Wow, only 4 of the top 20 are stars of The L Word. And only two of the top 20 are the two female leads in Imagine Me & You.
The whole world converges to uniformity. I would have ranked Mauresmo higher. Tokenism.
The Flashdance lady made it. Hmph.
I finally saw Flashdance for the first time a year or two ago, thinking it would be entertainingly bad. It wasn't, though, it was just horribly, painfully bad. I was saddened.
The thing that always confused me was the line in the Flashdance song that goes "she's dancing like she's never danced before," which always made me think she was dancing really badly. But no!
Stockard Channing is hot, but this picture is not.
Also: more big girls!
To answer everyone's question, Jessica Biel was at #5 on the Maxim list, but is #41 on this lesbian website's list. Ogged may not be gay after all. Not a gay woman, that is.
I read #3 as "Tolkeinism". More hairy feet!
7: That's "Maniac". The real Flashdance song is the one that I do at Karaoke.
They're all very attractive women, of course--what else would you expect? But Tina Fey over Johansson? Please. I think that in itself makes your "great taste" an overstatement.
"Flashdance", "Footloose", and "Pretty in Pink" are a box set now. See the pre-cougar jailbait version of Demi Moore and other famous nymphettes.
The Maxim list is full of people who only exist as airbrushed models. Similar to the stars of the Disney Channel, Maxim/FHM/etc. cultivate their own stars who occupy a parallel existence, appearing in the co-ed media only when mentioned alongside their athlete husbands (e.g. Stacy Keibler, Shanna Moekler).
I am now weeping uncontrollably at the incontrovertible greatness of America. Though Jolie should have been #1, and Shah higher.
Footloose and Pretty in Pink are trashy fun. Flashdance was... man, I don't know, it made me feel all bad inside.
i'm pretty sure 50% of these have stared as gay/bi on tv at some point.
this list compared to the ladmagazine kind just shows men's higher self-esteem, i think.
Funny, I never considered that WSW was also a term in epidemiology.
Tina Fey over Johansson? Please. I think that in itself makes your "great taste" an overstatement.
You're fucking insane. Johansson is pretty, but Fey's pretty *and* has a much clearer and very attractive personality.
Johansson is pretty, but Fey's pretty *and* has a much clearer and very attractive personality.
I fail to see how this makes her hotter.
Ned, you are soo not going to score with lesbians.
What impressed me about the list was that they seemed to consciously choose non-airbrushed photos. For some people it's probably harder to find a non-airbrushed photo than an airbrushed one (Halle Berry). This shows a forgiving attitude toward imperfections such as wrinkles, veins and knuckles.
Our friend Skot, who acts sometimes in Seattle, was in a theater production of Flashdance put on by a group of drunken reprobates/actors (these, I think). Apparently, while putting together this travesty, the directory was frame-stepping through one of the dance sequences and discovered that Jennifer Beals was, in the breakdancing sequence, using a man in a leotard as a stunt double. Someone, uh, very visibly a man.
I've long thought that whatsherface at #10 was so good looking it made my teeth hurt. I thought so even when I first saw her as a little kid in that movie with the French killer guy, which made me feel kind of dirty for a minute.
seemed to consciously choose non-airbrushed photos
In the top twenty, only two photos (Beals, Foster) are not from professional shoots. I don't know about the rest of the list, because I have standards.
23: one in a long list of reasons why women are better than men
Yes, that doesn't hold true at the top of the list. And most of them are from professional photo shoots.
Just the sight of a wrinkle or realistically non-even skin tone is worthy of note in a Top 100 Hot Babes list.
16. Jodie Foster
What makes Jodie Foster so sexy lies beyond the empirical. Sure, she has the great graveled voice, the ice-blue eyes, the sharpened-hatchet cheekbones. But what is so inherently hot about her is her undeniable intelligence. Well, that and the fact that she perhaps was cinema's cutest little tomboy ever.
It's nice of them not to bring up the subject you are not allowed to talk about with Jodie. (Or the lesbian thing, either.)
Jodie's such a killjoy about that.
the subject you are not allowed to talk about
What would that be? Her Wikipaedia entry suggests she will not discuss the paternity of her children; is that what you mean?
(signed, the Culturally Illiterate Kid)
Given the number of people on their list who are definitely or probably gay but not out, I think they should have just given up on the whole asterisk plan.
Oh right, right. I knew the name "Jodie Foster" sounded familiar from somewhere.
Do lesbians like Law & Order and The West Wing a lot? I count at least two cast members of the former and three of the latter.
That's the one. (Questions about her sex life or about Hinckley are apparently interview-enders for her. Perhaps she also refuses to discuss Bugsy Malone, also.)
I was surprised that they didn't mark her as gay, given that it hardly even qualifies as an open secret at this point, but they seem to have erred on the side on not outing anyone. (See also Clea DuVall, who is scrumptious.)
OH RIGHT, JODIE FOSTER.
SHE WAS NELL, YOU KNOW.
Jody is apparently not Hinckley-positive, despite his selfless devotion. The bitch.
20: Wasn't it Nicholson Baker who wrote that a smart woman coming is so much hotter than a dumb one, because there are so many other things her brain could be doing instead?
Nicholson Baker writes terrible erotica, though obviously smartness is hot.
Fair enough, but I think he was right about that one point.
B, are you just assuming Johansson is dumb because she's blond?
slightly off topic: I saw Grindhouse the other night, and came away from it with a massive girl-crush on Zoe Bell---and was even more wowed to find out that she's not a "real" actress. If I were a lesbian, I would totally be in love with her. As it is I can't understand why every man who's ever seen Grindhouse isn't in love with her. You guys are weird.
The dialogue in that movie was so irritating that it was impossible to be attracted to anyone who was uttering it.
44: She may be the smartest chica ever, but her personality isn't part of her public image. Even I'm smart enough to realize that, and I'm blond.
Hm, I think it's something more like "a smart person coming is hotter than a dumb person coming because you are personally attracted to the smart person, and you don't have to feel embarrassed for him or her for being so dumb, which is distracting."
her personality isn't part of her public image
I think it was before The Island came out. All my hipster guy friends were amazed by the hot girl with the unusual voice and intelligent attitude who had been in Ghost World, The Man Who Wasn't There and especially Lost in Translation. In Good Company was consistent with this, too.
Then her publicist really revved up the machine and now she's become one of many mainstream starlets who are seen and not heard.
I'm gonna go with "smart people are hotter because you don't try to make them come just so that they'll shut up and go to sleep."
B, we've been through this before: you can be either blind or Mexican, but not both. You're going to have to choose.
"blind" should be "blond". Which makes the choice a little bit more difficult.
Too many blondes, who are not dumb, but are still blonde. A pronounced shortage of Bollywood stars,
And I wasn't going to scroll thru the list 5 names at a time, to see if Mia Kirschner was on it. Anybody got a text only?
You can just let yourself like a smart person, whereas a dumb hot person you always feel icky
A pronounced shortage of Bollywood stars
The racial breakdown is interesting. Gaijin Biker is not going to be pleased.
How many Bollywood stars have done girl-girl scenes?
55:"whereas a dumb hot person you always feel icky"
A moral challenge of the best kind. as I tried to explain at Ezra's one day, to a crowd saying:"100? Eww."
I haven't seen enough movies to know, but my impression is that the majority, if not the overwhelming majority, of women on this list have either done lesbian scenes or are rumored or out lesbians.
I saw Grindhouse the other night, and came away from it with a massive girl-crush on Zoe Bell
I had a massive crush on her in Double Dare, but that still isn't enough to make me want to see Grindhouse.
I was an alternate on Double Dare.
damn you, ogged, for posting this while I was out having dinner at some crappy indianapolist imitation of a real restauratn. Also, 2 is exactly rirhgt.
Man, every time I see "WSW" in the recent comments, I think, "wain stream wedia".
Does Unfogged have a Resident Lesbian?
Moira's out, but comments infrequently. We've had a couple of women out as bi or lesbian, but I can't remember who now.
This shows a forgiving attitude toward imperfections such as wrinkles, veins and knuckles.
I didn't notice what shows a forgiving attitude toward such, but I liked the line.
OPINIONATED GRANDMA, I like NELL.
As for the other, I scrolled through the first 5? or so pictures of women and they all have their shirts open in various ways. Seems like. Friends, that makes for sexy, so I don't really see what's being said here.
Well, let's get on that.
Recruitment drive!
The women seem to have a lot of experience sleeping with dumb people.
Not this men, but the rest of the licentious men here gathered, probably. Probably RIGHT NOW.
But seriously, that's coming out sounding a little weird. One has standards.
76 as followup to 74 and 72.
Dammit!
Recruitment drive!
Hmm. Nearly all of my friends in NY are lesbians, but I'm not out to any of them as an internerd. I must think of a sneaky scheme to attract them here.
I'm now contemplating my long and varied sexual history and am on the verge of verifying that I haven't so much as kissed a woman who didn't have or go on to get at least a masters degree. Of course, plenty of people with advanced degrees are stupid, but this is a good first cut.
I'm afraid I can pretty seriously vouch for 50.
I must think of a sneaky scheme to attract them here.
Yeah, we're really hurting for lesbians. But I don't like dogs or softball, so I'm not sure how to address the problem.
Maybe Becks could do some more Sleater Kinney posts.
Now Brock, don't interfere with the grieving process.
Dial-up.
Correct. But yeah, I was given pause, think: dumb guys.
I feel badly about this, but yes, sometimes there are reasons to go for someone who's otherwise compatible but ultimately turns out to be just not too bright. It winds up with a crash and burn, so: lesson learned.
Ogged, dude, having a master's degree is an absurd first cut. Just saying.
It only seems absurd if you don't know genuinely stupid people.
87:
Parsimon: "long and varied" means "the 10 women that I wanted to hook up with but could never get Unfogged to tell me how to ask out."
"Long and varied" was a joke, even if Slow Will's explication isn't exactly what I had in mind.
Relationships are certainly easier if you have relatively similar backgrounds.
After,my divorce, I dated some young and not very well educated women. Fun for the short-term, but not long term.
My gf is a smartpants PharmD girl. Much more rewarding having someone smarter than you are.
90:
Wow. So teofilo isnt the only virgin on unfogged? That is great. Seriously, some girl will be happy that you saved yourself.
My gf is a smartpants PharmD girl. Much more rewarding having someone smarter than you are.
But that means it must be that much less rewarding for her, right? That's the fundamental problem: if one party is smarter than the other, the relationship will always be inherently unequal. I refuse to get involved with anyone whose IQ doesn't match mine within +/- two points (and who has the papers to prove it). This goes for professional and social contacts too, not just dating relationships.
It's just as easy to fetishize "smart" as to fetishize tits. In some crowds, easier.
Brock hit the softball!
Brock, women are ok with dating men who are not as smart as they are.
It's just as easy to fetishize "smart" as to fetishize tits. In some crowds, easier.
Wise words. This is why I'm chasing lifeguards these days.
I find women worth dating generally prefer non-smart guys, at least for hookups
For me, smart doesnt necessarily equal educated. I know a lot of dumbasses with JDs, MDs, and BAs or BSs from "top" schools.
What i mean is i've had girls be like "oh wow, when we met i didn't think you were that smart, but you're really are!"
For me, smart doesnt necessarily equal educated. I know a lot of dumbasses with JDs, MDs, and BAs or BSs from "top" schools.
I'm telling you people, you've forgotten what genuine stupid is like. I'm talking about people who can't learn that they can keep more than one window open on a computer.
yoyo:
I agree. I hate how women make you act like you are stupid. They don't want you to be yourself! I've hidden my brains for so long now. I really am sure that I have some smartness somewhere. (at least Mom says so.)
just because you're into the younger women ogged...
It's just as easy to fetishize "smart" as to fetishize tits. In some crowds, easier.
Yeah, ugly crowds.
We're really talking about either star-fucking or contempt-fucking. Star-fucking sounds fun, if you can manage it. Is it really a surprise, though, that contempt-fucking isn't that enjoyable?
I'm talking about people who can't learn that they can keep more than one window open on a computer.
Oh. I see. Heh. Ha.
Alright alright alright alright this is making me grin!
Also, ogged said "explication."
will, you read too much into my comments.
i'm not that deep.
We're really talking about either star-fucking or contempt-fucking.
We are?
When I get to this point, I've obviously lost track of the thread. Ogged, being surrounded by blockbrains sucks. Sorry, man.
Oh, they're not around now. Blockbrains I have known.
The proper first cut is humor (assuming it's attached to great tits). Covers both intelligence and a major component of compatibility.
108: If, while you're fucking someone, you're thinking about how stupid they are, I have to think that there's a pretty good chance that you're contempt-fucking.
Yeah, I think that's right. I realize now that "first cut" sounded like I was choosing people based on their credentials, but I meant a "first cut" at whether they were, in retrospect, stupid or not. Humor is definitely the first cut: make a few jokes, see if she 1) doesn't respond 2) laughs but only because she understands the cues 3) laughs because she thinks it's funny 4) says something funnier back. There's also a 5) understands the joke perfectly well, but rolls her eyes because she's a ball-busting bitch, but none of us know people like that.
113 to 110. But you smarties knew that.
I made that word "blockbrains" up, or I think I did.
I reached for the word I wanted, couldn't find it; it continues to elude me, but you know the feeling? Something's wrong here .. weird sort of linguistic dissonance feel, you search, you can't find, you give up with a frown or a scowl because it's Surely Not That Important.
Peace. Hey, the radio is playing Peter Gabriel at me. Something about flesh and blood.
i didn't know people laughed for reasons other than 2)
Shorter Unfogged consensus:"100? Eww."
The lack of compatibility came from my side, with stuff like caring about spelling "compatability" correctly, and thinking it granted some kind of moral status. She didn't mind that I was stupid and didn't listen, she could make me laugh and happy. I had to work so hard at it, and do so much wrong: showing off, patronizing, overfuckingthinking everything. Any boredom and impatience was an infantile demand that the world entertain & comfort me. It isn't there for my amusement.
But that was so long ago. Now my dogs show me what is valuable:it ain't the Physiocrats and Henry George on a sunlight summer day.
My nihilism, pessimism, despair is so complete that nothing is more important than a walk by the creek, and the capacity to want nothing more. My dogs ain't so dumb. We're all gonna die.
i'm kinda dumb, so e xplaing this to me: were you thinking of putting it to a 100 yr old girl?
112:I like Tim sometimes.
Before I leave, channelhopped three good movies last night, simultaneously:The King with Gael Garcia Bernal;Brick with Joseph Gordon-Levitt; and Mysterious Skin with Joseph Gordon Levitt. Recommended, tho not comedies.
Gregg Araki makes weird movies, like Afternoon School Specials on really bad acid.
On looking at the photos: obviously the AfterEllen people and I know different lesbians. But chacu'un a son gout, as the French say. (Or at least, they add the accent marks when they say it.)
Maybe it's because I'm not that smart myself, but the older I get the less sure I get about how to tell who's smart and who's not. Oh, sure, you can guess that the person who believes that a homeless AIDS patient just needs to "pay his medical bills. After all, that's what I do"--well, she [and she does indeed exist, I tell you] probably isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier. But other than that, I just can't tell. I know a lot of people who can talk your ear off about fancy intellectual stuff, but then I also know people who--I'm pretty sure--know enough to talk your ear off about stuff but don't. So who's smarter? And how do you know that the smartest ones of all aren't avoiding you because you're so stupid that you frustrate the hell out of them? Someone might be pretty damn smart and just not waste any of it on me, so I'd never know. Which makes fetishizing intelligence either foolish or impossible; all you're really fetishizing is the appearance of intelligence. Might as well go for the looks, since they're more or less what they appear.
The timid comity in this thread is disappointing. Where are the disagreements? Where are the lesbians?
Since Emerson's not here to remind you, they're in Portland.
I just finished writing the longest and most footnote-ridden paper I've written in grad school thus far! (It's actually not that long.)
Might as well go for the looks, since they're more or less what they appear.
And humor! Smart enough for Ogged's 3) and 4) is, well, smart enough.
As is my custom, it's in a file called "prelim2.tex".
125 should be understood as implying 'Since Emerson's not here to remind you, [I'm stepping in to answer that] they're in Portland.'
most footnote-ridden paper
(It's actually not that long.)
god, Ben, you must not become Kripke.
"Clearly, what straight men and lesbians find sexy in a woman is a little bit different."
Then clearly, I'm a lesbian.
the majority, if not the overwhelming majority, of women on this list have either done lesbian scenes or are rumored or out lesbians.
Yeah, because the straight chick movie roles are fucking godawful, so presumably if you're an intelligent woman actor, you're going to be dying to play a lesbian in an indie film.
Re. this smart thing, you people are snobs. No one wants to date stupid, but a MA is more a proxy for smart+professional class than it is a proxy for smart in and of itself.
Apparently, lesbians are stupid. Decent list, but Queen Latifa is many things, but sexy she is not. And apparently they can find space for the whole female cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but Kirsten Dunst and Isla Fisher get left out? And Lohan gets a spot? Stupid lesbians.
Queen Latifa is many things, but sexy she is not
Me and Apo are going to TAKE YOU DOWN.
The eharmony guy says here that a couple needs to be within one standard deviation of each other in intelligence to be compatible. He is sitting on a boatload of data so I tend to believe him. (a standard deviation in IQ is 15 points rather than 10 points though)
135:Please don't destroy me. I will sex up QL if necessary.
136:Well that's me well fucked then. I'm good at taking tests and this dooms me to a lifetime of loneliness? If he's so goddamn smart why does he have to advertise?
And why ain't he rich?
Don't worry, foolishmortal; I'm here for you.
137.1: QL doesn't want your pity fuck.
On the up side, you don't have to worry about a lifetime of loneliness, because Apo and I are going to TAKE YOU DOWN.
Sure she does, B. A lifetime can be as long or short—mostly short—as you make it.
Some people manage to fit their entire lives into a mere decade or two.
What's with this moral relativism all of a sudden? Been reading too much of that fancy theory shit?
Actually there was an article about Piaf (in connection with the new movie) in the LA Times today that argued that it's too bad that women singers nowadays don't have such short, tragic--but full!--lives. It was truly offensive.
Queen Latifah is sort of boring; she's like the Will Smith of black womanhood. Except more boring. Did anyone see "Last Holiday"? I suffered through it on a plane. I mean, I respect her for being a successful corporate brand and all, but I don't find that helpful in the attractiveness department.
And Tina Fey has a horrible personality. I always found that smirk of hers one of the more repulsive aspects of SNL, which is really saying something. SNL has been the anti-funny for what, a decade now? Black plastic glasses do not automatically equal nerd-girl spark; she's no Jane Garofalo (to her credit, Jane suffered horribly on SNL).
As if it doesn't matter if one lives long or short, to the one.
That's not moral relativism, for one, and for two, I didn't say it doesn't matter.
B's trying to turn foolishmortal into a chubby chaser.
Maybe he's just risk averse. Remember that CSI where the dude got crushed to death by a large woman? Bad times.
148: Oh, stop quibbling over petty details.
149: You are a bad man. As if the only identifiable attribute of QL were her weight. If Apo's stupid new baby weren't taking up all his time, he'd totally set you people straight.
*And* you'd listen to him, because he has a penis.
*And* you'd listen to him, because he has a penis.
Yeah, but not one you'd want to associate with.
As if the only identifiable attribute of QL were her weight.
foolishmortal, I think B's calling you a racist.
Also, fetishizing smartness in partners is a little stupid, since so many other factors are bigger contributors to relationship happiness. I'm not even sure what smartness is, actually -- intellectual curiousity is not the same thing as smarts, but it's the quality that makes for fun conversation.
I sometimes wonder if intellectual guys fetishize intellectual girls because we're more secure with them -- we know that our own intellect earns us more points with them.
Gswift, you are a bad, bad man.
Also, the boys are ganging up on me. I'm gonna tell.
CUT IT OUT, BOYS. DON'T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE AND KICK YOUR ASS.
Queen Latifa is many things, but sexy she is not
This is crazy talk. Did you see Chicago?
I knew lesbians. Lesbians were my friends. And Mr. ogged, you are no lesbian.
Notable omissions that make me doubt the veracity and methodology of this survey:
Missy Elliot
Lily Taylor
Rosario Dawson
Sarah Polley
Li'l Kim
Audrey Tautou, well, maybe not.
I have actually recommended this site to several of my lesbian and bisexual female friends, but none of them seem very entranced by it. Be more entrancing!
Also, Natalie Portman is a boring fascist.
Queen Latifah is hott! She may appear only in boring movies, but...
Although, seriously, you guys--I see women more attractive than all those lacquered, blow-dried actresses every day. Where do you work/live, for pete's sake?
Whether one's preference is sorority co-ed types or big-nosed bohemians, any reasonably civilized environment will provide an amplitude of attractive women. Or at least, Minneapolis does.
Although weirdly, I saw this really rather ugly girl the other day--I mean my first thought was that she was ugly when I saw her--and yet I also found her really attractive. You know you're old, though, when you're at a university event and the sexy ugly chick in her mid-twenties is still waaay too young for you. Sigh.
On the matter of the list: I myself date girls from time to time but mostly the fellows, so I can't really authentically talk about what lesbians like, but where are the classically butch women? Where is Alison Bechdel? As I understand it, many lesbians find her quite alluring, as I do myself.
I mean, actresses? Really? Why actresses when you can admire Nalo Hopkinson? Or any of the members of Le Tigre? As I understand it from my properly-lesbian friends, many of them think Le Tigre's own JD Samson the very last word in hotness.
re: 133
Re. this smart thing, you people are snobs. No one wants to date stupid, but a MA is more a proxy for smart+professional class than it is a proxy for smart in and of itself.
Well, I've never dated anyone with an advanced degree. My wife doesn't have a degree at all. And yes, I think you are right, it is a class proxy.
Minneapolis is full of really attractive women. They have great skin in the cold white North.
Class is a proxy for a whole series of attitudes about things big and (more importantly) small. That people date on the basis of it, consciously or unconsciously, strikes me as normal and likely to be, as a general matter, a reasonable way to seek an amicable relationship.
Blonde women. Dark hairy men like blondes.
161: People also semi-intentionally or intentionally date or hook up across classes, though, for all kinds of reasons.
Most of the guys I dated until my late twenties were lower-middle/upper-working class and didn't have degrees. I was also smarter than them, although this is separate issues, and none of them were stupid.
Part of it was cross-class frisson--for them, they were dating a hipster middle/upper-middle type with a background to them exotic and higher-status; for me the less-excusable thrill of workingclass-ness. But it was also a status trade: I'm funny-looking and nerdy, and one of them in particular was really, really good looking and in a band and everything. Also, there's the matter of insecurity--they were gender-insecure and I was appearance-insecure, and working those things out outside your own class, where the norms are different and you're not "among friends", so to speak, can be freeing.
Samuel Delany is particularly good (and sometimes pornographic, actually) on this topic.
re: 161
I suppose it depends a lot on how good a proxy it is. I agree, it's natural that people will fundamentally want to be in relationships with people that are sufficiently like themselves.*
However, snobbery does exist, and there's a line between a perfectly natural desire for 'compatibility' [in terms of attitidues, etc.] and a desire to avoid people one consciously or subconsciously believes oneself to be better than.** Using class as a proxy probably isn't really avoidable but it can easily slide over into something less nice.
* and I'm as guilty as anyone else. These sorts of class distinctions are just not a particularly good proxy for me, as it happens.
** general comment, not pointing any fingers at anyone here.
Dark hairy men like blondes.
This is mostly true. But personally, I prefer darker hair. This is in accord with Standpipe's theory that I'm trying to date a be-tittied myself.
Dark hairy men like blondes.
I've generally expressed a preference for dark hair in the past, but it's possibly telling that my wife is blonde.
Using class as a proxy probably isn't really avoidable but it can easily slide over into something less nice.
Yeah, but....People rarely explicitly use class as a proxy. Instead, they use things like education to track class; after all, this thread in the conversation started because B made exactly that connection. Furthermore, I tend to think that we have more holistic ways, in real life, of determining whether something less nice is going on. Most of us are comfortable at sorting out who is an asshole, whatever his or her class.
Yeah, sure. Minneapolis is full of beautiful dark-haired women. Sort of the Rio of the North.
Here, this should settle it: the carpet almost never matches the drapes, unless it's bleached.
So you know now, and can leave the blondes alone and mate with your own kind.
169: Minneapolis is full of beautiful dark-haired women. Of course, many of them aren't white, so perhaps they escape the notice of some guys.
I'm not sure it's blondness that people mean when they talk about the beauty of Minneapolis women. I have always assumed that such people were adverting to the relative frequency in MN population of women with huge tracts of land.
'Tracts of land"? I haven't heard that euphemism. "Kiddie pools" was a new one to me too.
If you want a tract of land, I could arrange a nice cheap swamp for you. Great for birdwatching -- herons, pelicans, geese, ducks, egrets -- you name it.
Minneapolis is still 80% white, and not Mediterranean white either.
There used to be something up on the net by a Jewish women exiled in Duluth who was amazed that Irish were considered diverse up there. Minneapolis isn't quite that bad.
She also concluded that Scandinavian-Americans expressed every emotion the same expressionless way as every other emotion.
Is it that you hate all High Culture, Emerson, or just that produced by the Brits? Have you really never seen (IIRC) Monty Python's Holy Grail?
Well, Minnesota is not the place to go to get out of swamps. Swamps is one of the few things we share with Florida.
White, though, isn't the same as blond. I am meticulously, boringly, pinkishly white but I'm not blond a-tall. In fact, I don't even know very many blonds, but I think this has more to do with where I live and how I socialize than anything else. There aren't nearly as many blond punks and annoying hipsters and smug dirty hippies as there are dark-haired ones.
I sometimes wonder if intellectual guys fetishize intellectual girls because we're more secure with them -- we know that our own intellect earns us more points with them.
This seems right to me. I spend so much time inside my own head, that anyone who I'm going to spend much time with has to be at lease moderatly interested in the sorts of things that go on in my head.
Blondeness not the majority even in Sweden. Minneapolis is relatively blonde.
Also, my bet is that outside Minnesota you might count as blonde. You'd be surprised at how many people think light brown is blonde.
Furthermore, I tend to think that we have more holistic ways, in real life, of determining whether something less nice is going on. Most of us are comfortable at sorting out who is an asshole, whatever his or her class.
Well, what I was getting at is that, yes, as you say, sometimes class is used as a proxy for other values, but sometimes, it's not. It's sought for its own sake. Which is just snobbery.
And snobbery of that type is incredibly common. In fact, it's probably more common than its absence, iyswim.
Alternative, related hypothesis: intellectual guys fetishize intelligence in the forlorn and unconscious hope that the work and weight behind such fetishization will somehow enter the world and convince women as a group to fetishize that characteristic with which intellectual men are best able to compete with other men. And so with intellectual women.
178: I feel silly getting so picky about this, but I don't have light brown hair. I have dark brown hair. It's not a deep blackish brown (like my child-of-geniune-Swedes mother's flawless, gorgeous hair), but it's not ashy, mousey, easily-highlighted-by-the-sun or any of those blondy-brown hair qualities. It's dark brown. Although when I was in China, people did ask me how I "got my hair that color".
180: Or the happy, positive explanation: I like nerdy conversations. Now that I've had a reasonable number of relationships, I am particularly interested in having nerdy conversations with the Sig O of the moment. Hence, Sig O must be able to read relatively fancy books, see long boring movies without boredom, and use the word "alterity" correctly nine times out of ten. Hence the smartsy-pants thing.
Also, nerdier guys are more likely to have had life experiences (Of suffering! Only suffering! And winning spelling bees!) similar to mine. Commonality, vulnerability, blah blah.
"use the word "alterity" correctly nine times out of ten"
You're setting the pretentious barrier pretty high, there.
A friend of mine complained about a year ago that she couldn't see herself dating a guy who hadn't read Foucault—that, in fact, such an omission would mean he was basically uneducated.
Fortunately, Frowner's criterion allows the possibility that one simply never uses "alterity".
re: 185
Good point. I am saved from being cast into the outer (uneducated) darkness.
re: 184
It's funny, you never hear people saying 'I'd never date anyone who hadn't read the Aufbau' ...
A friend of mine complained about a year ago that she couldn't see herself dating a guy who hadn't read Foucault--that, in fact, such an omission would mean he was basically uneducated.
Did you tell her that Foucault is just sloppy Heidegger* and that you couldn't be her friend anymore?
*Not that this would need to be true for you to say it in this situation.
Ignore Frowner's attempts to escape being stereotyped. Why should Swedish-Americans get off scot-free. Basically she's blonde, as was her mother.
I think I've mentioned that the Arab lady at the Arab restaurant asked me what happened to my "blonde" girlfriend, and I wracked my brain, given that my ex has dark brown hair, only to realize that she meant "white."
No, I told her that she probably shouldn't look in the chemistry department if that were her criterion.
They're married now.
I've had two different black people tell me that they recognized two hair colors: black and blonde. There's some ethnoscience for you.
183: Er, actually I was poking fun at myself. (Note to self: must date only guys who get my dry-yet-stupid jokes. Or else only date attractive women, of course.)
Really, the word of the week is ressentiment, closely followed by unheimlich. Also, potential dates must like to spend time mocking Lacanians, at least until that gets played out.
This is a good article about ressentiment.
I use "unheimlich" altogether too much. I believe Snark still owns his tragically dorky "I Lack Lacan" t-shirt.
This is a good post about Unheimlichkeit.
Unheimlich, unheimlich, unheimlich!
But it's on JSTOR, which means I cannot read it until I return to my toil at the university, where I can read not only JSTOR articles but also as many! PubMed! articles! as I want! Which is, actually, none. Although one or our researchers gave a very comprehensible and adorably-visual-aided talk on molecular motors which I enjoyed very much.
In solidarity with my oppressed single brethren everywhere, I will never use the word "alterity" ever again.
re: 194
Sorry, I wasn't sure if it was a joke. As, per w-lfs-n's 184, I have heard similar sentiments expressed seriously.
202: Actually, I have trouble remembering all those theory/philosophy words. I get "ontological" and "deontological" confused all the time--the words, that is, not the concepts.
When I actually read Freud, I was appalled and annoyed by how aggressively and mystifyingly people tend to used Freudian terms. Seriously, people, "mourning" isn't really that complex, even in full-on Freudian mode!
Unheimlich doesn't translate quite well -- "uncanny" is how I read it in the Freud usage, but it fails to convey the absence of "hominess" that you get in the original. On the other hand, rfts and I occasionally have a game where we've moved to Uncanny Valley (for she has, yay!, gotten a tt job at Uncanny Valley State) and the neighbors come over to bring welcome wagon presents. "Hello, staring silent reptilian man. I see you've brought... oh, a basket of coupons to local shops. And cookies. And... damp weeds."
And indeed, "alterity" came to mind because I've only recently stopped getting it confused with "aleatory".
Part One of my Discourse on Lacan is at the URL: "Le Real".
Part II at the URL: Jouissance. However, Part One was wrong. It is here.
Frowniepants, if you just can't wait, I can email you the article.
Wolfie Dearest, I can probably muddle through to Monday somehow. I'm just not cool enough to be able to get JSTOR articles chez moi, is all.
I'm more of a Frownieskirt, today, though. And I'm thinking of changing my name to Bunnyface anyway. As in St. Bunnyface.
Emerson, you're funny. Suspiciously funny, if you ask me.
The last sentence of 209 is awful. Particularly so.
Can we get off the philosophy and back to the lesbians?
Kinda surprised that Katee Sackhoff came in so low on the list. Apparently the lesbians don't watch BSG.
My dirty little secret: I'd have a sex change for Gina Gershon.
At my birthday dinner last night, the only two blondes were sitting at my table. This might not be relevant however, since we were in Columbia Heights rather than the City of Minneapolis itself. At an Indian restaurant. Drinking mango lassi and eating batura. Mmmm...batura.
But seriously, there are plenty of white people and plenty of blondes around Mpls, but it's easy enough to walk around the city or ride the bus and see few of either.
Frankly, I still don't get what's so amazing about blondness. If it's supposed to be a metonymy or synecdoche for whiteness, okay, that makes sense, but if you're really interested in white skin, it seems like you'd want a brunette, to highlight the contrast. As I've said before, blondes are so declasse around here that they do nothing for me. I'm sure most people in Hilltop are blond/e.
...she has, yay!, gotten a tt job at Uncanny Valley State
Just upriver from dear old Miskatonic U.
211: I was reading something that talked about St. Boniface, but used an archaic spelling (either Bunnyface or Bunyface, I forget). Since then I've been trying to figure out how to name something Bunnyface. I don't want to name a cat Bunnyface because it's too cutesy-poo, and I don't have too many other nameable-yet-unnamed things. The next centrifuge at the lab, maybe?
(You know, foolish, that I've never met or even seen w-lfs-n, right? Awe-inspiring as I assume the sight to be.)
"Bunnyface" would be a good pet name for a lover's private parts.
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
...
Just refer to his cock as "Bunnyface", Boniface,
...
Just imagine a curly-haired Adonis with a shoulder bag and the Nicomachean Ethics.
And then imagine w-lfs-n sitting next to him.
Where is Alison Bechdel? As I understand it, many lesbians find her quite alluring, as I do myself.
I'd sleep with Alison Bechdel. Speaking of, was kd lang on that list? Because the kd lang type just makes me swoon.
I won't sleep with Alison Bechdel until the new book comes out in paperback. My ability to keep in mind the comics I like lasts about three days shorter than the period before they come out in paperback.
Playing catchup now:
157: Natalie Portman, not fascist.
204: Lack of hominess.
I'm in a relationship right now with someone who's whipsmart but doesn't get my Adorno jokes. It's all right. She's an ecologist. While it's very much fun to let the references fly back and forth, it's also nice to have someone who keeps me intellectually honest. If she doesn't understand me, it's because I'm being lazy.
Congrats to rtfs and snarkout on the job at UVS.
Speaking of, was kd lang on that list? Because the kd lang type just makes me swoon.
There are hardly any women on the list with an image of being short-haired, boyish, androgynous, butch or whatever. (aside from Jackie Warner). Kate Moennig, Pink, Clea Duvall, Ellen DeGeneres, and Katee Sackhoff are the closest.
What a heteronormative lesbian list. Ah well.
Awe-inspiring as I assume the sight to be.
I highly recommend you turn off google's SafeSearch filtering and do an image search on "Ben w-lfs-n".
I think the blonde attraction is supposed to be related to an implication of extreme youth, rather than just whiteness -- lots of pale people are blonde children who grow into dark haired adults. I have run into the 'being fair means getting called blonde' thing in high school -- I'm fair, but medium/darkish brown haired always, even as a kid. A friend described me as blonde while I was standing there, and when I looked at her as if she had two heads, elaborated that I was New York blonde: someplace else I wouldn't be, but in NY I was. This struck me as insane, but there are people who think like that.
Even with safe search on, you get some seriously freaky shit. That w-lfs-n guy is as twisted as Apo, even if he pretends to be all mild-mannered.
I wouldn't date kd lang unless she used the word alterity correctly in a winsome country song about her time on Pee-Wee's Playhouse.
Sifu, while I applaud your fantasy life, applying these actual standards to reality is going to deprive you of much real pleasure.
I searched both safely and un-, and there wasn't much difference, unless my personal Google-angel was protecting me. Boy, talk about a whole new view of someone. Well, well, well.
And I was interested to see the many results from other Unfoggers, as well. The intertube is forever, you know, guys.
Incidentally, Ben, Google knows how to spell your name.
232: really, you think I'm blowing my chance to date kd lang?
Hey, Google blames me for posting the picture of a nipple-exposing Apo in Labs' colon. I didn't do that. Damn you, Google.
A search for "ben woflson', of course, brings up 12 pictures, 3 of which are of rabbis at exposemolestors.blogspot.com.
Well, she was telling me last night how much she admires your writing.
I am proud to report that my unfiltered google image results are shockingly clean, but I did find out that I'm on the Nation's very short blogroll, which is way teh cool.
I do the 229 thing - call someone blond if they were probably blond as a child. Somehow light brown hair seems blond to me.
The image results for Beefo Meaty are pretty damn boring.
The image results for my real name are even more boring!
The blond vs. light brown as an adult thing has everything to do with what happens when the sun hits you. If the shimmer is gold, you're a blond; if not, you're light brown. Sez I.
Great, now I'm blond. Thanks a bunch, B.
Wow, Apo. The w-lfs-n thing is unspeakably awesome. Who did that? When did they do that? And is it wrong that I had a half-second of stopped heart while I quickly searched my memory to confirm that no, it couldn't be me? My gawd.
Wow, Apo. The w-lfs-n thing is unspeakably awesome. Who did that? When did they do that? And is it wrong that I had a half-second of stopped heart while I quickly searched my memory to confirm that no, it couldn't be me?
Do you mean the person dressed as a giant penis covered with smaller penises, the person in a big fatsuit made out of babies, or the person fucking the chicken?
The person fucking the chicken. I missed the first two somehow. Truly, "Ben w-lfs-n" never stops giving.
You had to search your memory to be sure you'd never been photographed fucking a chicken?
I thought my past was sordid.
Never photographed himself fucking a chicken, for that matter.
I'm wildly boring. But whenever there's a reveal like that--"News 7 Special Report on neo-Na/zi superbands"--I stop for a second and think, "That's not me, is it?"
the intertubes are forever, guys
Top inage result for my pseud. (and second)
Top image result for my other pseud.
Top image result for my real name.
I don't think I have anything to worry about.
242, the image I saw of you that I thought was an actual picture of you was quite blond, and dreadlocked. Was I misled?
(Also, LB, are you "blonde"? Because I'm never sure when I meet you IRL whether I am talking to someone blonde or someone with light brown hair.)
I've never had dreadlocks. I did have a stupid 90s haircut for a while, but never dreadlocks.
Clarify "stupid 90s haircut". We may be talking about the same thing.
Also, could someone clarify usage to me? Is "dread" or "dred" better when one is modifying "locks"?
(As opposed to when one is modifying "Scott".)
Shaved on the sides and back, long-ish on top.
If it's white people wearing them, it should be 'dread.'
Or various iterations of long & stupid looking.
I had 258. Especially bad to have a skater cut when you don't skate. But with the huge glasses, the overalls, and the braces, I made quite an impression.
We've finally entered Bizarro Unfogged, as a thread about attractive women becomes a discussion of men's hair styles.
Yeah, good lord.
Jessica Alba! Jessica Alba!! Prank Caller! Prank Caller!
I had 258 too, and my friend Stacy called me "Bullwinkle" for it.
250: And people think *I'm* self-involved.
Blondeness is attractive because anyone who blondes their hair is announcing, "hey guys, look at me, i'm in the 'hot' category." Its like confidence.
And its much easier to just bleach your hair or buy some cool shoes than read all those hard authors. If only there was an intertube to the young yoyo on AOL reading camus.
267: I was in another city when the "Mushroom" started to really take off in the late 1990s. A friend and I christened it "The Haircut of Violence", mostly due to its prevalence among the scarily blank-faced preteens at the mall.
The skater cut described above always reminds me of 1983, when it gained currency among the hipper pre-teens here in Minneapolis. I think the best pop culture reference point for it is probably River Phoenix in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Little did the producers of that film know that a greater crusade was yet to come.
blondness seems to me not quite attractive, but rather eye-catching.
i generally find dark-haired women more attractive, and more enduringly attractive, but i do find my eye more frequently caught (e.g. on the street) by blond women. whom i then don't generally find hold my eye for the long run.
i have a theory that this may be a matter of personal taste.
Not exactly, Ned. Google image search for "stupid haircut" fails to turn up a good example.
People, the status of blonds is tied directly to the status of western europeans and their descendants. Those are the only people among whom blonds are found, and they're also on top of the global status heap, so blondness means being on top of the global hierarchy.
I don't know how blonds are perceived in countries with low immigration and lots of natural blonds...
My brother (dark and hairy) found himself an exotic object of lust during his time in northern Europe, while when he went down to Mediterranean countries he sometimes had women turn him down for looking "too Arab". On the other hand, he's legitimately good-looking (looks kinda like Prince, except taller and can't dance).
I love blondes with pale skin, drives me wild and skews my ability to judge other, potentially more relationship-relevant factors. Of course, being irrationally pleased every time you look at your SO may be a great contributor to long-term relationship happiness.
Thiss is the excruciating Fernando / Abba paradox (more technically known as the Fernando / Agnetha paradox, or sometimes as the Fernando / Anni-frid paradox).
Blondes cause cancer and are closet Leninists. Beware.
Dangit, Emerson's drunk on aquavit again.
Since then I've been trying to figure out how to name something Bunnyface.
Intelligence reports from the ENIGMA codebreak were attributed to "Boniface" by the British intelligence services to disguise their source as if they came from a spy rather than SIGINT.
272, yes. And brunettes signify mystery, noirishness, and many of the same things O criticizes when he claims that no one really thinks Thora Birch is hotter than Scarlett Johanson.
I believe the claim was that no one really thought Thora Birch's character in Ghost world was hotter than Scarlett Johansson's.
280: For some values of "no one", I guess.
B is a blonde! blonde! blonde! Ha!
I also remember reading a study once that said that guys who prefer girls with big tits were generally happier than those who prefered smaller.
282: And everyone is always surprised, because they read "bitchy" as noirish. I rest my case.
B is blonde?! Color me deeply surprised. I guess on the internet you really can be a dog.
i think B said she was a blonde once, because i pictured her that way.
285: You've met me. You know my real hair color.
I thought we all imagined her as the bitchier of the little girls at the top of her blog. Said girl appears to be blonde.
I've met B a few times, but "blonde" is not what I'm recalling; perhaps a very light brown, or a darkish blonde? That's my story until B says otherwise.
Also, I want you to answer my email.
Dark blond, yeah. What they call "dishwater." Sexxxxy.
I always assumed B was a blonde. She seems like a blonde.
What big eyes you have, B.! No doubt the better to see us with.
Blond.
Of course, I was blond until about six or seven, and now I am not.
My mother's hair darkened, apparently, quite late in life. I was clearing out some stuff and happened across a thick, elaborate 1960s fall of hair in a light brown--nothing like her haircolor since I can remember, which is so brown it's almost black--and I asked her about it. Apparently she'd worn it to some mid-sixties event and she alleges that it matched her hair at the time. We don't really have any photos of her from before she met my father, so I have no way to tell.
We need something more recent, B. After your sex-change operation.
You're going to regret that I started this. Guess which one's me, and pass your judgment on whether my family were hippies or no. FYI, that couch was made out of an old door.
Is that a Miró over your dad's head? How nice.
299: You're the one in the sports coat?
Something from adult B, to solve the great B hair color mystery...
I will say earnestly that your family looks shockingly adorable, and that my long-time aim has been to make a couch like that, although not orange.
My family was shockingly adorable when we were kids. They went nuts later, when I was in h.s. My mom was a real beauty before the depression started taking her down.
Your mom seems to have been ironing her hair, so they were presumably hippies at one point.
No, her hair really is that straight.
I'm voting strawberry blonde, based on the pictures. And seconding the adorable family observation.
8th grade a favorite hs dance pic, and my stunningly posed hs graduation photo. That's as adult as these pics are going to get, buddy.
Back to the original topic (well, sort of), Hot or Not: the Chess Masters edition.
And before anyone asks, yes, that *is* a unicorn on my shirt in the 8th grade picture. With REALLY HUGE EYES. God, I loved that shirt.
310: A meaningless question. At that age, *everyone's* beautiful, if they only knew.
Hmmm, people who were that attractive in HS don't generally become professors. Although maybe it's different in the humanities, there can be a little edge of glamor there.
Am I the only one who would prefer to pick my date from the chess masters rather than the lesbian hot 100?
In your posed HS picture, you look kinda like my high-school/college girlfriend. You know, this one.
310: Wow. I wonder if they're smart.
Also back on topic, sort of, the classical music version, for them that missed it the first time around.
310: Wow. I wonder if they're smart.
Probably not funny though.
They can't dunk, but they have good fundamentals.
That chess site makes me nervous. Do all those girls want to be ranked on their hotness? Probably not.
That chess site makes me nervous. Do all those girls want to be ranked on their hotness? Probably not.
Absolutely agreed. Thank you.
321: All those sites make me nervous. It doesn't bug me as much with actresses, since part of being a successful actress is being a fantasy prop for your audience--I'd even say that's the most important part. But playing chess? Playing music? Also, it depresses me because I think of all the talented violinists or chess players who have the misfortune to be plain and so can't get anywhere.
Why is it that any talented woman has to pre-qualify in the looks department? I mean, I know why, but I hate it.
It's not even so much the pre-qualifying thing as the inevitable fact that some asshole, somewhere, is going to link to a picture of h.s. chess players and start assessing their hotness quotient. And if they object, some other asshole is going to say "well, if you put your picture online, what do you expect?" Gawd.
Why is it that any talented woman has to pre-qualify in the looks department?
They don't. But if they're hot, they'll get more attention.
(I'm undecided on sites like the chess site.)
How can you be undecided? Imagine being one of those girls.
Anyway, here's my most recent rant about the topic, if anyone's interested. It links back here, but the 4th link's probably the relevant one to the current discussion.
Oh, wait, that site has ratings? I don't like that.
Yes, ogged, the ones ranked the hottest are at the top. I'm sure you're pleased to see that dusky Arab temptress up there.
What Ogged said about ratings. That's too much.
wait, I'm wrong, the ones ranked highest are spread throughout.
I often think that the biggest moral challenge of the now is to be able to step back and not to do something even though you can--I always think of my teeny-tiny familiarity with Simone Weill, where she talks about seeing the world as whole and beautiful enough that you are inspired to pause and not consume/destroy/attack it. She puts it properly, and I'm not explaining it very well, but I feel like it's particularly a problem with the internet.
332: Agreed. Plus getting people to realize that the internets are *public*--which applies not just to pictures, as the assholes argue, but to what the assholes say about those pictures. Suddenly everyone thinks it's okay to stand around and hoot at women, just because they're doing it by typing rather than vocalizing.
Frowner, go to fucking grad school already. I don't want to hear about your memory, etc. You've got a grad school kind of mind, and you're much smarter than most of the people there.
(This advice is only 20% intended to keep you from seriousing up my blog.)
332: Actually, that was the only line I liked out of the entire Jurassic Park. "We were so busy trying to find out if we could do something that nobody stopped to ask if we should." As close as that movie got to self-reflection.
Weill is probably better.
I like the point about trust, B. (Is the Alexie book any good? I haven't read anything recent of his.)
"well, if you put your picture online, what do you expect?"
The "staff" page of my company's website (which includes photos) is routinely the 2nd or 3rd most-viewed page, which on off days strikes me as mildly disturbing.
The book's pretty good. It's sorta more of an essay than a full-on novel, I think, but I enjoyed reading it.
334: Ogged, it's the productive tension between the seriousing and the cock jokes that makes Unfogged so teasingly, er, teasingly whatever it is. You wouldn't like the cock jokes half so much if they weren't in profile, so to speak, against the seriousness.
And I'm not going to grad school! I'd be in my late thirties by the time I emerged, and then I'd be lucky to be adjuncting in Outer North Dakota. Plus I'd have to spend the intervening years with a bunch of snotty kids like w-lfs-n or Kotsko. Competing with them. Eeeesh.
Cripe, and here I was going to talk about whether I'm blond or not.
's true, Frowner, you know; I'm not sure what you mean by having a bad memory given that you pull references out of your hat often enough.
Frowner, you're not on some alternate career-track at the moment, are you? Go to grad school! I'm not talking to you until you do! You know you wanna.
336: And that's part of the point--a lot of women don't "put their picture on the internet"; they're required to post their pictures for work or something, the picture is posted by a news agency, etc. Indeed, only the fact the I am the only one with full web administration priviledges keeps my photo from being displayed on our website.
And Ogged begins Step 4 of his eighteen-part plan to start dating Frowner.
332 was so inspirational I can't comment on it.
339: It's easy to fake it on the tubes. And I'm used to you guys. I can hardly open my mouth around actual grad students, for reals.
Will it satisfy you, Ogged, if I enroll in the independant study thing offered by Large Midwestern University? I'm looking at that for next spring if I can stretch the program to accomodate what I want to study, since I get free classes. (Franco Moretti, bildungsroman, the development of journals and travel writing. Also, by some logical development yet to be developed, Frederic Jameson, utopias and science fiction.)
Besides, I'm so lazy as you wouldn't believe. I stress that on the intertubes no one knows you're a dog, and equally, no one knows that you haven't actually read but a few of the books that line your walls, and that you have to read them about a gazillion times to remember anything.
341: Well, who gives a shit whether the women do it themselves or someone else does it for them? The "if you put your pic on the internet what do you expect" argument basically amounts to telling women that if they go out in public, they can expect to be harassed.
you have to read them about a gazillion times to remember anything.
You have to write in them in order to remember them.
344: Frowner, you're probably better read than I am. It's shockingly easy to fake your way through grad school.
Of course, if you don't want to go, then for god's sake don't. But if you do, then screw the job market and the insecurity thing: everyone in grad school is neurotic (which is actually a good argument for avoiding it, b/c it makes the already crazy more so), and you aren't, y'know, actually required to take jobs in east nowhere when you graduate if you don't want to.
345: True enough, actually. I think I was just struck by the vast inaccuracy of the "don't put your picture on the internet and it will never happen to you" argument.
Yeah, that's part of why I think it boils down to "don't go out in public." Pursue anything and you might get your picture in the paper, go to school or hold a job and your pic might go up online, and then well hey, you're fair game.
Still, I think I've mostly worked through my desire for grad school and my neuroses about it. I grew up thinking that a PhD was what would prove for once and for all that I was properly smart (and since I felt that I was not pretty and certainly wasn't athletic, I had to cling to something) and that really put a lot of neurosis weight on the whole grad school thing. I think that actually going would probably kill me, while not going will just be mildly disappointing and will also carry some pluses with it.
Besides, after the revolution I will get a tenure-track job at the People's University, and don't you forget it! Although I think I'd rather teach at Unheimlich U, maybe we can have a sinister Lovecraftian revolution instead.
310:The Chess site is interesting to me, recognizing 1/4 those names from the databases without ever seeing any pictures. I was different, never watching tournaments or paying attention to rankings, just adding every available QGD:Rubinstein from the last month to see what new move was played at the 12th move in a variation. So Skripchenko and Repkova were just names, maybe names I would encounter more often because they played my openings.
My first reaction is still wanting to see the boards.
The way the net is shredding traditional notions of privacy is sort of interesting; fucked up in some ways but there could be some good sides to it. It might be a better world if everyone had a sex video from their youth somewhere on the web. At least, it would probably be a less self-righteous one.
The legal regimes it takes to provide people with full control over how others react and respond to their beauty can be pretty intrusive...reckless eyeballing? One can imagine giving people enforceable rights over their images unless and until they signed them away.
I keep wondering if the publicly commenting on random private women thing will become so pervasive that it becomes sort of meaningless, to the person who is the subject of the attention and the wider world. At a minimum, I would hope that the whole A/uto A/dmit thing meant that employers would realize that random shit written by random people on the Internets about a prospective hire is not a good thing to factor into the hiring equation.
Really, the minor recent flare up over Valenti was just bizarre to me.
Will it satisfy you, Ogged
Of course not!
Seriously, I'm only saying this because you've made it sound in the past like the reason you weren't going is that you thought you weren't up to it intellectually, which is just false. If you have other reasons, then fine.
I'm still going to yell at you when you serious up the blog.
353: What, the way it's become meaningless in real life? In a way it has; women learn to ignore it, and generally we all (including men) accept it as "something that happens." But that's not meaningless at all, y'know. It's fucking sad and it's part of why women are so fucking self-conscious all the damn time.
Problems with the Internet
A) Things never go away
B) People post things without understanding the context of their own words, let alone understanding the context of other people's words
C) People feel like what they type is private, but it becomes public
355: Yeah, I don't know what I mean. I guess I mean more that it will be restricted to specific areas which people just won't want to visit, like L/G/F. I'm sure there are any number of sites that say any number of horrible things about (a) women and what should be done to them, (b) gay people and what should be done to them, etc. But I don't visit those sites. It's like the injuction not to read the comments at Youtube (I don't remember who said it).
I realize it's different because it's an individual. I dunno.
On the topic of women's photos on the internet...
My sister used to do some modeling, and one day (not to get into too much detail here) she was on the cover of the tabloidy Toronto daily, wearing a white bikini.
Recently I googled her name for the hell of it and found some stupid site where guys discuss "hot" women. One guy asked if anyone had heard of her or seen that cover, and said, "she was on the cover of X newspaper, but they didn't have any pictures of the blow jobs she gave."
I was fucking livid with rage.
(This advice is only 20% intended to keep you from seriousing up my blog.)
I'm still going to yell at you when you serious up the blog.
Don't listen to ogged, Frowner, continue to serious up the blog.
358: Yeah, but if you're the person being talked about, it's always gonna be kind of awful.
Yeah, that's part of why I think it boils down to "don't go out in public." Pursue anything and you might get your picture in the paper, go to school or hold a job and your pic might go up online, and then well hey, you're fair game.
I am suddenly remembering an old saying: "A lady should be in the newspaper three times: when she is born, when she is married, and when she dies."
I think it was vaguely claimed to be Southern in origin, but who knows. I always thought it was a class thing, but in light of this discussion I'm hearing it as more of a control thing. Heaven forbid you get your name in the paper for anything else, we can't be held responsible for what could happen to you.
361: Yeah, I know. The Internet is such a nowhere-everywhere space.
Sorry for your sister, alif.
362: It is a class thing. Respectable ladies don't get themselves talked about. And if you are talked about, then it's your fault. Because of course men have no agency, or some shit like that.
D) Because emotions are not expressed in text, people can superimpose whatever emotion they find most convenient onto somebody's words.
355: Somehow I suspect I hint at the real alternative, an Aspergian indifference to any personal details. Maybe the ideal is a public world where differences are recognized but never ever dispositive or causes for rankings and status and incorporation/alienation but that just ain't human.
Heaven forbid you get your name in the paper for anything else, we can't be held responsible for what could happen to you.
The thing is--and, really, the real problem is--that it's not a control thing. Not directly, not without Frowning on it. And that's why it just isn't going to stop. Which is why I hope that it would restrict itself, somehow.
The whole thing is weird. People usually know roughly where the line is between cheeky and rude.
I'm blattering.
Tim, I'm not understanding what you're talking about. Why isn't it a control thing?
"... 'the homosexual,' 'the Negro,' and 'the female' are best seen not as inevitable classifications of human beings but rather as inventions that have done more harm than good." ...Rorty, from the comments over Saisegly's
reminded me of twisty. To not be oppressed by such classifications and the others like "married" "parents" "blue collar" "Laputans", I think we need ourselves to give them up, at least in the public sphere.
Not directly, not without Frowning on it.
I ressemble...er...resent that remark.
I guess "I hope it would restrict itself" doesn't make much sense to me. Things don't restrict themselves, generally. People restrict things, whether by law or custom. The more people stop talking shit about any woman who has the gall to be mentioned in the press...well, the less shit will be talked. And in order to get people to stop, one has to say unto them, "Stop being an asshole, asshole". It's not that the will all wake up one day and be different out of the blue.
I mean that it's not "control" in the sense of (a) controlling a specific woman, or (b) enforcing a brutal code so that women, as a class, will behave popularly. The women talked about appear to be unknown to the speaker often enough, and it happens (I'm guessing) much more in private or small forums than in large ones, where one would expect it it to have less effect as a "instructional" tool.
There is something control-like about it, though, in the way that if your friend gets too attached to pictures of X or Y, you start worrying about him. But it's not an easy thing for me to put my finger on.
(Of course, there are obvious cases where it is control, and punishment for behavior.)
This page groups the chess players by their national teams. The Eastern Europeans really seem to dominate the field, even on the US team (Anna Zatonskih, Irina Krush, Rusudan Goletiani, Camilla Baginskaite).
Youtube comments. So awful.
Re the concept of losers commenting on pictures of women they don't know: this behavior, needless to say, is despicable. Is this perhaps an anti-utilitarian teachable moment? Wouldn't this be bad even if the person commented on never found out?
Wasn't meant to be a resentable remark; just that you might be able to put your finger on it in a way that I couldn't, and that I probably would still reject the use of the word "control," though your use wouldn't be easy or without foundation.
I'm tired. My repartee is slipping.
But I do believe that we can effect a shift in the "talking about women like they're commodities when all they did was win a chess match" thing. After all, there's no legal reason why most men 'round where I live don't make fun of and harass most women most of the time, and yet they don't.
371 is just not reflected in my experience at all.
My view on all this may be colored by the fact that I just wrote a thank-you e-mail to a journalist who had the guts to suggest that the popularity of torture-gore movies might, just possibly, bleed over (ha ha) into people's social attitudes and behavior.
And in order to get people to stop, one has to say unto them, "Stop being an asshole, asshole". It's not that the will all wake up one day and be different out of the blue.
Without forcing Internet anonymity out the window, good luck on that.
JESUS CRHIST 323, p[art of what it is to be female is to be important based your T&A
god.
yeahi feel like a bastard sometimes, but get the fuck over that shit.
On a lighter note, I think we've found a new career opportunity for Ogged.
And going way upthread, how can B's parents be hippies when her mom was wearing pantyhouse? And why don't we make more fun of w-lfs-n for having Anne Lamott hair?
'the female' are best seen not as inevitable classifications of human beings
That's not Rorty, that's De Beauvoir.
377: Mmm, it's not anonymity, which gets used as often to be honest and straightforward as it does to be a dick.
378: That is a bastard thing to say. Who are you to tell women to get over that shit? The whole point is that we don't need to get over it; men need to get over it.
Okay, I am waaaay too tired to explain anything. But when you work to HR-ishly "create a culture of" X, you're not expecting X to apply all the time. You're just trying to make people expect X rather than Y, so that they will do X most of the time.
It's probably a waste of time to challenge specific men on specific comments about specific women, but this kind of meta-conversation ("well, if your picture is on the internet....") happens all the time, and if enough people take a vigorous Dr. B-like position, eventually most people will get the idea that hassling-random-high-school-students stuff isn't okay. In fact, her "it's just like street harassment, and it's not okay just because it's typed out" formulation is really clever and deserves to be widely repeated.
I've seen a shift on certain blogs, too, towards stronger moderation and clearer articulation of appropriate behavior. That's helpful, because it can create a powerful counter-discourse so that when people do shitty things there is at least a strong, popular understanding that those things are shitty.
Tired. Sleep. Boring Frowner, boring Saturday. G'night.
373:I never payed attention to nationality either, or rooted for the home team or the new kid or wily old veteran. Sometimes I dug styles and strategies.
I think Repkova played my Schleimann, tho I can't remember. I was fond of the masters who still played that refuted century-old slugfest.
Every "us" creates a "them", and creates an "us vs them." Like ogged and those who would "serious up" his blog. We do it every second of our lives.
378: What the hell is up with you, yoyo? Seriously, guy, leash that id.
"Part of being female is...." Well, you come on over here and be female for a bit and see how you like it.
how can B's parents be hippies when her mom was wearing pantyhouse?
Heh, probably a good point. Poor Mom. She was really rockin that tie, though.
I'm betting that's like policing street prostitution in a neighborhood. It doesn't stop, it just moves.
378 is really obnoxious. But you knew that.
386: Bad metaphor alert. We're talking about the pimps, not the hookers.
386: Well, in the sense that we will never have an intertube free of crappy behavior, yeah. But norms exist and norms change and norms can be changed.
Since you started up with the analogies (Banned!) I will analogize as well: consider the right wing and their clever discourse about sexuality, homosexuality and AIDS. They took advantage of historical opportunities, true, but they had a clever strategy. And I think intertube feminists are at least as smart as Anita Bryant.
consider the right wing and their clever discourse about sexuality, homosexuality and AIDS.
I don't know what that means. Insofar as the Right has pretty clearly lost the Teh Gay Wars--yay!--it's probably a pretty good analogy, though.
I'm feeling irritable and am going to take myself out of this conversation soon, but I do want to say two things:
1) It is really, REALLY valued and appreciated and worthwhile when ordinary guys speak up to discourage other guys from making nasty remarks. It does work, even online.
2) Chris Clarke wrote a characteristically blunt post on this topic. There are eight billion comments, but toward the end of the thread people were making this same point -- that even a gentle, "Hey, dude, that's no cool," can really help to shift the atmosphere being created.
There's a big difference between saying drug dealers can always move to a new corner, and saying that it's pointless to try to do anything about them.
And while we're on the topic, o yoyo, I hope you're going to the junior highs and giving little lectures to all the miserable girls: "Honey, boys are groping you in the hall because you're important, or at least your tits are." "And you, you're not important because you're flat as a board. Better slit your wrists now." "And you, mini-fat-Frowner, you're worse than unimportant because not only are you funny-looking, you won't even accept your own worthlessness".
381: neither is going to happen. but only women have a reason to do it, so they will be the only class able to.
i realize this resembles the: everone should just get a good job, and make lots of money, and not be working class scum.
i mean, i just want to once and for all resolve shit. but it won't.
i've no idea what being a female is like.
i mean, i'm very sensative, and part of being a priss is being aware of when i'm hurtful. but all these things are about social value, which is to a large entent out of our control.
i dunno where i'm going with thsi. please ban.
Yoyo is banned!
Five more bannedings and you get a yellow card.
392: I don't think I disagree with any of that. What I meant by "restrict itself" to places that are akin to L/G/F is that it won't be pervasive b/c people can/do speak up in non-L/G/F places.
393: i guess i believe in the inevitablity of some people being more valued than others. I REALLY don't see that as ebing solved, outside soem crazy genetic engineering.
I hate it.
I think it hurts lots of people.
But i don't see it going away.
guys i feel really bad, i'm sorry lots. i wish i was festive party guy right now, but i'm not.
I guess I think everyone is pretty much right here. This stuff is always going to exist, and what's different about the net is that it's visible to all of us. That said, there are a lot of spaces that it's reasonable and worthwhile to try to save. YouTube comments are a wasteland. It would be a waste of time to go there and say, "hey, that's kinda racist," but somewhere like Yglesias's comments, for example, which is generally good but sometimes lapses into stupid sexism, is worth working on.
394: Yoyo, you're causing me to sympathize with you while at the same time you're saying things that vex me, and I'm too sleepy for complexity.
"Social value" is out of my-personal-me-alone-just-Frowner control, but it's not out of the control of large groups. Organize, you know?
372 - That's actually a much more interesting page. (I love the names on the Norwegian team: Torill, Silje, Barth, and Ellen.)
I don't actually buy that you're very sensitive, yoyo, but on the Internet, who can tell?
399 is correct. There are some forums where the only topics of conversation consist of badmouthing the appearance of strangers. It needs to be understood that this is not acceptable outside those forums, in places where people are supposed to be talking about sports or politics or something and all of a sudden the conversation turns to Jessica Valenti's breasts and everyone wonders whether it's okay to go along with it and start talking about that. No, it's not okay. Whoever brought that up should be shouted down in civil company.
Say, now I'm the jerk! Ah, the great cycle of life.
bad yoyo. 1/2 brownie point.
But there may be a little "blaming the victim" in my own comments. twisty is pretty hardcore, and the where the line is crossed when the sexbot patriarchy is internalized can be hard to see, and there are more immediate and useful targets in the patriarchy. But we all live in it, and support it. I look at how twisty lives, and am inspired. Others are free to say:"No fun, I ain't goin that far."
Her comment sections often divides up into cliques and factions and flame wars, tho.
I actually wish more guys would admit, like Yoyo, that they say that stuff b/c they feel like shit themselves.
372-
A) Wow, Iceland gets the pale award. Note that this is not an aesthetic critique and therefore it is acceptable.
B) Why is there a Chinese person on the Jamaica team?
C) One team from Africa...Angola. There's probably an interesting story behind them.
406: It's hard to internalize that that's where so much of this comes from. I tend to assume, often falsely, that it's from people who are completely confident in themselves and just get a libidinal charge out of being jerks.
I wish more women would admit that they say stuff because they are man haters.
407:Aww gee, y'all want me to cry.
For 6 years at work my nickname was "numbnuts." I obviously wasn't gay (altho I don't know why), but didn't flirt or flatter or eyeball much. Just weird.
Numbnuts. I loved it. Fuck em.
And the Mongolian team, from a country where nobody has a last name: Mongontuul, Yanjindulam, Bayaraa, Anhchimeg.
AS A MAN HATER I CAN SAY WITH CONFIDENCE THAT WE SHOULD CHIMPEACH CERTAIN CHIMPERORS.
407b - And a Vietnamese woman on the Hungarian team. Why not? People move around. (And it's nice to be reminded of the existence of South Africans of South Asian decent, who kind of fall out of mind.) I dig the Angolan on the right, who looks either very angry or completely hung over.
i admit i sorta ;have large amounts of depressionga and did not lose my virgiinity until i was 25 so i'm kida prone to thikning lots about this and from a low-value male perspective.
i am good at pretending i'm way confident, because its useful.
299, is PK the one holding Mr. B's knee? Who's his friend?
I'd personally like to know the story of the Libyans' hats.
412:I spent years normalizing my database, correcting spellings and adding full first names and FISA rankings. I just hated the B Fischer and Garry Gary G Kasparovs Kasparoffs. Wasn't just obsessive-compulsive, the fucking dupes would slow down searches.
One of the reasons I quit chess. Went crazy over the Chinese and Cambodian players.
Yoyo, you're making me sad, but I'm so tired that I am actually feeling dizzy, so I can't offer any coherent advice.
Make some friends who are women, that's my advice. You can be attracted to them or not--I mean, I'm attracted to several of my women friends in a distant, non-serious way--but spend some low-key, not-proving-your-sexual-worth time with some women. That might help.
And visit Minneapolis in 2008 to protest the GOP! We can have the biggest meet-up ever in Hennepin County Jail!
Goodnight folks, I'll be here all week. Except not literally here in front of the computer.
420: Speak for yourself. I'm fetched. Or rather, I would be except that I don't want to leer at a bunch of innocent young fellows who just want to play chess.
Trust me, they are all super-nerds, which should be defining. They don't surf and rock-climb or read modern poety or play in a jazz band. To get from IM to GM, or from GM to a money-player, you do nothing but Chess. And give up at 30.
When I played at the 1800-2200 amateur level, I loved the competition. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, academics. Fucking surgeons who would work on the dream of a title on their lunch breaks. Genius overachievers. They are great.
378 seems outta line to me.
Hm well I guess 424 came a little late.
re: the great unfogged chess-ogling, am I alone in having my attractiveness-standards distorted by my non-visual opinions of girls? That is to say, I went out with a really smart and funny girl who was half Irish pikey, and for the next five years I was really into gypsy chicks. So it's not that there women don't have to pre-qualify, it's that if they are sufficiently talented they get to set the standard.
Of course the high amateurs weren't all genius overachievers wih hobbies. A lot were kids who maxed out their talent but didn't want to go serious.
And a lot of pathetic losers who didn't have lives or talent and spent hours and hours wihout learning anything, but felt giving up would be like dying. Another book, a new tutor, a change of opening. They support the pros, and they know it.
I don't even know if they can even actually see the beauty, or just kinda smell it.
I miss chess more than pot.
395: emo is banned.
324: haha! I was that asshole! Neat!
316 links to teh awesome. Who needs This American Life when you have unfogged? Privileged neurotics with complex dating histories unite, take back the night!
Feel the rhythm! Feel the rhyme! Get on up, its chessclub time!
407b: Helloooo? Leslie Kong? Shares the writing credit for Israelites? One of the great reggae impresarios? Subject of a scurrilous racist lament by Prince Buster that highlights his Chinese-Jamaican ethnicity?
But yes, let's do all come to Mpls. next year.
yoyo is onto the real thing, offensive as it is. The power women get from their beauty is real, and confers real advantages. And a lot of men feel disempowered by that. Ogling back is a way of evening the score. Big speeches from women about how offensive it is seem like wanting to have their cake and eat it too.
Of course, it's the loser men who feel disempowered, and it's an asshole thing to make strange women uncomfortable just because you don't get what you want from their sex. Like all asshole things, you shouldn't do it. Which I think most people realize even when they are doing it. It doesn't even get you any, in fact the attitude tends to have the opposite effect.
But the feminist spin on it (as opposed to the politeness and decency spin) rings false to me.
I take issue with the claim in 399 that sausagely's comments only sometimes descend into bullshit sexism. rather, they only occasinally emerge from a fetor of bullshit sexism. that said, yes guys, you should speak up and say things like, "it's not cool to rate HS atheletes on hotness. guys who do that are assholes." I think other men often have more percieved credibility on this issue with generic sexist men, as if women are too close to the issue and too much affected by it to be appropriately objective. this is idiotic, of course, but it does mean that a reprimand on sexism from a "normal" strange male on the internet may have more impact on a comment thread/community that is sliding down the hill. go thou, and flame likewise.
Yoyo's point, if I take it correctly, is that men are going to rate HS athletes on their hotness whether you like it or not. We can collectively pretend that they won't, but it will be just that: a pretense. If it makes women in general more comfortable to maintain this pretense, then I'm all for it, but I personally dislike the comforting lie.
Since this is the gender thread, I present without comment, the trailer for DOA.
Pretty. But no helmet, and the R1200ST is really an odd duck of a bike. Not to mention that the musculature you need to kick ass doesn't look like that.
Speaking of ass-kicking, (blog) crush on Desi/ree Chat/sworth: objectifying and objectionable, or perfectly understandable and to be encouraged?
Age-appropriate, non-stalkerish blogcrushes are always encouraged, Jake.
Seriously, I had some difficulty accepting that trailer wasn't a joke. It's like someone made a two hour beer commercial.
Age-appropriate: yes. Define "non-stalkerish." Does pondering offering to light a wildfire in the East Bay Hills to give her an excuse to visit the SFBA count?
a wildfire in the East Bay Hills
As I understand the situation this year, we're not going to need your initiative for this to happen. I think just, you know, hanging out in the East Bay hills, waiting for the wildfire, is non-stalkerish. Man Law!
When the fire hits, do subtle things to draw her gaze, like running around the edges of the fire naked with her name writ large across your chest.
Who is this woman? Some sort of firefighter?
I think so. [Link removed, goofball. -ogged]
Google it. If it's who I'm thinking of, it's the first result.
What's awesome is how Jake Google proofed the name, then Tarrou just goes and links to her blog.
Yikes, sorry. Alcohol doesn't touch my typing ability, but my online etiquette deteriorates.
I'm off to bed. Try not to get Jake sent to jail.
Aw, I don't even get a full [redacted]?
448: We can't promise we'll try, but we'll try to try.
I object. The woman cannot write well. And the last time the Oakland hills burned innumerable architectural monstrosities were produced, So please do not arson.
But if the hills burn again, those monstrosities will likely burn too...
It's important for people to have imperfections, so that the relationship can exist on at least somewhat equitable grounds. Not writing well is something I'm prepared to tolerate.
I will also point out that gswift knew who I was talking about, and where she ranked in google searches for her name. Ogged was more coy.
I grew up in L.A. and still visit my parents quite a bit. Non Cali people might not know who the tv babes are out there.
Not writing well is something I'm prepared to tolerate.
Seems odd for a blogcrush, though.
Go check out her pic Teo. It will all become clear.
The subject matter is interesting enough to make up for whatever the delivery lacks. I didn't know she was a TV babe, though.
I googled her shortly after I posted 442. I see what's up.
I didn't know she was a TV babe, though.
Doesn't she mention her broadcasting experience right in the sidebar of the blog?
Right. But TV broadcasting experience != "Known TV Babe". A friend pointed her out to me after ending up their via a couple of aviation blogroll jumps, and mentioned her physical attractiveness either fourth or fifth on the list of reasons why I would be find her interesting. I assumed gswift would have had similar experiences; but I seem to have been mistaken.
Channel 5, KTLA. Another former anchor from of KTLA is Sha/ron T/ay.
from of? ack
Anyways, KTLA knows how to get those male viewers.
Cute, but low on bending complex motorized vehicles to her will, and indeterminate on the "wanting to do something completely crazy badly enough to make it happen" scale.
Interesting the sorts of things different people find attractive.
Indeed. And luckily for everyone. Off to bed.
422 gets it right. Apo's gay cred is slipping.
I'm at least twice as gay as apo, but I keep it to myself, because I am admirably modest in all things.
So, for instance, I wouldn't necessarily let LeBron ream my ass, but I would rely on his craggy embrace for emotional support (when lost in the woods, say) in a heartbeat.
Your move, breeder.
422/470 = "But I dig fat chicks".
Fat chicks with dicks? Cuz if not? GAY-PWNED!
YEAH!
Lots of Caribbean Chinese. Lots of Soviet-bloc Vietnamese. The Qatar chess team has a Chinese on it too, perhaps from the family of a high-level guest worker type.
Mauritius, near Madagascar, has a 2% Chinese population (mostly Hakka).
They're everywhere, guys. Get used to it.
Took me f'in' forever to find a suitably anonymous photo, but at long last, anybody who's interested can decide if I'm blond by staring at the back of my head.
The orange pants will be admired. Did those black-clad guys beat you up in the next frame?
Pff please. They're all scared of me because I run the ninja army.
You do look intimidating there, if that word is defined in a certain special way.
I just have to pop into the give yoyo advice thread, because I've been wanting to say this for a long time, as lame and ineffectual as it is certainly to be, I just can't help it, and it goes with the theme of the day (congrats, al!):
seriously, if you want your life to be better, lay off the sauce. You seem drunk, like, all the time. It will probably have no effect on your life that random girl on the internet thinks you're an alcoholic, but maybe you should know you're giving that impression.
Yes, if yoyo is only posing as being drunk all the time, he's a hell of an actor. I'm no teetotaler myself, but if it's becoming a problem, you ought to think seriously about cutting back or cutting it out altogether.
Mauritius sounds fascinating, but potentially creepy. Has anyone ever been?
Never been, but I know/knew several Mauritians at one time or another. Not at all creepy. Hot though, and the dodos are all dead.
My boss in a previous job went there on holiday once, and the creepiest thing he found was the staff at his resort hotel bullying them not to leave the compound and spend their hard currency elsewhere. Once they ignored this, they had a great time.
483: The climate is hot. The people are a matter of subjective opinion.
431:
The power women get from their beauty is real, and confers real advantages. And a lot of men feel disempowered by that. Ogling back is a way of evening the score. Big speeches from women about how offensive it is seem like wanting to have their cake and eat it too.
This thread is long, and has moved on, but this is bugging me. I've certainly heard this line of reasoning before, but.
I want to unpack it. Sorry, rather long.
Point by point:
"The power women get from their beauty is real, and confers real advantages."
Women are not more beautiful than men. I concede that our society has arranged things in such a way that it may seem so; for example, many women attend a great deal more to personal presentation. Why do you think they do that? (Not a rhetorical question.)
Equalizing this would call either for men attending equally as much; or women attending less. [Other things contribute as well to the disproportionate 'beauty of women' claim, of course.]
"And a lot of men feel disempowered by that. Ogling back is a way of evening the score."
The "power" women "get" from this beauty -- yes, given the fact that time spent on personal presentation is generally intended to make men want such women .. in a sort of "You want me, don't you? I am trying to make you want me" way, yes, it's undeniably the case that a lot of men will be aware that they're being made to want, but can't have.
Let's rephrase the "ogling back": not merely lascivious looking, but done with disrepect.
Gosh. See so much writing on power relations, see master/slave.
"Big speeches from women about how offensive it is seem like wanting to have their cake and eat it too."
When you frame things in this way, yes. There's a significant discord in women who hold feminist views, for some value of feminism, yet enter into the power-play.
Conclusion? heh. I will not agree with any suggestion that women hold all the cards, like: hey, you women started it by being so beautiful!
Ridiculous.
Rather, opting out of that particular power play is the only real answer, if anybody wants a real answer. Among other things, this means that simply remonstrating on selected internet destinations with coarse men who rate unknown women is a cop-out of sorts. It sounds like what one might call the Politeness Response, what a few here seem to be advocating: it happens, men do it, but they should keep it politely under their hats. If that's the best we can do, okay, we could certainly do worse, but it seems dreadfully Victorian.
Damn these long threads.
Mauritius has never sounded any more "creepy" to me than any number of other tropical vacation spots; beautiful beaches, really poor, probably quite comfortable if you go there and stay in resorts. I suspect not the best place to live as an average Joe, and there's probably a good reason why my dad's side of the family all moved elsewhere and now live in either South Africa or Australia. Never felt tempted to go there myself.
Did someone actually call Queen Latifah the "Will Smith of black womanhood" upthread, or am I hallucinating that? And what does that even mean?
Hey, thanks for returning to that, parsimon. I wanted to add:
This "women get power by being beautiful" thing is totally misleading.
Example: when I was in my teens and fat and homely (seriously, I'm pretty cute for a chubby thirtyish woman now, but this was NOT the case then) I got sexually harassed all the time. It was hellish. It was scary. It was insulting and cruel. It really messed me up. What was going on there? Where was my "power"? Or are women just some kind of hive entity, and one part can be harassed to pay for the "power" of another?
And the whole argument seems to boil down to: Men think [some] women are beautiful and act accordingly, giving them stuff, oogling them, whatever. Because men are enslaved by this relationship, they are entitled to be as cruel and self-serving in their relations with women as they want. But it's what men do, guys. Men do something, and this entitles them to something else.
To return to this whole "women get power through T & A" thing: what about old women? Fat women? Plain women? Women who are considered ugly because of their race or darkness of skin?
When you talk about "women" getting power through looks, you mean that some women are given "power" because men want something from them. You also mean that other women are deprived of agency in situations not related to "beauty". And those "not beautiful" women are also victimized by men who are angry at the "beautiful" women for daring not to put out. Or even--and this is particularly true if you are, like me, rather butch--when the men are angry that you won't gender conform and at least try to be beautiful. I got a full glass bottle thrown at me, some years ago, by a carful of guys who shouted "Are you a guy or a girl?" as they drove off. (This was really confusing to me at the time, because I felt like I was gender-cooperating--I was wearing cute green capris and I'd just started to grow my hair out.)
On my own site I have a regular reador from Mauritius. He's probably the same guy who's a regular at language hat. A very quirky guy with lots of abstruse knowledge, which is a good thing.
You want to be a little careful here, Frowner. The "victim" language can be problematic.
For what it's worth, one of my exes was so femmy-looking that we were harassed while walking down the street holding hands. He looked like more of a girl than I did. They figured we were dykes.
In other words, not only women are 'victimized' by gender expectations. I have no doubt you're aware of that, but you're likely to garner objections if you sound like you're saying so. That's like, if you wanted to go to grad school.
I'm chiefly interested in the proposition that women are more beautiful than men. There are so many thoughts about that, and they can be delivered without rant or anger. A curiosity.
Ah, but I don't want to go to grad school, parsimon.
The thing is, I'm not interested in pretending that my life wasn't really fucked up by notions about female beauty. When we get into this "women are so LUCKY to be so PRETTY" line of reasoning, I feel like this obscures a lot of women's experience. We can certainly break down, if we choose, why women are considered the "pretty" ones, but I think that's not an adequate description of women's experience.
And while I know that ranting and anger are frowned upon amongst respectable academics, well, when people trot out the "women have power because they're just so, so sexy and therefore I'm entitled to act in a shitty manner toward any woman who I notice and women should just suck it up"--I don't want them to forget that they're talking about acting shitty towards thirteen-year-old Frowner, not some abstraction.
I think that too much "oh, don't talk about women as victims"/"don't rant or be angry" just tips back over into "suck it up"/"be sure to act reasonably because people expect niceness from women"/"be reasonable because everyone expects women to be irrational".
Man, I have lost all glibness and felicity this morning, this afternoon, whatever. Perhaps you should just ignore my comments. I haven't had any breakfast and I'm about to be spirited away to lunch, so a lot of this is my stomach talking. And since my stomach has neither mouth to speak with nor thumbs for typing, the result is poor.
487,589,etc:Hell. twisty just says that women are the sex class. "Pretty" like prize Weimeraners or Ferraris, trophies of the patriarchy.
"Beauty" doesn't always have to be a social power construct, but the beauty of the elderly Georgia O'Keefe for instance is usually just a matter of belonging to a subculture in "rebellion." Which leads back to the post, and the Lesbian Hot 100. The only way to stop serving the Capitalist Patriarchy, even as a "safe" form of lessening structural tensions (like a Jane Addams or Mohandas or Arbus) is to be "ugly" in appearance or behavior.
Anything else is fashion.
The power women get from their beauty is real, and confers real advantages. And a lot of men feel disempowered by that. Ogling back is a way of evening the score.
This bugged me too. Without wanting to distract from parsimon's point let me offer a different rebbutal. It seems to be making the claim that:
1) In a world where men control most of the power and money the routes to power and money usually involve pleasing/ingratiating oneself with powerful men.
2) Women have an unfair advantage in pleasing/ingratiating themselves with powerful men because they can use their attractiveness.
I think (1) is partially true, but (2) is clearly false. I think attractiveness is a way to gain the attention of men with abilite to dispense favors, but I think that other men have more options at their disposal for attracting attention and, furthermore, those options aren't as limiting to a subbordinate role.
I think that the complaint is based partially on the idea that impressing men with looks is "unfair" while impressing them by playing golf with them is taken for granted.
490:
The thing is, I'm not interested in pretending that my life wasn't really fucked up by notions about female beauty.
Yeah, it is/was your stomach talking. I think you know what I mean. My life has been fucked up by notions about female beauty as well, and I don't describe myself, as you do so often, as ugly. My remarks about ranting were about separating personal anger from cultural criticism. There is such a thing.
Honestly, the whole "beauty is power" thing doesn't withstand a moment's scrutiny from pretty much any angle. "Beauty provides certain people with an unstable and not-necessarily-desirable form of social influence," I can see, but beauty quite plainly does not translate into power; else, for instance, the pop stars filling the "UN Goodwill Ambassador" role wouldn't be a joke. Presenting ogling as a compensation strategy is both ridiculous and unnecessarily complicated, as though the simple fact of people's checking each other out and talking about it requires some grand pseudo-noble rationale. It doesn't.
Just a thought I had, that the Victorian 36 pounds of black wool was just as much sexbot fashion as the Empire gowns or miniskirts. Just playing the virgin rather than whore.
Now maybe blue jeans with loose white t-shirt & gimme cap is the best feminist statement on sexbot fashion, but as a guy, I have been wondering if I should go drag.
492:
The only way to stop serving the Capitalist Patriarchy, even as a "safe" form of lessening structural tensions (like a Jane Addams or Mohandas or Arbus) is to be "ugly" in appearance or behavior.
ha! Tempting as this is as a response, do stop. Whether homo- or heterosexual, we all do like to groove on each other; it's one of the joys of life.
Don't be a joy-killer, Bob.
That said, it's not an all or nothing proposal. We don't have to walk around in a fuck-me state of presentation in order to enjoy each other. Nor do we have to be ugly in order to clear the way.
My remarks about ranting were about separating personal anger from cultural criticism. There is such a thing.
Is that our assignment? I thought we could say whatever the fuck we felt like here. I don't like this lecture on appropriate tone.
I. Am. Not. Lecturing.
Jesus, I'm the last person to tell people about appropriate tone. It was a comment to Frowner that the "victim" narrative has problems, and if she cared to be aware of that, she might want to be.
Forget it, okay?
"500! 500! Ouch. 500!" is the new "Cry, cry, masturbate,cry."
Now that I've made Standpipe sob like a little standpipeself, I can take the time to actually write my real comment.
I found 491 interesting in its assumption that *only* women gain social advantage from their looks. Why hate on women rather than attractive, higher-status males? Seems to me that women are an easier target.
Interestingly, I Googled to find studies demonstrating that attractive men make more money and stumbled across this. The upshot: men clearly gain a salary advantage from h0ttness, both upfront and later in their careers, while women don't gain any advantage at all at hiring but do later on. (And, of course, a smaller advantage than men do.)
Apo, I actually followed your advice in 227 before reading the rest of the thread, so now we're even.
My impression is that the "women get power from being beautiful" idea is based on seeing some men fall all over themselves to be nice to pretty women; the common wisdom that pretty women can just blink their long eyelashes and men will lift their heavy furniture for them; the fact that men buy drinks for women far more often than vice versa. The ways in which these negligible but very visible examples of "power" are completely swamped by power of actual substance doesn't seem to have any effect on this viewpoint; nor do the many problems with letting a subset of womankind (during a fraction of their total lifespan) stand in for the whole.
It occurs to me that this has certainly been a weekend of unusual talking-at-cross-purposes/flashes-of-ill-temper/drunken-or-hungry-sorrow, even for Unfogged. The stars align, I guess.
When you all come to Minneapolis to protest the GOP, we can work out all these issues in intense, truth-speaking (even earnest!) conversation in the county jail. It'll be just like a movie, and we'll all be best friends forever.
Now that I've made Standpipe sob like a little standpipeself
I'd love to have obliged you, Magpie, but I've taken a vow.
the common wisdom that pretty women can just blink their long eyelashes and men will lift their heavy furniture for them
I idiotically, because I was tired but still adrenalized, watched, um, Celebrity Look-a-Like last night. It's on what I call the Channel Channel. Tv channel.
Some woman was having herself done up to look like Hillary Duff. I didn't know who that was, but no matter.
In order to be done this way, the prospective lookalike had to have her eyebrows completely redone. Big eyes, the makeup guy said, the look of attraction is big eyes, and we make the eyes look bigger by opening up the area above the eye, see, and so we will be shaving and reshaping your eyebrows in various ways, because you have this problematic hook in your natural eyebrow shape.
The lookalike prospect nodded. The makeup guy continued with various shit about applying false lashes -- full lashes, half lashes, individual lashes.
The lookalike prospect nodded, yes, she is familiar with some of these, she's worn half-lashes before.
Beauty?
I believe Alameida has written in positive terms of eyebrow and -lash modification, before. Or maybe that other blogger.
I own, and have employed, some individual false lashes myself, thanks to the endorsement of Alameida.
Then you have all convinced me that in the pursuit of something I should engage these matters. Would the men do the same, please.
Enter the Body Factory any time now. What is that? Logan's Run.
Psh, I mean to convince you of no such thing. 513 was more in the line of a confession, though I do find cosmetics fun, sometimes. Other times I find them oppressive.
hm
i was drunk last night, although i'm rarely drunk when i post. I asked to get banned but that didn't happen so i guess i'll keep posting.
I was specifically responding to the element of 323 that was "part of being a successful actress is being a fantasy prop for your audience." I wasn't saying, "women have it easier because a few eyelashbats and they get whatever they want," or "its ok to post the hot track girls or make fun of ugly people" or whatever. But, the being of use sexually i don't see as being of a different sort of social role than being of use in any of the ways people interact for each other's benefit.
but i think part of being an adult is realizing you can't be the best at everything. Also, what other people want form you will shape your life. IN fact, its kinda rare that other people will care about the things you prize in yourself, except to the extent you like something in yourself because its useful to you. i like my own clever joke references, but this isn't really even why my friends like me.
Vows were made to be broken, Standpipe.
516: Banned!
My point about the actresses was that being a fantasy prop (and I don't mean merely sexual fantasy) is a lot more of a natural fit with being an actress than it is with being a chess champion; that is, it's reasonable to talk about actresses and their personal allure (although too much of this and you really end up putting off the actual, fleshly chicks that you know personally) but kind of creepy when it spills over into the feeling that it's really important to spend a lot of discursive time ranking all women everywhere. Especially when that ranking is a sadly transparent veil for insecurity, anger and entitlement, as it so often is.
Parsimon, have you read The Female Man, by Joanna Russ? While its politics about transgender stuff are bad and it ignores race, it's pretty funny on women-are-the-beauty-class.
oh i agree wtih all that, as far as it goes. maybe talking past each other.
Frowner, yeah, I've read The Female Man, though a long time ago, and I don't remember it very well now. You and I have similar interests in utopian, speculative fiction, etcetera stuff. This thread is really long and creaky.
While I doubt anyone's checking the comments now to think they'll see anything relevant to the original, lesbian-related post, I feel compelled to comment:
1. This was posted on Day 2 of the Four Day LA PRIDE Extravaganza, so of COURSE I didn't see it 'til now. Seriously, commenting about hot lesbians or hanging out with them, I'll choose the latter. Dude, you totally would too.
2. Alison Bechdel's book is now in paperback, I read it last week and HIGHLY recommend it. I couldn't never get into her strip, mostly because it just didn't speak to me. Speaking of graphic novels, you should all be reading Y: The Last Man. Great storytelling.
3. Re list of hot lesbians, Lena Headey is one of the few women I know who are in the hot tubs of lesbian couples (usually there's no overlap - one wants k.d. lang, the other wants Minnie Driver and then they fight about how unattractive the other one's choices are, etc.). BTW, I've seen the Sarah Connor Chronicles - Lena's not shot well, but hopefully that'll change. Still hot but she looks badly lit - and WAY too skinny.
4. I don't get any Hot Women list that doesn't include Carla and her Guginos in the top 10. Speaking of Italians, was Annabella Sciorra not on the list? (I didn't have the patience to get past 30.)
521: This is the first I've seen it suggested that the Bechdel book might appeal to those who don't get into the strip; I had assumed the appeal would be the same. I'll be looking at it, thanks.
485: women definitely don't hold all the cards.
Beauty is I guess somewhat subjective; for women as the beauty class you can read (younger) women as the object of desire. This obviously has as much to do with male sexuality as women's physicality.
The power that gives is a double edged sword -- it's at best hard to use, it comes with a set of risks and burdens and potential meanings that probably make it unwanted for many. From the inside, it might not feel like power at all -- and it isn't, if it gets you harassed or raped.
Is it real? Well, I say yes, but I'm a man, and I experience it one way (its power over me, the power I observe over others). I could defend that position "objectively", but I won't bother. I don't doubt for a moment that many women experience it differently, and they have plenty of valid things to say too.
Who's right? All perspectives are partial, and I don't think that the perspective from inside is necessarily more privileged than the one from outside. I'd add too that the male power you perhaps counterpose to your own experience of weakness might also have its illusory component when experienced from the inside.
Also, needless to say, letting frustrated desire for women turn you misogynistic is, like, a very bad and spiritually corrupt and ugly thing, I thought I made that clear. Any time desire curdles into bitterness and resentment, that's ugly and wrong.
There's more one could say, but I'm belatedly coming to realize that this stuff is such emotional dynamite that even raising it in a context like the comments thread of a blog is borderline trollish behavior. Which I should have known. So I'll ban myself.
marcus u wanna frolick in the elysian ban-fields?
I dunno -- I envision a bad end if there are no women there to frolic with us. We'll become embittered and start surfing the web for photos of high school girls.
