No. I’m saying your attitudes - that ogling is a fact of life, women shouldn’t complain about it if they expose an inch of flesh, and if they do, they’re just as bad as the oglers - are shared by a lot of people. How do you think that affects the prevalence of this behavior?
And hey, that’s one question down! Do you think you could tackle any of the others?
Yes, for the rest of our lifetimes, it will be a law of the universe.
It’s not wrong to wear a revealing top.
Society makes both of those definitions. You and I, both being products of society, are comfortable using these terms because society has set the expectations. Unless you believe we should all walk around naked and expect placid responses from each other, then obviously there is a line between “modest” and “revealing.” When I say revealing, I mean as my father would say, “there is little left to the imagination.”
“HEY CREEPS! PLEASE STOP BEING CREEPS!”
If you read the post I responded to, Ascenray was speaking on the ideal expectations of society and I directly responded to that. He circled back to a previous topic.
I never equated the two. But I have no respect for feigned ignorance:
80% of my breasts are exposed and I’m getting ogled a lot. I cannot fathom the connection. Men are pigs.
Do you believe there is anything that can affect how often this stuff occurs.
And yet you implied it was. Weird, huh?
I actually don’t know what you mean when you use those terms. I’m asking you to try to be specific, and you’re not doing it.
That’s just a euphemism. And some people can imagine quite a lot. I don’t think women who wear conservative clothes are harassment-proof.
Try giving them the treatment you’re giving people in this thread and maybe that’ll count for something.
You’re done it several times. If you don’t want to give the impression that you find those two things equally objectionable, stop setting them in opposition to each other.
To be fair, it’s not about what you choose to validate. It’s probably better to take it from the people who are more likely to personally experience it any time it happens, as opposed to us guys, where on occasion, we may see someone else doing it to a particular woman.
My anecdote? I’ve seen other men ogle fully-clothed women, and doubt my witnessing it accounts for all the times its happened.
As to what “skimpy” is, that varies by whoever you’re talking to, but it’s pretty easy to detect and gauge what makes a person uncomfortable. Staring at a person in most parts of the US, is generally understood to be uncouth. Just the same, if they actually do want attention, there are usually other tells which go along with it. When I visit Miami, that’s understood to be more of a relaxed environment for attention. When a coworker is dressed for work, and adds a cami to her lower cut top, in order moderate her appearance, she’s probably not fishing for attention, even if she’s still bearing cleavage.
More simply, just don’t feel entitled, and you’re usually good. If you’re not good, own it, and learn from the experience.
I hauled around a pair of large baby nutritional delivery devices since I was 13 and it’s been the bane of my life. If I could step into a chamber that would change only one thing about my body, I would go for an A cup. Now that I’m old enough to be invisible to men it’s freed me to dress anyway I want without attracting attention. If I want to dress in a little tiny top in the 90 degree heat, it actually makes men look away. I kinda love that. I’m so glad I’m past the age being ogled.
Out of curiosity, how much time would you say you spend watching other guys to see if they’re staring at tits? As a percentage of your day, as a rough number of minutes/hours per week, whatever calculation method works for you. I’m not finicky. I’m also not a statistician, but I do know enough about statistics to know that unless you’re actively devoting some time and energy into gathering data, you can’t make any sort of accurate statements about how prevalent something actually is.
And I’ll just flat-out tell you, the last time I caught a guy actively staring at my tits, I was wearing a t-shirt. Not a tight one, not one with writing or other graphics deliberately placed right over the boobs, not one with a low neckline. Just a normal v-neck t-shirt that ended about a hand width below my collarbone. This shirt, actually, in a different color. Even with my giant tits, that shirt still falls a good inch above my cleavage. Even so, if I prop an elbow on a standing-height counter and lean forward an inch or two, you can see the very tops of my tits if you really try. And this guy was trying. Hard. It took me a minute to figure out what was going on, honestly–I had a horrible cold and had been blowing all sorts of disgusting shit out of my nose all day long, and I seriously thought at first that I had landed a booger on my shirt without managing to notice.
Yeah, except those guys don’t think they’re creeps. They think they’re just guys being guys, and of course they’re going to look. They’re guys after all, and it’s just not reasonable or fair or realistic to expect anything more or better from them. If we don’t want them to look, we ought not have our boobs out in the public view. That line of reasoning might sound slightly familiar to you.
Good news! I think you have a really good chance at winning your appeal to the Ogling Court of Appeals! If you win, you get a ruling of “That guy’s a creep, but nothing can be done about it.” However there is still a chance the court could return a ruling of “you exposed your boobs, so you can’t complain.”
In addition to some women who can’t help but look busty if they wear anything other than something painfully dowdy, there are actually women out there who think that revealing clothing (within reason) is attractive and they enjoy going out wearing clothing that makes them feel sexy and attractive. They shouldn’t be punished for it.
I have some outfits for special occasions that gasp actually show cleavage! Intentionally!
I don’t believe that when I do this I’m asking for it, that I deserve leers and crude comments all night. Actually, I rarely get this. Maybe it’s because the true creeps don’t go out as much and prefer to stay on the internet. What usually happens when I dress up is any of the following:
All those outcomes are totally fine with me. Any mention of the breasts, any outright staring, lewdness- not ok. I don’t see why this is so hard to understand.
people should not be surprised that when they make themselves attractive that they then attract attention.
I think my gender just got reduced to the passive voice.
A lot of of people keep harping about this, which seems a bit odd because no one seems to actually be advocating or defending outright staring or lewdness.
So there’s no reason to assume that anyone is having a hard time understanding anything.
FWIW, my guess is that a lot of people who do “outright staring” don’t realize they’ve being as obvious as that, and think their “eyes [are] drop[ing] down for a split second”.
Did you read the OP?
They get ticked because it’s rude. It’s really not that complicated.
Am I the only guy who feels bad about looking at some stranger’s chestal area (or other body part), even if it’s only for a quick second, and even if it’s involuntary?
Well, involuntary in the sense that, sometimes someone attractive will stroll by, and my eyes will wander, even if I don’t intend for that to happen. Boobs are magnetic, I’m sorry.
The thing is, firstly I feel bad about it because I’m invading the privacy of the person in question by looking. But I also feel bad because* I *feel exposed. I don’t need her to know what dirty stuff is on my mind. Even more so because, if she catches me looking, the *only *thing she now knows about me is that I’m the kind of guy who looks at boobs.
My brain is half pig, and I hate that. Don’t really need it, don’t really want it.
I would certainly never stare. That’s just… yes, creepy. And I feel enough like a creep as it is.
No, Marley, Ascenray and Lefty seem to feel similarly (I think they are all guys). There are definitely men who were raised by mothers who seem to have instilled a proper sense of shame when caught (or even not caught) gawking at strangers. Those not guilty of needing the passive voice to blame the boobies for their bad manners.
I’m guessing that the whole tread was TLDR?
The discussion is not if people “attract attention” it is people are staring or otherwise acting even ruder.
There was a thread once where the poster, a male teacher, described a situation at an event where he was with a female teacher and one of the high school girls came by and obviously showed off her boobs, for which the poster said he simply could not go there. As a teacher, there’s no way for him to be caught looking.
I teach English here in Taiwan, where the girls will wear hot pants. You simply don’t go there.
I think we all forget that any “quick glances” last far longer than what we imagine.
Yeah, but is that practical as a recipe for the entirety of one’s life? Honest question.
If I was a teacher or similar, I imagine that I would be self-policing myself a hell of a lot, and be aware of the issue at all times during the working day. But I think it’s hard to go through every waking moment of one’s life like that, and the idea of doing so even feels a bit absurd, you know? Maybe I should, though.
Not that I’m walking around like a steaming cauldron of potentially rapey suppressed desire or anything. And I’m certainly not finding myself magically drawn to every bosom that comes at me when I walk down the street. Most of them I never notice, or care about, and when I do, I do try to control myself and not come off as a drooling nitwit. But, yeah, as I said, it would be nice to shut down the horndog part of my brain when I’m not using it for anything productive. Because the damned thing trips me up sometimes if I’m not paying attention, and I don’t like it.
Maybe constant vigilance is the answer. Because, you know, chances are that this guy didn’t mean to look. He might have been thinking about quantum physics or world peace, and something caught his eye for a second. But he still looks freaking retarded, at least to me. And I don’t want to be that guy. I want to look straight ahead, regardless, stoically and asexually.
Lol. Even on the Forum at a thread with no pix - people look. 7700+ views for a thread that just MENTIONS cleavage! And still going strong. 
My summary - If you got 'em, flaunt 'em - in appropriate circumstances. But be classy about it.
Look but don’t stare. Be classy about it.
And don’t feel guilty about either the flaunting or the looking. Both are perfectly natural for both sexes.
But -
Cleavage or a short skirt are not to be mixed up with a personal invitation to party.
Normally I avoid watching parades, especially the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, seeing giant Snoopy & Woodstock balloons float down the street is so passé in 2014.
However, I think your idea of having women “parade their breasts around” could revitalize the concept of a Thanksgiving Day Parade.
That little phrase, “parade their breasts around” is extremely vivid and very exciting!
Actually, I’m having trouble concentrating on typing this reply, as I am imagining entire platoons, no brigades, of cheerleaders clad in Victoria’s Secret lingerie marching down the street.
I think I would regularly attend parades if Victoria’s Secret sponsored them.
Great idea! “parade their breasts around” So vivid, and so exciting!
You should suggest that to the mayor of NYC.
If we started a thread about Ayn Rand’s cleavage, we’d have a world-record-breaker.
