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

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Man you would hate Europe.

I really wish people would stop making these absolutely bizarre comments about Europe. I literally have no idea what you're talking about, and I'm pretty sure you don't either.

Also, newsflash: Europe is really big.

[Thor]

Yeah EU is a large place with wildly varying cultures and standards of sexuality, objectification, misogyny.

Iceland is a very unique place, strong feminist values here and a hyper sexual attitude where sex is very accepted, even at younger ages. The bars here you are just as likely to get a woman proposition you and one night stands are pretty commonplace with no taboo linked to it. The discussion about objectification exists here too, but its nothing like back in North America, still there is resentment towards the more extreme feminists here.

[DownInFlames]

Originally Posted by Cali Flames Fan

It was one guy who responded that way. Everyone else appreciated the photo and said so. They also got on that one poster for his comments. I really hate when people generalize, and you're doing so with this situation. I honestly believe you're wrong about this.

It was one guy in that incident, but you only have to go back a few pages to find guys questioning Michelle Jenneke's looks. I'm not saying everyone who posts there is a jerk who demeans less than perfect girls, but even a handful is enough to dissuade me from participating.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Itse

I really wish people would stop making these absolutely bizarre comments about Europe. I literally have no idea what you're talking about, and I'm pretty sure you don't either.

Also, newsflash: Europe is really big.

Would you rather me change it to the more populated countries of Europe then? I realize that there are a bunch of countries with populations smaller than Toronto but you know quite well what I was talking about when I made that statement.

[Chill Cosby]

Originally Posted by Itse

I really wish people would stop making these absolutely bizarre comments about Europe. I literally have no idea what you're talking about, and I'm pretty sure you don't either.

Also, newsflash: Europe is really big.

I assume most people like Estrada have never actually come over, but rather just saw National Lampoon's European Vacation once when they were 8. "All of Europe is the same! And they all objectify women!"

If it wasn't so amusing, I'd be insulted! lol

Originally Posted by Cali Flames Fan

It was one guy who responded that way. Everyone else appreciated the photo and said so. They also got on that one poster for his comments. I really hate when people generalize, and you're doing so with this situation. I honestly believe you're wrong about this.

But it is part of a bigger problem, no? There certainly appears to be a "standard" to that thread, and anytime the "standard" is dropped, or it doesn't mean someone's specific standards, it's seems to be questioned. Along with the reliance on some faceless body parts, it doesn't really seem like it's celebrating "women" or even "beautiful people" but breasts and ass.

[Chill Cosby]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Would you rather me change it to the more populated countries of Europe then? I realize that there are a bunch of countries with populations smaller than Toronto but you know quite well what I was talking about when I made that statement.

I think we'd rather you not make ignorant generalisations about Europe, period.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Man you would hate Europe.

It's like clockwork with you.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by Chill Cosby

Along with the reliance on some faceless body parts, it doesn't really seem like it's celebrating "women" or even "beautiful people" but breasts and ass.

This is the thing though, that is what men seek out, biologically wired to.

Should we deny those baser instincts, our visual arousal, again this is secondary to the discussion of IF this thread belongs here if its something that reflects badly on the CP forums and especially if our female members are bothered by it.

I keep running into this in other discussions that we should be shamed by being attracted to female body parts or sexy images of women, when its what triggers us sexually and evolutionary speaking. I'm against all forms of denying sexual desires unless it hurts someone, rape, pedophilia, etc.. I see so often in discussions like this that it turns to people trying to shame or say its wrong for us to have these feelings or desires, which boggles the mind if we are hard wired to have them. Reminds me of the religious approach throughout the ages to deny, hide or shame its followers for natural and healthy sexual desires, urges.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by pylon

Once you start saying it is bad to look at pictures of beautiful women, because they are just that, you have pretty much crossed a line you can't come back from.

Right now the discussion is ultimately about YLYL thread on this forum, even though sexism in general is a big part of it.

You don't have to think that girlie pics are a problem to think that there's a limited number of ok places for them and this forum is not one of those places.

For me it's undoubtedly true that the thread is a part of the way women are sexualized and objectified. Even if the thread only had pictures which we knew were consensually spread in the internet, which we don't, it's still a part of a problematic culture where it's considered normal that we have such a gender-specifically objectifying thread in a forum which otherwise isn't that.

There is nothing wrong whatsoever about pictures of beautiful women, or chiseled sculptured men being looked at if the photographs are consensual by all parties.

Agreed. But that thread is not about consent. We don't know the women, mostly not even their names, nor their consent. It is in fact fairly safe to say that some of those pictures are there without the approval of the women in those pictures, even if we don't know which ones specifically.

Just because a woman has agreed to be in a sexy photo sometime somewhere not equal her consenting to be oogled by everyone everywhere all the time forever.

The whole thread is probably one huge copyright violation. This is not relevant to me in from the IP point of view, but because it underlines the fact that most of those pictures were taken for a purpose. A magazine, an ad, something. When posted without a name they do not provide the women a chance to get their name out in the modeling market or in any other sense. It's not a consensual relationship of admirers and willingly sexualized women, it's one sided objectification of any female that has a certain type of a picture on the internet.

It is the human condition to want to look at the best physical specimens of our species.

It's human condition to want lots of things. That does not make it okay. Civilization is about developing ways to serve our needs without harming others.

The only people that truly could have a problem with it, are those that envy people with physical gifts, they do not have.

Nonsense.

There is nothing wrong about admiring the human form. And most of us choose to admire people who have the ideal version of it.

By a rough estimate I'd say there are less than 5% actual human forms on that thread. Most of it is photoshop magic. It's not real, and pretending that it is is a huge problem in our society.

I am all for being politically correct to a certain degree, but shutting down that thread is pushing it way to far. Maybe curb the comments, and get rid of the borderline pictures. But anything beyond that, is going into some pretty extremist Disney'esque territory.

I think you just very clearly underlined the basic problem with that thread. There is nothing extreme in not having a girlie pic thread on a hockey forum. That thread permeates a stupid idea of what is normal.

In other words, you convinced me that that the thread is a problem.

I'd be for banning it now.

Or, alternatively, make it mandatory to post pictures with names, and allow only proper modelling pictures. No paparazzi pictures, no selfies (unless the person is a model), no amateur pics.

(Yes, this would mean the thread would turn from 95% photoshopped to 100% photoshopped.)

With those limitations I think you might have a fairly strong argument that the thread is consensual enough, considering the society we live in.

[Chill Cosby]

Originally Posted by Thor

This is the thing though, that is what men seek out, biologically wired to.



Should we deny those baser instincts, our visual arousal, again this is secondary to the discussion of IF this thread belongs here if its something that reflects badly on the CP forums and especially if our female members are bothered by it.



I keep running into this in other discussions that we should be shamed by being attracted to female body parts or sexy images of women, when its what triggers us sexually and evolutionary speaking. I'm against all forms of denying sexual desires unless it hurts someone, rape, pedophilia, etc.. I see so often in discussions like this that it turns to people trying to shame or say its wrong for us to have these feelings or desires, which boggles the mind if we are hard wired to have them. Reminds me of the religious approach throughout the ages to deny, hide or shame its followers for natural and healthy sexual desires, urges.

I don't disagree, but in the name of being inclusive I don't really think it's all that appropriate to have a thread dedicated to male sexual release.

Not that it's inappropriate per-say, as it IS a natural function of the mind to be attracted to those things, but I just think it can be a lot MORE than that.

Having a constant flow of nameless jerk-off material isn't really all that fitting to a place like this. There are many, many corners of the Internet that cater to men specifically that provide that sort of material. A lot of women love the Flames, but if they are truly included here, is there a sense of purpose for a thread that does not feel welcoming or appropriate to them?

In this very thread a couple of women have said it upsets them enough that they don't bother with it at all.

I get the "natural" reasoning, I just think the thread needs to be more than it is if it's going to be inclusive to women (and all men for that matter).

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Would you rather me change it to the more populated countries of Europe then? I realize that there are a bunch of countries with populations smaller than Toronto but you know quite well what I was talking about when I made that statement.

I was quite serious when I said I have literally no idea what on Earth you are talking about.

[Itse]

I wanted to lift this out as a separate question from my own long post:


Why does that thread need to exist? This is a discussion forum between Calgary Flames fans. There is no discussion in that thread. There is nothing about that thread that is uniquely CP. It does not create connections between forum members the way pretty much every other thread on this forum does. That thread is not about communicating with each other, it's us passively looking at people completely unrelated to anything on this forum.

[Thor]

Well its placed in the off-topic forum, and most of the images are totally fine by most prudish message forum standards. Again choice comes to play here, no one is forced to go into the thread and its a choice to do so.

I personally enjoy it because like Photon said, I prefer these types of images of clothed women over porn, and the internet is full of that, I find that a lot of the images posted in that thread are of stunningly beautiful women, all kinds, and the quality of many of these images is what you don't find many places in one convenient thread

From the images of cosplay, the asian girls from those asian girl bands in slowmotion (Thanks Photon!) are stuff I rarely come across, so I'm exposed to stuff that I wouldn't normally find.

I'd disagree it forms no connections, some of the posters there have put some unique content when it comes to what is sexy and what is not, I find it fascinating to see what is beauty to one person, while completely unsexy for the next.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Itse

I wanted to lift this out as a separate question from my own long post:


Why does that thread need to exist? This is a discussion forum between Calgary Flames fans. There is no discussion in that thread. There is nothing about that thread that is uniquely CP. It does not create connections between forum members the way pretty much every other thread on this forum does. That thread is not about communicating with each other, it's us passively looking at people completely unrelated to anything on this forum.

Fine, but then you have to get rid of a lot of other popular threads, including the funny and cool picture thread, which contains so many more posts than the YLYL thread. I'm just going by the criteria you proposed about connecting and communicating with each other.

All in all, this isn't a forum for solving the world's problems, it's a forum for entertainment primarily. I enjoy the more intellectual posting in here, but sometimes this forum goes from fun to downright dour and miserable trying to police everyone's actions and thoughts. That's not what an open forum is about.

Choose the topics you want to contribute to, avoid those you do not want anything to do with. As long as you're not posting anything highly offensive or violates the forums rules, go for it. I get very wary of policing people's expression of thoughts and materials. Who are we to say what's appropriate or not for an open forum. Moderators have that power, and the owner decides what the guidelines are. We've all agreed to this format, so you're going to have to get comfortable with it as is. If there's a large outcry from the posting population (which there doesn't seem to be) then we can discuss whether we need to revise the rules.

[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.

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.")

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Itse

Why does that thread need to exist? This is a discussion forum between Calgary Flames fans.

By that logic we'd better eliminate the Funny Pics thread and the never ending photo thread as well.

- whoops, Cali beat me to it.

[troutman]

Bobbi Flekman: You put a *greased naked woman* on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man's arm extended out up to here, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don't find that offensive? You don't find that sexist?
Ian Faith: This is *1982*, Bobbi, c'mon!
Bobbi Flekman: That's *right*, it's 1982! Get out of the '60s. We don't have this mentality anymore.
Ian Faith: Well, you should have seen the cover they *wanted* to do! It wasn't a glove, believe me.



Respect all women like they were your mother or sister.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Cali Flames Fan

Fine, but then you have to get rid of a lot of other popular threads, including the funny and cool picture thread

No you don't. There is no law that says that we must apply one rule and one rule only to every thread on the forum.

If you want to start a discussion about removing the Funny and Cool picture thread based on that argument, feel free.

I think the Funny and Cool (FaC) picture thread has a lot of redeeming value, so even if you might make that argument against it, there are others for it.

Mostly, the FaC thread is for everyone, the YLYL thread is not. And no it's not the same as technical threads, because you can choose what car you buy or what gaming system you have. You do not choose your gender. (Mostly.)

Also, humour is a thing that connects people. Our lust for women does not really connect us to each other.

[Chill Cosby]

Originally Posted by Cali Flames Fan

We've all agreed to this format, so you're going to have to get comfortable with it as is. If there's a large outcry from the posting population (which there doesn't seem to be) then we can discuss whether we need to revise the rules.

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?

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?

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

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I guess the one reason I would question the existence of the thread is that the internet has no shortage of places where you can look at and objectify women as much as you want. Is it really necessary to have that type of thread on a forum that strives to be inclusive to people of all walks of life?

I thanked this but wanted to quote it as well, big plus 1. I think this pretty much sums up my thoughts on the issue.