itt a strange man asks if you saw the ass on that one

not saying the thing you want to say has its own discreet pleasures, I know anybody who ever lived in the midwest can at least partially relate in a bitter pissed-off kinda way

otm x infinity

that's why i didn't like the midwest. x infinity.

a strange man asking me about "that ass" i

great ILE board descriptions that died before they got out of committee imo

minus the i at the end that i accidentally didn't delete OR WAS I JUST SAYING WHAT I REALLY FELT

Oh that reminds me of the good old days when Alex in NYC's posts had random letters stuck at the end of them for no discernible reason.h

that ass, i

those were good times.u

lololo

At least once a week I will think "MY BLOOD IS BOILING!" & think of Alex.w

the giggles I get from remembering the Plague of Random Terminal Lower-Case Letters are some of the sweetest lols to be had imo.s

re: the original scenario, when this has happened to me I have assumed that on some level the guy suspected I might be gay and wanted to shore up his own heterosexual credentials (read: clueless AND homophobic AND sexist). When this happens I know instantly that there will be no real level of communication possible with him.

i tend to think of it was a "let us attempt to bond in male privilege by talking loudly and crudely of ladies in their presence" thing. i don't tend to see it as a challenge of heterosexuality and maybe dude is just being a dumb male primate with massive alpha jerk tendencies?

the strange man doesn't really care about your opinion about "that ass" iirc, he's just asking

^^yes, probably true in most cases, but in some there seems to have been that extra sinister element. that's when I tune out.

I don't know if it's sinister as much as it's the equivalent of whipping his dick out in front of you. It's childish and weird and gross. Fine line, I guess.

haven't read the thread, but this is totally harmless, you dicks, unless the chick is within earshot and might get offended

cause, like, ASS

I mean, I probably wouldn't hang around to discuss ass philosophy with coors lite guy, but I'm not going to make the sign of the cross before I pull up my pettiskirts and run in the opposite direction either

http://www.wisdomportal.com/Ouroboros-1.jpg

haha i know he was trolling but Dan I.'s position

haven't read the thread, but this is totally harmless, you dicks, unless the chick is within earshot and might get offended

― Dan I., Friday, December 4, 2009 12:46 AM (15 minutes ago)

was kinda hiarious in its unwitting otm summary of the first 3 hundred posts itt

not saying the thing you want to say has its own discreet pleasures

life of the lurker -_-

lrka

Is it still OK to play 'shoot, shag or marry'. I'm kinda worried now.

Only with Spice Girls.

OK thanks.

Pan's people?

Only Babs.

Shoot, shag AND Marry Babs? I think Robert Powell has done 2 of the 3.

What are "engineer glasses"?

My father-in-law is ~this guy~ except his confidences to me are more like "women - they don't like to fix anything, do they?" I have no trouble imagining him sharing his opinions about waitresses with his "lunch buddies". He's a sad man.

the only person i will ask if they saw "the ass on that one" is my boyfriend, in reference to other guys. he's my booty-watching buddy. is that still creepy?

no I'm sure you guys are discreet

welcome back tbh

> What are "engineer glasses"?
Apparently whatever we want them to be.

Yeah, I already been there. Was hoping gbx would narrow it down.

pithy

― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Thursday, December 3, 2009 7:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

the weak

― a. cole, u thic (acoleuthic), Thursday, December 3, 2009 7:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

also, to get technical, you seem to be defending (or at least, not willing to condemn) surfacey kinds of thoughts like impressions, images, reactions, and i'm talking more about beliefs, intentions, sustained patterns of thinking. it's not a bright line of difference but it is a line. since this whole clusterfuck started not with a dude's mere sensory impressions but how he thought it was ok to behave in response i dunno why you're so focused on the former.

― goole, Thursday, December 3, 2009 4:35 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

wanted to highlight this, cuz it's an excellent point, and something i wasn't being very clear about. my train of thought in this thread has gone something like this:

~this~ guy, before he opens his yap, is doing something normal and, as far as i'm concerned, unobjectionable: noticing a woman's body. if he's making a big deal about it and staring at her with creepy fixity, then he's crossing a line, creating an oppressive and perhaps even a threatening public climate for women - clearly sexist. but if he's just idly noting a detail of his surroundings in passing, then it's perfectly okay, a basic part of life, no harm done.

the point i was making earlier in concentrating on the "sanctity" (really, i should have said moral neutrality) of transitory thought was that on this level, before he starts talking about it, the idle thoughts that flit in and out of his head are no one else's to judge - they exist for him alone. perhaps whenever he sees an attractive woman, he for a brief moment imagines her bound and flogged and pleading for his mercy. we would hope not, but perhaps...

i'd argue that this thought only assumes moral weight when he mentally processes it after it occurs. if he's aware that it would be wrong to bind and flog her without her permission, and also that this is a potentially troublesome fantasy with regard to what it might reveal about his deeper feelings towards women, then the image (fantasy, kink or whatever you might want to call it) is not wrong or even necessarily sexist. the thought assumes moral substance only when he decides how he feels about it and what he's going to do with it. that's been a big part of my argument, and i don't know that i've explained it very well.

of course, in communicating his observation, freighted with sexual desire, ~this~ guy is breaking the seal of his own head and making his thoughts public. this is an entirely different domain, and it becomes perfectly acceptable to judge him not only for what he's said and done, but for what his actions reveals about his thoughts. i said a while back that i didn't necessarily think his actions were best understood as sexism. i was wrong about that. it IS sexist for men to casually assume that strangers can, in public, strike up random discussions of the physical attributes of the women they see. laurel, you were right: "sexist" is precisely the right word. were all men to treat public space this way, daily life would be much more oppressive for most women.

in retrospect, the self-evident point i wanted (but utterly failed) to make is that ~this~ guy's communication of his sexual thoughts - in some manner or other - would not necessarily be sexist, even if the thoughts were as base as "JESUS, she has a fine ass!" obvious examples of appropriate communication contexts provided by many in this thread; e.g., private conversations between friends. basically i wanted to make clear that it's okay to talk about our desires and fantasies, so long as we're respectful of social boundaries, because there seemed to have been some contention on that score (perhaps generated by my own lack of communicative clarity in precision).

i brought up "puritanism" and "social censorship" because i was thinking about the distinction goole makes above, between idle thought and beliefs/patterns/intentions. i believe that we often overlook this distinction, and in our perfectly appropriate desire to morally assess beliefs and actions, create a social climate in which idle thoughts become fodder for shame and even, when voiced, condemnation. as j0hn d. correctly points out, this isn't altogether a bad thing. internalized shame about our impulses helps us control negative behavior. and everyone is entitled to voice their reactions to what others say and do.

still, i think that over the last few decades (since the early 80s, really), we HAVE manufactured a rather timid, accusatory and even a puritan public culture in the united states, with regard to the voicing of troublesome thoughts. i grant, however, that such speculation has so little to do with ~this~ guy's comment that it probably doesn't belong in this thread. mea culpa.

this guy

yeah, contenderizer, you're wrong

we just got contenderized

wonder what the strange man would think if he read this thread

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2315/2305738968_9461cd6373.jpg

if a strange man asks you if you saw the ass on that one, and there's no woman there to hear it, is it still sexist?

i know, sorry for going on at ridic length, but i really did try to keep it short.

yeah, contenderizer, you're wrong

― ice cr?m hand job (deej), Friday, December 4, 2009 9:28 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

what if the strange man actually was a bird of prey

but i really did try to keep it short.

there is no try; only do

sorry it's not beyond judgment if every time ~this guy~ sees an attractive lady he imagines flogging (?) her. also i think you are inventing a person who is consumed by evil, sexist thoughts and never acts on them in any way.

why do i bother? i dunno, bored.

just a dude, thinkin' baout floggin' chicks

if he's aware that it would be wrong to bind and flog her without her permission, and also that this is a potentially troublesome fantasy with regard to what it might reveal about his deeper feelings towards women, then the image (fantasy, kink or whatever you might want to call it) is not wrong or even necessarily sexist.

see, to me, this reads like "if hes aware that his image is wrong, than his image is not wrong"

lonely guy, just flogging things

*flogs furiously*