I read this to my husband. His response was:
broad grin ‘‘Boobies.’’
You seem to think that feminism and masculinity in men are mutually exclusive. In reality, whether someone exhibits feminine or masculine traits has nothing to do with whether they view women as equals. The idea that embracing gender equality takes away one’s manliness is just something misogynists made up to feel better about being assholes.
This reminds me of another observation; that many feminist women are as likely, or almost as likely, as non-feminist women to be attracted to men who are tall, wealthy, ambitious, confident, older, etc. - in other words, embodying the “traditional” manly image of a man, even though that may be associated as more ‘patriarchal’.
Being feminist or non-feminist often doesn’t change biology or biological attraction/preference.
Being attracted to women doesn’t require one to exhibit masculine personality and behavioral traits, nor does an embrace of feminist perspectives require one to relinquish tendencies to be attracted to women. The impact of feminist perspectives on masculine traits is less clear-cut: it is a perspective that tends to revalorize many traits considered feminine, and to examine conventional masculinity with a critical eye. But to the extent that we’re talking about attributes of personality rather than socially loaded examples of privilege, it does at most formidable merely undo a bit of enshrining of some masculine characteristics.
Well no, you still dont get what I meant. I was asking do feminist men still get turned on by women’s bodies?
It’s like back in college. When the women would go lay out in their bikinis to get some sun, I suddenly had an urge to go play frisbie near them.
Add onto that, I dont think any man can say the word “panties” without smiling.
Why wouldn’t they? What on earth do you think “feminist” means?
apparently he thinks it means they are gay.
Well, sure. In many cases that is probably true. I do know people whose preferences have changed as they examined their own prejudices, but I find it unlikely that I will ever not be attracted to masculinity. My husband is 5’7’’ and 160 pounds - not a masculine stereotype. He’s gorgeous, but I didn’t notice that until after fell in love with him. I fell in love with him because he is kind, intelligent, and gentle. So there’s a difference between what one is naturally biologically attracted to and what one looks for in a mate. We look for shared values, wanting basically the same things out of life, and the ability to work as a team to achieve financial stability. We look for ''Can I spend 18 hours on a cross-country road trip with this person and not want to strangle him?" Whether he fits the biological stereotype of the ideal manly man is really way far down on my list of priorities.
To clarify: I have no problem with men being manly. I have a problem when men feel constant pressure to always be manly, at the cost of their mental health, and I have a problem when men are punished for displaying feminine traits. I also have a problem when manliness is associated with aggressive and controlling and abusive behavior toward women. I see them as two separate concepts that are often conflated.
I guess I still don’t get it either. Do you equate “male feminist=gay”?
Maybe he’s confused since feminist sounds a little like effeminate or feminine.
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Don’t matter. Effeminate and/or feminine also doesn’t equate to gay.
I think UrbanRedneck is supposing that feminists think there’s something inherently sexist about being sexually attracted to women’s bodies, and that “male feminists” have somehow unlearned this attraction as part of their feministisation process.
I’m not sure if it’s a serious question or not but it’s not totally off the wall. The way that some feminists carry on about “objectification” of women, it almost does seem as though they find the very idea problematic.
I have encountered heterosexual men who regard themselves as feminist and feel guilty about their sexual attraction to women’s bodies. These are the ones that self-describe as radical feminists, and spend inordinate amounts of time on social media lecturing sex workers and their allies that they’re doing feminism wrong.
As stated above, I find some women’s bodies sexually attractive too. The difference is not in the attraction but the reaction to the attraction. One can discreetly enjoy another person’s appearance without treating that person as if the sole purpose of their existence is to provide you with enjoyment. I like boobs (generally speaking) and yet when talking to an alluringly be-boobed person I somehow manage not to turn into Encino Man, staring, drooling and trying to grab the pretty gazongas (or stuttering “Th-th-thank you!” for any inadvertent cleavage views). See, I have this incredibly clever trick I do in these instances. It’s called “treating the other person as a person”. I know it sounds crazy, but it works!
(I kid, but this is entirely the point of the “objectification” argument - not that you should never find another person attractive nor that you should never try to establish a sexual relationship with anyone in an appropriate context, but rather that your attraction and your sexual desire do not entitle you to treat another person like an object existing purely for your personal gratification. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand for some people.)
What. The. Fuck?
Can you please tell us what a feminist man means to you?
There’s more to the conversation, but there needs to be at least some understanding of the terminology in order to continue.
In your view, what makes a man a feminist? What means that a man isn’t?
That is pretty close to my thinking.
I think this picture explains it.
It just seems to me that “feminists” hate it when say men get turned on by sexy women’s bodies. That whole term “objectification” is they get mad at men for being… well men. I knew one woman who told me “I should be able to walk down the street totally naked and you shouldnt do anything about it”. Probably also why so many feminist women dress so dumpy.
To be honest, it gets confusing.
Can one be all for equal rights, equal pay, equal opportunity, all that but still be proud to be a guy and ok to get turned on by a hot womans body? Granted I know you can look but dont touch or allow yourself to be seen looking.
So I need to ask you, is a feminist man required to turn off the “boobies are hot” part of their brains?
The picture you posted is a person (the caption calls her “ugly lady”) holding a sign that says “Women are not for decoration.”
Do you, Urbanredneck, consider attractive women to decoration?
ETA - do you find the idea that a woman should be able to be naked without you “doing anything” to be a perplexing thought?
What sort of thing do you believe you should be allowed to “do” if confronted by a naked lady?
Smiling and nodding are probably acceptable to anyone who would put herself in that situation, if conversation is called for then I personally find that saying “hubba, hubba” is fine if you follow it with a sincere compliment about her hairstyle or makeup.
But, a woman is not an ornament, she is person, and how she chooses to dress or present herself is nobody else’s business.
[QUOTE=Urbanredneck]
Can one be all for equal rights, equal pay, equal opportunity, all that but still be proud to be a guy and ok to get turned on by a hot womans body?
[/QUOTE]
Yes.
No.
They are required to view women as human beings who do not exist solely for their gratification. They are required to treat people with respect regardless of their gender.
What this means varies greatly depending on the context. It’s one of those things that requires judgment in the moment. If you see a pretty woman on the street, as you well know it’s not appropriate to grab her and kiss her. But if you’re on a date, and she is making eyes at you, and smiling, and leaning toward you, it’s a very different story. You may have the exact same physiological reaction in both cases, but your behavior will be different depending on the context. Some people really cannot tell the difference. Their mentality is, ‘‘I see this thing, it exists for my pleasure, I am entitled to it’’ and that’s how you get creeps following women down the street, leering at them, shouting obscenities, etc. That’s how you get domestic violence (at my org, fully 60% of domestic violence incidents involve sexual assault). Domestic violence toward women is a form of objectification; it is predicated on the idea that a woman is a thing to own and control. Objectification is how you get date rape and all other sorts of evils.
Now most men, even men who do not identify as feminists, would not engage in these awful behaviors, but their silence in the face of them indicates tacit approval. They may undermine a woman’s view of things or handwave away her story of assault (just peruse the Dope if you’re looking for good examples), or they might not speak up if they see a woman being harassed, and that, IMO, is where the onus of responsibility lies on most feminist men. To be a feminist man means you can’t just sit back and let that shit happen.
Being turned on by a woman is human, natural, beautiful. Disrespecting her as a person is not.
I don’t think that meme is consistent with feminist values at all. Women are not, in fact, decorations and the protestor’s personal level of attractiveness has jack shit to do with the validity of her argument. The meme actually proves her argument - she is being treated as an object, a less desirable one than the other objects in the picture. In reality, the worth and value of every woman in that picture transcend whether some meme-creating asshole thinks she’s hot or not. (I see this as very different than say, posting a picture of a woman you find attractive – there is no inherent value judgment in that, just ‘‘this chick’s hot’’ which is human enough.)
It’s not as stupid a question as some people may be thinking it is. Some feminists HAVE EVER expressed the sentiment that it is always evil and wrong to sexually objectify someone. Or at least for a man to do so to a woman because of the existing power imbalance.
Most of the feminists with whom I’ve had that kind of conversation have said that the problem isn’t objectification in and of itself, but rather a tendency to let it take priority over treating people as people in virtually any context – and that it is the pattern of men doing THAT towards women that is part and parcel of the existing power imbalance. Thus, it isn’t always wrong to respond to a female person with a reaction mostly grounded in having the hots for her, even if who she is is a former senator and a brilliant oil painter. Context is everything. If you’re chairing a debate and she’s a participant, it’s totally inappropriate to deal with her as a cutely curvy attractive person and ignore her as a proponent of tax credits for carbon footprint reduction who has a track record of reaching across the aisle.
Sexuality being what it is, anyone can be struck at any time with a powerful impression of someone else as a deliciously attractive sex object, and yes it can eclipse other impressions of that person. Feminists don’t say that this never happens to female people; they say that as women they learned to hide and suppress and subsume that reaction, and that men whose attraction is towards women have learned instead to embrace that reaction with a “hot damn!” because gee how could it ever be inappropriate because after all that’s why women were put on earth iddn’t it? etc;
There’s other feminist observations about male sexual behavior, observations made with varying degrees of irritation and critical dissection, to which an attracted male’s behavior could run afoul. There is a lot to be learned by NOT assuming you know which differences in sexuality are built in biologically and which aren’t, and looking at your own (and other men’s) sexual behaviors as they differ from women’s and analyzing them yourself, just to be thinking about it. Is there, for example, something about a lot of stereotypical male reaction that makes it all about his appetite and very little about whether or not he is attractive to her in return? Might there be a reason for that, a social reason?