[ernie]

This may or may not cause controversy. I doubt everybody will agree with my comments....and I'm OK with that.

I don't think looking at pictures of pretty women (or men...whatever floats your boat) is necessarily akin to objectification. I think we have to realize that humans are indeed sexual beings and stop as a society trying to avoid recognizing that aspect of us. Part of being a sexual being is, like it or not, appreciating what the person in the movie, in the ad, in the magazine, or in the mall looks like. It's not shameful to be attracted to physical beauty and wanting to see such beauty (whatever you personally believe is physical beauty...and everyone is different).

I don't believe that is necessarily objectification. Objectification has another component and that lies in the intent of the looking, what one thinks and how one ends up treating that person. If I look at a what I think is a nice looking woman I am not discounting that woman is a human being with unique talents and unique personality (heck as far as I know from interviews etc that personality and what not is exactly what make someone like JLaw extremely attractive to me). I'm also not going to leer and oggle for an extended period of time. One knows in an instant if someone catches your eye...leave it at that. Appreciate it and if one wants to look some more, so to speak, strike up a conversation and develop a relationship.

When it comes to the thread in question, the very large majority of pictures in that thread were made for the expressed purpose of impressing the viewer with those physical looks. Now of course it's hard to know if someone was forced into such a picture but by and large I believe we can take it on face value that for the large majority they are willing participants in the picture taking process and know this. Sharing such pictures and enjoying them for what they are is to me not a problem. I also understand that others feel differently and I respect that view.

I get the comments on some of the pictures very much cross the line into objectification territory and can make people uncomfortable. I may even be guilty of some of those given the length of time the thread has been around. If so I certainly apologize. I also agree that it is not a thread that is necessary on the site and feel free to shut it down (I just don't think the idea in and of itself is truly objectifying).

and to stray somewhat beyond the topic...I also believe there is a straight violation of privacy if there are leaked private photos in such a thread (no idea if that is the case as I haven't actually been in the thread for a long time). As tempting as it is to peruse the fappening I ain't doing it. Yeah perhaps it's good practice to lock the front door but the fact remains the burglar is the one that gets all the blame and the victim gets none. The victims did nothing wrong. That is one thing I think we can all agree on.