…if you want to talk credibility: I literally googled “breast restaurant” (with quotes) and that was the very first thing that came up. I scrolled a couple of pages and absolutely nobody else (except for you) is calling “Restaurants that attract people using breasts, breast restaurants”.
This isn’t what they are called. This is what you have decided they should be called. That distinction is important.
I agree that @Grrr was being deliberately crude to emphasize the crudeness of the establishment.
But I don’t think @Chronos missed the point of what the op was trying to do. I think @Grrr did. The op deliberately avoided crudeness, and just said that he was curious why the place only hired female servers as it wasn’t a themed restaurant.
If it was a thread about bras, no one would complain if i used the word “boob” to say, “i am looking for a bra that supports my boobs without crushing them to my chest. Many sports bras feel like binders to me, and i want something more comfortable that still prevents the boobs from bouncing to much.” (At least, i don’t think anyone would complain. I did once have a bra review rejected for using that word.)
In the other hand, if it was a thread about bras and a guy showed up and said, “pics or it didn’t happen” in response to a woman talking about the difficultly of finding a large-enough bra, that would be offensive, even though there are no naughty words in the post.
So this was a thread that had been carefully framed to avoid crudeness, and @Grrr popped in to make a crude post and use crude language to talk about male titillation. That was a completely unnecessary introduction of crudeness to a thread that didn’t need it.
And that’s why @Chronos replied with a gentle mod note. Because it would be nice if fewer threads had crude posts referring to men objectifying women.
I don’t think the post was egregious. I wasn’t going to fret about it over supper or lose any sleep over it. It certainly wasn’t worth a warning. But it was just another case of a man talking about objectifying women dropped into a thread for the amusement of men. And we’ve been trying to reduce the frequency of that happening.
I’ll clear some things up with regards to my OP.
The one that I went to in Tulsa (I’ve never been to the one in Dallas. I’m not typically interested in those types of places) had a normal restaurant name, and the decor inside was 50s retro. And the uniforms were rather tame. They wore long pants but the shirts all revealed cleavage.
That’s why my mother was oblivious. She doesn’t notice things like that.
As far as my choice of words, I have more women friends than I do men. And all of them are progressive. I tend to take my cues from them.
I can’t speak for “boob-diner” bc that’s just a word I made up for that post. But I have definitely heard them use the word breastaurant before and they’re never seen the least bit bothered by it.
But look, if those words are too crude for people, I’m happy not to use it.
It still seems ridiculous to me though.
All else aside, what the heck? Since when?
Note that your first two links both used different methods in their headlines (the TM and single quotes) to emphasis that they were not using this word, but reporting on it. And I think even something as simple as those quotes would have absolutely changed the tone of Grr’s post.
Mom is pretty oblivious, I don’t think she realizes it’s a ‘breastuarant.’
Of course we also have “boob-din[n]er” in there, which is not an industry term as best I can tell. Just an excuse to bring up boobs.
This seems to fall neatly into “shit I wouldn’t say at a dinner party in front of people I’d just meant.” Both words bring to mind nothing but dudes elbowing each other and giving not-so-sly winks. Breastaurant. Get it? 'Cause it’s a a restaurant with breasts?
And then some other guy chimes in with, “YEAH IT’S A BOOB-DINNER” and everyone gets uncomfortable because it’s not even clever. It’s just some guy who thinks he had an excuse to say BOOBS really loud. Probably the same guy who thinks it’s funny to ask women at bars whether they like great tits.
Honestly, it’s more that the concept is crude, but you did refer to it in a deliberately crude way, when the concept was mostly adjacent to the thread. “Maybe you didn’t notice that breasts are the point” to a guy who has carefully said that he’s considered that option, and it’s not that kind of place, is only marginally helpful.
If we’re talking about literature, sure, the author sets the tone. But when it comes to things like Emails or texts; the reader sets the tone. I’ve heard this from two separate councilors and a HR rep giving a class on sensitivity. And they are right.
Well my mother is no idiot and she didn’t realize. So in my mind, it only stands to reason that other intelligent people may not get it either.
I can see this being a useful bellwether in cases where offense is taken at potentially innocuous stuff - to consider whether the reader is applying a tone that doesn’t exist. But as a universal rule, it would be the literal definition of victim blaming.
I’ll go with the educated professional’s opinion on this. Thanks.
Maybe you could favor us with a cite?
Do you think your mother wouldn’t have noticed if she went there with the question in her head, “IS this a restaurant that attracts customers more with the bodies of the servers than with the food?” Because that seems like a much more stringent test than just, “would she notice if she went there to eat?”
Despite the extreme rhetoric in this thread, i don’t think this is a huge deal, fwiw.
That’s a valid point I had not considered. I suppose so.
And some of us were ready to walk away from the board if Starving Artist didn’t get banned.
This is hilarious but whether you can see why I don’t know.
When @Grrr first said “it’s the reader not the writer that sets the tone” I was pretty dubious. But your real live apparently oblivious demonstration of why he might just be right is really pretty funny.
I see where you’re coming from - and saw it when I made that post - but I don’t consider Grrr’s language in the linked thread to be at all innocuous.
Writers set a tone. Readers interpret it. I’ve never heard anything to the contrary. It’s certainly possible for readers to make incorrect or unsubstantiated interpretations! But I don’t think that happened here.
I did do a bit of searching on the topic, but there are too many sites about appropriate language in the workplace to filter anything as specific as that. In any event, I find the concept interesting and will probably start an alternate thread to discuss it without a hijack.
For what it is worth I, a white, middle aged man, think it was not a ridiculous mod note. As per usual this should settle the matter.
Chronos was right , this called for a note. Not a warning, of course.
And SDMBers- it is a freaken NOTE. It is not big deal.
Truth.
I think it’s a good demonstration of why bright line rules don’t work as well. In the context of the thread the language was disruptive. In another thread, even in the same category, it might not have been.
Like, take two MPSIMS threads. One is talking about the passing of a community member. The other is talking about silly-looking cat pictures. A crude joke would be horrific in the former thread but might be welcomed in the latter thread. A mod note chastising someone about the crude joke when people are mourning the loss of an online friend would be warranted but that doesn’t mean it should also be moderated in the other one.
And again, it’s just a note. I’ve gotten notes before. I try to avoid them but when I get one, I say sorry and move on.
Good point. The thread turned into a trainwreck in which, ummm, no one commented on the post. Oh, except one. The mod.
We don’t even fact around here any more, do we?
My concern is not that Grrr was sanctioned with a mod note. I’m sure he’ll survive. My concern is that mod notes effectively set the rules.
Someone please let me know when we get down to the point where I can’t use the term “legs” and must say “limbs”. I’m too crass to get the memo.