But it doesn't allow for telling dopey jokes, or pontificating, or comfortable shoes, all of which are a big part of how I get through my days.

Umm, I think we saw different teenage movies and TV shows, maybe? There is often a smart mouthed girl, and she's either the object of affection, or the person with whom you are to sympathize--like the male geek. I'm not sure the script is as narrow as you suggest.

The way you try to make me laugh makes me feel like a piece of man-meat sometimes.

I make a lot of jokes, which is the quickest way to kill a boner

I don't understand this at all. Making jokes, especially ones in questionable taste, is the quickest way to my heart.

It's possible, however, that I represent men at large poorly.

I partly with Tim. I thought of mentioning various Meg Ryan vehicles where her goofy jokes are part of her charm. But this sort of misses the point. Even if there is more flexibility in the script than you think, you still have to deal with a script, which is the source of the frustration.

She's right you nerdballs. "doing conventionally femme schtick gets you much, much, much more attention. "

You just don't get it, apostropher. Your comment is precisely analagous to "but I like fat chicks" and now you're banned, not to mentioned damned, forever and ever.

Tim, if what I'm talking about is completely unrecognizable to you, I don't know what to say. Like I said, and Heebie also said, there are men who will find you attractive without that sort of performance. But there is a felt pressure to perform -- or at least one I've felt.

And so conversations about how attractively or effectively someone else is performing the Sexy Script -- both bodily and behaviorly -- turn into places where all that hostility tends to get redirected at the people appreciating the performance, as the source of the pressure.

Please, oh please, don't let this turn into "patriarchy is all in your head and has nothing to do with the mens".

I once met a Green Anarchist who told me that he didn't live under capitalism, and I didn't believe that either.

I find, generally, that I can't really believe in the Sexy Script, just like I can't really believe that lots of people buy Britney Spears albums or buy mass market books on management. That is, I know that lots of people like it and perform it, but I just don't, you know, grok.

I'm partly with Tim.

I own Brittany Spears albums.

11: And yet you spell her name incorrectly.

There is often a smart mouthed girl, and she's either the object of affection

Step away from the Molly Ringwald movies.

Can we stipulate that most of the guys here find funny women attractive? Really, I'm sure most of you do.

(1) Never assume that you are correct about what other people might or might not find sexy about your personality.

(2) There is not much point in appearing sexy to people who will be turned off by you when you open your mouth. You should despise those people, not attract them (though despising them will be attractive to a minority of 'em).

Anderson: I think the two posts are largely about the difficulty in actually internalizing your point (2), even if on one level you can acknowledge its truth.

There's a lot of comments here to the effect of, "If you stop and think about it, it's really silly to feel that way! The kind of guy you want/I am likes sassy chicks!"

I know all that. There's still ten Sexy Script messages for every one Sassy Script message.

I would not have a visceral reaction to someone saying, "This real life girl totally cracked me up, or made me think, or whatever" the way I do to someone who says, "She had a smoking hot body."

What you've done is corrected the spelling of her name, which might offend some people more.

11: Actually, my comment sounds much snottier than I intended it to--what I was trying to get at was more that it was an incapacity of mine. More an incapacity of feeling than anything else; I mean, if you asked me "Why are people into the Sexy Script? And why do people own Britney Spears albums?" I could give you an intellectually respectable answer which took into account class, feminism, different readings of both texts (so to speak), and so on.

The Sexy Script--I think that from a fairly young age I assumed that I could never comply with it, so it's always been in the impossible/not-Frowner category.

"Sexy Script" is an awesome condensation of this whole matter.

It is extremely frustrating to me when one says "This fact of culture--of which I can cite many, many examples--really messes with my head"...and then the response is "but I'm not like that, and neither is my Best Friend! You need to pay more attention to people like me! That will solve all your problems!"

But there is a felt pressure to perform -- or at least one I've felt.

I'm not sure how to distinguish it from--and yes, this is going to sound like, "oh, it happens to men, too"--from the series of things (young) men are supposed to do to be cool. There are oodles of movies about this, and even oodles of movies playing off this. And the ones playing off this always end up in the same place: choose between your real friends and the cool crowd. (In fact, I can think of a couple movies immediately with female characters confronting this problem.) And so the question is, "Can you be a Heather without being Heather?" I don't know, but the whole question strikes me as wrongfooted.

Maybe I'm being peculiarly unsympathetic today--could really be true, and I can't tell--and I'm not saying it's all in your head or that the patriarchy isn't deeply involved, but...this is a pretty standard part of growing up, no? I mean, there's a reason that geeks (a) don't like being geeks, (b) hated high school, and (c) often love college (or grad school). I really don't mean to hijack this, but I'm having trouble differentiating the genderness of this, which I think is an important part of the claim that this is a peculiarly worrying phenomenon.

If you stop and think about it, it's really silly to feel that way!

That wasn't the message of my comment. I believe you; I'm just saying that part of the script confuses me. Doesn't everybody like to laugh?

Your cowboy boots are conventionally sexy, H-G. Better than that, even.

1,5: I think the idea is charming and sexy are vastly different things. Being an object of affection is a little different than being an object of desire. Androgynous-Heebie knows damn well she's charming (at least I hope she does). The frustration lies in the sense that something other than charm is required for a woman to be/feel sexually desirable. And then the feeling that, in actively attempting to be sexy, maybe you are being untrue to your genuine charms. Or that wanting to be an object of desire every now and then is a bad thing, especially for a feminist-minded woman who doesn't want to reinforce the reduction of women to their faces and bodies. Or something like that.

It is extremely frustrating to me when one says "This fact of culture--of which I can cite many, many examples--really messes with my head"...and then the response is "but I'm not like that, and neither is my Best Friend! You need to pay more attention to people like me! That will solve all your problems!"

Welcome to Unfogged. You may wish to copy and paste this comment for repeated use.

Scripted Guys don't like girls that tell jokes. They like girls that laugh at thier jokes.

I've had this conversation countless times.
Me: Sarah is so funny. She cracks me up.
Scripted Him: Her? Really? I never noticed she says funny things.

I will always prefer someone who laughs at my jokes to someone who finds me attractive. But it's still deviating.

26 to 22

13: You'll pry my Molly Ringwald movies from my cold dead hands. They defined my adolescence.

To carry right on with 24: or the realization that all the things that you think are so awesome about you, all the things you're proud of and pleased by, really have to go on hold in order to be "sexy". And/or that although you think people who are funny or have great taste or a passionate engagement with a text are sexy, you will generally not be judged by similar standards.

I read 28 as "You'll pry Molly Ringwald from my cold dead hands," which would probably be uncomfortable for Ms. Ringwald.

Ms. Ringwald will take whatever attention she can get at this stage of her career.

31: We should invite her to guest post here.

21: A key difference, I think, is that geeks get out of high school and into someplace better. Women never get out of the patriarchy.

I think that the funny girl in movies tends to be the sidekick.

Nastastia (sp.) Kinski said that she found playing the dreamy, vacant love object really easy -- she just modeled herself on her devoted, faithful dog.

Your cowboy boots are conventionally sexy, H-G. Better than that, even.

Androgynous-Heebie knows damn well she's charming (at least I hope she does).

"Sexy Script" is an awesome condensation of this whole matter.

Oh, STOP! I'm blushing!...go on, I'm listening.

whoops, all three quotes were supposed to be italicized. Stupid Heebie! Stupid (yet paradoxically sexy) Heebie!

To expand, a bit: Most (male) geeks "find themselves" - learn to stop worrying and love the geek - in college. Between ages 18 and 24, let's say. I think there are very few women who get any kind of handle on the Sexy/Sassy dichotomy by that age. Even if they clue into it, the college environment is absolutely not a SexyScript-free zone in the way that it is a GeeksSuck-free zone. So pathetic, self-loathing SassyGirl goes to college, learns why her self-image sucks. But 90% of her male interactions still reinforce the SexyScript. Post-college is also not exactly SassyGirl paradise. Maybe by age 30, SassyGirl feels accomplished enough that she can feel confidently Sassy most of the time - but she still has the SexyScript awareness. And, furthermore, by now it's too late - she's halfway (at least) through her dating/courting/marrying/birthing years, and is only just now getting comfortable in her skin. So, like LB, even if she's in a good circumstance, she remains painfully, viscerally aware of this BS dichotomy.

Whereas, to close the circle, most geeks who get their shit together in college never really stress about being geeks again. In real life, there are no wedgies.

I think H-G screwed up the italics so we'd think she was ditzy-sexy.

Nice try, SassyGirl.

21 "I mean, there's a reason that geeks (a) don't like being geeks, (b) hated high school, and (c) often love college (or grad school)."

Exactly. The female "Sexy Script" (a fine term) aced me as a late-blooming male completely out of the whole hooking-up scene during adolescence and left me wondering for years whether I would ever get laid. The anxiety that the script's demands caused in the women acting that script made my unavoidable awkwardness totally, um, outre.

In CS Lewis's brilliantly retrograde That Hideous Strength, he writes this whole passage about how silly the female lead was to believe that her husband would ever find attractive in her the things that she liked about herself; to both her husband and God [seriously, I kid you not], what was important about her was not her interests or character but her sweetly feminine surrender and her lovely body with its childbearing abilities.

[A major plot point is about how she replicates Eve's fall by refusing to bear the Messiah because, oh, she wants something silly like a career and her degree. Her husband [gormless; Not Sexy] would have been completed and brought to manhood if she had just given in and born a child. Naturally, God fixes everything in the end, after all the women have gotten in touch with their femininity.]

I resented these books so much when I was young. Now I just hate them.

37: We know different women and different geeks.

21 -- The gendered component lies in the fact that the sexy script for women is unquestionably different than the sexy script for men. The scripts are gendered.

I'm sure there is a sexy script for men, too, that leads to frustrating attempts to reconcile Sexy Tim with Smart and Witty Tim. But maybe we can pay a little attention to Heebie's scripts before we move on to that?

Frowner, my church had me read CS Lewis too.

I've never seen it mentioned that Jesus' real last name isn't Christ, but Josephson.

Heebie has really hot toes.

37 is a really good illustration/explanation.

To expand on 37, I fell much further into the Sexy Script trap during college than I had during high school. College was kind of miserable in that regard.

Emerson likes webbed toes!

Even if there is a sexy script for men, intensity would seem to make the difference in degree into one in kind. I've never felt anything like the kind of divided personality/self-loathing about it that Heebie describes and that seems to be resonating with others.

43: Oh, I read those on my own. My church--ha! My church didn't exactly encourage reading. Our youth group leader, actually, attempted to dissuade me from drawing "pagan" things during breaks in our classes. Since I was a little girl and it was the mid-eighties, I was drawing pictures of unicorns. I told him that the unicorn was a Christ-symbol and he shut right up.

37:Thank you jroth, and let me add that the Sexy Script does not go away. Ever. The middle aged wife who is left for a younger woman has had her face rubbed in it again. Her whole self, intimately known, is not enough to outweigh the attraction of teh hott.

Oh, and frowner, so fucking true--I loathe C.S. Lewis. But I don't think those books could be published today, except by a niche fundie press, perhaps, which gives me a little hope. Although that book on Manliness or whatever it was got reviewed.

Heebie, you have webbed toes? So do I! Only some of them are webbed, though.

Or what 37 said

49 - I was just pretending, to see who I could out. I'm sorry. I really do have x-ray vision though. Anyone else can commiserate?

Tim: I think you're misinterpreting the point of Heebie's post (which isn't completely clear from the excerpt above). She's explaining something she realized about herself, why certain discussions on Unfogged make her angry. It's about her subjective experience.

Man, this is so right on. The Sexy Script, though, is something that I can't fucking stop doing, no matter how hard I try. I always find myself doing this ridiculous posturing, making certain faces, seeing myself from the outside (seriously, talk about internalizing the male gaze--the way it works is fucking creepy). It's like I'm seeing myself being seen, instead of just being.

Androgynous Me, on the other hand, is the one who has all the friends. For the last few months I've been dating someone who I was friends with for several years before, and it's very odd to see myself performing Sexy Me and Androgynous Me alternately with the same person.

My family has both webbed toes and lop ears.

The sexy script for guys seems to involve a mix of charming glibness and macho, with maybe a dash of seeming vulnerability. I have known guys who could function that way but hated it, but there were lots of payoffs for doing it anyway. Other guys cruise through life that way without knowing it, and they might think they're super nice guys while being sort of shitty in reality.

But anyway, the male script if worked right ends up getting you a lot of undeserved admiration ,and having people cater to you, so it's less oppressive than the female script, which involves catering to others.

Marlon Brando was very impacted about this. "people think I'm like my characters, but I hate those guys". But he tended to get his way most of the time.

I think one important thing that I have (perhaps erroneously) noticed is that these sorts of anxieties have little to do with the feelings of specific people, and more to do with the generalized feelings of society, which is part of what makes it so hard to deal with, as the assurances of any specific person can't do much to assuage these fears.

also: the ideal solution is not to eliminate sexy heebie, but that heebie would be able to feel sexy while being funny and comfortable. As long as the distinction is between the hated sexy persona and the more enjoyable androgynous persona there is not going to be a huge amount of progress because everybody wants to be sexy for some people some of the time.

Or I could be talking out of my ass, who knows?

Hmm. Do 41 and 42 reconcile? I did not take Tim's 21 to be suggesting that (male) geeks are struggling with precisely the gender-relations issues that women are (which I think is DK's complaint), but rather making an analo... a comparison between how hard it is for geeks to feel comfortable in their own skins due to HS socialization and how hard it is for non-vapid women to feel comfortable in either SexyScript or SassyScript.

I dunno. I was reasonably geeky in HS (certainly in terms of gender relations, but otherwise as well), went to one of the world capitals of geekery for college, and saw lots of geeks suddenly finding themselves not-mocked for being geeks, and flowering. And these people - who are still geeks! - are happy and well-adjusted today, because what was keeping them down was mostly HS socialization

Whereas when I look at SassyWomen who are my peers (in their 30s), I see women who are comfortable in their own skins, and probably don't stress much about SexyScript - but who did not achieve this level of self-confidence at age 20. My wife, for instance, resolved her geeky issues in college, but still had lingering SexyScript issues when I met her at age 29. Totally comfortable with being a bookish dork. Quite worried about becoming a cat lady. And I think that's not unusual (among the social class that blog-comments, etc. etc.).

I was reading this and thinking, "but I think I can wear comfy shoes *and* be sexy!" But really, honestly? First, "sassy" is just a subcategory of "cute"; yeah, you can play the role of the girl who wears comfy shoes and cracks wise and snorts when she laughs and is kinda awkward *and* still be "sexy"--but only insofar as you're willing to play it all as "cute." Dorky is okay as long as it's adorable--the slightly knock-kneed skinny chick in the short skirts and the Doc Martens with her hair in cute little bunches on the sides of her head.

And I know that in real life, actual men do find actual women attractive in unexpected ways. But they do tend to default to the more visible and conventional stuff as well, and that's the stuff that gets talked about: the hotness of models or actresses or Thora Birch or Alyson Hanigan. Which yeah, fine, nothing wrong with talking about hot chicks in and of itself.

But LB and Heebie are right: it's really hard not to take that talk personally. Which ain't anyone's *fault*, but it really sucks. Like, since *the* bottom line for women being "feminine," and male attention is power, guys talking about girls is always, always, on some level something you're supposed to compare yourself to.

Plus, in a less fucked up sense, guys talking about girls--which person are we going to identify with more? If you're a girl too, it only makes sense that you'd i.d. with the object being discussed.

Heeb, I'm a little confused. Half of Unfogged slavers over you because you are funny and would probably hook up with you if they had the chance, most of them have no idea what you look like, and you think humor is a buzz kill?

I sort of had the equivalent of the love the geek moment myself. I think it's more that I just gave up on the Sexy Script. I'm not particularly good at it. I'm not even sure I would know what it is other than some vague cultural idea of being pretty... but not verbal? How would I act around the world if I weren't making fun of it?

It's like I'm seeing myself being seen, instead of just being

I absolutely get this. If this is what the Sexy Script is then yes, it's the worst. For me it is more like a "Self-Possessed" Script or some quality like that, and it is always there, at least in the background, and frequently in the foreground of my thinking.

I've been dating someone who I was friends with for several years before

This describes almost my entire dating life, including both marriages. The two times I deviated from that script, the results were quite regrettable.

56: I suggest we don't worry about reconciliation of the two comments, and instead, per DK's suggestion, focus on HG's specific complaint.

Cala, that's all Androgynous Heebie. That's the part of me I like best, too. Scripted Heebie exists, though, and she's petty and crappy. I hate that I share any real estate with Scripted Heebie, who doesn't appreciate all that.

But B, I don't think it's counter to anything that's been said that Sassy is like cute, and Dorky is a kind of cute, or whatever. The point - at least the one I've taken - is that H-G knows that SassyScript isn't undesirable (she's not talking about ManHatingScript), but that it's less desirable than SexyScript.

Some of the misunderstanding form Apo, etc. up above was that SassyScript is desirable - especially to the Unfogged demographic. But that's not what society is driving into H-G's head (I know that you know this, but I'm trying to be explicit).

The sexy script for guys seems to involve a mix of charming glibness and macho, with maybe a dash of seeming vulnerability.

If you don't prefer Hardy to Proust, I'll twat you.

btw, "Bretagne Spears", anyone?

51, I am proud of my webbed toes. I am delighted to have the chance to talk about them. I have webbed toes, everyone! I am a post-human!

First, "sassy" is just a subcategory of "cute"; yeah, you can play the role of the girl who wears comfy shoes and cracks wise and snorts when she laughs and is kinda awkward *and* still be "sexy"--but only insofar as you're willing to play it all as "cute." Dorky is okay as long as it's adorable--the slightly knock-kneed skinny chick in the short skirts and the Doc Martens with her hair in cute little bunches on the sides of her head.

Indeedy.

61: That's fine - I just wondered if I'd misconstrued and so you thought I was responding wrongly, instead of responding to the wrong thing. Whatever.

The important thing here is to mock those with unusual toes.

59: I was going to ask if guys do that too--if maybe it's more of a media society thing than a gender thing specifically.

I do think that the guy sexy script is there. Among other things, it absolutely requires confidence--even the shy geeky boy is sexy when he's focusing on whatever the particular topic of his geekiness is. And of course the shy thing covers the vulnerability issue. While confidence is sexy in women, I don't think it's a necessary part of the sexy script for girls the way it is for boys, or at least it needs to be a more *physical* confidence to be sexy in women--which seems to me like it might be part of why the "truly comfortable in my own skin today wearing sneakers and mom pants and not being self-conscious" thing feels like the antithesis of sexy for women.

It's interesting to see how women feel about these things. I never hear strong opinions of this sort voiced with actual voices.

Sincerely for a second: I really appreciate how friendly and cordial and taking me seriously everyone's being. I didn't know if I was going to feel like I was up against a firing squad if this got posted. But I don't, at all. I feel like a lot of insightful, interesting comments have been posted.

69 signals that it is time for the sniping to commence. Labs?

I didn't really figure out the sexy-script until college. Truly, I just assumed the fact I wasn't dating (at least not much) meant I wasn't terribly charming. (Which may still have been true...) Then The Man I Was Going to Marry dumped me unceremoniously and I developed a not-long-enough-lived Fuck the World attitude which was apparently interpreted quite literally by the Big Men on Campus and I was delighted to discover that I could actually sort of play the sexy girl role. Then I discovered that the guys who were interested in Sexy-Script-Di were not delighting all that much in Charmingly-Witty-Di.

At which point I discovered (without the artful articulation) the phenomenon in Heebie's post -- that if I wanted to play the Sexy Script, I had to discard parts of my personality that I rather liked. If I wanted to be the sort of quirky dork I was comfortable being, I had to accept this might mean resigning myself to the vow of celibacy. Vaguely-Idealistic-Di continues to retain hope that Guy Who Finds Quirky Dork Sexy is out there somewhere. Cynical and Bitter Di suspects he's either married or gay.

Well, anyway, as a man I can assure you that men are not what you think they are. Pay a little attention next time.

67: The other thing is how quickly "being comfortable in your own skin" becomes "performing being comfortable in your own skin"--that is, it's sexy to be confident even if you're wearing mom pants, so if you are wearing mom pants with the intent to be comfortable, it's impossible not to think of how you should be just rocking those mom pants and impressing everyone with your sexy, comfortable self confidence.

Female sexuality in our culture reminds me of the old story about the man who told his companions that he could change a hatful of rocks into a hatful of gold, but only if they could all refrain from thinking of a red monkey.

67: maybe it's more of a media society thing than a gender thing specifically.

It's a "playing to a traditional gender role" thing. Nothing that mysterious about the male "sexy script": physical confidence plus confident entitlement.

Heebietoes, do you think being an academic in a male-dominated field has made you more or less likely to do your context switching?

58: don't worry Cala, H-G is hawt too.

What I think she means, is that there are `scripts' she finds herself in person, where she won't say/do something. Online appearance is out of the equation.

While confidence is sexy in women, I don't think it's a necessary part of the sexy script for girls the way it is for boys

This, absolutely. I keep noticing it in the media portrayal of female politicians, like Nancy Pelosi.

Al Sharpton: so ballsy! Yay!
Pelosi: ballsy?! AND SHE WENT TO SYRIA? Silly woman...

74: beyond that, there has always been a role for the class clown. He may not be attractive, but he's funny is an acceptable place to be. Doesn't seem to work for women, afaics.

SassyScript is desirable - especially to the Unfogged demographic
I do think that the guy sexy script is there.

Maybe the problem is that the guys who don't require the SexyScript aren't following their own gender's SexyScript, and hence not getting noticed?

67: wait, B, you weren't seriously wondering if men, like women, feel hemmed in by expectations, or feel a conflict between what they regard as the "real self" and social roles?

Heebietoes, do you think being an academic in a male-dominated field has made you more or less likely to do your context switching?

Hmmm. Probably less likely. I think I'm mostly Androgynous Heebie around the different math departments I've been part of. In academics, like on Unfogged, the currency is intelligence and wit. Which is probably partly why it felt like a natural career path.

I mean, exactly.

beyond that, there has always been a role for the class clown. He may not be attractive, but he's funny is an acceptable place to be. Doesn't seem to work for women, afaics.

Heh. I was voted Class Clown in high school. Picture in the yearbook and everything.

80: I'm pretty sure she meant specifically the out-of-body experience described by m leblanc. Which I know I don't get. Male provelege, right there.

79 is dangerously close to What about Nice Guys territory. I think Apo didn't mean that, but it's right there.

73: Yes, yes. This is part of what's fun about Bitch, to be honest: b/c she's a persona, she's *all* performance, on some level. Sexy performance, fire-breathing feminist performance, bracingly honest performance, whatever.

But then again, I dunno about this duality of performance(sexy)/androgynous(unsexy, "authentic"). At least I'm suspicious of it in a way. Blah blah postmodernism, what's the authentic self? Probably this isn't at all what Heebie's getting at, but it's where this stuff falls for me.

Part of my own answer to it, I think, lies in a convo I had with my oldest friend a few years ago. We were swapping angst and worry about our academic careers, and then taking turns reassuring one another that we always, always, succeed in the end. And I kinda realized that in some ways, a good friend's assessment of you is *more* reliable than your own, b/c the friend sees what you do, whereas you (me) tend to focus more on what one fears/doubts/etc.

Wad a gie the giftie gie us and all that.

84: How many dates did that get you?

79, 80: I really don't want to have somehow untracked this. I'm not sure 79 or 80 wouldn't have arisen nonetheless, but can we not go there?

I could be wrong, but:

It seems to me that Class Clown, while mostly male, is available to either sex. It is a sexless position either way. BUT. It's OK to be a sexless male if you've got something else going for you, whereas being a sexless female is an affront to God and Man.

80: No, I know guys do that; I see it all the time. I meant specifically the self-observation, male gaze stuff: do you, when in public, constantly feel like you're watching yourself from the outside, like you were in a movie, and assessing not just how you perform, but literally what you look like--as if you were a paper doll? "How's the outfit, my posture, is this angle flattering, I have an itch let me wait until that car passes to scratch it" etc.?

71 Di, I find your authenticity and intelligence to be sexy, and I don't even know who you are. No need to worry; I am probably too old for you, and this is not a pick-up line, merely a compliment. I hope you remain true to your character without compromise.

Soub, was 86 supposed to be at 83?

Not getting 84...

88: no my point was (IME) it isn't necessarily a sexless position for men; at least it can get you laid (you may have meant that differently)

Shit, I meant I wasn't getting 86 to my 84, but I presume 91 is right that 86 was to 83.

This doesn't happen at meet-ups, does it?

Damn, I was hoping it was a pick-up line.

I'm inclined to be charitable to Apo--I don't think he's saying that he, the marvellous Apo, doesn't follow the sexy script and therefore doesn't get noticed. I think he's saying that guys who don't play the guy game of "rate Jessica Biel's ass" are, inasmuch as they're not doing that, not being "guys" and therefore we, the feminists who hate that shit, are tending to generalize from what we see rather than what we don't see. Confirmation bias and all that.

94: whups. 86->83 of course.

96 That, and maybe also that, since there aren't clear scripts for people not sticking to the sexy-script, maybe the script-liberated people are at a decided disadvantage in finding/hooking-up with each other?

Huh. The class clowns I can think of were (fairly) sexless. Hitting below weight in terms of physical appearance, at least.

I mean, I know that "funny" is supposed to be a desired attribute by women, but "clown" seemed to cross the line. But what do I know?

Then, no, it didn't get me any dates. My college experience was similar to Di's in 71. Insofar as I didn't learn to be scripted until college, and then had to unlearn it later.

89: Through the wonders of metrosexualism, guys are doing this too.

"No one wants to fuck you, clown."

I have an itch let me wait until that car passes to scratch it

Are we that bad at hiding it when we pick our noses? I mean, we do try.

100: yeah, that's what I meant. IME while `class clown' is of course a viable social role for women, it tends to have exactly the effect you were talking about. For guys, it's a mixed bag.

89: yeah, that's familiar. For me it's most viscerally an issue during voluntary but semi-unconscious behavior, such as walking, because reflection makes this impossible; if I pass by a group of people, for example, I've adopted the heuristic of playing a piece of music in my head so that my feet can keep tempo with it. Without this I'll trip, stagger, or something. It's a bit weird.

Following scripts has never gotten me dates or (in general) respect. It is certainly possible -- indeed likely -- that I'm just not good at it. I wish I could come to terms with that and see that the way forward is just to drop the script completely and go my merry way. In recent years this has started to happen, I think; but the progress is very slow.

The sexy script plays to the lowest common denominator, thus making you seemingly more attractive to the maximum number of the opposite sex. From there, one must be discerning about potential mates.

erm 101 should have a `heterosexual' in there somewhere. I've never met a woman as noticeably concious of the gaze thing as some of the gay guys I've met.

At least I'm suspicious of it in a way. Blah blah postmodernism, what's the authentic self? Probably this isn't at all what Heebie's getting at, but it's where this stuff falls for me.

Now, I just can't be having with that, because eventually you get to the point of "What does it matter if I feel inauthentic and uncomfortable in X situation? Everything is performance, there is no unified subject, what feels good has no more standing than what feels bad"....I mean, I get the plausibility of the argument and cannot, myself, seem to believe in a unified subject. But all that happens is that I rationalize myself into a corner where I can't seem to stand up for myself.

The class clowns I can think of were (fairly) sexless.

I did pretty well, all in all, even with the outrageously ridiculous hair I was sporting back then.

To 107, from a cheesy, mass-forwarded e-mail a friend once sent:

"Apples & Wine

Women are like apples on trees. The best ones are at the top of the tree. Most men don't want to reach for the good ones because they are afraid of falling and getting hurt. Instead, they sometimes take the apples from the ground that aren't as good, but easy. The apples at the top think something is wrong with them, when in reality, they're amazing. They just have to wait
for the right man to come along, the one who is brave enough to climb all the way to the top of the tree.

Now Men.... Men are like a fine wine. They begin as grapes, and it's up to women to stomp the shit out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with. "

107 is true. It's also very very much the result of us being influenced by advertising which appeals to the lowest common denominator.

95 Fair warning, Di, I'm a middle-aged dude who wades with gators and is always covered in marsh muck (still interested?).

113: Always?

"stomp the shit out of them until they turn into something acceptable to have dinner with"

I think they call is "Premier Grand Cru Crud."

105: Homo.

98: What do we mean by "script-liberated"? I'd argue that no one is--that even the people who don't expect their potential *partners* to follow a script are all too aware of whether they themselves do.

109: I don't know if it has to go there, though. I think the trick is to figure out how not to make it, which is part of what I was trying to get at in my anecdote about my friend.

I can think of a couple male commenters here who have gotten advice that seems pretty close to "if you just change your behavior a little to follow the sexy script, you would totally get laid." Not phrased in remotely those terms, of course, but I think that's a fair summarization, or at least a fair precis.

But yeah, when it comes to acting sexy for society at large, "unfogged commenter" is a lot closer to acceptable for men than for women, which sucks.

113 Throw in that you enjoy fine wines at sunset while sharing your feelings, and I'll think you're just reading from the script.

I don't know that I do a sexy script. I flirt by being clever and a little bit harsh.

Semi OT aside: On being able to be cute and comfortable: I know someone who's a preschool teacher whose shoes I was a admiring. I asked her if she wore different shoes to work and changed afterwards. She said that these shoes were supr comfortable. They were kind of ballet slipper-style with cute patent-leather lines, but when you looked at them closely, you could see that they were sort of easy-spiritish.

I don't know that I have a sexy-script BG, but I can catch myself being kind of catty.

I found a picture of John's ex-girlfriend. (I googled him and found some pictures of him from work, and one of them had her in it. I knew her first name.)

I mentioned to friend M that she looked kind of like me in that she's small and has brown hair. Then I said, "She's cute, but I'm prettier." I e-mailed Friend M the pictures, and Friend M said "Yep, totally agree you are much prettier."

It was easy and fun for me to say that to Friend M, but I wouldn't say it to other women, and I'm kind of embarrassed about it.

111: Gross. The "best ones"? What, there's some kind of objective scale?

120: Apple.

117: Absolutely that's the advice. It's practical, albeit fucked up. Just like I'd advise a geeky woman who was seriously asking how to get dates to learn to flirt.

120: The best ones are more likely to be pecked by birds, perhaps? While the less best are more likely to be knawed by wasps? That's my experience of apples, anyway.

(There is a nice conjunction between 111 and Silverstein's "The Giving Tree".)

123: Many people, nowadays, spell "knawed" as "gnawed". A funny thing, but there you go.

On the other hand, I met a cute girl earlier today. Not very apple-like, though.

Also, no one has yet said that, once again, OPINIONATED GRANDMA wins.

"knawed" is a lovely error. And 123 made me think briefly of "Lost Madonna of the Wasps", which is never unwelcome.

The "best ones"? What, there's some kind of objective scale?

The crazy ones fall out of trees a lot.

126 - how? OG's comment struck me as someone who hadn't really read the original post.

I have markedly stubby toes. And I can stand on them.

129: Are you kidding? It summed up the direction the comment thread had been tending to go and pretty much closed that direction off with one sharp click. It was brilliant.

Huh. I don't see it. I thought OG was talking to me, and it was kind of irrelevant to my point.

120: The idea was that, if you're incurably single it's only because you're too good for all those stupid, stupid grapes. You know, how do you like them apples?

Way back to Tim in 21:

I'm not sure how to distinguish it from--and yes, this is going to sound like, "oh, it happens to men, too"--from the series of things (young) men are supposed to do to be cool.

Well, a couple of things. First, "it does happen to men too" -- there's certainly pressure on men to perform masculinity in ways that fucks them over. Second, though -- a large part of conventional attractiveness for a man is being admirable: strong and competent and clever and brave. You don't get closer to being a conventionally attractive man by stifling qualities you're proud of. (This claim breaks down somewhat around emotional sensitivity, which isn't mostly a part of conventional manliness, but not in a way that clearly falsifies it, I don't think.) The thing that tied at least me in knots over the Sexy Script is the feeling that I could get something I wanted very much by shutting down the things I think of as my strong points.

No, it summed up something that hadn't actually been said yet, but which would lead to a horrible firestorm of nonsense.

I thought that what it was summing up was implicit in some of the things that had been said, but I defer utterly to the wisdom of my opinionated betters.

135: "A horrible firestorm of nonsense"...my God, how much of my life this describes!

Oh, the apple part was awful, but it paid off with "something acceptable to have dinner with." As if that's the most you can hope for.

I'm not fond of men-are-crude humor, but occasionally it works.

hm... part of why the SexyScript etc. is a problem for women, let it be noted, is that it's not just potential dates who use it as a standard by which to judge you. nearly everybody, male and female, does to some degree -- your appearance & your conformance to the script plays a big role in how people treat you at the grocery store as well as at the bar. so that's a lot of constant subtle re-inforcing.

134 -- HG's experience sounds very alien, to me, to the male analogue. It seems to me that a man isn't going to experience self-loathing for successfully pulling off a Sexy Script, but only for failure. HG's hatred, and she uses the word a lot, isn't tied to failure. It's success.

Obviously there are going to be exceptions and all.

You don't get closer to being a conventionally attractive man by stifling qualities you're proud of.

I don't know...my habit of reading all kinds of books ("for fun") and a willingness to take art seriously are qualities I'm proud of. Not to mention that the healthier you eat, the less manly and more womanly you become.

Ogged, way back in 7: Your comment is precisely analagous to.

So banned.

134 gets at something that's been driving me insane lately. My daughter (age 3) has recently become obsessed with the fucking Disney Princesses (and I know whose fault it is - I'm coming after you, family of classmate Ashley G-----). I've always known this was inevitable, but it's infuriating to see. My (feminist) wife says "I had a book with Cinderella and Snow White and I'm OK," and my MIL hardly sees the problem at all, but it enrages me. Why? Because the princesses, with few exceptions, show no desirable personality at all. It's all SexyScript.

Get our of my daughter's sweet, innocent, intelligent head, Patriarchy!

Out. Out!

Damn typos.

140: Yeah, that sounds right.

141: Pressure on men not to be artsy fiction reading intellectuals exists, but it doesn't feel parallel to me. You can play sexy dominant male intellectual just fine within a conventional gender roles framework -- this is how professors sleep with their female students.

Outside of a context where intellectualism is valued, it may not get you a lot of manly points, but does it really feel like "Liking to read is what's between me and being attractive"?

Actually, several of the princesses (Jasmine, Mulan, Belle) are admirably feisty in the actual movies. This aspect of their personalities is 100% completely removed when they are lumped in with Simper White and Passed-out Beauty, though. That may be even more maddening.

139: In a way, I have to disagree. It's annoying that other people asses us according to SexyScript, but the thing that *really* sucks about it is the way it gets in one's head.

141: I think this is correct. There are lots of admirable traits that men are supposed to squelch. Including, hell, keeping a house clean and having good manners.

142: Um, Ogged was like, being ironic and shit? Dude?

My daughter (age 3) has recently become obsessed with the fucking Disney Princesses

Join the goddamn club, mate.

143: death to disney princesses. that is all.

I guess what I was thinking about was ways to be perceived as normal to non-intellectual men, not ways to attract women. The qualities I mentioned are in fact compatible with being attractive to women.

Non-intellectual women do often have a narrow idea of what they're looking for in a man, though. Generally derived from the lowest-common-denominator idea found in commercials, again.

143 -- I have a standard canned rant on this subject, and on Disney characters in general (esp. Mickey). Consider it incorporated by reference as if set forth herein.

HG's hatred, and she uses the word a lot, isn't tied to failure. It's success.

Yes. I hadn't thought about it this way, but yeah. I'm capable of being SexyScript, but I hate who I am when I'm doing it.

145 - The last time this came up, I think someone mentioned that the ways in which some of the female concerns about body image got played out for men was in the way that "manliness" gets wrapped up with all kinds of self-destructive behavior. I think there's something to this (and hurrah for a patriarchy which glamorizes drinking too much), but obviously there's a lot more room for a man who isn't working on an early grave to be sexy than there is for a woman who wears sweatpants and doesn't flirt.

146: Now, come on. Simper White was feisty by the standards of her era: she scolds the Dwarves and totally whips 'em into shape. And Sleeping Beauty is a beautiful film, artistically--in some ways, it bugs me less, b/c it's a fairy tale and the viewer isn't expected in any way to identify with SB, just to watch the movie as if it were a book.

140 - Maybe that's because men who aren't comfortable with the male SexyScript do not actually succeed in using it, because we can succeed, although not become ultimate alpha males, in other ways.

Yep on the Disney princesses. At seven, though, Sally seems to be outgrowing them in favor of Pokemon and comics.

They're bringing out a movie with the first black Disney Princess™ soon, aren't they? Something set around New Orleans, turn of the last century IIRC.

154 - B, if you don't mind my saying so, you seem a little contrary today.

152: I guess I don't hate myself when doing SexyScript, because I kind of find it funny. Or at least, I enjoy it best with a guy who is aware of and also playing that role, where part of the subtext is "isn't it crazy to be playing this game?"

Yeah, I actually know that they're not all bad. I'm particularly annoyed that she has glommed on to the useless Snow White.

The upsides:

We have a very good edition of Grimm's that includes all the gore. Not necessarily less patriartchal, but at least less SexyScript (the Stepmother cutting off the toes of the Stepsisters to fit into the slipper changes the tone of the piece a bit)

I tell her stories at bedtime, and my versions (generally half-remembered) have preferable emphases. But what the hell can you do with Ariel, who trades her voice to try to marry some guy she's never met?

My daughter has already gotten a lot of good input from elsewhere. She suggested that, since Ursula the Sea-Witch liked Ariel's voice so much, she could marry her! Proud Papa moment right there....

Sorry to have ripped us OT.

157, you're gonna love 158.

99 is right. "Class clown" is a role, like "court jester," crafted perfectly in most situations to instill self-loathing and sublimated resentment. It's only part of a "sexy script" for the tiny minority who go on to be successful entertainers.

134: Let me try this out on you: the difference between the dominant "sexy scripts" isn't really between admirable vs. not-admirable, it's between (very roughly speaking) "dominant" and "submissive." The roles are asymmetrical -- that's the sense in which I could see "it happens to men too" being annoying -- but it's not in the normal run of things for everyone of a certain gender to enjoy and take pride in playing the dominant. The extent to which many men dislike downplaying emotion, self-reflectiveness, intelligence, empathy and other things associated with non-dominance is hard to know; how many would admit it? Maybe more now than in the past, but that's not saying much.

I'd never heard this kind of description of where the emotional reaction comes from, and that was very interesting, so thanks.

I personally find that having scripts or personas, and deploying different parts of my personality at different times, is pretty fun. Particularly in fairly circumscribed situations, like an office or a party, I feel like the fact that I have parts of myself in reserve actually gives me an advantage over people, because I know things about myself that they don't. I have no idea if this is weird, but even if it's not, it's certainly easy to understand why this would be a harder attitude to have when the expectation of being a certain, specific, limiting way is basically omnipresent.

152: you aren't the first woman I heard say this.

Well, the Ariel thing, she stands up for herself. That's pretty big. She's got her own intellectual interests: she's kind of an archaeologist of land-based culture. And she follows that even when it means losing her voice. Maybe you can spin it as her being an anthropologist who goes into a country where she doesn't speak the language and has to learn to communicate with the natives to more fully understand not only their culture but her own.

DS gets it exactly right in 161.

There are a lot of small-town women who don't want a dominant man, but are pressured into only seeking out dominant men. And small-town men who don't want a submissive woman, but are pressured into only seeking out submissive women. And often they marry each other, and both of them can very well hate having succeeded in something that they sort of fell into because doing anything else would have been rebellious and unpredictable.

160 - Heh. I kinda do.

In all honesty, what about those times when you aren't sure if the guy is aware that he's playing the roll? Or - this is actually situation that bothers me most: when you're the third party, watching other people act out the script with no irony? This is when I hate the part of myself that "gets it", gets why they'd behave that way.

Yeah, I know plenty of people who perform this stuff and enjoy it -- it's not painful for everyone all the time. And there's nothing wrong with that if it works for them, as it seems to do for you. I've just never got the hang of doing it with an ironic edge or whatever.

"The extent to which many men dislike downplaying emotion, self-reflectiveness, intelligence, empathy and other things associated with non-dominance is hard to know; how many would admit it?"

More than that, how many would unintentionally prevent others from admitting it by being the same callous, joking bastards we always are.

158/162: isn't there also a question of choice too? Playing a role for fun is a lot different from playing one because you feel you `have' to.

the first black Disney Princess™

Yeah, about that...

I supposed the assigned scripts are little social rituals in which everyone partakes from time to time, but sooner or later authenticity must emerge, else the whole exchange remains shallow and empty.

(I'm pretty sure I would have been one of those men in 165 if I hadn't been so all-fired smart as to leave the small town. Especially if I had gotten married shortly after high school. It's amazing that living a life that is unpredictable but fully explainable can be harder than following the script of being the poor man's imitation of the poor man's Prom Queen/Quarterback)

166: Oh yeah, it bugs me when I feel self-conscious walking down the street. Worse is when I find myself just falling silent when someone says something that's stupid or offensive.

The third party thing, see, I think of "getting it" as being something to be proud of--being able to be both empathetic and intellectual enough to analyze the situation.

167: I think that sincerity is probably a really killer emotion for both women and men, even though it cuts differently. It's not something we value very much as a culture, at all.

158/162/167/169 brings up the different angle of ability and willingness to play different roles, aside from whether one likes doing so. I don't think I'm really able to make myself play the male SexyScript, because I can't comfortably present not-me. This ties in with why I don't use a pseudonym - even that's a bit too not-me to handle.

168: Amen.

161: Okay, kind of true. I'd say that there's a sense in which you earn being dominant by being admirable -- your good qualities are why people are supposed to obey you -- but competent and strong or not, the sidekick isn't a sexy role so it is about the dominance.

This:

There are a lot of small-town women who don't want a dominant man, but are pressured into only seeking out dominant men. And small-town men who don't want a submissive woman, but are pressured into only seeking out submissive women.

Is dead on, except for the small-town bit which I don't know from. This is what went wrong with my parents' marriage, and it was a twenty-eight year slowmotion trainwreck.

173, no, sincerity is like dorkiness--there are certain "correct" ways to perform it. (Well, not around here.)

But they do tend to default to the more visible and conventional stuff as well, and that's the stuff that gets talked about: the hotness of models or actresses or Thora Birch or Alyson Hanigan.

Wait, Alyson Hannigan? The Alyson Hannigan who's played the sidekick and the geek (albeit, ever since American Pie with a secret freaky side) her entire career?

The thing for me is just that whenever the conversation turns to discussing what women are Pretty or Sexy or Hot to gaze upon, my mind turns inevitably to the following sequence of thoughts:

1) Christ, I fall short of physical beauty in so many ways. X, for example! and Y! and also Z, ooh, but really Y, and also Q, and god, I wonder if my R is as defective as I fear it is.

2) Christ, I hate me for being so vain and caring about this stuff. What the fuck is my problem? I would be a better and happier person if I didn't think like this.

3) But also, boy, I'm unhappy with me for not being more pretty. Why can't I be more pretty? I wish my parents had given me better genes.

4) Alternate between (2) and (3) ad nauseum.

The point, Josh, is that Alyson Hannigan is still a sexy actress despite her nerdy image. What about women like the characters she plays who do not happen to be sexy actresses?

Without trying to raise the "it happens to guys too" argument I would say that I am very sympathetic to frustrations with the limited scripts conventionally available to both genders.

I frequently doubt whether it's possible to remove/mitigate the presence these scripts have in "public" interactions and suspect that the only practical solution is to try to create more private social spaces that, at least, use different scripts. (of course this may just be projection of my quirks)

Perhaps, playing off the discussion of geeks and class clowns above, part of what is so frustrating about the SexyScript™ is that it is unchanging across different social spheres.

We can say that "dominance" is part of the male script that academic dominance/competitiveness looks very different from jock dominance. Whereas I would image that the SexyScript for academic and jock women is surprisingly similar.

178 - Yes, and the Thora Birch who played Enid Coleslaw. I think the point is that you're allowed to be teh hawt if you're a nerd and look like Rebecca, not so much if you look like Enid (Clowes version).

I am not sure that I actually recognize what SexyScript is. It's probably a testimony to my social incapacity that I'm not more frequently on the receiving end of it. But since all the ladies here seem to have a clear idea of what it is, could you explain it or provide a pop culture example?

The link in 170 is awesome. I'm surprised that along with the crows, they didn't use a clip of the apes in the Jungle Book.

I think that sincerity is probably a really killer emotion for both women and men, even though it cuts differently. It's not something we value very much as a culture, at all.

Absolutely. It took me a long time to learn that saying what I sincerely believed was often going be perceived as earnest and that was going to make people profoundly uncomfortable.

Sorry, I didn't mean explain it, I meant describe it.

147: no no, we agree. both things are annoying. internalizing the script & letting it alter you is probably worse, too. i just don't always separate them out because they feed into each other so neatly - even when you think you've disarmed it & become teflon.

it's easier to disregard comments & treatment you get from others than to get rid of certain ingrained habits -- like, for me, self-minimizing speech patterns and the worst, self-deprecating or nervous laughter when i say something bold, or decisive, or definitive (especially if it is at all confrontational). which is why the dominant / submissive distinction someone made strikes an uncomfortable chord. ick ick ick.

182: Come on. She has tits and she's thin. No, an actress that looks like that isn't gonna get cast, but in the non-movie world she's still pretty damn cute: you just think, "stand up straight and wear a better bra, and you'd look great!"

168: And not always "unintentionally," either.

Man, I think good manners and picking up after oneself are so sexy. I know men get pressured into behaving like louts and that I might not be representative of all women. Sorry to make the "but I like fat women" comment, but I just couldn't help myself.

188: Curiously, the same damned advice Mom has been giving me for 20 years...

187: Oh god yes. The self-deprecating crap in the wrong circumstances. And I'm so proud of stuff like when I once sneaked a peek at a doctor's chart and saw that she'd described me as "pleasant," which I knew was because in the doc's office I tend to perform "intelligent, but not in any way challenging your authority." Ick, indeed.

I think the point is that you're allowed to be teh hawt if you're a nerd and look like Rebecca, not so much if you look like Enid (Clowes version).

Which I agree with... OTOH, given that I think that people are going to discuss the hotness of actors/celebrities/whatever regardless, it's at least a little encouraging that Alyson Hannigan gets the attention she does, rather than being completely passed over in favor of Sarah Michelle Gellar or (pre-surgery) Tara Reid or whomever.

a doctor's chart and saw that she'd described me as "pleasant,"

Good lord.

183 - watch a katherine hepburn movie sometime, even one like Adam's Rib where she's pretty strong, and watch how she has to undercut herself all the time and gets punished anyway for being independent.

or better yet, watch Gigi (the musical with louis jourdain) or read colette's book, which it's based one. the dynamic it talks about is still around today, even if nobody is teaching us how to eat grouse without using our fingers and correctly choose a cigar for our man, or whatever.

My take is that Enid (comic version) is not supposed to be hideous or anything, but she's not conventionally pretty enough to get license from the world at large for being unconventional in other ways. Her rebelliousness is "unattractive" in a way that Rebecca's isn't. And then, of course, Rebecca stops being particularly rebellious, too.

I think Ned got that in 150. There are good qualities you have to squelch to be Manly™, but not so much to be sexually appealing. There's a stock contrast between the Manly™ guy who's properly stoic and slovenly and all that, and the less manly guy (more emotionally sensitive and whatnot) who's taken his girl away -- the Manly™ gets her back at the end of the movie, but the sensitivity and so forth are presented as attractive qualities.

190: I don't think that's a"But I like fat women" comment at all. I have never yet met the woman who felt otherwise -- and certainly not the woman who thought, "Wow, his week-old sweat socks are on the sofa, how hot!" The pressure to be a manly slob is not, I don't think, a Sexy Script thing.

I snuck a peak at my high school recommendations, once when my college advisor left my folder sitting out. My favorite line:

"Heebie can make or break the best-laid lesson plans."

oops, 195 is me.

Watch Gigi right after watching The Sorrow and the Pity, to maximize your entertainment pleasure.

OTOH, given that I think that people are going to discuss the hotness of actors/celebrities/whatever regardless, it's at least a little encouraging that Alyson Hannigan gets the attention she does

It is, I suppose, but it's also really depressing, because of the way it makes me feel all aspirational -- how totally plausible it seems to aspire to be cutely Willowesque! Which I would actually want to be! -- followed by the usual cycle of (a) Ha ha, good luck with that, you relatively homely thing, (b) What a gross thing to aspire to, (c) Well, yuck all around.

Man, I think good manners and picking up after oneself are so sexy

My wife has been trying this old chestnut for the lasst dozen years and it doesn't fool anyone darlin', really it doesn't.

188 - Trolls get sentenced to Limbo with nothing but Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron to read, you know.

193 - Is that really surprising? Ignoring the whole she's-gay thing, it's not like it's a big surprise that there's a big market out there for masturbatory fantasies about the smart, shy, funny one when she looks like Willow. I hestitate to tie this back into the nice-guy crap, but really.

watch a katherine hepburn movie sometime, even one like Adam's Rib where she's pretty strong, and watch how she has to undercut herself all the time and gets punished anyway for being independent.

That was one of the most bizarre movie-watching experiences I'd ever seen. I felt so sorry for Spencer Tracy's character during the whole thing, which I suppose was the point. It felt like a Paddy Chayefsky-style cautionary tale about the demoralizing horrors that will befall good honest working joes during the upcoming era of liberal/feminist domination.

The Alyson Hannigan thing is complicated by the fact that Hannigan is actually an extremely attractive woman (in the conventional sense), playing geeky roles.

198: I dunno about "SexyScript," but it certainly can be part of the "not gay" script as it is conventionally instantiated, rougly: if a man is cleaning, it must be because he is otherwise so unmanly that there is no hope of finding a woman to pick up after him. Same thing for cooking, traditionally.

Prissiness about neat clothes, however, is making great strides among even the most homophobic men. Excelsior!

she's kind of an archaeologist of land-based culture

Actually, that is part of my emphasis. I didn't come up with a great explanation of why an archaeologist would give up her voice to try to marry a guy from another culture.

As I said, the SexySxript is so deeply embedded in the Disney stories, it's almost impossible to avoid. At least with Beauty & the Beast, I emphasize that Belle is the only one who doesn't treat Beast as a monster - sure, there's a bit of "woman as civilizer" there, but it's mostly "woman as non-xenophobe." Oh, and the Beast stays a beast at the end - he just turns nice inside, where it counts.

IOW, he rejects the BeastScript.

M. Leblanc's 53 and rfts's 179 are particularly nice to read, because they're just relating what it's like to be them. They echo what I feel, without getting too cerebral about it.

195.1 "What've you got back there, radar?"

[Adam's Rib] was one of the most bizarre movie-watching experiences I'd ever seen

I heard reference recently to a Pauline Kael article in which she argues that a demonstration of Cary Grant's genius was that when paired with Katherine Hepburn Cary Grant (and the movie) could appreciate her rebeliousness, and not need to tame it, whereas in the Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn movies she was required to become conventional by the end of the movie.

194: Exactly my point.

193: Puhleeze. Alyson Hannigan--who I like very much, don't get me wrong--is so very not "alternative" to conventional beauty standards. Ooh, she's quirky! And a redhead! Wow, how wild!

190, 198, 203: I think it's an "I like fat chicks" comment--and I totally love JM for pointing that out even while she's making it. Are you watching, boys? And what women mean when they say "I think tidiness is sexy" is really "not making a mess means not pissing me off, and I won't fuck you when I'm angry." Cleanliness in guys gets coded as "fussy"; it's just that once you start living with someone, the devil-may-care-honey-leave-the-dishes-let's-fuck! attitude you loved while dating him gives way to a realization that what he really means is I'm horny now; you can do the dishes in the morning.

I'd agree with Sifu, that the NotGay Script exists and can be similarly suffocating, like the Sexy Script.

In fact, they're both the same script: Men Are Straight! Just acted out by each of the two genders.

211 -- Any idea how Kael argued that this was evidence of genius on the part of Hepburn's co-star rather than the directors and writers?

Ignoring the whole she's-gay thing, it's not like it's a big surprise that there's a big market out there for masturbatory fantasies about the smart, shy, funny one when she looks like Willow.

What was the attitude 50-75 years ago towards the female sidekick in the movies? Would the Alyson-Hannigan-analog of 1935 have gotten a spread in the Maxim-analog of 1935? My sense is no, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out I'm wrong.

I hestitate to tie this back into the nice-guy crap, but really.

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you think that I'm saying "but I like fat chicks!"?

209: Thanks, I was a little worried that my 179 would fall down into a pit of disinterest.

I heard reference recently to a Pauline Kael article in which she argues that a demonstration of Cary Grant's genius was that when paired with Katherine Hepburn Cary Grant (and the movie) could appreciate her rebeliousness, and not need to tame it, whereas in the Spencer Tracy/Katherine Hepburn movies she was required to become conventional by the end of the movie.

How is this Grant's genius? That he had established a character that was ok with this, so that that character, which in the American system he would always play is the creative act?

Saw a Northwestern student production of Holiday over the weekend; interesting to see it it without Grant & Hepburn.

It's not entirely a "don't piss me off" thing. After my honey was very polite and kind to my mother, I brought him a potted plant and made sweet sweet love to him.

218: I was generalizing in an Oggedian way about the rhetorical "us"--I totally believe that for you, it's genuinely hott.

Puhleeze. Alyson Hannigan--who I like very much, don't get me wrong--is so very not "alternative" to conventional beauty standards. Ooh, she's quirky! And a redhead! Wow, how wild!

You're reacting to a stronger claim than I meant to make. I'm not saying she's "alternative" to conventional beauty standards, I'm saying she's slightly more realistically human than, say, Sarah Michelle Gellar. Which is improvement, if not earth-shaking in its implications.

I don't feel like Hepburn goes untamed in Philadelphia Story; I have very mixed feelings about that movie. I love Holiday pretty much unreservedly.

215: No, you're saying "I like Alyson Hannigan, and I think that's really progressive of me."

How is this Grant's genius?

That he could play a version of masculinity that didn't require dominance? In Bringing Up Baby, he's not emasculated, but she's not submissive or dominated. Is that Grant or the screenwriter? Who knows, but he certainly played in an equal romance more often than most movie stars. The Front Page, Holiday...

211,217,221 -- unfortunately I'm just repeating the argument second hand. I should see if I can find the article, but have not read it.

Alyson Hannigan is gorgeous. Willow has the nerd-chic thing going, but I'm convinced they had to dress Willow so badly because otherwise the sidekick would have looked better than the lead. She's not, in other words, good evidence for a claim that 'geeks are hot', but evidence that if you take a really pretty girl and put her in unflattering clothing, she'll still be sorta pretty.

223: The question was just "Is this what you meant?" not "How can you say that!"

220: Okay, in that case tone the snark in 222 down about 75%, please. Still, the point you're making is really excruciatingly minor: sex symbols can be slightly more human as long as they're still pretty. BFD.

221: Yeah, that one doesn't work. She can't be with Jimmy Stewart, because he's weaker than she is; she goes back to Cary Grant because he's the strong man who can take care of her. Also, the conversation with her father about her coldness being why he screws around? Way fucked up.

It's still a great movie, though. I love the kid sister singing Lydia the Tattooed Lady.

That he could play a version of masculinity that didn't require dominance? In Bringing Up Baby

"I just went gay all of a sudden!"

143, 146, et al.: Princess Fiona in Shrek? In her glorious greenness?

Also, Twice Upon a Time. It'll go way past her for years to come, but will subvert all of those old-fashioned notions.

What was the attitude 50-75 years ago towards the female sidekick in the movies? Would the Alyson-Hannigan-analog of 1935 have gotten a spread in the Maxim-analog of 1935? My sense is no, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out I'm wrong.

I think there was an Alyson Hannigan analog in 193, as Joan Blondell, who was in fact very glamorous, but got the sidekick roles because she could be convincingly witty and fast-talking. She was pretty likely to be in the movie-star magazines of the time, even though she wasn't the female romantic lead.

And both then and now there were comic actresses who were actually not conventionally attractive, and they got the asexual comic sidekick roles, and were ignored by the movie-star magazines. In Gold Diggers of 1933 it was Aline McMahon, and today it's Janeane Garofalo. I don't know if the situation has improved. It's always been acceptable to have a silly public image if you look like a hot chick.

Harking way back, having just read Heebie's original blog post, without having read all the comments here,

H-G, that actually made me tear up. The bit about self-loathing. Very few women are willing to acknowledge it (perhaps only a relative few share it, I'm not sure, as most decline to speak of it).

As I think the original blog post mentioned, I see myself assessing other women according to the Sexy Script as well.

There is (I have) a hell of a lot of anger, and shame, about all this: I apply the standard to myself (at times), I apply it to other women -- wrong! stop it! -- and it's extremely difficult not to be enraged at the perceived perpetrators.

Those would be, for example, men who say things like "I'd do her." I nearly lost a male friend not long ago when I basically lost it, started yelling, at hearing him say this about a mutual friend who'd just lost a lot of weight.

eh. This was just supposed to be a thank-you shout out to Heebie. I find it difficult to talk about this stuff.

I am in fullest agreement with 228. The class issues in Philadelphia Story are also fascinating.

220: Go watch the Halloween episode or the Doppelganger episode, and tell me Hannigan has a normal body. Her looks are downplayed, but she has the thin frame, perky boobs, and toned abs of any other actress.

215 - I just don't think it says anything one way or another that a beautiful actress like Allyson Hannigan is a sex symbol. Betty Grable was the spunky smart one in How to Marry a Millionaire, but she was still Betty Grable.

228 - You're forgetting that she can't be with the young politician, because he's a former working man and thus not our type, dear yaaaahr.

225: You know, she's real-world gorgeous, but doesn't have a standard actressy face -- more typical is exaggerated delicacy, and Hannigan's got a big head and strong, blunt features. It's one of those areas where 'closer to Hollywood perfect' doesn't map closely to 'actually more attractive'.

Janeane Garofalo doesn't look like a hot chick?

I remember now where I heard the reference. It was in the directors commentary for The Holliday (the Jude Law/Camaron Dias Kate Winslet/Jack Black movie).

The director mentioned that she liked the Kael article and had given a copy to Jude Law (or maybe Jude Law found the article and showed it to her.

I find it slightly embarassing to admit that I not only watched the movie (which was not very good) but also listened to the directors commentary but there you go.

I'm sorry, I'm engaging in something that I was feeling minorly irked by, the tendency for Unfogged posts about feminism to drift into talking about how nice guys have it rough too, you know. Or, in this case, that Allyson Hannigan is smoking hott, by close enough for government work.

234; Yeah, from the neck down she's pretty Hollywood-perfect/

Parsimmon - thank you. You're very welcome. I'm touched that the post resonated with you, and I appreciate you saying so.

Yeah, that's why she was Willow and not Buffy. All I'm saying is that if you're saying, "I am an enlightened guy who likes geeky normal chicks with normal bodies, like Willow" (an exaggeration of anything here), it's not really saying much about, say, the likelihood of an actual geeky woman (or any woman, really) to be able to attract men.

I would adore it if we didn't get sucked into a conversation about whether or not Alyson Hannigan's big beautiful eyes are more Hollywood-pretty or unconventional, but actually even more gorgeous than the Hollywood norm.

I too would like to avoid this, despite having been one of the people going down that road enthusiastically.

I took a seminar as an undergrad that was nominally about this stuff - it was even titled "Sex Roles and Relationships" - and the (female) instructor's central thesis wasn't really anything more than Men Have It Rough, Too. It seemed odd even at the time that that she was so narrowly focused on that, and it was up to her (male) co-instructor to broaden things a bit.

I love the Philadelphia Story. And in fact, I really love the bit about how her hostility and strength is why her father drinks. Superficially, of course, it's totally offensive bullshit. But at the same time, as someone who uses that strength/hostility to keep people at arm's length, it's kind of true: she (people in general) *does* need to learn that being open isn't the opposite of being strong, and it's kind of true, as I think this discussion's showing, that in a way the "strong woman/weak man" dichotomy is mutually self-reinforcing.

That plus I kind of like the subtext there, where her judgment of her *mother* for staying with her father despite his philandering is really unacceptable. Part of what that movie's getting at, I think, is the the argument that being the Strong Token Woman isn't, in the end, all that terribly feminist. (Not that the movie would use that language.)

Wait, I just figured out what the point is of the Alyson Hannigan exception. She may look conventionally attractive, but her image is not that of somebody who sticks to the SexyScript in her personality or her actions. And yet she is famous and popular.

Well...I don't think that's anything new either.

I think that the whole "acting enlightened by proclaiming attraction to person or type X" is almost always toolishness of a similar sort to men who proclaim themselves to be feminists. It's making it about them.

But heebie's post (and LB's 134) did a really good job of putting into understandable words this particular issue. Which is appreciated.

245: I think my most successful feminist teaching is often when I do the Men Have It Rough Too shtick. That's partly because undergrads are, well, undergrads--and getting the guys to realize that Feminists Don't Hate Men is, sadly, necessary before you can actually move on to doing anything else.

Kinda like Unfogged in that respect.

but her image is not that of somebody who sticks to the SexyScript in her personality or her actions.

Rrrr. I know her primarily as Willow, but, you know, while kickass and all that, what part of sweet and shyly submissive doesn't apply to the Willow character? This is not a hard break with the SexyScript.

Kinda like Unfogged in that respect.

Ouch.

"But I like fat chicks" should always be answered with, "that's mighty white of you."

Back to the script thing: I'm still a little curious as to why heebie gets so upset at herself for following the SexyScript.

Here are reasons why someone might be upset, but none of them seem to apply:
1) "I have to follow the SexyScript, or I can't get laid." That just doesn't seem right, both by anecdote here and by what heebie seems to say. But if it were true, that would be really annoying.
2) "The SexyScript is so artificial." We've talked about a lot of roles here: SassyScript, ClassClown, ReformedGeek... and I could probably think of my general actions as different levels of performance. So it can't be that it's just a role.
3) "It's a really annoying sexist role that I think I've grown past but it keeps popping up." This sounds plausible to me, but then I'm imagining heebie flirting, and coming up with something pretty intelligent and witty with some vamped up body language, and I can't figure out why that would bother her so much.

227: Thanks. But I thought arguing over really excruciatingly minor was what the Internet was all about.

252: I'm not punching that tarbaby.

249: There may be something to that, though I suspect that if it worked, it was by accident rather than intent. "Men Have It Rough, Too" followed by "so now you can appreciate how the other half lives" would have seemed a lot more intentional.

The class, for discussion possibilites, was supposed to be roughly gender-balanced, and the time I took it (and reportedly other times as well), it recruited the men it needed to make up its gender balance from the more fratty end of the undergraduate spectrum.

253: Because the SexyHeebie gets much more attention, and yet is something/someone that is very foreign and much less attractive to SassyHeebie?

Like how a guy might feel if he hates sceney hipster douchebags and then goes out and pretends to enjoy an art show and some pointless foreign film so that he can get laid, except in Hebbie's case it's about something that's much more important, and it's not just about getting laid, but about attention in everyday life.

pretends to enjoy an art show and some pointless foreign film

Philistine.

Today's Annie's Mailbox q&a (the first one) seems oddly apropos.

253: For some levels of can't, (1) is true. I had a hell of a time getting laid in college (did occasionally. Rarely twice with the same person. One 'relationship' that lasted more than a month or so, and that one consisted of a long-distance series of weekends -- four or five, total, maybe, over the course of a year?), and while I may have misunderstood what the problem was, at the time it felt like failure to successfully perform femininity.

(3) as well. For me, the Sexy Script was something I could do for long enough to get attention, but really couldn't hold for more than an hour or two at a time, at which point it'd break down, and I'd be offputtingly argumentative or funny or something. So it was always present for me as something that I could do, some, and that would get me what I wanted, but that I hated doing and wasn't good enough at to do it for long enough.

(I await the chorus of, "But why did you want the kind of jerks who demand performance of the Sexy Script?" Honestly, I'm not sure what was going on in my college social life. I had plenty of male friends, who seemed to perceive me as absolutely sexless other than when I was doing the routine, which I mostly wasn't. Was there some mother lode of cooler, geekier guys I should have been pursuing? Maybe, but my male friends were pretty damn geeky.)

255: Born and bred in a briarpatch, Bre'r Fox.

256: Precisely. I think you've done a good job if you can get the fratty boys past their defensive "but I like fat chicks" shtick, and if you can get the budding feminist women past the "men are an undifferentiated mass of jerkishness" thing.

Geeky guys don't appreciate geeky girls until much later; they're still living in fantasy-land where they're pursuing affirmation from dreamy sorority chick.

Please note that if you try to change the script for women, you'll be accused of trying to erase femininity.

Off to swim, suckas.

"But why did you want the kind of jerks who demand performance of the Sexy Script?"

Probably because many, many nice guys expect it as a signalling device, even the geeks. Maybe even especially the geeks, since they seem to be comfortable with women as friends.

Further, I'm not liking Sassy as an implicit contrast with Sexy. What I hear when I hear Sassy is a type of the Sexy performance; being spunky and witty but ultimately still adorably submissive. Sassy is, say, Sandra Bullock in Speed -- being all tough and competent, but not in any way that competes with or threatens the Manly™ hero.

"But why did you want the kind of jerks who demand performance of the Sexy Script?"

Because you wanted to get laid.

I had plenty of male friends, who seemed to perceive me as absolutely sexless other than when I was doing the routine, which I mostly wasn't.

I'm sure not all of them perceived you as absolutely sexless. Perhaps you would only have detected their interest in you if they were performing acts out of the Male SexyScript handbook, which they rejected in favor of the more progressive "Be friends with her forever and hope that you somehow start dating her" policy.

Oh the irony!

I had plenty of male friends, who seemed to perceive me as absolutely sexless

Wasn't there an earlier unfogged thread about the idea that part of the value of flirting (or some other signifier) is simply that it signals that you are open to being flirted with.

I can see how it could be seen as polite to treat as sexless a woman who never sends out the "I am open to being flirted with" signals.

In fact, I suspect that this dynamic was strongly at play between me and the woman that I ended up dating in college -- it took a combination of external events for either of us to see the other as potentially dateable.

264: That's sort of what I mean. Sassy, Androgenous Heebie still seems pretty sexy here. The SexyScript has many variations...and I can't imagine Androgenous Heebie really has a hard time meeting people.

266: You know, I was making unambiguous advances and getting rejections. Now, I admit that I didn't hit on all of my male friends, but I hit on some of them.

264: I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the guys I know actually prefer Willow's sassy/vulnerable character to Buffy's sororitygirl/hardass role.

264: I only offered "SassyHeebie" because "RealHeebie" seemed somehow wrong.

It also might be that Buffy is really boring.

But again, I've been married getting up to ten years now, and I'm not worrying about this stuff acutely on a personal level -- so long as I'm not trying to get laid, I can ignore it. And I expect the pressure to conform gets much much less as you form relationships as an adult; I'm thinking about college. (After college came the Peace Corps, in which I languished unsuccessfully after an emaciated Kiwi with an immune system that couldn't handle the tropics, and then I met Buck when I got home. So my dating experience is pretty limited.)

I'm just saying that I do understand the feeling that you can get what you want - attention, admiration, sex -- only to the extent you can perform a difficult and humiliating role.

253:

I'm still a little curious as to why heebie gets so upset at herself for following the SexyScript

This is striking me as a bit intentionally dense.

In this society, one's value as a person is, when one is female, significantly determined by one's feminine attractiveness.

Sorry to have become impatient, but.

Surely you've experienced being dismissed with a gaze? Flick, glance, flick, glance away.

Right, but I'm not going to become irritated here.

If the question is why a woman would become upset at finding herself acceding to this game, seeking attention in ways contrary to her beliefs, well.

I should back out of this now.

268: there's a big gap between "doesn't have a hard time meeting people" and "gets lots of attention, in a sexual way."

I'm just saying that I do get

...trigger-happy with the post button.

Oh sure, fix it now.

I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.

Well, SassyScript is just a placeholder, and (of course) directly from H-G's self-description. But let's not let Hollywood rule everything. Yes, Sandra Bullock is sold as "sassy," but the essence of the term has more to do with personality and attitude, not teh hott. As I tried to say awhile ago, H-G's post would be meaningless if she were complaining "why do I have to act in a way that others find desirable?" It's "why do I have to behave in these specific, supposedly desirable ways, while suppressing my actual desirability?"

Since the premise of the discussion is that H-G is actually desirable to a non-meaningless number of desirable guys when she isn't following SexyScript, I think it's a bit much to try to apply a term, like AntisexyScript, for what she's doing.

272: No, actually, she's not. She's a much more complicated and challenging character than Willow is, actually, especially in the last two seasons that everyone likes to bitch about.

? I see herself calling herself Androgynous Heebie as a contrast, not Sassy Heebie.

You're really convincing, 274. Intentionally dense. The pain of being dismissed with a glance? Let's put it this way: when you're not hot, like me, and you don't have people all over the internet glad to see pictures of your ass, you don't have the ability to decide to be SexyScript. This isn't heebie's problem

SexyScript is a role heebie can play. It's not the only role open to her. It's a role that when she plays it has a lot of men gagging for it more than they are normally. It's not a role she has to be forced into to be taken seriously in the math department. So I can see why it would be annoying in a "god, why do i act like a ditz around men I like" sort of way, but inspiring such self-loathing. So you fall into a role more or less dictated by society... why beat yourself up so much?

Ugh, I'm finding that this thread is making me feel bad, for all the ways I discuss in the thread itself. (This is the title of this story, which is also found several times in the story itself!)

280: Buffy's more a character that things happen to. She's sort of like Harry Potter. She's the star, but because she is In Love with Angel or Spike, Burdened By Her Destiny, The Chosen One, her role gets a little one-sided.

Whoa, 282. Perhaps one reason it inspires self-loathing is because talking about it evokes that kind of reaction from other women.

284: Which is why seasons 5 and 6 are the best ones.

Is it time for me to put up an Israel/Palestine post?

And she also used Scripted Heebie rather than SexyHeebie. So yes. But the point that Scripted Heebie is hated by herself and desired by others still stands; getting positive reinforcement for something you'd rather not do and spend a lot of your time trying not to do is intensely aggravating.

Why this leads in some to "what the fuck is the matter with you people" and in others "what the fuck is the matter with me" may be an interesting question.

So you fall into a role more or less dictated by society... why beat yourself up so much?

Because as much as we all like to say, "I blame society," deep down most of us blame ourselves.

253: What I imagine in regard to 3 is Heebie coming up with something intelligent and witty, but then not saying it, because it might frighten the shy woodland creature, but I shouldn't try to speak for her when she's right here.

Let's put it this way: when you're not hot, like me, and you don't have people all over the internet glad to see pictures of your ass, you don't have the ability to decide to be SexyScript. This isn't heebie's problem.

Man, I'm not getting anything from this other than telling Heebie that she should stop whining and be grateful for the male attention she can get.

287: I think so, yes.

Having only skimmed a thread which has raced from 0 to 250 in just over three hours (do you guys ever track post acceleration rates?), I was reminded that some comment of heebie's made me realize that I imagined her as super-cute because she's so funny, and then wonder why I associated a quality of mind with physical attributes. Subsequent revelations concerning the ass photo have not helped to sort this out. In any case, heebie, you rule.

Also, Disney. So much to rant about, but in short, I'm still unconvinced that any Disney product is free of insidious messages about gender roles (and a whole lot else). Having daughters has only reinforced my antipathy to mass media generally; filtering these kinds of messages is, it turns out, a huge part of being a parent.

The woman who runs the flower stand at our local market has taken a shine to my girls. One day, she said, "they're my favorite little tomboys." Count me one proud daddy.

282, I wasn't trying to be convincing.

That was in response to the idea that I just couldn't understand, such that I was intentionally dense, what it was like not to be noticed, and that point was made as condescendingly as possible. Hi, I met my fiancé on the Internet. Think I'm attractive? Think I don't understand what it's like to be ignored? I think I understand at least as well as someone whose AndrogynousScript is sexier than my SexyScript, what society's standards of attractiveness do to women.

So, now I'm the source of heebie's self-loathing. I can get why she'd hate playing the role. I can get why she'd find it limiting. I can get why she'd fervently wish that society were different. I can see why she'd hate herself if she couldn't live up to the standard and were forced to walk the streets alone. But I don't quite understand what why succeeding at it inspires such a depth of self-loathing.

But now I learn it's my fault. That sure was easy!

Perhaps Erica Shepherd could help with this problem.

295: I didn't mean to imply that it's your fault. What I meant to imply is what you're saying here: Think I'm attractive? Think I don't understand what it's like to be ignored? I think I understand at least as well as someone whose AndrogynousScript is sexier than my SexyScript, what society's standards of attractiveness do to women.

That the problem with sexy script, and why it inspires self-loathing in women who really are feminists, is knowing that playing it successfully inevitably plays into the hurt feelings of women who can't or don't play it. That no matter how much you reject the idea that women must be attractive to be worthwhile, you realize that your own attractiveness--and your ability to use it to make your life easier--is part of the problem for women who are otherwise your friends, sisters, and allies.

But I don't quite understand what why succeeding at it inspires such a depth of self-loathing.

Damn, I hate reaching for racial analogies to gender issues, but they so often work, albeit at a totally overthetop level of intensity. Given that the analogy is completely hyperbolic, overblown, and all that, can you see why a black man in the pre-Civil War South who got along great with whites by shucking and jiving and saying "Yes, Massa", and had really internalized the role to the point where it came naturally, might feel some self-loathing over it?

I meant Civil Rights rather than Civil War, but I suppose either works.

Wow, LB comes off hiatus just to get herself banned!

Dude, I've been banned.

Seriously, is anyone actually trying to avoid making analogies, rather than just kidding about it?

Seriously, is anyone actually trying to avoid making analogies, rather than just kidding about it?

Only about three times per thread.

298: Too hyperbolic. See, heebie isn't using her physical charms to get ahead professionally, from what she described. And it's not that she can't even be somewhat attractive with her wit. Just that when she's interested in romance, she plays up the traditional romance signals. And on balance, that's really not a big sin against women.

295: I don't see how anything is your fault, and don't have time at the moment to catch up the thread, but as to the inspiring self-loathing thing, I think I get that. I've had the experience of conciously modifying my behaviour based on peoples expectations and ending up both vastly more popular (in some sense) and very much less happy for it. If you are winning at a game you can't respect yourself for, it isn't a great feeling. But social pressures are weird, and you can easily end up in a damned if you do and damned if you don't territory.

I guess bottom line is if `succeeding' comes at the cost of your self respect it's quite easy to end up self-loathing, as you put it.

295, Cala,

I did not intend to sound condescending as much as frustrated. I certainly didn't mean that you couldn't understand what being ignored was like -- the point was that I'd be stunned if you hadn't experienced the phenomenon.

This:

I don't quite understand what why succeeding at it inspires such a depth of self-loathing

Is possibly to the point. Of our misunderstanding here. I don't want to put words in Heebie's mouth, but in my own experience, it has nothing to do with succeeding at it or not. It's simply the trying, the desire to comply.

298: Argghhhhh...

297, 298 -- I like how you explain this.

306: Yeah, deserved. But hey, John Lennon said it first.

your own attractiveness--and your ability to use it to make your life easier--is part of the problem

I'm not sure why attractiveness is treated differently from anything else. If you're intelligent, you use that to your advantage. If you're wealthy, you use that to your advantage. If you're funny, you use that to your advantage. Nobody has much problem with those.

309: [he says, dropping the firecrackers onto the dance floor and wandering away, whistling]

I gotta run. Lub j00 guys.

In trying to understand where Heebie and LB are coming from, I first think "oh yeah, this is sort of analogous to how hard a time I had in realizing that I didn't have to pretend to be nonnerdy to get women to like me." But quickly I realized that there are two key differences:

1. It seems (at least according to selfreporting here) that more women than men who struggle with the SexyScript are actually able to pull it off. (I, for example, never came close to learning despite a few years of trying.)
2. It seems that guys get over this sometime between 20 and 25, and that it's much harder for women to get over.

So I guess I'm left not fully understanding where those two things come from, but it seems to me those are the key differences.

295: You know, Cala, I totally get what you're saying. It does frustrate me a lot--when I think of the muchness I have suffered because I cannot be all nicely-assed and everything--to hear that women who succeed with the SexyScript are unhappy, especially when their complaints about the SexyScript only generate more fame and beloved-ness. There's such a social dynamic about "oooh, the beautiful troubled girl is also attractively sad; perhaps I will be special-wecial and comfort her and then she will love me". Things turn into this really fast, and even if that's not happening, it's always something you know can happen, and there's always the sense that everyone loves a sad pretty girl and no one gives a good goddamn about a sad plain one. Feminist sweepstakes, indeed! I don't think that's what's happening here, but since it happens so often on these intertubes, it's easy to see and expect.

I don't really have any words of wisdom about this.

It happens to pretty girls, though; it's not something they do.

The only advice I can give myself on this score is that I must try to stand on my own. Genetics have decreed me fat and plain, so there are a lot of things that aren't options for me. And I have to find things to care about in myself and things to be interested in that do not depend on others' belief that I'm attractive. That's just what I have to do; it's not like any amount of sorrow will make me beautiful. I'm not, honestly, happy that I have to do this, but I try to get some masochistic pleasure out of it.

FWIW, I do try to avoid analogies, and I think they're less ocmmon than they used to be - to the benefit of the threads. And I'm not just saying that to suck up to ogged.

But it was the egregiousness of the analogy that made me comment. 306 is even funnier if you don't know anything about DS - it's just a cri de coeur over an analogy.

312: Not to self-promote, but did you see 37? With 56 for more?

There's such a social dynamic about "oooh, the beautiful troubled girl is also attractively sad; perhaps I will be special-wecial and comfort her and then she will love me".

Yes, this is gross for everyone involved.

309: If your attractiveness gives you an advantage in an arena that should depend on intelligence, for example, using attractiveness to gain the advantage can make you feel pretty shitty about your intelligence. If I were pretty enough to advance in my career by using my hotness, I would likely resent the advancement very much, thinking my intelligence would have been enough. And my self-esteem would be shot because I would feel rather the whore if I pursued my career by using my shapely legs rather than sharp wit.

Fortunately, I've never been pretty enough to have that problem.

I'd feel the same whorish self-contempt if I relied on wealth to pursue my advancement. Again, fortunately not a problem I've had.

313: Okay, one last thing. It's not quite that. I just don't want heebie to feel bad for being femme. I'd be annoyed if she were trying to get the math geeks to do her work for her by flaunting her boobs, but by her own admission, her SexyScript pretty much runs only when the GetLaid module is called... which is where it seems to be forgivable to signal "i'm beautiful."

HG's problem wasn't that her attractiveness gets her ahead in the cutthroat world of math, but that it got her ahead in getting attention from guys.

Perhaps I'm unfamiliar with this whorish self-contempt due to my winning combination of soaring intelligence, vast wealth, and irresistible good looks.

314: Yeah, one of the huge problems with analogies is when you find something that's the right shape, but ridiculously the wrong size, which is what I did -- arguing on the fly. I still do think it's the right shape to explain the question being asked, but a decent person would have eschewed it any way.

313: I'm a little puzzled about both of your reactions, partially because I think for the vast middle range of people, the whole SexyScript thing isn't about how pretty you start out. I'm ordinary looking -- not dolled up, I'm a big gawky pink-faced lump; if I doll up and work it, I can make it to reasonably cute, if not traffic-stopping. Looking at other women doing this sort of performance, plenty of ordinary looking women do it and get mileage out of it -- less than prettier women do, but more than they would if they weren't doing feminine schtick.

I'm understanding (possibly misunderstanding) both of you to think that this sort of performance isn't possible or profitable except for the unusually attractive, which seems off to me.

No, her feigned ditziness (AKA SexyScript) got her ahead in getting attention from guys.

A less lethal analogy than LB's might be a teacher's pet. You can be smart (attractive) and get good grades (teh sexx) from Teacher (guys), but if you suck up (play ditz), you'll get more.

Surely you all can see where a teacher's pet might feel self-loathing?

I'd be annoyed if she were trying to get the math geeks to do her work for her by flaunting her boobs, but by her own admission, her SexyScript pretty much runs only when the GetLaid module is called... which is where it seems to be forgivable to signal "i'm beautiful."

Again, I think you're misunderstanding the signal. It's not just "I'm beautiful", it's "I'm beautiful (or as beautiful as I can manage) and am presenting myself as sweetly feminine and appealing, keeping a firm lid on any bits of my personality that don't go so much with the sweetly feminine bit." At which point, even if you're just doing it either to get laid or more generally to make guys think you're attractive, the self-loathing starts making a little more sense, no?

It's not like you can't be both okay looking at best and also decently successful in various ways, under various circumstances, with SexyScript. I certainly do things in order to get praise/positive attention for femmy, appearance-related qualities, but also think that I am pretty weird-looking and feel crummy when I see photos of myself. I would like myself better if I did neither.

Pwned by LB.

I'm a big gawky pink-faced lump

This cracks me up every time. "On teh intertr0ns, nobody knows you're attractive," indeed.

322: Surely you all can see where a teacher's pet might feel self-loathing?

Huh. I only ever felt smug superiority.

321: The thing is, my results when running the SexyScript are poorer than those of many women running the AndrogynousScript. When I complain about the Scripts, I feel profoundly guilty. It always feels to me as though the only people who are entitled to complain about the SexyScript are the people who are Sexy enough not to need the Script, if you know what I mean. It sounds like sour grapes coming from me. (And for all I know, it's just ressentiment at work) And yet at the same time, it ends up bothering me that I'm both too ugly to get much validation from the men AND too ugly to speak up on feminist issues without being dismissed as just jealous of the real women.

Just being able to talk about the Scripts requires some belief that you have standing.

And then I know that lacking confidence isn't attractive or success-promoting, so then I feel both guilty about lacking confidence and angry at myself for not having the wit to pretend to confidence, and it all goes down hill from there.

I should clarify that I am not the Lorax and hence do not speak for the absent Cala. Although it would be pretty funny to show up at the next demonstration with "Cala" markered across my taped-up mouth.

These waters are moving too fast for me to do more than stick in a non-webbed toe, so let me just say thanks to Heebie for articulating this so well, and to JRoth and LizardBreath and Frowner (and others) for their comments in this thread. They are saying what I might have said if I were better spoken and quicker witted.

For me the SexyScript is not so much action-oriented as non-action-oriented: it's looking pretty, not speaking pretty, which is infinitely harder if you're fat or short or whatever, because no amount of action can make up for that. I have come to realize that I'm not even sure which parts of my actions are really, authentically mine, and which parts are responses to what other people want or expect (as I perceive it). Because my whole life has been trying to making up for being fat and short and unattractive in the form of accomodating others. It works, usually, to make others like you, but it hardly ever makes you Sexy. That, I'm afraid, is beyond my ken.

326: Well, I admit that I am pretty cute, in a good picture.

328: Oh, that I get, although I always had the sense of 'not entitled to complain' going the other way -- that women who were in a position to successfully manage to work the SexyScript were out of line for bitching about hating it. But I think we're both wrong.

But I think we're both wrong.

Comity!

330: Oh, yes, the myriad things I do to make up for being fat and plain: I don't make a lot of eye contact because I don't want people to feel embarassed that maybe the fat chick is staring at them; I wait to be invited rather than inviting people because I don't want them to feel too sorry for me to say no; I am very careful never to bump into people or sit too close to them on the bus because it might distress them to be touched by a fat, plain woman. Et patati et patata. And then I get to hate myself for it, too, because we all know that fat is ugly but neurosis is worse, and I ought to be jolly as well.

Because my whole life has been trying to making up for being fat and short and unattractive in the form of accomodating others. It works, usually, to make others like you, but it hardly ever makes you Sexy. That, I'm afraid, is beyond my ken.

Have you ever thought about pulling that hairpin out, shaking your hair down, then slowly removing your glasses? Also, it occasionally works to tear the bottom 18" off your skirt - your legs will prove surprisingly long and lithe.

Just being able to talk about the Scripts requires some belief that you have standing.

Yes, exactly.

keeping a firm lid on any bits of my personality that don't go so much with the sweetly feminine bit

Right. I think what we're sort of backing our way into here is that it's a continuum. There's sort of social niceties (maybe call this "CourtesyScript"). Then there's a long procession of additional activities of either puffing up qualities you don't naturally possess, or squelching ones that are natural. THIS is the part that can be exhausting.

329 -- but how would you ever get enough to drink that way? We would have to set up an intravenous alcohol drip and it would be a big hassle.

In sum, when your mother said "just be yourself," she meant "follow SexyScript to get all the boys."

336: Wait, just what will be demonstrated at this demonstration? I was assuming that it would be mere opposition to the war or something; if it's "how to get staggering drunk", I don't need any demonstrations to do that.

Have you ever thought about pulling that hairpin out, shaking your hair down, then slowly removing your glasses?

Field tests have revealed that this is not, in fact, foolproof.

I ought to be jolly as well.

I used to work with a fat guy, who was in fact quite funny. He liked to make jokes about his own jollility, and I always wondered what was underneath.

But since part of what was underneath was a Canadian-American of Lebanese descent who was a Civil War re-enactor for the South (and who taught his wife to consider Lincoln evil), I didn't much care if some sorrow was lurking as well.

338 -- oh funny, where you had written "next demonstration" I read "next meetup".

Field tests have revealed that this is not, in fact, foolproof.

Ah, but have those tests been filmed? I think the presence of cameras may be critical to the success of this manoeuvre.

oh funny, where you had written "next demonstration" I read "next meetup".

I'll be wearing the Free Bob t-shirt.

And possibly carrying a giant puppet of Jessica Biel's ass.

My mom and I went to Grant's Tomb this weekend (not as a purposive destination; that would be silly), and I couldn't stop myself thinking about LB and the Lawyers, Guns, and Money guys. It struck me that buying and wearing a Union hat would come off as pretty aggressive.

Would it be too obvious to assert that these scripts are cultural constructs, mainly media driven, that distort standards of beauty and attraction in unnatural ways, that in another age and time we would choose partners based on some other standard, that what is meant by a "good stomping" is really purging the narcissism of pop culture from an unfinished brain? Is that too much to ask for? I thought so.

I think the emphasis should be on the `script' not the `sexy'. It isn't like we are talking about something that only affects the so-called beautiful people. More than that, actually. If you do happen to be notably sexy under the cultural norms, this doesn't really apply to you at all. You then have a different problem -- the reaction is something you get all the time, whether you want it or not, and defeats all but extreme attempts to avoid it (oh, look at that super-cute girl in the baggy sweats and hoody etc etc).

As I understand what we were talking about, this is and avenue that is available to the majority of women, whether they are introspective about it or not. And there is plenty of social pressure to play along.

Free Bob

To good home. Has all shots.

(I had even visualized that as a procedure for everybody to meet up properly who did not know each other IRL -- just seek out the commenter standing by the bar with 'UNFOGGED' obscuring his or her mouth.)

Would it be too obvious to assert that these scripts are cultural constructs, mainly media driven,

Cultural constructs, sure. Mainly media driven, no.

328:

AND too ugly to speak up on feminist issues without being dismissed as just jealous of the real women.

Huh? I'll take your word for it, but I've not encountered this.

It's the patriarchy working on your mind

Really, though, I don't know where the sudden notion came from that women here acknowledging the self-loathing thing must be attractive.

Disclosure, then I gotta go, I'm starving: I stopped shaving my legs and using make-up in part because I realized I was only doing it to satisfy the male gaze.

A very perceptive older friend asked me a couple of years ago, kind of blew me out of my chair: you intentionally "let yourself go," didn't you?

Yes. I did. Call it fucked up. I needed to see whether I had the courage of my convictions.

where you had written "next demonstration" I read "next meetup"

Good concept, though. Get together at an outdoor locale carrying large signs that say "EMBRACE JIHAD!" and "FUCK YOU, CLOWN!"

This point might have been made upthread, I don't have time to read 340 comments at the moment. But I have to say I'm growing tired of some women's ambivalence and anger about this issue. Why do so many self-consciously intellectual and pro-feminist women feel such sullen hostility and resentment about the idea of feminine beauty? And why is this such an American thing? Do French or Italian or Spanish women go around complaining that wearing attractive clothing and keeping fit are a form of harsh oppression?

352: Yeah! Also, what's with all this angst about global warming? That just means more beaches, right? Fucking hippies.

Also, I should add that women don't seem to have a firm grip on the reality that if you *look good*, you can act in all kinds of ways, including being intimidatingly smart and assertive, and men will still be highly attracted to you. There's definitely a lot of freedom in the emotional/intellectual script so long as you keep your physical self attractive.

352: Actually, marcus, no one else has been quite that much of an asshole.

349 I suggested media-driven because the images and messages that bombard us serve the needs of advertisers, and we are regarded as little more than programmable ciphers to do their bidding. The constructs are not meant to empower us but to enslave us.

I can totally get behind 351.

Do ya think he eats billy goats too?

352/4, not so much.

What makes me feel bad, parsimon, is that I apparently don't have the courage of my convictions. I don't think women should have to shave their legs and paint their nails to be attractive, but I do those things (and more).

Appropriately enough, over at the Superficial.com (yes, I know, I should never visit that site) there's a thread about Sarah Silverman, the comedienne, posing for Maxim magazine, where one poster says "I never thought I'd see her in Maxim. Guys don't seem to like girls who are funny," and another replies "Guys don't like funny & ugly but we are all over funny & cute+...."

Illuminating? probably not. But weirdly appropriate.

"I can totally get behind 351."

Yeah, I think DS has a great ass too.

A bit of free advice, Marcus: Rhetorical questions here usually go over best when accompanied by pastry. We're not picky -- American, French, Spanish, or any other country's desserts are all equally welcomed.

Disappointing work, guys. 351 comments, then marcus comes and pwns us all in 50 words.

Maybe we could get something done up in the Sparta thread.

361 -- what? Did he send around pix? Why was I not included?

359: Yeah, after only two posts, he is already disgusting in my heart.

361: "has" s/b "is"

253

How about
4) "The SexyScript really appeals to a part of me and I loathe that part of me."

Wow, marcus is so astute. "Guys will like you if you're attractive. They're even able to ignore what a smart bitch you are if you're pretty enough."

Well, fuck me! I never knew that! What a fucking revelation, man. I've never felt so free.

364: You watched the ottoman-humping video, right? Slack was the one with the nice ass.

This topic always frustrates me. Men and women both respond to physically attractive people. Men and women both strive to be attractive for other people. Some strive more than others.

If two people have the same personality,but one is more physically attractive than the other, that one will get more interest.

But the idea that women have to repress their true personality to be sexy to men sounds just like the "women don't like nice guys" excuse. Do you really want to be attractive to the men who want you to suppress your true personality?

356: I agree that the media present an exaggerated version of the script, but the submissive ideal to which girls were supposed to conform, regardless of their actual personality, long predates the modern mass media.

(Digressively, 369, that video? Was crazy. Pure madness. What on earth were they thinking? I hope people don't make fun of them at school too much. Also clear that they'd been watching porn rather than having sex.)

Although now that I think about it, it's a reversal that highlights something funny: a bunch of reasonably average-looking teenage girls writhing around in semi-nudity, even on an ottoman, would elicit drooling, not mockery. It's ridiculous when guys do it, because it's something that's constructed as degrading and feminine.

373: That's part of why I said it was political, way back when Hamilton first linked it.

373 is intriguing.

373: I dunno, I think Alyson Hannigan could hump an ottoman and people'd still find it pretty ridiculous, if possibly ridiculous in a way more dudes could get behind.

It's certainly possible that someone is drooling over the ottoman-humpers. But 373 is still right.

374: I didn't read the thread completely, I'm afraid. So much Unfogged, so little time. But I heartily concur.

373: But random, unknown teenage girls onto whom you could project a bunch of fantasies about innocence/young-womanhood-overwhelmned-by-hitherto-unknown-desires?

A celebrity, even a minor one, can't be envisioned as doing something with the kind of "innocence" that we fetishize in regular folks.

378: that sounds rather like the Iranian-girls-hump-each-other video ogged linked the other day, which I recall people finding mostly ridiculous, if heroic.

379: Giggling, public, joking, fully clothed.

Bunch of Iranian girls in private, not fully clothed, with pouty "erotic" expressions? Not the same thing.

370 - This discussion has been all kinds of sidetracked, but go back to Heebie's original post: But I'm aware of whether or not I'm being conventionally sexy. Having a run-at-the-mouth personality does not follow the Sexy Script of The United States. My superego lets me know exactly when I stop obeying the Sexy Script. I'm always aware. My reading here is that Heebie is worked up about this not because she thinks that even the nicest nice guy what ever niced a nice will respond more favorably if she follows the Script (although: he will), it's that she's upset to be going through these contortions because they're a sign she's internalized... not the male gaze, but nature of male and female performance that is just the underlying rhythm section of Western society. I'm sure Judith Butler or Michel Derrida could put it better. Or Allyson Hannigan.

Derrida s/b Foucault, because I'm a fucking idiot.

Um, I don't think we need to imagine a teen-girl analogue for the ottoman video - near as I can tell, YouTube is about 20% teen girls performing "sexy" moves for the camera. Yes, they're ostensibly making music videos, or whatever the hell people think that crap is, but the reality is Cute Teen Girls Writhing for Strangers.

Myself, I find it painfully embarassing to watch (as I did the ottoman boys, actually). It's not clear to me what others get out of the experience.

380: But okay, I feel like you're talking about some straw humpers, here. That video does not exist, and I, for one, am not totally clear about what the girls would actually do to the ottoman, let alone why I would find it sexy, aside from the fact that women with less than the normal amount of clothes is something I usually appreciate.

I agree with JRoth at 383. Youtube can be painful to watch. I was appalled and felt REALLY old when I realize that most of the youtube videos seem to be Cute Teen Girls Writhing for Strangers.

On a similar note, at my son's middle school orientation, the middle school cheerleaders performed a routine on stage for the parents that involved regular butt slaps. I was appalled at the routine and at how many of the parents laughed at it.

Actually, those boys were utterly ridiculous (if also somehow sweetly earnest). Girls & women performing similarly is equally ridiculous. However, the show by females is normalized, and not viewed by most as ridiculous.

It's like what Ogeed said in the MANDOM thread about cultural performances of "cool moves." The ottoman boys are lithe and attempting "sexy moves," but the moves are so exaggerated and unrealistic that it's funny. But a stripper, or stripper-emulating amateur, lithely making exaggerated and unrealistic "sexy moves" isn't considered funny. Many find it sexy, many find it embarassing, and some few find it enraging.

One of the respondents here explains that furniture humping is totally natural behavior, you haters.

I would point out that there are plenty of Teen Guys Writhing for Strangers videos on YouTube that do not have the specific context (humping an ottoman) and which have not come up for ridicule.

Sifu, replace the ottoman with a pole, and you know exactly what they'd do with it.

386: I still think it was the ottoman that makes it funny.

But it's not a pole! It's an f'ing ottoman! If a girl was doing a pole dance on a hat tree, I swear to you, I would laugh.

384: I feel like you're talking about some straw humpers, here

Actually, they refused to hump straw. Kicked me out of the group for even suggesting it, the worthless bastards, and right before they went big, too.

I, for one, am not totally clear about what the girls would actually do to the ottoman, let alone why I would find it sexy

I think maybe there are a few people somewhere on the Internets who might have ideas about this sort of thing.

I swear to you, I would laugh

Laugh, laugh, masturbate, laugh.

Wait, I'm baffled by 373. The ridiculousness of that video comes from the fact that the behavior is hypermasculine: it's funny insofar as it comes across as an over-the-top parody of masculinity. The assent to 373 makes me think I must have misunderstood this:

It's ridiculous when guys do it, because it's something that's constructed as degrading and feminine.

Aside: I imagine that the video *does* produce drooling among those likely to find adolescent black men attractive.

Hmm. I guess the ottoman adds some absurdity - as with your hat tree example - but I don't find that to be the essence of the ridiculous in that vid. If the boys had done that on a mattress, would you not laugh?

394: Something tells me Labs isn't imagining.

On a similar note, at my son's middle school orientation, the middle school cheerleaders performed a routine on stage for the parents that involved regular butt slaps. I was appalled at the routine and at how many of the parents laughed at it.

When I did my student teaching, the "dance line" used to rehearse in the central great-hall-like space of the badly designed school where I was working. Seriously, it was like watching mostly-clothed pole-dancing. I don't know how the audience of drooling teenage boys held themselves together. Totally a change from even the raciest of the cheerleader performances at my high school.

What disturbs me isn't the sexy-performing-for-boys part, but that the slutty poledancing routines are seen by someone (the girls? the coach?) as perfectly appropriate for just random school assembly/sports occasions--that is, that the whole writhing/scantily clad deal is supposed to be something as neutral as a choir performance.

Myself, I just glided right over the "degraded and feminine" part - I don't think that's a big part of the story here, either.

Surely someone here will confess if s/he finds the ottoman boys hott?

394: I guess this text is subject to multiple readings, huh? Because my take on it is that it's ridiculous because girls writhing in the throes of "oooh, I'm turned on AND I'm good in bed" is conventionally sexy, but men writhing around isn't how male desireability is usually performed, especially down amongst the heterosexuals. It doesn't seem "hypermasculine" to me at all.

There's definitely a lot of freedom in the emotional/intellectual script so long as you keep your slutty poledancing moves up-to-date.

397: Yes, that stuff went mainstream sometime in the last twenty years, and is now considered cute by large numbers of parents.

I always see a class issue in it, I'm afraid, but that might be just how it works around here. YMMV.

Please Will, Frowner, stop. As I said, I have a 3 year old, and I'm starting to doubt that pop culture will pendulum back to modesty within the next 6-8 years.

It's not that I don't want my daughter to know about sex. It's that I don't want her to think that sex is all about girls wearing sweats that say SLUT on the ass.

395: yeah I suppose so. And, sure, the idea of a woman writhing sexually on a bed in an over-the-top way has been normalized, whereas the idea of a man writhing sexually on a bed is ridiculous, and would probably get a laugh in any case.

Still, an ottoman? Cracks me up. As would the hat tree, as would a woman pretending to give head to a tube of toothpaste. What can I say.

JRoth, call me crazy, but I'm guessing our readership and the target audience for that have almost no overlap. Cf Ogged's point about cheesiness being culturally variable.

I thought the ottoman boys were hott. Silly and hott all at once.

I hate trying to jump into threads like this 350+ comments in. Fucking time zones. But a couple of thoughts:

First, I'm not convinced that it's really about what you have to do in order to get laid or that standards of conventional attractiveness are broader for men than women. An awful lot of geeky/bookish sorts, male and female, have a hard time with self-image and getting laid in high school and college, and sooner or later most of them manage to find partners. What is different is that it's a hell of a lot easier for men to opt out of the whole conventional attractiveness game completely. I may be beta in oh so many ways, but it's relatively easy to convince myself that I'm unbothered by that because I'm alpha in the things I care about. That would not be so easy if there were all sorts of cultural stuff telling me that the ultimate male is some underwear model or something.

Second, I wonder if there's some part of this that's particularly rough on women who are both smart and conventionally attractive. If you're being told that your looks and ability to femme it up are a marvellous and valuable thing, isn't it kind of sinful to waste that? If you can femme it up and get the quarterback, aren't you selling yourself short if you let your geek side loose and wind up with some nerd? That can't be easy to deal with when you're young and trying to figure out who you really are and what you really care about.

And then I start thinking about a good friend in high school whom I hopeless adored for years, who was both bright and beautiful, and I start understanding better why she became a cheerleader and why she was so sensitive about being teased about it. Good lord we were horrible little bastards.

What made me laugh about the ottoman boys wasn't the ottoman (although that was pretty hilarious) but rather the way that they all did that "put a hand in the small of the back while writhing" thing. Not only does it look like they're all suddenly struck with attacks of sciatica, but that is (as I understand it) a convention of porn films intended to give a better shot of the...er..um...action. But clearly these fellows think of it as something that adds to the female experience.

Frowner, it's not just generic writhing, it's the "I hump things" motion in particular. Less ridiculous men-writhing is an expression of male desirability-- the examples that come to mind are male background dancers in pop videos, but I'm sure there are lots of others.

a woman pretending to give head to a tube of toothpaste

Link?

401: "Class issue" as in "lower/working class types have internalized pole dancing/slut displays, while upper classes maintain their dears as Pure"?

I will say that enthusiasm for age-inappropriate trampwear and tiny-tot cheerleading is something I associate with lower/working classes (used to date a woman whose sister was in this category culturally), but I don't get out much.

What is different is that it's a hell of a lot easier for men to opt out of the whole conventional attractiveness game completely.

Are you saying we should encourage more women to build intricately detailed model railroads in their basement?

Second, I wonder if there's some part of this that's particularly rough on women who are both smart and conventionally attractive.

Yes.

I kind of found the ottoman boys arousing, too. Silly predominating over arousing, of course.

I always see a class issue in it, I'm afraid, but that might be just how it works around here.

In New York, the hip new thing for the very upperclass is to dress your kids in the kind of modest, quaint clothing that wouldn't have been out-of-place in the Edwardian era.

404: JRoth, call me crazy, but I'm guessing our readership and the target audience for that have almost no overlap

405: I thought the ottoman boys were hott.

In your FACE, Labs!

409: Before this gets out of hand, perhaps we can agree that neither sluttly poledancing at the junior high graduation ceremony nor the "protect little Sebastian and Olivia from any hint of sexuality" approach is particularly desireable.

405 was Tia, JRoth.

I am very careful never to bump into people or sit too close to them on the bus because it might distress them to be touched by a fat, plain woman.

Aw, Christ, Frowner. I really wish you never had to feel that way.

"Silly predominating over arousing, of course."

Sure, and I bet you just read Playgirl for the articles.

Actually I shouldn't mock. This is the first time I've ever heard a woman use anything close to "more funny than sexy," and I couldn't be more glad.

410: True enough, but there's this other part that's particularly rough on women who are both smart and ugly. It's just that no one wants to convince us that we're really beautiful people with sparkling intellects and a world of potential--we're not diamonds in the rough waiting to be polished up, just muddy sediment relieved by the occasional fossilized fish.

Youtube can be painful to watch.

This one kind of amused me, and is almost on topic. Almost.

"muddy sediment relieved by the occasional fossilized fish" = new hover text.

"what is meant by a 'good stomping' is really purging the narcissism of pop culture from an unfinished brain"

Love this line.

Are you saying we should encourage more women to build intricately detailed model railroads in their basement?

No, it's a whole lot broader than that. "Hot or not" is an issue for men when they're trying to pick up women. It's an issue for women pretty much all the time, regardless of what else they're doing and how successful they are at stuff that does not involve hotness.

That dude is pretty funny. Interesting that that routine wouldn't work at all on stage, but work on webcam.

416: This is the first time I've ever heard a woman use anything close to "more funny than sexy,"

This is me totally not believing you.

Interesting that that routine wouldn't work at all on stage, but work on webcam.

Ogged, sometimes I worry that we're the same person. I had that *exact* thought about 1/2-way through.

423: Oh, I didn't mean in reference to me.

It's just, you know, if I were to say that my reaction to some porn was that it was vaguely arousing, but "[s]illy predominating over arousing," then it would be 423 to me all over again.

Except now I can say "but, but women say the same thing sometimes!"

425 makes no sense and I don't know how to fix it. Glean meaning where you may.

I'm back. Don't quite know what to respond to, but there sure has been a lot said.

403 says: "the idea of a man writhing sexually on a bed is ridiculous, and would probably get a laugh in any case."

Jack Nicholson played this scene in Witches of Eastwick and, yes, it was pretty funny.

411: You mean like that motherfucker Chief Justice Roberts?

Actually, doing the math, maybe that trend will move down the socio-economic ladder in time.... Nah.

Again, it's not about the Puritanism - it's about not turning our children into little sexbots.

Don't quite know what to respond to

Just look cute and demure and you won't have to respond to any of it.

425: if I were to say that my reaction to some porn was that it was vaguely arousing, but "[s]illy predominating over arousing," then it would be 423 to me all over again.

Aren't we believing JackMo because what she's talking about is totally not porn? The surprise part is her claiming to find it in any way arousing.

431: I dunno if it's totally not porn. It clearly was designed to be arousing.

Just look cute and demure and you won't have to respond to any of it.

Can I get you boys some iced tea?

433: Can you serve it all sexy-like?

427: Basically, Marcus refuted all of second wave feminism in comment 354, and the rest of us are now working through denial.

432: It clearly was designed to be arousing.

Okay. How about "obviously not successful as porn"?

433: just leave it on the ottoman.

435: I'm feeling a lot of anger right now, actually.

405 and 423 to 436.

435: You know, maybe if marcus would work with us, we could still salvage second-wave feminism.

You know who sticks to the script? Bruce fucking Willis, that's who.

440: I've accepted that it's probably not going to happen.

Do they have ice-tea enemas the way they have coffee enemas? You don't leave the ice-cubes in, do they? What about lemon and sugar? Do they have latte enemas, or just plain coffee?

441: You know, I don't know if it's spending all day on this thread or what, but I'm not finding Bruce Willis's Playmate at all desirable.

Like a cartoon of desirable.

Whereas 443 is totally unscripted.

We have met the enema, and it is iced.

And mostly plastic, to boot. Her rhinoplasty surgeon didn't do her any favors.

OK, the playmate is only five years older than Willis's daughter Rumer, but the article forgot to mention that she's way hottter than Rumer.

435: It's OK. Second wave feminism is gone. We just have to move on now.

Your progress is truly remarkable!

I think that I've been informed that enemas are not first-date topics of conversation. If you say so, HG.

Someone clue me in on first-second- and third-wave feminism. Is it Steinem and Freidan --> second-wave extremists --> Hoff-Summer et al?

451: Most girls I've dated I have to get to third wave before we start talking enemas.

How can you tell on the nose? Is there some "tell," or do you just not think it matches?

The hair is bugging me - Look at my Sexy Hair! It's Sexy!

Gah! Act human!

Note: This is not to say that this apparently-perfect woman fails my elite standards, meaning that all IRL women are hound dogs. This is to say that plastic, faux-sexy women are creepily unsexy.

I majored in Kübler-Ross.

I think I've identified where feminism is failing. All you girls are doing is waving. You need to *smile*.

Oh shit, I skipped Depression.

Alright, it was more of an audit than a major....

Unrelatedly, I just received a spam with the subject line "Want to rubble my buffalo?"

1st wave: teh suffragettes, etc. 2nd wave: Steinem, Friedan, Dworkin, etc. 3rd wave: Oh who cares? I'm a blonde!

451: Oh, this is going to be no fun at all.

Second wave feminism is not only a bad term on the face of it (where do we put feminists like Dorothy Allison who were writing in the mid-eighties, for example?) but is also widely, widely misunderstood.

Still, very briefly (and you could, you know, probably look at Wikipedia): Second wave feminism grew out of activism in the civil rights and anti-war movements, partly because of the really crap way that women were often treated in those movements. Second wave feminists include Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Ti-Grace Atkinson; also activist women of color including Gloria Anzaldua, Angela Davis, Cheryl uh...Moriaga (?), Audrey Lorde. The movement was riven by dissention over Marxism, race, the Viet Nam war, heterosexuality--just as you might expect--giving rise in the late seventies and early eighties to feminist movements that focused specifically on race or sexuality, also giving rise to huge and very ugly conflicts on those topics.

It is widely believed by people who aren't feminists that the Second Wave was exclusively white, exclusively anti-porn, exclusively separatist and exclusively against S/M.

451: Wollstonecraft --> Friedan --> Le Tigre.

C'mon, John - just wikipedia it.

First Wave=suffrage, etc - basic human rights for women
Second Wave=Friedan, Steinem, all the way up to (I think) Dworkin - good ol' man-hating feminism
Third Wave=queer theory, ecofeminism, and all sorts of broadening of focus, including, for some, sexy=empowered.

You are all free to correct me (and wikipedia!). I actually had the same misconception as John, so I'm glad I looked it up.

(on preview, thoroughly pwned, but after 500+ comments, who cares?)

But it's just possible that Frowner's answer is a little more comprehensive.

How can you tell on the nose?

There are a couple of signs. A major one is when the bridge of the nose between the eyes is wider than or as wide as the tip of the nose. Another is wierdly small nostrils, or misshaped or triangle-shaped nostrils. And lastly, nose jobs often leave strange, age-inappropriate circles under the eyes; the damage to that delicate skin doesn't fade well.

Ugh. No one who wants to continue liking people much should read the comments under the linked woman in the bikini.

Uh, 450+ comments.

500!

464: I closed the window, and the temptation to reopen it is painful. I don't need to hate more. But like a traffic accident....

464: In my limited experience, pretty much anything to do with that site leads to a strong urge to bleach one's brain.

460 is the most succinct way to put it, and really the way I think about it. Note that third wave feminism is centered around a dance-punk band. This is a serious point in its favor.

459.2 - Back in Carolina, where the bastard belongs.

I like Wiki but not on controversial issues.

In my world (around 1972-5) there was such an enormous split between Friedan and Steinem and the more hard-core people that I thought that F and S were first wave.

No one who wants to continue liking people much should read the comments under the linked woman in the bikini at The Superficial. Consistently as dumbassed as YouTube or (reputedly) the "heyday" of BoingBoing.

Also, (OT): I just finished the grading for my last fucking temporary job ever. Tenure track here I come!

JRoth:

I knew that I was officially old when I found myself getting pissed off every time I see a little girl with writing on the seat of her shorts.

459: Which isn't to say that the Second Wave couldn't be pretty damn crappy on race and sexuality, but I get tired of people (not people here) who are not themselves anti-racist or particularly queer-friendly trashing on the Second Wave about racism or various conflicts over sexuality.

Rob, if I'd known that you were moving to TT I'd forgotten. Congratulations!

The good news came disguised, because at the same time I found out I was getting the TT job, I found out I *wasn't* getting a better TT job, so my first reaction was to grouse.

470: ????

The work of extraordinarily funny writer Joanna Russ (The Female Man, How To Supress Women's Writing, Extraordinary People, "The Second Inquisition", and the deeply flawed The Two of Them) to me makes an excellent introduction to the Second Wave, for good and for ill. Combine that with Borderlands/La Frontera and This Bridge Called My Back (still awesome after all these years) plus maybe Vida by Marge Piercy, and you'll have a good idea of the general tenor of the movement (s).

Hoff-Summers isn't a feminist. See? Easy.

"where do we put feminists like Dorothy Allison"

478: Her most famous book is called Bastard out of Carolina.

I'd like to know where Dworkin and McKinnon fit in, so I might avoid that place. Also: Valerie Solana: feminist or no?

It occurs to me I might be trolling somebody who (a) doesn't read this blog and (b) I haven't seen in several years. Still, I'm curious.

Never read comments anywhere else, people. I keep telling you.

482: But her best book is Skin: Writing About Race Class and Literature.

My mother took a book of Dorothy Allison's away from me because it was too sexually explicit, back when I was sixteen or seventeen.

I'm conditionally OK with cutting up Andy Warhol.

483: I'm conditionally OK with cutting up Andy Warhol, but I don't know enough about Valerie's overall program to know whether I would endorse it.

483: where Dworkin and McKinnon fit in

70s/80s Second Wave, "sex wars" et cetera.

The number of people who'd consider Valerie Solanas a feminist is probably pretty small. But there's a subset of radfem websites that will approvingly reference The SCUM Manifesto.

I'm pretty much fine with cutting up men generally as long as I can get some guarantees in writing before things really get rolling.

483: Here is a good essay on Andrea Dworkin. My suggestion: it makes very little sense to discuss her work unless one has read at least some of it. Most people (including me) have not, and discuss her based on soundbites.

There are totally, totally asshole feminists who are absolute separatists and anti-transgender, though. Transwomen, you see, are just men who want to destroy women's spaces. That's why, you know, they take the hormones and have the surgery. But I am opposed to setting up separatism/Andrea Dworkin/straw radical feminists as the "limit cases" against which "acceptable feminism" defines itself.

Valerie Solanas--well, she was pretty clearly mentally ill. She shot Andy Warhol, you know? The SCUM Manifesto is pretty funny, though, as political theater. It doesn't make sense to me to talk about whether Solanas was a feminist. It might make sense to talk about whether people take her writing as a literal description of a feminist project. The answer, should you wonder, is "no".

480: Holy shit, no kidding. What a tool.

"It might make sense to talk about whether people take her writing as a literal description of a feminist project. The answer, should you wonder, is 'no'."

You'd think, but IME this is not a universal rule.

Hillary is choosing a theme song.

City of Blinding Lights - U2
Suddenly I See - KT Tunstall
I'm a Believer - Smash Mouth
Get Ready - The Temptations
Ready to Run - Dixie Chicks
Rock This Country! - Shania Twain
Beautiful Day - U2
Right Here, Right Now - Jesus Jones
I'll Take You There - The Staple Singers

The one time I heard "Right here right now" it seemed vaguely creepy, but I don't know why.

Never read comments anywhere else, people.

Read them at my blog. It's more or less the same cast anyhow.

Yeah "outside the us universe," I meant.

494: Mostly saying "Aw, geez. I should have known not to click on that."

493, I think she should have someone write one just for her, like Maragaret Thatcher did. ("It's Maggie, just Maggie, for me!"). Maybe the folks with the viking kittens.

Shooting Andy Warhol is not mentally ill.

More on 490: I suppose I should read both of those authors before talking about them, since all the information I have about them came in the context of somebody calling me the moral equivalent of a rapist. This is likely not the fault of either author.

Also, I can and should shut up about it now.

First: ugh. It really is awful that this is a pervasive thing.

Second: it strikes me that to get to a comparable level of guy-scriptedness--and the concomitant self-loathing--you really have to go all the way out to that curious subset of Nice Guys, the 'pick-up artists.' It seems to be a common thing for them to learn the scripts, find that they 'work', but become burned out and depressed by the sense of inauthenticity, even as they find themselves performing them. This horrible trainwreck thread had one specimen, 'Peter Bessman,' complaining about just that.

I bring this up not for any moral equivalence--after all, these guys are almost universally archetypal Nice Guys, with all that implies, while H-G is awesome--but rather to emphasize just how extreme it seems one has to throw oneself into consciously learning social scripts, as a guy, before one becomes as conscious of and constricted by them as seems standard for women. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

499: For Dworkin, at least, I haven't read her body of work from end to end, but Intercourse and Letters From a War Zone convinced me -- along with experience of many real-world devotees -- that she earned her poor reputation.

499, 500: Yeah. Whether or not one ends up agreeing with Dworkin & MacKinnon--who didn't always agree with each other--their arguments did make a pretty big difference and are worth taking seriously.

Even reading the essay linked above that discussed McKinnon raised my hackles somewhat, unfortunately. Core philosophical disagreements, &c. &c.

But maybe I'll get to reading the primary sources one of these days.

502: yeah, it's the real-world devotee(s) that soured me on them, too.

504: The thing is, I'm not exactly a fan of where that essay goes, but I think it's a reasonable argument.

On another note, I think it's fatally easy for these things to happen:

--People decide that separatism is de facto bad and then they look around for an obnoxious separatist to justify the position (sometimes this latter part is unconscious)

--People who are really uncomfortable with any critique of gender roles which makes any demands on them collapse all of feminism into separatism, which they they make fun of.

--Certain feminists spend a lot of time proving that they aren't like those radical kee-razy extremists off over there who don't like men. This really bugs me, because in order to get to an effective feminism, women need not to be afraid of "but what will this look like to the men?" If you're avoiding separatism (or whatever) because you think it will make the boys hate you, it's hard to think basic feminist debates through really carefully. This has nothing to do with the actual worthwhileness of radical feminism.

(Except that it pisses me off so much that the term "radical feminist" seems to be owned by the transgender-hating, "don't criticize us about racism just because we keep saying that people of color are divisive" crowd.)

Okay, time to fix dinner. Sauteed asparagus, huzzah!

134, 295, 313: I am coming to this REALLY late, but I've been on both side of this -- the cute and thin side, and the cute and fat side (where fat trumps cute for most people, of course.) I didn't have much trouble getting laid in college, but there was one time in particular, at a party where the theme required me and a few other people to play SexyScript when it was not our normal mode of interaction, when I ran smack up against what Heebie's talking about. Some of the guys I interacted with were interested in me in normal mode, some not, but for that night it was like they placed me in a whole different category of woman and gave me a kind of intense, personality-obliterating attention that made me really, really uncomfortable. (A few of the women treated me differently too -- they were used to being on the receiving end of that kind of attention and were pissed it was directed at me instead.)

The thing is that SexyScript positive attention and fat/old/ugly negative attention are really two sides of the same thing, but the latter is more unambiguously negative. When you have youth and thinnness and looks on your side, and you get the "rewards" of SexyScript attention, it's completely double-edged. You get a lot of attention, or you get what you want, which is supposed to be good, but it's predicated on you being an object and on stamping out qualities in yourself that you rather like. Similarly, being dismissed on fat/old/ugly grounds has little to do with your real personality, but it's more hurtful because you lose out of the gate.

Incidentally, I think SexyScript is available in a way to fat/old/ugly women, but most people will read it very, very differently. Some people will respond to the submissiveness regardless, and others will not, but it will be colored by how much you are perceived to have a "right" to the role -- fat women might be read as easy, older women dismissed as cougars, etc.

502 - I've only read Pornography: Men Possessing Women (and it was either in late high school or early college, so I didn't have a good framework for it). I'm not her target audience, though, and 18-year-old me sure as hell wasn't, but I found it immensely off-putting. I'm not sure that Cathy Young of the Women's Freedom Network is a fair place to turn for a critique, though.

I'm kind of with Frowner on the "females writhing = sexy, males writhing = ridiculous thing," except I'd state it more like "submissives writhing = sexy, dominants writhing = ridiculous," with the obvious corollary that men are traditionally dominant and women are traditionally submissive.

That is, I think that writhing around on a bed or whatever is visual code for "I'm helpless and passive." Basically, just add ropes/chains.

I imagine that women who were turned on by helpless men would probably find a man writhing kind of hot, and that men who are not turned on by helpless women would probably not find a woman writhing hot.

Thanks for your OP, heebie.

I used to think I'd overcome all this, the caring about how I rate as an object. Last couple of years, I realised I hadn't; I'd just sort of given up. The thread's depressing me in many ways. Men pretty much respond to me positively, despite my feminism, and I tend to assume that that is nothing to do with my looks, because I usually downplay them, and because as a teenager I internalised the idea that I was ugly. But... fuck. I do in fact have doe-eyed fragility combined with big boobs working hard for me. Also I think my shyness makes me play out aspects of the Script even though I don't want to, and even though I don't think I'd be capable of doing it consciously-- I see myself as being odd, and weird, and unable to pull that off. But then shyness basically *is* submissiveness, and I default to listening attentively and smiling encouragingly unless I actively want someone to fuck off, so I am acting the script out anyway. I know I've been the Beautiful Sad Girl That I Must Rescue for more than one guy, even though my beauty is debatable. Maybe a lot of stuff that I think is about my personality is actually just guys responding to my somewhat weird and off-kilter version of the Script.
But it was the stuff about comparing yourself that really struck home. I hate it when I do that. I hate sensing envy or dismissiveness in myself towards friends that I love, over something that is the definition of superficial. And I've been in a relationship with a woman who is objectively less conventionally attractive than me (fat) for a while now and the knowledge that this creates a power imbalance between me and the person I love most kind of eats away at me. I hope it doesn't affect the way the way we behave to each other too much. But I am sure it does. I am sure she puts up with more crap from me than I put up with from her. Sigh.

507: Not to indicate any particular sympathy with Young in the larger sense, of course, any more than I felt for Hitchens during his reasonably accurate trashing of Falwell.

I thought the men writhing thing was funny mostly because had they been with a woman, they would have been alternately poking her in the belly button, the thigh, the shoulder, and then would have wandered off and humped the doorknob.

First kid probably is a pretty good dancer, though.

511: with a quick break for liiiiiiiiiiiiimbooooo!!!

Is 511 not how you're supposed to do it? This explains a lot.

I'm kind of with Frowner on the "females writhing = sexy, males writhing = ridiculous thing," except I'd state it more like "submissives writhing = sexy, dominants writhing = ridiculous," with the obvious corollary that men are traditionally dominant and women are traditionally submissive.

This is close to a point that I half-wanted to make on the strip club thread that I didn't dare wade into: the reason that some schlumpy men go to strip clubs to buy a vaguely plausible imitation of interest from nekkid wimmen is because they can, and the reason that women don't do the same thing isn't that they're more empathetic toward the strippers, it's that cultural roles are such that it isn't possible for a woman to buy the same sort of experience. The roles just don't reverse. Between the slut narrative and the too-ugly-to-get-a-man narrative, a woman who goes to a strip club by herself to buy attention is going to come out feeling way more pathetic and alone than when she went in.

514: I think that's exactly right.

Sigh. I'll never finish this thread. Off to cuddle and go to sleep early.

1. Everyone wants/needs to have some way of being useful to other people. It gives you a sense of deservedness for you interest.

2. getting thumbs upped/downed based on random, unimportant criteria is probably easier to write off than if you're judged on what you actually identify with. The former is less personal.

421 to 370, seriously.

I will say that enthusiasm for age-inappropriate trampwear and tiny-tot cheerleading is something I associate with lower/working classes

Me too, but conscienceless debauchery among high schoolers is something I associate with upper classes.

I'm a dude, but i never really enjoyed strip clubs for the reasons in 514.

518:
Yeah but thats not becasue of specific encouragement, its because of the general sense of entitoement the daughters and sons of the upper class have.

520 was me.

518: There's a certain amount of that stuff at my son's elementary school, which isn't exactly underprivileged. Not so much the trampwear, but quite a bit of cheerleader stuff, and until the school stopped it there was a problem with some girls showing up in tall sandals, etc., in which they could barely walk, let alone run around the playground.

the link in 501, [url=http://toddseavey.com/2007/04/21/aborting-feminism-adding-links/]linky[/url]

seems pretty accurate to me, though i haven't read through the comments yet. I'd be interested in how many ohter unffoggers agree/disagree?

I know we're 500+ comments in but I was thinking about this the whole way home on the train tonight and I will doggedly post my example, darn it. (And also apologize to Frowner, because my 374 wasn't criticism. It was poorly phrased glee that somebody else was seeing similar themes.)

Anyway: I am part of a Spanish conversation group. We meet periodically in a cafe, with anywhere from 5-15 people of varying ages and backgrounds.

The context is a combination social-educational, so the pickup vibe is there, albeit subtly. And per Heebie's original post, you can actually see women tamping down their natural responses.

The social norm is to correct each other's Spanish. Conjugate the verb wrong, or use el instead of la, and someone gently rephrases it. When it's flowing well, there is a congenial atmosphere, an easy give and take. But group members -- especially male ones -- have a MUCH lower tolerance for being corrected by women rather then other men.

A woman can make two or three corrections before she is criticized for it -- "Oh look, she's getting out the dictionary -- ha ha," or "Ooooh, I probably used the wrong grammar." And usually, that's all it takes -- she shuts down, either offering no further corrections or phrasing them tentatively and with an appealingly girlish doubtful-of-my-own-expertise affect.

It happens over and over. The oldest and most assertive women may steamroller through it. But if they do, they shift instantly from possible friend or flirtation partner to schoolmarm.

In contrast, a man can make an almost unlimited number of corrections and his standing within the group will not change. (Outright jerks will eventually become less popular but not in any way that correlates to # of corrections.)

So here's an everyday situation in which a woman who has even a passing interest in signaling her romantic availability tends to shut down her excited, geeky, engagement with learning. It doesn't matter that a guy here or there may be attracted by her smarts -- the group dynamic is too strong.

getting thumbs upped/downed based on random, unimportant criteria is probably easier to write off than if you're judged on what you actually identify with. The former is less personal.

It ought to be, but it's not. Because I've let the entire patriarchy down by letting my ass get so big.

I'm bugged by the dismissiveness of terms like "trampwear." Yes, hypersexualizing kids is gross; otoh, it's damn hard even in a rich community to find clothes for girls that aren't uber-girly, or for boys that aren't uber-macho. Part of the reason this stuff tracks in terms of class might be things like lower-class people encouraging their girls to attain status in any way they can; but part of it surely has a lot to do with simply having to buy what's available at Target.

Yes, we've been meaning to talk to you about that, Magpie.

There's a pretty big spread between spangly dress and midriff-baring outfit with suggestive words on the ass, B. Especially since, while the words may not be SLUT or PORNSTAR, that's what they are, quite consciously, evoking.

I'm bugged by the hyper-gendered clothes, but what I'm objecting to - and calling trampwear - is the stuff that is designed to evoke Xtina Aguilera videos and the like. No one is forced to buy that stuff, even if it's 1/3 of the market.

Anyway, I wasn't trying to blame lower/working class folks for dressing their daughters like little tramps (I suppose that sounds judgmental...) - I was making an observation. Clearly, the poor and just-getting-by have fewer choices, and less luxury to ponder the semiotics of their lifestyle choices. And, as someone pointed out upthread, it's the children of privilege who probably act worst when HS comes. But there's something going on with poorer socioeconomic groups gravitating towards/encouraging the little sexbot image. Is the Patriarchy really working overtime to create the next generation of sex workers, or is it incidental to something else?

And actually, isn't the upside of putting every textile worker in America on the dole supposed to be more cheap duds? I'm not sure the choices at Target and WalMart are quite as constrained as you're suggesting, B.

I will grant that there may be some insidious nexus between least dowdy and most trampy, such that anyone with a modicum of style/fashion sense will be drawn to the trampiest stuff as opposed to the Junior Christian Wives Club stuff and the stuff too tacky for JC Penney's (is that still a valid marker?).

You know, one of the coolest women at PK's TKD dojo wears those VS sweatpants with suggestive words on the ass. It's weird, b/c she's totally not a femmebot in any way, and I think she's awesome. I honestly suspect that on the level of buying stuff like that, people truly don't think about it, or they think it's merely cutely naughty.

Seriously: go to the kid's department at Target and look at the boy's tshirts. Half of them say cutely naughty crap like "blame my sister" or "warning: do not disturb, video game in progress" or well, here, have a look. My favorite is "someday I'll be your boss." This stuff is no less patently offensive than little girl double entendre shit, and it appeals to the same ha ha, boys will be boys/girls will be girls sensibility.

You're right that there are other things available, yes. But when all the other little girls have VS "pink" sweatpants, the parent who says no way is a prude. And believe me, kids PK's age are already paying attention to what their peers wear and arguing that "no one thinks it means *that*."

And they're not wrong.

I hate that stuff too. But the primary substantive difference between, say, "Bratz" and Barbie is that the Brats, at least, have an attitude.

girls wearing sweats that say SLUT on the ass

A (female) college friend was full of spite for the jogging shorts that said "UVA" across the bum. When a jogger wearing said shorts would pass by, the friend was fond of leaning off balconies and yelling, "Stick it in the V!" The "V" in question being centered directly over the, well, yeah, you get it.

Also, to give them their due, Bratz dolls have the proportions, kinda, of actual children, unlike Barbie's ridiculously huge tits and tiny waist and feet.

God, today I had to buy two cards for different people who have had babies. One boy and one girl. The cards are fucking wretched. The girl cards tend to extol how sweet and obedient she will be, the boy cards have frogs and airplanes on them. Jesus christ, does the gender brainwashing start early.

530: Heh. We bought Noah this one when he was learning to walk and a big mass of bruises and welts.

...and was a big mass...

531: Yeah, that whole trend started with the college-labelled asses back when I was an undergrad, and I found it obnoxious then.

527: If I eat nothing but rice crackers between now and Christmas, can I have a pair of panties with PORNSTAR across the ass? Pretty please?

Of course, there's more to the little-girls-dancing-suggestively-at-assembly than mere sexual display or it wouldn't happen. Parents don't consciously think that it's a good idea for their young daughters to dress up suggestively and writhe around for mass audiences. That's part of where the class angle comes in--what reads as "slutty" to a middle class WASPy parent may just read as "sparkly and fancied up" to someone else.

But I think that eventually a difference in quantity becomes a difference in kind: no matter how many class messages there are that doing-danceline-in-a-bikini/wearing-shorts-that-say-"sexy" on-the-ass is a perfectly acceptable "neutral" performance of femininity, it's still a performance of femininity that foregrounds sexuality at a young age (as a socially sanctioned norm) and in a way that requires more body homework for young women. It also annoys me that we've got schools now teaching that boys do regular sports and girls (who used to do regular, crappy cheerleading) now do pole-dancing moves. This seems like a much greater assymetry than before. Plus, with the various performances at school assemblies, there is a strong suggestion that the role of the school is to provide sexualized entertainment for its attendees and parents.

I should mention that I didnt complain to any official that I found the middle school assembly butt-slapping offensive.

I feel too much pressure to not be an old, easily offended person.

Of course, every time another parent tells me that their daughter is going to cheer, I say "I think it is great that you are training her to support the boys playing supports."

Yeah, and this stuff is really hard to gripe about without being an ass. As a general rule, I think that you mostly can't blame people individually for acting conventionally, even when the convention is messed up -- someone who's got their little girl participating in a suggestive dance routine is almost certainly thinking that it's fun, and a harmless imitation of adult dancing, and they're not a bad person for not seeing it as a problem. I think it still is a problem for the reasons Frowner points out, but it's hard to get that across without making people feel personally attacked.

Are you done with your hiatus, LB?

Dude, I've been commenting all along, barring a week or so when I was up to my eyebrows trying to find some colorable pretext for my client not to pay his debts. (If you look hard enough, there's always something.)

I'm still not planning to post regularly for a while.

you mostly can't blame people individually for acting conventionally

So wrong! Now put on some sensible shoes.

544: Ah, I saw that bit from LB and thought, "Get out jail free card." Which is to say, "So right." Freedom can be, admittedly, scary, Shi'a. But it's worth it.

526: B is a tramp.

Just for the record, back in 1965 (before you people were born) my cheerleader / Homecoming Queen sister was vocally annoyed that there were no girls' sports then. Even without feminism or ideology, she realized that sports were much more fun than cheerleading.

Emerson wears the bottom of his trousers rolled.

Huh. My mom was playing high school basketball in Catholic school well before that -- but I'm sure girls sports weren't anything like universal.

(For pure comedy, there's nothing like a 1950's era Catholic girls' school fight song. Mom's included the immortal couplet:"We always try, our aim is for success/And when we lose, we know we've done our very best." Way to set your sights high, man.)

I try to stay out of this sort of thread, since I grew up with the 2nd wave and my outlook was formed thereby, so much of 3rd wave thinking goes right by me.

But on the specific question of girls sports, was America really so antediluvian? My mother, born 1925, played netball, hockey and tennis competitively against other girls schools. I can't believe Emerson's sister really had no sports as late as the 1960s - that's barbaric (if she wanted to play, that is).

539: Give up, will. Roll up those trouser-bottoms and complain--it's kind of fun.

549, 550: Of course they had girls' sports at girls' schools. They had them at public schools too. They just didn't get any money or attention. The boys got the premium practice times, pta and student fundraisers for equipment, and paid coaches.

Also, LB: I was up to my eyebrows trying to find some colorable pretext for my client not to pay his debts.

Could you do this for me?

mcmc - How delightful, I thought you were one of the kids! I say that in all sincerity, sitting here as I am in my knee breeches, with cut steel buckles from Mr Boulton's interesting manufactory in Soho.

But on the specific question of girls sports, was America really so antediluvian? My mother, born 1925, played netball, hockey and tennis competitively

My grandmother was born in 1913, and as I recall she was playing a fair amount of sports as well. Course, I think it was college rather than high school, and it was Berkeley, so maybe not representative. I should ask her about high school.

Could you do this for me?

You could always fake your own death.

552: It helps if you've incurred the debts through a complex structure of various corporate entities, some of which are insolvent and can be painlessly abandoned.

Can I sell myself to a private-capital holding company founded by my friend Andy, and then declare bankruptcy, and then be sold back to a private-capital holding company founded by myself?

Specifically, I couldn't tell you until I'd done the research, but you're thinking along the right lines.

By which LB means (or should mean), "Specifically, I couldn't tell you until you've paid a retainer, which at my rates would probably be more than the debts you are trying to avoid."

Title 9 - early '70s, I think - was huge in this country. Lots and lots of girls and women had no opportunities for athletic competition - and the opportunities they had were very constrained.

I've been told by knowledgeable people that a common form of girls' basketball back in the day involved essentially two teams waiting on opposite ends of the court, so that when the ball turned over, it was given to the team at the other end of the court. Saves all that unladylike running back and forth, don'cha know.

And that, of course, is for where there were actually girls' teams. I'm pretty sure my high school didn't have one. (I went to high school in the post-Title 9 enactment, pre-Title 9 enforcement era.)

560: I think the rule was that neither forwards or guards could cross the half-court line -- only the center. So it was like playing three on three with rest breaks.

Tangentially, do you get the feeling that Ace O. Spades hasn't been laid in ages?

This horrible trainwreck thread had one specimen, 'Peter Bessman,' complaining about just that.

"Personally, coming to grips with this reality -- painful though it was, since I was hoping for many years to find the kind of girl you read about in Robert Heinlein novels -- has given me a sort of zen understanding of humanity."

Someone--put this guy on Beauty and the Geek-- stat!

I totally want to go on Beauty and the Geek as a mole.

553, 555: Yes! I'll fake my death from old age!

563: "The kind of girl you read about in Heinlein novels." No wonder he's messed up.

Re: cheerleading: hasn't that pretty much always been a ridiculously heavily-sexualized role (except maybe when you're talking about high-level competitive cheerleading)? "Pole-dancing" moves maybe make the undercurrents more explicit, but it's not as though sexualization is a particularly clandestine part of the whole phenomenon to begin with, right?

"I want a girl / Just like the girls invented by dear old Bob."

One state further south (Iowa, a border state) girl's basketball was a big deal -- supposedly the state girls' tournament had more fans than the boys' tournament.

I suppose I'm too young to know, but my impression has always been that the sexual aspect of cheerleading has traditionally been implicit/theoretical, with generally chaste routines performed in slightly racy costume (if you picture a classic, pre-1970 outfit, it was often a long-sleeved sweater - for cold-weather football - and knee-length skirt; barely more risque than Catholic school uni).

I think that booty-shaking really started around 1970, and it took maybe 15 years to become pervasive, with additional sexy moves. Certainly the cheerleaders in my late-80s NJ HS didn't do anything faintly erotic, cheerleader-fantasies excepted.

Am I wrong? Or did there used to be a line, where cheerleaders were fairly chaste on-field, and presumed slutty off-?

566: The half-time "dance team" shows sure were sexualized in the Heart of Dixie decades ago. There was some controversy about it but not much if I'm remembering correctly. I think the culture had it that a demo was one thing, actually doing was another.

The half-time "dance team" shows sure were sexualized in the Heart of Dixie decades ago.

They certainly were when I was in high school in the mid-80s.

If there's one thing I remember from my History of American Sports class other than the word parvenu, it's that there was certainly a period of time in which girl's sports took a big step backwards and stayed there until Title-IX-ish. I have the feeling this was in the 30s or earlier, however.

My movie research indicates that high school cheerleaders are mostly uncontrollable nymphomaniacs. I'll have to ask my sisters.

"Second, I wonder if there's some part of this that's particularly rough on women who are both smart and conventionally attractive."

This is probably a terrible thread for me to wander into as a first-time commenter on this website, and I'm also doing it late (summer after first year of grad school! I SLEEP!) - but the above quote struck me, a little bit, because I sort of fall into that category.
As someone who was a model for a minute or two before deciding to become an academic, I'm not sure if the script-split is necessarily rougher, but it's definitely, uh, pronounced. Because for a while in there I got PAID to be objectified in the ways that SassyScript me hates out of principle. And the other thing that I hate admitting? That objectification was wonderful. I loved every second of it because it allowed me to erase, for a little while, everything that happened to me in middle and high school. I got to step out of myself - but I don't think you can do that permanently. And so here I am, in academics, and I love it, but every now and again I remember me-on-the-runway and I get really nostalgic. And then the academic part of me gets PISSED for being nostalgic about it. Rinse, repeat.

Man, it is hard as hell to put a finger on why heebie's post is so damned right. Regardless of how it plays out with men, or how many men (unfogged's demo, for sure, which is why I think that that issue is bound to be skewed here) really like smart, laid-back women, this mind-numbing split still exists, and still bugs me almost daily. I know. I should probably let it go. And yet if I'm going to be honest with myself, I can't. I bristle at the thought of my partner jacking off to bigboobs dot com or whatever because I am flat as a board. I catch myself flaming people for saying relatively innocent things about 'hotness.' And at the same time, I was put in a role as 'hotness' personified and loved it. AGH.

Howdy, Kim. This is a fine thread for you to wander into. You're two comments away from getting your fruit basket. Also, thanks for this, which really brightened my afternoon.

Yeah. I don't like 'particularly rough', but differently rough. Does it suck more to be able to successfully play the SexyScript role, and not enjoy it and not like yourself for doing it but still end up doing it some or at least always being aware of it because of all the positive feedback you get for it, or to feel completely shut out of it by not being conventionally attractive enough or just not having the personality to pull it off? I don't think there's any way, or any reason, to settle who's got it worse, but the lousy things about it are different depending on where you're standing.

(And don't worry about delurking -- new commenters are good! If someone offers you a fruit basket, though, you probably don't want to click on it.)

you probably don't want to click on it.

Oh yes you do. In fact, you must.

In case you haven't already learned the hard way, Apostropher links in general: proceed with extreme caution. The fruit basket is a fluffy kitten compared to most.

I try to keep the truly freaky stuff quarantined over at my place.

This thread has made me think about the fact that my mental sense of an "average" woman is younger and cuter than my mental "average" male.

If, for example, I read a sentence like "I stepped into the bank and asked the clerk if [he,she] had seen anything unusual in the last hour." The people I imagine are not symmetrical as the gender changes. Various explanations have been suggested (culture, media, etc . .)* but I was thinking about the mechanism by which my sense of the spectrum of attractiveness is skewed.

Apologies in advance for geeking out a little bit in the following.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that judgements of attractiveness are consistent and rankeable. There is some real world distribution and, by definiteion, the median man or woman is more attractive than 50% of the population.

But we also have a mental model of the distribution and, I suspect that the person we would place as more attractive than 50% of the people in our head would be noticably more attractive than the 50th percentile in real life.

I believe that part of how this works is an element of hopefulnes, we want people to be a little more attractive than they are so we skew upwards, but that another important part of how this works is that people are exlcuded from our mental distribution. I suspect that more women are than man are exlcuded from what constitutes the scale of attractiveness.

If, for men, we exclude 15% of the population (say we underrepresent older men in our heads) and are taking the 55the percentile man when we're trying to imagine the 50th percentile that person would correspond to the 62nd percentile in real life.

If, for women, we exclude 30% of the population, and are thinking about the 60th percentile, when we are trying to think of the median, that woman will be more attractive than 4/5ths of the women in real life -- much farther from reality.

* Just to note about stereotypes, in my city there are enough businesses that clearly have a deliberate strategy of hiring cute college-age women for customer service jobs the average female customer service employee is younger and more attractive than the average male customer service employee. Part of why I used "bank" in my example was to exclude the food service indutry in which this is most notable.

Apologies for the bold tag. I was supposed to close that after the word "is".

Gah haha. 576: Yunno, I can't really figure out what it is about having 'successfully' pulled off SexyScript that makes the whole issue so different. Yeah, I pulled it off sorta, but the SassyScript in me will ALWAYS ostracize me from that sort of group (believe it or not, models are mostly as dumb as everyone thinks they are. Terrible yet true!). So then I exist in no-man's-land, (uh, literally and figuratively?) because people in academics seem distrustful of me because I fit some pretty conventional, heteronorm stereotypes on the outside, and yet I also don't fit, and kind of hate really, the vacuous, ridiculous SexyScript lifestyle. Hi! I'm nowhere! It is no fun!

ARRGGGH, I switched my number in mid-stream and messed up my math.

Not that anyone cares, but the number at the and of the paragraph about women should be 72% (~3/4). not ~4/5.

Eh, the numbers don't matter, and the sense of it rings true -- that women who don't rank high enough on the conventional attractiveness scale get erased from people's picture of what 'ordinary' women are supposed to look like.

I'm curious if the mental picture isn't also skewed by differences in how accurately men and women rank their own attractiveness. I'm not even going to try to play with your math. I'll just wonder out loud hif more men or more women would likely rank themselves at the 50th percentile? At 25th? At 75th?

The women I know tend to come off a bit more self-critical of their appearance and the guys decidedly less so (though, maybe this is just playing the scripts -- women must be modest, men confident?). I'd parse this through further, but the word "percentile" has a way of making my head go all fuzzy, not having done any non-checkbook-balancing math for nearly 20 years...

I think Nick's point is a good one. It's like being a good driver -- everybody thinks they are above average. In this case, it's not that people think they themselves are above average, so much as that they have a Hollywood-influenced view of "average."

I am embarrassed to admit that this morning I thought it was it was good to see that Once was getting a nice review, given that it has unconventionally attractive stars. They're still prettier than most of the world.

K.andrews link brightened my day as well. Of course, when it started, I had the sound turned down and thought, "she isnt flat as a board!"

The women I know tend to come off a bit more self-critical of their appearance and the guys decidedly less so (though, maybe this is just playing the scripts -- women must be modest, men confident?).

Well, right. There's an awful lot of shame and hostility around assessing your appearance positively if you're a woman; it feels like directly insulting? pitting yourself against? other women, particularly those who either are less attractive, or are not actively claiming to be attractive. The only socially safe thing to do is to put yourself down.

588:

Is this why Ogged pretends to be geeky and less than masculine? He was almost ashamed to admit that he could dunk. (not that I believed him.)

No.

588: Fuck that shit. My vanity is my li'l strike against teh patriarchy. Either that or my capitulation to it, I'm not clear which.

He was almost ashamed to admit that he could dunk.

I think he's ashamed that he can no longer dunk, not that he once could. Kidneys are largely responsible for elevation, it seems.

591: Yeah, that's the fucked up thing -- either way you go, you're playing along.

B. is so cute when she parades around in her lowrider "Slut" hot pants.

ding!

also, i'm glad that video put other people in a good mood. it's been about a week and i still can't get the song out of my head.

594: If by cute you mean lettin' the mama belly hang free, man.

Which I'm pretty cool with, actually.

Fruit basket for k. andrews!

AAAAGHHH

576 and 578 --> 598

Welcome aboard, ma'am.

K, now that you've suffered through the hazing initiation, welcome to the frathaus.

Hey! I never got any fruit basket hazing. Is it because I was never a model?

Fruit baskets seem to go mostly to people who delurk apologetically. You just started talking, so no one noticed you were new.

I never got one either, but I got my own melons right here, and Apo's fruit looks nasty.

Here's one of your very own, rfts!

I'm guessing Ms. Andrews is willing to share.

And you were here before the tradition began, B.

What 607 really means is that boys don't give fruit to old women.

607: ageist

Unfogged discriminates against those without breasts. I never got a fruit basket either.

608: But they do! Especially teachers!

Aw, thanks!

oh yeah, by all means, share the fruit basket. there's more than enough of that shit to go around.

610: It ain't titlessness that denies you baskets, believe me.

611: Hm, good point.

also, will, they totally don't discriminate against people without breasts. i don't have any to speak of.

Maybe you need to work a little harder on your SexyScript, will. It's a bit late now, but perhaps this would help?

apo:

anything you say! you are so smart!

K.Andrews:

I wouldn't speak of them anyway since I am a gentleman. I am still humming that darn song.

anything you say! you are so smart!

Did you just make a joke? Bad form, baby. Do you have a good-looking friend?

618:

Please meet my new friend k.andrews. She is very nice, but I have to apologize because she apparently doesnt have any breasts to speak of. Hopefully, she will be appropriately deferential to you.

*defers?*
i thought you were going to speak no more of the boobies!

I like you, will. You're sassy.

Back in the dark ages, when I was a lass, I was women's quarterstave champion a hockey and soccer player in junior high, then on my HS and college tennis teams and on my university's fencing team. In junior high, we'd have to leave the playing field if the boys' coach wanted his little nippers to practice. In HS, things were closer to equal - oh, yeah, except that boys got their varsity jackets for free and we ladies had to hold fucking bake sales to pay for ours. When I played sports in college, things were helped immeasurably by the fact that there weren't many boys' teams - and that the fencing coach was a woman not to be crossed; had the men's fencing coach tried to infringe on mere seconds of our practice time, he would have lost his gonads. So yeah, there were sports for grrls in the 60s.

To comment on the initial topic: I'm so glad I wasn't raised as a girlie girl. So very, very glad. Yet, strangely, not knowing how The Game was supposed to be played didn't prevent me from having lots of the wild thing during my youth. [Hell, if I'd known that the standard was to hold out for flowers and candy, not to mention fancy restaurants and jewelry... nah, none of that goes with long-haired hippie chick. Except the flowers.]

OK, I've know I've reappeared too late to foreswear or even convincingly defend my assholishness...but here goes anyway...yeah, my original posts were rather dick-ish. I mean, I pretty much believe what I said, but I posted with a tone of peevish exasperation and impatience, whereas the OP was thoughtful and open. Which did make me a bit of an asshole. Sorry.

With that said, though...isn't it obvious we all have scripts, men, women, everyone? That's the essence of social life. At their best, social scripts show us the way to express certain kinds of grace and beauty. (Or yes, raw sexual seductiveness, if you choose that -- which we deride as tacky, but we live in an anti-sex culture). Grace and beauty are, all other things equal, preferable to sitting around in your sweats complaining about stuff on the internet.

At their worst, yeah, scripts can suck, but fortunately the people posting here are generally privileged, highly educated, well off, and pretty free to structure our own lives. Which means we have a whole lot of freedom to change up and flip the script in interesting ways whenever it suits us. Especially as you get older, t's not that hard to find partners and social circles who will find our particular mix-and-match version of gender roles attractive.

If you don't learn the right way to live with it, the masculine role can be in its own way confining and disempowering as well. But when men go on about it on the net, they get trashed as whiny, passive-aggressive, unmanly, little bitches...oh, excuse me, "nice guys". Now I'm not going to go all sauce-for-the-goose here, since I do agree with most of the "nice guy" critique. And I agree that women have a somewhat trickier package of social expectations to manage than men. If only because female sexual attractiveness is such a powerful and confusing force to have to handle and dawns at such a young age. But only somewhat -- masculinity is quite tricky to manage as well, although men internalize the problem more and talk about it less. BTW, this recent book by Norah Vincent is fascinating on male/female sex roles:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1733547,00.html

Anyway, this is all important, because IME male and female nerds spend too much time worrying about this kind of stuff and too little time getting it on. Who will produce the next little generation of nerdlings if we're all too hung up to don fancy lingerie and attractive suits, get out there on the town, and put in the hard work necessary to seduce each other?

Marcus, i kinda agree. Its always surprise to me which posts get totally ignored in these parts.