YLYL Thread Sexism Discussion (split from Gay Teen thread).

[Nyah]

As a woman, I don't find the photos in the YLYL thread to be distasteful/misogynistic, most of them are totally fine regardless of whether the woman's face is showing (although the ages of some of the girls in those photos are questionable). I don't think there's anything wrong with posting photos of women that you find attractive. I think the issue lies with the creepy commentary from some of the posters and the 'bang/would not bang' remarks. That grosses me out...a lot. Some remarks are completely perverted and unnecessary. Comments like that and comments questioning whether or not a particular photo is 'worthy' of being posted in that thread to make me see a poster/user differently. And I do look at them differently. There are a handful of posters on CP that I have in the creepy category, and it's not just from posts in the YLYL thread, I see it in other threads too. It's not something that I see a great deal of, but every once & a while I'll come across a comment that will make me cringe.

Overall though I think that CP has a great core group of posters, and I honestly don't see a reason why the YLYL thread would have to be deleted.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by Itse

I'm not sure I agree, but well argued anyway Thor.

Personally I think you are whitewashing what the reality is, but who knows.

I don't know, I mean there are images that are questionable, but with all things its in the eye of the beholder. There are people up in arms over art exhibits all the time that deal with sexuality, rarely over violence or gore. Its this leftover I think from more prudish times, mixed in with how overtly sexualized so much of our world has become. I tend to view most of it as positive because I think too much of the world views sexuality with slight shame and apprehension, mix that in with the very real issue of misogyny in this world and you have a complex and often muddy topic at best.

Here's a question:

Do you think there are conditions which should or could be placed on pics posted on that thread?

(Such as my suggestion of "only pictures with names, no paparazzi pictures, no selfies (unless the person is a model), no amateur pics.")

Again very tough to say, I know there have been images removed by posters before that others found in bad taste, the self policing within the thread and moderators has existed from the moment it started. I find its hard to find a hard and fast rule for these types of images. Considering much of them are from publications, websites, where they are released with obvious consent.

But how do we react to possible images of unwanted pictures that were released, my reaction is that its worthy of not allowing, but its difficult to differentiate from what those might be.

I tend to take the attitude of self policing is fine in that thread, and I am happy to agree with others to remove the thread if this is a source of discomfort especially from our female posters.

But in that vein, I ask our female posters, do they believe us enjoying visual images of women to be insulting? Because then all men do in daily life is insulting, we are visual creatures and these things are highly stimulating for us. I would never presume to tell a woman ever what she should or should not be aroused by, but we do live in a world where objectification is abused by media and the pressure for women to conform to a particular body image is beyond ridiculous.

I am very much a guy who takes a very relaxed attitude towards sexuality, and that means I will take a very relaxed attitude towards that thread, but to ignore the thoughts of others here in my favorite forums is not at all what I want to do. I just ask that we consider it carefully before we consider removing it, since its a voluntary thing to view and represents a tiny fraction of the amount of threads and discussions found here.

[Thor]

Also my thoughts on being offended are perfectly said by the wonderful Stephen Fry, again not to suggest we ignore the will of those against this thread, but "offense" is such a often thrown around word with little validity to it.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Thor

But in that vein, I ask our female posters, do they believe us enjoying visual images of women to be insulting? Because then all men do in daily life is insulting, we are visual creatures and these things are highly stimulating for us.

That is a huge jump of logic. Not all ways of looking for visual stimulation are equal.

Also, AFAIK science says that men are no more visual than women. (There is actually some evidence to suggest the opposite.)

I just ask that we consider it carefully before we consider removing it, since its a voluntary thing to view and represents a tiny fraction of the amount of threads and discussions found here.

I guess a significant difference here is that I don't see this as a significant freedom of speech issue, or a line that needs to be tread carefully.

It's not like the line between that thread and every other thread on the forum is blurry. After girlie pics were banned from PGT:s, it's a pretty clear outlier, (along with a couple of other pic threads, which are clearly different to this one).

[troutman]

The handsome guy with his shirt off on POF gets hundreds of messages a week, and the smart-witty-literate profile gets one.

[The Ditch]

remember when that thread had photos of guys with their shirts off and then the calgarypuck collective cried about it and banned posting photos of guys.


Good times.

[photon]

My original question wasn't really about if something was offensive, it was if it was misogynistic. As in contributing to the cultural issues around the equality of women by continuing to promote objectification of women. Which would of course lead to it being offensive to many, but the offensiveness wasn't the starting point.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by troutman

The handsome guy with his shirt off on POF gets hundreds of messages a week, and the smart-witty-literate profile gets one.

This is the second time recently that I've seen you post about POF.

Things getting lonely at the trout household?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

This is the second time recently that I've seen you post about POF.

Things getting lonely at the trout household?

I'm developing a treatment for a new TV series. Four men try to find love and romance in the big city.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by Itse

That is a huge jump of logic. Not all ways of looking for visual stimulation are equal.

Also, AFAIK science says that men are no more visual than women. (There is actually some evidence to suggest the opposite.)

Really? I've found this to be almost never the case in the years that I've been reading about human sexuality. I keep running into the confirmation of this fact over and over, would love to read up on anything to the contrary.

In fact what I've read over the years that this is one of the most accepted things when it comes to male sexuality, fantasy, vs female. This is not to say visual has no relevance to women, they of course have this as well, but the main pull for men is to visual arousal with key ties to the waist/hip ratio that many will point to as a reason why the most popular search for men is "youth." That is a whole other discussion, but lets just say that men finding youth and beauty attractive does not make them pedophiles, but something more tied to body changes in youth which indicate readiness for child bearing.

But I don't want to really steer this in a far flung direction lol

[nik-]

Originally Posted by troutman

I'm developing a treatment for a new TV series. Four men try to find love and romance in the big city.

Is it called "Fap in the City" ??

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Thor

Really? I've found this to be almost never the case in the years that I've been reading about human sexuality. I keep running into the confirmation of this fact over and over, would love to read up on anything to the contrary.

This would probably be the easy source.

In fact what I've read over the years that this is one of the most accepted things when it comes to male sexuality, fantasy, vs female.

I don't think it's much of newsflash at this point to admit that most of our "accepted truths" of female sexuality have been debunked by science at some point.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Chill Cosby

I think this thread was split off by the mods for this very reason.

I certainly don't think we should accept anything as-is. The population of female posters that post often seems to be low, but thus far they haven't been singing it's praises, so what percentage of the population has to have a problem with it for it to be enough?

You ask a lot of questions here, and I'm not sure I have all the answers you're looking for, but I'll try.

If we are talking about the female population on this site then we have to admit that they are a very small minority, but a valuable one. I would suggest that if the consensus among them is very high, (we're talking 75% or more), then I would gladly remove that thread and others like it in order to be more inclusive to the very small minority that they are. That's counter to my instinct to keep this democratic because their voices are likely drowned out compared to the male population.

It's pretty clear that a good number of women, along with a good number of men find the current state of the thread offensive, so what's your limit?

If we're including men in this then it changes. It should be 100% a democratic thing and a poll of more than 50% should decide it. I would not want to do anything that the majority was against, no matter what the purpose was. This is largely an enlightened and progressive group, so I will trust their decision.

Why does something that offends others and activity objectifies and de-humanises women have to wait on massive public outcry before it sees change?

Because not everyone views it the way you do. I've seen some truly awful videos in the FaC thread that were not funny or cool, and did more to dehumanize people than a sexy picture of a clothed woman does. More to the point, what offends someone is subjective, and I choose to believe that either extreme points of view at either end of the spectrum should not dictate what the masses should believe.

As I've outlined, it's not hard to make a couple changes to keep the thread while making it inclusive. Does that pose a problem to you?

No, so long as everyone agrees to it. It also requires people to actively post in the thread who aren't currently rather than complain about what everyone else is doing.

Would you be comfortable with your sister, girlfriend, or mother having their breasts thrown up on a forum for a bunch of guys to make "rack" jokes about?

Well no, but they aren't doing that kind of thing, but I hate that argument because they are my family and everyone is more protective of their family than a random stranger, and not everyone can have the same consideration from me at all times; that's counter-productive, unrealistic, and ridiculously idealistic. Do you hold every stranger to the same standard you would your own father, brother, best friend? No? Ok then.

If the person being photographed was comfortable with it then I'm ok with it. If it's someone's private photo that was leaked, then I'm really not ok with that and I would choose not to view it. I can only give you my response and not the view of the entire forum, so I would suggest a poll would be in order if you really want to make changes.

[Chill Cosby]

As a general question to both those who see problems with the thread and those who don't:

Would you be opposed to the thread being opened up to both sexes?

A "hot people" thread, instead of just hot women?
As I've said, I think the thread itself isn't misogynistic at a base level, but because it is sort of a boy's club atmosphere in there, it doesn't fall victim to that sort of narrative.

[The Ditch]

Originally Posted by Chill Cosby

As a general question to both those who see problems with the thread and those who don't:

Would you be opposed to the thread being opened up to both sexes?

A "hot people" thread, instead of just hot women?
As I've said, I think the thread itself isn't misogynistic at a base level, but because it is sort of a boy's club atmosphere in there, it doesn't fall victim to that sort of narrative.

I already stated that happened in that very thread and people flipped out so

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by troutman

Four men try to find love and romance in the big city.

Originally Posted by nik-

Is it called "Fap in the City" ??

Personally, I would have gone with "The Fap Four".

[Chill Cosby]

Originally Posted by Cali Flames Fan

long post.

LOL yes I do tend to ask a lot of questions!

I respect your opinion, and I like a lot of what you said, just wanted to clear it up in case there is confusion: I am not for eliminating the thread entirely (unless, like you said, the backlash to it is overwhelming)

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Thor

Wanted to ask you about objectification. If this is hard wired to be visually stimulated as males, do you suggest we try to oppress it, or do you perhaps disagree that we are not creatures of our evolution but rather that this is a learned or environmental thing?

I see 2 distinct definitions here, one being that there are men who see women as objects, a misogynistic view. The other that objectification is the evolutionary trigger for mating, or mate selection.

I think you're confusing involuntary attraction with voluntary objectification. It's perfectly reasonable to be stimulated by attractive women in person, on film, etc. I think where the line starts to blur is when you start digging up pictures of these women specifically so other dudes can be stimulated. At that point the woman stops being someone you're attracted to and becomes an object, who really only serves one purpose.

By the way, I never thought I'd see you tread so closely to an appeal to nature

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Nyah

As a woman, I don't find the photos in the YLYL thread to be distasteful/misogynistic, most of them are totally fine regardless of whether the woman's face is showing (although the ages of some of the girls in those photos are questionable). I don't think there's anything wrong with posting photos of women that you find attractive. I think the issue lies with the creepy commentary from some of the posters and the 'bang/would not bang' remarks. That grosses me out...a lot. Some remarks are completely perverted and unnecessary. Comments like that and comments questioning whether or not a particular photo is 'worthy' of being posted in that thread to make me see a poster/user differently. And I do look at them differently. There are a handful of posters on CP that I have in the creepy category, and it's not just from posts in the YLYL thread, I see it in other threads too. It's not something that I see a great deal of, but every once & a while I'll come across a comment that will make me cringe.

Overall though I think that CP has a great core group of posters, and I honestly don't see a reason why the YLYL thread would have to be deleted.

If the broads are cool with it I am cool with it.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Man you would hate Europe.

That's weird because I live in Europe...