The mod note in the bikini thread

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This thread - Are surgeons in bikinis a teensy-weensy bit unprofessional?

Most of my response belongs in the thread but since I’ve been ‘noted’ I have to bring it here.

The thread was about an objection to women posting pictures in bikinis because it made them look unprofessional. The majority of responses indicated there was nothing wrong with women posting such pictures. As I mentioned in my earlier responses it is because professionals are adults and can partake in adult behavior without being unprofessional. In this case it means a woman can be a surgeon and also be sexually attractive.

You all do know that’s what we’re talking about here, right? This is not a discussion about different types of swim wear, it’s about women posting pictures of themselves that show them to be sexually attractive.

The thread included the idea that this objection was really a prank to intended to get women to post pictures of themselves in bikinis. That was done humorously I’m sure, but it shows the very attitude of those objecting to the pictures in the first place, that a woman cannot be both a professional and sexually attractive because then people will try to see them in bikini pictures. I’ll note the thread also contained a picture of a nurse wearing lingerie under a clear plastic PPE gown, and as would be expected, there were references to porn.

I presented those concepts in the form of a joke. If you’re shocked that I would be less than serious on any subject then you must not have ever seem one of my posts. And sometimes when I do that I intend to be acridly sarcastic also. So my sense of humor may not appeal to everyone, or maybe not anyone, and occasionally the totally humorless don’t get it, but engineer_comp_geek’s note made it clear he understood that’s what it was intended to be.

But it’s not the content of the joke that is the problem here is it? These are the very concepts explored through out the thread, it is its form as a “juvenile boy’s locker room” joke that is objected to. I’m not really proud of it humor wise actually, I wanted to take this to more levels that would go right at those those who say it is unprofessional for women to appear to be anything but asexual. So I can’t defend the joke in terms of humor. But there was no new concept or idea presented in that post not found elsewhere in the thread, including the words “undies, provocative Halloween costumes and scanty swimwear” taken from the OP.

But I do believe I should be able to make such a point about those who can’t manage to maintain two different concepts of a person at the same time using “juvenile boy’s locker room” humor. I was not shitting in a thread about some other topic only loosely connected to swimwear, it is bikinis and sexuality and people’s attitudes that are the subject of that thread.

There is nothing wrong with anyone liking to look at sexually attractive picture of people, especially the pictures they are proud to show of themselves, representing themselves as human being who are more than just the job they do. And I’m sure those same people understand that they will only be perceived lasciviously by some people.

If the rule is that juvenile humor is not allowed under any circumstances, that it cannot have a proper context, then I guess you got me. But I see no evidence that there is any such rule or enforcement of it.

If it’s not that, and it’s not the content, then I guess it is the official policy of the Dope that women cannot be both professional and sexually attractive and to consider them so is misogynistic. Or maybe it’s just too much trouble to try to find the forest behind the trees.

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The problem is that you are classifying “hurr, nekkid womins pics! Me likey!” as “juvenile humor”, implying it is harmless childish fun. But in fact it is disparaging to women.

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“hurr, nekkid womins pics! Me likey!" are your words. “Juvenile humor” were ecg’s words.

As I stated, no new content in that post. It is the subject of the thread, that there are people who can only see “hurr, nekkid womins pics! Me likey!" when the subject arises. It is reality that there are people like that, and pointing it out doesn’t disparage women, nor does surgeons wearing bikinis.

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Yes, that’s the problem. And it doesn’t need to be pointed out; we’ve noticed.

Imitating such people is not a great idea, even if claiming not to be one of them while doing it.

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You can point out that people behave like that without posting exactly like they would.

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You’re right, in that regard a poor job on my part.

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Know what? You probably do, I screwed up so much in that post there’s nothing to salvage.

I apologize to the board and I’ll work on finding the right way to make my points.

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Thanks!

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Why?

The thread is about female doctors who posted pictures of themselves in bikinis publicly and the push back they received for doing that. They are not in sweats just after they woke-up with bed-head. These women very intentionally posted pictures of themselves looking sexy in a bikini.

Yet here you are telling us that men enjoying the pictures they posted and saying so is a problem.

So what is your point? That women can post pictures of themselves in bikinis but men who like it are juvenile and upsetting to women?

And to engineer comp geek this is not misogyny. Seriously. You use that word far too casually.

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Yes, it is misogyny and yes it is demeaning to women.

ETA: just realized this got ‘replied’ to the wrong poster. Hope readers can follow it. I am too new to SDMB to know how to fix it after the fact :chagrin: :humility:

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How so?

Please define misogyny for us then tell us how it applies here.

Why is it demeaning to women? Were the doctors who posted photos of themselves in a bikini demeaning women?

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I missed the edit window:

Highlight the text you want to reply to and quote. When you highlight the text a ghostly box will appear above that which says “Quote”. Click on that to start a reply responding to that person with that quote.

You can continue to highlight and click that quote button as much as you want to add more bits to the same post.

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No, they were not demeaning women. I can’t know the motive of whomever it was specified that it was surgeons posing in bikinis. It went off the rails into misogyny somewhere around “lookey, nekkid wimmin’.

As for the rest of your questions, it is way too much work to expect me to define misogyny for you. I have been trying to do that all my life and apparently succeeded with my children, but then they were receptive. Educate yourself about it. Then come talk to me.

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I think I see what you were going for – the same kind of bitter sarcasm one might use in a thread on the shooting of an unarmed black kid, responding to something like "why would anyone consider that child a thre[quote=“Whack-a-Mole, post:9, topic:916843”]
These women very intentionally posted pictures of themselves looking sexy in a bikini.
[/quote]

some of these pictures were of women at the beach with their kids, man. This assumption that bikini = sex = for men’s benefit is exactly the problem.

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Read the OP of that thread. It spells out the issue including a link citing the medical journal (Journal of Vascular Surgery) that made the fuss in the first place and then retracted what they wrote regarding those doctors posing in pictures wearing bikinis and posting them to social media.

So, do you think those female doctors were misogynists? If not why not?

So, it is whatever you think it is and we just have to guess?

That kinda thing doesn’t really fly around here usually.

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Have you seen the pictures?

None I saw were covert photos taken of women playing with their kids at the beach. The women were posing for the camera (and no kids that I saw but maybe some did, I cannot say I have seen all of them).

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Check with the BLM people. That’s what they say when some well-meaning person asks them to define racism. Works the same for ‘define sexism’.

As for ‘that thing doesn’t really fly around here’, do you have a cite for that or are you pulling rank somehow? Don’t I get a an equal vote about how I express my opinions?

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You are using a word to mean something. I am asking you how you define that word since you seem to use it without care for what it means (hint: check a dictionary for starters).

I’ve been here 20 years and while I have zero say over the operation of the board I have some sense of how it has operated. Words mean things and we should all be on the same page about their meaning. If it is unclear we ask for clarity. Which I have and you refuse to give.

I cannot discuss “misogyny” with you if we both have different ideas of what that word means.

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Just because someone posts themselves in a bikini doesn’t mean they are inviting you to make creepy comments about them. They are not inviting you to ignore every other aspect of who they are and only talk about them like a sexual object, like you’re some sort of sexual predator. They’re wearing clothes they want to wear–that’s it.

Women do not exist for men’s amusement. No, not even if they dress a certain way, wear certain makeup, or anything. They dress that way because they want to, not because they want to be reduced to their sexual parts and not be treated as human beings.

To think that the reason these doctors are in bikinis is because they want to be reduced to merely eye candy with no brains is misogynistic.

And, yes, I’m explaining so that women don’t have to. You don’t have the right to demand that the group you are disparaging has to explain to you why it is disparaging when everyone else knows. It’s up to you to educate yourself, not up to them do spoonfeed you that which you should have already learned.

Because, yes, if you’ve ever talked to a woman before, you should already know this shit is creepy and unwelcome. The only women you should talk to like that are those who are deliberately doing so for male amusement–i.e. porn stars and the like.

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We have set a top priority around here to stop misogynistic comments, comments that disparage women, boy’s locker room humor, and other things that have been driving our female members away from the board for many years now. This is the path that we are taking forward, and we are not changing from that path, regardless of any nitpicking that you want to do over definitions of words.

I would strongly recommend that you get with the program, because we are not changing from this path.