Here’s the thing, though: IMHO, women don’t refrain from making similar comments out of respect for men; they just don’t think of it. So it’s not that guys are sexist or misogynistic or whatever, it’s just that we spend much more time thinking about boobies.
Let me put it this way- if there were a thread discussing the relative merits of various jock strap styles, do you really think female posters would stay out of it because they thought we might be offended?
She wasn’t asking men to stay out of bra threads, she was saying that some men post inappropriate comments in those threads. A man who offered advice that was on topic would not be offensive. It’s the men who post lascivious comments who are in error in those threads.
As I said above, it’s all about context.
Thanks for giving examples. Chase Ransom’s response reflects my own thoughts on this brouhaha. It’s a long one, I won’t quote in full because that’s annoying, but …
Again – good post, he says many true things.
Then, Rubystreak raises the question of whether there is sexism (and its constant companion, frat boy humor) on the boards:
Yes, it’s true there are men who come into non-sexual discussion of breasts and make asinine jokes – that doesn’t mean, however, that Tracy Lord is an innocent victim of that dynamic: She is the one who brought her breasts, and their occasional amazingness, into a thread that wasn’t about her breasts. That she would prefer that this didn’t open them up to commentary is clear – but it’s the dynamic that those of us who are criticizing her are trying to get her to look at.
Should we live in a world where women can flaunt their breasts – or, in the online equivalent of that, mention in a thread about stain treatment that hers look particularly amazing in some garments – without anyone reacting? Maybe – probably. But we don’t – and the way to battle that reaction (whether we want to call that reaction “sexism” or just “immaturity”) isn’t to create the situation and then yell “Gotcha!” when someone takes the bait.
I’m not saying that she did that consciously or deliberately, but it’s looking to a lot of us that that’s what she did, and that’s the dynamic we’re trying to point out. (Or were, since apparently she’s wandered off in search of the enlightened community that we are not.)
From my POV, this is mostly about her naivete and immaturity, as several of my fellow women of a certain age have pointed out. Hopefully she’ll learn that she can’t pick and choose how people will react to her mentioning her breasts, and learn to think a bit more carefully about throwing them out there as subjects of banter . I would hope that she would take this as an opportunity to learn something about how to function in the world we live in as a mature adult, just as, hopefully, she’ll learn that allowing a drunken man into your apartment isn’t a good idea, but that his behavior doesn’t constitute stalking.
Tracy, honey, if you’re still reading this – if one person tells you you’re got a tail, go ahead and ignore them. Once a couple of dozen people mention it, it’s probably a good idea to take a look behind you to see what’s coming out of your ass.
Look, there’s no reason to take it out on her breasts.
Sorry… replace “stay out of it” with “refrain from posting inappropriate comments”. It had not occurred to me that female posters might have something appropriate to a jock strap thread; now that I think about it, of course, there would surely be at least one “my boyfriend/son/husband swears by Brand X” or whatever.
Wow, the more I read from you the more bitter you sound.
So let me get this straight, because Tracy (honey) brought up the fact that a shirt made her breasts look amazing ONCE she has given “permission” now and forevermore for people to make comments about them? Really? No, really?
As it was mentioned earlier, people have brought it up in several threads now not just the original and the one that caused this pit thread. So, according to your logic, that’s ok and they can continue to do it because she mentioned it once?
By that token I guess I can follow you around and remind everyone about your dating life since you’ve posted about it before. Around the time I first registered you made a post about how you were disappointed in a dating situation and then asked the mods to close it because you felt picked on. I’d search for it but you start so many threads it would be like looking for a specific turd at a sewage center. So are you now forever “My dating life sucks and don’t pick on me about it!” lady? Should people comment about it in any thread that you post in, especially the ones that are in the slightest about relationships? I mean, you put your dating life out there for all of us to read so it must be ok to comment on it.
A person brought it up in one other thread. Plus this one.
Marley mentioned another thread - the one about ‘signals’.
Wrong.
It was, like mentioned by Marley earlier, brought up in the “Women and Signals” thead and I know I’ve seen it at least one other time. Am I going to search for it? No because the search feature here sucks and I don’t want to waste the time.
Of course it was mentioned in the original thread. Then the “Women and Signals” and then the thread Tracy started about her co-worker and THIS one. So, I’m afraid it was more than one like you claimed.
aaaaand on preview Suse beat me to it 
Knock yourself out.
I think I’m glad I’m not that Derry boy that started working at Tracy’s magazine. Maybe I should warn him.
Never mind, I found it… and guess what? It was the same guy. I now retract anything I may previously have said about Tracy Lord overreacting.
The question now becomes: why the hell didn’t she just Pit dba Fred?
ETA: I guess technically Koxinga brought it up first, but he didn’t mention her by name, and he brought it up in the context of a thread about exactly that topic… much the same way Tracy mentioned her breasts in the first place.
The original thread was only three weeks ago, so it’s not exactly ancient history.
It’s academic at this point, but yes, Tracy Lord could have rolled with the punches some more. She got hostile with people who, at least the first time around, were kidding and not doing anything unusual for this board. As shown in the thread about the creepy guy in her apartment, her standards on that kind of thing might be different from most people’s. I don’t believe she was attention whoring in the red wine stain thread, though. Even if she was, why are people bringing it up in unrelated threads?
Some of these posts read as defenses of "I want to keep making ‘I demand a cite!’ posts in bra threads. Most posters see it as harmless fun, it’s standard around here, but I think there’s a negative reaction to the idea that not everybody is cool with that stuff.
Just so I had the full picture, I went back and read the first page of the ‘women and signals’ thread, which contained the exchanges between Tracy Lord, Koxinga, and dbaFred. (If there were more later on, I haven’t read them.) I get where she’s coming from now in that the ‘new co-worker’ thread was the last straw for her. I wouldn’t have started this thread, although it’s become an interesting discussion for those of us who aren’t involved in the issue; I would have put those two particular posters on ignore.
Once again: Breasts are not sexual all the time. Mentioning breasts isn’t a come-on or a signal unless other statements by the poster in question indicate that is what is going on. She wasn’t inappropriate in feeling uncomfortable; Koxinga and dbaFred were by continuing to make the unwanted comments, although by now it’s clear to see that they are less interested in using the word boobies as they are in trying to see just how upset they can get her. Nice job, guys.
To be fair, that thread was about how she seemingly sent out a signal, not just random boobtalk.
Yes, and she explained what signal she was sending (I love my shirt and here is why) and why she was disconcerted at the response it received. The response she got was (paraphrasing) ‘you specifically mentioned your boobs, so you made it about your boobs, not us’. Even then she handled it pretty well, but by that time apparently she was a special project for dbaFred, who wasn’t willing to let it drop even in another unrelated thread.
I guess that I’m similar to Tracy Lord in that I’d like to think that grown men can handle a woman mentioning her breasts in a non-sexual manner without reverting back to their high-school sniggering.
Well, I’ve read through the whole thread and it does seem to me that (some) people just want to justify being jerkish.
I can honestly say, as a guy, whenever I’ve seen mention of breasts I have successfully managed to resist the urge to let my inner 10-year old out and post something unoriginal and unfunny about seeing them. In fact, in case it’s not clear, it seems like a crass and - I repeat - intently unfunny (even more so than ‘hi opal’, though it draws the same sigh from me) so I wouldn’t see the point.
That said, I don’t see the sexism - just some immaturity. In real life practical terms, not mentioning them in the first place would seem like a good way to avoid tempting those that must feel this is the height of hilarity.
This is exactly what I continue to fail to understand–it’s basically one (or maybe two, now that I see mentions of Koxinga doing it in the signals thread) guy doing this stupid shit and a few different folks who will throw on an add-on zinger once she reacts to guy one.
Why make a dramabomb out of “Add dbaFred to your ignore list?” I mean, I’d already concluded he was a jerk on this subject. By making it about “sexism on the dope” instead of “some half-dozen guys are jerks to her about this, one or two repeatedly”, she alienated a lot of people who were all set to support her either in this thread or the other.
I think some people want to justify being jerkish, and some people are offended by the idea this is about the boards being sexist as opposed to the particular way the flirting subculture in MPSIMS reacts to certain stimuli.
Okay, the fact that it was primarily one person does make a difference – but: