I have no trouble understanding what he meant.
The second one was in answer to toplessness. Does that help?
They are not. One modifies the other. It’s like saying that I will be trying to eat more vegetables but I’m allergic to carrots.
Neither do I.
Just one woman’s opinion. From what I’ve read in the shirtless men thread (haven’t been back in a minute), I would not find any of those posts objectionable if they were about women. I would not be deterred from participating here by a few threads like that about women running concurrently at any given time. I might not participate in those threads, but it wouldn’t harsh my mellow that they were there.
But in my experience, threads like that about women rarely stay like that. They invariably take a turn for the virulently misogynistic. Even seemingly civilized internet spaces can’t seem to make it to triple digit posts before someone makes a crack about violence, or impugns the character or intelligence of these women, or says something equally gross. And then the whole board becomes a less comfortable place for me. So I can see a certain logic to wanting to nip this stuff in the bud. Sort of like open container laws.
I’m a man. I’m not bothered. But as has been pointed out, the context is very different for men and women.
That’s the tough part and the posters and mods need to work together to block that.
Not so much on the Dope though.
And personally I’d rather the rules are just clear that, say, sexist language is wrong and not preemptively ban stuff based on slippery slope arguments.
This is not to take away from your experiences though. There are forums I come across which even make me uncomfortable and I am not the gender being objectified.
It wasn’t that long ago that threads here about women absolutely did turn into misogynistic dreck.
When a man gets sexually objectified, it’s a black swan. If I were walking down the street and some woman yelled “Hey, hottie!” at me, I’d be amused, perhaps feel complimented. It would be an fun story to tell.
If that happened to me every day of my life, and was often a prelude to more aggressive unwanted advances, I would feel very differently.
I think this is a case where “treating everyone the same” is in fact unfair, because an interaction that would be a novelty to the majority of men would be a potential fight-or-flight trigger for many women.
It is arguable that posting pictures of scantily clad attractive women sends a message that sexual objectification of women is OK, and reinforces the perception that women should only be valued for their looks. But it’s not the same for men, because the idea that men should only be valued for their looks isn’t a widespread problem in society.
This kind of thinking is problematic, just like the thread about calling people crackers. Either a thing like sexual objectification is right or it is wrong. There should be no out card by saying we’ll wait until it gets just as bad for men and then we will do something about it. There should be no “catching up” period until men are objectified like women are.
That said, threads about the looks, or lack of them, of celebrities should be allowed. To pretend like every actor became famous based only on their acting talent is naive.
Not everyone approaches ethics that way.
~Max
I…don’t really anticipate men ever “catching up” in that area, except insofar as the level of female objectification decreases. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do anything about sexual harassment of men, just that it is rare enough that we can deal with it on a case by case basis.
Harassment of women, OTOH, is common enough that we should be acting proactively to address the underlying social causes of it (which, I’m sure, would also reduce the frequency of harassment of men).
And I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be rude and inappropriate for a woman to catcall me, just that it wouldn’t penetrate my psychic armor enough to disturb me, because said armor hasn’t been weakened by a lifelong barrage of similar microaggressions.
I agree with this. There seems to be a sort of fashion for objectifying male celebrities in the last few years, and I find it hypocritical. IMO it comes from some sort of fucked up desire for revenge, and that is not an impulse that should in indulged. Having the same rules for everyone is the right answer 99% of the time.
Well, I didn’t really anticipate Donald Trump becoming president either. You may think sexual harassment of men, gay or straight, is no big deal, but to those it happens to it is a big deal. A case by case basis works great if you have someone with big pockets to sue, not so much otherwise. The whole " men love being grabbed by the ass, they should be flattered" is a bunch of crap. This is an ideal situation for the one rule fits all solution. Everyone benefits.
We are already doing this, but it’s slow going. Doing both at once saves time and effort. Everyone working for an equal outcome, no downsides.
And just because you personally have never been harassed, doesn’t mean that just a small number of men have been. Add the heap of shame they get from both men and women for complaining about it, and you get low reporting figures.
The thing is that many of the people that scoff at the complaints are men, because, you know, it never happened to them. And if it didn’t happen to them, no way did it happen to another guy.
And I’m not belittling the problems that women face. They are huge and by treating men and women equally in this case, both can come out winners.
I don’t think so. It just requires a little nuance in your thinking.
I disagree. There are times when I would welcome this and times I wouldn’t. But I’m a man. But I’d say sexual objectification isn’t inherently a bad thing. The way it’s generally been used against women is. But I imagine some women don’t mind being objectified is certain circumstances by the right person/people.
What makes you think men will ever “catch up”? But, if it looks like this will happen, we address it then. Right now, the context of these objectifications are radically different and should be treated differently.
I knew a Scottish guy at uni who wore a kilt to the sports ball. Random girls were trying to lift it up all night. Women think we can do this stuff and it’s harmless, just a bit of fun, but he wasn’t happy. It was funny the first few times, and then it became annoying and invasive.
I don’t think we are talking about what you are. Are you saying that anyone, man or woman, could grab you by the dick at any time, and you are fine with that? Cuz, that’s what we, or at least me, are talking about. Nobody here has a problem with consensual touching. It’s a totally different subject.
Why? They are exactly the same thing. Fight the battle once, not twice. Doing this at the same time has absolutely no downside.
Yes, especially drunks. They see nothing wrong with trying to sit in your lap or put both arms around your shoulders when you are sitting at the table. It’s similar to the attitude we used to have for female teachers who slept with their students. “Wow! I would have loved for that hot teacher to sleep with me! Lucky guy!”.
Why? What’s the benefit to treating them differently?
Thing.Fish argued that prurient imagery rules treating men and women differently would be more fair than treating men and women the same. Because men tend to view sexual objectification as a novelty while for women it could be “a potential fight-or-flight trigger”. Maybe you disagree, but that was the argument as I read it.
iamthewalrus_3 made a distinct argument earlier in the discussion: a rule against objectifying men is a solution in search of a problem and thus unnecessary. A rule against objectifying women addresses an “a major social issue” and is thus justified. LSLGuy made the same argument: “Spend effort solving real problems, not invented largely imaginary problems.”
~Max
That’s assault, not objectification. I believe the topic was men as objects of lust. Not men as objects of sexual assault. Of course that should be prosecuted.
The point is they aren’t exactly the same thing. Context matters.
Because the history is so different, one is a solution to a non-existent problem.
If the mods just want to make a rule for everyone, I don’t really have a problem with that. But let’s not pretend men suffer objectification the way that women do.