Ryanair are at it again with their strip-off charity calendar

LRD, I know, it's bloody tiring is what it is.

I wasn't pretending that eccles.

It does make me sigh a bit that we can't ever get through a thread without someone insisting we analyze how something that affects a vast majority of women also affects a small minority of men. Can we not just acknowledge that yes, some men are affected to some degree, and move on?

Not being snarky (I hope), just don't see how it adds to the discussion really.

LOL when I say many women do, I don't mean testicle re alignment obv.

Just the female equivalents of all those and more.

Not to anywhere near the same extent.

Very few men go and get penis enlargement, testicle re-alignment, buttock implants, lipsuction, back, crack'n'sack, botox...

Yet many women do.

If you sat down for one evening in front of ITV and did an audit of the number of ads which showed women as sex objects and men as sex objects, I'll bet women wildly outnumber men. And if you analyse where men are being shown as normal people, versus women being shown as normal people (as opposed to sex objects), I bet you'd find that men wildly outnumber women.

One day I mgiht do that. But I'd have to sit through the whole of ITV.

Will make it a Sunday, Downton Abbey...

There's no male equivalent of Page 3, absolutely. But I just think we're blinkering ourselves if we pretend that men aren't under pressure to conform to a body type. The same avenues through which women face that pressure (TV, movies, music, etc), men do too. Though not to the same extent.

No, men aren't continually being presented as wank-fodder.

What are you getting at eccles? Isn't everyone say that magazines aimed at women do promote unhealthy body images?

It's just that there aren't a lot of magazines in my local newsagent on the top shelf with naked men pumped full of silicon and botox and trussed up, that are intended for me to wank over. There isn't a big market for men being objectified for straight women.

"But men's health isn't aimed at women. It's aimed at men."

Because no magazines aimed at women have ever promoted an unrealistic body image?

"though it is far more ferocious towards women"

You might want to add a few more "far"s onto that sentence.

ER, I love those! One of my favourite posts shows just how ridiculous some objectifying cliche poses are - I was laughing out loud by the end.

That is both terrifying and amusing in about equal measure!

But men's health isn't aimed at women. It's aimed at men. And it's aimed at a very small, upmarket niche of men.

Those images aren't surrounding us everywhere.

Whereas the ones of women, are.

"Where is the constant diet of buff young men with fabulous abs, making other men feel inadequate and bad about themselves? Where is the continual message to men, that they aren't slim enough, aren't muscly enough, aren't tall enough, don't have enough hair, don't have pert enough arses, are too hairy, are not hairy enough, have got rubbish legs, aren't sexy enough?"

'Men's Health' type mags? Movies? Adverts? It's not just a woman's problem, though it is far more ferocious towards women.

Ah yes, here we are

Quite.

Where is the constant diet of buff young men with fabulous abs, making other men feel inadequate and bad about themselves? Where is the continual message to men, that they aren't slim enough, aren't muscly enough, aren't tall enough, don't have enough hair, don't have pert enough arses, are too hairy, are not hairy enough, have got rubbish legs, aren't sexy enough? Where are the messages to the 51% of people with vaginas, saying that if you buy this car, the oiled young man draped across the bonnet and his ilk will find you sexually attractive?

Hang on I"ll go and find some

"we are all attracted to beautiful people".

People yes. Men like to see attractive, women like to see attractive men. That's not in dispute. Yet what we see all the time is attractive naked women. There's no balance. Men are taught to objectify women. Women are taught to objectify themselves. So who's the winner there?

I don't think that acknowledging that all of us are more attracted to good looking people but that from a moral POV, we recognise that good looking people are not more worthy of our pity, support, help, blah di blah, is trying to pretend that we're above the flesh, or whatever.

But tbh I'm not really sure how all that fits in with the Ryanair are a bunch of sexist wankers theme of this thread.

I'm not quite sure what I think of that line of argument.

I mean, I'm sure you are quite right that charities do that sometimes, but I'm not sure why pity for a starving child is being discussed alongside whatever emotions a calendar of half-naked adult women might be calling to mind? I may be being really stupid, I just don't really follow.

Unless what you're saying is that it's ok to market anything, no matter how good or bad, so long as you use a pretty face to do it?

If so, no, I can't agree.

'impressed'is possibly the wrong word but i clearly set it aside from an 'accomplishment'which it clearly isnt.
we are all attracted to beautiful people it maybe one of the worsed side of human nature but it's true , charities make sure they get a photo of a starving pretty little kid to get people to donate , because the ugly one pushes less buttons.
so i'm just being honest , not trying to make out that i'm above the flesh.

This new layout is bloody awful. The bits you want to be bigger aren't, and everything else is annoyingly huge.

Re: The International Union of Sex Workers - one of the very few 'unions' to include pimps employers in its leading members.

Re: readers who are not feminists - this is the feminism section, so it kind of goes with the territory to find a few feminists on it.

I'm sorry to seem petty but I resent the implication that I would make up figures.
A link to the metropolitan police figures has been used in a previous thread (don't ask me to find it I can't be bothered)
The statistics I used have been quoted by Object!, the Fawcett society and a site proclaiming itself to be the 'Union of Sex Workers' (who pointed out that it was only a 30% rise in rapes) amongst others.
Admittedly these all have their own angle, but I have found the guardian to be good at it's fact-checking.

It may not for you chairman for many many men and women it does. In a very subtle subconscious way most of the time. But it certainly has an effect.

it's one thing to disagree that this stuff matters. it's quite another for it tgo be presented as a bit of fun, normalized etc and that anyone who holds a different view - is probably ugly and jealous and abnormal and should shut up.

See? Those attitudes are on display on this thread and - surprise, surprise - they focus on women's looks and conformity and denigrate their opinions and a side issue not worth bothering about.
Which is exactly the attitude that these calenders embody and promote.

Circular

Are you genuinely 'impressed' by someone being beautiful?

I find that a bit odd TBH. I love to see beautiful faces just as much as I love to see anything else beautiful, but 'impressed' seems an odd word to me, as does 'any other talents' - beauty isn't a talent.

sini looking sexy doesnt, at least for me , make me think that the woman/man has no other talents attall. infact , nothing annoys me more than programms like 'next top model' where pretty girls are just talking about pretty dresses. a human being impresses me when they are accomplished, a lawer or a doctur , if they are also beautiful then i'm really impressed.

thanx sparticus, i am suprised but i take the research at face value