Girls thread cont.

I was trying to be helpful by saying something now before someone said something harsh and easily misinterpreted.

I posted that *before* your clarification, TBH.

"Now just go off and have your little conversations about sexuality and sexual imagery somewhere they don't interrupt the stream of pictures of girls in their underwear."

This is the essence of that thread 24/7/365, Foth. The reason I avoid it pretty strictly.

Also the prevalence of what is essentially the same skinny brunette over and over and over and over.

What thread?

The "would smash" one, not that I recommend looking at it in too much detail.

I was quite enjoying the blithe positivity and pseudo-obliviousness of this new-era Fotherington Thomas, by the way.

never looking at WS is a good strategy for life imo

ws thread, thejenny xp

fwiw I would be very interested to read yr thoughts/opinions on this stuff FT/Pyth! I had a chat with a lady friend the other day wherein I mentioned my then-very-worrisome male anorexic pt, and made some comment about how the mortality rate for men with eating disorders might be higher because a) they don't have a biological imperative to maintain adipose and b) emaciated men are more likely to register as "scrawny" at a stage in the disease where a woman would be more likely to register as "dangerously thin," even accounting for messed up values wrt women's bodies etc

then my friend told me about that andrej dude I'm just now seeing for the first time and was like "they're even using men now as models precisely because ladies' bodies arent designed to get thin enough" *spits on the ground*

I should prob stop butting into the girls thread sorry

Yes, most of the women posted are skinny and conventionally attractive but they're mostly actresses and models who are obviously more likely to fall into those categories. Is that a problem? Of course it is and I'm not for a minute suggesting that it isn't but it isn't a thread about people we see on the street who are normal looking and amazing, you know?

There have been exceptions to that though and generally people are very accepting and welcoming of those exceptions. I have posted plus size women several times who were met with nothing but a lot of enthusiasm and praise. Others have as well. I read and participate in that thread pretty regularly and have never heard anyone say anything on that thread that was truly offensive or out of line that I can remember. Obviously it's your choice to avoid the thread and I understand that inclination but it just seems strange given that it's not really an awful thread to begin with imo.

Also, it's why I've made a concerted effort to participate in it from the beginning to keep it from being a thread of just those images. I tried to get other women to take part and it never really happened which is fine, I'm just saying. Inserting myself into that sphere has made it a less threatening thread that it may have seemed otherwise but I've been fairly pleasantly surprised that it's always been pretty decent.

Evs, start a thread for "Running alongside the girls only thread" or something, maybe? We can have that discush there if you want.

This thread doesn't say only!!

I specifically made it so it didn't.

What I found most depressio was this:

-I posted a picture of Thom Yorke looking really quite, well, average. And the reaction from men was: wow, the fact that ppl lust after TY give hope to average to ugly dudes everywhere that hey, weird looking smart guys can be lusted after. I got the feeling that this felt really quite empowering or ego-boosting to a couple of the guys on the thread, and it was smiles and niceness all round.

-JM posted a picture of an absolutely stunning, physically perfect model, who happened to have a lot of freckles. The reaction was not initially "omg freckles amazing" (though that did happen later) but a kind of "wtf is wrong with that girl's face" type negging.

And, as a woman who is quite seriously *not* perfect (the freckles all over my arms and shoulders are the least of my problem) it's my o_0 that this woman, who is 1000 times more attractive than I will ever be. And even she is somehow not enough for a bunch of dudes on the interwebs who self admittedly look more like Thom Yorke than Ryan Gosling or Mark Ruffalo.

It's that thing I know you've all talked about on this thread before, about how, like, straight women who are average looking expect to date men who are average looking, but men who are average looking expect to date, I dunno, Zooey D. And you can't even *talk* to them about the expectations these images create without them getting all offended about it.

I was quite enjoying the blithe positivity and pseudo-obliviousness of this new-era Fotherington Thomas, by the way.

This is the weird thing, I am often a blithely positive person when I'm allowed to just be myself and go on about Cornish landscapes and Richard D James' freckles or whatever without being worried. It's the constant criticism and negging and clusterfucks that really wear me down and make me paranoid and unhappy. When my natural state, I really would rather be a Fotherington Thomas wandering about going "hullo SEA ARCHES hullo THOM YORKE'S CHEEKBONES!"

a million x-posts now I can't keep up.

The reaction was not initially "omg freckles amazing" (though that did happen later) but a kind of "wtf is wrong with that girl's face" type negging.

One dumb troll did that in an obviously ridiculous an annoying post that was ignored by everyone else.

I saw that post and said "asshole trying to get attention not worth my time" in my head and that was it.

it isn't a thread about people we see on the street who are normal looking and amazing, you know?

First of all, there's no reason for it NOT to be about that except that there are fewer pictures on the internet of "normal" people in their underwear and god forbid we run short of pictures of tits. But there are plenty of female thinkers, writers, musicians, WHATEVER who people could be expressing attraction to and they are practically never posted on the thread (today's topical mention of PJ aside), which is almost 100% beauty policing in favor of primarily young skinny actresses whose sexual attractiveness has been carefully manufactured to appeal to a demographic.

One dumb troll = behaviour a lot more like most of the Beauty Industrial Complex (which I work inside every damn day and it's killing me) and most of mainstream society at the moment. I just find it overwhelming sometimes.

If you don't want this to be a girls' only thread, I would ask if there's any interest in starting another one that is, because I believe it's important to have that space.

I can understand that, especially coming from the industry you work in. I just went back and checked though and it really was that one completely stupid comment and the rest of the ones about her were nothing but praise and compliments specifically about her freckles.

But there are plenty of female thinkers, writers, musicians, WHATEVER who people could be expressing attraction to and they are practically never posted on the thread (today's topical mention of PJ aside), which is almost 100% beauty policing in favor of primarily young skinny actresses whose sexual attractiveness has been carefully manufactured to appeal to a demographic.

Yes! This! And I got into a really interesting discussion with a couple of ILX0rs on twitter a few months back about this. About the kind of pressure, that even women who are thinkers, writers, musicians, whatever, they have to appear in these "girl just sprawled all over this here sofa with her skirt all hiked up" photos which you would never see their male equivalents posed in? In order to be written about in very mainstream magazines, like, The Guardian Weekend?

Oh, I don't mind if it is and if other people want it to be that's fine with me. I just didn't want people to feel the need to apologize for posting in here since it really didn't state anywhere (until now) that they couldn't.

First of all, there's no reason for it NOT to be about that except that there are fewer pictures on the internet of "normal" people in their underwear and god forbid we run short of pictures of tits.

I never said there wasn't and I would welcome such a thing but precisely because of the reasons you stated it never will be. That's all I meant.

relatedly: https://twitter.com/#!/helenlewis/status/147682384047906817

straight women who are average looking expect to date men who are average looking, but men who are average looking expect to date, I dunno, Zooey D. And you can't even *talk* to them about the expectations these images create without them getting all offended about it.

^^ otm

Espesh when perfectly nice, normal dudes defend themselves by saying, like, "But my girlfriend/wife is beautiful, and she's a normal person! Really, I'm attracted to lovely normal women all the time", while being (purposefully?) oblivious to the fact that their public worship of faked beauty is part of a culture that makes their real-life loved ones feel terrible about/critical of themselves.

FWIW I also don't think it's *good* to export all these bodily concerns to men, as well. Like, I do not think that's the answer.

Firstly because hey, as a massive FAN of dudes with bodies like Thom Yorke (I have waxed lyrical about scrawny pale English dudes with bellies a million times before) that would be a thing of sadness to me.

But also, like, I went upstairs and there was a massive photo ad of RIPPED CHEST DUDE staring me in the face as I tried to fix someone's computer and I just think that's got to be so harmful for men, and also it's so clearly "give us all your money and you too can be surgically enhanced to look like this!" which is just gross late capitalism bleh

it's all just so depressio and I don't wanna be depressio

That tweet/letter is great.

Pyth, this is a thousand times OTM. Like, they just literally can NOT see the connection between "public adulation of unattainable photoshopped perfection" and "this is why my perfectly lovely normal looking wife/gf feels like shit about herself"

Anyway. Sigh. I have to go and do some more reports to market this shit to more ppl to exploit them by making them feel crap about themselves and it makes me want to vomit when I just want to be counting down the hours til I'm back in Cornwall and feeling like a human being again.

Haha @ the Roald Amundsen part of it!

I'm surprised you still work there, FT, given how you've felt about it since the beginning and how much it must be bringing you down. Things are hard enough without that shit on your back? I guess lack of income is a whole different shit, though.

Like, they just literally can NOT see the connection between "public adulation of unattainable photoshopped perfection" and "this is why my perfectly lovely normal looking wife/gf feels like shit about herself"

There is no doubt that this is an issue and it's depressing and awful. It's why I tried posting more "normal" looking people in WS after a while and part of the reason why I posted there less and less. I'm not saying that there aren't problems with the very idea of the WS thread because there obviously are. I just feel like most of the people posting there do actually understand that connection and I think that the range of people posted itt is actually wider than has been suggested here. I sort of wish that reg ILX was up so I could look at the real thread and verify that but the sort of Stuff for Men, Maxim type shit that I find most offensive isn't actually what gets posted most often.

I cannot conscience knowingly making myself unemployed in this economic climate - there are literally *no* jobs out there, I keep looking and seeing only short term contracts because the NHS just isn't hiring and no one else wants medical data analysts - and they simply will not sack me, I don't know how I've survived this many rounds of redundancies because no one else in this industry can speak in maths apparently - I dunno. It makes me crazy.

But it's also brought a whole new level of understanding of the discourse around Beauty Myth type shit to which I used just shrug and say "who cares what stupid women do to their breasts" like now I know the mechanism and the pressure - but I also feel more confident about telling stupid strawfeminists to STFU "the problem is *not* porn or these vague notions of 'sexualisation' - the problem is commercialisation and hard core late capitalism on a level you couldn't even get your heads around, but here are the effing stats!" grrrrr

This report is not writing itself. I need to look at Thom Yorke's belly until I get my happy place back.

Can I just say that I am always really very reluctant to post in this thread when we get on these topics because I feel like you're all r your de at me thinking about how sad it is that the poor dumb pretty girl has been brainwashed or that I don't have a right to take part in these discussions because I may or may not have had similar experiences to you? There, I said it. Of course I have been brainwashed - we all have to some extent and I'm more conscious of that lately than I have been ever before. Still, every post I make about this stuff I sort of picture a handful of you all sitting there clucking at my naivete and stupidity. I realize that probably is more a reflection of my self-doubt than anything else and very well might not be what's happening at all but wanted to put that out there and assure you that it's not the case and that I do think about these things. A lot. I mean, my participation in WS was pretty intentional from the beginning in a sort of "I'm here too boys" sort of way. I found it easier to participate in some way than allow myself to be excluded. Sorry, I'm babbling now.

Well, that reminds me of when I first joined ILX, the Music board I was OK with but all the politics and culture and so much else, it all seemed like if I was to say owt, I'd get tutted at and so on.

Of course, we all no nowt and continue to do so really.

E, there's no way that this is not gonna come out the wrong way, so I'm just gonna say it and hope you aren't too hurt by it.

I spent a *lot* of my life being "one of the boys" - because I kinda had to, having worked in so many male dominated fields. I could either participate, and join in, and prove myself "more of a lad than the lads" in the recording studio, or in the computer lab - or I could kick up a stink and vent my feminist feelings, and not get to be in the club at all. For a long time, that worked, and I don't actually know what the *moment* was, that it stopped working. But it did. Somehow the "one of the boys" forcefield stopped working, and I had to deal with all of this stupid crap that I thought only women who weren't, you know, "putting themselves forward enough" did.

That said, I don't think I was ever unaware that there were women who didn't, or couldn't, make those choices. I will confess that I often get very very irritated and frustrated with you - not because I'm "clucking at your naivete and stupidity" - but because sometimes it *feels* (operative word - this is how it feels to *me*, not what I'm accusing you of doing in terms of intent) like... because you have not directly experienced these issues, you start to actively deny the reality of the experiences *I* (we?) have, and the conclusions that *I* (we?) draw.

That is my number one trigger point of what will turn me from a fairly reasonable person into a raging angry beast. Different people have different experiences. Those experiences will lead them to different conclusions, different interpretations. (And also, the expectations based on those conclusions may themselves shape future events.)

It's one thing to say "I've never experienced that" - that is completely fair. But it sometimes *feels* like you step from "I have never experienced that, and it is literally impossible for me to conceive of anyone feeling that way" - which leads to the implied/infered coda of "...therefore anyone feeling that way is lying, crazy or stupid." Which is denying that other people have their own equally valid reality and that makes me super crazy angry in a way I can't control.

I really hesitate to post this, because I read it, and I'm sure it comes off as a personal attack. But I feel like I'm never going to move on or be able to deal until I explain to you - I am not angry at you about X, that you've just said. I am angry about Y, which is something kinda beyond X.

I'm not saying that you being on the WS thread is "being one of the boys." I don't have a problem with any woman who walks into that envrionment and tries to humanise it or gender equalise it, or just be *present* as a reminder that women are human beings with brains and eyes and libidos, too. I'm fine with all that.

But there's this complicated thing where it feels like you start to impose your reality onto me. And you start to judge my reactions by your experiences, and have no conception of why I (with my different set of experiences and conclusions) might feel and think a different way. And I am really not OK with that.

Anyway, that's really heavy for a Friday afternoon. And I feel a bit like I'm a mean kid who has just squished a butterfly. But this is stuff that's been building up for a couple of years now, and I either have to say this, now, without fearing that every other person on this thread has their finger hovering over the SB button for being ~mean~ to you, and run the risk of upsetting you, or just carry on with this bad blood between us, which is no fun for either of us.

Sorry, many phone calls and shocking work-related announcements today, got delayed in response.

E, I know that's why you've embedded yrself in that thread from the beginning and if you can really stomach that, you have a more resilient approach to the subject than I do. (And possibly you also believe more charitable things about the participants, whereas half the reason I avoid the thread is because it makes me feel really bad about some dude posters that I'm otherwise fond of.)

What you say about inevitable brain-washing is true, and sad, and the other half of the reason I stay off ws is that I want to block that message out of my life as much as possible, because we are all varying levels of susceptible to it. I know you've let us in on a little bit about your own body-image difficulties and that you're working on finding a balanced view. Wish you all luck with this and am v interested in your thoughts as you work toward something more beneficial.

x-post -

Not upset at all - don't feel attacked. Promise.

To be honest, what you said is something I feared you (and other people) felt wrt to this part:

But it sometimes *feels* like you step from "I have never experienced that, and it is literally impossible for me to conceive of anyone feeling that way" - which leads to the implied/infered coda of "...therefore anyone feeling that way is lying, crazy or stupid."

I have tried to acknowledge that and make a point of not denying other people's experiences/feelings and I apologize if I've not been successful in doing so and if that has seemed to be the case.

I have more to say but a) I'd like to think about it more and b) for some reason I agreed to take part in some lunchtime yoga bullshit that I really don't feel like doing but don't think I can get out of.

OK it's taken me 6 months to actually say this, so I don't expect a reply immediately - I just wanted to say I'm glad you don't feel upset or attacked. Genuinely. Bcuz it's rlly hard for me to say this stuff.

I peeked into the WS thread on ILX once or twice and I just can't get into posting pictures of ppl and judging their bodies and their fuckability (even if it's all positive, it is judging). And given that measuring the worth of women (I presume it's mostly women in the thread, TY notwithstanding) on their fuckability first and p much everything else second is a basic tenant of sexism, I don't want to participate in it.

Also what Laurel said about needing to maintain a certain fiction about some ILX dudes that I generally like.

I also hate "smash" as a sex euphemism.

And also I would like this to be a "girls only" thread. Sorry Evan.

I also hate "would smash" as a metaphor but, like, I just wanted a place to post pictures of Thom Yorke's amazing belly without being shouted at as being off topic or ~CREPEY WEIRDO~ - well, that turned out well! :D

hullo fotherington hullo thomas,

There are a few data manager/data analyst jobs for clinical research projects up at jobs.ac.uk. Not saying you should go for them as I have not much idea what they want, what you currently do, etc, and I suspect they probably pay a lot less than the big bad corporate self-image-hounds. But if you are looking for an out, it may be worth a look.

WS thread scares me too. Even the "girls/gays WS too" thread on big-ILX makes me feel a bit like a visiting alien.

I don't wanna do this yoga thing. I'm trying to hide and pretend I'm not here.

Oh, it's not until 1.

Moving whatever discussion about the term "mansplain" to here:

I am 100% guilty of being an over-explainer for a bunch of reasons!!! Big sister, production manager, nuts & bolts, etc. I know I do this. But there's a already a gender imbalance present in all of our perceptions about who gets to "know" things and who is supposed to "learn" things from others, and I am positing that the imbalance makes it not the same when a woman overexplains (although equally annoying to the listener, I'm sure).

Hm maybe not "equally" but "also".

Sorry, I answered this on the wrong thread, Pyth.

The problem is, the "man" in "mansplain" doesn't ~have~ to refer to the male gender, but the inherent assumption of automatic greater knowledge due to unspoken privilege. If you can get all that in a snappy 2-syllable phrase, we're laughing.

^^ Yes. I wish there was something snappy to encompass that.

I meant my post here as a response to ENBB's saying that she's offended by the term, and I assume she doesn't mean because it's an ugly portmanteau, because "offended" is a strong, possibly inexact, word to use in that case.

There really needs to be a word that encapsulates the whole damn thing, because it's not as if there isn't White-splaining or Ameri-splaining or Hetero-splaining or any of those other things, we just don't have snappy words for them, really.

x-post - It just seems to me to imply that it's something that all and only men do which I don't think is actually the case. That's why I was saying that I'd prefer a term like FT was suggesting. One that encapsulates the phenomenon as FT stated above and doesn't seem so damning and exclusive.