You can absolutely discuss the topic of the thread - do you notice attractive men? Is it distracting in any way? More pointedly, if you do notice those men, does it go towards the realm of objectification/sexuality at all?
I think that you can also credibly chastise the OP for his apparent problem in being so utterly distracted that he can’t be a decent human being.
But I disagree with the idea that there shouldn’t be threads based on some gender’s experiences based on the risk that another gender may feel excluded. Criticize the OP for being a misogynist, sure. But there’s a thread about menopause currently going on, and that’s not problematic even though men may not have direct experience with the topic.
It’s not that there shouldn’t be a thread about some gender’s experiences. It’s that they shouldn’t be written using phrases and expressions that make it clear that it’s written only for men. Saying “when I see an attractive woman, all I can think about is how much I want to hit that” is a gross thing to say to another woman. Describing an attractive woman as “ass cheeks all hanging out” is a gross thing to say to another woman.
It’s not the topic that excludes woman, it’s the way it’s said. The way it’s said is the problem. And I can’t “credibly chastise him” without first having to respond to the fact that the way it was said made it clear he didn’t even consider that women are here, that women read these things. He’s talking to his bros. So to “credibly” anything, first I have to redefine the whole situation and establish that I even exist. None of that is true in the menopause thread.
I’m a lady’s lady, as it were. I, too, am sometimes distracted by attractive women. If she’s attractive enough, or wearing something striking, I may stop to think, “Gosh! Wow!” or even “Nice ____s!” to myself.
Then I get on with my day and don’t gawk, because I’m old enough to have developed an attention span that can survive a second of distraction. :smack:
Other things that might momentarily distract me: Interesting cars. People walking large dogs. Public art.
I manage, somehow, to move on from these things and get on with my day, even if these distracting ‘objects’ are not covered with layers of cloth to protect my eyes and train of thought. I suspect most adult heterosexual men are capable of the same.
To clarify, the OP wasn’t given a pass because the resulting discussion ended up being interesting. Everyone’s responses in the thread showed that, instead of just shutting down the thread (in which case nate would learn nothing), everyone could instead point out the various issues in the OP and address them, and hopefully nate can actually learn something from all of this.
In any event, discussions about the moderation and whether or not threads should be closed should be in ATMB. If anyone wishes to discuss this further, please start a thread there.
I’m a heterosexual male, and my reaction is almost exactly the same as yours. Except that I’m distracted by all kinds of dogs.
It would be interesting to write a fantasy story where the sex drives of men and women were reversed, so that women would think about sex every five minutes on a slow day and men would think about it once in a while. I’m not saying that women aren’t interested in sex, just not quite as obsessed as men.
It’s one thing to be distracted by someone who is attractive; it’s another thing entirely to objectify that person. I’ve got a problem with that. Even when I was in my twenties and hadn’t had so much as a date in years I wasn’t distracted to the point that all I could think about was having sex with the woman in question.
I once got distracted in a meeting by a my boss’s forearms, of all things. To the point of failing to pay attention to the meeting! He had been playing a lot of golf, apparently. As soon as I realized that I had gotten so distracted, I stopped staring and refocused my attention on the meeting.
I never meet an attractive lady and jump towards any thoughts of a sexual nature. Maybe because I have met enough hot women with hideous personality issues. Besides there is a whole internet full of naked ones if you need that sort of stimulation just on sight.
Now someone with an attractive lunch and I am slightly hungry I will be gobsmacked, drool a little, and sometimes completely change my lunch plans to go out and get something like what I saw. If an attractive lady was the person with said lunch then I might be screwed.
The most interesting part of this comment, to me, is the fact that you noticed a body part (forearms), and not a more general appearance. Arguably, that’s objectifying (“my eyes are not at the ends of my elbows, ma’am”).
But I think that primitive part of our brain which notices secondary sex characteristics does distill this down to objectifying…”nice curves = good mating potential”; “muscles = good genes”, et al
So, at this basic level, the mind will fixate on body parts (faces included) and make inherently shallow determinations. If you didn’t have executive functioning going on, your brain might be inundated with these primal sexual thoughts (similar, I suspect, to the same simple cravings for food or sleep that can sometimes distract us).
But we have the capacity for higher functioning which can distract us from our urges, or find healthy ways to fulfill them. And even when interacting with somebody who might ping these primitive thoughts, we’ve learned to appreciate qualities like intelligence or charm that are more meaningful in modern life.
Maybe some of the problems with those boorish guys is that they just never learn to cultivate a more mature appreciation of women. It’s not that other guys can’t relate to their simplistic level of analysis; it’s just that those guys have developed a more sophisticated awareness of women’s other potential qualities, so the simple sex thought becomes more fleeting.
I believe it’s a deeper issue—a failure or an unwillingness to think of other people as equals, as human beings, whose feelings, experiences, problems are worth considering. It’s all about “why are you trying to stop me from doing that makes me feel good?”
In my own life I have found that the more I try to stop thinking about me and my needs and wants just for a moment and listen to someone else it starts me on a path that can lead me to a different way of seeing things.
At some point in my life I was opposed to all pre- and extra-marital sexual relationships, I was opposed to efforts to gender-neutralize vocabulary such as “policeman,” I was opposed to same-sex marriage, I was opposed to bilingual education, I was opposed to women in the military, etc. …
over the years I have changed my mind about these and other things beginning with just being empathetic and sympathetic to other people’s experiences and that starts with putting aside “well this is what I like to do” and trying to think about things from someone else’s point of view.
How this applies to the OP is his insistence on using terminology based on how he has learned to think about his desires and by beginning with the position that he is obviously correct and that 98 percent of men agree with him, if they’re being honest.
What he is failing to consider is that he can first describe his feelings in terms that aren’t demeaning to women, and be open to the possibility that just because he thinks or feels something is correct doesn’t mean that it is generally applicable to everyone else.
I agree that the OP is a lost cause unless and until he first acknowledges that his perspective is not universal (coincidentally, I heard on the radio tonight about the spotlight effect, a logical fallacy that leads one to overestimate how much others pay attention to them). And, in so making this acknowledgment, he would be greatly served by realizing that a discussion can preemptively exclude valuable knowledge based on how the premise is framed (often called poisoning the well).
Here, he would clearly have gotten more enlightenment about how other people think if he didn’t presume that men who disagree are liars while women simply can’t understand. I’ve chosen to participate because I believe both are nonsense.
Based on reviewing the limited research that is out there, I suspect a psychologist trained in this topic would tell you that 5 or 6 sexual thoughts per day is well within the boundaries of normal even for someone that is older.
5 or 6 short ones, sure. Our point was that we (a bunch of girls between 17 and 23 who according to the OP have no idea what it’s like to have sexual thoughts) only had a single sexual thought each day, one which lasted from “when I woke up” until “when I fell asleep”; we couldn’t even pinkyswear that our dreams were perfectly chaste (they probably weren’t).
The notion that women “can’t understand” desire is as demeaning and otherizing as the idea that we exist solely as objects of desire. If we can’t feel desire, there is no reason for men to behave in a way that will make us desire them.
Don’t miss it; but remember it. Lasted quite a while after 23, too.
We nevertheless managed – as most men manage – to get our work done, to pay attention to conversations including sometimes ones with men (or other women) who we were attracted to, and to drive down the road without either driving off the road, or leering so obviously that everyone in the vicinity noticed.
Some of you guys have this belief that we are the authors of our thoughts, that somehow you can control what your next thought is, reason through it before you even have it. I don’t think our minds work like this. When I state I get distracted by an attractive woman, I’m not saying I’m acting on it. I do believe I have some sort of agency in my actions, but I don’t have any decision in my next thought or emotion.
And so you might say, “ahh… but you remaining distracted is an action that you could control”, and maybe that’s a good point. But it reminds me of the scene in The Naked Gun where Frank Drebin is standing in front an exploding fireworks store, waving his arms in front of onlookers saying “there’s nothing to see here! nothing to see!”. You can’t not see it.
If OP didn’t realize this was an issue he wouldn’t have posted it as a confession. IMO people should help him by explaining rationally what they think is wrong, not shame him or take what he wrote personally. Otherwise other people with confessions like this that see OP getting beat up may just not share at all and can’t learn anything by hearing the various opinions and feedback.