Topic: Happy New Salt + What's on your mind 2012: CHILL YOUR HEAD (Read 116275 times)

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Jumped through a few links. found this. http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/page/3 (EDIT: I meant: http://www.jimchines.com/2012/04/posing-like-a-man/) Agreed with it mostly, BUT:

How does one emphasize sexuality over everything else of a posed male in any image without the male appearing to have feminine traits? (Honest question)

Is this possible? It does not seem so.

I guess my question is  why would you want to?  There's no reason to try to sexualize men to the degree women are sexualized.  The idea is to NOT objectify women, not start objectifying men.  The exercise is pretty futile anyway because it's completely divorced from the larger cultural environment.  The problem isn't JUST that women are sexualized, it's that their sexualized in a patriarchal society that oppresses them.  Simply sexualizing men does not put them in the same spot.  I mean I get that you were just asking how they could be sexualized, but I would just ask why it matters.  It wouldn't have the same meaning anyway.

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Also, to a lesser degree, power and strength are traits commonly associated with attractive males. As in, to make a male sexy to most people that find men attractive, don't you need them to have the strong dominating look? Rather than the look of a waif? This is merely the most POPULAR sexy look. The look that (as far as I know) is what women find attractive in the most common sense. (obviously not in every sense). The big ripped chest, muscular arms and legs, chiseled jaw, etc.

Please note, I do not find giant breasts and impossible waists attractive in women, but I think that is because I'm not in the majority. I'm pretty sure the majority of men want just that. Just like its arguable that majority of women want the giant man.

It's pretty counter productive to talk about what women find attractive.  Everyone finds different things attractive.  The problem is that the "standard" of beauty is based on patriarchal attitudes.  Men are supposed to be physically strong and violent and therefore muscular, so the muscular man is the "ideal".  Women are supposed to be thin and frail with huge tits and submissive to the man, so that's the "ideal" woman.  This really doesn't have anything to do with what people are actually attracted to.  They're just representations of what the ideal people would look like in a patriarchal society.  I'm not saying people AREN'T attracted to these things, I just think trying to categorize what's attractive to the majority is fairly futile.

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You could argue that you should perhaps see the outline of their dicks and balls in their pants? But I don't think that would be sexually attractive to the common woman. perhaps I am wrong though.

But these are estimations based on what I've seen of our culture. So I understand that may not be technically accurate.

I do cringe at the BOOBS/ASS shot.

It's hard to say what a sexualized man should look like because a) it's not all that useful to think about and b) what is attractive is 100% dependent on who you ask.  In patriarchal societies men aren't SUPPOSED to be sexualized.  If you're really interested in sexualized and objectified men, I suppose you could look to gay porn.  However, I think it's interesting to note that you're going to find a huge variety of body types and appearances (twinks vs bears for extreme examples), which isn't nearly as common in straight porn.  It also is coming from a man's perspective as opposed to a woman's, which may make a difference.  But again, there's no reason to consider the objectified man because it'll never have the same meaning in the wider context as an objectified woman.  Men aren't objectified in nearly every facet of society, so objectifying them once isn't going to matter much.
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I assume you were refering to http://thegamesofchance.blogspot.com/2011/12/feature-sexism-in-character-design.html
It's the Shortpacked comic on that page.
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I guess my question is  why would you want to?  There's no reason to try to sexualize men to the degree women are sexualized.  The idea is to NOT objectify women, not start objectifying men.  The exercise is pretty futile anyway because it's completely divorced from the larger cultural environment.  The problem isn't JUST that women are sexualized, it's that their sexualized in a patriarchal society that oppresses them.  Simply sexualizing men does not put them in the same spot.  I mean I get that you were just asking how they could be sexualized, but I would just ask why it matters.  It wouldn't have the same meaning anyway.

Well, because I see the argument that men are sexualized in japan as "Bishies". But that is generally looked down on in the US. I was trying to figure out if a strong man can be viewed as sexualized. Also, many would disagree that there is no reason for sexualization of men. I'm sure that would appeal to some women. Further, if the amount of CLEAR sexualization was applied to both genders equally, its hard to imagine this facet of the gender issue even coming up. But it is brought up. Commonly.

The problem isn't JUST that women are sexualized, it's that their sexualized in a patriarchal society that oppresses them.  Simply sexualizing men does not put them in the same spot.  I mean I get that you were just asking how they could be sexualized, but I would just ask why it matters.  It wouldn't have the same meaning anyway.
But, looking at it that way, is the sexualization the problem? Or even part of it? Is it not possible to sexualize women (or men) in any context and not be living in a patriarchy? Is the dominion of SEX in media just a man thing? Does sex not appeal to the interests of women when it is portrayed in media?

It's pretty counter productive to talk about what women find attractive.  Everyone finds different things attractive.  The problem is that the "standard" of beauty is based on patriarchal attitudes.  Men are supposed to be physically strong and violent and therefore muscular, so the muscular man is the "ideal".  Women are supposed to be thin and frail with huge tits and submissive to the man, so that's the "ideal" woman.  This really doesn't have anything to do with what people are actually attracted to.  They're just representations of what the ideal people would look like in a patriarchal society.  I'm not saying people AREN'T attracted to these things, I just think trying to categorize what's attractive to the majority is fairly futile.
But most would argue that the standard comes from human nature/evolution/etc, which means there is a majority (or at least it could be argued that its probable). Sure, its probably been warped to some degree during the ages, but if you look at almost every culture this was the case. Men being tough, women being delicate. Is the patriarchy built into our minds at birth and then merely reinforced by culture? Is this an aspect of human nature that should cease? (honest question, "natural =/= good" is largely how I feel anyway, My computer isn't natural, but it definitely a good thing, death is natural, I don't think its a good thing in the slightest.)

It's hard to say what a sexualized man should look like because a) it's not all that useful to think about and b) what is attractive is 100% dependent on who you ask.  In patriarchal societies men aren't SUPPOSED to be sexualized.  If you're really interested in sexualized and objectified men, I suppose you could look to gay porn.  However, I think it's interesting to note that you're going to find a huge variety of body types and appearances (twinks vs bears for extreme examples), which isn't nearly as common in straight porn.  It also is coming from a man's perspective as opposed to a woman's, which may make a difference.  But again, there's no reason to consider the objectified man because it'll never have the same meaning in the wider context as an objectified woman.  Men aren't objectified in nearly every facet of society, so objectifying them once isn't going to matter much.
Does this not support the reasoning behind exploring the sexualization of men? That by sexualizing men, you are breaking away from patriarchy in a form?

OK, outside of this, I understand the message here though, you think that sexualization should stop entirely? Maybe? because sexualization means something different to women than it does to men. That neither men, nor women, should be sexualized in media. Outside of porn? Or are you against pornographic material? Also serious question.

This brings up another question, what would straight porn look like if made entirely for straight women? Could such a thing even exist? Does it?

Or what would a woman fantasize about BEING? A man wants to be physically strong and dominating (or in some cases witty and intellectually dominating) What would be a woman's fantasy character be like? Are all these avenues of exploration of gender issues not worth looking at?

It's the Shortpacked comic on that page.
OK, Yeah I thought that might have been it. Wasn't completely sure though.

Though I understand the comics point, Batman was a poor example. Or any "known" character for that matter. I remember there being an old black lady character (I don't remember the name) but they apparently changed her in the "New 52" and made her a hot 25 year old. If I was a follower of such a character I would be baffled and maybe enraged. Just as I would if they made a powerful looking character sexy, like in the case of that batman. I don't know if the example I cite caused too much rage among the comic book reading people though.

I don't read comics really so much so I couldn't argue about the sexualization in them to well for either side. Based on the covers and image grabs though yeah it seems clear that they are sexist.
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In my mind, the issue is not simply the sexualization of women in media. Rather, it is the degree and type of sexualization that media applies to the female subject.

Sexual objectification of men and women is not per se a bad thing - after all, to a great degree sexuality is all about objectifying and judging a partner based on superficial sexual traits.

The problem is that in our culture, sexual objectification of women is overwhelmingly the default or "normal" portrayal. Almost anything that isn't is a deliberate deviation.

Look around in popular movies, TV shows, commercials, etc. If there is a woman present, they are typically a sexual prop, to be viewed as an object for the protagonist's or audience's consumption. This is inarguably a negative and disrespectful portrayal, and you almost never see it applied to men in media, who are usually the central figure and more fully developed. An extension to this phenomenon is that media is typically constructed from a male viewpoint and caters to male desires and interests - see the "male gaze".
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I think it's also because most people working on this are headed and crowded by male people.
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I think Belross's post gives you a good idea of what's going on with what you're discussing but I'm going to go through your post anyway.

Well, because I see the argument that men are sexualized in japan as "Bishies". But that is generally looked down on in the US. I was trying to figure out if a strong man can be viewed as sexualized. Also, many would disagree that there is no reason for sexualization of men. I'm sure that would appeal to some women. Further, if the amount of CLEAR sexualization was applied to both genders equally, its hard to imagine this facet of the gender issue even coming up. But it is brought up. Commonly.
But, looking at it that way, is the sexualization the problem? Or even part of it? Is it not possible to sexualize women (or men) in any context and not be living in a patriarchy? Is the dominion of SEX in media just a man thing? Does sex not appeal to the interests of women when it is portrayed in media?

Basically, this is what Belross's post answers.  It's not that there's never a reason for a character to be sexual.  It's the fact that they are being used as sex objects and nothing else.  There is no good reason for this.  People don't need to be objectified, but in our society "people" nearly always means "women" when it comes to sexual objectification.  This is a problem.  Applying the same sexualization to both genders wouldn't change the rest of the patriarchy though, and that's why doing this is entirely useless.  I never said there was never a reason to make a man sexy, this is fine.  What we're talking about is objectification.  Objectifying men (which is pretty damn rare in our society) isn't any better than objectifying women.  Sure, some women would like it.  A lot of men like women being sexualized in every part of media too.  That's part of what keeps it going.  That doesn't make it okay.  People shouldn't be reduced to objects period.  It's just that this happens OVERWHELMINGLY to women and so focusing on the fact that it can happen to men too is missing the big picture.


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But most would argue that the standard comes from human nature/evolution/etc, which means there is a majority (or at least it could be argued that its probable). Sure, its probably been warped to some degree during the ages, but if you look at almost every culture this was the case. Men being tough, women being delicate. Is the patriarchy built into our minds at birth and then merely reinforced by culture? Is this an aspect of human nature that should cease? (honest question, "natural =/= good" is largely how I feel anyway, My computer isn't natural, but it definitely a good thing, death is natural, I don't think its a good thing in the slightest.)

Patriarchy isn't natural.  Your heart is in the right place with this but you've got to understand that a lot of the "science" around these sorts of things are totally bullshit.  For example, some people argue that men fall into the "tough" role because they are naturally stronger.  However, the ONLY place you really see a big difference in men and women re: the ability to build muscle is at the very very extremes (think world-class athletes).  For most people, men and women are equally capable of growing muscle and being strong.  However, you don't see a lot of totally ripped women walking around.  Why?  Societal pressures teaching women that they need to be fit but not muscular.  This is 100% a product of culture, not biology.  You say "most" would argue that it's human nature, but the majority of sociologists agree that it's nurture instead of nature.  Nothing about the patriarchy is built into our brains, it just starts being put there as soon as we're old enough to notice the world around us.  It feels "natural" because we've been surrounded by it our entire lives.  That doesn't make it biological.   

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Does this not support the reasoning behind exploring the sexualization of men? That by sexualizing men, you are breaking away from patriarchy in a form?

I could break away from the patriarchy by killing all men too, that doesn't automatically make it right.

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OK, outside of this, I understand the message here though, you think that sexualization should stop entirely? Maybe? because sexualization means something different to women than it does to men. That neither men, nor women, should be sexualized in media. Outside of porn? Or are you against pornographic material? Also serious question.

This brings up another question, what would straight porn look like if made entirely for straight women? Could such a thing even exist? Does it?

I don't think there's anything wrong with sexuality.  The problem is sexualization in the sense of objectification.  That is absolutely wrong.  Reducing people to objects is dehumanizing.  The difference between sexuality and objectification is very important.  Porn in particular is a problematic area and you'll get a lot of different answers on it.  I am absolutely against mainstream porn as it is today, but I'm not against porn itself.  The problem is the "standard" current mainstream porn is INSANELY misogynistic and absolutely disgusting.  Women are entirely objectified, as in they are literally just objects to be used to get the man off.  They end with his ejaculation, so clearly the end goal of sex is supposed to be that the man cums.  The woman is almost always passive.  Again, I'm talking about mainstream porn in general, there will always be a few exceptions and there will always be niche porn outside of that.  There is porn for straight women, but very few and most of it has to be purchased instead of found on random websites.  There was a website I came across a while back that was for a female-focused porn festival, but I can't remember the name right now.  If I can find it I'll edit the link in.  There's also porn for lesbians (not to be confused with "lesbian porn" intended for straight men, which is sometimes more misogynist than the straight porn).  However, since we live in a society that doesn't believe women should be sexual, we're just now seeing people in the porn industry who are really willing to market towards women.

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Or what would a woman fantasize about BEING? A man wants to be physically strong and dominating (or in some cases witty and intellectually dominating) What would be a woman's fantasy character be like? Are all these avenues of exploration of gender issues not worth looking at?

You don't think women fantasize about being strong?  Or witty?  This is a problem.  You're gendering desires.  Women aren't monolithic.  Women have all different desires and wants.  I can't tell you what women want to be.  I can't tell you what men want to be.  Some women want to have successful careers.  Some want to be stay at home parents.  Some want to be body builders.  Some want to be in the army.  Some want to be fashion models.  The exact same is true of men.  The sooner you stop thinking about women and men being these concrete groups that all want similar things the better.
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Also, a problem with dealing with "but what do women really want???" is that the whole concept has already been poisoned by the patriarchy. Gender roles and desires have been reinforced over and over again by society and media to the extent that women (and men!) have basically been conditioned towards wanting certain things and acting certain ways. So it's kind of unfair to suddenly say "okay girls what do you REALLY want to be when you grow up, no really ignore your 100% patriarchal upbringing and tell me."
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Yeah, you can't fight back by doing the same thing to men that men do to women. That doesn't mean you can't have things that are sexualized, or sex-based entertainment: the point always and unerringly the fact that a systemic gender-based oppression exists. Commit this fact to memory, because it's the background radiation of every single discussion of feminism. It's also to be kept in mind that if you try to make a "correction" by objectifying men, for whatever reason you'd want that, you're opening yourself up to legitimate claims of hypocrisy. Moral principles can only be applied across the board, otherwise it's unequivocally hypocritical.

Affirmative action is not a good comparison, because the principle is anti-racist through a forceful correction of the white male bias. No cause is aided by equally objectifying men and women.
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Basically, this is what Belross's post answers.  It's not that there's never a reason for a character to be sexual.  It's the fact that they are being used as sex objects and nothing else.  There is no good reason for this.  People don't need to be objectified, but in our society "people" nearly always means "women" when it comes to sexual objectification.  This is a problem.  Applying the same sexualization to both genders wouldn't change the rest of the patriarchy though, and that's why doing this is entirely useless.  I never said there was never a reason to make a man sexy, this is fine.  What we're talking about is objectification.  Objectifying men (which is pretty damn rare in our society) isn't any better than objectifying women.  Sure, some women would like it.  A lot of men like women being sexualized in every part of media too.  That's part of what keeps it going.  That doesn't make it okay.  People shouldn't be reduced to objects period.  It's just that this happens OVERWHELMINGLY to women and so focusing on the fact that it can happen to men too is missing the big picture.
Yeah, OK. True. I never really doubted this. And yeah I never actually thought that it would be GOOD if we all just objectified either gender equally where we merely increased objectification of men to the same level. Just that it would technically even out that particular aspect of it.

This only brings up the issue of extremely short lived media, like commercials, where every character is there just to sell whatever. Meaning they will all have the same level of depth as a person as a cardboard cutout. And since the idea of "Sex Sells" (which from what I've read isn't actually true) is everywhere and yeah, culturally people perceive women as more 'sexy' Objectification in this area will probably never go away, so the only way to make it as least a gender-equal shitty thing, one could argue for the objectification of men to become a norm, at least in that context. Just an example of what I imagine would be hard to avoid objectification entirely.

My example kind of seems out of left field I'll admit.

Patriarchy isn't natural.  Your heart is in the right place with this but you've got to understand that a lot of the "science" around these sorts of things are totally bullshit.  For example, some people argue that men fall into the "tough" role because they are naturally stronger.  However, the ONLY place you really see a big difference in men and women re: the ability to build muscle is at the very very extremes (think world-class athletes).  For most people, men and women are equally capable of growing muscle and being strong.  However, you don't see a lot of totally ripped women walking around.  Why?  Societal pressures teaching women that they need to be fit but not muscular.  This is 100% a product of culture, not biology.  You say "most" would argue that it's human nature, but the majority of sociologists agree that it's nurture instead of nature.  Nothing about the patriarchy is built into our brains, it just starts being put there as soon as we're old enough to notice the world around us.  It feels "natural" because we've been surrounded by it our entire lives.  That doesn't make it biological.   
It could also be argued that a very muscular women isn't considered generally considered attractive. Which probably has an effect.

As for the science being bullshit, I've read articles pushing either side of this argument. Some saying gender roles are part of our biology, some saying its just in our heads, some saying its a mixture of both. It's hard to identify what is true. It starts to all just sound like hearsay. I have no real concrete belief on the subject because of that.


I could break away from the patriarchy by killing all men too, that doesn't automatically make it right.
Good point.

I don't think there's anything wrong with sexuality.  The problem is sexualization in the sense of objectification.  That is absolutely wrong.  Reducing people to objects is dehumanizing.  The difference between sexuality and objectification is very important.  Porn in particular is a problematic area and you'll get a lot of different answers on it.  I am absolutely against mainstream porn as it is today, but I'm not against porn itself.  The problem is the "standard" current mainstream porn is INSANELY misogynistic and absolutely disgusting.  Women are entirely objectified, as in they are literally just objects to be used to get the man off.  They end with his ejaculation, so clearly the end goal of sex is supposed to be that the man cums.  The woman is almost always passive.  Again, I'm talking about mainstream porn in general, there will always be a few exceptions and there will always be niche porn outside of that.  There is porn for straight women, but very few and most of it has to be purchased instead of found on random websites.  There was a website I came across a while back that was for a female-focused porn festival, but I can't remember the name right now.  If I can find it I'll edit the link in.  There's also porn for lesbians (not to be confused with "lesbian porn" intended for straight men, which is sometimes more misogynist than the straight porn).  However, since we live in a society that doesn't believe women should be sexual, we're just now seeing people in the porn industry who are really willing to market towards women.
sexualization to objectification. I assume that line is crossed when all a character is nothing but a collection of sexual tropes (or is looked at as such).

IDK about that view of porn. Is porn that is made only for men inherently misogynistic? Where the focus is on the man's enjoyment? Sure, it isn't right that there is a lack of porn focused on the woman's enjoyment, but that doesn't mean focus on a man's enjoyment in porn is hateful of women. Comes off as arguably utilitarian, since most porn viewers are men... Though I suppose that it's possible that might be just a cycle of reinforcement, perhaps there is very few women that watch porn because of the stigma and the lack of porn made for them, since there are fewer women, the porn makers continue their man oriented porn.

I don't think I watch main stream porn normally. But then I don't know what you can call mainstream porn since its all been moved to the internet and there is this thing about NOT paying for porn anymore. Like, who buys porn DVDS anymore? or even goes to pay sites? I've never payed for porn.

Anyway, Its bad that there is little porn that targets women as an audience. Its not bad that there is porn that target's men.

And as unfortunate as it sounds, you describe mainstream porn as disgusting. Some men can't help but get off to the disgusting stuff. :/

You don't think women fantasize about being strong?  Or witty?  This is a problem.  You're gendering desires.  Women aren't monolithic.  Women have all different desires and wants.  I can't tell you what women want to be.  I can't tell you what men want to be.  Some women want to have successful careers.  Some want to be stay at home parents.  Some want to be body builders.  Some want to be in the army.  Some want to be fashion models.  The exact same is true of men.  The sooner you stop thinking about women and men being these concrete groups that all want similar things the better.
Thing is though that women aren't really considered monolithic when it comes to their desires. Its more common to put men in to that idea. That all men want is sex and to be powerful/dominant. Which isn't true obviously. That in fact is where the typical "What do women want?" question comes from. Stereotypically, its men wanting women to be as stereotypically sex obsessed as men so its easier to get in bed with them. Its funny because it may very well be that women are just as interested but that culture has also made it clear that if you are a promiscuous women you are a slut or whore.  Men have poisoned their own ability to get laid.

The idea behind the typical asking of "What do women want?" (in common media) is that if you know what a woman wants, its the key to whats in their pants. Its generally thought that almost every reasonably attractive woman already has the key into a man's pants. Existing. They just use that key very selectively. Men/women calling women sluts and whores is just reinforcing the selectivity.

I've never called anyone a slut or whore and never will. Calling a woman a whore or slut is more damaging than calling them a bitch because it's telling women that being promiscuous is shameful. While calling them a bitch is telling them they shouldn't be aggressive. And I don't generally like aggressive people anyway because I'm kind of a wuss. (outside of movies and video game I guess, in which case, I'm 100% ok with women being aggressive, good example: Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica was one of my favorite characters). I've never called a woman a bitch either though.

My older brother has (not to their face of course). Only in reference to women in porn or women that he had sex with little work put in. I'm unsure if he looked down on them for that.

Actually, would objectifying a male be more common as (or more likely, just stereotypical) to view them as human ATM machines? Rather than sexual objects. The "Girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money" concept. It's certainly a shallow thing to base a relationship on, just as shallow as just wanting a fuck object.
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latest episode of mad men was excellent, mad men having a season so good i'm freaking out
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latest episode of mad men was excellent, mad men having a season so good i'm freaking out
Don continues his devolution from man-child into full blown man-baby. Soon he will be but a man-fetus, and then perhaps a man-zygote, nestled within the womb of SCDP, at which point he will be brain dead and drool all over his wife and then shit his pants.

Fake edit: I haven't actually seen the latest episode, only up to last week.
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Close up shot of woman (made to look as young as possible) gagging while being skullfucked. Dick is removed and then jizzes over woman's face, camera fades out while woman is swallowing.

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This only brings up the issue of extremely short lived media, like commercials, where every character is there just to sell whatever. Meaning they will all have the same level of depth as a person as a cardboard cutout. And since the idea of "Sex Sells" (which from what I've read isn't actually true) is everywhere and yeah, culturally people perceive women as more 'sexy' Objectification in this area will probably never go away, so the only way to make it as least a gender-equal shitty thing, one could argue for the objectification of men to become a norm, at least in that context. Just an example of what I imagine would be hard to avoid objectification entirely.

It's hard for you to imagine ads without objectification (particularly of women) because it's so widespread.  However, it's pretty self-defeating to say "well, we can't change it so I guess we should just objectify men too to make it fair".  That doesn't fix anything, that would still leave women being objectified.  You need to think on a bigger scale.  The big thing here is that you can't just fix the symptoms of oppression.  You have to start changing the way people think.  The more people who embrace feminism and realize that objectifying women isn't cool, the more companies start getting backlash and the less they'll be willing to do it in their ads.  There has been a LOT of controversy over ads in recent years.  I'm not saying that it's going to be anytime soon, but I think ads are slowly going to be objectifying women less because it's becoming less acceptable.  The Boston API Jam that posted a (PURELY TEXT) flyer that objectified women got enough backlash that sponsors pulled out and I believe the event was cancelled altogether.  We're not quite there yet, but we are slowly getting to where it's not going to be financially viable to objectify women.  Just trying to "settle" for objectifying men too is counterproductive.

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It could also be argued that a very muscular women isn't considered generally considered attractive. Which probably has an effect.

This is what I was saying basically.  But why aren't they "generally considered attractive"?  Because look at the standard of beauty promoted in every single bit of media.  Muscular women aren't there.  It's incredibly skinny women with every single bulge or crease photoshopped out of them.  This reinforces the idea that this is what is supposed to be attractive to men and that this is what a woman should strive towards.  And god forbid you're a WoC, because as far as ads are concerned Beyonce isn't black anymore, she's photoshopped to a more acceptable "just slightly tan".  We live in a world where the standard of beauty is decided for us before we're born.  I remember us having an argument in #saltw about whether or not men generally found supermodels attractive, and the men who said they didn't were told they were just lying to be edgy or rebellious or whatever.  In our patriarchy, men who don't immediately want to have sex with Barbie are considered less of a man.  It's bad for everyone involved, but it hurts women far worse since they're the ones hurting their bodies to try to achieve a standard of beauty that these days isn't even physically possible due to photoshop.

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As for the science being bullshit, I've read articles pushing either side of this argument. Some saying gender roles are part of our biology, some saying its just in our heads, some saying its a mixture of both. It's hard to identify what is true. It starts to all just sound like hearsay. I have no real concrete belief on the subject because of that.

Oh, there are tons of articles enforcing "biotruths".  That doesn't mean they're valid.  I'd like to see links to the articles you're talking about though.  Like I said, the vast majority of sociologists agree that it's a matter of socialization.  You have to also consider that all the scientific research is being done in a patriarchal society to begin with (and done mostly by men (again because of the patriarchy (smash the patriarchy delete all sexism))) and it can at times be horribly biased.

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IDK about that view of porn. Is porn that is made only for men inherently misogynistic? Where the focus is on the man's enjoyment? Sure, it isn't right that there is a lack of porn focused on the woman's enjoyment, but that doesn't mean focus on a man's enjoyment in porn is hateful of women.

There's nothing wrong with porn focusing on men in theory.  The problem is...well, this:
Close up shot of woman (made to look as young as possible) gagging while being skullfucked. Dick is removed and then jizzes over woman's face, camera fades out while woman is swallowing.

cumdumpstersluts5 Anal eWRECKtion

Porn has always been male-gazey as fuck, but it's just gotten more and more disgusting.  Go to any porn site and click on the pictures on the front page.  Ask yourself--is this objectifying?  Is this a harmful view of women?  Chances are the answer is going to be "absolutely yes".  It's just supporting the harmful views of women that men get everywhere else.  I mean, think about the context porn exists in.  We live in a society where women are not supposed to be sexual creatures, where they are not supposed to enjoy sex or seek sex out, merely exist for men to Do Sex to.  That is what our society believes, whether you personally agree with it or not.  So having porn in which women are literally just there to Be Fucked (aka almost all of straight mainstream porn) is just perpetuating those ideas, which is legitimately 100% oppressing women.  It's not just a matter of it not being for me, it is actually harmful.  The problem is, it's so prevalent that even if you don't want to watch that kind of porn, you'll have to spend a lot of time finding an alternative, especially for free.

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Comes off as arguably utilitarian, since most porn viewers are men... Though I suppose that it's possible that might be just a cycle of reinforcement, perhaps there is very few women that watch porn because of the stigma and the lack of porn made for them, since there are fewer women, the porn makers continue their man oriented porn.

Depending on what survey you go by, 30-70% of women watch porn.  Pretty big gap in those statistics, but you have to consider the patriarchal factors.  Women may not admit to it on surveys, and like you said it's stigmatized.  You have to consider what you're saying here though.  The fact that it's stigmatized for women to watch porn is again a symptom of oppression, because they are not supposed to be sexual creatures.  But what about women who do want to watch porn?  They tend to have a harder time finding porn that doesn't horribly objectify them, so it is a roadblock.  Like I said, there ARE feminist porn directors, but that tends to be pornography you have to pay for (which is why, as I'll talk more about in a minute, people may pay for porn).  So what you're saying here is that it's understandable to continue objectifying women for the sake of men watching porn instead of embracing the women who want to?  This is coming off as way too Straight Male Gamer-y (if you'll remember the SMG letter, it was about how games shouldn't add gay romance options because they'll alienate the Straight Male Gamer base, ignoring the fact that it's optional to go down these paths and that there are tons of gay gamers who would like the option).  You're saying that because men are the majority in a system women are told to stay out of, they should be catered to.  Catered to to the point that what they're being shown is actively harmful to women and oppressing them.  I don't think so.

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I don't think I watch main stream porn normally. But then I don't know what you can call mainstream porn since its all been moved to the internet and there is this thing about NOT paying for porn anymore. Like, who buys porn DVDS anymore? or even goes to pay sites? I've never payed for porn.

Anyway, Its bad that there is little porn that targets women as an audience. Its not bad that there is porn that target's men.

If you're watching porn on the internet and aren't sure if it's mainstream, it's mainstream.  If you aren't digging down deep for obscure niche porn, you're watching mainstream porn.  Mainstream doesn't mean commercial DVDs, in fact nowadays internet IS the mainstream if anything.  As for paying for porn, like I said before there are a lot of good reasons why someone would want to.  When mainstream porn is entirely excluding you, you may have to pay money for niche stuff (as I said in a previous post, for example, there's porn made for lesbians that's different than "lesbian porn" on regular sites, but it's usually paid only.  Note here that gay male porn is very easily accessed online, because again, men are supposed to be sexual whereas men are not).  Really, when you have niche porn, you typically can't just make up the money in ad revenue like mainstream porn.  It's understandable.  You say "I've never paid for porn", but stop and think about the fact that you're a man.  Mainstream porn is catering to you.

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And as unfortunate as it sounds, you describe mainstream porn as disgusting. Some men can't help but get off to the disgusting stuff. :/

So what?  Some people can't help but get off to child porn, but that's harmful as fuck.  Even if no children were harmed in the making of it (such as anime nudes of kids).  It's reinforcing attitudes that are directly and irrefutably hurting children, the same way mainstream porn is directly hurting women.  Your right to jerk off to whatever you want is a lot less significant than my right to not be oppressed by what you're jerking off to.

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Thing is though that women aren't really considered monolithic when it comes to their desires. Its more common to put men in to that idea. That all men want is sex and to be powerful/dominant. Which isn't true obviously. That in fact is where the typical "What do women want?" question comes from. Stereotypically, its men wanting women to be as stereotypically sex obsessed as men so its easier to get in bed with them. Its funny because it may very well be that women are just as interested but that culture has also made it clear that if you are a promiscuous women you are a slut or whore.  Men have poisoned their own ability to get laid.

The idea behind the typical asking of "What do women want?" (in common media) is that if you know what a woman wants, its the key to whats in their pants. Its generally thought that almost every reasonably attractive woman already has the key into a man's pants. Existing. They just use that key very selectively. Men/women calling women sluts and whores is just reinforcing the selectivity.

Women are considered monolithic when it comes to their desires by society.  What do women want?  To fall in love and get married and have kids.  Try being a woman who says they don't want kids or don't want to get married and you'll find out that this is true.  Of course, you're right that men do have a similar thing with the answer being "sex anytime and always", but don't dismiss the sexism on our side too in favor of your own issues.  I do agree that there is an idea of women being monolithic in the sense of "how do I get them to let me fuck them" from men.  That's why you have PUAs. 

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I've never called anyone a slut or whore and never will. Calling a woman a whore or slut is more damaging than calling them a bitch because it's telling women that being promiscuous is shameful. While calling them a bitch is telling them they shouldn't be aggressive. And I don't generally like aggressive people anyway because I'm kind of a wuss. (outside of movies and video game I guess, in which case, I'm 100% ok with women being aggressive, good example: Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica was one of my favorite characters). I've never called a woman a bitch either though.

Good, please continue never using those words, and please call other men out when they do.  This is one of the main roles a man has as a feminist ally.  If a man calls me a bitch and I call him out on it, chances are I'll just be called even more of a bitch for that.  When someone is firmly rooted in misogyny (even if it's casual misogyny), they sometimes won't listen to women.  That's where you need to come in.  You have to understand though that even though you don't like aggressive people, typically women who are called bitches aren't being aggressive.  They'll be called bitches simply for speaking up at all, or for being assertive (way different than aggression), or simply just for existing.  Don't just equate that word with aggression.  For some men, women are being aggressive (to them) if they do ANYTHING outside their gender role.

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My older brother has (not to their face of course). Only in reference to women in porn or women that he had sex with little work put in. I'm unsure if he looked down on them for that.

Yes.  He did.  Even if only subconsciously, those words are a statement that express misogyny.  It's probably not his fault, either.  This is such a huge part of society that we have drilled into our brains from birth.  It's hard to overcome that.  Doesn't mean he shouldn't be expected to though.

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Actually, would objectifying a male be more common as (or more likely, just stereotypical) to view them as human ATM machines? Rather than sexual objects. The "Girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money" concept. It's certainly a shallow thing to base a relationship on, just as shallow as just wanting a fuck object.

How many relationships do you personally know that are based on money?  The golddigger stereotype is pretty pervasive, but is it true?  For the sake of argument, let's assume it is (although I absolutely don't think it represents any large percentage of women).  Something you need to start doing when you examine the patriarchy is always ask "why".  Don't just say "hey, some women only marry men for money!  What about that?!"  Why?  Well, some women are told that this is the only way they can get ahead in life.  They're never told ways THEY can be successful, they're told that their success lies in grabbing a successful man.  I'll take any excuse to talk about The Facts of Life, but this scene is pretty relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aZYs23NllZc#t=229s (about 4 minutes in if it doesn't skip there automatically).  Why is this joke funny?  Because it's true.  Because women are told this.  To this day they're told this.  Marry a good man instead of having a career.  Is this sexism against men?  Or is it sexism against women?  It's a symptom of patriarchy that is telling women that they should not be in the workplace.  How else are women supposed to gain power and money (which is something our capitalist society tells us is the most important thing)?  Their only option is to "marry a good man".

But, as I said earlier and as you seem to believe also, this stereotype isn't prevalent anyway.  Women aren't doing this in the numbers that are portrayed in media and popular culture.  Now let's look at what you're comparing it to--the sexual objectification of women.  Would you say that women aren't really objectified and that that's just a stereotype too?  Based on my personal experience, I can tell you absolutely no.  They are objectified, every single day their entire lives.  This is doing serious harm to women.  The idea that women are supposed to be available for men's sexual gratification is what leads to things like harassment.  Catcalling.  Groping.  And rape.  This is why you need to quit looking for an analogue to men.  You can't find a comparison.  When you're the group in power, you're never going to have a convenient flipside to the issue.  There is no simple reverse that can apply to men, and there won't be in a patriarchy ever.
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As for the science being bullshit, I've read articles pushing either side of this argument. Some saying gender roles are part of our biology, some saying its just in our heads, some saying its a mixture of both. It's hard to identify what is true. It starts to all just sound like hearsay. I have no real concrete belief on the subject because of that.
"In our heads" isn't really a sufficient characterization of the view that gender is a cultural construct. It's not an individual belief, or even a collective hallucination, but rather an ongoing biocultural process. Culturally, gender roles are reproduced by institutions and systemic happenings, rather then by individual choice or two-person discourse. Biologically, the effects of gendering are not exclusively constrained to brain stuff. You should keep in mind that some societies have third genders, or very different male/female gender roles. Here's a wikipedia page all about third genders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender. Wikipedia's more general gender roles article is a little unbalanced on the subject of cultural construction though. It's also common to think that because something is seen as natural, it's also good or right or efficient. I think that enough evidence has been thrown around in this thread over the past few weeks to establish that the patriarchal gender roles that some people have claimed are natural are not good, right, or efficient. Them being natural is highly dubious at best. Nature itself is a problematic concept. Human biology does not exist in isolation from human culture - they shape each other, and culture can be seen as one biological process that produces frustrations for outdated modes of thought on biology that focus overly on the individual organism and its perceived features.

I'm not particularly educated on this subject, but it's a significant interest for several of my friends, so I'm fairly confident I can get you decent answers on the science if you're really interested. They've certainly fostered in me the view that most of the science that tries to confirm normative gender roles are Natural Truth is poorly conducted bullshit or very out of date or both. Off hand, one recommended the article Krieger N 2003. Genders sexes and health : what are the connections -- and why does it matter?, which I had a quick flick through on Google Scholar and looks like an interesting look at it from a health perspective. Although I didn't have time to read it in any detail.

summary: it's easy to get confused by the psychologists on this one because they can use the time they save by not looking at any of the evidence to write populist novels and newspaper articles. but they're probably wrong or at least highly misleading.


edit: sorry if this post comes off as a little grouchy given that i'm addressing very common misconceptions. i'm Mad About Science.
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Wikipedia's more general gender roles article is a little unbalanced on the subject of cultural construction though.

I agree with Biggles' post, which I want to make clear before I post this since what I'm about to post is only tangentially related, but this post made me want to write a short post about the gender politics of Wikipedia, which are pretty interesting and also upsetting.  Wikipedia is overwhelmingly written by men (I believe it's something like 85% men).  It's everyone's go-to source for quick info, but a lot of articles (especially articles ABOUT gender issues) are heavily skewed.  Read the article about men's rights or friend zone or misandry and you'll see what I mean.  And definitely read their talk pages too.  You'll see people pointing out the bias in the articles being outvoted by the overwhelmingly male userbase.  This leads to bias going unchecked.  It's altering the way this information is viewed since Wikipedia is where everyone goes to get a quick overview of subjects.  It's just another example of patriarchy shaping society yet again.  Wikipedia doesn't represent a crowdsourced constantly-in-check viewpoint of the world, it's a viewpoint of men.  It's The World According To Men. 

I think it's interesting to look at this quote from a few months ago:

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Sue Gardner, the executive director of Wikimedia, which runs Wikipedia, said her goal is to make the share of female contributors 25 percent by 2015.

2015.  3 years to get one fourth of Wikipedia edited by women.  This is how horribly skewed our society is.



e: On a similar note, and this is a genuine question that maybe some of you more into scientific research might know the answer to, but how CAN you study something like "are we born with patriarchal attitudes"?  I mean, socialization pretty much begins at birth, so is it even possible to study that?  Your brain is being shaped to conform to the patriarchy right away.  How can you study it in a vacuum?  I don't personally see how it's possible, but some of you might know some way.


e2: If any of you are interested in one idea of a society without gender, I just got done reading Woman On The Edge Of Time in one of my classes and it was an excellent read.  It's fiction, and it deals with a potential somewhat-utopian future (I say somewhat because it's definitely not problem-free, but the society it focuses on IS post-racist and post-sexist and whatnot).
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e: On a similar note, and this is a genuine question that maybe some of you more into scientific research might know the answer to, but how CAN you study something like "are we born with patriarchal attitudes"?  I mean, socialization pretty much begins at birth, so is it even possible to study that?  Your brain is being shaped to conform to the patriarchy right away.  How can you study it in a vacuum?  I don't personally see how it's possible, but some of you might know some way.

Not the best person to answer this, but we can look at related issues in cognitive science to get an approximation of how you could look into this matter. Universal grammar is one example. The idea is that there's a language-specific genetic component that distinguishes human beings from animals, the corollary being that human beings have naturally unique language capabilities. One of the capabilities that's most often cited is recursion, which is something that all languages that have been studied to this date exhibit.

So the obvious thing to do would be to investigate whether cultures other than our own, both current and historical, have, in isolation, come to manifest the same patriarchal gender roles.

I think there probably is a minor genetic component to it. Namely, the fact that women have children. Which means that even in prehistorical tribes, during pregnancy, they were more often confined to the home and unable to do physically demanding work than men. Which leads to a natural divide in labor roles: women get to do other, "minor" tasks, such as preparing food and creating clothes, which are easy to do while pregnant or looking after children.

The difference with something like universal grammar is that it's not a built-in cognitive factor, although it's still probably one of the root causes for why so many societies are patriarchal: they started out like that and the attitudes became so ingrained that they never changed. You could come up with other genetic factors, like the fact that in our hypothetical antiquity it would be more beneficial for reproductive reasons to sacrifice men in defense of the tribe than women. So men are the more obvious candidates to go hunting and to war.

But it's like Biggles said:

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Nature itself is a problematic concept. Human biology does not exist in isolation from human culture - they shape each other, and culture can be seen as one biological process that produces frustrations for outdated modes of thought on biology that focus overly on the individual organism and its perceived features.

You could come up with genetic reasons, and they can be right or wrong, but none of that has any necessary bearing on how things ought to be. Lots of natural processes are extremely inefficient and incorrect. Our cognitive abilities permitted us to create culture, which in turn permits us to shed the simpleton logic in favor of something more sensible.

So, as for the question of whether patriarchy is "natural" or not, you have to keep the context in mind. We don't have to go hunting anymore, and it's reasonable to assume that the patriarchy of the ancient tribes would have been a direct result of the primordial need of survival. I'd have to say that none of the genetic components that can be (and historically have been) used to define gender roles can really be proven to be built into our cognitive abilities. It might have been convenient for an ancient tribe, but that doesn't prove that it necessarily follows for a modern society. Physiological differences between men and women exist, but they're relatively minor and make very little difference in a non-hunter-gatherer society.

Besides, all this talk over whether or not certain things are genetic seems to me to be an attempt at killing the discussion, because "why bother fighting human nature?" There are plenty of good reasons to do so.
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Holy fucker there is  a AKB48 anime and it's on my hard drive right now do I dare to play it to see if it's any good.

Edit1: To be fare it's more like AKB0048 where entertainment is banned.

Edit2: the production on the show is high but the story is just out there. (in space)

Well now on to the next anime Phi brain season 2 eps 4
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Guys would it help this discussion if I posted pictures of gay porn re: SEXUALISED MEN!!!?

I AM WILLING TO HELP GUYS!!! (pls say yes)
Hey hey hey
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But Faust, gay porn is men being sexualized for the benefit of men, not women.  Gosh, learn some equality already ! ! !
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faust that would help a lot and you should do it
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