ATTENTION!

ATTENTION!

ATTENTION!

RESPONSE FROM AMP

(IMPORTANT, EVERYONE PLEASE READ):

Ask and you will recieve! I’ve set up a new thread for continuing this discussion.

This thread is now closed.

If you want to continue the discussion, please do so on this new thread.

The fact that women can’t speak about it as openly doesn’t mean the response isn’t there.

Yes, that is a nice “fact”? there, not separating observations from explanations.

This thread sucks.
>>

Well, arguably, as someone on testosterone, I get to see what it’s like to be endocrinologically male. I also have much greater access to the private conversations of men. You’ve never lived as or been perceived as a woman; I live as and am perceived as male.

Expecting you to speculate sensibly about all that is unreasonable.

But, no, it’ s not the same, like I said. First of all, I didn’t say that women have the same response _as men_. I said that they have the same response _as that which you described men having_. I’m using your words–you know, listening to you and giving you the benefit of the doubt as a reliable narrator of your own experience–to form my impressions of male sexuality. I also get to use centuries of relatively open discussion of male sexuality.

You, OTOH, are not listening to what I and the other female-bodied people have been saying. You are also hindered by social mores. You can only access a history that has ruthlessly punished desire and sexual acting-out in women, and a tradition that has seen female sexuality only as the passive counterpart to male desire. You said it yourself in an earlier post: there’s no literary tradition of female desire, no “homme fatale.” Women, unlike men, have not been allowed to write about their sex drives.

And I am _not_ conflating observation with explanation; I’m pointing out that it’s very difficult to observe something when it’s been stifled for so long, and when it is considered a private matter not to be exposed to outsiders like you. Women do speak about desire to other women, just not so much to eighteen-year-old straight men.

And what other gender differences are there that might result in problems with my job? I’ve already proven over the course of almost seventeen years that I can do all the aspects of my job, so don’t give me the old “well, maybe they just don’t think you’re strong enough” canard. Seeing is believing. I’ve already crossed that hurdle, many, many years ago. That was an easy one.

Absolutely.

That’s been my point all along.

Like the professional world, for example. No matter how neutral our dress or behavior, the mere fact that we are Female, with a Female Body, brings sexuality into the equation as work. For women, this often translates into reduced opportunities at work. Potential mentors shy away from us because they don’t want to be tagged by the inevitable sexual rumors. Higher-ups don’t want to believe that women are on the job to work rather than find a husband. The Mommy Track is real. Even when we’re not mommies. How attractive we are or aren’t can translate into what work opportunities we are given, or aren’t. I once had a foreman on the job walk me around to all the journeymen already there, asking the guys if it was ok if I worked with them—he didn’t want to make anybody’s wife mad. Out of thirteen journeymen on the job, all said they’d work with me, that it was cool. But only two of them thought the whole idea of singling me out like that, for that reason, was complete bullshit. Only two other journeymen on the job thought it should have been irrelevant whether anyone’s wife got mad. The other guys thought it was nice of him to ask!

Now, I could give scads of examples; I could easily run Amp’s bandwidth into the ground giving examples. And yes, my examples would probably be more ‘extreme’ than average, because of the nature of my work and the lack of a critical mass of women on the job. I still think it is relevant though, because of what Robert said about dress; on my job, neither gender dresses “sexy”. We dress for safety. My usual uniform is bib overalls, work boots, and t-shirt. If the weather is cool, a flannel shirt and a heavy Carharrt jacket. If cold, long underwear and more layers. I never wear makeup on the job (and rarely off the job, too), but if it’s windy or cold, I’ll wear chapstick. In other words, I look like the guys under my hardhat. By sending no sexual signals, it would stand to reason that my sexuality would be taken out of the picture, no? But that hasn’t been the case, for me or for other women in my Local. Even on the job, where it is completely irrelevant, our sexuality enters the picture without our desire, without our consent. This translates into no promotions, no opportunities to run jobs, which means less weight on the resume over the course of a career. It also means being first on the layoff list. I don’t view a lower yearly income, less money in the 401k, and a lower pension statement as privileges.

I also think it is interesting that when talking about the power dynamics of being viewed through a sexual lens, that several of the men here immediately thought of the dynamics of dating, where not only the context is proper, but where both parties can been seen as being on equal footing. I can’t speak for the other women here, but I immediately flashed on all the times I was viewed through that lens where the context was improper, if not highly so, and where there is no way I was on an equal footing with the other party; where there was a definite, tangible power imbalance.

Btw, I still invite you to email me. Some of your comments sound a bit like things I’ve said in the past on another forum, and I want to figure out if you know that forum. pookietyrael At comcast Dot net

Nice, see, that’s the sign of someone who is only honestly interested in discussion.

Well if this thread sucks, you can definitely congratulate yourself on that achievement, someone.

…

Funnily enough, and only as a means of offering an amusing anecdote, last night I was watching a repeat of this brilliant (and very very surreal and disturbing) documentary that I hadn’t caught first time around, called Texas Teenage Virgins. One of the teenagers interviewed, a 17-year-old male who’d taken the pledge, was talking about his own difficulties in sticking to it. The interviewer (a woman) asked him if he thought it was easier for girls to stick to abstinence, and he laughed and replied something like, ‘oh noo, the idea that girls want less sex is a lie, believe me, I don’t know why they seem to have more control but they get just as horny, they want it just as much as we do, only we show it more! ‘

There you go, just an anecdote mind you, only one voice like any other, but if even a 17-year-old from Luppock, Texas, where in the words of the teenage inhabitants there’s nothing to do except golf, bowling, shopping malls and youth church groups, has copped on to that little well-kept secret, maybe there’s still hope for the teenage troll here?

You’ve been treated pretty harshly in this thread, and because of that I’ve given you a lot of latitude - more latitude than I give most posters. I totally acknowlege that you’re not the only rude one here.

But in the last couple of days you’ve been dishing out much more disrespect than you’ve been taking in, and even if people address you respectfully you still treat them with contempt.

Either return to the reasonably polite style you were using in your first day or two on “Alas,” or stop posting here. Your choice.

If you want to discuss this with me, don’t derail the thread; email me to discuss it.

Amp, how about:

“The history of rock’n'roll through tight pants” (cheers Lauren!)

I have a list ready, just in case ;)

… Ropert vomits out …

Far from me to suggest how poster ‘Someone’ should address other people but he has been doing this sort of thing all through the thread, not to mention he just kept on repeating his claims without supporting them only to complain they’ve been misread, and arrogantly ignored any responses that he can’t fit in his formulas… how long does it take for the troll-detector here to activate?

Will this thread ever die??

Ropert vomits out

How do you know? Isn’t the whole gist of the (justified) criticism of someone that he is asserting as fact something that he does not have first-hand experience of?

Yes, thank you Robert, because I totally didn’t mention “separation of observations from explanations” in my post 433.

Thank you Amanda for saying this little gem

Someone, you can’t extrapolate from the sexual frustration of the teenage male that women in general don’t want sex. In fact, you can’t even extrapolate that teenage girls are less horny than you. What they are is more afraid of getting called a slut.

After all the observations and possible explanations that me and Aegis provided.

Thank you piny for totally twisting my words around

Also, she _is_ waiting to be approached. She writes in her profile about _men_ contacting _her._ Probably because so many of them already have.

Yes, this is totally not the same thing that I said in my post 434.

And thank you piny for being so wise to be able to make this logical judgement

And for the umpteenth time, men’s bodies have just as strong an effect on women as the one you’re describing.

As if I didn’t mention several times, that just like you say I can’t judge female sexual drive and visual atrraction because I am not female, you can’t judge male sexual drive and visual attraction because you are not male.
It works both ways piny, damn it!!

The fact that women can’t speak about it as openly doesn’t mean the response isn’t there.

Yes, that is a nice “fact” there, not separating observations from explanations.

This thread sucks.

Ampersand said:
So it’s an error to even implicitly make zero-sum assumptions - for instance, if someone points out that life often sucks in jr high school for girls, that doesn’t mean that they’re saying or implying that life is always easy for jr. high school boys. (And vice versa).

That’s exactly what I was getting at. Also, saying that X is an advantage in some areas doesn’t mean that X cannot be a disadvantage in other areas, and vice versa. This is because are multiple ways in which something can be an advantage or a disadvantage.

Ampersand said:
However, saying that it sucks for everyone isn’t the same thing as saying that everyone has it equally bad. Yes, it sucked to be a boy in the high school dating scene. But the fact is, boys in high school virtually never experience rape or attempted rape. That one fact alone puts the “equally bad or worse for boys”? theory onto the trash heap, in my opinion.

I can’t disagree with you here: rape completely skews the scales.

By the way, since we’re approaching 500 posts on this thread, it’s long past time for me to start a new thread (and thus show some mercy for folks with slower connections). If anyone has a suggestion for the title or topic of the new thread, I’d appreciate hearing it. :-)

Oh no, I think my last couple posts just prolonged the thread. If it would make sense to move my post #463 to the new thread when you make it, that might be a good idea. I don’t about a title, because I am not sure which points in this thread you will be focusing on. How about: ” ‘Rape culture?’ What ‘rape culture?’ “, “Incurable skepticism about rape culture”, ” ‘Rape culture,’ gender privilege, and sexual attraction”, “Young adult males strike back” ? On second thoughts, it’s probably better if you don’t use any of those…

Kim said:
That’s a privilege? Gee, here all along I thought that was objectifying.

It is objectifying. (We will save the debate about what exactly “objectification” is for another time.) It is also a source of privilege. The two are not contradictory at all, because as Ampersand has explained, gender roles are not a zero-sum game. Social norms can be double-edged swords: just because they are objectifying, discriminatory, or damaging to one’s health or self-esteem, it doesn’t mean that they can’t grant privilege in other areas (although whether the advantages and disadvantages balance each other out is a totally different question). The MRA-ish claim that men are oppressed by “having” to earn more money seems just like the feminist claim that women are oppressed from “having” to be beautiful: both of those claims are half true, but they leave out the other half of the bigger picture.

Understanding the disadvantages that a certain social system grants in one area should not lead us to ignore the way that system also grants certain advantages in another area. Obviously, the pressure on women to be beautiful, and the pressure on men to earn money are both disadvantages. But because of that pressure on men, they often succeed in earning more money, granting them economic power (although this power require sacrifices in other areas). Those poor men, being forced into having all that financial power! Likewise, the pressure on women to be beautiful may result in them improving their beauty, and consequently gaining sexual power over males. Of course, female sexual power does not always translate into respect from males, and it often comes at a price of other types of power.

La Lubu said:
More like, it’s a privilege on the part of males to be able to view The Female Body in any context, as being sexual.

Correct. At the same time, it can also be a disadvantage that we males often have to feel longing for females bodies, or be distracted by them, in contexts where we don’t want to. I’m not saying that the advantages or the disadvantages exactly balance each other out, but this issue clearly cuts both ways.

Males get to choose when, where, and by whom their bodies are going to be primarily seen as a sexual object. Women don’t.

I agree that women don’t don’t always have this choice. Men don’t always have this choice either. If a guy is a shy, repressed, “nerd” who stutters or lacks social skills, most women are going to perceive him as asexual no matter what the hell he does with his body. He doesn’t have a choice of how he is perceived either.

For women, being viewed as a sex object isn’t mainly a positive experience, because most of the time it happens completely out of any context that should be considered ’sexual’. Like, on the job, or in a job interview. For most of us, our first experiences at being viewed as a sex object were highly negative.

In post #442, I granted that the tendency for women to be seen as sexual could undermine them in the professional world. My main point was that this tendency also gives women advantages in other areas.

Surely being viewed sexually can often be a very positive experience for females! Isn’t it nice for an attractive woman to have a guy she really likes become totally smitten with her? Isn’t it nice for her to be able to wait for a guy to approach her, and then let him do most of the work when he does approach?

And some of my first experiences not being viewed as sexual were negative. I felt competely unnattractive to women until I was age 18, and this had horrible effects on my self-esteem and ability to interact with women. I also remember one time when a friend of mine who went to middle school with me told me only half-jokingly that she would like to marry me some day… just so she could sit in my big house and look at my artwork. I don’t think she would have been interested in dating me in a million years, but apparently I was good for earning money to buy a big house and adorning the walls of said house with paintings. Imagine how you would feel if a guy told you that he would like to marry you simply for your looks.

I am not saying that a guy who encounters comments like this and feels unnattractive necessarily has things as bad as a woman who gets catcalls and creepy older suitors all the time, just as I am not saying that a man never being seen as sexual in the business world has as much advantage as an attractive women who can easily attract men. Those comparisons are difficult to make.

La Lubu said:
Better yet, think about possible reasons why sexual admiration or desire from a man to a woman is often inscribed with a certain level of disrespect or contempt.

True. It can also be inscribed with adoration, as I explained in my previous post.

An important relative of sexual power is the degree to which you feel sexually attractive. This variable is partially determined by sexual power, but it is moderated by your self-image, which is why beautiful people can often feel unnattractive. Sexual power does not necessarily have anything to do with the respect you receive, your level of self-esteem, the social or economic power you have, or your success in finding or having relationships (because relationships depend on platonic attraction / emotional connection in addition to sexual attraction). Yet sexual power can heavily influence all of those factors, both positively and negatively. The influence is simply moderated by other variables such as your reputation, your personality, etc…

Why does beauty translate into “sexual power” for women? For several reasons:

1. Beauty gives women the power to attract mates. As the study I linked to showed, physical attractiveness is a major component of female sexual attractiveness to males. Beauty gives a woman more choices in potential mates, and the choice of more attractive mates, and this is power.

2. Beauty gives women the ability to cause admiration, awe, and shock in men. In other words, beauty gives women power not only to sexually attract men, but to influence male emotions also (in high amounts, even to the point of being able to intimidate and cow some men). This is power, regardless of whether males treat females positively or negatively in response to it.

3. Beauty gives women the option to do less work in courtship than males do, due to current social norms that prescribe male initiation. This is power. Women have the choice to be passive or proactive (at least in some contexts); men need to be much more attractive before the choice of being passive becomes realistic, and this choice is power. Note: I am not saying that women don’t do any of the work in initial courtship, only that they don’t have to do as much. I am also not saying that women do less work in relationships (because relationships require skills other than attracting someone), only that they have less work in attracting a mate. Neither am I saying that being beautiful doesn’t take work, only that most of the work can be done in advance at the store and in front of the mirror, so it’s not actually done during the courtship itself. (If I could buy some kind of cream that would make me witty and charismatic all day, I would.)

4. Beauty gives (some) women the ability to receive tangible material benefits such as unreciprocated favors, gifts, or dinners/meals from males. Love poems too. This is partly due to the anachronistic, sexist construction of romance. But having people willing to do shit for you just for the privilege of basking in your hotness is power, even if you consider such behavior unecessary and patronizing.

These four are always power for females on an objective level, because have more/better/easier choices is always power (although they can have consequences that are disadvantageous to females). Here are a couple ways that beauty often causes women to have power:

1. The admiration males feel for beautiful women can easily translate into adoration, especially due to current cultural scripts. Yet the admiration can turn into denigration, if the woman is perceived to dress/act in a slutty manner. Beauty can also cause a woman to be perceived as more intelligent (because physically attractive people are perceived as more intelligent in general), OR to be perceived as less intelligent, depending on the context.

2. Beautiful women have the opportunity to see themselves as more sexually attractive, because they are treated as more sexually attractive. Yet this effect can be canceled out by low self-esteem. Beautiful women are less likely to grow up socially isolated, because they will get more attention during their formative years. Yet the type of attention they get, competition with other females means that they won’t necessarily develop self-esteem simply from being beautiful.

Beauty is a tradeoff. Being beautiful may disadvantage women in some ways, but it gives them a lot of power in other ways. To ignore either of these facets of beauty is one-sided. Feminists often seem to ignore the advantages that beauty gives females, and cast female beauty standards simply as oppression. Anti-feminists often ignore the strain that female beauty standards cause women, and see beauty standards as evidence of female narcissism and manipulativeness of men. Both perspectives are one-sided and ignore the bigger picture.

P.S. Possible issue with this post: Perhaps it is misleading for me to call what I am talking about “sexual power.” Maybe Warren Farrell’s term “beauty power” is more clear. For instance, “sexual power” sounds like it would include things like having quality sex with a partner who gives you orgasms. Females are less likely to experience orgasm in the current culture, so is that an area where females have less sexual power, or is it something else entirely? Perhaps “orgasm power?” Wait… that sounds like it means something else ;)