unknown spelling.
get most or all their daily reading from such magazines
I'll admit that every time I see somebody pick up People Magazine, I want to punch them in the brain.
148 to 144: And further, you're right that ambiguous comments do end up being misinterpreted -- I'm not claiming there's no such thing as oversensitivity, this stuff makes women terribly oversensitive. A friend got terribly pissed off with her boyfriend for commenting on her "thunder thighs", and was eventually convinced that he did mean it in a sincerely complimentary fashion.
'storing fat in your thighs for the winter'
Sure, but I'm wondering if the comments you hear are more like that or more ambiguous. And if you can't come up with another one, you're banned.
152: Me too. I commented once to a paralegal that I could never spell publicly, and he asked why I didn't just go in my office and shut the door. Funny guy. Terrible paralegal.
I like B's 149 a lot. Now I have to go kill myself swim.
155: I hate to bring this up again (I'm really sorry Tim, but it stuck in my head. I know you wouldn't say anything like that now, it was a long time ago, and anyway it's a perfectly normal kind of joke to have made. I'm only bringing it up because it is a perfectly normal kind of joke to have made. Not commenting on you particularly, but on society) but remember SCMT's telling a story about having shot himself down when flirting with an attractive woman by trying to snitch her dessert on the stated grounds that with thighs like hers, she shouldn't be eating it?
141: Then you'd better think up some examples to illustrate the difference. It would be a specifically directed compliment that would be acceptable in most cases. Even better would be something awkward, or coming from someone not particularly to be encouraged—this is all hypothetical, remember, although remembered instances would be useful—, that was nonetheless ok.
Remember, I'm talking about specific-feature compliments; I know general ones are fine.
Ok, caught up now.
What we're talking about isn't necessarily comments like "your ass is too big"--few people would say that, because it's just flat-out rude. But people who wouldn't say that *do* say "her ass is too big." Maybe I date assholes, but I'm pretty sure that every single man I've ever dated or been friends with has, at some point, put down another woman's looks, often by way of trying to compliment me. But since the very point of doing that is to institute a comparison, the comparison takes root.
It's kind of like a parent who says "I love *you*; those other kids are too noisy/dumb/ugly/bratty/whatever." The implication is pretty clearly that I love you *because* you're not that--and if you become that, I won't.
I'm not sure that I agree that the face is more important than the body wrt attractiveness. In some ways it is, but in one important way, it's really not--more people have attractive faces than attractive bodies. People don't have fuckability standards for faces that are as strict as those for bodies. When I see a face that strikes me as unattractive, I regard it as an unusual event. Not so much for bodies.
I'll admit that every time I see somebody pick up People Magazine, I want to punch them in the brain.
How would you find it?
155: Isn't saying "oh, but they didn't mean what you think they meant" not too far off from white people saying that "articulate is a compliment"?
Just sayin'.
I read LB as saying that it's exactly like the catcall thing or the smile thing. Every woman has had someone criticize her for being fat, or having a body type different from the media norms; not every single man has done this to every woman he knows. Many of the women so criticized are slender.
The inference that perceptions of these catcallers must be influenced by the airbrushed celebs in their copies of Maxim arises when the criticisms only make sense if you're holding someone up to an ideal. (e.g., dancing, muscular Jackmormon being wrong for miniskirts.) Maybe not every man is influenced by the media; but there seems to be an awful lot of them running around for it to be just some local contagion or independent phenomenon. And no, it's not "gee, your ass isn't as perky as Britney's", just "wow, fat ass", which only makes sense as a judgment if the standard is a perky airbrushed celeb.
Anyhow, I think it's mostly that faces are something we see a lot more of, so we have a better sense of how they vary.
165: Or gentiles saying the word "Israel lobby" don't necessarily indicate anti-Semitism?
When I see a face that strikes me as unattractive, I regard it as an unusual event
Robots are notoriously poor judges of attractiveness.
Comments I have personally received from men I have personally dated, loved, and/or married:
1. Do you really like that color of lipstick?
2. At first I was put off by your belly, but I got over it.
3. You're not fat; a little out of shape is all. (Note double whammy: fat is bad. Out of shape is bad.)
4. Your legs aren't your best feature.
5. You're a little knock-kneed, aren't you?
6. You look great; you look like [some movie actress or model].
7. You're even prettier than [movie actress or model].
8. I have to admit, if I met you at a party or something, I probably wouldn't have noticed you. I mean, you don't look like a model or anything.
None of these are really soul-destroying, and most of the ones that came from men I'm still dating/in love with/married to have become running jokes. But I think it's pretty clear that a few of them directly compare me to models/actresses, and the ones that don't certainly seem to be implying comparisons to some kind of standard or other. (What's wrong with my legs? They work fine.) Women surely say similar things to men, but as gets said all the time, given that men's looks aren't considered their primary asset, it's probably less of a deal.
161: Okay, here's a funny story about being very weirdly hit on in a fashion that involved a very specific compliment from someone I was entirely uninterested in that did not in any way hurt my feelings. (I was moderately offended by the interaction as a whole -- it was one of those "how dumb do you think I am?" moments -- but the compliment was unobjectionable.)
I'd just moved into my dorm at the U of C. The guy in the room next door was in some sort of engineering field -- something with math classes -- and a couple of days into the term came into my room saying that he had this great idea for a prank for one of his classes, and could I help out? As a similarly nerdy person, I was obviously aware that Fourier analysis would allow one to develop an equation that would graph as any surface you cared to specify -- if you knew the points you wanted to graph, you could fit an equation to them.
What he wanted to do was to turn in an equation that, when entered into graphing software, would draw a surface in the shape of an absolutely perfect breast. My role in this, as (he had happened to notice, in the course of passing me in the halls) the possessor of such absolutely perfect breasts, was to take my shirt off so that he could take the precise measurements necessary to develop the equation.
I cracked up and told him to get lost, but the compliment in no way made me feel bad about myself.
169 -- so you can see why Bill's eye would have strayed, right?
Yeah, 149 makes a lot of sense to me, too.
Every woman has had someone criticize her for being fat, or having a body type different from the media norms
And, to repeat, it does go both ways. I've heard innumerable women slag off men for being too hairy, or too fat. And the fat thing is usually couched in explicit moral terms -- he's lazy, he has a beer gut, he's a slob, etc.
Women surely say similar things to men, but as gets said all the time, given that men's looks aren't considered their primary asset, it's probably less of a deal.
That isn't a get out of jail free card.
It's not a get out of jail free card in terms of it not being a shitty thing to say. But the difference in frequency and intensity does, I think, make it a different category of problem. (In the US, anyway -- I can't speak to UK norms at all.)
Do you really like that color of lipstick?
This seems like a reasonable question. Every so often I see makeup colors that wouldn't have occurred to me in a million years to bring to market (orange-ish lipsticks, particularly, which are as strange to me as bright red contact lenses).
122: Is this the Ellen Terry who was the most famous actress of her day and had affairs with the Prince of Wales and so on? [googles] Yes, it is. LB, you have excellent taste.
172: The intragender element is the distinguishing factor here. You almost never hear (straight) men rag on each other for physical imperfection(outside of cock size). On the other hand, straight woman do it all the time, almost certainly because society teaches them that insulting a woman's physical appearence is the harshest attack one can make.
I also vote for 149.
169: seem to be implying comparisons to some kind of standard or other
Surely any aesthetic judgment implies comparison to "some kind of standard or other," right? (169.8 is rude in a more specific way, though.)
You almost never hear (straight) men rag on each other for physical imperfection
Hairiness or baldness, I've heard. I've had many conversations among friends about our respective guts, too. But indeed, far less than among women.
No, I imagine "perfect" is easy to take. So now we know.
Seriously, are we overreacting to your global anger over this? I really think not making specific compliments without being over-sure of their reception is a reasonable conclusion to take away from the statements that have been made here, unless some sort of discount for anger has to be factored in.
And I concur that 149 is really interesting and plausible.
"Perhaps he likes me, perhaps he likes my body, but is he secretly repelled by the solidity of my knees?"
Rest assured that, somewhere, someone publishes porn for lovers of solid knees.
Personally, I dont care about breasts size. I judge women by their triceps. Too big, too small, or too floppy = bad.
No, I imagine "perfect" is easy to take.
The point is that a compliment that's, you know, unambiguously complimentary isn't going to hurt anyone's feelings. There's no reason not to compliment people if you can manage to do it without an accompanying jibe.
169: How many (if any) of those comments were in response to something you said about your own appearance? I have said 169.3 more or less verbatim to my slim, athletic, beautiful wife who is, in fact, not in the greatest shape right now, in response to her worrying out loud about being fat and out of shape. I don't know how else to respond to such things without straight-up lying, which is hard on the credibility I'd like to hang onto when I'm telling her that she should not feel self-conscious about being seen in a bathing suit.
"You almost never hear (straight) men rag on each other for physical imperfection(outside of cock size). "
I always thought that was how men socialized. My friends constantly rag on each other about being fat, weak, bald, or out of shape.
178: You're right, I forgot baldness.
Guy's do insult each others guts, but it is almost never regarded as a "getting out the long knives" insult. If it is, it is almost as a proxy for physical fitness, rather than the actual appearence of the gut itself.
174: When someone's wearing it, just before you step into the car to go out?
172: Didn't say it was a get out of jail free card; just said that it's more of an issue for women than for men. Just like snarky, dubious, or mildly insulting comments about how much money you make are probably more of an issue for men than for women.
Let's get into the question of compliments -- I've been thinking along I don't pay's line for a while now. Since I've recently found myself attracted to dames of the zaftig persuasion, I've been nervous about calling attention, even with a compliment, to features that women might be self-conscious about. Maybe the answer here is that "I love your ass" is better than "I love the abundant roundness of your ass". "You have a really hot body" beats "I like you better than all those skinny girls." Although big girls probably know they're not skinny, there is a problem when you admire that someone is just healthy and curvy, and they may think they should be downright thin...I dunno. It's vexing.
Don't go changing to try and please me. I love you just the way you are.
Also, I totally know what a jack Mormon is, but until this thread I'd thought that Jackmormon was a man because, you know, the name has "Jack" in it. Sorry.
not making specific compliments without being over-sure of their reception
More relevant is being appropriately familiar with the person to be making such compliments. Compliments on physical features from random strangers or acquaintances? Kinda creepy.
182: Straight up answer--none of them. Snarky answer--no, I didn't ask for it.
Veering away toward the originally stated topic: the attractiveness of faces is, yes, quantifiable (rather: describable) to an extent. Creamy skin, perky nose, full lips, and so on.
But as has been suggested in various ways upthread, I'd venture that one of the reasons faces are less frequently discussed than bodies is that when one meets another and finds her/him attractive, that face is active, *mobile*.
There are those, for example, who are generally unphotogenic (myself), but who are found attractive in person. I've been told by a photographer that this is because I'm a highly mobile person, both bodily and in facial expressiveness. I translate this as: I make a lot of faces atcha when I'm talking to ya.
A living, breathing face-to-face encounter with someone may result in mutual attraction, but it's not terribly quantifiable. What are you going to say? "I just want to kiss her when she quirks her mouth that way"?
We've got a bunch of highly articulate and over-educated liberal men
Gee, thanks for leaving me out. [re-lurks, sulking]
"fat, weak, bald, or out of shape"
All of these go to strength and masculenity, rather than actual physical appearence.
189.2: Why the snark? Is there something inappropriate about asking the question?
191: As an ex-hippie, you're still liberal even if you're a right-wing nut these days. You fit right in.
193: Just pointing out the possible implication. No offense actually taken.
193: Your original post might have been read as asking whether the uncomplimentary statements were really the maker's fault, or whether Sen. Clinton had placed him in a position where there was nothing else he could say, a question that could snarkily have been rephrased as "Okay, but were you asking for it?"
192: Fat, weak, bald and out of shape are not related to physical appearance? That is news to me.
Now, part of my comment was an agreement with Glenn that those insults are not viewed as being vicious.
re: 192
What the fuck is masculinity then? Some kind of mysterious essence? Seriously -- masculinity is totally wrapped up in issues about the physical body and the gendering of the male body is just the fucking same as the female body.
Now it's the case that because of historical and present inequities in our societies that the ways in which women's bodies are described and perceived and the role of embodied gender norms is more pernicious than for men. But it's not some whole other species of discourse.
192: You don't think that comments about the way a woman looks goes to "femininity"?
You are all insane. IDP is right: comments about the way women look should either be general, saved for the company of men, or performed only by men who know pretty clearly what they can get away with.
Here's a specific compliment I enjoyed a lot at the time and had strange afterthoughts about.
I once took home a lovely French-Vietnamese man, and as we were lounging around naked, he pointed to the stretch marks on my hips and asked me what they were. I explained (WTF? I dunno), and he said that they were neat, that they looked like faint clouds. It was very naive, very poetic, and I got a big kick out of it.
That relationship didn't work out (mostly because of timing), and of course none of my subsequent partners has made a single comment on my stretch marks since, undoubtedly from the "if you can't say something nice..." principle. So every once in a while I look at the marks and sort of sigh.
Should the lovely young man not have paid the compliment?
That should read 'that the role of embodied gender norms'
I think the real reason is that you and gswift just aren't interested in anything less crude than T&A
Ridiculous. Muscular legs and back are also extremely hot.
For example though, Ogged and I both had the exact same take on sending that chick from the pool a certain joke. That if it put her off, no harm done as it meant she was a bad prospect. Surely sense of humor qualifies as more subtle than a pair of great tits.
I have only two things to add to this thread, since LB has been saying everything I would have said had I been here to read it:
1) The Bay Area probably has a lower incidence of this sort of thing, not because Bay Area men are intrinsically more sensitive but because they know there's a better-than-even chance that they'll end up hanging from the nearest bridge Fallujah-style if they actually say what they're thinking.
2) 97 totally cracked me up.
Heh. I came out of the pregnancy with Newt with some interesting stretch marks -- Buck described the ones on my hips as looking like a zebra print bikini. (and the ones on my belly as looking as if a bobcat had clawed me.) They faded pretty well, though -- there are advantages to being pale.
187.--Wrongshore, no worries. The ambiguity was at the outset at least intentional.
195: Fair enough. The reason I asked was just that I can't be the only guy here who frequently has to respond to body-image insecurities in the women we love and live with. I don't doubt that lots of women receive unsolicited knocks on their appearance, but I also wonder how often well-meaning responses to appearance-related questions cause unintended hurt.
206: Certainly. There are jokes about the nightmare of being asked "Do these pants make me look fat?" because it really is a very difficult situation to handle gracefully.
192 was me.
My point was that, when I hear woman pull out the savage physical insults, they attack the perfection of a body part. On the other hand, when guys attack each other, the attack is almost always on general fitness and strength, with the implication of "I could beat the shit out of you."
The gendering dynamics are related, but distinct.
re: 206
Yeah. Unfortunately, sometimes there just is no right/safe/sensitive answer to those kinds of body-insecurity related questions, too.
"Should the lovely young man not have paid the compliment? "
Absolutely not. That is the fabulous thing about women's bodies. Every single one is different in some way. They look different. They move different. They respond different. If you cannot find something hot about a woman that you are interested in, then you just are not looking.
Although I have to give the guy credit for cloud shaped stretch marks.
and as we were lounging around naked, he pointed to the stretch marks on my hips
Gah, this sounds like some kind of evil tactic to undermine someone's esteem. Sounds about as much fun as being told, "boy is it nice to bang a guy with a small dick for a change."
Yeah, an analogy. I'm in timeout now. I'll go climb.
211: Are you *still* pissed off about that, gswift? I said I was sorry.
"Just like snarky, dubious, or mildly insulting comments about how much money you make are probably more of an issue for men than for women."
I agree with HRC. Men do not insult each other about money. It is taboo.
210, 211, I swear he was naive and sincere about it!
Rereading 204 in this context, I should say that Buck's comments didn't hurt at all -- they were just funny. Maybe because the only implied comparison was to me?
Two other quick things about "regular features":
1. Points to the phrenology craze -- the "bumps" on the head extended well into what we'd call the "face". So, "regular features" also carried an implicit moral turpitude.
2. Also, Darwin's Expressions assumed a template from which certain facial movements differed.
I don't remember specific comments but the message is pervasive enough that I know I've internalized it. When I sleep with someone I feel apologetic about my body and almost embarrassed on his behalf to be dating me because of what his friends must be saying. I know because I've heard them say things behind another guy's back when one of them dates a girl who looks like me.
It's not just strangers or boyfriends who make comments. I recently found out that my father has told many people in my family that his biggest failure as a parent was letting me quit the sports team I was on in high school to be in another activity. I was never good at the sport I played and the activity I took up paid for my college education but I gained weight when I quit the team.
I've never been insulted about money, it has to be said. However, I don't know more than a handful of people who care about money at all (other than in the 'having enough to live and not be in total squalor' sense).
Also, 208 is a bit simplistic, I think. I've got male friends who make those kinds of comments to me -- about being fat, or being bald, or whatever -- or where I'd make those comments to them and where I don't think there's any kind of 'alpha male' dominance play involved. There is no implicit 'I could kick your ass'.
I'm really surprised at how much flak LB is getting. What's she's been saying is pretty much a truism. LB isn't really being huffy or indignant about it, just saying that it's there and that it's not a wonderful thing for women.
If you allow yourself to make sexual remarks about the bodies of ladies you've never met , you sort of have to admit that that's the kind of thing you do, and if women you know draw conclusions from that, why shouldn't they?
For me, pursuant my anti-human philosophy of life, this is one of the ways that Eros has a big shallow, stupid, down side. When it is good it's v. v. good, and when it is bad it is horrid. A powerful fact of life, but not always a benign one.
212: "I'm sorry you have a small dick, Swift."
In my experience, men don't get insulted about money, but about not being able to do the things people with money can do.
200-210-211 is really interesting. I propose that the compliment works because it's not comparative. "What lovely clouds you have" beats "Other women have such blandly uniform skin next to yours."
re:218
Really? In my experience that is almost always the implication when guys are looking to really wound other guys.
219.2: These kinds of discussions remind me yet again that I need to suppress the urge to make clever comments about random strangers. It's fun but it's mean.
when guys are looking to really wound other guys
Then we just make out with their ex-girlfriends in the back seat of their car.
Although also, viz 200-210-211, I think there's a risk (worth taking) that you will stumble onto a characteristic that the person feels shame about and will not have wanted attention called to. If you're being honest, then I think it's ultimately in the plus column; this is how you get to know someone, you piss them off by meaning well.
It's fun but it's mean.
Don't be mean, and don't lie. Important.
One would wish, ideally, not to have the impulse to be mean. Probably would make one's own life less stressful as well.
Being mean isn't the goal, it's just the result. Clever one-liners are fun to construct. It's just that they tend not to be very nice.
Is Jackmormon going to post pictures of her solid knees so we can mock them?
If you allow yourself to make sexual remarks about the bodies of ladies you've never met , you sort of have to admit that that's the kind of thing you do, and if women you know draw conclusions from that, why shouldn't they?
This was what ogged was responding to on the prior related thread when he said that the point is that they're drawing the wrong inferences. Surely that matters, too.
Totally off-topic, but I'm amused to discover that one of the candidates in Philadelphia's mayoral race is named Jesus White.
There was a reference in some SF short story (Johnny Mnemonic? Maybe.) to 'Christian White and his Aryan Reggae band'. Maybe the preacher's name is homage.
re: 223
Well, I assumed we were talking about teasing (or semi-nasty teasing) between friends? Rather than 'intent to wound'.
If anyone really wanted to wound me, I'm not sure what they'd do: insult my intelligence or my personality in some non-trivial way, maybe? I'd be surprised if anyone who really wanted to wound me -- as opposed to just taking the piss between friends -- would call me fat to my face because they'd be running the risk I'd actually kick their ass (in a non-metaphorical sort of a way).
I now have those shoes! And adore them.
It's nice that you're letting your balustrade age gracefully, JM. A lot of women care too much about their balustrades' appearance.
They are great shoes, aren't they. I like to wear mine with nubby wool socks in the winter.
Those are solid knees? I expected something larger.
As a professional blackberry picker and all around reacher-in-brambles guy, I am impressed with the scratched legs.
By the way, the answer to "do these pants make me look fat" should be the honest one; you don't need to spare the pants' feelings. But you can say something like, "they make your hips look a lot bigger than they are." Otherwise you'll be complicit in the wearing of unflattering pants.
Those are solid knees?
See, people don't always have rational self-assessments. On a rational level, I know I am fine--just fine!--if not on the thin side.
241: maybe so, but I really wouldnt post pictures of your toes, if I was you. I'm just saying.....
240 is SO wrong. You cannot say "they make your hips look big" or "bigger" or any of that. You *can* say, no, they don't make you look fat, but I don't like them, or they don't hang well, or they're not flattering, or they're cut too full in the hips, or whatever.
243: Yeah, but, what if they really ARE not flattering? And your interlocutor says, "in what way?"
Then you're doomed, right?
Not at all. You just have to learn how to talk about clothes. Like, if they make one's ass look fat, *how* is it they do that? You can say, "the tapered leg gives you an inverted profile," or "the cut makes the fabric gather right below the back center of the waistline" or "the drape looks funny" or "they're cut too narrowly across the back" or whatever.
231: Also, "Michael Nutter." It's got to be rough to go through childhood with the surname "Nutter."
Sounds like the women I know are made of sterner stuff than you, B.
You just go on believing that, O. How's that dating thing going again?
It's got to be rough to go through childhood with the surname "Nutter."
When I was working at Kinko's, I once took a check from somebody whose last name was Booger.
247: I was just thinking the same thing. If you say, those pants give you an inverted profile sounds like you are trying to say "they make your butt look big" without actually saying it. By trying to hide it, you make it worse.
"Yea...they make your butt look bigger than it is." is so much better.
23: The answer, obviously, is for women to go around naked. Did someone already say this? I'm late to the thread ...
One of my co-workers has been showing butt cleavage for more months than I can remember. It's such a familiar sight that I just no longer notice. So, I say the female nudity plan for normalising body shape appreciation is a good plan.
What he meant was:
Sounds like the women I know are made of skinner stuff than you, B.
On a related topic, if a woman is showing off cleavage, is it rude not to look? Are compliments inappropriate?
is it rude not to look?
Not so much rude as impossible.
Are compliments inappropriate?
Unless you know them really well, I'd think so.
Yeah, Will, when she put the blouse on that morning she was thinking "I'll be absolutely *destroyed* if Will doesn't notice and tell me how nice my tits are."
253: To be fully polite and appreciative, I think you actually have to spend entire twenty-minute conversations looking only at their cleavage.
255: My secretary just asked me why I was laughing out loud.
Also, tastefully and subtly work the word "bazooms" or "gazongas" into the conversation. Makes 'em weak in the knees, I swear.
"To be fully polite and appreciative, I think you actually have to spend entire twenty-minute conversations looking only at their cleavage."
Wow, that is awkward. I was referring to the butt cleavage mentioned above.
For a while I found it impossible not to look. One good thing about ass cleavage is that you can often get away with this kind of predatory fixation.
Anyway, I'm very visual. It's in my nature.
In my household, I have conditioned everyone to shout "CRACK IS BAD!!!!!!!!!" when you see butt crack.
So when we are out in public, we have to whisper it quietly.
259: Oh, that would be tough. I guess that means you have to sneak up behind them and keep moving whenever they try to face you. Etiquette is such a fucking minefield ever since teh feminism.
253: The etiquette isn't settled. I often see the spectacular results of the best (or at least the most aggressive) plastic surgeons being obviously paraded for the masses' appreciation at the Beverly Center mall. I'm thinking it's perhaps rude not to at least give them a thumbs-up.
246, 249: I have a colleague whose name basically consists of two synonyms for "penis". He seems to be comfortable and unselfconscious about it, but it must have been a challenge growing up.
230: That seems like arguing with people who find you annoying. "No, I'm not annoying! You're oppressing me!"
264: I'm also reminded of Uren, Johansen, Potter. "Yooouuuu-Ren."
There's also Dickerson and Peterson as last names.
Johnson! Like my good friend, Prick Schlong-Johnson.
You can say, "the tapered leg gives you an inverted profile," or "the cut makes the fabric gather right below the back center of the waistline" or "the drape looks funny" or "they're cut too narrowly across the back" or whatever.
Oh jesus. Straight guys don't know this kind of shit, we just know flattering vs. unflattering. If I were to answer in this fashion my wife would probably ask me if I'd been secretly watching Project Runway or something. She prefers the answer just as Ogged describes.
Buck once worked for a three-man company where the names of the employees were Weiner, [Woody], and Cox. (His name isn't Woody, but close enough.)
P/eter W/ang. That's an obvious one.
This is like a perverse game of Charades or something.
From reading "Summer of '42" I remember this sage advice, which has worked out well: You never tell a woman that "you look good in that dress." Because what, she needs that dress to look good? You say, "That dress looks good on you," because that dress was a useless bit of tarpaulin before she favored it with her form.
Not a joke: "Dr. Richard (Dick) Chopp is well known in the Austin community for performing vasectomies."
"that dress was a useless bit of tarpaulin before she favored it with her form."
You really have to say that with a haughty accent, don't you?
OK, so in 245 B shows us that she can translate "that dress makes your ass look fat" into harmless, tailorcentric circumlocutions. However, we are to believe that, if we use these, no woman will ever translate them back.
Also, if you tell your new acquaintance, "You're really articulate," he'll never figure out that you mean "... for a Negro."
Seriously, WTF? O had a polite way to say "Yes." B told him that was rude, and he needed a different, but no less transparent, way to say "yes."
If she asks you how her ass looks in the pants, either be happily married so that you can tell the truth in polite but non-BS terms, or pretend to faint.
At a certain university, there was a head of student affairs by the name of Virginia Koch...
How does "I love your ass. I hate those pants" work? What about, "I would much rather eat your ass than those pants"?
Tarpaulin: not haughty, Cockney.
Pfft. 240 is fine, unless she's actually trying to bait you into saying she has a massive, massive ass.
249: I thought everyone in North Carolina was named Booger.
Goober. Everyone in NC is named Goober.
No, but we do have a Booger Hollar and a Booger Mountain.
267 et seq: Shit, I should have known better than to post that and then go to lunch, but people, there's a reason I didn't spell it out. Would someone with access be willing to edit the offending comment(s) if I e-mailed them?
People who are self-conscious about their ass aren't going to stop being so based on what you do. So i just answer honestly.
He really is named Mansnake Danglemeat?
I'm sure that Mr. Schlong-Johnson wouldn't mind that much, DaveL.
Probably harmless at this point.
in 245 B shows us that she can translate "that dress makes your ass look fat" into harmless, tailorcentric circumlocutions
No. In 245 B shows you that there are ways to talk about what looks good and what doesn't that aren't about insulting women or perpetuating the idea that "fat" is unattractive, or implying that if the woman you love *were* fat, she'd be unattractive to you.
If what you mean and think is "yes, honey, your ass is fat and that's gross," then by all means say so. But if what you want is a way to talk about what does or doesn't flatter her fine tight/fat/curved/skinny/soft/firm/whatever ass, then talk about the clothes.
i doubt most people being asked "do these pants make my ass look fat" want to talk about how clothes work. It was a conversational request for assurance/accpetance/validation, not fashion advice.
One of my father's sparring partners (when he still did martial arts) was named Richard Bone. No joke.
Someone at my office is named michael nutter. Reading through this thread made me do a massive doubletake because I know he reads lefty blogs.
But if what you want is a way to talk about what does or doesn't flatter her fine tight/fat/curved/skinny/soft/firm/whatever ass, then talk about the clothes.
Uh, I'm not seeing how Ogged's 240 doesn't do exactly this. That is, "they make your hips look a lot bigger than they are.", seems to explicitly say it's the clothes that are the problem, not the person.
296: See how useful it is to get rid of authorial intent?
298: I can't believe I'm actually being dragged into a serious argument about this. Okay, "they make your hips look a lot bigger than they are" is first, ridiculous on its face: how can pants make your hips look *bigger than they are*? What, they've got a magnifying glass built into the butt? Second, the weak attempt at reassurance--no, your ass is fine, baby--still implies that if her ass *were* bigger, that would be bad.
And anyway, the issue is surely *why* do they make her ass look fat? What is it about those pants that's not working? It's far more useful to know something about how clothes fit than it is to just try stuff on randomly and make every goddamn pair of pants be a yes or no call without any rhyme or reason. It saves time in the long run, believe me.
What, they've got a magnifying glass built into the butt
It would be far easier to achieve the effect with padding.
Jeebus. Just lie. Criticize something she won't care about--a scarf--to earn credibility. How hard is this?
297: Ummm, hi Michael!
299: The badness of fat asses is already implicit in the question, as is the existence of slimming / non-slimming effects in clothes, right? If you can't talk intelligently about the subtle effects of drapes and bunches or what-have-you (and let's face it, most straight men would sound ludicrous trying to do so even if they invested the effort to learn how), gswift has a point.
Second, the weak attempt at reassurance--no, your ass is fine, baby--still implies that if her ass *were* bigger, that would be bad.
Hence, comment #134.
My point is that saying "they make your hips look bigger than they are" is the same thing as saying "yes, they make your ass look fat." IF you want to avoid that, then OggedMr. Euphemism isn't going to help you. If what you want is to criticize the clothes while avoiding the fat ass bomb, then talk about the clothes. It isn't hard.
Okay, "they make your hips look a lot bigger than they are" is first, ridiculous on its face: how can pants make your hips look *bigger than they are*?
What? Don't some things have obvious visual effects like this? Certain cuts, styles, etc. don't make people look different?
no, your ass is fine, baby--still implies that if her ass *were* bigger, that would be bad.
Most people, male or female, would not consider their ass getting bigger a good thing. And come on, they're not asking because they're trying to get the effect of a bigger ass.
implies that if her ass *were* bigger, that would be bad.
Jesus H. It would be bad.
And did you just imply that it was nonsensical to say that pants make someone's hips looks bigger, and then say that it would be helpful to tell them why they make their hips look bigger? I'll give you a chance to explain yourself.
It's harder than you seem to think, even when you've got opinions on that. I find that the fact that I approve of almost everything, sincerely, while it's appreciated on some level, makes my opinion as good as worthless.
You are so off your meds today, B. Yes, "they make your hips look bigger than they are" is simply a nicer way of saying "yes, they make your ass look fat," (that's why I called this approach "honest") but part of what's nicer about it is that it makes it clear that it is not your ass, but the clothes that are having the effect.
I'll give you a chance to explain yourself
Generous.
I can't believe how much of my time each day is spent explaining things like "deafness is a disability" and "women don't want to have fat asses" to a crazy person.
Look, I personally think that "do these make my ass look fat" is a stupid question and I wouldn't ask it; and if someone asked me, I'd tell them not to be an idiot. But since y'all seem so damn worried about Not Offending, and since we all know that the question is an unanswerable trap if you're dealing with someone so sensitive that they'll get Offended by an honest answer, I figured I'd point out that answering the actual question--does this fit well, and if not why--is the best way not to fall into the deep, dark pit of your girlfriend's big fat ass.
What? Deafness isn't a disability.
If you can't talk intelligently about the subtle effects of drapes and bunches or what-have-you (and let's face it, most straight men would sound ludicrous trying to do so even if they invested the effort to learn how)
This turns out to be completely wrong. I'm the sort of person who suffered through middle school in plaid Sears Toughskins, but my wife cares quite a bit about dressing well, and if you pay a little attention it's not any harder to figure out the basics of how women's clothing works than it is to learn manly pursuits. You just have to be willing to try.
and if you pay a little attention it's not any harder to figure out the basics of how women's clothing works than it is to learn manly pursuits
No way am I going to risk my 110 percent rating with such nonsense.
310: You'll thank me someday for forcing you to keep your brain fit and healthy.
I don't often agree wtih B, but 'not offending' does seem pretty worthless, and i do tend to talk about clothing. i don't think i'm typical though.
It also means my critiques of people when walking down the street tend to be of the "why the fuck is she wearing that pair of shoes" instead of "why the fuck is her ass so big"
The part about "being worried about Not Offending" is a good one. At some point I threw up my hands and chucked the whole thing; the morbidly sensitive and those who see harassment everywhere and from everyone can't be allowed to set the standards or we're not going anywhere. I'm pleased there was as much pushing back on the compliments issue as there was on this thread.
312: Standpipe can't hear this.
It also means my critiques of people when walking down the street tend to be of the "why the fuck is she wearing that pair of shoes" instead of "why the fuck is her ass so big"
I deal with a lot of woman who probably think their critiques work the same way, but they always end up saying "she should not wear pants like that with such a big ass" or "she should not wear V-neck shirts because it looks weird with no boobs" or "she should not wear that dress, because it was designed for a woman with a waist." Criticizing them for failing to hide their flaws, rather than criticizing their dress sense in general. But wait, that would also be a bad thing to do.
At least nobody in this thread has tried to justify a pattern of pointing out strangers and saying "Whoa, there's a fat one", as my dad does.
Guess your dad must not live in Wisconsin.
My grandmother put it best when, pointing out fat people, she said, "I'd like to have them full of pennies."
"Do these pants make me look fat?" should be interpreted to mean "Do you want a divorce?", and the answer should be "Yes."
What a shitty question to ask someone, if you're going to get huffy about the answer.
One advantage of the relationship-free lifestyle is never having to offer (or ask for) reassurance from other human beings.
Your butt is so fat, B!
Mr. B will never tell you that, because of the kid.
The kid regularly tells me my butt is fat.
I recently found out that my father has told many people in my family that his biggest failure as a parent was letting me quit the sports team I was on in high school to be in another activity. I was never good at the sport I played and the activity I took up paid for my college education but I gained weight when I quit the team.
Arrgh! That's really, really shitty. I'm sorry.
326: which is why Mr. B will never tell you—the position is filled.
Also, after wandering through here thanks to the feministe thing that's getting widely linked, the beginning of this thread makes much more sense. Color me happy to have been sheltered. Yuck.
I'm still having trouble getting my head around the notion that these are people educated enough to get into law school. I just... wow. WTF.
Your problem is thinking that you have to be educated to get into law school.
Over at LGM, I commented that any woman (or decent man) who's a partner at a law firm would be justified refusing to hire any recent or immediate future male graduates on the grounds that they could easily be one of those people. It would be nice if guys had as much reason to get pissed off at that kind of thing as women do.
Would it make you feel better, apo, if I told you that every comment at that site was written by Giblets?
It would help a little, yes. Also that in the wake of Althouse's predictably ridiculous defense of it, they are now rating *her* tits.
I surprised that you're so surprised at this, apo. A lot of comment threads at various sites are like that. Or did you just assume that all those other comments were by 14 year-old boys?
Off to bed...
I don't read comments much of anywhere else.
Hi all. I've been thinking a lot about this kind of thread--the way it derives from the "Jessica Biel's Ass: Nanometer by Nanometer" threads, and the way it works generally. And now I come in to work and there's that unbearably creepy law school stuff.
And my conclusion is this: there is simply no progressive way to come up with a "system" for talking about women's appearance. Whether that's specific to our culture or an eternal truth, I don't know. But the problem is the idea that it's a really important use of men's/society's time to come up with what is essentially a points system for rating women's appearance. It doesn't matter how inclusive that points system is--whether big noses are in this year, or the acceptable areola has been redefined as large and dark rather than small and pale, or some fat chicks are okay if they have pretty faces, or whatever. What matters is the effect of endlessly discussing the systemization of our response to women's appearance.
It's harmful in our interactions with each other, because the more time you spend on talking about a system, the more you apply it in life--it's just like someone who spends the semester reading Lacan and suddenly everything is all "Lacanian" all the time. It's harmful to women, because we become ever more conscious that even the most trivial aspects of our appearance are being monitored and judged, and it makes it harder for us to look outward and feel desire rather than turn inward to worry about being desired. It's harmful to us in general sexually, because it prevents us from being surprised by desire--we tell ourselves over and over "I desire this and not that", and it becomes true. It yields to capitalism--capitalism always wants to regulate and incorporate unruly desire, make it into something that can be bought and sold.
Beauty and desire are wonderful things, exciting and unpredictable. I mean, isn't it? When you see someone you've seen before, and they haven't interested you, but then they laugh in a certain way, or get a better haircut, or say something really witty, or do something brave, or you just look closely at them for the first time, and suddenly they're attractive? Surely that happens to people besides me. And to me that's practically the most fun part, that moment when desire first appears, the delight that there's this unexpected pleasure, the delight that there's one more desireable person in the world. Trying to reduce beauty and desire to a system so that we can rank women--rank them like show dogs in the ring--to me, that's a saddening thing.
I'm sorry to pop in and type this (especially since it's the archetypically earnest, non-fun comment) when I've been too busy to post in the last couple of weeks. But rest assured that Unfogged is mentally present to me virtually constantly, as awful as that may sound, and I've been thinking about this a lot.
"This" being the beauty thing rather than the constant presence of Unfogged, although maybe the latter should worry me more.
It is scary how much space a blog can take up in your head, isn't it? And the comment is right exactly on.
Frowner! That second-to-last paragraph is really nice, and yes, that's exactly what it feels like to me.
Yeah, this:
And to me that's practically the most fun part, that moment when desire first appears, the delight that there's this unexpected pleasure, the delight that there's one more desireable person in the world.
Brings up some wonderful memories.
...I'm disappearing back into my work, now....sigh.
Right on! Those moments of desire's first appearance are indeed wonderful, and memorable.
That AutoAdmit story doesn't surprise me a bit.
I'll bring it up because I may be among the worst offenders, but if so many of us agree with Frowner's description of love and attraction as describing our own best experiences, what were we arguing about yesterday, and on other days? A sort of projection, abstraction, what?
Frowner is right, but were any of the previous arguments being about coming up with a system for talking about women's appearance? Was this thread? I don't think so.
350: Yes, they really were. We had an extended discussion somewhere about how the way men talk about things is to rate and compare them, and it was very socially important for them to have women's attractiveness as a category of things they could go through this 'objective' rating and comparing process with. How often have you heard a man give a numerical rating to a woman's appearance?
I'm apparently a poor stand-in for men at large but for me, at least, it really isn't about ranking women. It's about discovering what *somebody else* finds attractive, because it's an interesting peek inside their head. It really doesn't matter which gender is being discussed or doing the discussing.
352: I remember an extended discussion about how men tend to "bond" or whatever over talking about women's appearance, but not about how that's "objective" or "systematic" in any serious way. (I guess maybe those terms came up on the seminal Jessica Biel thread, which I wasn't here for? I've seen the subsequent discussions and don't remember either of those terms.) "She's a ten" is only an attempt at being 'objective' among the sort of people who take their newspaper horoscopes seriously. Or on sites like AutoAdmit or Late Night Shots.
How's this post? It's all lighthearted and humorous, of course, but it sure is systematic.
That's a funny post. But it doesn't count as "systematic" if it's an obvious joke, right? Frowner wasn't arguing against joking about systematics.
Okay, by "system" I was trying to get at the micro stuff that people talk about, and the way it easily turns toward the comparative--it's not "systematic" in the sense of being a water-tight organization of ideas, but systematic in the sense that it's based on ranking and on closely examining tiny details in order to build up a value for the whole; also that one is trying to establish "tiny noses make women pretty" type distinctions. Seriously, guys, having lots of "what tiny distinction makes women pretty" discussions in public forums all over teh internets gives women the impression that they are constantly being evaluated on their looks, and that makes you feel paranoid about how you're looked at. It's not like there are analagous discussions about men, or analagous cultural assumptions about men's looks. And it's not like there's also forums where it is hotly debated just what makes women witty, or intelligent, or good cooks, or whatever. Nope, it's micro-analysis of [women's] looks, with the expectation that this should take up a big piece of cultural space. My feeling, honestly, is that devoting a lot of time to Hott or Nott/Who's the Prettiest Star discussions pretty much means accepting that most women most of the time will feel uncomfortably judged for their looks. More, I believe that it means that you who have those discussions will tend to assign more importance to women's looks over time, even when it's not appropriate. Advertising--intellectual advertising for a certain point of view--works.
Which is not to say that no one can talk about someone being pretty or sexy or whatever, but I think that long, detailed discussions of What Makes Jessica Biel's Ass So Flawless and How It Compares To That of This Girl I Used To Know Who Was Kind Of Fat But Hott Anyway (which is like the paradigm for that conversation) ...well, I just think those conversations achieve certain kinds of social bonding at the expense of a lot of other stuff.
Jokes work because they have a connection to reality. Ethnic jokes are 'funny' where the stereotypes underneath them are still alive; when the stereotype is dead, the joke dies (When was the last time you heard a joke start "Two Irishmen were walking down Broadway. Pat said to Mike..." 1928 or so, right?). And the same with this sort of thing -- the joke is funny because there are millions of idiots out there making and revising lists of women and how closely they approach some 'objective' ideal.
Comparative discussions do break out occasionally, but especially lately, I think people have tried to keep the "X is hotter than Y," or "X is insufficiently hot stuff" to a minimum. I agree with you that that kind of talk is distasteful. But "oh my god, Jessica Biel's ass is fantastic" is the kind of post I will defend unto death.
I also think I disagree that there aren't analogous discussions about men, but feel no need to get into an argument over that.
LB, are we talking about whether this happens at all (it would be hard to deny, given that Hot Or Not is a real and popular site) or whether it happens here? I'm talkng about the latter.
I'ma one up Frowner on the humorlessness and say that quibbling over stuff like "we weren't talking about what kind of system to use" is kind of a pathetically defensive way of missing the point.
I love you guys anyway, but I mean, come on. I know y'all aren't that obtuse.
Let's have a thread about which Unfogged commenters we like best, and why!
Of course, women buy into "Who's The Prettiest" stuff all the time...some women who feel sure that they're pretty, some women who feel that they probably count as pretty, some women who just feel sure that men always win in these discussions and so you'll be more popular with men if you take part. (By "buy into", I don't mean "participate", by the way...I mean "agree that it's fulfilling and worthwhile to rank women's appearances"). And then, if you yourself can't be the Prettiest Star, it's satisfying to see the Second-Prettiest Star get dismissed for having too many freckles or something--I think women take part in this stuff partly out of hatred of the cultural pressure to be beautiful.
I wouldn't have known about Pat-and-Mike jokes if Wodehouse hadn't written some down.
It's not like there are analagous discussions about men
Ahem.
Eh, what, exactly, is 'it' that you're saying doesn't happen here? That photoessay was pleasant, tasteful, soft porn. I'm not particularly upset by the fact that you linked it, but the link and discussion did seem like more of the same kind of stuff: yes, all of our brains would melt if we were deprived of our regular allotment of assessing women for the degree to which they are erotically pleasing. It's a little odd feeling being simultaneously someone who hangs out here talking with people, and a member of a class that either succeeds, or, more likely, fails, in properly providing myself as material for your esthetic appreciation. I'm not asking you to quit it, but it does feel peculiar.
Okay, I shouldn't have said that there are no such discussions about men. (And I think those discussions, when they occur, are dumb too.) But I cannot believe that anyone could seriously argue that there are as many or as pervasive or as powerful discussions about men's appearance as there are about women's. One swallow doesn't make a summer...[or is that an analogy?]
That photoessay was pleasant, tasteful, soft porn
Oy vey. I'll retire from this now.
One swallow doesn't make a summer
You misspelled hummer.
If there's going to be more to swallow in such an encounter than can be dealt with in one go, so to speak, well, that sounds more like a medical problem than anything else. Also yucky.
Y'know, watching the "100 Sexy Men in 60 Seconds" video reminded me of something that has puzzled me for several years now. I look at those guys and think, "Yeah, quite hott indeed."
Except Justin Timberlake. That one totally flummoxes me. He looks like a mon-chee-chee.
364: Two Irishmen were walking down Broadway, one drawing out and the other putting in. One said, "Begorrah! The race is not always to the swift."
And then his pants split. Bottle, bottle, bottle.
372: That's from the one where Bertie gets the guy with the newts to present the prizes, right? That's a very funny book, that.
Except Justin Timberlake. That one totally flummoxes me. He looks like a mon-chee-chee.
Gawd, yes. Though I deny that Timberlake is a peculiar instance. Sometimes I think that the people who rate men (be they male or female) just don't care very much about their jobs.
Sometimes I think that the people who rate men (be they male or female) just don't care very much about their jobs.
Mmmm.
Timberlake appeals to the crucial gay men and preteen girls demographic. It's a very important demographic for marketers, apparently.
Timberlake is weird. I have to admit that "Dick in a Box" was the first time I thought, "oh, there's something attractive there after all."
It's possible that older motherly-type women are also in that demographic somewhere.
378: That one was just for you, LB.
And I appreciate that. Begob, begorrah.
381 to 380? Thanks, JM. Thanks a lot.
The Irish are like Jewish, but drunk. Justin Timberlake's music is terrific, and he is cute. I am neither a gay man nor a teenage girl.
No, no. 381 was just a follow-up, as I remembered the pictures of the Clay Aiken fans who were so distressed about his sexuality.
quibbling over stuff like "we weren't talking about what kind of system to use" is kind of a pathetically defensive way of missing the point.
It's more of a way of making sure we're talking about the actual point and not a misleading substitute for it. Frowner's 358 clarifies that we are in fact talking about the usual point, how people talking specifically about the aesthetics of other people's bodies makes some feel insecure and constantly judged. If we're going to be talking about that, I for one would much rather talk about it straightforwardly than about something tangential.
About the usual point, I'm sympathetic to a certain extent. Obviously there's more focus in the world at large on women's bodies than men's, it would be nice to see more parity there, and there really are people who think their 'hot or not' score is 'objective,' and these really are stupid and/or screwed-up people. OTOH aesthetic judgments about people's bodies are not going anywhere, nor should they (like it or not they're a pretty basic part of sex and fantasy) and arguments that appear to be trending in a 'people are doing wrong to talk about each others' bodies because it oppresses me' direction lose me very quickly. Particularly so when they include moralization about "you who have those discussions," since the import of "those discussions" is context-dependent.
Having said all that, I'd rate Frowner as one my favorite Unfogged commenters. Systematically, and objectively.
Justin Timberlake's music is terrific, and he is cute.
I can't make any informed judgment about his music, as I'm unfamiliar with it. As to the second, of course Moncheechees are cute. But they ain't in any way sexy, you pervert.
386: I was joking. Must I start using smilies?
387: Agreed--I don't think anyone here is saying, or has ever said, "you shouldn't have those conversations." Just that one of the things to think about w/r/t those convos is *also* their effect on the world.
389: Must I start using smilies?
Please, dear God, no.
