Once I woke up to realise I was staring at a girls ample cleavage. Which was horrendously awkward as she was glaring me to death when I came round, and the other time I was staring at mans quite apparent "package" whilst him and his girlfriend watched me.

Ok, let's see if this causes offence or not... I've run out of nice ways to phrase it.

There is a reason that every pic I've seen of you seems to be from the classic MySpace "straight down the tits" angle. To whit, you're certainly not adverse to playing up to it. You can't then expect to "get away" with that completely unlooked.

An illustrative story. In a tutorial at university, there was this absolutely stunning woman. I mean really quite phenomenal. I couldn't take my eyes off her for most of the tutorial. I knew I was staring, so I tried to stop as I was worried I was going to creep her out if she saw me doing it. But she did look up and caught my eye, so I gave her an embarrassed smile and an eyebrow, conveying "heavens, I'm terribly sorry for staring but you are just lovely, but I'm mortified that I may have been impolite" (I have expressive Roger Moore eyebrows). But she smiled back, a big "Aww, shucks" smile, and then came up to me after the tutorial, and we went out for a bit. I'm not sure I did anything wrong there.

If women started staring at mens crotch areas all of the time in the same area you'd soon notice how different it felt, I think.

Were you just oogling her breasts, though?

If women started staring at mens crotch areas all of the time in the same area you'd soon notice how different it felt, I think.

And indeed if I was walking around in a leopard print thong, the comparison would actually start to have merit.

If I giant black* man was looking at my crotch with a grin on his face, salivating from the mouth, then truly I'd be a bit perturbed.

I don't think my crotch area would feel any different if ladies stared at it all the time.

My crotch area feels different when pretty ladies look at me. It feels all hot and big and it scares me.

Exactly - I think it goes back to how much of a threat you see the person staring at you as being - how likely it feels that the staring or, indeed, shouting will turn into something physical.

Exactly - I think it goes back to how much of a threat you see the person staring at you as being - how likely it feels that the staring or, indeed, shouting will turn into something physical.

My crotch area feels different when pretty ladies look at me. It feels all hot and big and it scares me.

It's not just pretty ladies, it's often big fat hairy ladies, twice your size, that could take you down in one fowl grunt. And they smell. Probably.

Hey! I'd never do something like that!

See, I think Shin's touched on the crux of it, really. There's nothing wrong with just looking at attractive people, of either sex, provided you're not doing it in a way which is threatening. And be honest with yourselves, if you're dressed up nicely, wearing something that accentuates the nice bits, why are you dressed like that? Because you like the way it makes you look? Well, you're not spending the day looking at yourself, so it's so you look nice viewed from outside your own head, isn't it? I know when I make an effort over my appearance it's not so I can look in a mirror all day admiring myself, it's so I look nice to the outside world, and I like it when I get women giving me appraising looks.*

Yes, the difference there is that a woman isn't a threat to a man, but then most men aren't a threat when they're looking at women, they just might be being a bit obvious about it. And context, as with many other things, is king.

An illustrative story. In a tutorial at university, there was this absolutely stunning woman. I mean really quite phenomenal. I couldn't take my eyes off her for most of the tutorial. I knew I was staring, so I tried to stop as I was worried I was going to creep her out if she saw me doing it. But she did look up and caught my eye, so I gave her an embarrassed smile and an eyebrow, conveying "heavens, I'm terribly sorry for staring but you are just lovely, but I'm mortified that I may have been impolite" (I have expressive Roger Moore eyebrows). But she smiled back, a big "Aww, shucks" smile, and then came up to me after the tutorial, and we went out for a bit. I'm not sure I did anything wrong there.

However, if I'd been ugly, I suspect she may have acted differently, but that's a whole other strand of the argument (didn't someone post the excellent video guide to sexual harrassment on here recently? )

*Just a preemptive precaution, I should point out that anyone even remotely taking anything in this paragraph as suggesting that a woman dressed provocatively is in any way "asking for it" in terms of being raped can shush right now, and then go off and learn to read.

Shin, I would never have been brave enough to bring it up, but I do sort of agree. Pictures of yu I hsve seen have all been of the 'tits ahoy!' version, and so maybe you use that to your advantage or just do it for, ahem, titilation, which is fine if you don't mind what is to many people unwanted attention, but I don't try and put my boobs 'out there' and still men stare all of the time.

Sexual attraction isn't the same as sexual objectification, man.

The feminist argument isn't that nobody should try and look nice. It's certainly not that sex is automatically demeaning to women. It's that far too often the media potrays women as things that exist solely for the pleasure of the male observer, and that that's a bad message to be sending out to society as a whole.

It's easy to say that the men who leer at fils or catcall at Mimi are just individual misogynist fuckwits who'd obviously be that way even if the media wasn't subtly telling them that it's OK. That sounds worrying close to "I'm alright Jack, bugger everybody else" to me.

This is a really, really easy subject to get defensive over - after all, saying that something you enjoy/consume/aren't actively offended by is sexist is by implication calling YOU sexist too, and since you know you're not then OBVIOUSLY there's no problem with whatever the actual subject of the comment was, and the complainer is clearly a joyless nitpicking PC drone out to spoil everyone's fun.

(This is a general observation about a non-specific "you", by the by. I don't know you personally, anything like well enough to make any sort of judgement as to what's going on in your head. But I've seen this reaction so many times in so many places, I've certainly justified shit to myself in the same way and I thought it was worth mentioning in passing).

Oh indeed - I know that. But it seems that the two do sometimes get conflated by people arguing against the sexualisation of everything.



I think that's part of it, yes, but I do often come across articles which seem to work from the assumption that anything involving women and sex in the media is automatically portraying women as soulless objects there only for the edification of men. And this simply isn't true, and is a very patronising attitude to take to the women concerned. Yes, there's a problem with the way that absolutely everything is being sold with sex now (it being bloody tedious, for one), and there's certainly a problem with playboy thongs being sold to pre-pubescent girls, but the whole lot seems to get wrapped up into one big ball of Victorian prudishness, and the outrage at the things that are genuinely problematic spills over into everything else that to a sexually-liberal mind are entirely healthy (porn, for instance, lap-dancing lessons etc etc. I've seen columns decrying women taking pole-dancing lessons as degrading themselves, as if somehow by virtue of being a feminist you get to tell other women what they can and can't choose to do in their own bedrooms).

Hell, even this discussion is all over the place!



That's not *quite* what I was getting at, though. I do think that the chaps who do that *are* individual mysoginistic fuckwits, but I'm saying that there are broader societal effects that have caused or contributed to it being seen as an ok thing to do. I don't think that the blame for that can be laid wholly or even mainly at the door of the portrayal of women in the media. This sort of behaviour isn't new at all - it was around 200 years ago as well. Ill-educated, insensitive men have always acted like clods. The problem with this is *bigger* than FHM and Nuts, is my point.

There are plenty of nice chaps on here who may enjoy the pictures of the nuddy ladies. It doesn't make them go out and yell "PHWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAR" at innocent women minding their own business. So what does make men do that? I think it's a centuries old, hell, milennia old problem with the way society has developed, with men nominally at the top and women as the servile homekeepers and baby makers. To lay the blame for this at the door of the media is to miss the deeper problems of the ingrained sexism of society.

As with 99% of things, education is the key.



P'raps, but I think problems caused by certain elements can be overstated. For instance, I'd lay far more blame for women's body image problems at the door of hateful rags like Heat than I would at men's unrealistic expectations fuelled by watching pron.

I'm not really defensive about this, as I'm quite happy that I'm not sexist. But I am concerned about the possibly over-puritanical direction we could head in if this "all sexy stuff is bad" nonsense gets too far. We're already seeing unfortunate censorship of the arts coming in due to this "extreme porn" law, for instance. It also drowns out the quite sensible discussions about the various pernicious effects of the media.


Oh heavens, even if it were, chap, I'm not the sort to take offense. I know who I am, and I'm comfortable with my lovely inclusive lefty right-on liberal-itude.

P'raps, but I think problems caused by certain elements can be overstated. For instance, I'd lay far more blame for women's body image problems at the door of hateful rags like Heat than I would at men's unrealistic expectations fuelled by watching pron.

I think I'd agree with you there - Mrs Squirt gets some of those every now and the ( Love it! is the greatest mag ever ) and some of them seem to take a spiteful, gleeful pleasure in pointing out the latest celeb who has some minor "problem" - cellulite or a bit of a belly or less than perfectly shaved legs. "Boobies are great!" is hardly the best message to be putting out, but it's better than "Jade goes up to a size 16, and is therefore mockable! And, by inference, so are the 50% of UK women who are a size 16 or above!"

I think I'd agree with you there - Mrs Squirt gets some of those every now and the ( Love it! is the greatest mag ever ) and some of them seem to take a spiteful, gleeful pleasure in pointing out the latest celeb who has some minor "problem" - cellulite or a bit of a belly or less than perfectly shaved legs.

"Boobies are great!" is hardly the best message to be putting out,

Looking at someone because they are pretty is one thing, just staring at someone's chest is quite another.

I'd love to start a Heat-alike magazine that focusses entirely on Heat journalist's bodies.

Also, I lean towards Mimi's views over yours, Mr Chris. I see where you are coming from with the "education is key" thing but I think Mimi has a point -- that the media send subtle messages to the, shall we say, shallower end of the gene pool that being twats to random women in the street is OK.

Of course, they are also too retarded to add anything to balloting except randomness and casual racism, so should probably not be allowed to vote either. Still, as MyFinger once said, there's nothing wrong with this country that a few million tons of contraceptives introduced into the water supply of strategic areas can't solve.

Why do *they* read this as affirmation of their "PHWOOOAR YOU HAVE TITS" atitude when you and I don't?

MyFinger for PM then, frankly.

I think it's because we're not fucking stupid.

He outlines his policy platform #comment-1005" class="postlink">here.

Best part of this thread so far. Also, I lean towards Mimi's views over yours, Mr Chris. I see where you are coming from with the "education is key" thing but I think Mimi has a point -- that the media send subtle messages to the, shall we say, shallower end of the gene pool that being twats to random women in the street is OK. Which for some of the random women in the street is distressing.

Can I also point out that the same messages are being sent to the shallower end of the gene pool (Women only section). BB Contestant -> Kit off for the Star/FHM/Nuts/Zoo -> Sportsman boyfriend = a career.

Can I also point out that the same messages are being sent to the shallower end of the gene pool (Women only section). BB Contestant -> Kit off for the Star/FHM/Nuts/Zoo -> Sportsman boyfriend = a career.

This also applies to the body image thing too.

Can I also point out that the same messages are being sent to the shallower end of the gene pool (Women only section). BB Contestant -> Kit off for the Star/FHM/Nuts/Zoo -> Sportsman boyfriend = a career.

G-Unit

"Kissy kissy" <-- you dropped these.