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

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*

well, i knew i was throwing out chum with that one, so i guess i can't act too surprised when ppl take the bait.

there are folks out there with dominance fantasies (or so mr. savage tells me). i assume that for them, binding and flogging are part of ordinary sexual imagination. and, personally, i don't think there's anything wrong with that, so long as the fantasy/kink/whatever is managed appropriately.

but fine, this isn't something i expect everyone to agree on.

O_O

xp:

gbx, thank god you're here. "Engineer glasses" - what are "engineer glasses"?

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.

― harbl, Friday, December 4, 2009 9:49 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

e are folks out there with dominance fantasies (or so mr. savage tells me). i assume that for them, binding and flogging are part of ordinary sexual imagination. and, personally, i don't think there's anything wrong with that, so long as the fantasy/kink/whatever is managed appropriately.

You know I was thinking about this not too long ago. It seems like in these domination fetish things that people do, usually (within the most accessible media to me, at least) it's the female who plays the dominant/flogger role.

This might just be my impression. Any thoughts?

xp Yeah, that doesn't seem that difficult for me to imagine.

I think, contenderizer, the position most people are taking is that it's not fair to judge someone for something they may or may not be thinking, but it is absolutely okay to judge someone for what they do/say. (Your judgment may not be correct but the act itself is certainly within your right.)

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

Completely OTM; what I think you're trying to say is "if he's aware his would be wrong to act on in his current context, then that's okay" which is, to varying degrees, what practically everyone else is saying; obviously if he meets someone who is both receptive to that line of thought and receptive to that line of thought coming from him, the context makes it okay to express it.

To use an extreme example, I think the German dude from a few years ago who put out an ad for someone to fuck, kill and eat is pretty disturbed but the guy who answered it was even more disturbed and, at the end of the day, they are adults I don't know and I never would have known about it had it not been a weird news story; as such, I think they were deeply fucked up and in need of help but I'm not convinced that they committed a crime.

O_O

― ice cr?m hand job (deej), Friday, December 4, 2009 10:00 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

And I think there's probably a difference between someone who is "consumed" by certain thoughts and one who just has them every now and then.

he was just checking out the ass on that one

xp

ok but if he IS consumed by them but doesn't do anything, we still can't judge him because they're just thoughts

To use an extreme example, I think the German dude from a few years ago who put out an ad for someone to fuck, kill and eat is pretty disturbed but the guy who answered it was even more disturbed and, at the end of the day, they are adults I don't know and I never would have known about it had it not been a weird news story; as such, I think they were deeply fucked up and in need of help but I'm not convinced that they committed a crime.

― Huckabee Jesus lifeline (HI DERE), Friday, December 4, 2009 12:03 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

wtfffffffffffff

what the fuck is wrong with you internet people

the position most people are taking is that it's not fair to judge someone for something they may or may not be thinking, but it is absolutely okay to judge someone for what they do/say. (Your judgment may not be correct but the act itself is certainly within your right.)

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

Completely OTM; what I think you're trying to say is "if he's aware his would be wrong to act on in his current context, then that's okay" which is, to varying degrees, what practically everyone else is saying; obviously if he meets someone who is both receptive to that line of thought and receptive to that line of thought coming from him, the context makes it okay to express it.

― Huckabee Jesus lifeline (HI DERE), Friday, December 4, 2009 10:03 AM (52 seconds ago) Bookmark

otm! this is exactly what i was getting at. i'm not sure we see eye-to-eye 100%, because there still seems to be some perception of disagreement, but yeah, cosign.

the line i draw would wr2 consensual kink probably lies well to the south of mutual murder & cannibalism, but hey, that's just me...

yr asserting that ppl here think consensual kink = 'wrong' but no one here has said anything of the sort

well i did suggest flogging people is wrong but i wasn't aware contenderizer was talking about a consensual flogging

hey do u wanna come over sometime, maybe i could flog u?

pretty sure im just into thinking about flogging, not actually doing it -- that would be wrong

okay so "I'm not sure they committed a crime" is rhetorical overstatement, just so folks are clear; yes, I am aware they committed a crime

And I think there's probably a difference between someone who is "consumed" by certain thoughts and one who just has them every now and then.

― Nuyorican oatmeal (jaymc)

yeah, that's fair. i have a tendency to go for the maximum overstatement of whatever point i'm trying to make, as a sort of rhetorical device. like i wanna paint the situation in the starkest and most polarizing terms possible, in order to make the distinction i'm making stand out more clearly.

but it often causes more trouble than it's worth, polarization being polarizing, after all. example works just as well (and probably better) if we assume we're talking abouot someone who tends to bondage and dominance fantasies, rather than someone who is fiendishly "consumed" but them.

yr asserting that ppl here think consensual kink = 'wrong' but no one here has said anything of the sort

― ice cr?m hand job (deej), Friday, December 4, 2009 10:10 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah how about when you said I was being puritanical for saying the people who never express racist or sexist thoughts who nevertheless go on and on about the right to have racist and sexist thoughts make me think they have a hell of a lot of racist and sexist thoughts

yeah how about when you said I was being puritanical for saying the people who never express racist or sexist thoughts who nevertheless go on and on about the right to have racist and sexist thoughts make me think they have a hell of a lot of racist and sexist thoughts

― Huckabee Jesus lifeline (HI DERE), Friday, December 4, 2009 10:18 AM (40 seconds ago) Bookmark

point is, that was bullshit. i shouldn't have accused you of/used you as an example of puritanism. my apologies.

we are opening up a whole can of worms with the question of s&m & kink & consent

is there a special word for "worm fetish"

yeah we are gonna run out of worm cans soon

hey, can you guys tell i'm unemployed?

a "duner"
a "wriggler"
"bait"