MPDSEA: The fact is, even attention that isn't "crude" can still be highly sexualized, and in many contexts many women find this completely unwanted. If a man approaches a woman in a professional context and expresses obvious, non-professional interest, the woman may quite justifiably feel degraded, since she can recognize that she is being viewed as a sexual person (object, even) in a context in which she is trying to project a professional person.I equate this to the "if you're a celebrity, paparazzi are the price you must pay for your disproportionate wealth" situation. Being a movie star = making huge gobs of cash for appearing in a movie = popular and well enough to get those huge gobs of cash = being in public eye, even/especially through tabloids, to get that name recognition and fascination and huge gobs of cash. If you're going to buy that 10,000 sq. ft. house in the nicer parts of LA just down the street from Jack Nicholson, you might have to put up with nosy photographers and slanderous tabloids since it is their perpetuation of your recognizability that pays for that home.
drjimmy11: But it's relevant because movie stars are like attractive women in that they make a lot of people feel bitter, insecure and inferior, to the point where they'll make up any convoluted excuse to justify treating them shittily.What the hell are you talking about?
MPDSEA: If, on the other hand, you're saying that attractive women are obligated to accept more unwanted sexual advances due to the fact that they are attractive, then I strongly disagree.And you would be wrong. Congrats! Again, the point is that more attractive people get more attention, and more sexual advances- wanted and unwanted. The price of knowing you can more easily find a mate, and the best mate you want (as sex columnist Dan Savage puts it, we all want to "fuck up", meaning to bed the best possible person we can get), is that you will also have to politely rebuff more those advances you didn't want. Those of us who are- like myself- so grotesquely ugly that we get basically no advances, and our advances are always unwanted, find it a little more than irritating when people who are attractive bemoan getting unwanted advances- yeah, that's some cross to bear!
It's unfortunate as well that you're so quick to disregard the "professional" enclave that women have worked so hard to try to create. Yes, the distinction is artificial, but it is important for there to be areas of life where women and men can together pursue professional, academic, and political goals as equals. Traditional sexual roles are not conducive to such an environment, and many men unfortunately have trouble viewing a woman as both a sexual being and a competent professional peer. The best interim solution is to discourage sexual advances in certain realms.So your interim solution is celibacy?!? No one is saying that every workplace should be a male-dominated sexfest of a brothel, but thanks for the straw man. What I am saying is that people can be professional and non-sexual, and mostly are, but the idea that people have no libido, and no desire to find a mate, is simply retarded. The "workplace" as some sacred inhuman machine where we discard all desire, emotion, belief and sense of self is a scary and frightening one. I'm sorry if you've adopted this notion that a good interim solution is absolute chastity.
It's true that women and men often form sexual relationships with coworkers, and if you're happy making people feel uncomfortable and marginalized just because you think they're hot and might be willing to hook up with you, then I suppose not much of what I have to say is going to be meaningful to you.Oh, okay, this is where I get to say that you're simply a fucking shitbag of a human being. What the fuck kind of comment is that? Yes, because it's a straight and short line between what I said and some Caligula-esque orgy in the cubicle farm. How about "Go to hell", and thanks for insulting me.
I would at least ask, though, that before you make overtly sexual advances on a coworker you try to develop enough of your relationship that when the advance does come it will seem more like "you seem like a great person" and less like "I like your tits."First, why do you people keep confusing "unwanted advances" with "Hey baby I wanna fuck you up the ass!!!"? And what happened in the two minutes between your typing "The best interim solution is to discourage sexual advances in certain realms" and the above comment? So now sexual advances are okay, but only if there's some more established relationship? And that is different than what I said how exactly? Isn't this scenario played out all the time: "Hey the gang is going out for drinks after work friday" evolving into "Hey suzie I had a really good time talking with you when we were all out on Friday, I was thinking it would be fun if we went out for dinner this Wednesday..."? If the latter is "unwanted", that doesn't mean it was evil or sexist or dehumanizing or marginalzing, it meant it was human beings doing what they do, which is establishing social connections and looking for love. Suzie politiely declined a more intimate relationship, end of story. Suzie isn't exactly undergoing some epic tragedy by being asked out, no matter what they said in your classes at Smith College.
It's shocking that you scoff at the idea that unwanted sexual advances might be damaging and humiliating.Of course I scoff at it- seriously dude, have you ever actually asked someone out on a date? It's normal to get rejected, it happens to everyone. That doesn't mean the asker or askee has been a horrible rapist pervert or long-suffering victim. Harassment might be damaging, but it's more telling that you can't seem to see that there IS a difference between unwanted advances and harassment. If someone asks you out, and you're just not attracted or into them, but they aren't crossing weird lines (they're respectful and 'normal', it isn't obvious you aren't available, etc), that's an "unwanted advance", but something that happens all the time.
Yes, the distinction is artificial, but it is important for there to be areas of life where women and men can together pursue professional, academic, and political goals as equals.See, I guess this is the difference between you and I. I'd say "all areas of life" are the ones where they should be able to pursue goals as equals; you apparently don't feel women deserve that, and that there should be areas where they are not able to be seen as equals. And being able to respect one's co-workers, male and female, based on their merit and accomplishments, doesn't mean that people aren't attracted to other people, and job or no job will pursue the heart's calling.
scody: This, of course, A) presumes that the only women who receive unwanted advances are those who look like models and movie stars, and B) they deserve said advances (even if they make women uncomfortable, angry, frightened, humiliated, etc.), because it's naturally the fair price to pay for magically getting to "mate" with anyone they like (a situation which automatically and necessarily flows from the aforementioned state of looking like a model or movie star).Scody, you're an idiot. I can't imagine a proper rebuff to your point, as it is so ham-fisted and tangential to anything I actually said, that I'm left with only saying "you're an idiot". Seriously, that's a hell of a strawman.
But you don't have to be exceptionally attractive to be subject to frequent come-ons. I've got a few good features, I can clean up tolerably well, but I certainly wouldn't consider myself any more than average-looking at best.My understanding is that neither the mean- or median-attractive woman gets the attention you describe—ask a woman over 50 how often she gets wolf whistles, or someone noticeably overweight. You seem to be an outlier in this, in a positive way.
myeviltwin: hincandenza: I respectfully suggest that you ask some actual women about the kinds of unwanted advances they typically encounter. You may be inclined to revise your theory afterward.Um, not likely. I'm still Venn diagramming "unwanted advances" as the circle containing the much smaller circle "advances that are creepy and probably legally actionable". At least CKmtl recognized that there is a semantic confusion here among some posters; my point all along is that you shouldn't ever expect to be free of unwanted advances, and that being more attractive means getting likely more advances, which is generally speaking a 'good thing'., even if it means a majority of those advances will be unwanted.
dersins: You've never eaten at the French Laundry, have you?Heh, that's actually funny. But yeah, of course I haven't ever eaten at the French Laundry- have you ever TRIED to get a reservation?!?!? I did meet Thomas Keller when he spoke in the Building 113 cafeteria at Microsoft a couple of years ago, and have eaten that the surely inferior but still pretty good Bouchon in the Venetian a couple of times.
No, this would be the cost of dining there every day.
We do try to understand what's going on inside your heads and figure out what makes women tick, so it's always nice if you return the courtesy.Funnily enough, most of us seem to have missed your sincere, courteous efforts to understand and respect how women feel about being hit on (and perhaps the distinctions we make between "wanted" and "unwanted" advances); could you point them out? (I mean, if such a query isn't too presumptous, coming from an idiotic, illiterate motherfucker -- not to mention creepy social misfit! -- like me.)
For all their pop psych silliness, the "Mars/Venus" type books do stress one very important point: we as genders are a little different in ways beyond the merely physical, and that each of us should try to understand and respect how others operate, and expect the same courtsey in return.
2. Personal attack on another poster.
3. Overall creepy tone.
Seriously, WTF?
posted by myeviltwin at 9:27 AM on April 7, 2007