Some bustier women genuinely do find it difficult to completely cover their cleavage, though. And as explained throughout the thread, mistakes happen - a new shirt’s more revealing than expected, weight gain or the time of the month changes things, the clothing’s OK except in certain positions, the office is warmer than usual and women and men both loosen their top button, etc, etc.
But even if you consider that a woman has breached office etiquette by showing more cleavage than usual, that doesn’t give you the right to make the far bigger faux pas of staring at her tits. You might notice them and glance down briefly without even meaning to, but don’t stare. That’s all. It’s not difficult.
I offered a examples of typical ones, since I doubt you’re familiar with mine (my grandfather). You’re welcome to name your own role model. I look forward to learning what man you think is a paragon of a mature male behavior and a hopelessly rude boobaphile.
Even allowing that those sources are right (in my experience it’s female employees who are most disdainful of short skirts and overt cleavage), this is more an ettiquette issue. Someone dressed inappropriately has not declared open season on what it seems everyone’s agreed is rude behavior. The rules of etiquette are plain - you politely mention an issue that can be fixed or adjusted (popped button, open fly, missed belt loop), you politely ignore everything else, period. You don’t point, laugh, or ogle, claiming you couldn’t help yourself.
This is polite adult behavior. Little kids stare at handicapped people, burn victims, weird hair colors, ample cleavage and such, but we expect adults to control their reactions to such things out of respect for the person, regardless of their views.
It’s amazing how far guys are willing to go to raionalize creepy, rude behavior.
OK, so your situation is not the one we are discussing.
It’s a big world with a lot of people out there, and there are all types. The fact that some men will ogle even a conservatively dressed woman is not an indication that there are not also women who dress provocatively to some extent.
I agree with all this. (I’ve noticed myself that heavier women tend to expose more cleavage, possibly as compensation in some cases, but mostly (I imagine) because their cleavage simply starts higher.)
This one I don’t buy at all. You never see men exposing that much in the heat.
Excellent point. My advice to you is to keep this important advice saved somewhere. Maybe even assign it a shortcut key. This way in case someone ever claims that anyone has the right to stare at a woman’s tits you can post these words of wisdom without the slightest delay.
Have you considered reading the post I was responding to?
All depends on context of course, where I work one manager had to have a staff meeting about atire. He said " If I can see up it, through it or down it. Don’t wear it." In his section some women were dressing up at work like it was pick up night at a bar.
The same place an employee came in on holloween dressed up like the XXX version of Tinkerbell, she was sent home to change. No one was dragged to HR.
If it matters any there’s a really gorgeous women who owns the coffee shop in our building, when she bends over to get food items out of the display case she was wearing a low cut top revealing her awesome gals. I looked over to the women in line behind me and a lot of them had a look of disgust on their face as they stared at her lady friends. It was hilarious. Apparently they took offence to her ta-tas.
It doesn’t take much to expose cleavage in women’s shirts. It really doesn’t. Hell, I’ve actually had trouble finding shirts that exposed no cleavage, and I’m not busty.
And if you’re not defending staring, then what are you defending?
I am not on a campaign to defend anything. This is a discussion on a MB, and I’ve made some points relating to to various things that others have said.
Feel similarly free to read my posts and comment on anything that I’ve actually said that you disagree with. But don’t make up my positions for me.
I haven’t seen you clarify or take a position on anything. Your contributions have led us on several confusing tangents unrelated to taking a side. Have you taken a side or offered an opinion?
The notion that this is about “taking a side” is one that I dispute. I prefer to look at each issue and aspect independently.
And this mistaken notion that if you agree with something in general you have to support every conceivable rationale for that position is also one that contributes to confusion about the issue. Because not only are you locked into yourself supporting all sorts of bogus arguments simply because they support “your side”, but you’re also apt to interpret anyone who objects to any of these arguments as someone who is not on “your side”, and who can therefore be assumed to disagree with everything “your side” supports.
There are two types of office appropriate shirts sold currently - tight fitting and shows cleavage. It isn’t necessarily cleavage but you can usually see the dip between breasts in anything that doesn’t have a v-neck. High neck tunics are currently out of fashion for work. And anything with enough drape to make it not tight fitting that doesn’t have a very high neck is prone to shift.
I accept your criticism and await your non-shitty examples.
Basically, you and FP are now claiming you don’t have and any position on the subject. It gives the impression that you’ve both realized your stance was insupportable. The rest of your posts will, I suspect, be vehement attempts to convince everyone else of that. Good luck.
"Only on the SDMB do I find women that think that breasts, regardless of their beauty or how prominently they are shown should never be noticed. What’s next, you come naked and if soembody looks at you you’ll say “yeah, I have a vagina, deal with it”?.
Jerks that make other people feel bad are always wrong, but the idea the women forget that straight men are sexual beings is ridiculous. I’ve told friends and coworkers to “cover the girls a bit” because I **respect **them not because i want to control women’s bodies."
(my boldings)
Look at the nice word “notice”, not leer, stare, drool.
Look at what i say about jerks.
Look at the word respect.
At that point on the thread even saying you noticed breasts was rape. Finally, the mood is now “notice, don’t stare, keep on working”; aka what I said.
Yeah, the thing is, you’re operating from a couple of bad ideas there. Telling someone to cover the girls isn’t respectful. It’s clear you think it is, but it should be equally clear you’re pretty much on your own with that one.
And you continue to think there’s a cool, unobtrusive way to gawk at someone (“notice”). There isn’t. You’re kidding yourself. The only polite course is to not look at all.
You continue to define your behavior as good by pointing out you’ve seen worse, like not being a serial rapist is a big accomplishment and we should be proud. I still say that’s a pretty low bar you’ve set for yourself.
Wow, so you are a recovering sex addict and that’s why you expect women to ‘cover up’ around you? That is what you are implying with this horrible analogy, because equating a momentary distraction with avoiding triggers of addiction are not even close to the same thing. And we are talking about workplace attire, I would hate to imagine your predicament at the beach or a night club. You live in a world where 50% of the population has breasts, time for you to learn some coping strategies.
Men and women are sexual beings. However, as creatures capable of higher intellect and cognitive reasoning than animals, they have the ability to control their urges and impulses in order to conduct themselves in a respectful manner.
Also, your “women all think this”, “women all perceive this” and “women’s emotions” is a bunch of long debunked pseudoscience and mansplaining. There is as much variation in the way women think, feel and perceive things, as there is between any person.
Misapplication of the logic and it doesn’t apply in this context. When I mention the word “consensus” (and not a unanimous agreement, or even state of fact), it’s related to the one we’ve reached, here, in this thread, on this forum, by members offering input on a discussion topic, where they’ve been inadvertently asked to offer subjective qualitative feedback. If this wasn’t clear before, then I’m being very specific about it, now.
The OP’s inferences/questions certainly weren’t structured enough to suggest otherwise, hence why I told you before "In this dimension, agreements “win”". If you maintain that we’re not speaking for everyone and that this isn’t the most scientifically sound method for arriving at a conclusion, great, I agree. It also misses the point of this more casual discussion and particular part of the forum.
So you’re defending the idea that people can find things distracting, in this case, cleavage. Got it.
The statement that women “wear shirts to show cleavage, then cover them up” was loaded. For someone blowing the whistle on absolutes and logical fallacies, you should have quarrel with the two statements in the OP, off the bat. Oddly enough, you don’t.
The idea that a woman adjusting her top “implicates the guy of lechery”, was not only projecting, but also the same as the above, and combined, amount to what I paraphrased. Both ideas were countered, numerous times, with actual input from the people who have breasts. Call it what you want, but I believe the word is fitting.
All of this has already been covered and established in the thread. I’m not sure what you’re getting at, other than my bolded portion, which was never under dispute.
So you understand that the general reasons in this thread are legitimate (:smack:), but disagree with the conduct of some posters. Got it.
Understood. But my point was and is that the “consensus” in this particular thread is not particularly meaningful to anything.
If someone claimed that all women do this, I would certainly disagree. I don’t know that this has been claimed anywhere.
Not sure what you mean with this.
I think these reasons are true in many or most cases, but not in all, as posters to this thread are trying to claim (or at least imply). And there are other issues that have arisen in this thread as well.
