I made a thread call “Who’s the hotter one: You or your wife?” which was prompltly closed by @Apsenglow.
Aspenglow’s motives are perfect and it was the correct decision; the thread as written, could have become a “my wife’s hotter than yours” or even take a crasser turn. So, zero complaints about that.
I just want to say, even though the OP was so poorly written that it didn’t convey my idea even badly, that I was trying to get the some confirmation for feeling I have that most men think their wives are more attractive than them, like, most men “marry up” in the looks department.
Of course, even that may have been inappropiate.
Also, I want to apologise if my OP was seen as not taking into cosideration that there are couples other than birth-man + birth-woman, it was simply that since I am a birth-man and my wife is a birth-woman I was trying to just focus on the specific pairing. No offense intended and apologies if anyone felt attacked.
Yes, it was (in my opinion). For the record, I don’t see a problem with having either a thread or a poll that is only directed at a sub-set of posters, we have done that many times in the past. But the emphasis on strictly physical characteristics for evaluating both oneself and one’s spouse was very unpleasant and I’m glad the thread was closed.
If that was your objective, the OP communicated your objective perfectly. The problem wasn’t that you wrote poorly, the problem was the idea, which frames women as trophies to be compared.
Perhaps there’s a way to have some worthwhile conversation about whether we (of whatever gender & orientation) think our partner is a “catch”, in broader terms someone more desirable and with higher social status; but if your own perspective on this question is loaded with offensive sexist stereotypes, don’t expect to have that conversation on this forum.
Out of curiosity, would it have gone over better if OP had worded it thusly:
“I am a cis-het man married to a cis-het woman. My perception is that my cis-het male friends tend to think their cis-het wives are more physically attractive than they are. Do other cis-het men here find that to be the case?”
I appreciate you making the effort to clarify your intentions. And I’m sure you understand that we can only moderate exactly what is in front of us. I think @Roderick_Femm stated the collective concerns of moderators on this topic quite well.
Any time you get into strictly physical characteristics and how they pertain to “hotness,” you may be heading for a challenge on how best to pose your inquiries here.
I didn’t attribute any ulterior motives to your post, or feel it even merited a mod note. I just wanted to head a potential bad result off at the pass. Thanks for understanding.
Personally, I think the careful language posed by @Kyomara, or something similar, could have been an acceptable starting point.
I’ll just also add that while it’s nice to hear the moderation was a good call, credit must be given to all the mods here who work very hard behind the scenes. It was a collegial effort and decision.
How does inserting “cis-het” numerous times makes this anything different? It still has no more depth than men discussing whether their wives are “hot”, and still apparently loaded with the sexist stereotype that women are trophies valued principally for their physical attractiveness.
And what’s the purpose of inserting cis-het? To show that you are aware of the existence of LGBT people, yet to explicitly exclude them? Why? I see no problem in principle addressing certain questions only to certain subsets of people, but not this.
I think I prefer the original framing, which was straightforward sexism without a veneer of wokeness!
I know it’s a minefield, but does it have to be quite that careful to be acceptable? From my perspective (as an old cis-gay guy) I wouldn’t think that use of terms like cis-het is really necessary for such a topic. And I still think that focusing on physical attractiveness is fraught. I liked the following better for that part:
I think that’s a fair criticism. My initial take was that at least as a starting point, it demonstrated a modicum of sensitivity to the issue. I did feel it was somewhat over the top, but maybe I’m just an old cis-het female who’s overcompensating.
OTOH, I don’t think you (meaning stated earlier in this thread, not “you” specifically) can say it’s ok to have a thread or a poll that is only directed at a sub-set of posters; that we have done this many times in the past, and then disallow a thread that is only directed at a sub-set of posters.
As for the “physically attractive” focus, I am not sure I see a generic question about if you regard your partner as more physically attractive than yourself to be as fraught with sexism as the original thread. If it devolves into specific descriptions of “hotness,” then not ok. But just to say, “I do think my wife is more physically attractive than me,” or “no, I am the more physically attractive of the two of us,” is simply a statement of personal opinion, and it would have given the OP the information he was ostensibly seeking.
I was careful to say I could see it as a starting point. Obviously if the thread devolved into discussions about what specific physical characteristics supported the poster’s opinion, it would just get shut down again for objectification of body parts.
Do you feel it’s best to foreclose any and all discussions of physical attractiveness? I’m genuinely interested to know.
I cannot see that the underlying topic is bad at all. It’s not offensive to ask how attractive someone believes their significant other is. Sexual attraction, even when involving physicals characteristics, is not sexist. And it’s understandable to wonder if there is a difference associate with sex or sexuality.
The issue I saw was the framing. It was framed as being just about men and their wives, and the language in the OP set up comparing physical attributes. Nothing about the underlying idea says that “women are a trophies to be compared,” but that’s the way it came off given your OP.
I think the better framing would be to ask everyone if they feel like their partner is more attractive than they are, and to then have separate poll options by gender and sexuality. Make it clear that this isn’t about comparing your spouse or SO to others. And I don’t really see much point in focusing on physical attractiveness in this case.
Alternatively, just ask the question without a poll at all. State what you’re saying here, that you’ve generally heard men say their wives are more attractive than them, and wonder if such a belief is common. Mention that maybe it’s different for men and women, and let people just talk about the topic, rather than discussing how hot any people are.
There’s something there that could be interesting about how attraction works: Do we all tend to think our partners are more attractive? Is that maybe only for men, or even cis-het men? That could spin off to “is there any reason this might be?” Or, if it’s not true, is there any reason why the OP might have come to that conclusion?
There’s interesting information that can be discussed, and no reason any of it has to be sexist or sexual objectifying. And definitely no reason it has to come off like locker room talk or otherwise be unwelcoming to female posters.
I do think there is an argument that what the subset is cab matter. If the goal is to make sure that female posters feel welcome, it can make sense not to have a thread that is limited to only male participants.
Especially since, for the actual underlying concept, such limitations aren’t really necessary. You can just ask women to vote separately, and talk about their own experiences.
I mean, the OP wouldn’t get a good answer to his query if he doesn’t see if wives also think their husband is the more attractive one. And then to compare that with non-straight relationships, too. It may have nothing to do with men, and just that people are poor judges of how attractive they are.
@BigT that’s true, but it’s always going to be a fraught area on a board where a majority of posters are men, and a significant proportion of them are sexist and will be wanting to have their say. Even if the topic is intially framed reasonably, any such thread is likely to run into trouble. It’s obviously the mods’ call if they want to deal with that, but in my opinion there’s no problem with saying that it’s just better to steer clear of conversations focused on physical sexual attractiveness in favor of an overriding objective to maintain an inclusive and non-hostile environment. It’s not like anyone’s freedom of expression is being stifled on a subject of great import. There are plenty of other places you can have that kind of conversation.
Perhaps. Speaking as a female, I wouldn’t personally be offended were I to be excluded from the initial discussion, so long as the discussion didn’t devolve into objectifying. But I can tell you as a moderator, I’d be keeping a very watchful eye.
And I’ll allow other women may feel otherwise. I’d be extremely sensitive to that, too. As @Roderick_Femm says, it’s a minefield.
I didn’t have the impression that the OP was particularly interested in the opinions of women about their partners, or anyone other than “guys.” Whether his interest has any merit wasn’t really the point, in my view. Maybe his perspective is exclusionary enough for a thread to be closed. The first one was, certainly. No one disagreed with the decision.
Now that @Riemann mann has weighed in, I like the way he stated it. Certainly makes modding easier if we just close threads that discuss physical characteristics.
I am glad to hear the varying points of view here, as well as the respectful discussion.
It’s not a freedom of expression issue, no. The only time you’ll hear me make such an argument is if it has to do with the government.
But I do think there is a policy issue in what topics should and should not be banned, and how such is determined. I don’t think that topics should be banned based merely on assumptions. So far, any of the topic bans we do have are based on actual experience from the past, not what we assume will happen.
I do not think it is a foregone conclusion that such a thread would go poorly. With an OP worded properly, I think it could be handled. Sure, maybe one poster might come in, but that one poster can be kicked out of the thread. It’s not like the mods would have to watch the thread: such behavior would be reported.
Sure, I can agree with your general idea for things that have been tried before, and the mods know for sure it’s more trouble than it’s worth. But I don’t think this is such the case with this topic.
Plus, do note I said that I didn’t see much reason to focus on physical attractiveness, and that neither of my proposed alternative OPs did so. That focus was part of what I thought could come off as “locker room talk.”
Obviously the voice of the the women on here should carry the most weight, if not all of it. There’s an argument that ignorance will not be fought in things we don’t talk about. But I think any expectation that such a thread is likely to result in an edifying spectacle of dozens of men suddenly seeing the light that maybe it makes women uncomfortable to do the verbal equivalent of leering at boobs is… optimistic. We’ve had threads running to thousands of posts with people desperately defending their right to say c**t.
I think I would have gone with something like this:
If you are in a long term relationship with another person, who do you feel an objective third party would find more physically attractive? You or your partner?
Please identify your gender and the gender of your partner.
This allows different variations of couples to participate equally.
Now you’ve lost me. Who said anything about boobs or being enlightened? The topic here is whether or not you find your significant other to be more attractive than you. There’s no reason for the thread to even mention breasts or any other body part. There’s nothing about the topic that is actually sexual, assuming we avoid the OP’s bad framing.
This also isn’t the same board that it was even five years ago. People who actually cared started being more careful once the new rules came through about being more welcoming to women. And the people who have been the biggest problems mostly no longer poster here.
I’m not kidding when I said I can think of maybe a couple posters who might still try this sort of thing who still post here. I’m obviously not going to name them here. But, if they try, I don’t see any reason they couldn’t just be kicked out.
I don’t see this board as it currently exists as being as bad as you seem to believe it to be. If it were, I wouldn’t have been talking about possibly financially supporting it in the thread where we were told that might be necessary.
I know that my mother was dismissive of “guys” who thought that they were the only ones with agency in partner selection. She wouldn’t have been offended: only contemptuous.