You're complaining that men are the problem because women are the target, but I'm pretty certain a significant number of women also complain when a venue has unexpected partial female nudity.
[1] Every culture draws the line at different points. Turning it into a "men are the problem" conclusion, while being wildly incorrect, is also hilariously sexist to both sexes. Edit your post to demean non-binaries as well and you'll have a hat-trick!
In an environment where it's normal, there are no problems. I experienced such an environment myself, I was (surprisingly?) not bothered by this in such a setting and women there neither.
Women may complain that they have no wish to see male genitalia in a setting where it is not normal / can be seen as / is an assault. Intents matter, too.
If you point your middle finger, the finger is still a body part but you are doing something offensive because you intend to insult someone.
Also, while I use the term "men" I really mean "any person that sexualizes a woman over their physical appearance."
But, they can dictate how some men want to show their body? *shakes head*
Firstly, you claimed that men are the problem, not that people who object are the problem. This new claim is a different claim.
Secondly, whether you like it or not, women are more likely to complain of male nudity in a venue than men are to complain of female nudity in a venue, yet you want to portray the argument as "men are the problem".
Your argument only works in your head because you draw an artificial distinction between men and women, and you want to "protect" the women. Treat everyone as people and your argument falls over.
Distill your argument to the essential bits:
1. Does a person have a right to show whatever part of their body that they want to?
Sure.
2. Do people have to be forced to see that display in a public venue?
Depends on what the society has decided on.
3. Should the rule be based on whether the viewer/displayer is female or male?
Most definitely not.
You're making this a gender war thing. It's not about who gets to dictate what to whom. It's about why something is dictated and who it's benefitting.
For genitalia, both genders are not allowed to show theirs. This is acceptable because it's fair.
For breasts, men can show theirs, yet women cannot.
For skirts: too short and a woman is labeled slutty. Why? Because people who sexualize them (often men) view them as sexy and wanting sex. And so these people then dictate that they should wear longer skirts so that they don't feel so guilty themselves. This ends up being one party dictating how the other should appear in order to accommodate their own needs.
Men can wear short or long. It's ok because generally women do not sexualize men in that way. But the point here is that the viewpoint of immodesty comes from the viewer, and women have no control in how they are viewed by others, therefore they should not have to adjust themselves to accommodate for something they have no control over.
> 1. Does a person have a right to show whatever part of their body that they want to? >> Sure.
No that is not my argument. I accept the laws that both genders cannot show their genitals or sexual organs. If we enacted a law that said all people have to hide their mouths I'd be in full support. We don't have such a law but we are close to it (face masks for covid). What I am against is unequal laws enacted by one group on another to accommodate the first or other group.
> 3. Should the rule be based on whether the viewer/displayer is female or male? >> Most definitely not.
This is not about male or female. This is about one group forcing their preference on another group to accommodate their own needs.
Men do have breasts. They are simply not as enlarged. But again you are missing the point because a flat-chested woman would not be allowed to show her breasts either. Maybe men are just better genetically because we are not born so immodest?
My argument summed up is that woman have certain non-sex related body parts (could be hips, could be breasts) that have certain display requirements thrust upon them because they cause sexualized ideas in another group of people (mostly men). As a society we decided that these sexualized thoughts are bad and should be stopped. OK, that’s acceptable. However the method we decided to do that is to tell the women to hide those parts so the other group is not tempted. Problem solved. However woman are being forced to modify themselves by society in order to fix a problem inherently caused by another group. They have no control over how the other group perceives them, so they shouldn’t be the ones having to adjust constantly to others’ perceptions.
It used to be that fat was sexy. Who knows, maybe in the future it will be flat chested. Depending on what men become sexualized by, women have to constantly change their appearance so as not to tempt man.
If you don’t find that ridiculous, let’s sub it out with a similar example. Imagine a group of white people who, whenever they see black people, felt “uncomfortable” because black people in their minds are associated with crime, thugs, etc. Let’s say that, in uncommon instances, the white people felt threatened and may have started fights if the black people looked particularly like criminals, or maybe the black people felt prejudiced and started fights. Let’s say the government’s solution to the problem was to segregate the black people from the white people, but they did so by telling the black people to not live in existing white neighborhoods. Problem solved because the instances of black on white confrontation are abated. Is it fair though? No, because it’s inconveniencing black people in order to solve a problem caused by the view point of white people. Black people can’t control how others view them, and if the problems are inherently caused by those misguided viewpoints then we should be 1) fixing those viewpoints and 2) telling people with those viewpoints to deal with it.
As a second point about breasts, human breasts are unique in the animal kingdom because they are specifically made to signal sexual availability. Generally animals do not have enlarged breasts, even when lactating. In humans the woman breast evolved to enlarge when sexual maturity is reached to signal sexual availability. So saying that boobs are just a body part that men sexualize is also incorrect.
Source? Anecdotally living in the South, it is overwhelmingly men complaining about women not properly conforming to their sensibility regarding modesty.
I've never heard it the other way around, and you claiming it is an undisputed fact "where I like it or not" is bizarre to me.
I definitely did not intend to say that Naomi Wu is like a flasher, and I appreciate your implicit request for clarification.
I meant that I frequently hear both men and women criticize specifically women for nudity, especially when the critics are from the US, and I very rarely hear them criticizing men for nudity. When men do get criticized for nudity, it's usually in a circumstance where the nudity is being interpreted as a threat, such as a flasher, which is a very different situation than posting a video of laser-cutting a dressmaker's dummy.
I meant that I frequently hear both men and women criticize specifically women for nudity, especially when the critics are from the US, and I very rarely hear them criticizing men for nudity. When men do get criticized for nudity, it's usually in a circumstance where the nudity is being interpreted as a threat, such as a flasher, which is a very different situation than posting a video of laser-cutting a dressmaker's dummy.
We live in an (I hope) egalitarian democracy and what's acceptable to display is dictated by our polis. Can this same be said regarding women wearing burkas in Afghanistan.
>most men don't want to be tempted by seeing boobs Just lol
However the issue here is that some men, and some women too, find it bothers them to see boobs, but only female boobs. It's irrelevant if some woman happen to agree, because a woman can still oppress woman, just as a Chinese person can still be racist towards Chinese people.
If a women dressing sexy (but otherwise within the generally accepted constraints of not showing genitalia or nipples) and then gets raped by a person (man or woman), is it her fault or the person's fault? Is she asking for it by dressing sexy? Sexy here is in the eye of the rapist, and whether the women thinks she is dressing sexy herself is irrelevant, so I would argue that it is the rapist's fault. If a woman does something to her outward appearance such as enlarging her breasts or dressing "immodestly" and it causes weird feelings or urges in some people, those feelings are wholly the fault of the person feeling them.
You didn't respond to my points about skin exposure being a social norm. We choose to show/hide genitals, breasts, ankles, feet, etc based on a region by region basis.
https://www.findlaw.com/state/criminal-laws/indecent-exposur...
"Per se", perhaps. Your reasoning goes like this: sticking up your middle finger or shouting "motherfucker" in someone's face isn't insulting. It's the recipient that makes it an insult. Therefore, it is perfectly civilized to do either.
And we're not talking immodesty. While different cultures may have different limits, that doesn't mean they're too subjective to even pay attention of.
And showing your body is not a quest female empowerment, if only because it would leave the lesser gifted in the shadows. Calling it a quest female empowerment is an absurd word game.
What I find interesting is the other female voice that gets shush is women who are for modesty. Other female content creators often take issue too-- it reminds me of the twitch scandal a while back where some women would wear beach wear on cam. Some women complained that in order to compete with that they needed to wear less too. And then they felt uncomfortable with the direction things were going. I think they made valid points, and yet then as now no one really cares.
It feels like it's still a matter of controlling women's bodies, just not society is saying they should "wear less and be free" rather than wear more. Women's voices, at the end of the day, are still secondary in these conversations, especially when they take place on the internet, and that's something I find incredibly ironic. SexyCyborg herself is making posts here but it's drowned out by others fighting her fight for her. Rather than elevating the voices of creators like her, it's just turned into a "women need to be able to wear less everywhere or were the Taliban" thing.
Which, by the way, is bordering in Islamophobic. Muslims make up close to 25% of the world population and many women choose to wear modest clothing. I know some firsthand. Treating them like they're just brainwashed or being forced by the Taliban is so insulting and demeaning and completely ignoring the voices of billions of women. I find it so strange how often I see people treating them like they don't exist or the their voices aren't valid. The Taliban isn't the only people in earth who find value in modesty and its frankly misogynistic to imply the women they feel that way are just backwards and oppressed
No one should be forced to wear burkas nor to not wear them. But the status quo there is that they are forced to wear them. Yes I agree with you forcing women to not wear burkas is equally as bad as forcing them to not wear them.
I’m arguing that we should let each woman individually decide for herself their preferred body image (within the confines of equal laws applied to all genders). They can show their boobs, cover, them, cover their faces, shoe their armpit hair… whatever they want.
I think you’re trying to rewrite the books that mention erogenous zones. Go read them instead. Boobs are sexual.
Having said that, sexuality is not the problem; prudeness is. A vagina could be sexual and still be fine to be uncovered, as it is/was in some cultures.
Display of genitals is seen as a gesture of aggression or dominance, not just in Humans. That's what distinguishes nude breasts from nude genitalia. And it's a rather more pronounced problem with male genitalia, we're not equal in that regard.
Some cultures do allow them being uncovered, but I think experts could still tell us that there are some rules to all of that. And these cultures are rather small and rare.
As opposed to the sexually liberated cultures of Asia, India, or the Middle East?
> The point is that those restrictions on women shouldn't be dictated by the actions or effects they have on men. Instead, men should either change their viewpoints or control their own sexualization so that women don't have to accommodate them.
What is this mirror universe where men recoil at the unclad female form? Please direct your complaints either at puritanism in general, or Google and their advertisers in particular. I certainly don't feel accommodated by this demonetization.
> What is this mirror universe where men recoil at the unclad female form?
That's great that you don't, but the point is not that men recoil at the female form, it's that men are dictating rules on women to help them control their own urges. Again, burkas were invented because men wanted women to be more modest, and to help prevent sins such as womanizing and sexualization. Both of those "sins" are predominantly committed by men towards women so it is a problem rooted in men, but solved by adjusting women's behavior. Even if some women prefer to wear burkas, or agree that it is good to be modest for some reason, that does not mean all women should now be required to do so.
Which is why movements to ban porn enjoy wide support among Western men...
Showing naked bodies in various contexts on public television is not controversial in many Western countries.
I can't say I know of a "perfect" nation in this sense, but there's absolutely varying degrees of range between "embraced ideas" and "accepted expressions". Both the USA and Afghanistan rank particularly low in an international context, there.
My main point with the comment you're replying to is that either way, the idiosyncrasies presented by GP as "Western" are more American, or at least anglo-christian (in lack of a better fuzzy word).
I agree with most of your comment, but I just want to point out that women are also harsh judges of other women who don't fit cultural norms in how they dress or behave. It's not just men sexualizing women and trying to cut them out if they don't fit, it's also women policing other women in this way.
Women can be misogynists too. We don't have a monopoly on that. We as a collective value conformity because it keeps people in line and doesn't threaten our existing architecture. Things that deviate from norms draw attention and inspire discussions like this. Too many people thinking about coloring outside the lines and then more will do it.
If we didn't indoctrinate our kids at the start, we'd have a higher chance for more uniform distribution of power. More people would be able to achieve success, which would raise the floor and make the ceiling not feel so high. Those on top would feel like they're losing because the gap would shrink and the perceived height from the top would be lower. Can't have that so we say things like "boys will boys" to dismiss shit behavior, glorify #boymom, defend our girls by saying they're "not like other girls" and sell little girls on shiny object and lacy dresses, even if they really just want to play with dinosaurs (because dinosaurs are cool and not only for boys).
Patriarchy, ftw! Red Pill, yay!
* Why do little girls suddenly start to ask if "boys are better" when they get to school?
* Why do we feel the need to tell people out opinions about how they look?
* Why is a tattoo of a butterfly on a wrist okay for a woman but not full sleeves? (Contrast that with men.)
* Why do we insist on loudly proclaiming our daughters are "not like other girls" or are "like a boy"? Is there something shameful about it?
We took away agency long ago and we've been dangling it in front of oppressed people for years, periodically letting take small bites. That's another form if how me keep a grip on things. We give people a taste, as long as they're willing to take the conditions that comes with it.
There's a thing called "choosey choice feminism" that is a hot button item. One side days "following the magazine standards is a choice and I'm free to make it because feminism" and the other side says "but why do the magazines exist and would you choose that if you weren't bombarded by it all day?" I think both sides are right but I also hear and see the problems. It's not about whether or not feelings or opinions are right though, it's about what you'd feel or think if you weren't subjected to it constantly. To ignore the external influences and dismiss patriarchy is to accept the status quo as a Good Thing and be okay with slut shaming and demonizing the very freedom of choice you're trying to defend.
I don't see how this works well for long (and it arguably hasn't) because of th cognitive dissonance required to accept all things to be true.
It's not about whether their opinions are right, it's about where they're valid. Women can have opinions that aren't correct, just like men are free to be wrong. When you say it's about what they would feel if they weren't subjected to it constantly is totally subjective. Some might say women would run around naked because it's more comfortable without societies pressure, some say they would cover up because taking off clothing is a societal pressure to appease the male gaze. But then again, the assumption that all women would think that same is just more simplifying them and their views.
In reality it'd probably be a mix, because women can dislike other women without it being because society brainwashed them to. Saying they wouldn't ever be rude to one another if not for society feels like that patriarchal idea that women are all innocent flowers that must be protected from bad influences, rather than they're normal people who are nice and mean and everything in between. If you're gonna go into the territory of "what if everything were different" you can't also declare you know exactly what would happen. And yes society has taken a lot of agency away from women, but the solution isn't to take agency away from them in service of feminism. This just leads to a different set of problems for women
little boys also ask if girls are better when they get to school. both sexes are curious as they grow up. school is also dominated by female teachers and there are now more girls in school than boys.
the rest of your questions are nonsensical. people are people. norms exist. they might change but there will always be norms, and they will be tied to masculine and feminine expressions too.
If you want to be uncharitable, sure. Or maybe you could recognize the fact that human bonding is largely based on shared values, and if someone looks or acts radically different, then you see no common ground on which to establish such a bond.
I think people are all too quick to reach for the "hatred" and "misogyny" labels.
If we're going to discuss being charitable, we should start by allowing people to be happy with themselves and not share our thoughts on what we don't like about them because that's the problem. That's at the root of this whole topic. We are incapable of allowing people to deviate without telling them how we feel about it.
Why? And why don't we do the same thing as to men? (There is no 100% rule. Some men are shamed and some people shame men. It's not at the same rate.)
It benefits them because they're expressing their values and preferences, which allows them to find others like them and build bonds over these shared values. A shitty way to do it maybe, but it always comes back to bonding.
Edit: although some people shame out of genuine concern that the shamed party will not themselves be able to find human bonds. This is a type of shaming you often see from parents.
> We are incapable of allowing people to deviate without telling them how we feel about it.
I'm not sure who "we" is. Society collectively is much more tolerant of deviations from normal dress, appearance and behaviour than they were even 10 years ago. Society takes time to adapt.
I'm comforted by the admission of how shitty that is. I don't agree with your premise but I don't have to. The end result is that we can converge on the idea that people should stop being so forthcoming about their opinions of what other people do to and for themselves. If that's all we could (collective we, not specific) ever do, that would make the world pattern and remove the examples from Publix that keeps the pattern of shitty behavior going.
> Edit: although some people shame out of genuine concern that the shamed party will not themselves be able to find human bonds. This is a type of shaming you often see from parents.
Parents shouldn't shame their children. That's shitty behavior too. It's also infantalizing, whether from a parent or not. I've never shamed my kid and I don't plan to. I dealt with that myself and I can tell you that it didn't reap the outcomes anyone could have been looking for. I haven't spoken to my parents in years.
> I'm not sure who "we" is. Society collectively is much more tolerant of deviations from normal dress, appearance and behaviour than they were even 10 years ago. Society takes time to adapt
I'm not so sure that's true. I may have agreed with you 10 years ago but now we have Incels and Red Pills and Men Going Their Own Way and people openly advocate raping women (I have a hard time knowing that's a real thing). I think we've regressed and we're more than happy to shame people for anything we don't agree with. Loudly. Constantly. To the point that we drive people to isolation because they're tired of the barrage. (look up You Look Like a Man for a perfect example of this)
I'll only close to say that I think the media exaggerates this phenomenon considerably because it drives clicks, so don't buy into it. It's the same effect where people saw terrorism everywhere and feared muslims back in the late 1990s to late 2000's because the media was constantly harping on it.
Yes these people exist, but I haven't seen any evidence that they are a problem on the scale the media would have you believe (unless you're on Twitter, which is an unrepresentative cesspool).
Whoa, whoa. Is that why so many macho men can’t wear a face mask? Do face masks emasculate men? Because if they’re being told what to wear, to cover up their face, it’s being treated like a woman. Except it’s so completely not that. It suddenly makes more sense to me that people are so irrational about the mask and calling it “freedom” while they casually shed virus particles (micro-scale microaggressions), because it’s this weird cultural/emotional response.
"No shirt, no shoes, no service" signs became more popular in reaction to the ruling, but the expected wave of bare female breasts did not happen, disappointing immature males.
You're not telling us what you're thinking, or you're telling us something without thinking about it. What you posted reads like a collection of ideas and not an argument of any kind. The quality of individual constituents in that above collection seems suspect as well.
An argument might go something like: hypothesis, supporting evidence, prediction, theory, course of action.
What you wrote reads something like: prescription, direction, story, conjecture, prediction, dismissal of example to the contrary, proposed emotional response.
Showing primary sexual organs in my opinion is not a question and shouldn't be tolerated in many venues. It is a form of aggression in almost every culture. Even some hunter gatherers who walk around with genitals visible often have some way of making it less offensive. Very rare exceptions...
The issue of contention here is that women have to adjust their behavior/physical appearance over some non genitalia body parts because it happens to induce sexualization in some men, and men don't have to cover that same body part.
What if the majority of people were sapio-sexuals instead of breast-sexuals? Do I need to start dumbing down my HN posts so that I don't be perceived as immodest? Given the diversity of sexual preferences where do I draw the line of accommodating others' sexualization boundaries?
For the record I agree with you on genitalia, because at least both men and women are not allowed to show them. But breasts? It is not genitalia—it is not even used in the act of sex (normally)!
Edit: I would like to add that its not okay to demonetize Naomi Wus 3D Bust Video. Thats another discussion and i think we are on par here.
Most likely, a prudish approach to breasts is simply good for business. That's why advertisers like it. And that's why Google has a hard time selling ads for this video. And that's why Google's algorithms demonetized it.
Also, a lot of people in the US were upset about US companies bending to Chinese demands. But China is a huge market. Sacrificing your morals to gain 1.4 bio potential consumers is the correct decision if you're a die-hard capitalist.
We live in a culture that allows the profit margin alone to dictate almost all moral decisions. I'm not surprised that this has led to questionable morals ...
That's like thinking that gold is not prized.
Look at an even more women-oppressing culture such as that of Afghanistan under the Taliban. Women are required to cover their faces in public. Why? For "modesty." What it boils down to is that if women show their faces it could have a negative effect on men (sexual attraction).
A lot of people where are shaming her for being essentially immodest in her quest for female empowerment. A face is not immodest. A boob is not immodest. It is not sexualized because it is just a body part. It takes a man to do the sexualization, so the sexualization isn't the boob, but a man's who is doing the sexualization. A baby does not sexualize the boob (it's food). They get conditioned to it by society and culture as they grow older (a culture that sexualizes it).
Sub out face in Afghanistan with boob in America and you'll see it's the same picture. While we should pat ourselves on the back for being so progressive as to allow women to show their faces in public, we haven't quite gotten to the point where it's ok to show boobs in public. And yes, some women prefer to wear burkas, just as some women prefer to hide their boobs in public.
The point is that those restrictions on women shouldn't be dictated by the actions or effects they have on men. Instead, men should either change their viewpoints or control their own sexualization so that women don't have to accommodate. These immodest views come from those who sexualize women, and because that's out of the control of women so they should not be forced to accommodate something out of their control.